Guide: Diablo Clone Hunting v1.10, by Camintoi

The Diablo Clone is a special, realm-only bonus monster added in the v1.10 patch. He is the only source of the Unique Annihilus Charm. See his full stats, and more details about this quest.

Diablo II Strategy Guide Info:

[edit]

• Patch: v1.10
• Gametype: PvE/PvM
• Guide Topic: Diablo Clone Hunting
• Class: Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Paladin, Sorceress
• Author: Camintoi

COMPREHENSIVE DIABLO CLONE HUNTING GUIDE

Ok so you want to hunt Diablo Clone? Seeking the coveted Annihilus? Which is only but one of the most expensive items in the game. Well you could just hope he will show up in your next game, but the likelihood of that happening are so slim its probably never going to happen. It’s only happened to me once, and never again, also there were like 8 people on that ANNI so fast. So lets see here, slim chance of it happening, and more often that not, people will join your game and steal your ANNI. Before I get into this, I have to admit I learned from another guide by Hoarshade, so I must give a lot of credit to him for getting me started and a lot of the info. However that was written 3 years ago, so here’s an updated guide.

First of all here’s a few acronyms:

• DC = Diablo Clone
• Anni = Annihilus
• SOJ = Stone of Jordan
• POP, WALK = Spawning of DC

Intro

First off, lets start with what DC is. He’s a stronger version of Diablo that spawns in certain games and can drop the anni charm which has:

• +1 to all skills
• 10-20 to all Attributes (stats)
• 10-20 to all resistance’s
• 5-10% experience gained

I hear all the time people with these screwed up ideas about how he spawns and people asking how its done. Well it’s quite complicated at first if your not a computer sort of guy like me, but once you get the hang of it, it’s EZ. This is an awesome alternative to Mfing or magic find running which is the way almost everyone finds items to trade for their characters. I used to MF a lot and still do sometimes, but it’s much harder these days to find valuable items with the coming of 1.10 runewords which you cant technically “find”. Many items have lost their worth and so the amount of items your looking for that are valuable is considerably narrowed. Plus killing meph all day gets really boring

Hunting DC can be really fun, it will be a side of Diablo you’ve never expected, seen, or knew existed. If you’re a pure DC hunter and are good at it, you can pull in 4-6 anni’s a day even more. Some people have even pulled in 12. On my first day, I was skeptical, but I pulled in 2 that day. It’s also risky, you have to guess and use your judgement and sometimes your just unlucky, which I will explain in a moment.

DC can only spawn in Hell games and can appear in D2 Classic, Ladder, Non-ladder, Softcore, and Hardcore.

VERY IMPORTANT

You MUST run Diablo in WINDOWS mode, meaning it is a window and doesn’t take up as much space as a full screen. It’s also way easier to minimize and lets you play the game while watching other things that indicate to you where DC will spawn (which I will explain in a second). To do this create a Diablo shortcut in the desktop, where recycling bin, my computer, etc is located. Now right click and press properties. It should say target with a box. Inside this box it might read: "DProgram Files\Diablo II" and to run in windows mode you put a space followed by –w. So ["DProgram Files\Diablo II" –w] without the [ ]. This is way more convenient than having to minimize all the time and load back up the game because you need to check things outside the Diablo game.

How to find DC

There’s one thing you must understand, which is once you create any game, it is hosted on a server or IP address. These addresses range from .30 to .180 which is a total of 150 servers or IP addresses. Some people also just say server 30 instead of .30, it’s the same thing, so .30 = 30, .100 = 100 and so on. Once you create a game, it is randomly assigned to a server, so if I create a game it could be on server .45 or .152, you have no control over this. Now understand that DC doesn’t spawn in certain games, he spawns in SERVERS. So if there are 1000 games being hosted on server .45 then ALL games in .45 will get the message “Diablo walks the earth” and DC is created in all those games. All other games in different servers remain the same.

