Ladder Season 2 has begun in Diablo 2: Resurrected today! For more information on what to expect in the new season, check out our latest post!
(Source)
Update on October 6: Ladder Season Two is now live for all supported platforms. Give em’ Hell!
Update on October 6: The patch notes denoted in red font have gone live for Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
Update on October 3: Additional patch notes have been added and are denoted in red font. These patch notes are currently live for PC only. Once they’re available for console next week, we’ll update this blog and our forums.
Join us around the campfire, hero!
As the flames flicker and crackle, we’re incredibly proud to announce that Terror Zones are now live in Diablo II: Resurrected. There’s also smoke on the horizon—Ladder Season Two and six new Sundering Charms will be going live on October 6. Sit back and relax as we run through the details of all the new helltastic features coming with this update.
Quest Log
Terror Zones
The journey to level 99 is a celebrated experience for players and quite the milestone if achieved—a rite of passage, even. We want the journey to level 99 to be accessible to a larger population of players, offer more variety other than repeatedly farming Baal, Diablo, and Nihlathak, and most importantly, remain challenging. This is where Terror Zones come in. As we get into details, please note that players can choose to opt-out of Terror Zones if desired.
To unlock the Terror Zones feature, you must defeat Baal per character, per difficulty using any expansion character—existing characters that have already fulfilled the requirements will automatically have this feature unlocked. Once Ladder Season Two begins, players will need to meet the aforementioned requirements to unlock Terror Zones for their new ladder characters.
When playing a Terror Zone-enabled game, every hour, diabolical tremors infused with the Lord of Destruction’s unwavering corruption creep into specific zones, emboldening the monsters within, and terrorizing them. The monsters in these zones will be at least two levels higher than your current level or their original level, up to a maximum per difficulty. The experience received and the loot dropped by killing a terrorized monster will be based on this new level—terrorized monsters will also grant additional experience points.
Here are the level details for each monster type per difficulty:
Normal
Standard Monsters: +2 player level up to 45
Champion: +4 player level up to 47
Unique: +5 player level up to 48
Nightmare
Standard Monsters: +2 player level up to 71
Champion: +4 player level up to 73
Unique: +5 player level up to 74
Hell
Standard Monsters: +2 player level up to 96
Champion: +4 player level up to 98
Unique: +5 player level up to 99
The base player level used for the above calculations are taken from the creator of the game. If the host leaves the game, a new player will be selected for the base once the next Terror Zone is announced. Terror Zone monsters will spawn at their new modified level or their original level, whichever is higher. Upon entering a Terror Zone-enabled game, you’ll be informed of the current terrorized areas through a message sent to you via the Chat Box. When the time for new terrorized zones draws near, you will be informed of the impending changes via the Chat Box.
In addition, you will be informed that you’re entering a terrorized area by several indicators:
Unique iconography next to a terrorized monster’s name
On-screen text and messaging
Special audio cue
In-game text on the auto-map
Unique environmental lighting
Ember visual effects
Waypoints have also received some changes to assist in locating the current Terror Zone:
An icon will display on the Waypoint menu next to the Waypoint that is closest to the current Terror Zone.
The Waypoint closest to the current Terror Zone will have its name displayed in a purple font.
Here’s a complete list of all the zones that can become terrorized:
Act I
Blood Moor and Den of Evil
Cold Plains and The Cave
Burial Grounds, The Crypt, and the Mausoleum
Stony Field
Dark Wood
The Forgotten Tower
Jail
Cathedral and Catacombs
The Pit
Tristram
Moo Moo Farm
Act II
Sewers
Rocky Waste and Stony Tomb
Dry Hills and Halls of the Dead
Far Oasis
Lost City, Valley of Snakes, and Claw Viper Temple
Arcane Sanctuary
Tal Rasha’s Tombs
Act III
Spider Forest and Spider Cavern
Flayer Jungle and Flayer Dungeon
Kurast Bazaar, Ruined Temple, and Disused Fane
Kurast Sewers
Travincal
Durance of Hate
Act IV
Outer Steppes and Plains of Despair
River of Flame/City of the Damned
Chaos Sanctuary
Act V
Bloody Foothills
Frigid Highlands
Glacial Trail
Crystalline Passage and Frozen River
Arreat Plateau
Nihlathak’s Temple, Halls of Anguish, Halls of Pain, and Halls of Vaught
Ancient’s Way and Icy Cellar
Worldstone Keep, Throne of Destruction, and Worldstone Chamber
Ladder Season Two
Our first Ladder Season for Diablo II: Resurrected has been an absolute success—adept heroes raced to save Sanctuary, some cementing their name on the leaderboard, but all of them striking fear into the tormented hearts of their demonic adversaries in the process.
