Update on February 16: We deployed a hotfix that addresses a bug with Assassin Resistances. Please see the red text update below for more information.

You’ve returned safely! Join us around the campfire, Adventurer.

The stench of Hell grows in intensity, crazed snarls can be heard from afar, demons birthed straight from your nightmares surge toward you. Meet them axe first on February 16 when Ladder Season Three starts. We have quite a few updates to Diablo II: Resurrected to share—continue on for a more comprehensive look at what is releasing with Ladder Season Three and Patch 2.6.

Quest Log

• Ladder Season Three
  • Eight New Rune Words
  • Sundering Charms
• Patch 2.6
  • Terror Zones
  • Quality-of-Life Updates and Bug Fixes

Ladder Season Three

Our first two Ladder Seasons for Diablo II: Resurrected showed just how adept your adventurers were at saving Sanctuary, racing to be the first to cement their names on the Leaderboard. All the while striking fear into the tormented hearts of their demonic adversaries in the process.

Ladder Season Three will begin on February 16, ushering in a new opportunity for brave adventurers to race to level 99 and amass powerful loot along the way. We cannot wait to see how the eight new Rune Words will influence the leaderboard, or hopefully, allow new players the opportunity to see their name on it for the first time.

We’re also introducing changes to the availability of Sundering Charms, existing Rune Words, and new Horadric Cube Recipes with the start of Ladder Season Three. More information about these can be found in the following sections.

Ladder Season Three Launch Timing:

As it was with previous seasons, Ladder Season Three will feature four different modes:

For those new to Ladder Seasons, you might be wondering what happens to your Shared Stash loot once the current season ends.

Once Ladder Season Two ends, all Ladder characters will be transferred to their respective non-ladder group. All items in that character group's shared stash go into a new Withdraw Only set of Shared Stash tabs, denoted by a check marked Past box. Any items from Ladder Season One stored in the Withdraw Only tabs will be lost at this time. You will have all of Ladder Season Three to withdraw any items you would like to keep from Season Two. When Ladder Season Three ends, this withdraw only set of stash tabs will be overridden with any items in the Ladder Season Three Shared Stash. Be sure to get any items out before then or they will be forever lost!

Eight New Rune Words

Individually they are mighty, but when uttered in unison, a greater force is awoken—this is the mystique of Rune Words. Call upon these archaic forces to transform your ordinary items into a wieldable force of destruction capable of smiting demonic hordes.

We are introducing eight new Rune Words for Ladder and Offline Single-Player play. Our intent with introducing these additional Rune Words to Diablo II: Resurrected is to sprinkle variety into the competitive meta, creating an opportunity for players to forge new strategies as they race to Level 99. The bulk of these Rune Words focus on bolstering resistance bonuses, while the other Rune Words are centered on movement speed, and Assassin and Druid builds.

Developer’s Note:

• Bulwark, Temper, and Ground: We liked where they were at and opted for no change.
• Cure: Given Cure’s more niche use cases, we opted to strengthen it with the Cleansing Aura. Note that the base Poison Duration reduction on the item went down, but the addition of Cleansing Aura results in a net-buff to Poison Duration reduction.
• Hearth: To build on the theme of this Rune Word, we gave it a bit more oomph to solidify it as a go-to gear option when struggling with enemies who deal Cold Damage.
• Hustle: Most of the feedback we received was around the armor form. The bulk of our focus was to improve that form, but we also saw improvements we could make to the weapon form. For the Armor, we wanted to add more offensive utility and some defensive stats in the form of All Resistances. For the weapon, we wanted to make using it as a primary weapon a more attractive option to increase its viability beyond its pre-buff utility.
• Metamorphosis: We moved in the direction of a slight buff to Metamorphosis. We want this Rune Word to really compete for best-in-slot for Shapeshifter Druids.
• Mosaic: We went all-in on increasing the strength of the Mosaic Rune Word. We wanted to add extra flexibility by increasing the chance to not consume charges from 25% percent to 50% so you can either wield one to get that 50% chance or dual wield for that 100% chance of not consuming charges. We also added an extra effect to how not consuming charges interacts with charge maintenance.

The Seven Rune Words and handful of Horadric Cube recipes that were added in Ladder Season One can now be used in non-Ladder Online game modes.

Rune Words: Flickering Flame, Mist, Obsession, Pattern, Plague, Unbending Will, and Wisdom.

Horadric Cube Recipes:

Sundering Charms

Adventurer, keep a keen eye towards the floor as you cut through Hell’s legions—Sundering Charms can now drop from fallen foes in all non-Classic game modes.

Back to Top

Patch 2.6

On February 15 at 10:00 a.m. PST, changes to Terror Zones and a variety of quality-of-life updates and bug fixes will go live.

