VARIOUS HINTS & TRICKS

As simple as the game might seem on first sight, Diablo is packed with many very interesting hidden mechanics. If used the right way, these mechanics can be used to alter the gaming experience quite significantly. The following collection explains the most common hints & tricks. If you prefer to rather watch than read such things, I can recommend you the following video. It shows most of the things explained below.

Block Bonus

° Characters in Diablo are supposed to have a blocking bonus: 30 for a Warrior, 20 for a Rogue, and 10 for a Sorcerer. This would be equivalent to a Warrior having 30 more dexterity in terms of blocking ability, and likewise for the other two classes. However, this bonus is not saved with the character when it is saved (via Save Game in single-player or exit game in multi-player). Thus, a character has a blocking bonus when it is started which is lost forever after the first session -a huge loss for IronMan characters.

Evil Golem

° If a character steps into a square the Golem was swinging at (to kill a monster) and the Golem accidentally hits the character, it then treats the character as an enemy and will attack him.

Firewall Trick At Death

° From time to time you will encounter very strong boss monsters, which have a whole bunch of comrades with them. These so called ‘mobs’ can be extremely difficult to kill. Especially, if you are playing solo, such a ‘boss-mob’ can be an insurmountable obstacle. In these situations the following technique works like charm:
The first step is to get rid of all your stuff that you are holding and leave it in town. Back in the dungeon, you have to stand still and wait for the mob to run at you. Now, before you die, cast a Firewall spell (better more, if you can) right next to you. Stay at the regarding place and wait until the creatures have killed you. The monster(s) will continue to attack you, even if you have already died. They will stupidly stay inside the Firewalls for as long as you don’t hit ‘restart in town’. Enjoy your nap on the ground and watch them be roasted to death. As soon as they all have died, simply restart the game in town, pickup your gear and continue your way into the depths of Tristram.

Free Spell Casts
° When casting spells, like i.e. Chain Lightning, people normally only do it by one cast at a time until they run out of Mana. Here's a way to get more out of it. If you keep right clicking as fast as you can, the game allows you to cast a few more spells then you are actually spending Mana for. By experience, I’d say roughly every third cast costs no Mana at all.

How To Access The Difficulty Levels In Single-Player

° Sadly Blizzard has not included the difficulty levels in the single-player mode. Fortunately, there is a nice and easy way around this problem. All you have to do is to start a multi-player game at Nightmare or Hell difficulty and then simply quit back to the main menu and start a single-player game. The single-player game will be the same difficulty as the previous multiplayer one, including the value of experience per monster, gold drops, etc.

How To Kill Players Who Use God-Mode

° In case you believe there is no legitimate way to stop a Player Killer with god-mode enabled, you are wrong.

In most cases -highly depending on what exact God-Mode hack is used- there is a way around this annoying hack. There is a glitch that you can take advantage of to kill those so called ‘invincible’ PK’s. First, hot-key your spells and assign a key to Fireball and Heal Other. Here's the tricky part. You must now try to hit them with a Fireball and then subsequently heal them with the Heal Other spell. This must be done very fast and with the right timing. If you can manage this technique correctly, their hit-points will turn negative and this should even kill players who use God-Mode.

High Level Scrolls

° Scrolls of spells that you cannot read (i.e. Infravision) or that you haven’t read yet, will be cast at the spell level of whatever book-read spell you have selected in your ‘Speed-book’, when the scroll is cast from the belt. A level 15 Infravision will last a very long time, or a level 20 Nova will bring massive destruction.

Invincible Golem

° A bug exists which allows you to make your Golem almost invincible. First you have to reach a negative Mana value. This can be achieved by using the technique described in the ‘Free Spell Casts’ article. Up next, you need to place a Golem scroll to your belt. Now, assign a high levelled spell to your ‘Speed-book’. Finally cast the Golem from scroll. You will notice that he is very durable and will be able to withstand many attacks.

Kill-Counter In Multi-Player

° If you like to know how many creatures you have killed, there is an easy way to record this also in multi-player games. Just create a new character in single-player named ‘Killcounter’ -or whatever you consider appropriate. This guy will keep track of your all time kill-count. If you want it to be accurate, you have to do the following steps for every Diablo session you play:

° Start Diablo, chose single-player, and load the game with your ‘Kill-counter’ character - this will restore the kill-counts!