So how do you get him to spawn? Well it has to do with Stone of Jordan’s or SOJS. The times he spawns aren’t random as some think. DC spawns in CERTAIN servers only when 75-150 SOJS are sold on THAT SPECIFIC SERVER. Some argue the SOJ range is more or less than that, but for our purposes let’s just say he spawns between 75-150. So if 75-150 SOJS are sold on server .45 then ALL games in .45 spawn DC. One thing to note is that most players cooperate and sell SOJS on specific servers to create DC to get the Anni charm, so the selling of SOJS isn’t as random as you might think.

Now how do you find a game on a certain server and know which server your on? Well here’s the tough part. You have to keep creating games until you land a game in a specific server. So one time if I create a game I might be in server .45, then the next game I might be in .86 and I keep doing this until I get the desired server. To find out which server your on, there are two ways to do this. First way is go the start menu at the bottom tool bar of you computer and click on the application Run… A little box should pop up and you type in cmd. Now a black screen should pop in. To check what server your on you must be in a game. Now type in the black screen [netstat –n | find "4000"] without the [ ]. A bunch of numbers should pop up and one should read :4000 at the VERY END. The number BEFORE this number is your server number. So if the numbers read xxx.xxx.xxx.45:4000 that means your in server 45. So you basically keep creating and checking with [netstat –n] to find a desired server.

The second way to do this is to download a program on mIRC (I will explain what mIRC is shortly) which tells you which server you are on when you run Diablo. It should indicate at the very top of your Diablo window where the blue bar is. This isn’t a hack, just a more convenient way of seeing which server your in. It saves loads of time because you don’t have to keep typing in netstat –n all the time.

One thing you should note is that in different realms, ie. US East, West, Europe, etc the servers DC spawns on are totally different. By this I mean if US East gets a spawn on server .45, Europe WILL NOT get the same thing on server .45. It’s separate for each realm. However all of US East, Classic, Hardcore, Ladder, Non-ladder etc will spawn DC on the SAME server. So if DC appears in server .45 on US East, then all the Ladder, Non-ladder, Softcore, Hardcore, Classic games in that realm spawn DC.

Ok you are probably wondering, how do I know which server I want to go to? How do I know which server will most likely spawn DC? Which servers have the most potential? Here’s another complicated part. You must get mIRC which is a chat room for various games. One of the chat rooms is SPECIALIZED for hunting D clone in a certain realm (US East, US West, Europe). You can download it free at [1]. Ok so once you download and start it up, you open up to mIRC options where you fill in your name, nickname, E-mail etc. After this it should ask you which server you want to connect to. Type in irc.dcloneirc.net. After this you should connect to the server and it will ask you which channel you want to connect to.

Type in:

• #uswest-dclone
• #useast-dclone
• #Europe-DClone

depending on which realm your on. Then you must register your nick name before you can talk. Type in /nickserv register CHOOSEPASSWORD [YOUREMAIL]. So CHOOSEPASSWORD is a password you choose for your nickname and [YOUREMAIL] is your email without the [ ]. After this you should be able to talk and discuss. Then every time you log back in again and connect to either

• #uswest-dclone
• #useast-dclone
• #Europe-DClone

you must type in /ns identify PASSWORDYOUCHOSE. PASSWORDYOUCHOSE being the password you picked in your registration. Now you should be able to talk again. It might be different for everyone else, but with a little bit of figuring out and fiddling around, you should get it. It took me half an hour to figure it out and I suck with these things so you should be fine.

Going to mIRC is a MUST. You can also download programs which “help” and make the hunting more convenient. If you ask around, people are more than happy to help you 24/7 all the time. Even if you have no chars that can kill DC, someone there will do it for you and give you the Anni, which is another great thing about it.

