Fired up Diablo 2 for the first time in a bit the other day. I had an expired sorc from several months back (as in, expired back then, I just didn't bother deleting the file) and had already started new characters. On a whim, I double-clicked her... and was promptly kicked onto bnet with her. Started a new game with her and everything.

Same with a new Barbarian that I'd just started but hadn't met the minimum usage on. Marked as expired, but was able to create a new game with him.

So... don't delete your dead characters. They might still be playable.

I have had much the same experience.

Expiration just means someone else can take the name.

Unfortunately it also means non-ladder (since the turnover is often enough that if your characters expired the ladder probably also rolled over while you were too lazy to login every 90 days) where everyone is running around with Enigma and there's not much point regardless.

Enigma is the biggest balance issue ever in a game.

Enigma = ?

Runeword Enigma.

And why is that a balance issue? (I do not play the game more than passingly and am just curious. Put it in moron terms. Ty)

It gave anyone who equipped it level 1 Teleport, regardless of class. And it isn't difficult to get either. It sounds really cool, but in practice it makes the game horribly unbalanced, more so than 1.09 ever was. The whole game is dominated by Paladins using Blessed Hammer, PVM and PVP. Whereas other builds have become utterly useless, like most melee builds.

Ah. So it's basically the blink dagger problem from DOTA. Yeah i can see how annoying that is.

When you could run with Blink Dagger, it was useful in builds.

...Also horribly OP.

Well, that's the main thing that make it unbalanced. It also gives your character a bunch of stat boosts and the like, just like other runewords, uniques, and sets, but those aren't what makes it so bad. There's some other runewords too that kill balance, but no so badly. For example, Call to Arms gives the character who equips it, Battle Orders, Battle Commands, and I think shout, letting every character boost their life and mana like a Barbarian. It was really annoying when someone with a perfect CTA would spam their level 6ish war cries, replacing the level 20ish war cries my Barbarian just put on everyone. Asking them to stop usually got a response like "Dude, I have perfect CTA, mine are better." To which I'd have to try to explain that my cries are still better, which didn't always work. Ironically, the higher the level and better gear the guy had, the less likely they were to understand my cries were better.

"Sigh", Barbarians really got kicked hard by the 1.10 patch and then again with 1.11. Sure, 1.10 smacked Amazons harder, but at least Blizz showed some mercy on them in 1.11.

I still say that sorcs were hit the hardest because of Enigma. Teleport was the one thing that allowed many sorcs to duel well by avoiding opponents that can now just teleport after the sorceress thanks to Enigma.

BTW I currently run a lvl 80 sorc with over 400% mf on USEast nonladder named TheRealManta.

Still great for initiating which was its original use. Just needs a price drop.

On topic hopefully such balance issues will not be a problem in D3.

What they lost in a Teleport advantage they gained in super power-ups to some of their other skills like Blizzard and especially Fireball and Chain Lightning. A very well built fireballer or lightning bolter can one-shot anyone who doesn't have 95% fire or light res AND enough absorb to cover the remaining 5%. They deal more damage than Blessed Hammer. The only reason the Hammerdins are better then them is because very few monsters have magic resistance/immunity and very few items grant resistance against it, and usually in horrible quantities like -1 magic damage.




Indeed. Knowing Blizzard, no doubt there'll be balance issues, but hopefully they'll won't be hugely glaring and whole classes won't get dumped to near uselessness (try making a Summoning Druid in D2 1.1).

My new Assassin is frustrating as hell. She gets the crap pounded out of her, and Cobra Strike (which I used to rely on heavily) is largely useless.

I've taken to just using the hell out of the throwing stars; it's more reliable, and I can usually machine gun damn near any monster (and with a bit of mana steal, I don't run out of mana) while my shadow distracts them.