Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
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Amazon Skills | Assassin Skills | Necromancer Skills | Barbarian Skills | Sorceress Skills | Druid Skills | Paladin Skills
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Skills

Skill Point Planning
You receive one skill point per level, and several quests offer additional skill points.

Your success or failure in battle can greatly be determined by how you spend your skill points. Careful thought and planning can save you from backtracking to get to a skill you didn't notice and can prevent wasted points. While you may be able to survive by just throwing a skill point into whatever, your character may not be the best it can be.

Pick Several skills to focus in rather than all skills
You may be able to get one skill point into all of the skills on the skill trees eventually but this may not make the best character. Generally it's best to focus in several skills rather than putting some points into all of them. Many skills and spells become truly powerful as you focus quite a few points into them. The first three skill points might not be enough to see the full power of those skills or spells. While it's great to have a skill for every job, generally you will have a lot of under powered skills if you spent a point in everything. Non focused characters may have trouble defeating the more powerful unique monsters, bosses and difficulty levels.

How to spend your skill points
Come up with a plan. Know where your next skill point is going to go before you get it. If you do get a skill point before you're ready, save it until you know where you can best spend it. Don't be afraid to ask other people for advice or consult Online guides such as this for advice and information on what each skill point can do for you.

Live for today or plan for tomorrow

Theres two main ways of spending your skill points.

Just let me play the game - Spend your points, as you get them, in the skill you want as you go along
In this plan you spend your points as you get them in the skills that are available at the time. You advance along the skill tree in a normal fashion. Use lower level skills as long as you can building them up until a more powerful skill is available. This is a great plan for the casual gamer. Do you just want to beat the game on normal and move on to another character? This is the plan for you.

Use this plan if:

You are first time player
You are not a power player
You don't care about spending skill points in skills you may only use for a certain period of time
If you want your character to be as effective as possible in the early part of the game.
The Skill Point Hoarder or Power Gamer Plan
Only spend points in what you will always use, and save skill points for late game skills such level 18, 24, and 30 skills. This skill point strategy is for advanced players. You must be skilled enough to get by without spending your points each level. This strategy is for the long haul, especially when going for Level 18 and Level 24 skills which may not reach their full power until you've defeated the game on normal and are on your way into Nightmare difficulty.

In this plan you only spend a skill point if it It unlocks a skill you plan to focus in, such as skill along the tree to your desired final skill. A skill point is only spent on a skill that you plan on using for the rest of your character's life even into Nightmare and Hell difficulty levels. The play as you go plan will still work on Nightmare and Hell difficulty however it will take you a while to catch up to the power of the late game skill builders.

Use this plan if:

You are a power gamer
You want a challenge
You love optimizing skill points
You want to be weak early on but powerful quickly at higher levels
You can't stand spending a skill point on a skill you may outgrow.
You plan on using your character in Nightmare and Hell.
For the power gamer, the alternative to the play as you go style is to save as many skill points as possible for later skills. Often the later skills are the most powerful, but this isn't always the case. You plan to get through the early levels without spending all of your skill points. This may mean surviving by other methods, such as using your friends to help you kill monsters, until you reach a high enough level to unlock your desired skills. The Barbarian, Amazon, and Paladin have an easier time with this style of skill point planning because they are dependant on equipment. The Barbarian can find good weapons to survive without spending too many skill points. The Paladin can use a shield and a good sword or one handed weapon to level up. The Amazon can find good bows, or rely on Critical Hit, and Javelins to level up. For the Sorceress and Necromancer, this style of play can be very challenging. They can use Bows or Cross Bows, to supplement their skills or survive on staves and wands that give free skill points.



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