Diablo 2 Resurrected Beginner Tips from jannick noah's blog

Diablo 2: Resurrected is now available on PC and consoles, and it brings the classic action-RPG to modern platforms - the consoles being the most notable of the bunch, given the original was only ever available on PC. And while it has gotten a visual overhaul and some other quality-of-life improvements, it's a largely faithful remake of a two-decade-old game. As such, you can expect it to generally be less friendly to players than Diablo 3 - if that's your only exposure to the series thus far, prepare for Resurrected to tell you a whole lot less, kick your teeth in, and then make you walk - not run - away because you've run out of stamina.

Fortunately, this being largely faithful means there are plenty of existing resources to help guide you through the many complex elements of Diablo 2, be it the complexities of the Horadric Cube, D2R Runewords, or character builds. Here, we're taking a look at some essential tips that will help ease you into the world of Diablo 2 based on our experience with the original game and time spent with Resurrected so far - it should be useful whether you're a first -time player or someone who just hasn't picked up the game in years and forgot all about the joys of Scrolls of Identify, Baal runs, and those damn cows.

Your first decision upon starting is choosing a class, and unfortunately, the game does about as little as possible to explain what it's like to play as any of them. Aside from a brief description, you're left to make your choice largely based on the look of each class. While you can always roll additional new characters, there's no swapping classes once you make your choice, so any time you sink into a character will be for naught if you decide you'd actually rather play something else. (You can, thankfully, make use of the new shared loot box to move items between characters - no more starting a session, dropping everything you own in town, exiting, and then returning with another character to move items.)

Some classes are better-suited for newcomers than others; Sorceress is heavily dependent on spellcasting and mana, as you'd imagine, and is relatively frail, making it a more challenging character to play solo at the start (although her teleport ability is a real life-saver once you get it). On the other hand, Paladins can take more of a hit and can heal without potions, while Necromancers can summon an army of minions who will not only dish out damage, but more importantly, distract and absorb enemy attacks, helping to keep you alive.

From a pure entertainment perspective, this is an entirely subjective choice, though there's a reason Barbarian was the one returning character in Diablo 3 at launch - Blizzard thought there was real room for improvement with that one. The limited amount of information on the character creation screen doesn't allude to this, but there are numerous class builds and radically different ways of playing as any a given class.

That wide range of possibilities means each class can function quite differently depending on your choices. With the aforementioned Necromancer, you might focus entirely on summoning an army of minions, or you might opt ​​for a build that invests points in poison / bone spells, letting you deal damage more directly. Assassins can focus on traps they summon or martial arts skills. Druids can be shapeshifters or rely on elemental attacks. Depending on the class, you can also center your entire build around a single skill, as with Zeal Paladins or Blessed Hammer Paladins, who are also known in the community as Hammerdins.

While you're free to mix and match skills as you wish, it's generally best to make a plan and invest accordingly. You have a limited number of skill points to allot, meaning you won't be able to acquire everything in the skill tree. And even if you do invest heavily in a particular skill guide, that may dictate what other skills you should choose due to skill synergies, which you can see listed when hovering over a skill. For instance, the basic Raise Skeleton skill for Necromancers gets a bonus from Skeleton Mastery and Summon Resist, making those important skills for a summoner to choose.

Resurrected features a respec system, so you aren't entirely locked into the choices you make, but there are limitations on it (you'll earn some respec opportunities for free as you play, while subsequent ones require gathering certain resources). As a result, don't plan on being able to freely experiment to the same degree that you can in Diablo 3.