° Select ‘new game’ and go back to the main menu.

° Select multi-player from the main menu, play and have fun!

° When you're done with gaming, go back to the main menu - do not quit yet!

° Select single-player from the main menu and start a new game with your "Kill-counter" character.

° Save that game. This will update your kill count. Now you can quit Diablo.

Phasing Spell Trick
° For those of you who don't have huge amounts of Mana or aren't really that big on magic yet, the phasing spell can be used like the Teleport spell. Walk up to a wall which you would like to teleport over and right click somewhere in the room on the other side of the wall. Two out of three times you will be phased to the other side of the wall.

 

Random Teleport

° You can cast a spell before entering a level (while it's still loading), which causes it to take effect to where your cursor was on the level beforehand. So, if the stairs down were on the left side of the upper level, and the entranceway below was on the right side of the lower level, you could cast teleport and theoretically cross the entire lower level instantly. But it is very risky to do such a thing, because your chances are very high to find yourself in a mob of monsters. This phenomenon works also with all other spells, such as Phasing and Town Portal.

Remote Controlled Golem

° The Golem is not moving through the dungeon randomly. In fact, there are two factors which influence his behaviour. One thing is, that he will always try to attack the nearest activated enemy in his range. If he is not in a combat or a chasing situation, you can actually conduct him where to go by your characters viewing direction. This phenomenon is also true for the Elemental spell.

Skip The End Move

° All you have to do to skip Diablo’s end title is to minimize the game window. Simply press alt+tab or the windows button to force this effect. Now when you return back to the game, you will find yourself either in your local channel or in the main menu. Depending if you are playing multi- or single-player.

Stealth-Mode
° Get enough -% light radius equipment that you reach a value of -80% light radius. If such little light radius, monsters won’t attack you anymore, because they can’t see the light you give off. You might say: "If my light radius is so low, how the hell can I see where I am going?" The answer, use Infravision scrolls to see monsters and Holy Bolt to illuminate walls. This procedure basically allows you to engage creatures one by one.

The Easy Way To Retrieve Your Gear
° Those monsters always seem to hang around your dropped gear when you have died. Thus you will need to create a diversion to draw them off. Bring your character back to the site of the accident and create a portal. Make sure the monsters there see you. Now run away from the Town Portal (preferably in a direction without any other monsters) taking the monsters with you. Make sure you are carrying nothing. Because when they catch you, you will lose nothing but the free health Pepin gave you. Once they have successfully slaughtered you, hit ‘restart in town’ (not new game!). Now simply jump into the Town Portal, and quickly grab your goodies.

The Experience Leech Spell

° Compared to Diablo 2 there is no regular way in good old Diablo to leech experience points. Luckily there is a way to slightly decrease this problem. All you have to do is to cast the Telekinesis spell at a monster that is getting attacked by another player.

With doing so, you will receive the full share of experience points - same as if you had inflicted physical or magical damage to that creature. Especially, if you are playing as a Sorcerer, this technique saves you a lot of time. With your fast cast-rate you can steal a whole lot of experience points from your hard working teammates.

Turning Around In Town

° There are two spells that you can use in town: Heal and Heal Other. Cast either when the cursor is in the direction you want to face (think Fireball). Now, simply remove either your armor, shield, or weapon and replace it. This will cause the game to load character graphics from the CD. Instead of loading the image facing your current direction, it will load the one facing in the direction you cast heal and/or heal other.

Unhitable When Walking Horizontally

° When a character (or monster) walks horizontally on the screen, it cannot be hit by arrows and all spells, even when fired on the same line of action of the walker.

This phenomenon has no effect on melee attacks!

Zero HP God-Mode
° First make sure you are in possession of an item that gives you a bonus to hit-points. Equip this item. Now either cast Blood Star or Bone Spirit till your character HP reaches the exact same value that the hit-point item is granting you. Now cast the Mana Shield spell and take the hit-point item off. Your HP should now reach 0. The character then is invincible to all forms of damage. Take note, a character with a HP value of 0 will be killed by the Heal Other spell. You also have to be careful before you go through a portal or stairway. If you load to another place with 0 HP you will find yourself dead in the next level or town.