Hydroflux's Hardcore Diablo 2 Ladder Reset Tips

These are a few tips that I came up with for Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction Battlenet Ladder resets. There is also some helpful information at the bottom of this article. Enjoy!

Make a team or join an existing one.

Always enable Loot with your teammates and encourage them to do the same.

Watch for good items for you and your team mates.

Walk the edges of the Map and use either the edge or stationary objects to prevent monsters from flanking.

Sell items that are not immediately useful by you or a teammate.

Collect throw-able pots and knives and sell them to gain some gold rapidly.

Exploding Shrines and Poison Shrines contain many sell-able and stackable pots that fetch a good price.

As soon as you can afford to buy a Tome of Town Portal and a Tome of Identify.

Set Town Portal to a Hotkey.

Acquire Stamina potions and keep at least twelve of them in your Inventory.

Acquire Javelins and use them as your primary attack. They will give you both good Ranged and Melee damage at a fast speed.

Watch for valuable items like Wands, Staves, Druid helms and Barbarian helms and Necromancer shields.

Watch for Jewelry and sell the items that are not immediately useful to you or a teammate.

Save Jewelry that you find early and transmute it with a Horadric Cube to make new Jewelry.

Use armors made with leather to avoid stamina drain and Run/Walk speed reduction and Movement Speed penalties.

Collect all gems and store the ones not immediately used on a mule with a Horadric Cube.

Play in areas that are suitable to your Character level.

Gamble often at low levels while items are cheap to do so.

Save all Jewels that have a Resistance bonus over 20% to a specific element.

Use Resistance Jewels and runes in socketed items to gain large Resistance bonuses with low Level Requirements.

When fighting poison damage dealing Monsters or Bosses like Andariel put a row of antidote potions in your belt.

When fighting Duriel or Cold spell casting Monsters put a row of thawing potions in your belt.

Buy an Act 1 Cold Arrow Mercenary and equip her with a rare bow that has both Amplify Damage and Hit Causes Monster To Flee.

Use items with chance to cast Frost Nova on your Mercenary. Helms and armors are common at all levels.

Equip yourself with high Defense Ethereal items and discard or equip them onto your Mercenary before they break.

Watch for Unique items that give you large Strength bonuses.

Keep your Mercenary alive at all times.

If the level between you and your Mercenary grows beyond ten levels buy a new one.

Mercenaries bought in Normal Difficulty have better initial Stats than those from Nightmare and Hell Difficulty.

Mercenaries can use Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

Use the Shift and belt keys to feed your Mercenary Potions while it is tanking for you or sustaining heavy damage, poisoned or cursed.

Using Stamina shrines will allow you to cover large areas of the map very rapidly without running out of Stamina.

Keep a full twelve Keys on you at all times to open Chests. Watch for special Chests.

Buy a belt with at least three rows as soon as you can.

Fill your belt with the highest grade potions you can acquire preferably Rejuvenation Potions or Full Rejuvenation Potions .

Acquire a high Block socketed Bone Shield and add Diamonds of a grade usable by your Level. If you can find a shield that also has the Modifier ‘Increased Chance of Blocking’ that is even better.

Acquire and collect Jewels that have the -15% To Requirements Modifier, especially Rare Jewels.

Acquire and collect Grand Charms with 20% or more to specific elemental Resistance.

Acquire and collect Small Charms that give Strength and/or Dexterity.

Acquire and collect Small Charms that give 10 or more to Life.

Have a well named and well organized muling system.

The Low Level Set Items from Cathan’s, Angelic’s, Hsaru’s and Sigon’s Set are excellent starter items.

The Set Item Helm Infernal Cranium has +10 to all Resistances and is a Level 5 item.

The Unique Helm Biggin’s Bonnet adds 30% to your Physical Damage. Socket it and add an Enhanced Damage Jewel to it for a great starter item.

Once you have a mid Level Character make another one that is its ‘backup’ in case of death.

Having even a small amount of Replenish Life will help your Life Ball fill faster when you drink Healing Potions.

Socket low Level ‘Starter Gear’ that you will be using repeatedly (like Raven Claw) and add an item (Jewel/Gem/Rune) to it that will not raise the Level Requirements of the initial item.

Make a Harmony bow for your Mercenary as soon as you can so that you have the Vigor Aura.

If possible use the Harmony bow to create Revives when you encounter a Monster situation that may otherwise be impossible.

If you encounter an area of the game that you have to pass but cannot safely defeat the Monsters then create a new game and start at the closest Way Point and try again, hoping for a more defeat-able monster spawn.

Before engaging multi Unique Monster Packs, Champion Packs or Bosses make a Town Portal at a safe location so you always have an exit to run to without the need to cast a Town Portal while engaged in combat or fleeing from a pursuing mob.

When engaging Monsters that summon other Monsters always kill the Summoners first.

Use the Paladin Aura Sanctuary either natively or from an Azurewrath or a Lawbringer to repel ‘Dolls’ and keep them from exploding on top of you. This Aura also comes in handy when dealing with all types of Undead especially casters since it can interrupt them from casting just as it can interrupt Skeleton Archers from firing their missiles.

The skill Slow Missiles is very useful against all missile attacks and most caster attacks. Equipping a Mercenary with the Peace Rune Word is a great way to have your Mercenary ‘cast’ Slow Missiles.