Terror Zones

To spice things up further, we have made changes to Terror Zones. Also, Terror Zones are now available in offline games! Offline Terror Zones will operate on a different schedule from their online counterpart but function the same otherwise. Remember, you can now receive Sundering Charms as a drop in offline Terror Zone games too.

The red font text below denotes which new zones may be terrorized or zones that will now be terrorized in unison. Here’s a complete list of all the zones that can become terrorized:

Developer’s Note: Our adjustments are focused on adding more variety to the available Terror Zones and improving the playability of existing zones. We’ve added some new zones, broadened others, and even removed a zone that was generally unpopular with our players.

Quality-of-Life Updates and Bug Fixes

Gameplay

• Auras from another player or a mercenary no longer remove passive bonuses granted by the same skill. Such as Flickering Flame's Resist Fire aura from a mercenary overwriting a Paladin's base Resist Fire from their own hard points in Resist Fire.
  • This also fixes an issue where Paladin's Blessed Aim Aura would overwrite the Attack Rating increase granted by Amazon's Penetrate skill.
• Assassin
  • The Assassin's trap skills now benefit from -% to Enemy Resistance.
  • Please note that the above bug fix went live with Patch 2.6 but encountered an unexpected issue. We have deployed a hotfix that amends this issue for online play. We are currently reviewing the build and will amend this bug for offline play at a later date.
  • Fixed an issue where missiles created from Martial Arts charge up skills would not gain the benefit of +% To Elemental Skill Damage modifiers.
• Amazon
  • Fixed an issue where Strafe was not applying bonus Attack Rating to attacks.
  • Fixed an issue where Strafe was still doing 75% weapon damage after a previous balance change.
  • Fixed issue where the +% Attack Rating on Power Strike was not being applied.
  • Fixed the tooltip for Multi Shot to reflect the synergy bonus.
• Sorceress
  • Cold Mastery is now applied at 1/5 effectiveness after an immunity is broken.

  Developer’s Note: We wanted to bring Cold Mastery in line with all other skill-based elemental resistance reducing effects for increased consistency.

  • Fixed an issue where Fire Mastery's bonus to fire skill damage didn't apply to the additional fire damage granted by Enchant on ranged weapons.
  • Updated the tooltip for Enchant to better reflect the skill's effects.
• Druid
  • Fixed an underlying issue that caused the Druid's Shockwave skill to do an unintended amount of damage.

  Developer’s Note: We wanted to implement targeted changes and buffs for the Druid instead of having a particular Druid build be strong because of a bug.

Terror Zones

• Fixed Terrorized treasure classes for certain super-unique monsters and bosses.
• Fixed an issue where an act boss's quest treasure class would sometimes be used instead of the terrorized treasure class.
• Fixed an issue where the current terrorized zone was not properly marked in the Waypoint menu while using Legacy Graphics.
• Fixed an issue with translations that appear when The Pit is the current terrorized zone.

Controller

• Fixed an issue where skills granted by charges on a character’s alternate slot weapon would have their bound hotkeys unusable when loading into a game.
• Fixed an issue where the Loot to Cube skill would not function if bound to the shared interaction button.

General

• Fixed an issue where pressing the hotkey to open the inventory while loading into the game could cause the inventory UI to appear empty.
• Fixed an issue where the Shared Stash could exceed the memory limit, which caused items in the player's inventory or Stash to be deleted.
• Fixed an issue where the tooltip on the Lobby's season dropdown would show an inaccurate date.
• Fixed an issue where new entries on the leaderboard could display as Unknown.
• Fixed an issue where applying changes to controls would automatically close the settings menu.
• Fixed an issue where changes to controls would not be immediately applied.
• Fixed an issue where swapping between keyboard and mouse input and controller input would reset the difficulty filter in the PC Lobby game list.
• Added an appropriate error message when trying to create an online character with a name that is already taken on the player's online character list.
• The Ladder flag in character creation will now be disabled when there is no active Ladder Season.
• Fixed an issue with a voice over line from Tyrael in Chinese.
• Fixed an issue with the Chinese version of Deckard Cain's Stay a while and listen voice over dialogue.

Modding

• Moved the "% Damage Synergy" field for Multiple Shot (srvdofunc 8) from calc4 to calc5.
• New columns have been added. Developers of existing offline single-player mods can remake their changes with the new data, or they can add the new columns manually before merging.
  • skills.txt
    • "ItemUseRestrict"
  • skilldesc.txt
    • "item proc text"
    • "item proc descline count"
  • states.txt
    • "sunder-res-reduce"

Thank you for your continued support. We cannot wait to see you in the great race to Level 99 once Ladder Season Three begins!
-The Diablo II: Resurrected Team

Back to Top