Patch 2.4 Compendium of Changes in Diablo II Resurrected

Patch 2.4 has a release date of Thursday 14th April 2022. The first Ladder start date is two weeks after on Thursday 28th April 2022.

The Ladder in Diablo 2 Resurrected is a separate online realm of Diablo 2 Resurrected games and characters that runs for a limited time. Diablo 2 Ladders lasted around 6 months, but it has not been confirmed how long Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladders will be. The Ladder is a fresh start, with no previous characters or items. All previous online characters and items will be available as normal for off-Ladder play. Ladder characters cannot play in off-Ladder games and off-Ladder characters cannot play in Ladder games. At the end of a Ladder, characters and items can be moved off the Ladder, and a new Ladder is created.

There will be 4 separate Ladders:

• Classic Ladder — 4 Acts, no Lord of Destruction content.
• Expansion Ladder — 5 Acts, all Lord of Destruction content.
• Classic Hardcore Ladder — 4 Acts, no Lord of Destruction Content, Death is permanent.
• Expansion Hardcore Ladder — 5 Acts, all Lord of Destruction Content, Death is permanent.

As well as the competitive side of the Ladders, for example the race to be the first player to reach Level 99 for each class, Ladders have exclusive content, like new Rune Words.

Summoning Uber Diablo is still done by selling The Stone of Jordan rings, but progress will be tracked per region, not per server. It will be separate for the 8 game types — the 4 Ladders, and the 4 non-Ladder equivalents. Progress can be checked using the chat command /uberdiablo. When Uber Diablo is summoned, he will spawn for all Hell difficulty games of that game type. This is intended to give more players a chance to fight Uber Diablo.

This is a summary of the most important skill changes. Full details are available in the patch notes.

Casting Delays are now separate, and are not shared with other skills that have casting delays. For example, the Casting Delay for Blizzard of 1.8 seconds will not prevent casting Frozen Orb, which has a 1-second Casting Delay. This means more options for using skills that have different timers together, which may lead to new effective builds emerging after the 2.4 update.

The Amazon Bow and Crossbow skills have been improved, along with Spear and Poison based skills. Important changes include the following:

• Synergies added to Guided Arrow, Strafe and Multiple Shot, Strafe and Guided Arrow Damage increased.
• Exploding Arrow and Immolation Arrow damage increased, and mana cost reduced.
• Freezing Arrow mana costs reduced.
• Dodge and Avoid fixed — they no longer prevent other actions.
• Plague Javelin and Poison Javelin Damage increased.
• Fend and Impale speed increased.
• Impale made interruptible, always hits, and slows target.
• Lightning Fury no longer gives synergy to other Lightning skills, other Lightning Synergies increased.

Martial Arts-based Assassins have had some big changes, and blade skills have been improved, to make these less popular skills more effective. Important changes include:

• Martial Arts Finishing moves now only use 1 charge rather than all charges.
• Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail and Dragon Flight all have increased damage per level.
• Attack rating of all Martial Arts charge up skills has been increased.
• Blade Sentinel and Blade Shield Damage increased and Blade Skills now synergise each other.
• Death Sentry no longer gives synergy to other Traps, other Trap Synergies increased.
• Fire Traps damage synergies greatly increased.

The Throw Barbarian and War Cry Skills have been improved, making these builds more effective. The speed of the Leap and Leap Attack skills has been greatly increased, making a Leap-based Barbarian more viable. Important changes include:

• War Cry damage increased, and mana cost reduced.
• All Weapon Mastery Attack Ratings increased.
• Throwing Mastery gains Pierce chance, chance not to use up quantity and chance to replenish quantity on Critical hit.
• Double Throw Damage increase per skill level added.
• Leap Attack Damage and Attack Rating increased.
• Grim Ward now slows enemies and increases the damage they take.
• Berserk synergy moved from Shout to Battle Orders.

