Readme for the Middle Earth Mod

Vi Tinh 57
57 Tran Quang Khai Q.1 TP.HCM
The Changes (starting with the first version of the D2 ME mod):
We altered so many things that we can't even remember them all :) But we'll tell
you now of the major
ones that you should know of in order to build your character and know what to e
xpect.
General changes:
Monster attackrate was lowered in order to make melee fighting without a shield
a survivable option.
Furthermore blocking of shields was drastically lowered, too. You should now be
able to defend yourself
while relying on high defense rating only. In order to balance this, all defense
rate boosting skills were
greatly reduced. Shields are still useful since they add more DR than in classic
D2 and a blocking rate of
25% still means you get hit 25% less.
Monsters generally have more hit points but don't deal much more damage.
Greater healing/mana potions grant double the amount of health/mana than stated
on screen
Grand healing/mana potions grant four times as much health/mana than stated on s
creen.
This also means your health ball will fill much faster, allowing you to stay in
combat a tick longer.
Stash, Cube and Inventory size was maximized by using Fusman's enhanced stashkit
. Thanks to this you
can now stay in the field much longer and collect all the sets you ever wanted
Town gossip and quest talk was changed to fit a somewhat strange Middle Earth st
ory... (read for yourself
:) Spoken text was removed, because we did not happen to have Sean Connery aroun
d to speak our text.
No XP penalty for death on nightmare or hell difficulty. If you want to be punis
hed more severely for
having your character killed, go get whipped with an angry cat.

Characters:
All characters have the same AR modifier (in the original game, there were diffe
rent modifiers for the
various classes, giving some classes an inherent bonus or malus).

Dunadan (Paladin)
-Zeal is limited to a certain amount of swings to make it a viable level 20 skil
l
-Blessed Hammer does now part magical, part physical damage in order to balance
the hammerdin.
-The single resist auras provide much greater resistance than salvation.
-Might is now the aura that provides more damage output at the cost of lower ran
ge and no extra feature
like concentration has.
-Fist of the heavens improved
-Holy Fire, Holy Shock and Sanctuary improved
-Holy Bolt improved
-Defiance maxes out at +100 DR (because of lower monster attackrate)
starts with: STR25, DEX20, ENR15, VIT25
gains 2 life per level and 2 mana
life per vit 3
mana per enr 1.5

Rohirrim (Amazon)
-Multishot maxes at 6 arrows and gets cheaper with rising level
-Critical strike reduced
-Exploding arrow improved
-Spear class weapons now deal less damage than normal two-handed weapons but are
faster (this was
needed to counter jab being overpowered)
-Impale now improves damage up to 500% and is uninterruptable
-Fend slightly faster
-Pierce reduced
starts with STR20, DEX30, ENR15, VIT20
gains 2 life per level and 2 mana
life per vit 3
mana per enr 1.5
Sorceress
-all lightning damage skills were drastically improved
-all fire damage skills were improved
-all cold damage skills were slightly improved
-Static Field reduced to 20%
starts with STR10, DEX25, ENR40, VIT10
gains 1 life per level and 3 mana
life per vit 1.5
mana per enr 3
Summoner (Necromancer)
-Masteries slightly improved
-Poison skills greatly improved
-Iron Maiden toned down a bit (damage returned)
starts with STR15, DEX25, ENR30, VIT15
gains 1.5 life per level and 2.5 mana
life per vit 2
mana per enr 2.5
Northman (Barbarian)
-Whirlwind is only usable with one-handed weapons (there was no other way - even
with -200% damage
(!!!) this skill was tested as being vastly overpowered. If you don't see this y
ou probably never played a
Spearazon or a Paladin). Mana cost is reduced, though.
-Masteries don't grant critical hit
-Ironskin reduced to 60%
-natural resist reduced to 30%
-warcry improved
starts with STR30, DEX20, ENR10, VIT25
gains 3 life per level and 1 mana
life per vit 3.5
mana per enr 1
Items:
All unique items were changed. Those of you who played our Middle Earth mod for
Diablo 1 will recognize
quite some of them.
All set items were changed.
Both uniques and set items are often high level (mostly exceptional) items so do
n't be surprised if you
don't find many early on. Most of the high level uniques have multiple versions
of one base item type (for
example there are six unique rings) so you have to find one after the other and
keep the old ones in order
to find the next.
Many base items are high level (60+) and thus only findable (and usable) by high
level chars. The same
goes for prefixes and suffixes. It is really worth it to play hell difficulty an
d battle monsters beyond level 60
now.
Due to unavoidable hardcoded stuff you might encounter bosses who drop only a po
tion or other non-
magical crap. For the same reasons chests and the like cannot drop magical items
as well. This is also
true for special chests :(
Gems are slightly improved
mana potions are buyable (somewhat restricted)
Weapons are now more balanced:
-Spear class weapons are fast but don't deal as much damage
-Polearms are very slow but deal the most damage
-Crossbows are very slow but deal high damage
-Lowend Bows deal slightly more damage
-Swords, Axes and blunt weapons deal about the same damage at about the same spe
ed.
-Throwing weapons come in greater stacks, deal more damage and use dexterity AND
strength to
calculate damage
Shields grant more DR than helms
Due to unavoidable hardcoded stuff high level base items with sockets are still
unfindable :( we tried it out,
and the effect of changing the treasure classes to allow socketed exceptionals w
as having cracked items
dropped all over the place even in higher difficulty settings. Not nice.
Drops in general are much more random and mostly depend on the level of the mons
ter.