Ok, so now what do you do in mIRC that’s so useful? They have bots in every server that record the SOJ count and tell you which servers are selling SOJS, and the counts of SOJS in many servers. For example it may tell you that server .25 is at 30 SOJS, meaning they must sell 45 more to be IN RANGE to spawn DC. Well, there are many things you should see once your in your channel. First of all you will notice on the main screen and on the top blue bar (where minimize, maximize, and close are located) there is something that says (CO-OP) (HOT) (ACTIVE) (SLOW) (WALKED)

First of all there are two ways in which SOJS are sold on a server. The first is a co-op which means a group of people pay SOJS to get in. These guys always have 4x CD keys or more, meaning they can get 4 characters on the game or more. Once they connect all their characters onto a predetermined server, lets say .45, they do a mass selling of SOJS and pop DC fast. Pop and walk are two terms meaning spawning DC which is used more often by people. These private pops can either be private or public. In private ones, they don’t tell anyone except those in the co-op which server they are doing it on. Then they sell their SOJS fast within 2-3 minutes. A bot then informs the channel of the huge spike in SOJS on say .45 and you have 2-3 minutes to get a game on .45. Looking at the odds, it not good. 2-3 minutes and 1/150 chance of doing it, so usually these you can do nothing about, but you could still try and get lucky, I know I have. Public walks are ones which are announced. You can go in the channel and type in things like [Announced] or [!list] without the [ ] and it will tell you if there’s a preplanned public co-op, or if ones going down in a little while. The commands might be different for each channel, so just ask someone there. Public co-ops usually give people anywhere from 15 minutes to even a couple hours since they release the IP or server they are going to pop.

If there’s an IP or server number say .45 listed in (CO-OP) then that means there will be a co-op going down soon and you should try to get a game in .45. Most of the time it will be blank however.

You might still be thinking 1/150 odds each game isn’t good chances, but trust me, a lot of the times you get the game, and sometimes your unlucky and you don’t. That’s why I said it’s riskier, but also can pay back HUGE. Think about it, if you run Mephisto, Baal, or w/e, you might have a 1/1000 or higher chance of a certain valuable item dropping. Here it’s 1/150 and you can create games much faster than run these bosses. If it wasn’t worth it, no one would do it, but it does so trust me here, if you keep at it you almost always get a couple target server games a day. IMPORTANT**** You cannot join more than 3 games in one minute or else you get a temporary ban from blizzard b/c they think you’re a bot. This really goes against you b/c you need to join as many games as possible. If you do get temporary banned or realm down in other cases because of the excessive games you’ve created, then to bypass this you disconnect your internet. Then you reconnect and it gives you a different IP address (this has nothing to do with Diablo server IP’s) and you can log back in. Some internet providers won’t let this happen so it depends on your provider. If it doesn’t work then try not joining so many games. Note, you cannot do this by turning off your computer and turning it back on.

If there is an ip number in (HOT) for example (HOT: 42), that means .42 server is having LOTS of SOJS sold and you should try to get a game there. It might take 2 minutes, 15 minutes, or even a couple hours. This is why I said you must use your judgement. Usually though, you try to get a HOT game b/c DC will spawn pretty soon. If it appears in HOT for 2 minutes and is gone, that means it was a private co-op and they spawned him in a short period of time.

(ACTIVE) means any IP or server in that is selling SOJS in a steady pace, and you usually have 30 minutes to a couple hours even a day to get that game.

(SLOW) means SOJS are being sold slowly and takes a couple hours to even 1-2 days for that server to get 75-150 SOJS and pop DC.

(WALKED) means all the IP’s or servers in there have already been popped and those servers are restarting their SOJ count.

Also there are updates within the channel on which servers are selling SOJS etc, just look in your channel for a couple days and you will know exactly what’s going on.

Now remember how I said there are 2 ways in which SOJS are sold on a server? Well the first was a co-op. The second is by people adding SOJS to a server little by little. For example in .45 if one person sells 5 SOJS, it will be recorded in a channel. Then one other might connect to a .45 game and sell 1 SOJ. Throughout a couple servers in this process, there might be ones with 20 SOJS sold in each one. Then people might say ok .45 has 20 SOJS I’ll add in 5 tonight. Then people might get incentive to sell more and eventually this gets to say 60 SOJS. Now they are in range by 15 SOJS on .45. Then on the channel in mIRC people might say ok, everyone sell one SOJ on .45. If even 20-30 people do this, they bump it up to 90-100 and DC could pop. If DC is in range of 75-150 SOJS usually people sell like mad on those servers and he pops fast. This usually takes 1-3 days. Some people even hold games for 3 days. Don’t underestimate this, some guy sold 15 and popped so that the rest could get Anni’s. This is another way in which DC hunting might get risky, because you have to hold a game for a long time sometimes.

