General Changes

This page lists an overview of changes made in PD2 relative to the vanilla game. Topics which are too detailed for this list include links to other pages with additional information. Also see: All Topics
== Skills ==
All skills have been reviewed and balanced (or reworked if necessary) to ensure each has a niche, and some new skills have been added. The Skill Overview page lists mechanical changes for each skill. There's also a Skill Planner for PD2. See All Skills for a complete list with details per level.
== Individual Items ==
All unique, set, & runeword items have been reviewed and balanced to improve itemization options, and some new equipment items have been added. See All Items for a complete equipment list.
There are also several new non-equipment items. For example:
* Worldstone Shard and Larzuk's Puzzlebox can corrupt items and add sockets to them
* Jewel Fragments can be stacked and used like jewels in recipes
* Maps allow access to new endgame zones (28 total new zones)
See New Items for a complete list.
== General ==
Below is a comprehensive list of changes that don't fit in either of the previous categories. Bulleted points that follow page links are described with more detail on those pages.
=== Out-of-Game ===
* Widescreen support and improved graphics - customizable options like 60+ fps and HD text (ctrl+O shortcut)
* A significant portion of the server code has been rewritten to be more performant
* Volume of menu music reduced to better match other volume levels
* More characters per account (up to 18) and accounts/characters don't expire
* Global ladder & interaction, regional servers
* Lobby games are no longer hidden after progressing to the next difficulty and game difficulty is shown - lobby games can be filtered by name/difficulty/server
* Game name/password/description can be auto-filled and game name can be auto-incremented
* Games now perm in 2 minutes
* Game servers have rolling resets every ~4 hours (for stability reasons)
* Announcements are no longer made every time friends join/exit games (reduces spam)
* Announcements for ladder accomplishments/deaths (can be muted in-game)
* Cosmetic aura rewards for characters who reach level 99 or defeat max-difficulty dclone or rathma in each ladder season; special account-wide lightning-infused auras rewarded to the first 3 of each class to achieve these feats
* Trade site (integrated armory & ladder browser)
* Support for ladder/non-ladder "Battle.net" and singleplayer (including runewords/ubers in singleplayer/non-ladder)
* No support for non-expansion (classic) or Open "Battle.net", but singleplayer characters can still be played together with TCP/IP by creating a virtual LAN between computers
* Messages that begin with "!" will not appear above the character's head (was an attack vector for crashing servers)
* No tolerance for cheating or unfair practices such as botting, maphack, auto-pickup, or real-money-trading (see the full list of PD2's rules)
=== Quality-of-Life ===
* Bigger stash (10x15), cube (4x4), and inventory (10x8, still only 10x4 available for active charms)
* Shared stash pages (9 total per account, 1 personal stash page per character)
* Maximum stash gold increased from 2.5 million to 8 million
* Characters can now hold up to 1 million gold regardless of their level
* Stackable gems, runes, essences, uber keys/organs
* Tomes can now hold up to 80 scrolls each, keys can stack up to 50
* Characters now automatically pick up gold they run over
* Loot dropped on unreachable tiles by flying enemies will now spawn at the nearest ground location
* Customizable item filtering and drop notifications
* Screenshake can be disabled
* All active skills can now be bound to left click
* New "Move Only" skill which makes characters move toward a selected location without attacking
* Targeting monsters has been improved - if you namelock an enemy and it dies you will continue to attack instead of your character stopping all actions
* Option to "quickcast" skills (activates the skill when the key is pressed rather than just switching to the skill) - only primary keybinds will quickcast, whereas secondary keybinds will switch skills normally
* New "help" screen (H by default) which covers some GUI changes - additional shortcuts are listed in the "settings" menu
* Shortcuts for moving items between inventory & stash/cube/ground (shift+rightclick, ctrl+shift+rightclick, ctrl+rightclick)
* Shortcuts to add 5 stat/skill points (ctrl+click) and add as many points as possible (shift+click)
* Shortcut to identify items with Tome of Identify (shift+click)
* Shortcuts for stacking/unstacking (ctrl+shift+click) and separating individual items when a stack is picked up (ctrl+shift+click, ctrl+click)
* Customizable screen info in the upper right that shows zone level and has options for real time, elapsed game time, ping, etc