Monsters:
Nearly all monsters have been changed. In classic D2 the combat values of monste
rs were sometimes
really really strange so that sometimes two monster types of exactly the same le
vel were very different in
respects of the threat they posed to the player.
We equalized this so that a monster of a given level is about as dangerous as al
l other monsters of that
level, be it a huge Walking Tree or a little Orc.
In classic D2 each monster has a 20% chance to drop anything per player, with a
cap at 95%. That meant
that if 5 or more players were in the game nearly every monster would drop somet
hing.
In the mod monsters have a 25% chance to drop something for the first player and
+5% per additional
player with a cap at 40%.

Gambling
Unlike in the original game, it is now no longer certain that you always get one
unique or set item when
gambling for all available items. It can be the case that you get only standard
magical items. Well, since
nobody EVER does gamble for all items (or do you ?), this in the overall view (h
undreds of games) simply
means that you have slightly lower chances of gambling a unique item. You cannot
gamble for exceptional
items, because otherwise it would have been possible to gamble the best items in
the game. We want you
to find them from monsters, while actually playing the game.

Changes in version 1.3 (for Diablo2 "classic"):

Items
Throwing weapons (mostly the low level ones) have their damage toned down slight
ly
All blunt weapons are one level slower to compensate for the "+50% damage vs und
ead" effect (there are
a lot of undead monsters in our mod, so this is a really nice effect)
Grand Healing and Grand Mana potions are only buyable in Hell difficulty
Ring and amulet drop chance slightly increased
The piercing affix on some set and unique bows is fixed
Attack speed of a unique dwarven xbow fixed
Crushing blow will remain on bows, because it works in the xpack (according to t
esters), and we definitely
will carry the mod over to the xpack, and the bows will then work there :)
Gems other than diamonds now provide more single resistances (up to ~45%)
Blade and Double-Axe damage improved

Skills
Static Field mana cost rises with level (this is to limit the range (if you do n
ot learn to a high level) or to
limit the amount you can cast (if you learn to a high level). In other words, a
nerf. But you can decided for
yourself in which way you want to be nerfed, range or mana cost :)
Sorceress cold spells damage reduced to classic D2's values (25% reduction to th
e last ME mod version).
Cold skills were good the way they originally were, as we found out.
Lightning skills that deal "1-x" damage have their max damage greatly increased
(Lightning maxes at ~750
and Chain lightning at ~500). Since we cannot change the "1-x" to "y-x", we can
at least raise the average
damage the skill deals.
Lightning and chain lightning are uninterruptable
Lightning mastery slightly increased (sorry that was all that was possible :) )
Whirlwind now grants +60% damage at level 20 instead of 0%. Should satisfy the N
orthman players.
Warcry stunlength reduced again somewhat.
Monsters
Saruman and some other set bosses now do no longer have abilities that made them
a major nuisance
The Witchking now has the correct eight minions he should have
Balrogs are immune to revive and conversion
Project "no more walk in the park":
Normal difficulty monsters have their attackrate increased by 50%, their defense
rate by 25% and their
damage by 25%
Nightmare difficulty monsters have their attackrate increased by 25%
Hell difficulty monsters have their damage increased by 25% and their XPs increa
sed by 20%
Monster density at end of acts slightly increased to prevent characters from ent
ering areas with high level
monsters too early (e.g. level 30 chars fighting in NM/4)
Spike fiends firing range reduced
Several AIs of monsters improved (from the monsters point of view :) )
Guldur Demon types fixed (they use two attacks but had all values for the second
one (double arm attack)
set to 0 )
Increased attackrate of all archers (monsters), in addition to the AR improvemen
t above.
Some "new" monsters (sorry no new Balrogs or Dragons :) working still on them )
Misc
Shops now sell more diverse and random items. Also removed some overpowered item
s from early acts
like tower shields in act 2.
Ranged weapons and mostly lighter armor and weapons are sold by Ted Sandyman, Ba
rliman, Stybba
and Eowyn while the other shopkeepers sell the heavy duty stuff.
Resistance penalty in nightmare is now 25% and in hell 60% (just to prepare you
for the expansion :) )
Cowlevel disabled - we are sorry but we could not prevent the cowking from dropp
ing illegal (for his level)
uberitems, however hard we tried. He seems to use some fixed drop routines. Goll
um's leg is now not
usable anymore which effectively prevents you from entering the cowlevel. No, yo
u do not want to know
what would be there now :)
Several string fixes
max volume of music raised (only a "nice to have" feature - you can still adjust
the volume via the sliders
in the menu, but now it is possible to have the music louder than before - set t
he slider to halfway to get
ca. the old volume level)
Notes
The item drop rate in some area / difficulty combinations is lower than it shoul
d be. We have tracked down
the reason for this but unfortunately a fix would be rather complicated. The rea
son is that the game seems
to use a very limited number of retries when the randomly chosen item is too hig
h level for the dropping
monster. To prevent this, we would have to create dozens of new lists (called tr
easureclasses) and
honestly, we are not very eager to do so since this problem occurs only in the f
irst act of normal difficulty.