So here’s what you do. Usually the most powerful tool on telling which games will pop is the conversations in mIRC channel. People will be talking about which channels people are going to be putting SOJS in, which channels are most likely to pop etc. Just ask around like “Hey, any good activity?” and people will answer like .45 or whatever. I can’t tell you what the exact conversation will be, but most often you will be using the conversations to make a decision on which servers to join. Some people might say “.45 IS UP BY 40!!!” meaning 40 SOJS have been sold and 35 more must be sold to be in the 75-150 SOJ popping range. Again you must listen and ask questions to get the hang of this. Some people even have information about preplanned mini co-ops in which a small group sells a bunch of SOJS to get a server from say 30 SOJS to 50 SOJS . Once everyone sees it hits 50, they usually follow suit and sell 1 SOJ which is more than enough to pop him if there are hundreds of people on that server.

Now, once you’ve judged which game is most likely to pop next, you try to find a game on that server say .45. Once you get it you wait it out. Like I said this could be short, one hour, maybe even 2 days. But usually if you do it right, there’s at least 1-2 pops a day, so you have 2 opportunities throughout the day to join one of these games and you might wait only a few minutes to a couple hours instead. PASSWORD YOUR GAME AND REMEMBER THE NAME AND PASSWORD. Password it so no one can come in and steal your Anni, and remember your game name just in case it disconnects.

Here’s another risky thing about DC hunting. The longer the game, the more “Connection interrupted” you get, that’s just the way it is. Sometimes people disconnect from their games all together and lose out after a day of waiting, which is why I said it’s risky and sometimes unlucky. More often than not, you should be fine. Also Blizzard kicks people for being idle in their game. So it’s not a good idea to make your character stand still in a game for too long. Some people have been kicked after waiting a couple days because of this. TO AVOID THIS do a technique called infinite running. In Act 5, there’s a platform above the waypoint and stash. Now go here and you will see the ledge just before your stash. Stand a tiny by away from the edge of the ledge and click on your stash. Your character should start running into the ledge infinitely and this will prevent being kicked for being idle.

The second most powerful tool is a website that has the SOJ count for EACH SERVER. A lot of the time, your channel won’t be able to list 150 servers because it’s just too much room. There are commands to check a specific server, but if you want a good overview of every server go to http://dclonehunters.net/index.php?orderby=up and it will tell you EVERYTHING about each server. You just need to refresh to update it. This is so useful, since it tells you which servers are up by how many SOJS and this is the second way I base my decisions. So usually I will have Diablo running in windows, mIRC channel in the background with the conversations, and this site to tell me which servers are up by what. These are all the tools you need to base your decision on which servers are most likely to pop next. As you do it more, you will judge better. Main thing is to ask around, and see which servers people are joining. And if there’s LOTS of activity about one server, JOIN IT. Be patient, and you will get an Anni for sure.

ONE VERY IMPORTANT LAST THING.

There are such things as MISWALKS, which means the server say .45 popped and spawned DC but it wasn’t recorded by the bots. So it might list server .45 as having 120 SOJS for even a couple hours. This is VERY UNLIKELY because if people say it was at 120 they would dump SOJS like mad and pop it in no time. Therefore if you see a server with a HIGH number like 130 SOJS up but it’s recorded as not being walked, you can say it’s a miswalk meaning the bots didn’t record it. Don’t join these games. That’s why I say conversations are your most powerful tool. Because you can just ask “Is .45 a miswalk?” and people will tell you yes or no. General rule if it’s over 75+ SOJS for a long time and it’s not recorded as a walk, then its likely a miswalk.