* Advanced character statistics page (default: press 8), press while mercenary window is open for merc stats
* Inspect other characters (default: press 0 while hovering over them in town), also works outside of town while hovering over other characters or your own minions (Valkyrie, Shadow Master) if you select a skill which can target them such as Unsummon
* Options for auto-partying and auto-permitting corpse looting
* Option to show how much dps (damage per second) the character has done recently
* New .roll command to help facilitate sharing loot in parties
* Messages that begin with .p or .party will only be seen by party members
* New .kills command shows how many enemies the character has defeated; use with one of the following: all, bosses, maps, dungeons, dclone, rathma, ubers, ancients, players
* New .deaths command shows how many times the character has died
* New .played command shows total character play time
* Chat log persists between games
* Stat ranges on item tooltips can be toggled on/off, and shown temporarily by holding ctrl
* Displayed loot can be toggled on/off
* Killing the Cow King no longer prevents you from opening the Secret Cow Level, and Wirt's Leg from any difficulty can be used to open it
* The red portal to Nihlathak's Temple in Harrogath near Anya no longer closes permanently after defeating Nihlathak
* Reduced delay to re-enter town portals (75 frames to 15 frames)
* Antidote, Thawing, and Stamina Potions now auto-belt
* Option to show miniature display for potion status
* Characters can now hold multiple Wirt's Legs and unique charms in their inventory/stash (still only 1 of each charm can be active at a time)
* Unique charms can be repurchased from vendors (if accidentally sold) and several special items can no longer be sold to them to prevent accidents
* Inventory lock button (prevents worn equipment and active charms from being accidentally moved)
* Gamble refresh button
* Skills don't have cooldowns while in town
=== General Balancing ===
* New endgame map zones
* Many vanilla zones have had their zone level raised to 85
* Vanilla zones can temporarily be affected by "corruption" which raises their zone level to 85 and increases the chance for Worldstone Shards to drop - a random zone will be selected every 15 minutes, and when a game is created, that zone will be "corrupted" for the duration of the game (only applies in Hell difficulty games where Baal's quest has been completed)
* Drop rates improved for low-player-count games - "nodrop" chance when solo is similar to vanilla's /players5 but still scales up to a similar level with full games
* Flawless gems now start dropping in Act 4 Normal and perfect gems start dropping in Hell
* Nightmare bosses now drop essences used for Token of Absolution
* Uber Keys are now also dropped by Blood Raven, Bloodwitch, and Izual
* Experience penalty reduced between levels 20-24 so the cutoff is more gradual
* The time between Baal's minion waves has been reduced by 50%
* The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary in Act 2 have wider pathways
* The 3 red portal zones in Act 5 (Abaddon, Pit of Acheron, Infernal Pit) have had their density increased by 40-50%, and Mausoleum & Crypt have had their density increased by 9%
* Lower Kurast no longer has super chests due to their mismatched risk/reward
* Monsters that die from Chaos Sanctuary seals rather than being killed will no longer drop loot
* Running no longer hinders block chance or defense
* Maximum resistances for characters/mercenaries reduced from 95% to 90%
* Assassins start with two Katars, Barbarians start with two Hand Axes, Druids start with a +1 Firestorm Club, and all starting items are low quality
* Amazons, Assassins, Barbarians, and Paladins gain an additional 0.5 mana per level
* Characters have roughly +100% additional starting stamina
* Stamina Shrines now also grant +35% velocity and their duration is reduced to match other shrines
* Many effects (shrine buffs, warcries, "Hit Blinds Target") will no longer overwrite or be overwritten by curses or each other
* Shrines now affect all nearby allies when activated
* Antidote/Thawing Potions now grant +25% to Poison/Cold Resist (was 50%) and no longer grant +10% to Maximum Poison/Cold Resist
* Full Rejuvenation Potions now restore 65% life/mana (capped at 2000 life/mana per potion)
* Throwing potions now decrease enemy resistances by a small amount, and there are new throwing potions for cold and lightning elements
* Multiple instances of Half Freeze Duration now combine to emulate the effects of Cannot be Frozen
* The chilled/frozen debuffs now also reduce cast speed alongside run/walk speed and attack speed
* Attackers Take Damage and reflect mechanics now also affect ranged attacks and deal damage when attacked instead of when hit (occurs before hit, so if reflected damage kills the attacker, the attack won't land)