Changes in version 1.4 (Diablo2 classic):

Skills:
We found out that the players complaining about the Sorceress' cold skills doing
too much damage were
Uberplayers. The skills NEED to do that much damage, else the game gets far too
tedious. All other
classes have their damage improved (skills, items), so the Sorceress needs highe
r damage, too. If the
game is too easy for you, play a variant. Too many players complained about the
game being a bit too
hard.
Sorceress' armor skills now do a max 150% DR bonus instead of 100% (as an exchan
ge for not being
able to wear the highest DR items and not having a decoy etc.)
Valkyrie now has less hit points (is now like a monster lvl 30/50/70 in slvl 1)
Concentration now gets 75% uninterruptable to make it more interesting
Items:
Rings and Amulets are now buyable from the usual staff/wand sellers. They are re
latively expensive (and
thus give lots of money when selling). To keep game balance (money), this means
that you now can no
longer find rings/amulets in normal difficulty act 1 (but you still get the Cain
quest reward ring).
The chance for finding exceptional items has been improved slightly
2-H axes and mauls have range +1, the best axes (Giant Axe/Moria Axe) have range
+2.
Dunish Spear, Pike, Rohirric Lance and Elven Lance have their range increased by
one.
Blocking of exceptional shield has been modified.
Monsters:
No monster has 100% immunity to anything, max is 90%
"Breeding frequency" in the Maggot Lair has been decreased a bit (due to our imp
roved monsters, you
could get into quite a mess down there)
Classes:
Summoner and Sorceress now have improved attack speed and hit recovery (they are
still a bit worse
than the "combat" classes, but IMHO the differences in combat should come from s
kills/attributes, not from
inherent weaknesses
Dunandan has the same bow attack speed as the Northman
General:
Item drops have been redone completely. Generally speaking, there is a new treas
ure class every five
levels (for monsters), which should cause the item drops to be more in line with
where you play. This has
the effect that at the beginning of an act, the drops are a bit worse than at th
e end (because the first
monsters can not drop all the items possible in that act). But overall, drops sh
ould be more interesting and
useful. Of course this also means that there still is a chance of monsters dropp
ing crap, but that is
intentional (you cannot only find great items ...)
Changes in 1.5 (still Diablo2 classic):
Needs Diablo II v1.06b
Monsters:
New Monster Guardian Balrog replaces Balrogs (GBs are about as tough as former B
alrogs)
Gothmog is now boss of Guardian Balrogs rather than Balrogs. Beware the inferno
of Balrogs.
Balrogs are more dangerous now and randomly seeded.
Skills:
Valkyrie re-improved a bit. It seems the game ignored some of our new values and
thus the Valkyrie
became rather weak. She now maxes out at ~750 HP and should be able to deal cons
iderable amounts of
damage.
Elemental Arrows and Throwing skills of the Amazon changed back to "always hit".
Items:
All kind of mana pots (lesser to grand) are now buyable at the shops. This was t
he only way to have
greater/grand mana pots in the shops at higher difficulties.
All Crossbows are now one level faster but still one level slower than equal bow
s.
Damage of crossbows adjusted.
Attack speed of spear-class weapons increased.
General:
You can now check your version at the title screen.

Changes in 1.6 (Diablo2 classic):

Monsters:
Terror Brood/Morgul Spawn and Angband Brood tougher (raised HP, AR and number)
Guardian Balrogs no longer immune to revive and conversion
The toughest monster have an additional 5% drop bonus for items (Melkoric Vampir
es, Brood of
Ungoliant, Fallen Maia, Nazgul and Balrog)
Skills:
No more prerequiste skills! (We do not consider it cheating if you use a trainer
program like Jamella's to
remove never used prerequisite skills on your old ME chars and use these skill p
oints otherwise, but Clans
and Guilds might). This means that you can buy any skill in one of your trees as
soon as you have
reached the necessary character level, without having to buy lower level skills
first. The game still checks
skill lvl / char lvl difference, though - you cannot save up 10 skill points and
invest them into chain lightning
as soon as you reach the necessary char lvl, you have to buy the points one by o
ne each lvl.
Slow Missiles fixed (was getting worse with increasing slvl)
Pierce slightly reduced in effectiveness
Decoy now has double HP of caster
Elemental and poison skills of Rohirrim improved
Double Throw toned down (no AR bonus and increased cost - should still be overpo
wered :)
Tunderstorm castable in town / telekinesis disabled in town
Non-aggressive warcrys are enabled in town
(both to prepare yourself before leaving town)
Vengeance damage slightly reduced and AR bonus increased (25 and +5 per level)
Might and Concentration bonus lowered - attack skills of Dunadan adjusted accord
ing (lvl 20 zeal and lvl
20 might still result in the same damage as before for example). This change is
to make other auras more
viable.
Multishot reduced to 5 arrows and cost increased - sorry but this skill should n
ot be effectively usable at
slvl 1, you should have to invest into it to make it powerful
Items:
Non-sword/non-bow two-handed weapons speed increased
Mauls and two-handed axes have range 2 (0 = no range)
Some unique item bugs fixed. Guess this will never end :-)
Repeating and Dwarven Xbows faster (now actually faster than bows)
Scepters, wands and staff damage improved.
gems slightly improved
Some high end unique items have their damage boosted to make them useful (a high
end unique weapon
is useless if it does not do enough damage, even if the other attributes are ver
y good)
General:
Fast/er/est cast items toned down (halved)
+%DR (glorious, awesome etc) improved / DR of body armor increased slightly / bl
ocking slightly reduced.
This is to make non-shield melee fighting possible and avoid the "you are less p
owerful if you do not use a
shield" situation.
Droprate increased: 35% for a single player / +5% per additional player / capped
at 50% / droprate of
exceptionals in Maiar and Valar difficulty increased.
Some affixes changed to make midlevel ones (30-60) more viable
resistance malus in Maiar/Valar difficulty returned to old value (-25/-50) - aft
er all it is difficult enough to
gain positive resistances in Valar difficulty