Ladder Season Two will begin on October 6, ushering in a new opportunity for brave heroes to race to level 99 and amass powerful loot along the way. This will also be the first Ladder Season with Terror Zones! Can you handle the increased ferocity of the Burning Hells, or will you perish under their amplified might? We cannot wait to see how Terror Zones will influence the leaderboard, or hopefully, allow new players the opportunity to see their name on it for the first time.
Ladder Season Two Launch Timing:
North America
October 6, 5:00 p.m. PDT
Europe
October 7, 2:00 a.m. CEST
Asia
October 7, 9:00 a.m. KST
We’ll also introduce six new Sundering Charms with Ladder Season Two, more information about these can be found in the next section.
As it was with the previous season, Ladder Season Two will feature four different modes:
Version
Description
Pre-Expansion Ladder
The standard version of Ladder play that encompasses playing only with the original four acts.
Pre-Expansion Hardcore Ladder
The hardcore (only one life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing only with the original four acts.
Ladder
The standard version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content.
Hardcore Ladder
The hardcore (only one life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content.
For those new to Ladder Seasons, you might be wondering what happens to your Shared Stash loot once the current season ends.
Once Ladder Season One ends, all Ladder characters will be transferred to their respective non-ladder group. All items in that character group’s shared stash go into a new Withdraw Only set of Shared Stash tabs, denoted by a check marked Past box. You will have all of Ladder Season Two to withdraw any items you would like to keep. When Ladder Season Two ends, this withdraw only set of stash tabs will be overridden with any items in the Ladder Season Two Shared Stash. Be sure to get any items out before then or they will be forever lost!
New Sundering Charms
In Hell difficulty, many monsters receive resistance to specific damage types. If their resistance increases above 100%, that monster is then immune to a specific damage type. Because there are only a handful of ways to reduce a monster’s immunity, only a minute portion of hero builds can successfully farm all zones in Diablo II: Resurrected. We realize that this can create scenarios where certain builds are unable to take full advantage of the current Terror Zone, thus missing out on the experience gains, and most importantly, the fun of these zones.
To promote increased class build diversity, we have introduced six Sundering Charms that allow the player to break specific monster immunity types while the charm is in their inventory. Once Ladder Season Two begins on October 6, Sundering Charms will be a possible drop for new Ladder characters. These new unique charms will only drop from Terrorized monsters of Champion, Unique, Superunique, or Boss difficulty.
You’ll notice a new keyword below called Sunder. This keyword means that if a monster has immunity to a specific damage type, their resistance will be reduced to 95% regardless of what their starting resistance percentage was—breaking their immunity and allowing damage of that type to be dealt to them. Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players. There is one tradeoff that comes with the Sundering Charms: while they reduce a monster’s resistance, they also reduce your resistance to the same element, allowing you to receive more damage of that type. The specific percent that your resistance is reduced by the Sundering Charm will vary per charm, so look out for the charms offering the most advantageous percentages to maximize your build. Any abilities granted by a Sundering Charm will also extend to your pets and summons, so keep that in mind as you upgrade your character.
The Black Cleft
Monster Magic Immunity is Sundered
Magic Resist –45% to -65%
The Bone Break
Monster Physical Immunity is Sundered
Physical Damage Received Increased by 10% to 30%
The Cold Rupture
Monster Cold Immunity is Sundered
Cold Resist –70% to -90%
The Crack of the Heavens
Monster Lightning Immunity is Sundered
Lightning Resist –70% to -90%
The Flame Rift
Monster Fire Immunity is Sundered
Fire Resist –70% to -90%
The Rotting Fissure
Monster Poison Immunity is Sundered
Poison Resist –70% to -90%
Developer’s Note: We have heard much of the community’s thoughts on how the new Sunder Charms work with the sorceresses Cold Mastery ability. Looking at the percentage of monsters that are cold immune, the trade-offs of having to gain and equip a new grand charm, and re-checking our damage output, we feel the current behavior of Cold Mastery is not significantly more powerful than many of the other abilities affected by Sunder and does not need to change at this time.