* Open Wounds now lasts 5 seconds, stacks up to 3 times per target, no longer has penalties against harder enemies, and also gets applied to enemies via reflect mechanics
* Ranged attacks now leech half as much as melee attacks
* Melee attacks have 1 additional range against moving targets and additional range when checking for damage dealt
* Crushing Blow has greater diminishing returns against bosses (act bosses, map bosses, ubers) and the melee reduction is now the same as the ranged reduction
* Deadly Strike and Critical Strike rebalanced to improve itemization by making their power more comparable to other item stats - they now each cap at 75% instead of 100% and multiply damage by 1.5 instead of by 2 (skills have been rebalanced with additional damage to compensate)
* Maximum hit chance increased to 100% (harsher scaling above 95%)
* Permanent summons now persist between games (excludes reanimates, revives, ravens)
* Summons and sentries (traps, hydras) now benefit from +% to Elemental Skill Damage
* Summons (except Fire Golem) now benefit from -% to Enemy Elemental Resistance at 1/2 effectiveness
* Abilities that reduce monster resistances have been rebalanced and now operate at 1/2 effectiveness when above 99% or below 0% (used to be 1/5 when above 99%)
* Spells and abilities no longer share cooldowns globally
* Skills from characters and their minions/items apply "next hit delay" separately (characters will no longer cancel out each other's damage when attacking the same target; doesn't apply to monsters)
* Monsters gain +70% life per player instead of +50% life per player
=== Item Changes ===
* Low-tier pointmods (staffmods) no longer have an upper ilvl limit - items can have any combination of pointmods, provided the ilvl is high enough for each of them
* Useable "forbidden" pointmods are no longer restricted (Holy Shield, Smite, most Barbarian combat skills, Poison Strike on Necromancer shields)
* The chances for items to get pointmods and for pointmods to be higher have been increased
** old chances: 30% no mods, 40% 1 mod, 20% 2 mods, 10% 3 mods; 60% +1, 30% +2, 10% +3
** new chances: 10% no mods, 40% 1 mod, 30% 2 mods, 20% 3 mods; 40% +1, 35% +2, 25% +3
* Pointmod gold costs per tier increased from 1000,3000,8000,16000,32000,64000 to 5000,10000,20000,40000,60000,80000
* Repair cost for superior items has been decreased
* Weapon durability decreases at half the normal rate
* Some rune effects have been adjusted slightly
* Rares now get a minimum of 4 affixes at ilvl 45+, 5 at 65+ and 6 at 85+ (rare jewels now always get 4 affixes)
* Set items can now be ethereal like other rarities
Item Bases:
* Ethereal bonus reduced from 50% to 25% (most exceptional/elite weapons rebalanced so that eth stats remain the same)
* Ethereal items no longer have half durability
* Throwing weapons and arrows/bolts have unlimited quantity
* All claws can now have pointmods
* Clubs can now have Druid pointmods (similar to pelts)
* Daggers can now have pointmods for dagger-related skills (Poison Strike and most martial arts skills)
* Quivers can now be magic or rare
* Melee weapons now deal splash damage
* Staves have 10%/30%/50% FCR as an automod (normal/exceptional/elite)
* Crossbows have 10% Physical Pierce as an automod
* Daggers have 20% Deadly Strike as an automod
* Removed hidden movespeed penalty from medium/heavy chests and shields
* Paladin shield automod "All Resistances" ranges reduced (maximum 30% instead of 45%)
* Kick damage of boots adjusted
* Damage bonus from Strength/Dexterity adjusted for several weapon types
* Base damage for normal/exceptional/elite weapons increased on average by ~4%/~42%/~24%
* Attack speed (WSM) for Amazon spears improved by 10
* Melee range increased for many weapon bases
* Base defense and block chance increased for Ward/Aegis
* Base defense adjusted for chest armors to correspond better to their strength requirements
* Maximum sockets increased for several weapon bases and Necromancer shields
* Durability increased for all weapons
Item Affixes have received several changes, especially for rares. Some notable examples:
* Elemental damage affixes for charms normalized according to charm size & element type, damage increased
* +2-3% Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, or Magic Damage for large charms
* 3 Sockets for rare chests, shields, weapons
* 5-20% PDR for chests, shields; 5-10% PDR for belts
* +10-20% FCR for chests, shields; +10% FCR for gloves, belts
* +10-200% Enhanced Damage for chests, shields
* +1 Class Skills for chests, shields, helms
* 5-30% Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow, or Open Wounds for most weapons
* +301-400% Enhanced Damage for some lesser-used weapons and bows
=== Recipes ===
 Crafting has been overhauled:
* Any base (except circlets/quivers) may be used for crafting
* Crafting with ethereal items causes the resulting item to be ethereal
* Crafted items no longer have higher level requirements than their rare equivalents