Changes in 1.8 (Diablo2 classic):

General:
Sorry, no more .d2m version
We ported many of the new features of Blizzard's 1.08 patch, but not everything.
NOT ported were:
SF nerf. SF minimizes monster HP to 10% / 20% in Maiar and Valar diff resp. (ins
tead of 33%/50%)
50% physical damage resist for all hell diff monsters
higher monster levels in NM and hell
casting delays
walk/run speed nerf
the mod is also playable in 800x600 mode. For this, you have to provide a new re
gistry key (dword entry
"resolution" with the value "1" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Software, Blizzard Entert
ainment, Diablo II).
Simply double click the provided registry file (in the zip) which permanently se
ts the game to 800x600
mode. Note that this is more or less a hack, so it COULD cause some problems (ha
s not yet for us), and
you need a pretty powerful machine to run that mode. To go back to 640x480, run
regedit, click through to
the key mentioned above and simply remove it.
hirelings are slightly boosted (vs CD2 1.08) and cheaper
Skills:
We did make use of some of the new skill features:
fanaticism slightly increases damage
concentrate and frenzy add damage
lightning mastery increases damage
75% damage for multishot (hardcoded)/ 6 arrows per shot again and reduced cost
many skills should now have more of an increase with higher skill levels than wi
th low ones
zeal has 2-6 swings
holy shock adds lightning damage to attack (1-350 at slvl 20)
Masteries have a chance of critical hit again
some other Northman skills (like Natural Resist and Iron Skin) have been improve
d
Items:
we use the new itemdrop system, thus item drops are now even more various. You m
ight find a studded
leather from a monster in Valar/4 and the next monster of the same type drops an
Elven Royal Mail. This
also means more frequent ring and gem drops and more rare/set/uniques of act end
bosses (theoretically
:) )
4 new sets
Vendors in Maiar and Valar now buy items for more money (Maiar 35K, Valar 50K)
baseitems all have a level requirement of 75% of their level now
set and unique items found from now on also have level requirements
arrows/bolts now are only stackable up to 500 because any number higher than 511
would crash the
game

Changes for Lord of Destruction (1.0)

This mod is not new from scratch but "just" the Middle Earth Mod for Diablo 2 po
rted to the expansion set.
There will be no more new mod versions for classic Diablo 2
This mod includes some changes and new features which are listed here:
General:
There are 9 crafting recipes
Attack weak: Magic Weapon + Jewel + Man Rune
Attack normal(only from Maiar onwards): Magic Weapon + Jewel + 2 Kir Runes
Attack good(only Valar): Magic Weapon + Jewel + Kir Rune + Ereg Rune + Sereg Run
e
Defense weak: Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + Anna Rune
Defense normal(only from Maiar onwards): Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + 2
Thol Runes
Defense good(only Valar): Magic Armor, Helm or Shield + Jewel + Thol Rune + Curu
Rune + Tin Rune
Surprise weak: Amulet + Jewel + 5 Er Runes
Surprise normal(only from Maiar onwards): Amulet + Jewel + Ram Rune + Fea Rune
Surprise good(only Valar): Amulet + Jewel + Ram Rune + Fea Rune + Amarth Rune
Resistance penalty is -35 in Maiar diff and -60 in Valar diff
There is no global physical resistance in Valar diff (only bosses can be spawned
with physical immunity)
There are no Runewords besides that of Act5 quest.
Hirelings do 50% damage to bosses.
Items:
Elite Items can have inherent abilites. Armors have reduced damage% and weapons
can have deadly
strike based on character level.
Many exceptional uniques are also available in elite version.
Throwing weapons damage is modified by dexterity and strength with each 50% (mel
ee weapons 100%
strength)
In Maiar difficulty you can buy exceptional high end items (ask Blizzard why tha
t is not available in hell
diff...)
re-implemented formerly deleted weapons and armor base items (Gothic Plate, Brea
st plate, Bastard
Sword, Morning Star etc.)
exceptionals may be gambled for. If an item is exceptional or elite is only seen
after it is purchased.
Whether an item can be exceptional or elite is determined by player level.
rare and unique items should drop more often
rings and amulets could not be removed from the gamble screen, thus we made them
too expensive to
gamble (you should not be able to gamble them at all)
the level of runes is the same as their level requirement (as in classic LoD)
Monsters:
Dragons are dangerous :)
Pain Worm type monsters have high physical resist.