Hit Causes Monster To Flee is an effective way to move normal Monsters away from Unique or Champion Monsters so that the major threat can be eliminated quickly.

When fighting Act Bosses use a bow with Amplify Damage or a wand with Life Tap or Lower Resists charges to curse them before engaging them with your main attack.

Use the Unique Item Demon Limb to Enchant yourself, your teammates, Mercenaries and Minions.

If your character does melee or ranged Physical Damage stock your inventory with Small Charms that give Poison Damage. Even +25 ones add up quickly.

If your character uses melee or ranged physical attacks always have at least 1-2 Cold Damage from something, even if it is from a single Small Charm in you Inventory.

When you use an Experience Shrine (or any Shrine) try to avoid being cursed by Monsters and losing the Shrine.

Use Shrines to remove a curse from yourself.

Create a Khalim’s Will and mule it for a starter weapon.

Acquire a Hellforge Hammer and use it as a starter weapon.

When using the Act 1 Imbue Quest Imbue Circlets, Coronets and Diadems to potentially gain + to skill Modifiers or other great stats. Always Imbue Low Quality or Crude Items.

The Unique armor Rattlecage is an excellent Mercenary armor for both its Flee and Crushing Blow. Combine it with a Face Of Horror or Howltusk. This combination is especially useful on an Act 1 Mercenary with a Very Fast bow to keep Monsters fleeing away from you while getting rushed or just playing. Socket both of these items with an Increased Attack Speed Jewel for maximum benefit.

When dealing with large mobs of Monsters approach them slowly and attempt to lead one or two of them away to a safe distance and dispatch them there. Repeat this until the mob becomes a more manageable size.

The Low Level Unique Items Darkglow, Goldskin, Face Of Horror, Duskdeep, Tearhaunch, The Ward, and Steelclash all have the All Resistances Modifier and used in combination can add significantly to your Resistances. All of theses items can also be Upped.

The Low Level Unique Hand Axe The Gnasher is a great Item for having Crushing Blow and Open Wounds at a low Level.

The Low Level Unique Short Sword Rixot's Keen is a great Item for having Crushing Blow at a low level.

The Low Level Unique Quilted Armor Greyform makes an excellent Low Level Mercenary armor or Starter Item. It can also be Upped and Socketed.

Use the skill Bone Prison from the Unique Item Marrowwalk boots to ‘cage’ Bosses and powerful Unique Monsters while a Sorceress uses Static Field on them. Marrowalk boots also have Life Tap Charges.

If you are a Paladin raise your maximum Resistance Cap by putting points in the Fire, Lightning, and Cold Resists Aura Skills to gain a passive bonus that is active even if the auras are not in use.

Use Crafting recipes for Hit Power and Safety items. Both are good for armor and helms.

Use Caster Crafting recipes if you are a caster and need Mana, Mana Regeneration or Faster Cast Rate.

If you use a ranged or melee physical attack try to use items with any or all of the Modifiers Knockback, Slows Target, Freezes Target, and Hit Blinds Target. They are excellent crowd control and help counter some of the effects of viscous lag spikes by basically knocking back, immobilizing/blinding or slowing the Monsters. The Holy Freeze Aura and Frost Nova are also helpful in slowing monsters. Also weapons that have a Chance of Frost Nova being cast on Striking will also slow the Monsters.

When doing any kind of repetitive Run like Trist, Tombs, Chaos Sanctuary, or Baals use a pair of boots with a high Faster Run Walk speed. Aldur’s Advance Set boots Have 40% and so do Immortal King’s Pillar Set boots.

When your Mercenary kills a Monster it’s Magic Find is combined with yours. It does not work the other way around though.

Lower the defense of Monsters with an Act 1 Mercenary’s Inner Sight Skill and have a teammate that uses an Act 2 Mercenary that uses the Blessed Aim Aura to boost you and your party’s Attack Rating. Also a Conviction aura stacks with Inner Sight to significantly reduce a Monster's Defense.

Squelch every Bot that messages you or posts in a game and use the /ignorepersist command to permanently block seeing their spam.

"The Rules" & "Team Ubering Tips"

Don't Die.

Don't Take Unnecessary Risks.

Don't Panic.

Have A Plan.

Stick To The Plan.

Play As A Team.

Be Patient.

Play Smart.

Use 'Walk' Instead Of 'Run'.

Keep An Over-stock/supply Of Full Rejuvenation Potions.

Gear your Mercenary well.

Keep Your Mercenary Alive.

Research Your Character *Build. *Uber-Builds Tend To Be Uber Specific.

Always Pre-Buff With BO (Re-BO often)

Use An Enchanter (Re-Enchant often)

Never Block A Doorway Or Bridge.

Stay in close formation while fighting.

Lure the Uber Bosses out one by one.

Beware of the witches in Matron's Den.

Do not use curses that will interfere with Life Tap.

You can never have too much Faster Hit Recovery.

Damage Reduction Does Not work on Ubers.

Damage to Demons Does Not work on Ubers.

Life Steal will not keep you alive with Ubers.

Have Fun!

You can find some more useful information in Hydro's Hardcore Compendium: https://sites.google.com/site/d2teamuberz/home/Tactics-Strategies/hydro-s-hardcore-compendium

You can find some helpful PDF files about the Horadric Cube Recipes, Runewords and Crafting here: https://sites.google.com/site/d2teamuberz/home/Tactics-Strategies/helpful-pdfs

Thanks for reading and happy gaming!