* Crafted items and set items can now be upgraded
* Rare items can now be used in crafting recipes
Recipes:
* Some recipes have been simplified
* New repair recipe that uses Zod and works with ethereal/broken items
* Other new & modified recipes corresponding to new items
=== Non-Player Characters ===
* Jerhyn and his guards now always stand outside of the Palace in Lut Gholein
* Deckard Cain now wanders at the top of the stairs in Harrogath near Malah
* Anya will give a regular tier 1 map in Hell in addition to her normal reward
* Ormus will give a corrupted ring as a reward for returning the Gidbinn
* Healing NPCs now remove chill in addition to other ailments
Mercenaries:
* Mercenaries have improved AI
* New Act 4 mercenaries (Horadrim mages) and new versions of Act 1 and Act 5 mercenaries
* Mercenaries can now equip gloves, boots, and belts, and some additional weapon types
* Old mercenaries drop their equipped items when a new one is hired
* Mercenaries from each act now grant auras
* Mercenaries use new skills
* Mercenaries now have the same stats regardless of which difficulty they're hired from
* Open Wounds now deals ¼ damage to mercenaries and pets, and can be further reduced by Physical Damage Reduction
Monsters:
* Duration of curses cast by monsters has been reduced to 20 seconds
* Monsters can now spawn with Concentration, Vigor, or Holy Shock auras
* Dolls have a small delay before exploding when killed, their explosion has a smaller radius, and it deals less damage
* Mephisto can now float over the blood moat in Durance of Hate, and the council members in Durance of Hate are closer to Mephisto
* Andariel and Duriel in Hell difficulty now use the same loot tables as Mephisto and Baal, respectively
* Uber Key Holders (Countess, Summoner, Nihlathak, Blood Raven, Bloodwitch, Izual) are stronger
* Uber Ancients are a new uber boss
* Diablo-Clone is much harder and is now accessed with the new Vision of Terror item instead of selling Stones of Jordan
* Rathma is a new uber boss
=== Player versus Player ===
PvP Changes:
* Skill PvP damage has been rebalanced, and some skills have other balance changes
* New dueling arenas accessible via items which can be purchased from Akara
** Spectator mode can be toggled by typing .spec or .spectate within the safe zone of an arena
** After dying in these arenas, characters revive without needing to retrieve their corpse, and no gold is dropped
:: Note: Hardcore characters revive in the same way - HC dueling can be done inside PvP arenas without risking characters, but character death is still permanent everywhere else
* Maximum resistances are capped based on the difficulty in PvP arenas: 75% (Normal), 80% (Nightmare), 85% (Hell)
* Open Wounds is limited based on the difficulty - it deals 10%/8%/6% of its damage in Normal/Nightmare/Hell in PvP arenas
* Slow, Knockback (from items), Absorb, Attackers Take Damage, Life Leech, and Melee Splash are disabled in PvP arenas
* Stuns in PvP can no longer be reapplied to players who are already stunned, and attacks/hits/spells against stunned players will reduce the stun duration by 2 frames each in PvP arenas
* Regenerating charges (e.g. Blink on Enigma) regenerate 200% faster in PvP arenas
* Life replenish is capped at +30 in PvP arenas
* Vendors within PvP Arenas sell Dueling Mana Potions (other potions cannot be used there)
=== Bug Fixes ===
* Andariel quest bug fixed (multiplayer only)
* Ethereal armor bug (ebug) from socketing recipe fixed
* Council hydra damage against mercenaries/summons fixed (tied to PvP damage)
* Trap bug fixed (traps no longer decrease the number of unique/champion packs that may spawn nearby)
* Act 2 mercenaries no longer crash the game due to Delirium (CtC Delirium was removed from Delirium runeword, so they can't jab enemies as a fetish)
* Mana burn bug fixed
* Jewels with enhanced damage or min/max damage will now work correctly
* Paladin Charge desync bug fixed
* Cloak of Shadows will no longer crash the game at the ancients
* All missile skills now properly benefit from skill attack rating bonuses
* Quest items can no longer be upgraded into Hand Axes (upgrading recipe is disabled for them)
* Lilith can no longer spawn outside the map
* Fixed a bug which caused excess MDR to apply to physical damage if the target's Magic/elemental Damage Reduction was higher than the attack's magic/elemental damage
* Dual-wielding attack speed breakpoints are now always based on the faster weapon (WSM bug removed)
* Increased sprite limit to prevent "Shenk bug" where too many sprites were on screen at once causing things to become temporarily invisible
* Fixed next hit always misses (NHAM) bug which caused the next attack/cast to automatically miss and could be triggered in numerous ways (notably by being hit or blocking an attack)
* Fixed a bug that prevented champion/boss monsters from being blue & purple
* probably many others
: Also see: Bugs