The first season of Diablo 2: Resurrected Ladder. All about rating changes

Butcher79

April 29, 2022

The first season of Diablo 2: Resurrected Ladder is at launch and includes four unique modes, expected completion times and more.

Diablo 2: Resurrected finally got their first season of Ladder, which unfortunately was delayed by more than 7 months. Ladders was one of the main reasons Diablo 2 was such a successful entry in the franchise. Their continued support for the competitive Ladder has allowed it to have a healthy player base since the game's launch in 2000.

Wasteland Challenge: How well do you know the world of Fallout?

10 questions

I will answer everything!

Consequently, the Ladder ranking system was indeed a welcome feature that Diablo 2: Resurrected players have been waiting for. Although it has been delayed for years, Blizzard Entertainment has thankfully implemented it into the game.

For those who don't know about the new Ladder system, this is a special mode that comes out in seasons lasting 6 months (Diablo II) or 4 months (Resurrected), at the time of the release of which all players start the game from scratch, as if it had just come out: a new level 1 character, no economy in the first moments, an empty private/public stash, and so on. No one is allowed to transfer their characters from “Normal Mode” (without the “Ranked Mode” token activated), nor to interact with normal characters in any way. You can create seasonal characters only in the “Online” mode.

Progress will be recorded and compared with other players on the leaderboard based on experience alone. After the end of each ladder season, the created characters will be moved to the standard servers.

Diablo 1 Season 2: Resurrected Ladder - General Information, Patch 2.4 Description

The first ranked season of Diablo 2: Resurrected will allow players to enjoy four unique game modes. There will be classic and hardcore classic modes that will allow players to download the four base acts of the main game. The hardcore is hard and not recommended for new players.

In addition to the above, the ranked mode has several differences from the normal mode:

More Advanced Enemy AI – Due to the lack of a lot of difference between Ranked Mode and regular mode, Blizzard North decided to add much better AI to all monsters for absolutely every enemy: improved decision making, faster reactions (only on Nightmare and Hell difficulty levels), and etc. The developers themselves describe it as follows: “For the most part, every monster now decides that it is a super-unique opponent.” With a huge degree of probability, this highlight will be left in the remaster and added to the rating mode, since the artificial intelligence after the release of Resurrected was not changed in the usual mode.
New Ranked-Exclusive Runewords – While all previous Ranked-Exclusive Runewords are now available in Normal mode in the Remaster, the current developers have promised to introduce more and more season-specific Runewords with the start of each Season. At the end of the season, all runewords from the previous season will become available both in normal mode and in the next season's ranked mode.
- Guide: Diablo II: Resurrected runewords in the official Russian localization
Leaderboard - The progress of absolutely every rated character during an active season is recorded in one of four leaderboards, depending on the other game modes that affect the character:
- Classic Ranked Mode: The normal Ranked game mode, including the passage of four acts of the campaign
- Heroic Ranked Mode: Ranked play mode with one life, including the passage of four acts of the campaign
- Ranked Mode with Expansion: A regular ranked game mode that includes the passage of five acts of the campaign, including content from the Lord of Destruction expansion.
- Heroic Ranked Mode with Expansion: A single-life ranked game mode that includes five campaign acts, including content from the Lord of Destruction expansion.

In the future, the developers of Diablo II: Resurrected have promised to hold unique events in the ranked mode, but so far there is no information about this.

At the moment when the ranked season comes to an end, all the characters in the rating mode will switch to normal mode (keeping other modes like "Classic" or "Heroic"), the leaderboard will forever remember the results of each character (if the character was deleted before the end of the season, then his the results will not be saved), and in Diablo II: Resurrected, players will have a duplicate of the three general stash tabs, from which it will only be possible to pick up items. If the player does not have time to pick up the items before the end of the next season, then they will be lost forever. After that, the "off-season" will come, and the new season usually begins a few weeks after the end of the previous one. Information about the start date of the next season or the end of the current one can be obtained using the in-game commands “/ladder” or “/helpladder”.

Features of the first season of Diablo II: Resurrected

Although the first season does not have any seasonal features, as periodically happens in the seasons of Diablo III, thanks to the changes in update 2.4, the game will be markedly different from the last two dozen seasons in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Let's go through the key changes. For the official changelog, you can find it below:

General changes

All skills that previously applied a cooldown to other skills with a delay after cast can now be cast separately. For example, if you cast the skill “Blizzard” earlier, then all skills with a delay after the application (“Frost Orb”, “Fiery Wall”, “Meteorite”, etc.) could not be used until the “Blizzard” was restored. Now each such skill can be used separately, since they have a separate and independent cooldown. This change affected absolutely all class skills with cooldowns.
The cooldown of 6 seconds for summoning minion skills has been reduced to 0,6 seconds (Valkyrie, Deadly Shadow, etc.).
The number of arrows and crossbow bolts has been increased to 500, and the number of all projectiles has increased by 50%.
The Horadric Cube has received several useful recipes that allow you to upgrade a variety of set items. In addition, many set items have been buffed and given new properties.
- Guide: Horadric cube recipes in Diablo II: Resurrected

Amazon

Most of the skills from all three skill trees have been significantly buffed, especially Multi-Shot, Homing Arrow, Barrage, Projectile Slow, Impale, and Plague Dart.

