Diablo II Terminology

Author: Sashanan ((email address removed))
Date: 24 April 2002
Version: 1.05

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Table of Contents

• About this FAQ
• Terminology list
• Acknowledgements
• Revision history
• Final words

About This FAQ

When they are not busy clobbering demons or each other, Diablo 2 veterans typically exchange stories, tactics and hints in the chat channels or on messageboards. In their discussions, they tend to use many abbreviations and Diablo 2-specific slang terms. To a newcomer in the Diablo 2 community, the massive use of such terms can be quite daunting, and a very common delurk question is “Ok, what do the following 20 terms mean?”

This FAQ exists to help the newcomer get acquainted with common Diablo 2 terminology. I have gathered abbreviations and slang terms often seen in strategy guides or on discussion forums, and given brief explanations for each.

The purpose of this FAQ is not to give any kind of strategic advice to players. The character builds mentioned are not explained in detail, I have merely pointed out what kind of character the terms typically refer to. Those who seek actual strategy advice should consult some of the character-specific guides on GameFAQs, or visit some of the better informed Diablo 2 sites, such as Arreat Summit (http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp) or DiabloII.net (www.diabloii.net).

Please note: the information in this FAQ was up to date at the time it was last updated (24 April 2002). If that last update has been a while ago, some of the information in this FAQ may be outdated.

The ASCII art header of this FAQ was created with the help of Figlet
(www.surfplaza.com/figlet).

Terminology List

All terms are listed alphabetically. In the descriptions I often refer to other terms in the list. Those have been marked in CAPS.

Account Scam

An attempt to steal somebody’s account password on Battlenet, usually with the intention of relieving him of his items. Popular methods include web sites which promise free items or other advantages, and require you to enter your account name and password, or private messages sent on Battlenet chatrooms, pretending to be system messages requiring you to give out your password for one reason or another. An attempted account scam reported to Blizzard staff with proof (such as a chat screenshot) usually results in a MUTING for the scammer.

AR
This can refer either to Attack Rating, a statistic in the game determining your chance to hit, or the popular Diablo 2 mod Ancestral Recall. This mod changes many aspects of the game for an entirely new Diablo 2 experience in single player mode, or multiplayer over TCP/IP. Ancestral Recall can be downloaded at http://www.planetdiablo.com/teknokyo/

Arreat Summit

Apart from being the area in Act 5 where you fight the Ancients, Arreat Summit is the name of the official Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction FAQ.
Statistics, item lists and other useful information on the game can be found here, and this is definitely a site that should be in any Diablo 2 fan’s bookmarks. It can be found at http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp

Avenger

A Paladin build relying on the skills Vengeance, Conviction and sometimes Fanaticism. This is a popular Paladin build for playing in Hell mode, because Vengeance is an excellent source of elemental damage, giving the Paladin a much better chance to deal with physically resistant or immune monsters than, for instance, a ZEALOT or MARTYR could. One drawback of the Avenger build is that massive mana supplies are required to keep using the spell. For this reason, many Paladins are hybrids between the Avenger and the ZEALOT, using the latter skill build mostly to recover mana.

Baal Run

A game with the specific intention to kill Baal, the expansion set’s master villain at the end of Act 5. These runs, while lengthy and more difficult than MEPH RUNS, are popular because they yield far more experience, and Baal generally drops the best items in the game.

Ballista

A certain type of crossbow. When people talk about “the Ballista”, they are usually referring to the unique Ballista known as Buriza Do-Kyanon. Apparently this name is difficult enough that people keep forgetting it, hence “the Ballista”. See also BURIZA.

Barb

Short for Barbarian, one of the game’s character classes. Typically used in combination with another term to describe a specific build, such as FRENZY BARB, WW BARB, THROWING BARB or SINGING BARB.

Bard

A somewhat popular term for a SINGING BARB.

BF
Short for Bloody Foothills, the first area of act 5. This area is notorious for having large collections of puny monsters which are nevertheless worth a lot of experience. In addition, these monsters have no resistance to fire (not even on Hell mode) and due to the layout of the area, tend to line up and just stand there, waiting to be slaughtered. The combination of these properties makes the Bloody Foothills an excellent level building area, particularly for FW SORCS.
See also BLOODRUN.

