Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

aka: D2:LoD, Diablo 2: Pan Zniszczenia, Diablo II: Expansion Set
Windows Specs [ all ]
(prices updated 9/20 8:30 PM )

Description official descriptions

After the demonic brothers Diablo and Mephisto were finally defeated, the heroic adventurer who has accomplished that feat returned to the Pandemonium Fortress, summoned by Archangel Tyrael. The third evil brother, Baal, has survived by obtaining his Soulstone. He has raised an army and attacked Mount Arreat in the Barbarian Highlands. The protagonist must venture there and defeat Baal once and for all.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is an expansion to Diablo II. It adds Act V which concludes the overarching story, offers a new area with more powerful enemies and six quests to complete. It also enhances and modifies the base game by adding the following:

  • Two new character classes: female Assassin (has access to martial arts, shadow techniques, and traps) and Druid (can shape-shift and summon animals to fight on his side)
  • Companions can stay with the player character for the duration of the entire game. They also level up on their own, can be equipped, healed, and resurrected
  • Additional weapons and items
  • The quest item Horadric Cube allows creation of custom items
  • Runes can be placed into sockets and provide further bonuses when arranged in a particular order
  • Charms can be found and placed in the inventory for various benefits
  • Jewels have random bonuses
  • The player can switch between two sets of weapons and armor
  • An expanded stash for storing items, two times the size of the original one
  • 800x600 resolution is available alongside the former 640x480

Spellings

  • 暗黑破坏神II:毁灭之王 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 暗黑破壞神2之毀滅之王 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

359 People (244 developers, 115 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 43 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 160 ratings with 9 reviews)

All new adventure; all old gameplay.

The Good
The expansion's selling point is its new act, Act IV, set in the Barbarian Highlands, where you must work your way to defeat Baal. It adds a whole new level of gameplay to Diablo, not by graphics or interface, but more fun.

Getting bored with the current characters? Then take a looksie at the two new people to enter the game; the Assassin and Druid. Both have their unique advantages and disadvantages, and both are a blast to play.

The stash has been expanded big time, with triple the capacity. You can now hold tons of items and a huge wad of gold.

There are over 1000 new items, ranging from shields, armor, weapons, gems, and sets. This encourages the player to keep playing so that he/she can get as much stuff as they can.

The Bad
The inclusion of only ONE new act isn't enough. The original Diablo II came with three acts, so I was expecting two acts at a minimum.

The fundamentals of the game hasn't changed. It's the same "target critter, click, click, click, click, dead, loot" throughout the game, with the occasional spell thrown in. A better combat system would've improved things dramatically.

The addition of a 800x600 resolution mode does make the game look nicer, but apart from the new spells for the two new characters, the game looks exactly like D2. The only noticeable difference is the characters look a little nicer and some of the jaggies (pixelated edges) are gone.

The Bottom Line
Lord of Destruction is a great game and should be picked up by all hardcore D2 fanatics. If you are a casual gamer who plays a couple times a week, doesn't really care about what happens to his online persona, then this expansion is not worth your money.

Windows · by JPaterson (9484) · 2001

Brilliant!

The Good
Baal, Lord of Destruction, in a body of Tal'rasha, a powerful mage, was the only one who escaped his doom. As 'we' know from "Diablo II", Mephisto and Diablo were destroyed at Hell's Forge, and there's no coming back from them. And after Ball seized himself, a yellow crystal, he was ready to alter the world as we know it, forever. He set himself on a journey to find that which will make him whole again, a Worldstone, where the balance of power between the good and the evil is stored. That, and the lust for revenge of his brothers' deaths is setting his course for destruction.