Patch Notes
Gameplay/Quality of Life
Added additional warning text to the mercenary confirmation prompt if your previous mercenary still has items equipped.
Damage value for the Paladin’s Thorns aura is now present on the character menu.
Dead Finger Mages now reset correctly to their original state when revived by Necromancers.
Fixed an issue where casting delays could desync at very high ping.
Fixed an issue where monster unique mods were triggering from another unique mod’s trigger. For example, monsters that were both lightning and fire enchanted created an explosion every time they were put into hit recovery (Ex: repeatedly hit by Warcry).
Fixed a rare issue where item names on the ground would erratically flicker and shift while pathing around them.
Fixed an issue where players and monsters were able to walk through doors that visually looked closed.
Fixed an issue where certain Rune Words could not be repaired in the same game session they were created.
Fixed an issue where loading a character on a console that was created on PC was causing texture and lighting issues on console.
Fixed an issue that would occur when binding a skill to a multi-key binding (Ex: Ctrl + X, Alt + X) the action bound to the first key became unbound from that key.
Fixed an issue where the game name and password were not properly updating and displaying in-game when toggling the setting for showing it.
Fixed an issue where updates to stats, skills, or quests were displaying when no updates were available.
Fixed an issue where hardcore character names were not displaying in red text on the character list.
Fixed an issue with the Legacy Graphics gamble refresh icon containing graphical artifacts and corruption.
Fixed an issue where single and dual-wielding basic attacks with Claw weapons could have inconsistent attack speeds.
Fixed an issue where flags associated with previous characters (Ladder, Hardcore, and Classic) would persist for newly created characters in the Legacy Graphics Character Creation Screen.
Fixed an issue where the “buy” button legend in the vendor window would not display on the first weapons tab.
Fixed an issue where certain VFX were causing graphical corruption when fighting Uber Diablo.
Fixed an issue where Iron Golems could lose the aura granted by the item they were created with when the Golem was frozen.
Chosen game settings now persist in lobby game creation and filtering rather than being reset.
Fixed an issue where Iron Golems created in a previous game would disappear instead of teleporting to you.
Fixed an issue where performing a weapon swap during a trade would sometimes freeze the game.
Fixed an issue where visuals effects granted by set bonuses would sometimes toggle on and off.
Fixed an issue where environmental screen-space VFX were not playing.
Fixed an issue where Iron Golems summoned through a charge of the skill (Ex: granted by Metalgrid) would disappear when performing an inventory update.
Fixed an issue where Iron Golems created by a charged skill would not save between games.
Fixed an issue where players on console and controller would sometimes get the red-flash indicator for health loss while performing an inventory update.
Fixed an issue where the Horadric Cube could not be quick-dropped if there were items in it when playing on console or with a controller.
Fixed an issue where similar items weren’t grouping together when auto-populating into the belt while using a controller.
Fixed various issues when quick-moving a belt with items in the additional belt slots it provides while using a controller.
Fixed an issue where you sometimes couldn’t quick-equip an item that has its requirement met by another equipped item.
Fixed an issue where an item with requirement reductions would sometimes still show as requirements not met when equipped on a mercenary.
Fixed a desync with mana values when the consumption and regeneration of mana happened in a short frame window.
Fixed an issue where Quick Cast would sometimes restore the previous skill to the wrong mouse button.
Act V Dual-Wielding mercenaries now accurately animates two attack swings instead of one.
Fixed an issue where there were no corresponding Suicide Minion versions of the three guest Minion variants. These guest Minions will no longer visually transform into a skeleton and continuously stack explosion damage when whipped by Nihlathak or an Overseer.
Fixed an issue where Fist of the Heavens could unintentionally be used when it was bound on controller or assigned to left click on M+KB.
Fixed an issue where pets summoned by “chance to cast” skills on items would disappear after performing an inventory update.
Fixed an issue where Ravens summoned by charged skills would disappear after a few seconds.