BO
Battle Orders, a lvl 24 Barbarian skill from the Warcries skill tree that temporarily increases maximum life, mana and stamina for the Barbarian and any nearby allies. This is a very party-friendly skill, and makes Barbarians very popular in party games. If you get enchanted with Battle Orders, it will look like your life and your mana drop, because the maximums are increased but the current totals remain the same. Don’t panic, you’re still as sturdy as you were, except you can now use a well or leeching to get your life up to a higher total than normal (easily twice what you normally have if the Barbarian has maxed out Battle Orders, and most do), and mana will now regenerate faster.
If you are enchanted with a second Battle Orders while the first is still in effect, and it has the same level as the first, the duration is reset. If it is of a different level, however, the first Battle Orders is cancelled, life and mana return to normal, and THEN the second one takes effect. This can be a needless waste of life and mana, so if a party has multiple Barbarians it is best if only one of them uses Battle Orders.

BS
This refers to either of the Necromancer’s two most powerful ranged attacks, the Bone Spear and the Bone Spirit. Since the latter skill is more popular, the abbreviation usually applies to that one.

Bloodrun

A game with the specific intention to clear out the Bloody Foothills area. This is the most popular level building technique in the online Diablo 2 community, particularly among FW SORCS. Typically, a Bloodrun is done within a few minutes, after which a new game is started to do it all over again. See also BF.
UPDATE: Bloodruns have lost popularity in favor of COW RUNS, which generate experience more quickly and also have a better chance for item drops. The downside of cow runs is that they are more risky, but particularly JAVAZONS excel at them. At any rate, the Bloodrun is not nearly as popular anymore as it once was.

Bos

Burst of Speed, an Assassin skill which boosts both her walking, running and attack speed.

Bowazon

An Amazon build using a bow as her main weapon. This build has become incredibly popular in the expansion due to the existence of the BURIZA.

Bugged Item

An item with mods that it shouldn’t have, created by a server glitch or a hack.
These items typically have impossible mods, and can be quite powerful as a result. One particularly popular mod on bugged items was decreasing dexterity, because of the SKILL BUG.
By now the exploit to create bugged items has been fixed and Blizzard is deleting existing bugged items. Hopefully this will mean the skill bug and bugged items in general aren’t going to be coming back, although if DUPING is any indication, Blizzard seems to have trouble coming up with permanent solutions to cheating.

Buriza

Short for Buriza Do-Kyanon, the unique Ballista. It is widely considered to be one of the most powerful bows in the game, and unlike its competitors the Eaglehorn and the Windforce, it is relatively easy to acquire. Since the Buriza was introduced in the expansion set, the BOWAZON has become the most popular character build on most realms. The power of the Buriza lies both in the high damage it does, and in the fact that it adds the effect of the skill Pierce, enabling an Amazon to exploit the GA/PIERCE BUG without having to actually invest in the Pierce skill.

Burizon

A somewhat mocking term for a Bowazon using the BURIZA. Nearly every Bowazon in the expansion uses this weapon, and they are now common enough that they get their own name.

CB
Charged Bolt. Initially thought to be a fairly mundane skill for the Sorceress, its popularity increased immensely when it was discovered this skill can do massive damage at high levels, when combined with the skill Lightning Mastery.
This has resulted in the rise of a new Sorceress build, the CB SORC.
Note: CB can also stand for Colossus Blade, see CCB.

Cb Sorc

A Sorceress build that relies on the skills Charged Bolt and Lightning Mastery.
The idea of this build is to either spread lightning damage over a large field, hitting many monsters at once, or hitting one big enemy like a boss point blank, causing him to take damage from 20 or more bolts at once. CB Sorcs typically have Energy Shield and a fairly high Vitality to protect them from harm, as the effective use of their skill forces them to get pretty close to theiropponents. CB Sorcs usually have a powerful backup skill in either Fire or Cold as well to help them deal with lightning resistant or immune monsters.

Ccb

Cruel Colossus Blade, one of the most damaging weapons in the game. Colossus Blade is simply one kind of elite two-handed sword, Cruel is the most powerful Enhanced Damage mod that can appear on weapons. Cruel Colossus Blades have become more common because of the CHIPPED GEM RECIPE, and are the most popular weapons for Barbarians. Depending on the exact percentage of enhanced damage on the sword, whether or not the sword holds sockets and what kind of secondary mod it has (popular ones are Quickness and Evisceration), CCBs can be very valuable.