Here’s a recap:

1. Look at what’s going on at mIRC (ie. activity of different servers, pop potential). Ask around to see if anyone is planning anything, who’s going to do what etc.

2. Once you got an idea of which servers are good, check the Dclone hunter site to check up on the SOJ count and see if this is a good server to join

3. Next make a game with a PASSWORD and prepare to wait it out. Sometimes a couple mins to 1-2 days. So don’t just sit there for 1-2 days, do something and comeback in a couple of hours

4. Kill DC and make sure you have a character to pick up. If not, just ask someone who is trusted to xfer it for you. Ask people with a + or @ in front of their name, or the admins in the channel. They will never steal from you.

Things to note:

1. The amount of DC pops are directly related to the amount of duping going on. So if dupes are patched, that means there will be less walks. Once a new dupe comes out, then there will be more DC walks.

2. Most hardcore DC hunters use multiple CD keys and other things such as bots, loaders etc to help them get into more games and find servers quicker.

3. In each server there will be different commands and conversations, it will take a day or two to get used to. Ask lots of questions and there will always be someone to help you.

4. Be prepared to be unlucky, sometimes games drop overnight if your holding it, sometimes you get disconnected out of control or w/e. Most of the time, if your consistent you should be fine.

5. If you don’t have a character than can kill DC it’s fine. Ask an administrator or a trusted person to kill for you. They always do.

How to kill Diablo Clone/ Which characters to choose

Let’s look at his attributes.

• 95% to all resistance
• 50% to physical and magic resistance
• 650,000 life
• High damage physically, in lightning, and fire.
• High defense and attack rating

It’s best to use a character that deals physical damage, and can leech life from him quickly, or in other words use lifetap. Also tanking ability, which is the ability to take lots of hits is important. Even sometimes elemental skills can be used to kill him effectively.

Here are a bunch of good characters that you can use effectively. I wont list the builds or else it would take forever, but in these forums you can find literally hundreds of guides on how to build them.

Smiter

The absolute best build to kill him. They can use lifetap, unblockable smite, and also crushing blow to deal crazy amounts of damage. Some good ones kill him in 10 seconds or even less!! Only drawback is they are expensive since paladin gear is the most costly at the moment.

Far Cast Amazon

Some of these can deal crazy damage and take down DC fast. I don’t know much about them, but I hear they are unreal.

Hammerdins

This is a popular build in regular Diablo play, and with maxed resistance, high life, they should be able to tank him. They send out hammers which do crazy damage and are unblockable except by Assassins. The only thing is that they cant cast lifetap so they have to drink potions or kill him fast.

Summoner Necromancer

I have one of these, and they are great. You can stack aura’s on your minions and curses on your enemy. I freeze, decriptify, and slow with clay golem and he cant do anything. Takes him down in under 15 seconds. WARNING, THE ONLY DRAWBACK is that sometimes they will disconnect more often because of the many minions they have. If you just want to DC hunt then choose the smiter, if you already have a summoner, then you can use to kill, but make sure you got a back up character, or friend who can kill for you if you Nerco disconnects a lot. They have cheaper gear as well. For example a summoning skill charm for a necromancer might cost one high rune. But for a paladin it can cost 6-8 times that because they are in high demand.

There are probably tons of other builds that can do this, If you have any suggestions leave some behind. Just because I didn’t list it here, doesn’t mean you cant use them. DC is easier to kill than you think.

Last notes and credits

Must credit:

• Hoarshade

Also I would like to say it’s not for everyone. You have to be patient, take risks, use judgement, and also be prepared to take a few losses. But if you do it right, you will come out richer. There’s probably still a lot that you need to find out on your own. I can’t just tell you absolutely everything and you will be an expert. You have to find out your own way of doing it. So remember ask lots of questions on mIRC and find out everything you can.

Also I wrote this so more people would know about how to do this. More people = more people selling SOJS = more DC pops. I also wrote this potentially to get a large group going to do public co-ops in which you don’t have to pay to get in but just sell 1 SOJ or something. I don’t know how I would organize this, but if enough people want to, I’m open to the idea.