Assassin

The skills of the “Martial Arts” branch have received a significant rework: from now on, the charges of combo skills are consumed by 1 for each hit, and not all at once on the first hit. For example, if you have 3 charges of Blades of Frost, here's what each hit will do:
- The first hit will apply frost damage (1 charge), this ice damage is 4m. radius (2 charge) and freeze enemies (3 charge). There will be 2 charges of Frost Blades left.
- The second hit will apply frost damage (1 charge) and that ice damage at 4m. radius (2 charges). There will be 1 charge of Frost Blades.
- The third hit will apply frost damage (1 charge). There will be no charges left for Frost Blades.
  - You can still accumulate charges of various skills: you can have at least 3 charges of Phoenix Strike, 2 charges of Frost Blades, and 3 charges of Fists of Fire at the same time. After each hit, one charge will be removed from each of these accumulated charges, applying all these skills with the appropriate efficiency.
The damage of many turrets has been buffed, however, all skills that previously had a synergy with "Deadly Turret" have been removed.
The three right skills of the Traps tree (Flying Blade, Furious Blades, and Blade Shield) have received significant changes and become much more useful.

Barbarian

Leaping Kick can now deal significant area damage, and received multiple changes to both damage and usability.
Throwing Weapon Master now has an increased chance per level to not consume projectiles, and critical hits from this passive have a 100% chance to refund 1 projectile.
“Swordmaster” now allows you to get buffs for daggers.
“Hidden Objects” now has synergy with “Search for Potions”: for each level of “Search for Potions” +1% to the probability of finding an item (up to +20%). Thus, without properties on items with a bonus to “Hidden Object” and the “Warcry” branch, you can increase the probability of finding items up to 70%.

Druid

The limitation on the type of summoned pets from the Companions skill tree now applies exclusively to Vines and Spirits: you can simultaneously summon 5 Ravens, 5 Ghost Wolves, 3 Dire Wolves, 1 Grizzly, 1 spirit of any of the three types and 1 vine of any of the three types. Also, this branch received multiple balance changes, due to which the companions began to deal more damage and much better to survive.
The Shapeshifting branch has also received its share of love from the class designers, with many skills either improved or buffed, and the maximum attack speed in Wolf Form and Bear Form has been increased to +150%. Additionally, you can use the Hurricane Armor skill in both skins.
The fire skills of the Elemental Powers branch have been significantly buffed, and the lack of a cooldown between skills has allowed the druid to effectively annihilate opponents with different sets of abilities without having to wait for cooldowns from the previous one.

Necromancer

Some minions have become a little more survivable, and the skills of the Poison and Bones branch with magical damage have been slightly increased.
The Curse of Weakness now reduces the damage of enemies with increasing effectiveness per level.

Paladin

“Combat Auras” from the “Holy Cold/Lightning/Fire” and “Vault” rows now deal increased damage to melee targets, gradually decreasing the further the enemy stands from the character with the activated aura.
Lightshot now hits demons in addition to undead. The same applies to charges from Hand of the Heavens. These two skills have also received multiple efficiency buffs: more damage, projectiles pierce targets, and post-cast delay has been reduced.

Enchantress

Of great benefit to the sorceress was the ability to use different skills that are on cooldown.
Inferno and Flame Trail have received some nice additions and improvements, but not enough to be competitive with other stronger skills in this class.
Hydra has been reworked: The post-cast delay has been removed, and the maximum number of Hydras that can be summoned at the same time has been capped at 6.
Thunderstorm has received several buffs and now synergizes with Static Field. The same goes for Lightning Ring.

Mercenaries

All Act Mercenaries have received a huge overhaul, which means that the Act II Desert Mercenary is no longer the absolute best choice for all classes and their builds. This was also facilitated by some changes to the old runewords in update 2.4.
In Act V, a new type of barbarian mercenary was added, which uses a weapon in each hand.
Certain mercenaries can now use class equipment of their type - barbarians can use barbarian helmets, archers can use amazon bows, and so on. Also, they can now receive bonuses from the corresponding equipment.