Diablo 2 may be an old game, but it is a very influential title for most action-role playing games that came out after its inception.
For those who did not grow up playing Diablo 2, it may feel like the game doesn’t have an endgame stage compared to other action role playing giants like Path of Exile.
However, Diablo 2 does have many stages of its endgame phase. It might not feel modern compared to today’s titles, but keep in mind, people have been playing this 20 year old plus classic and still remain to do so.
That’s because there are so many things to do in Diablo 2 once you get deeper in its endgame stages. There are 8 different endgame stages for Diablo 2. I can name them, and here are the many different type of endgame content you can do in this beloved classic.
Beating the Campaign on Hell Difficulty
The first one is by far the most basic stage of Diablo 2’s endgame. That is basically just beating the game on Hell difficulty. The moment you complete Diablo 2 on its default difficulty which is Normal, you have now entered the first stage of Diablo 2’s endgame phase.
Hell is certainly the hardest difficulty in the game due to how hard hitting the mobs become. On top of that, they have increased health, there are more enemy modifiers for the boss packs, and you must learn how to deal with enemies that are immune to certain attack types.
A barbarian is ready for his adventure…
You will also have to start farming for more upgrades often if you didn’t do enough of it for Nightmare difficulty, which is the second hardest difficulty in the game.
Playing the game on this difficulty will teach the player to be more aware of how they optimize their character build. Also, once you get to the later acts, the player might have to take things slowly due to the massive difficulty spike because of how deadly certain mobs can be.
Item Progression/Magic Finding
The beautiful thing about Diablo 2 is the sense of progression when you get a very nice upgrade for your character. I consider this stage to be one of the core stages for Diablo 2’s endgame. There are various items people like to hunt for due to the massive power spikes for their character. Players like to do this because there are some areas that can be difficult to farm without having powerful gear.
Sorceress tends to suffer to farm areas like the Chaos Sanctuary due to the various immunities they have to face. However, when acquiring items like Infinity, they can easily farm that location without many difficulties.
Also, when acquiring better gear, you are able to do runs faster which means you will accumulate items quicker than using sub-optimal gear.
The one item that every Diablo 2 player wants to have when starting fresh.
It might’ve taken you 6 minutes to do a full Pit run, but with better gear, you might be able to cut down some of those minutes. Once the player acquires an item they’ve been chasing for months, it’s an extremely rewarding feeling. It’s easily one of the most addictive aspects about Diablo 2, and it’s probably the most appealing thing about the game for long time players.
There is a special challenge within the community called the “Holy Grail.” It’s basically a task of trying to obtain every single unique and set items in the game.
The game features many different farming zones that you can do that all have their purpose for rewarding players.
I have lost count of how many times I’ve done Travincal runs in my life.
Travincal is an excellent location for providing runes and charms. Andariel is one of the best bosses early on you can farm for Uniques to help you survive for the later areas.
The next endgame stage of Diablo 2 is also mandatory for players to get gear that can give them increased survivability and damage efficiency.
The Level 99 Journey
I will admit, I have never gotten a level 99 character in my life. The highest I’ve ever gotten was a level 96, but this is definitely something people like to do once they have optimal gear.
A lot of farming zones does start to lose its appeal due to how powerful the player can steam roll them with desirable items like Enigma or Death’s Fathom. This is where the journey to level 99 becomes an exciting task for players to strive for.
Getting to level 99 generally requires players to kill Diablo, Baal, and Nihlathak many times. That is because once the players become very high level, only those 3 entities can actually give the player proper experience.
This is what the leaderboard looks like in Diablo 2: Resurrected.
However, getting to those endgame bosses won’t be an easy task as they are usually guarded by some of the most difficult mobs in the game. These mobs can potentially still be deadly even against players that are using some of the best gear the game can offer. This creates tension for the player because dying means the player will lose 10% experience on Hell difficulty. 10% experience might not sound much, but it does start to matter once your characters levels start to get higher. If you’re playing on the game’s permadeath mode, Hardcore, you will lose your character forever if you die a single time.