The Druid skills have had wide ranging changes, effecting Wereform, Summoning and Elemental Builds. These changes include:

• Druids can now Summon 5 Summon Spirit Wolf, 3 Summon Dire Wolf and a Summon Grizzly at the same time.
• Wereform Attack Speed has been changed to improve performance with slower weapons.
• Wereform Attack Speed Cap increased.
• Fury Skill speed between attacks increased.
• Werebear Damage and Defense increased and Attacks are now interruptible.
• Maul Skill adds Attack speed with each charge.
• Armageddon physical damage greatly increased, casting delay and Hurricane pre-requisite removed.
• Molten Boulder speed increased and casting delay reduced.
• Cyclone Armor and Hurricane can now be case in Wereform.
• Twister and Arctic Blast Damage increased.

The Necromancer skills have had a smaller number of changes, focused on improving some of the less used summoning skills and a small improvement to Bone skills.

• Blood Golem and Fire Golem damage increased.
• Raise Skeletal Mage Life and Damage increased.
• Bone Skills synergies increased.

The Paladin skills changes include improvements to the Elemental damage Auras and huge changes to Holy Bolt and Fist of the Heavens. Changes include:

• Holy Fire, Holy Freeze, Holy Shock and Sanctuary now do 200% Damage at Melee Range.
• Holy Fire Damage increased.
• Sanctuary Damage to undead bonus now works.
• Holy Bolt pierces and now damages demons as well as undead.
• Fist of the Heavens casts faster and the Holy Bolts pierce and damage demons as well as undead.
• Thorns deals flat damage instead of a percentage.
• Sacrifice health cost reduces with higher skill levels.
• Conversion chance increased to up to 90%.

The changes to Casting Delays is perhaps the biggest change for the Sorceress, but several less used skills have also been updated. Changes include:

• Frost Nova, Shiver Armor and Chilling Armor Damage Increased.
• Nova and Thunder Storm now get a synergy from Static Field.
• Inferno and Blaze Damage and Warmth synergy increased.
• Hydra Casting Delay removed and up to 6 Hydra active at once.

The Skill changes above make many builds much more effective than they were before Patch 2.4. MrLlamaSC has created videos showing builds using updated skills.

Extra skills and abilities have been added to several mercenaries giving more options for viable help at high level play. All Mercenaries have had their Stat and Skill gains changed so they are the same regardless of which difficulty they were hired in. Here are the most important changes for each Mercenary type:

• Rogue Archer can now use Amazon Only Bows, and benefit from +Amazon Skills Items.
• Cold based Rogue Archers can now use Freezing Arrow.
• Fire based Rogue Archers can now use Exploding Arrow.
• Because of changes to the Insight Rune Word, Rogue Archers can now use this Rune Word and provide Meditation to the player and allies.

• All types can now be hired in Nightmare and Hell Difficulty.
• The Thorns Mercenary deals more damage and can get a higher level Aura.

• Life, Defense and Resistances increased for all Iron Wolf Mercenaries.
• The Cold based Iron Wolf now casts higher level Glacial Spike more often.
• The Fire based Iron Wolf now casts Fire Bolt instead of Inferno, casts Fire Ball more often and can cast Enchant on himself, the player, and allies.
• The Lightning based Iron Wolf casts Lightning more often, has higher Level Charged Bolt and can now cast Static Field.

• Life and Defense increased, making them the toughest Mercenary available.
• The Barbarian Warrior can now benefit from +Barbarian Skills items.
• Bash and Stun can reach higher levels and the Barbarian can now use Battle Cry
• A new Frenzy based Barbarian Warrior is available who can Dual Wield and cast Iron Skin and Taunt.

The new Frenzy based Barbarian Warrior is very capable, and with well chosen equipment, can survive and be effective at the highest levels of play. MrLlamaSC has created a video review of this new Mercenary, showing how it performs in game.

There are 7 new Rune Words and changes to the base items usable for some existing Rune Words.