CE
Corpse Explosion, a Necromancer skill. It was once considered the most powerful skill in the game, but a variety of different nerfs have turned it into a shadow of what it once was. The only reminder of what this skill could once do lies in the boss Nihlathak, who uses this skill with considerably more power and range than a player Necromancer could.

CHARGER (or CHARGADIN)
A Paladin build which relies on a powerful two-handed weapon and the skill Charge to cause as much damage as possible with a single attack. The damage of the Charge is normally boosted with Fanaticism. While extremely powerful, this build is not very effective against groups of monsters, and therefore usually reserved for PVP Paladins. These typically use Holy Freeze to slow their target, and/or Vigor to increase the speed of their Charge (switching to Fanaticism just before the Charge impacts), and aim for one hit kills.

Chipped Gem Economy

An alternative to the familiar SOJ ECONOMY, introduced in v1.09 when the CHIPPED GEM RECIPE was added to the game. Since many people use this recipe to try and create powerful swords, and the chances of getting one are so low that they need a lot of chipped gems, these common items have actually gained some trading value. Ideally, low level players find a lot of chipped gems early in the game and can trade those for the many unique items experienced players come across in their item runs. Originally the chipped gem and SoJ economies were apart, but SOJ INFLATION has caused the two to touch. Many people consider 40 chipped gems (the maximum that can fit in a trade window) to be equivalent in value to one Stone of Jordan, and trading one for the other is common.

Chipped Gem Recipe

Introduced in v1.09, this is a Horadric Cube recipe that gives chipped gems a new use. By putting 3 chipped gems (any kind, including skulls) and one magical (blue) sword of any kind in the cube, a new magical sword of the same type is created, guaranteed to have two mods (both a prefix and a suffix) as well as 3 sockets. With a few of the elite swords in the game, this recipe has the potential of giving the Cruel mod which greatly enhances the weapon’s damage. The most popular kind of sword to use for this recipe is the Colossus Blade (see CCB).
The existence of the chipped gem recipe has created the CHIPPED GEM ECONOMY.

Clean

Refers to a socketed item which has not yet been stuffed with any gems, runes or jewels. This is important in trading, as clean items tend to be worth more than those which have already been filled up. In some cases, items are also no longer considered clean if they have been PERSONALIZED.

Closed

Refers to the Diablo II Battlenet REALMs. The main difference with playing on OPEN is that on closed, characters and their equipment are stored on the server rather than on the user’s computer. This makes the use of item and character editors impossible. As a result, while open battle.net is literally swamped with hacked characters and items, the realms are free of this kind of cheating – although certain hacks exist that even work on closed, so calling it cheat-proof would go a little too far.

Conc

Can refer to either Concentrate (a Barbarian attack skill) or Concentration (a Paladin aura). Neither is seen very often: Concentrate is a mid level Barbarian attack that is not used by the Barbarian mercenaries
(they are limited to Bash and Stun) and usually not by players either (they normally stick with Whirlwind, Frenzy and Berserk). The Paladin’s Concentration aura is usually skipped because most Paladins aim for Fanaticism instead. Nevertheless Concentration has its merits: it affects party members fully (Fanaticism only gives full damage to the Paladin, and half to his allies), and has a far longer range. In parties with two Paladins, where one is already using Fanaticism, Concentration is a great backup aura which will help increase damage even more. Add in a Desert Guard mercenary with the Might aura and players will start causing damage like never before.

Cookie Cutter

A generic term referring to a character that uses a specific powerful skill, item and/or bug exploit to gain power very quickly. Examples from previous versions of Diablo 2 are the Blood Golem/Iron maiden Necromancer and the WW BARB (neither of which is as powerful as they once were). Current examples include the BURIZON and the FW SORC.

Corpse Popping

The loss of currently equipped items upon dying, due to the fact that you already have a corpse on the ground. This game mechanic is sometimes used by malicious players to attempt to steal your items – they kill you, drop a collection of mundane items on and around your corpse, then distract you with attacks while you make a run for your corpse. The risk here is that you accidentally pick up and auto-equip one of the mundane items just before getting your corpse, in which case not all items from your corpse are retrieved and it stays on the ground. If you are then killed, the items that you did get from your corpse “pop” and can be stolen by the other player.
A simple way to prevent corpse popping is never to retrieve your corpse “under fire”. Make sure the other player is gone, or exit the game so you can retrieve your corpse in peace.