Uber Bosses
This is certainly one of my personal favorite endgame content to do in Diablo 2, and it’s always exciting once you get your reward.
The Pandemonium Event is very similar to second endgame stage I mentioned. Most Diablo 2 players just simply call this event as “Ubers.” The Uber bosses can drop a very useful item called the Hellfire Torch. This little charm will increase your character’s survivability massively if it can roll the right stats since there are a lot of variations of what the stats can be rolled.
The Uber variant of Mephisto might be the most terrifying endgame boss to fight…
However, the Uber bosses are extremely challenging to face if you’re not prepared. Luckily, the Smiter is widely considered to be the best class for doing Ubers, and you don’t necessarily need to have hard-to-obtain gear you do it decently. However, you’re going to need a character that has fast mobility to collect the keys from The Countess, The Summoner, and Nihlathak.
Player Versus Player (PVP)
This endgame is only available for the online multiplayer portion. There are some players that do enjoy the player versus player aspect of Diablo 2.
It’s very much what you think it is. It’s basically an all-out deathmatch between different characters just killing each other for the fun of it. Players like to do player versus player because there are some builds that you can use that you wouldn’t normally use outside of it like a Bone Necromancer. There are also variations towards it, so if players just simply want to only use melee characters for dueling, they can choose to do that.
Trading
This is also another endgame activity that can only be experienced in the online multiplayer portion. Some people do enjoy trading items they don’t need for items they are looking for.
It is an “easier” way to acquire items that you are struggling to find. You might find a nice Necromancer item that you don’t need and you can trade that for Sorceress gear. Sometimes, players do find some nice rare items that aren’t Uniques or Sets and this can be extremely valuable in the trading market.
(Video credit: Coooley)
Because of how the item system works in Diablo 2, rare items can have a multitude of various stats. These items can definitely be helpful for some players for various reasons. You might be able to trade those rares for multitudes of high runes if you are lucky to find something immensely good.
Terror Zones
Terror Zones are recently the new form of endgame content for Diablo 2’s lifespan. They are only available in Diablo 2: Resurrected, and not the original versions. The developers wanted to implement a system to add variety for those that want to level up to 99.
The Terror Zones basically will take a random area from the campaign and “terrorized” them. Monsters will be higher level than the player and this will encourage them to run them for experience gain.
When entering a Terrorized zone, you get some purple tint on your screen.
Another great thing about this system is it also affects the monster’s drop table. If there is an area that has monster levels that aren’t high enough to drop items from a particular item class, they will now if they are terrorized.
Keep in mind, your character does need to be at a fairly high level for this mechanic to work.
This system is an intriguing feature for Diablo 2, and is certainly a welcoming addition to the tried and true endgame stages that players have done throughout the years.
Creating New Builds
The final endgame stage I want to mention is one of my favorite ones to do. It’s also one of the main reasons why I still play Diablo 2 to this day.
Diablo 2 is a game that is rich in build classes and they all have their specialized uses. The game has 7 classes to choose from, and they all have their own variants you can make if you have the proper items.
The game has so many interesting items that players can theory craft and this creates an activity where players want to make new characters to test them out. Not only that, they can also play differently from one character to the next.
Which character to choose? Also, what build are you going for with that character?
That is already enough reasons to try out different builds and see how they will perform in various farming zones.
I never had the opportunity to make a Paladin that specialized the runeword, Beast which allows my character to turn into the Druid’s Bear form. That is something I’m currently interested in doing because I do have items that can synergize that runeword.
The problem with this endgame stage is it simply requires the player to invest hundreds and thousands of hours because you are going to need a lot of items available to your access. You will also need a couple of high end runewords to be able to create some of the more interesting characters.
(Video credit: Dbrunski125)
Those are 8 endgame activities you can do in Diablo 2. Some of them might not appeal to certain players, but there should be some that might be right up your alley. Diablo 2 is a game where you can never run out of things to do. Every time, I log back into the game, I always get distracted by so many activities you can do. Matter of fact, I might go play some more of it right now, and you should do the same. Hopefully, you’ll get lucky and find something cool.