Characters/skills:
general adjusting of Beorning and Dark Elf skills to the ME environment.
Beorning's elemental attacks improved
Summoner's poison attacks improved
Northman's whirlwind and berserk improved
Static field stops at 10% in maiar and 20% in valar diff
Beorning life per level 2, life per vit 2.5, mana per level 2, mana per energy 2
Dark Elf life per level 2, life per vit 3, mana per level 2, mana per energy 1.5

Changes in Version 1.2 (LoD):

Monster level transition between difficulties smoothened. Monsters in act1 maiar
are now level 35-40 (in
act 2 maiar they are 39-45) and in valar act 1 they are level 60-65 (in act 2 va
lar they are 64-70).
Monster resistances modified. This mainly affects lower act5 since many monsters
there were forgotten
and had 0 resists.
Runes Thoron, Amarth, Khelek and Thalion renamed to Thor, Amar, Khel and Thal. T
his might not be
linguistically correct but since rune names are restricted to 5 letters this is
probably the best way
(introducing new names from scratch is irritating).
fixed some bugs with rune words and unique items.
Rune words:
Weapons:
1. Man Curu Gurth
2. Kir Ang Sul
3. Ereg Sereg Ur Thal
Armour:
1. Anna Tir Maeg
2. Thor Ang Sul
3. Fea Sereg Beleg
added 22 class-specific uniques
Melee/Cold attack of Sauron Reborn toned down
modified many skills (mainly improving underpowered low level skills) this inclu
des:
Impale (no durability loss)
magic arrow
fire arrow
cold arrow
firebolt
icebolt
inferno
blaze
thunderstorm and charged bolt slightly toned down (a level 20+ charged bolt is s
till viable against even
Valar Monsters!)
chilling armor damage
shiver armor damage
poison creeper
spirit of barbs
rabies
maul
firestorm
molten boulder
blade sentinel
shock web
fireblast
charged bolt sentinel
wake of fire
blade fury
lightning sentry
blade shield
cloak of shadows
psychic hammer
fists of fire
Many of the damage improvements only apply to the upper skill levels. A level 25
Firebolt might now be a
valid option over fireball for example.

Changes in Version 1.3B (LoD):

Added support for german version (texts will show up in english but you no longe
r need an english
D2lang.dll if you play with the german version of LoD)
Shopkeepers sell more different items (previously especially boots were rare sin
ce they are listed last in
the list the game uses to decide what to offer and some shopkeepers ran out of p
lace)
The three sorceress masteries are now level 1 (to give those sorcs who want to s
pecialize in high level
spells something to spend their skill points in at early levels)
The resists of all monsters are now more equally distributed. Previously the dis
tribution was very much
towards cold resist (about 1:1,3:2,5 Lightning:Fire:Cold). It is now nearly 1:1:
1
Class-specific item drops are rarer, they were dropped far too often which was p
retty annoying.
Slow Missiles starts with 50% (was 30%)
Strafe slightly faster and range increased
Mulishot shoots 7 arrows (was 6)
Rohirrim class specific items may have +Rohirrim skills
Drops of Bosses, Champions and Act-end bosses should be better now
Rare items drop slightly more often
Rarities of unique items fixed
Items with +single skills affixes cheaper (mainly class specifics like Assassin
Claws)
Rabies manacost lowered, duration increased slightly.
Physical Damage of Blessed Hammer fixed
Wraith-type monsters damage reduced
Exceptional high-end items are no longer available at shops in nightmare diff (w
e tried to move that
feature to hell diff but it doesn't seem to work there)
Added some new affixes with multiple effects. These are only available on magic
items (not rares)
Superunique bosses (those that are always set in the same area) now always drop
2 of either amulet,
ring, jewel or charm. This is because for some reason they often drop very very
low level crap (that's an
unresolved bug from classic D2LoD)
Gothmog, Glaurung and some other superunique bosses that must be killed to conti
nue through the acts
are toned down so that they are no complete "stoppers"
Charged Bolt toned down (should still be a viable option but not multiple times
more efficient than
highlevel skills)
New cube recipe to create runes #10 to #20: 5 runes of one type => 1 rune of t
he next type
New cube recipes to socket normal items and to make normal items from magic ones
:
Magic item + 3 jewels = the same item in normal form (not available for jewels,
amulets, rings and charms)
Normal item + perfect gem = 1 socket in that item
Normal item + 2 perfect gems = 2 sockets in that item
Normal item + 4 perfect gems = 3 sockets in that item
Normal item + 8 perfect gems = 4 sockets in that item
Normal item + 16 perfect gems = 5 sockets in that item
Normal item + 32 perfect gems = 6 sockets in that item
(normal means normal, no socketed or superior items are allowed)
See Cubes'n'Runes.rtf for more details

Changes in Version 1.4 (LoD):