Necromancer
Difficulty penalties for life drain now apply to the Blood Golem’s attacks.
Fixed an issue where Blood Golem was not correctly stealing life from a PvP opponent.
Fixed an issue where the experience sharing calculation for an eight-player party would rarely overflow and award less experience than normal.
Fixed an issue where item labels would stretch and become distorted while the character menu was open.
Fixed an issue that prevented players with underscores in their Offline character’s name from playing a game.
Fix an issue that allowed for character movement while in a loading screen.
PC-Specific Fixes
Added functionality to revoke and undo friend rejection so it’s no longer a permanent rejection.
Fixed an issue where the “/friends list” chat command was being truncated after 256 characters.
Removed the ability to bind the Print Screen key.
Fixed an issue where if the players opened chat after dying with Legacy Graphics active, all controls stopped functioning.
Fixed an issue if a linked item in chat exceeded one line, the item was unable to be selected and shown.
Fixed an issue where if a player entered the lobby, then entered a game, the difficulty selection would be blank upon returning to the lobby.
Removed the scroll bar and buttons from the autosuggest menu for chat commands.
Fixed an issue where if a skill was bound, then the key was removed from the skill binding, the unbound skill would still display without a binding.
Improved the scrolling on the ladder season, ladder type, and class drop-down in the ladder tab in the online lobby.
Fixed a tooltip that incorrectly stated “Show game name and password” to correctly state “Show game name.”
Fixed an issue where the latency indicator visual in the lobby was off center.
Fixed an issue where if the player activates controller mode while in the lobby, the latency indicator visual would disappear.
Skills can now always be set to the left or right slots, regardless of if you meet the requirements to use them.
Fixed an issue where rings were always quick-equipped to the right-hand slot, even if the left-hand slot was open.
M+KB can now quick-equip and quick-unequip items to and from their character and mercenary.
Fixed an issue where dragging an item onto a mercenary’s portrait was not swapping their currently equipped item.
Text-to-speech now uses Voice (installed on Windows) which corresponds to the voice language selected (Set in Battle.net launcher).
Text-to-speech option reads out all chat commands regardless of channel.
Text-to-speech, when reading an item link, will now only read the item text instead of including various numbers and letters.
Added an in-game icon to represent friends who are online playing Overwatch 2.
Fixed an issue where whispering someone in a different channel would not automatically bring the user to the whisper channel with the other user.
Console-Specific Fixes
Character names are now correctly shown in the Game Details screen.
Classic characters can no longer create a game targeting any non-classic content (Ex: Act V) in the Game Creator menu.
Updated the icon on the Game Creator menu to further differentiate from the Search Menu.
Updated the magnifying glass icon in the Game List Search to match the text color.
Fixed an issue where the Ladder Season end message was incorrectly displaying on the front end.
Fixed an issue where connecting a second controller that logs into a different user would cause the game to lose connection.
Improved the Ladder leaderboard loading on PS4 / PS5.
Fixed a rare issue where Unknown could appear in console’s language if language was changed while in-game.
Fixed an issue on Switch where the quest log tab text was being cut off in Italian.
Fixed an issue where the Ladder end time displayed the time inaccurately.
Fixed an issue where dying would disable the Emote Wheel.
Closing the inventory on controller with an item in your cursor will now try to place the item in your inventory before dropping it.
Localization
Updated gender pronoun strings that referred to the player from “his / her” to the neutral counterpart “their.”
Added a prefix for online Uber Diablo messages received in offline games.
Added localization translations for the automap tooltip.
Fixed an issue where the maximum gold in-game text for Polish, Russian, Mexican Spanish, and Portuguese languages were exceeding their bounds in the UI.
Fixed a variety of equipped skill names that were exceeding their bounds in the UI for the Russian and Polish languages.
Removed unnecessary spacing between tabs on PC in the quest log, waypoints, and player stash UI screens when playing with a controller while using the large font option.
Changed the date formatting for Japan to be displayed as Year / Month / Day.
Fixed a typo in the Japanese translations for quick equip and unequip to mercenary tooltip.
Made additional improvements to localization translations.
Stability
Fixed a crash on PC that occurred when resizing the client window while in the lobby.