Now, for those who had saved games from the ending of "Diablo II", they can easily continue from the point they killed Diablo, the Lord of Terror, as archangel Tyrael will open a new portal that will lead you into barbarian's highlands, a territory with a pretty cold climate. Frankly, I dunno how my Amazon warrior-ess didn't froze to death. Must be from all those slaying and running, adrenaline was high and blood was boiling, so there was no time for being cold ;))

The best thing about this add-on is that it fixes all the bugs I've ever encountered in original game. First, and probably most annoying thing in "Diablo II" was unequal running. Your character was facing north when (s)he was running north-east, or facing south when (s)he was walking south-west. Naaw, there is no such thing in here. And from what I've witnessed by playing the game, they really got a hold onto details in the game. I dunno if there are 8 or 16 sides that character can face now, but it looks pretty darn good, no matter when walking, running, talking or fighting.

Also, they added 800x600 resolution in which you can see more of a map, and everything is a bit smaller (corresponding to that very resolution), but looks more detailed that way, and you can spot monster from afar. Also, I was amazed by the details in original game (that took them long to make, though), but "Lord of Destruction" has something you would never expect to find in a simple add-on. Not only the story is prolongued with really nice touch and dialogues (even in animations), but the music score by Matt Uelmen is now by far more brilliant than in "Diablo II" (still, Town Theme from first "Diablo" is irreplacible), this time, music isn't just to emphasize the atmosphere, this time it's to bring you an experience of a completely self-standing independent new game. And that's not all they improved... the detail level is amazing, trees, catapults, explosions (and I am mostly playing in 256 color mode, because it looks so good as when I use Direct3D or OpenGL, and works a bit faster that way), background images (for example when you reach the end of cliff, you can see background image of a valley covered in snow they probably just sticked to the background texture), fog effects, lighting effects, lightning effects, fire effects and a helluva lot more!

In original "Diablo II" there were five classes to choose, now they added two more, the Assassins, and Druids, but if you plan on playing with any of them, you'll have to start from the scratch. From very own start of first finishing "Diablo II" and then being able to continue with "Lord of Destruction". Hah, lucky I had save-games kept stored ;))

From the intro of "Lord of Destruction" you become engulfed in the game's atmosphere and surrounding almost immediately. It's hard to avoid that (unless you didn't manage to install the game because it required 1.2GB the least, hehe). Through the entire game I didn't encounter not a single creature and/or beast from the original "Diablo II" (except when reaching the throne of Baal), and not a single place that would point as being taken or even slightly copied from the original. Everything's new, and the feeling of playing another game is complete, so in case you never played "Diablo II", but started with this one, you won't miss a thing. Towns, fortresses, caves, cliffs, everything's new. And when I said there is only new set of bestiary included, I didn't mean you'll have to constantly fight only 3 new creatures through the entire game.. a-a-a, no way. There are at least 10 different ones, and that's not including bosses. Believe me, this game is literally enhanced "Diablo II" for everything it lacked.

For those animaniacs like me, there are two animations only, intro and ending one, about 7-8 minutes altogether. But it's the first one that has a role to surprise/amaze you, last one is merely the conclusion, because everything's solved through the game, so don't expect seeing your character against Baal in the final animation, or anything of such potential, but it's beautiful, nonetheless.

The Bad
Hmm, you got something wrong here. What I mentioned above wasn't describing of a game... it was describing of the game's good sides ;)) Sure you don't expect me to put anything under here, do you? :)

The Bottom Line
When I first tried "Diablo II", its CDs ended as my cup-holders. A year later, I semed to've gotten smart... or not, hehe, depending on who's debutting upon this standpoint. However, I learned to appreciate the very game of "Diablo II" even more than I hated it at first. Difference with this one is that I loved it from the start... because I loved the ending of "Diablo II" too much not to eagerly anticipate this sequel. This is a worthy sequel to the game, and I'm pretty sure everyone who enjoyed "Diablo II" will love this one. Maybe they'll think it's short, but that's only because they put their efforts into extending differences between places, creatures and effects, instead of making it look constant but with bigger maps. The did the game alright, that's for sure... except that small catch in final fight... it's too darn hard comparing to any fight with Diablo do far.