Charged Strike toned down (fixed 10 bolts instead of up to 42)
Immolation Arrow less explosion damage and casting delay of 1 second
Whirlwind now works with two weapons but got damage bonus decreased to max 100%
(was 200%)
also WW now always hits (like it does in CLoD). This had to be taken over from C
LoD to counter a bug
that caused you to become immobile.
Leap bug (hopefully) fixed
Bash damage increased
Concentration Damage increased
Lightning Strike damage increased
All Spells now rise in damage non-linear. That means for example a Fireball will
increase in damage by 9
in early skilllevels (1-8), in midlevel it will increase by 17 and from level 15
upwards it will rise by 24. That
way even a highlevel magic user can improve his damage output by finding items w
ith +skills
Amulets and Rings are now available for gamble again at a reasonable price (chan
ces to get uniques or
sets via gambling seem to be near zero)
+skill affixes for invalid charclasses on classspecific items should now no long
er spawn
Staffs, scepters and wands drop slightly less often (these items are inbetween n
ormal items and
classspecific items - thus they are practically unusable by most chars)
Affixes with +AC per characterlevel slightly decreased
Affixes with +%AC per characterlevel slightly increased
(applies only to newly spawned items)
Number of Sockets changed for some items to make them have the same amount of so
ckets in normal,
exceptional and elite form. Check the updated socket list in this readme. No ite
m should have less sockets
than before (if so report it)
Sauron Reborn's Fire blast attack severly toned down.
Mumakil-type stomp attack slightly toned down
Added five new monsterclasses, derived from Druid's summons and Ancient Barbaria
ns graphics.
Regeneration rate of most monsters toned down
Resistances of Valar diff monsters toned down to those of Maiar diff (after all
its already a percentage)
Some set items and many unique items improved. This only applies for newly spawn
ed items
New crafting recipes (see cubesnrunes.txt)
Droprate of exceptional and elite items slightly toned down
Monster density in Angband slightly decreased to avoid stairtraps
Experience for Maiar and Valar difficulties reduced by 25% (getting level 75 and
becoming
Patriach/Matriarch without having to repeat anything at all might be nice but ki
lls longevity)
Valar diff monsters +25% HP
Added three new sets and ten new uniques, mostly consisting of elite baseitems.

Changes in Version 1.4B (LoD):

(this version is needed for Blizzard's Patch 1.09c)
Some super unique monsters like Bert (the smith) or the Council of Dol Guldur dr
opped way too good
base items. This has been fixed
Charms are somewhat less powerful and more rare.
Super unique monster that formerly dropped two rings/amus/charms/jewels now only
drop one of these
items.
The quest reward for the fifth quest in act 5 got reduced somwhat:
Formerly you gained 1.4 mio XP in Eldar, 20 mio in Maiar and 40 mio in Valar. Th
is got reduced to 1 mio,
10 mio and 30 mio. (Gaining 5 levels with a level 47 character only by killing t
hose three guys was
definitely unbalanced) .
The Imp type monsters are spawned a bit less often. They still are found often,
because they seem to be
hardcoded to spawn with the siege structures of act 5 and with the Mumakil type
monsters.

Changes in Version 1.4D (LoD):

Dropbugs hopefully fixed :)

Changes in Version 1.5 (LoD):

(this version is needed for Blizzard's Patch 1.09d)
Diablo 1 Blood Knight Monster models used for four new act 5 monsters (thx to Fo
xbat)
Magic item drops from normal monsters slightly more frequent
Baseitemdrop ratio "smoothened": high-end baseitems (70+) slightly rarer, mid- a
nd lowlevel baseitems
more frequent and transitions between the different Treasureclasses more smooth
(formerly there were
several sudden increases and decreases between those).
This should result in a decrease in very low level items from highlevel monster
s (such as clubs or leather
armors from Valar diff Balrogs).
If you don't know what we are talking about, don't worry - it's nothing major.
Decreased the dropping of gems (especially chipped ones).
Maggot Lair renamed to Lair of the Deathless and Maggot boss replaced.
Bug with Tristram/Tharbad/Cairn Stones and the transition between Upper Dol Guld
ur and Dol Guldur
fixed.
Non-magic ring amulet bug fixed.
Added two new unique rings, amulets and circlets
Damage of fast one-handed weapons (long sword, flail, double axe etc.) and some
claws slightly
increased
Low level and overall crappy affixes no longer spawn from highlevel sources (in
shops this would be your
characterlevel, from monsters it would be their monsterlevel). The thresholds fo
r this are most of the time
30, 50 and 60.

Changes in Version 1.6 (LoD):