Corruption Rift

The most famous hacked item on OPEN Battlenet, the Corruption Rift is a small charm that adds 100% to MF and +7 to all skill levels. This is of course an outrageous addition, especially since many players pack 20 or more of these items and reach levels of power that are completely off the chart. The Corruption Rift can only be created using an item editor – it is not part of the actual game and can never be found legitimately. No charm in the actual game, not even the largest ones, can add even +1 to all skills (the closest thing is +1 to a particular skill tree).

Cow Run

A game with the specific intent to clear the not-so-secret Cow Level. This is usually done in Hell mode, where the cows are worth a lot of experience and are about the only monsters found without any kind of resistance. Cow runs are especially easy to pull off for JAVAZONS, who can use the skill Lightning Fury to kill off the tightly packed cows very quickly. Cow runs are to Javazons what BLOODRUNs are to FW SORCS.
UPDATE: Bloodruns have lost popularity in favor of cow runs, and now virtually every character class is seen fighting in the cow level rather than the bloody foothills to gain experience. Javazons remain the true experts though.

CS
Short for Chaos Sanctuary, the final area of act 4, and the one where you will fight Diablo. This is generally considered to be the toughest area in the game.
Even high level characters will think twice about going in here in Hell mode without backup.

Dex

Short for Dexterity, one of the four primary statistics of any character. It is particularly important to Amazons, whose bow and javelin damage is increased by it, and Assassins, whose damage relies on both Dexterity and Strength.

Diminishing Returns

This refers to certain mods in the game making less and less of a difference if you pile on more of it. Two examples are MF and IAS. The system of diminishing returns also applies to nearly every skill in the game – the first few points you put in a skill make more of a difference than the last few before maxing it out.

DR
Damage Reduction, a modifier found on items that directly reduces physical damage taken in combat. DR is generally much more effective than a high defense rating, which merely reduces the chance to be hit and needs to be very high to be of any use late in the game.

Dupe Deletion

The process of deleting duplicated items, as well as the original items that were used to create dupes from. Blizzard has employed various methods to delete dupes on the realms, with varying success. Currently (April 2002), a method seems to be used that is very effective in detecting and deleting dupes, even on characters that aren’t actually being played at the time.
However, it seems that the Stone of Jordan is mostly immune to being deleted because most originate from classic Diablo 2.

Duping

Short for duplicating, duping is the practice of creating exact duplicates of existing items through illegal means: by exploiting a bug or using a hack, often a combination of both. Duping has always been around on a small scale, however in January and February 2002 there have been two massive duping sprees where easy and reliable methods to dupe items became common knowledge. The end result was that many previously rare items were now very commonly found in trades. Trading for a duplicated item is very risky because Blizzard uses DUPE DELETION methods to track down and erase any duplicated items.
Unfortunately, there’s no sure way to tell if an item is duped or not until it actually disappears on you. The risk of an item being duped is infinitely higher if it’s a popular unique from v1.08 (such as Arkaine’s Valor or the Harlequin Crest) or a very rare and powerful item from v1.09 (such as the Grandfather or Windforce).
Duping in any way on the realms is a violation of Blizzard’s Terms of Service and doing so may cause your account to be wiped or possibly even your CD key to be banned. Blizzard first announced taking such measures in March 2002, much to the relief of all legit players who grew tired of seeing so many people around them show off their duped equipment.

ED
Enhanced Damage, a modifier on many weapons in the game. It is particularly popular if found on Jewels, as socketing ED Jewels in a powerful weapon can result in massive damage boosts.
ED can also mean Enhanced Defense (found on armor). This is not quite as sought after as Enhanced Damage, though, since the difference a high defense makes for your chances of being hit is quite disappointing, particularly in Hell difficulty.

Eth Bug

This refers to a bug with the Eth rune. When socketed in a weapon, Eth is supposed to lower enemy defense with 25%. What it does, however, is create the ‘Ignore Target Defense’ attack, both against monsters and other players.
For this reason, many CCBs have an Eth rune in one of their sockets, allowing their owners to hit opponents much more easily. It’s certainly a lot cheaper than using the rune which is *supposed* to give ITD, Jah.
The Eth bug has been around for many months, but has not been fixed so far.

FA
The Amazon skill Fire Arrow. A rather mundane and low-level skill which would be of very little interest were it not for the FA BUG.