• Insight can now also be made in Bows and Crossbows.
• Infinity, Obedience and Pride can now also be made in Spears and Amazon Spears.
• New Rune Word Flickering Flame added.
• New Rune Word Mist added.
• New Rune Word Obsession added.
• New Rune Word Pattern added.
• New Rune Word Plague added.
• New Rune Word Unbending Will added.
• New Rune Word Wisdom added.

The ability to upgrade Normal and Exceptional Set Items in the same way as Unique items using the Horadric Cube has been added.

• Normal Set Armor can be upgraded with the Horadric Cube recipe — Tal Rune + Shael Rune + Perfect Diamond + Normal Set Armor = Exceptional Version of Armor.
• Normal Set Weapons can be upgraded with the Horadric Cube recipe — Ral Rune + Sol Rune + Perfect Emerald + Normal Set Weapon = Exceptional Version of Weapon.
• Exceptional Set Armor can be upgraded with the Horadric Cube recipe — Ko Rune + Lem Rune + Perfect Diamond + Exceptional Set Armor = Elite Version of Armor.
• Exceptional Set Weapons can be upgraded with the Horadric Cube recipe — Lum Rune + Pul Rune + Perfect Emerald + Exceptional Set Weapon = Elite Version of Weapon.

12 Sets have been given improved or additional bonuses as follows.

• Arcanna's Tricks — Additional Mana (2 Items), Mana Regeneration (3 Items) and +1 to Fire Skills (Full Set).
• Arctic Gear — Added 2 Cold Damage per Character Level (Full Set)
• Bul—Kathos' Children — Additional Fire Damage and Defense, Added 10% Life Steal and 20% Deadly Strike (Full Set).
• Cathan's Traps — Added 16% Mana Regeneration (2 Items)
• Civerb's Vestments — Additional Fire Resist (2 Items), 25% Attack Rating and 4 Defense Per Character Level (Full Set).
• Cow King's Leathers — 5 Defense Per Character Level (2 Items) +100 Life and +1 All Skills (Full Set).
• Infernal Tools — Added +20% Maximum Mana and Cannot be Frozen (Full Set).
• Iratha's Finery — Added 24% Piercing Attack (3 Items).
• Milabrega's Regalia — Added +2 Lightning Damage Per Character Level (2 Items) and Cannot Be Frozen (Full Set).
• Naj's Ancient Vestige — 1.5% Magic Find Per Character Level (2 Items), additional Replenish Life, 12% Maximum Life and +2 Fire Skills (Full Set).
• Sazabi's Grand Tribute — Poison Length Reduced 75% (2 Items), +1 All Skills and Damage Reduced by 16% (Full Set).
• Vidala's Rig — 7% Mana Steal (2 Items) and 1.5 Cold Damage Per Character Level.

16 Areas have had their Level increased to 85 in Hell Difficulty, and had the monster density in those areas increased. Level 85 areas provide the highest level normal Monsters, giving the most experience, and a chance of dropping high level items. Champion, Minion, and Unique Monsters in Level 85 Areas can drop any item in the game. For this reason Level 85 Areas like The Pit (Found in Act1 Tamoe Highlands) and The Ancient Tunnels (Found in Act2 Lost City) are very popular for Magic Find runs. The following Areas have been changed to Level 85.

• Underground Passage Level 2 — Found after Act1 Stony Field;
• Stony Tomb Level 1 and 2 — Found in Act2 Rocky Waste;
• Arachnid Lair — Found in Act3 Spider Forest;
• Swampy Pit Level 1, 2 and 3 — Found in Act3 Flayer Jungle;
• Disused Fane and Ruined Temple — Found in Act3 Kurast Bazaar;
• Sewers Levels 1 — Found in Act3 in Kurast Bazaar and Upper Kurast;
• Forgotten Reliquary — Found in Act3 Upper Kurast;
• Abaddon — Found in Act5 Frigid Highlands;
• Pit of Acheron — Found in Act5 Arreat Plateau;
• Drifter Cavern — Found in Act5 Glacial Trail;
• Infernal Pit — Found in Act5 Frozen Tundra;
• Icy Cellar — Found in Act5 Ancients Way.