All Monsters in act 5 Valar have their combat values increased by 25-50%
Resist malus in maiar and valar diff raised to 50 and 90 (to add challenge)
Stamina Drain vastly increased (running is meant to work now only for short dist
ances or in town)
Walk and Run speed slightly lowered - some monsters' speed increased (to add cha
llenge)
Telekinesis enabled in town
Elite versions of Bone Helm, Bone Shield and Spiked Shield can now have sockets
Balrogs and Dragons had some problems hitting or causing damage in Valar diff -
this has been fixed
Blade Fury and most Dark Elf (Assassin) trap skills improved
Summoner (Necromancer) Revives receive no hitpoint bonus but have a longer durat
ion
Frost Nova slightly improved
Beorning (Druid) Vines toned down
Some Beorning (Druid) shapshifting skills toned down
High-end unique items have higher level requirements
Corpse Explosion toned down
Amplify Damage toned down
Frozen Orb toned down
Imps and Enslaved now don't get spawned at certain locations in act 5 all the ti
me.
Various string fixes
Holy Bolt heal and damage rate increased
Set Item bow from the Halfling's Set fixed (bow had +block%)
No more +blocking on two-handed weapons (affix series "of fleetness" now grants
+walkspeed instead of
+blocking)
Two new unique axes (Dramborleg, Tuor's Axe and Maeglin's Cleaver - both Tusk Ax
es)
Creating the next higher Rune from three/five of one type changed:
Runes # 1-14 now require three to create one rune of the next higher type
Runes #15-24 now require five to create one rune of the next higher type
New Rune recipes:
Any unique item -> a rare item of the same type with quality 80% player level /
80% itemlevel
Any rare item + jewel + rune + charm + perfect gem + any set item + any crafted
item
-> rare item of the same type with 1 socket and quality 60% player level / 60% i
temlevel
Any rare item + 2 jewels + 2 runes + 2 charms + 2 perfect gems + 2 set items + 2
crafted items
-> rare item of the same type with 2 sockets and quality 75% player level / 75%
itemlevel
Any rare item + 3 jewels + 3 runes + 3 charms + 3 perfect gems + 3 set items + 3
crafted items
-> rare item of the same type with 3 sockets and quality 85% player level / 85%
itemlevel
(these recipes are really only useful with highlevel items and most important hi
gh level chars (85% of level
75 is 64 and level 64 affixes can be quite powerful)
Changes in Version 1.7 (LoD):
Staminadrain nerf nearly back to normal
Runspeeds back to normal
Monsters slightly faster (run you fools! :)
Crash bug in act 5 cursed cave fixed
Blessed Hammer physical damage removed and added to magic damage (which is enhan
cable by
concentration). Physical damage didn't show up on characterscreen for some reaso
n.
Titles for killing Morgoth now genderspecific again (thx Nath)
Five new Runewords for weaker Runes (see Cubes'n'Runes.rtf)
Wake of Inferno trap changed to a cold trap with the same damage and way of atta
ck

Changes in Version 1.8 (LoD):

Due to a rather awkward formula in item generation mid to highlevel baseitems we
re prone to only feature
lowlevel affixes (you find a Rohirric Lance and it only has "of the Glutani" on
it while sabres and daggers
constantly have "Kings" or "of Slaughter"). We bypassed that formula so that now
all baseitems have the
same chance for any affixes. This will effectivly improve the quality of itemdro
ps in nightmare drastically
(hopefully :)
Hirelings should aquire levels easier now
Molten Boulder and Firestorm slightly enhanced
Enchant enhanced
Fanatiscm range inreased
Poison Nova damage increased
BoneWall/Prison HP increased
The cuberecipe that allowed more than one socket on a rare item is now fixed and
works
Some Runewords improved (see Cubes'n'Runes.rtf)
Runspeeds of monsters decreased slightly again
Running for longer times is now possible if you don't wear heavy armor.Very heav
y armor slows you down
and drains much stamina. We have added a few affixes that increase stamina and s
tamina recovery rate.
So if you want to run around all day it is possible but at a price.
Most class specific items now either have +skills or an effect (like resistance
for Dunadan shields) built in
and not both. This is to counter +bow skills on amazon spears and the likes.
Dragons now drop items like champions (no pun intended :)
Devourer monsters in act 4 no longer eat corpses
We added some 2 word runewords (see cubes'n'runes.rtf)
Some jewel and charm affixes have been improved (lower level mostly)
Normalizing magic gloves and boots recipes added (we forgot about them)
5 gems of any type but the same quality can now be cubed to one gem of any type
but a higher quality
Spikefiend type monsters and archer skeletons attackrate improved (was not in ac
cordance with other
ranged fighters of like level)
+%AC effect of Diamonds slightly improved
Healing Potions improved. Were 50/75/120/200/350 and are now 50/80/150/275/480.
These are
basevalues that are modified by characterclass and the correct amount of gained
health is also not shown
on the screen if you hold the cursor on a potion. This change is a dll change th
at is only active if you use
our D2game.dll
Throwing weapons use larger stacks and replenish slowly (built-in ability)
Poison Javelin, Plague Javelin and Lightning Fury cost less mana to use (to coun
ter their inability to leech
mana) and are increased in damage.
Lightning fury increased damage but fixed at 4 bolts (can split into more by pie
rcing targets)
Lightning Bolt more damage
Two runes of the same type now create a runeword that adds some of the rune' eff
ect as bonus (about
50-75% of the rune's effect)
Three runes of the same type now create a runeword that adds most of the rune' e
ffect as bonus (about
75-100% of the rune's effect)
Throwing weapons can have sockets but for some reason the game will not allow dr
opped throwing
weapons to have sockets. Therefore you will have to either use the cube recipes
(perfect gems + normal
weapon => socketed weapon) or a magic throwing weapon with the socketing affix (
jeweler's etc.).
Throwing weapons can have as many sockets as their graphics support which means
a maximum of 4.

