The Diablo 2 Wiki
The Diablo 2 Wiki archive is available for anyone looking for information on Diablo 2. All information here is pre-D2R but contains a lot of useful information that is still relevant. Updated sections for new D2R features can be found on the PureDiablo Diablo 2 section

Item

From Diablo 2 Wiki
Diablo II Items [e]
Weapons
AxesBowsCrossbowsDaggersJavelinsMacesPolearmsSceptersSpearsStavesSwordsThrowingWands
Armor
BeltsBody ArmorBootsCircletsGlovesHelmsShields
Class-specific
Assassin ItemsAmazon ItemsBarbarian ItemsDruid ItemsNecromancer ItemsPaladin ItemsSorceress Items
Other
CharmsClass ItemsCraftedHoradric CubeRunesSet ItemsUniquesJewelsSockets
Guides and Stats
CalculationsGamblingItem GenerationModifiersRunewordsQuest ItemsPotionsEtherealGemsBase Item LevelsMisc

The variety of items and the fun of upgrading your gear, hunting for new loot, and specializing your characters for different purposes is one of the most enduring joys to be found in Diablo II. There are an amazing number of items and item modifiers in the game, and items can be normal, magical, rare, set, unique, crafted, runewords, gemmed, and more. You can find a list of all Diablo II items here.


Item Equipping After Death

When equipping multiple items at once, such as when clicking your corpse after a death, the items are reequipped in a certain order. This order matters if your character requires +strength and/or +dexterity to equip all of his or her items. For instance, if you need +10 strength from an amulet to equip your helm, your character will not put on the helm when you click on your corpse, since they won't have enough strength to do so, since the game attempts to don the helmet before the amulet.

  1. Head
  2. Amulet
  3. Torso
  4. Right Hand *
  5. Left Hand
  6. Right Ring
  7. Left Ring
  8. Belt
  9. Feet
  10. Gloves
  11. Inventory (meaning charms, etc.)
  • * Right hand from the character's perspective, so glove side and then boot side.

Credit to Ruvenal for discovering this sequence.


Weapons

In Diablo II, every item has a different range, down to the pixel. Polearms and spears reach much farther than swords, and on down through mauls and clubs and short swords until you reach wands and daggers, which have the least reach of all melee weapons.

In addition, nearly every weapon has a different swing speed, with variety even within a given weapon class. Smaller, lighter swords will swing faster than larger, longer ones, lighter weapons like a club swing faster than heavier war hammer, and so on. This sort of logical swing rate is present in nearly every weapon class. This item swing speed has to be figured in with the swing speed of the character, and of course this speed varies widely between the characters, and also from item to item. Melee characters tend to swing faster than the weaker, mage characters, Amazons are faster with bows or crossbows than the other characters, etc.

Weapons are arranged into classes and types, as organizational systems. This is mainly of importance to Barbarians who wish to use a weapon appropriate to their Mastery, and to other characters with greater skill with a sword than a mace, or item-specific skills, like the Amazon with spears/javelins.


Armor

The range of possible Defense (Armor Class) vales on items is vast, and can be modified by all sorts of prefixes and suffixes. Defense is not the most important stat on armor, for most characters. Melee fighters worry about it far more than ranged attackers, who play to not get into hitting range at all.

There are numerous types of armor as well, all with different possible stats and purposes. Body armor, helms, belts, boots, and gloves should be chosen with care.


Durability and Repairs

When an item you are using wears out completely, it turns red and becomes unusable, but it does not vanish, as broken items did in Diablo.

Repairs are easily accomplished in Diablo II. Just visit one of the blacksmith [NPCs]] (there's one in every act) and they'll repair whatever needs fixing for a reasonable price. Items can be repaired individually, or players can take advantage of the "repair all" button.


Selling Items

Buying, selling, and repairs are made easy by the new NPC interface, where you see your inventory window on the right, and the NPCs on the left, and all items are visible, with their full requirements and whether they are one or two-handed. When you are at an NPC, your items when hovered on display their sell price, and if you left click on an item, you get a pop up yes/no confirm box for buying or selling, while a right click will buy or sell immediately.

The base item has a price, which is adjusted by whatever prefixes, suffixes, or other modifiers are on the item. The value NPCs place on items is nothing like that which players place on them, and worhtless items with silly modifiers will often sell for the maximum allowed, while great items no player would ever part with command a much lower NPC purchase price.


Modifiers

Prefixes and Suffixes are found on magical and rare items, and are selected from the lists of possible modifiers, based largely on the level of the monster which dropped the item.

There are higher level base items, Exceptional and Elite types upgrade every base item with higher damage, defense, and requirements to equip it.


Socketing

Body armor, headgear, shields, and weapons can be found with sockets in them. Into sockets can be placed gems, runes, or jewels, all of which add various modifiers to the item in question. Plain, non-magical items with sockets can be made into runewords, which are special, unique-like items only possible to create by inserting the right number of runes into the right number of sockets in the right order.


Uniques, Rares, and Item Sets

Uniques and Set items have preset mods, though the values of these mods may vary somewhat. A given item might spawn with somewhere between +100-150% damage, for instance. Uniques are golden named items, and there is just one unique per item type, in most cases. Uniques are usually very good items, but are seldom the best possible item of that type. They often usually special items though, with mods not possible to find on magical or rare items.

Set items have green names and are like weaker Uniques (usually). Each set item is of various use on its own, but their real value comes when you wear the whole set at once, since additional bonuses them accrue. Even wearing just two or more items in a set will often deliver a hidden set bonus.

Rares are essentially magical items with more possible modifiers. While magical items can have at most one prefix and one suffix, rares can have up to three each, though they do not spawn multiple modifiers from the same family. You won't get two or three prefixes that add cold resistance on the same item, for instance. You can sometimes find rares with stacking mods when a prefix and suffix that add the same property occur on the same rare. Cruel and Kings both add % damage, for instance.


Item Requirements

These are pre-set on many Uniques and base items, and are also included on some of the higher-quality modifiers as well. Of course there are still strength and/or dexterity requirements for most items.

In terms of Clvl requirements, players seldom find any items they can not yet equip, unless they're playing at a far deeper dungeon than would be expected for a character of their level. Clvl reqs are primarily used to prevent excessive twinking.


Item Appearance

The appearance of wearable items is customized to the character in both shape and hue. There is a "one size fits all" aspect to equipment, but at least items look different when used by different classes. The silver platemail that the Paladin wears will not look the same on the Amazon, since when she equips the same item it will reshape itself to her curves. There are also many in-game graphics for equipment, with far more than the woeful three armor looks Diablo provided. Players can mix and match items to modify their character's appearance, and with all the different types of helms and weapons and shields, countless different looks are possible.

Armor changes color based on the stats on the item, and sometimes socketing an item will change its color.