In Diablo 2, every player starts the game on Normal difficulty.After completing the current difficulty, you can move on to the next harder level.In other words:
- Complete Normal difficulty → you can play Nightmare difficulty;
- Complete Nightmare difficulty → you can play Hell difficulty.
Also, you can only create an “Expert Mode” character (i.e. one that can’t be resurrected at any time) if you’ve cleared Normal difficulty once.
Leveling advice: when should I change difficulties?
If your goal is to level up quickly, it’s not recommended to jump to Nightmare too early.
Why?Because the minimum level of monsters in Nightmare is 36, and it gets higher as you go on.At this point, if you’re still using a melee weapon (such as a sword or axe), you’ll find it hard to hit them, but they can easily hit you.And you can easily die if your resistance isn’t high enough.
In fact, the experience value of brushing monsters in Nightmare isn’t necessarily more than you’d get from brushing Act 5 on Normal difficulty.And once you die, you will also lose experience value (5% in Nightmare, 10% in Hell).So we suggest that you can go back to normal difficulty Act 5 to continue practicing after doing the first quest in Nightmare and getting the reward.
Act 5 is a great place to brush up on your experience, and you can stay here until level 40 or so.If you can find a room with a lot of people to play with, that’s even better – not only is it a little safer, but you can level up even faster.
If you don’t quite believe this, you can also do a simple test yourself: take a timer and brush the monsters on each of the two difficulties, and just see which one is more efficient.
Normal difficulty description
This is the most basic difficulty, and all players start here.Only after clearing Normal difficulty once will you be able to move on to harder levels and also create Expert Mode characters.
In Normal difficulty, dying does not drop experience points, so you can level up here without worry.If you want to enter Nightmare difficulty, just take out the final boss, Baal.
Some details about Normal difficulty:
- Dark Gold Monsters and Champion Monsters: 90% damage bonus.
- Mercenary and Summoner damage to Final Boss: only 50%.
- Damage from exploding Nyarasek corpses: 50%.
Completion Bonus:
- Possibility to join or create games on Nightmare difficulty;
- May create an Expert Mode character;
Acquires a new title:
- Normal Mode: Slayer
- Death Mode: Destroyer
Nightmare Difficulty Description
After completing Normal difficulty, you will only see Nightmare difficulty rooms in the game lobby.However, you can still manually enter the name and re-enter the game on Normal difficulty.
How do I enter Nightmare difficulty?
It’s easy, just beat Baal on Normal difficulty.
Death penalty:
If you die in Nightmare difficulty, you will lose 5% of your experience value.The 5% here is 5% of the experience needed between your current level and the next level.Example:
- Current level X: 1,000,000 experience;
- The next level requires 2,000,000 experience;
- Then you lose (2,000,000 – 1,000,000) x 5% = 50,000 experience.
If you retrieve your corpse in time, you can recover 75% of your experience loss.
Upgrading Suggestion:
Suitable for brushing up your experience between level 26 and 50.
Dropped items:
- The probability of monsters dropping good equipment has increased;
- Normal monsters have a 10% chance of dropping Extended Grade equipment, while special monsters (such as Dark Gold monsters) have a 20% chance;
- Later on, they will also start dropping Essence level equipment.
Other changes:
- Dark Gold and Champion monsters have a 75% damage bonus;
- Mercenaries and Summons damage to the final boss has been reduced to 35%;
- Player and mercenary resistances are 40% lower than normal difficulty;
- Frozen, blood-sucking, slowing and cursing effects are only half of what they were;
- Static force fields cannot be used when the monster’s life is below 33%;
- Monsters are stronger and faster, and the AI is smarter;
- Act 5 Barbarian Warrior’s life value is reduced;
- The overall attributes of monsters have been increased across the board, including blood, defense, hit, and skill level +3;
- Some monsters begin to possess certain resistances;
- Dark gold monsters gain special abilities;
- Nyarlasek corpse explosion damage is 35%;
- The map is bigger, there are more monsters, and there are many more randomly refreshed groups of monsters.
Rewards upon Nightmare completion:
- Ability to join or create a Hell difficulty game;
- Gaining a new title:
- Normal Mode: Champion
- Death Mode: Conqueror
Hell Difficulty Description
After completing Nightmare difficulty, you will only be able to see the rooms in Hell difficulty, but can still go back to the previous difficulty by typing your name.
How do I enter Hell difficulty?
Again, you will need to defeat Baal on Nightmare difficulty first.
Death penalty:
Dying on Hell difficulty will cost you 10% of your experience value.Like Nightmare, this is the experience between your current level and the next.Recovering your corpse restores 75% of the loss.
Upgrade Recommendations:
Best suited for brushing up your experience between levels 51 and 75.
Dropping items:
- The probability of dropping good equipment is higher;
- Normal monsters have a 20% chance of dropping Extended Equipment, while special monsters have a 40% chance;
- There is a 30% chance of dropping Essence level equipment and 40% for special monsters.
Other changes:
- Dark Gold and Champion monsters have a 66% damage increase;
- Mercenaries and summons only deal 20% damage to the final boss;
- Resistance of players and mercenaries is 100 lower than normal difficulty;
- Effects such as blood-sucking and blue-sucking are reduced by 2/3;
- effects such as freezing, slowing and cursing are only 3/4 of their original value;
- Static force field is disabled when the monster’s life is below 50%;
- The overall attributes of the monster are increased again, including blood, defense, hit, and skill level +7;
- Dark gold monsters will have two special skills;
- More types of resistances begin to appear;
- More Dark Gold monsters will appear;
- Nyarlasek corpse explosion damage is 20%;
- The map is bigger and there are more monsters.
Rewards upon completion of Inferno:
- Receive a new title:
- Normal Mode: Patriarch / Matriarch
- Death Mode: Guardian
To summarize.
- Each difficulty has different challenges and rewards;
- Don’t be in a hurry to change the difficulty, choose the scenario that suits your level wisely;
- You will lose experience if you die, so remember to retrieve your body as soon as possible;
- Multiplayer is easier and faster to upgrade;
- Every time you complete a difficulty, you can open up new gameplay and goals.
I hope this introduction will help you understand the difficulty system of Diablo 2!