Fa Bug

Fire Arrow is supposed to add a small amount of fire damage to a bow attack, which is normally physical. Due to a bug, however, Fire Arrow also converts all of the physical damage to fire damage. This means that if this skill is used with a powerful bow, an Amazon can do massive loads of raw elemental damage, making Fire Arrow a very popular skill to use against physically immune monsters. Blizzard has confirmed this is a bug, however, and will likely remove it in a future patch.

Flashing

Commonly described in Paladin strategy guides, this refers to benefiting from two auras simultaneously by switching at the right time. This technique depends on the fact that an aura that affects the Paladin works immediately (and is gone as soon as he changes it), but an aura used against enemies takes a few seconds to activate, but also lingers for a few seconds after the Paladin takes another aura. During those last few seconds, the Paladin can take an aura that affects him and use it while the enemy is still weakened. The most common auras to use this technique with are Conviction (affects enemy) and Fanaticism (affects Paladin).
The Paladin can now hit the enemy with Vengeance, using the increased attack speed Fanaticism gives, while still doing a lot of extra elemental damage due to the resistance reduction effect of Conviction.

FO
Frozen Orb, the most popular cold spell used by Sorceresses. Some use it at a low level to slow enemies down, then hit them with another spell such as Nova, Firewall or Meteor. Others invest heavily in Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery and use it as a primary attack spell. Either way, this is a skill nearly every Sorceress has in her arsenal.

Foh/foth

Fist of the Heavens, the Paladin’s primary ranged attack. Its relatively low damage makes it somewhat disappointing as a PvM skill, but in duels, Paladins specializing in Fist of the Heavens (sometimes jokingly called fistadins) and Conviction can be powerful opponents.

Frenzy Barb

A Barbarian build relying on the skill Frenzy, which causes him to land blow after blow very quickly. This is what most Barbarians wielding two different weapons do (although some are WW BARBS instead). Nearly every Frenzy Barb also has the skill Berserk to deal with physically immune monsters.

FW
Firewall, the most damaging skill in the entire game. At a high level it can span a large area and do massive damage to monsters foolish enough not to run out of it. This skill is particularly popular in the Bloody Foothills (so much that a specific build around this skill, the FW SORC, exists). Outside this area the spell is less effective, but can still be highly useful in party situations, where melee fighters keep the monsters in one place.

Fw Sorc

A Sorceress build focused around the skills Firewall and Fire Mastery, often with either Thunderstorm or Frozen Orb as a backup. These Sorceresses are particularly effective in the Bloody Foothills and are often found doing little else than BLOODRUNs. Some Firewall Sorcs, however, have become quite creative at using their skill in other areas as well.

GA
Guided Arrow, an Amazon skill which causes an arrow to hit an enemy automatically. While powerful on its own, it becomes murderous in combination with PIERCE due to the GA/PIERCE BUG. See also BURIZA.

Ga/pierce Bug

Guided Arrow causes an arrow to automatically home in on and hit a monster, while Pierce allows an arrow to pass through a monster, possibly hitting one or more other opponents. These two skills are not supposed to work together, but they do. This creates the bizarre effect of an arrow hitting a monster, passing through, turning around 180 degrees, passing through again, and so forth. Needless to say this is an extremely damaging move which results in BURIZONs being the absolute masters of PVP, and doing very well in PVM as well. Blizzard has confirmed that GA and PIERCE working together is a bug, and will likely remove it in a future patch.

GC
Grand charm. Traders are lazy typers.

GF
The Grandfather, the most powerful unique sword in the game. It was never a common weapon to begin with (at least not before the massive DUPING), and still isn’t the most popular sword around because CCBs have the potential to be even more powerful than this unique, and are a little easier to come by.

HC
Hardcore, a game mode in which the death of a character means he or she is gone permanently. This forces a player to be far more careful, invest more points in Vitality, and cooperate with other players in situations where a specific character type is not very effective. Some players consider Hardcore to be a very thrilling and challenging way to play Diablo 2, others think of it as masochism as characters can be lost just as easily to the dubious efforts of a PK or due to internet latency. To them, the idea of losing hours of work due to a fluke is not a very appealing idea.

HF
Holy Freeze, a Paladin skill which automatically freezes and slows down enemies that come near, even those that are immune to cold or have the “can’t be frozen” mod (in the case of hostile players). This aura is commonly used by Paladins in PVP. It is also used by some of the MERCs hired in act 2 Nightmare, as well as the act boss in the second act, Duriel.