Looking this way -- this game is made for the followers or Horadrim and the warriors who wish to test their mettle in the known world of Sanctuary. For those who didn't yet entered the Diablo universe at all, they should better start from the scratch, then getting this add-on. This is a masterpiece, but not in a way of straying away from "Diablo II".

Windows · by MAT (238613) · 2012

There is nothing like D2:LoD v1.10. Nothing at all.

The Good
Note: This review is based on v1.10, which was released in October 2003, after years in the making. v1.10 changed pretty much everything, so it would be pointless to review the old versions.

After three years of playing Diablo II LoD, you can imagine that I don't have many complaints about it. It's easy accessible for any gamer - casual or hardcore - and it's incredible replay value bases on one simple thing built into any human: hunting and collecting. You'll get to hunt down more monsters than you've ever imagined, and what's the point? Yes, leveling up your character (which is now quite difficult since on high levels, you get only about 0.6% of the experience, meaning that you'll take ages to achieve level 99), but most important: collect all the godly items and runes! Build runewords from extremely rare runes to make your character even more godly, get the uber uniques like Tyraels Might (unique armor without any requirements besides of level 85) or Stormlash (unique scourge with really impressive stats) - collect, collect, collect. That's the secret behind D2, it always was. The game itself may be pretty much the same every time you play it, but well, who cares if you can collect stuff? There are hundreds of unique items, and the extremely upgraded rare items which can be even better than uniques (but are even harder to obtain).

Also, 1.10 made the game more fun. All characters' skills now have "synergies" (except for the Amazon, they virtually killed the poor girl and made her unplayable, at least when using bows), making the skills even more powerful (and sometimes too powerful). This means: characters from v1.09 are worth crap, since they are obviously badly skilled now. Skills like Blessed Hammer, Meteor or Bone Spirit were almost laughable in 1.09, but now, they are the best you can use (Blessed Hammer now does over 10k damage per hit with all synergies maximized - and it's pure magical damage hurting ANY enemy, there are almost no resistances against it! Meteor can easily go up to 26k damage... go figure).

There are new items, and a new play mode - the ladder mode, where even more new items are available. Also, you get to upgrade runes (only in ladder mode) up to the infamous ZOD rune, meaning that expensive runewords are not likely obtainable, but at least it's possible at all now. New rune words? Yeah. All powerful, many totally uber - like Enigma, giving you teleport skills regardless of the char you use, or Breath of the Dying, which includes a ZOD but makes everything not only indestructible, but also gives up to 400% damage and extreme weapon speeds. Try this in an ethereal colossus blade or berserker axe ;)

So you see - tons of changes, most of them absolutely great, adding more fun to the already 5 years old game (yes, except for rune words and items, this applies to classic Diablo II too!).

Ah, I forgot the Battle.net service. Still free, still thousands of gamers online, still reliable - nuff said.

The Bad
Well, since 1.10, it has some imbalances - Sorceress with fire skills and Hammerdin (Paladin with Blessed Hammer skill) are simply too godly, the Barbarian and bow-using Amazons are no longer really powerful. Also, some of the best items were toned down, like the Windforce for example. But if you simply go "by the rules" (and play a Hammerdin ;), you won't have any complaints.

Oh, one thing: Blizzard randomized the monsters in Act 5 and put up some guest monsters from Act 1-4, which is very annoying for almost every character. Also, archer monsters are too strong, and the bosses are still too weak.

The Bottom Line
Well, if you have Diablo II (LoD), get v1.10 if you didn't already - experience almost a new game. If you don't have D2, get it - it's cheap now, bundled with the expansion and the v1.10 update is free. You'll get the best action RPG ever, and maybe you'll be as crazy as me and play it for years!

Windows · by phlux (4294) · 2004

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Trivia

Comic

November 14, 2001, Dark Horse Comics published Diablo: Tales of Sanctuary, a comic book that connects many characters from the game, like barbarian, necromancer, and some more, telling three new stories and setting a new quests in the middle of Baal's invasion.