Improved game join and game create backend request for a smoother player experience.
Various game stability improvements.
Sundering Charms
Conviction and Lower Resist effectiveness will be 1/5 effective even after a Sundering Charm’s applied effects. (This change will go into effect on October 6 once Ladder Season Two begins).
Terror Zones
Fixed an issue where the UI would not properly display chance to hit against higher level Terror Zone monsters.
Fixed an issue where Terror Zone warning messages were inconsistently populating.
Added an indication next to the automap to inform the player where the current Terror Zone is specifically located.
Modding
We have made some changes to enhance the offline single-player modding experience. While these changes will cause compatibility issues for current offline single-player mods, they will allow for further customization options for mod developers.
Added a new file: LevelGroups.txt. This file allows levels to be grouped together for the purpose of condensing Terror Zones messages.
Added a new file: hirelingdesc.txt. This file defines hireling data specific to the monsterclass but not the hireling statblock. Currently it only controls voice type.
Various mercenary UI attributes are now modifiable through data. This includes skill icons, inventory slot backgrounds, and class names.
New AI parameters have been added to the mercenary’s AI for the purpose of removing hardcoding. See monai.txt for details.
Removed hardcoded relationships for beltable items. Similar items are now determined by spell type for scrolls and item type for everything else.
Fixed a crash on controller when using new player skills that are listed after the vanilla skills.
monstats.txt
“TreasureClass1”, “TreasureClass1(N)”, “TreasureClass1(H)” -> “TreasureClass”, “TreasureClass(N)”, “TreasureClass(H)”
“TreasureClass2”, “TreasureClass2(N)”, “TreasureClass2(H)” -> “TreasureClassChamp”, “TreasureClassChamp(N)”, “TreasureClassChamp(H)”
“TreasureClass3”, “TreasureClass3(N)”, “TreasureClass3(H)” -> “TreasureClassUnique”, “TreasureClassUnique(N)”, “TreasureClassUnique(H)”
“TreasureClass4”, “TreasureClass4(N)”, “TreasureClass4(H)” -> “TreasureClassQuest”, “TreasureClassQuest(N)”, “TreasureClassQuest(H)”
“TreasureClassDesecrated”, “TreasureClassChampDesecrated”, “TreasureClassUniqueDesecrated”
“TreasureClassDesecrated(N)”, “TreasureClassChampDesecrated(N)”, “TreasureClassUniqueDesecrated(N)”
“TreasureClassDesecrated(H)”, “TreasureClassChampDesecrated(H)”, “TreasureClassUniqueDesecrated(H)”
skills.txt
“passivestat7”, “passivecalc7”, “passivestat8”, “passivecalc8”, “passivestat9”, “passivecalc9”, “passivestat10”, “passivecalc10”
SuperUniques.txt
“TC Desecrated”
“TC(N) Desecrated”
“TC(H) Desecrated”
TreasureClassEx.txt
“ladder”
Save Data Changes
Some changes to save data have been made in “ItemStatCost.txt”. If an existing single player mod has edited these values, then their mod’s saves may become corrupted when migrating old saves to the new save version. It is recommended to create backups of existing saves before loading them.
“damageresist” and “magicresist”
Save Bits: 8 -> 9
Save Add: 0 -> 200
“fireresist”, “lightresist”, “coldresist”, and “poisonresist”
Save Bits: 8 -> 9
Save Add: 50 -> 200
Text File Column Changes
Developers of existing offline single player mods can remake their changes with the new data, or they can add the new columns before merging.
levels.txt
“LevelGroup”
monstats.txt
“CannotDesecrate”
“NoShldBlock” -> “ShieldBlockOverride”
skillsdesc.txt
“hireableiconcel”
soundenviron.txt
“InheritEnvrionment”
Thank You for Playing
Our team is incredibly thankful for your continued support and collaboration. Together, we have successfully added Terror Zones to Diablo II: Resurrected, injecting new variety into this timeless classic. We look forward to seeing you continue to slay demons for many years to come!
If you want to learn more about Diablo II: Resurrected, check out our website, or for real-time updates, follow our official Twitter @Diablo.
P.S.
We were flipping through the old Diablo II manual and found this confounding inscription. . .what does it all mean?