Changes in Version 1.9 (LoD):

(this version is needed for Blizzard's Patch 1.10)

Many unique items quality enhanced, some of them greatly

Unique items and runes drop more often
Most Runewords and crafting recipes are now easier to create (see CubesnRunes.rt
f)
Monsters in Maiar and Valar difficulty have a 20% chance to have one or more of
the following:
Faster walk
Faster attack
Faster cast
Slightly increased elemental resistance
Slightly increased physical resistance
Slightly increased hitpoints
Monsters in later difficulties make increasingly less pauses between attacks
Increased inventory space to the maximum and reduced the size of books to 1 slot
(switching from version
1.9 to 1.8 could cause problems!)
Maximum possible Sockets per item type changed (see CubesnRunes.rtf) . Normal it
ems now can only
hold 2 sockets for helms and three sockets for the rest while higher level excep
tional and elite items
normally can have more. The maximum possible sockets are now INDEPENDANT from di
fficulty or
playerlevel.
Whirlwind has a casting delay of 1,5 seconds now (being constantly in whirlwind
mode makes you nearly
invincible since you leech life all the time and automatically evade most projec
tile attacks by being a
moving target)
Casting Delay removed from Chain Lightning
Casting Delay removed from Blizzard and added to Frozen Orb
Set items now spawn with a socket (if that item can have a socket) and Full Set
Bonus increased
considerably
Elemental Damage Bow Skills (Rohirrim) casting cost reduced
Burst of speed duration increased
+damage vs Demons/Undead affix changed to suffix to make it usable alongside pre
fixes such as King's
or Merciless
New affixes added that greatly improve damage vs certain monstertypes (indicated
under the
monstername): Humans, Animals, Orcs, Trolls and Greater Demons.
Greater Demons include Dragons, Balrogs, Nazgul and all act end bosses
Shout duration greatly increased
Impale now uses normal attack (that means it's much faster) it adds 300% damage
at level 20 and no tohit
bonus or other effect
Decoy duration increased and enabled 3 decoys at one time
Valkyrie actually deals reasonable damage (1.10 Blizzard change)
Berserk reduces armorclass to 25% instead of 0%
Cyclone Armor and Bone Armor enhanced
Werebear damage increased
Maul damage increased
Poison Dagger and Poison explosion damage increased
Holy Freeze, Holy Fire, Holy Shock reasonable damage added to attack (around 100
-300)
Cleansing and Meditation regenerate health (1/3 of prayer's maximum)
Lightning spells (Sorceress) no longer damage 1-X
"Of the Maiar", "of the Valar" etc. affix series now adds to all four stats
Affixes for jewels and charms overhauled. Many of the existing affixes had unbal
anced levels or were
otherwise badly designed (like having a +1 max damage affix of level 1 and the n
ext in the series was a
+3 max damage affix of level 89...)
Sauron Reborn's Lightning Bolt of Death can knockback
Bows and crossbows only require dexterity now
Spearclass weapons require less strength
Two handed swords require less dexterity
Items in the gamble list include now all but the most powerful normal and except
ional items (no elite items)
Crossbows are now only slightly slower than Bows
Class specific bows increased in speed
Monsters generally can spawn in smaller or larger groups (group size range incre
ased - were it formerly 3-
5 it is now 2-6 for example)
Exceptional items have a bonus of +2 to their possible magical properties
Elite items have a bonus of +6 to their possible magical properties
Elite Weapons have been added built-in deadly strike, slightly faster cast and s
lightly faster swing
Elite Armor has been added built-in physical resistance, slightly faster run and
recover stamina
Summoner class specific shields have built-in move faster and regenerate mana in
stead of added poison
damage
Double Throw adds 100% damage
Firebolt, Icebolt, magic arrow, fire arrow and ice arrow 50% faster projectile s
peed
Sorceress skill Enchant replaced with Illusion
Battle Command adds 1 skill level per 7 levels in Battle Command
Inner Sight slows enemy attackspeed
Critical Strike increases linear in %
Blessed Aim adds chance to do double damage
Resist Fire / Lightning / Cold auras add upto 20% max resist in their respective
element
New Cube recipes:
(see CubesnRunes.rtf for detailed instructions)
- filled socketed items (non-magic, non-rare, non-set, non-unique!) can be unsoc
keted keeping the
socketfillers for later use.
- enhance magic armor +10% AC +3 life but +10% requirements (attributes) - this
recipe is repeatable on
one item
- enhance magic weapon +10% Damage +1 max damage but +10% requirements (attribut
es) - this recipe
is repeatable on one item
- create a rare item of 110% quality of the original item from any unique (will
be the same itemtype)
- create a magic item of 110% quality of the original item from any rare item (w
ill be the same itemtype)
Changed Cube recipes:
(see CubesnRunes.rtf for details)
- creating a rare with sockets from a rare uses either 100% or 115% or 130% of t
he original item level as
new item quality (so player level doesn't count in)
- all runes can now be created from 3 same runes of one level lower quality
- magic items can be morphed into normal items without additional ingredients
- crafting recipes now use 70% or 80% or 90% of playerlevel to determine quality
for the
corresponding "weak", "normal" and "good" crafting recipes