Easy Map

A few days after the release of 1.11 patch, players could see Blizzard's new anti-hacking method called Warden in action. Over 30,000 cd-keys and battle.net accounts have been banned for the use of Easy Map - a utility intended to reveal the whole map. Players didn't really care about the bannings as for the last couple of months Blizzard took no action to reduce cheats or fix bugs in Diablo. The creator of Easy Map, a German programmer nicknamed Netter, infamous for modifying his meph bot to steal user's cd-keys which were later sold on Netter's site, was suspected by some players to actually be employed by Blizzard, hired to create a flawed map hack and thus detect players who had used it. Blizzard denies any connections though.

Patch

On October 28th, 2003, over 2 years after announcing there would be another patch, Blizzard released Patch 1.10 for Diablo II and Lord of Destruction. The patch did not only fix bugs, but add many new gameplay features, made the game a lot harder in hell difficulty and made it much more difficult to achieve level 99 by making it so you could not visit the "Secret Cow Level" more than once and adding penalties to experience gaining. It also added more than 100 new unique items as well as better stats on rare items (such as 400% enhanced damage, which wasn't possible before). Included were new cube recipes, which enabled the player to upgrade their runes even up to ZOD runes. The most important change was the addition of the "ladder mode", a special realm which could only be entered by ladder characters - so it was not possible to move the godly items from 1.09 to that realm, giving every player a fair chance to compete on the ladder ranking list. The leveling curve was steep; about five months after release, there were only two characters at level 99 on the EU realm with a third on the way.

Another addition was the "World Event" - after vendoring a large number of "Stone of Jordan" rings, there was a chance to spawn "Uber Diablo" - a beefed-up version of the original monster - in a random game. Killing it rewarded the player with the extremely powerful "Annihilus Charm", the only unique Small Charm in the game.

The most important changes in the 1.10 patch were play balance changes. The most powerful character skills were weakened, the least powerful ones strengthened. The concept of "skill synergies" was added, making characters that grew naturally toward specific goal skills more powerful than those who kept their skill points unspent until the best skills were available and spent them all there.

The immediate result was that all the players with the "best" characters custom-built to exploit the imperfect balance of skills became much much weaker. Of course, a new generation of optimizations followed, with a new family of "best builds" coming out. But on the whole, the question "what is the most powerful character" now gets the answer "There are many. Here are some ideas, pick the one you like most" or even "pick the attack skill you like most and max out the skill and its synergies" instead of "Do exactly this."

References

On official Diablo II site Blizzard Ent. published information of a monster called Reziarfg. This beast cannot be seen neither in Diablo II nor Diablo II: LoD. It is a joke as Reziarfg read backwards is Gfrazier - one of Blizzard employees.

Thanks

In the Manual, the developers give thanks to several people you wouldn't expect. Sluggy Freelance, Isaac Asimov, and Scott Kurtz of PVP.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – Expansion Pack of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • 2001 – Best CG or Full-Motion Video Cinematics of the Year

Information also contributed by Ajan, phlux, Scott Monster and weregamer

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Related Sites +

  • Diablo II Tomb of Knowledge
    This website provides information on all the special items, skills, characters, horadric cubes recipes, quests, monsters... etc. There are also many useful strategies written by advanced gamers for each character. There is much to learn from this website without being exposed to any kind of spoiler.
  • Diablo Universe
    Blizzard's Complete Support Page for the Diablo Series
  • DiabloII.net - The Unofficial Diablo Site
    One of the most detailed and comprehensive unofficial Diablo II websites on the internet.
  • Lord of Destruction Hints & Cheats
    Using these hints you'll be nudged along so you can solve the game yourself.
  • Official D2:LoD Promotional Website
    Blizzard's official promotional website for Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.
  • Official Web Site
    Blizzard's official web site for "Diablo II" add-on, with pretty much everything you'll want to find related to the game.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 4451

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by JPaterson.

Macintosh added by Xoleras.

Additional contributors: MAT, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Pwa, Vaelor, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, R3dn3ck3r.

Game added July 7th, 2001. Last modified March 9th, 2023.