How

Heart of Wolverine, a Druid minion that increases the damage of the Druid and any nearby allies. Along with Oak Sage, another Druid minion that increases everybody’s life, HoW is the most party friendly skill the Druid has. Which of the two is better (the Druid can only use one at a time) is a subject of constant debate, although it is generally agreed that Oak Sage is the preferable choice in hardcore games. The third spirit minion of the druid, the Spirit of Barbs, is rarely used at all.

Hybridzon

Amazon players soon discovered that JAVAZONs sometimes get into spots where a bow would be handy, and BOWAZONs frequently miss the comfort of the Javazon’s Lightning Fury skill. Neither build requires a whole lot of skill points, and so veteran Amazon players often make a build that has the skills of both builds, creating the Hybridzon. The typical Hybridzon is armed with a Buriza Do-Kyanon with which she uses Multishot and Guided Arrow, and a Titan’s Revenge on her secondary weapon tab for Lightning Fury.

IAS

Increased Attack Speed, a mod found on many items that causes a character to strike more quickly. Both for BOWAZONS and all kinds of melee characters, this is a very important mod. Quicker attacking allows you get more damage in over a certain timespan, reduces the chance that your attacks are interrupted by monsters attacking you, and allows you to stunlock opponents, preventing them from striking back. It is important to note that IAS suffers from DIMINISHING RETURNS, so the difference between 0% and 30% IAS is greater than between 60% and 90%.

IK
The Immortal King. This is usually used to refer to pieces of the Immortal King’s set, as in “I have IK Maul for trade”.

IM
Iron Maiden, a nasty Necromancer curse that causes anybody who deals physical damage to take physical damage in return. Players get to deal with this headache when duelling Necromancers in PVP, or when cursed by the Oblivion Knights in act 4. Iron Maiden can kill high damage melee characters like Paladins and Barbarians very quickly. One way to counter it is to use ranged attacks, which are not affected by IM – for the Barbarian it is important to note that Leap Attack is considered to be a ranged attack.

Itd

Ignore Target Defense. This is a modifier found on certain weapons which effectively sets an enemy’s defense to 0, upping your chance to hit them to 95% under normal circumstances. However, this is still subject to decrease as a result of a monster having a higher level than you, and it does not work on enemy bosses of any kind. Some enemies, such as the Minions of Destruction, also use ITD.

Ith Items

The rage among less scrupulous players in v1.09, Ith items are essentially hacked equipment on the closed realms. They are created by making a runeword in an item, then using a third party hack to take the runes out again (not normally possible). The end result is that the bonuses of the individual runes are gone, but the other runeword bonuses remain, and the sockets are free to be used a second time. After putting in powerful (usually duped) runes and jewels again, this would create items much more powerful than normally possible. The ‘Ith’ name is a result of the game being confused about what runeword is being used here, it’s sort of a default string.
The loophole used to remove runes has been fixed, and Ith items are getting deleted gradually. They are still around, but not nearly as common as they were at one point. Do not trade for one if offered, it’s going to disappear on you.

Item Grabber

A hack that automatically picks up any magical, rare, set or unique items dropped, before they even hit the ground. Variants of this hack apparently still work even in the latest version of Diablo 2, and are sometimes used on the supposedly hack-free online realms. Needlees to say the use of such a hack is cheating, and highly annoying to party members who only want a fair shot at getting part of the loot. Use of an item grabber is against Blizzard’s terms of service and if found out, may result in reprimands.

Javazon

An Amazon build using Javelins as her main weapon, usually in combination with the skills Plague Javelin and Lightning Fury.Previously, Javazons were an underdog used only by advanced players looking for a new build. However, the expansion has introduced the highly powerful unique Titan’s Revenge, which has made the Javazon far more viable. Nearly every Javazon found online uses this awesome weapon.

Lagster

A mocking name for Lister the Tormentor, the boss of the Minions of Destruction, because his appearance causes a massive lag burst.

LC
Large charm. Traders are lazy typers.

Leb

Lightning Enchanted Boss. Lightning Enchanted is a nasty mod found on some bosses which causes them to releaselightning bolts whenever they take damage.
This can be devastating to melee characters who have to stand right next to them to hit them. Lightning Enchanted is nastyenough on its own, but in combination with Multi Shot it turns into the killer MSLEB.

LL (or LS)
Life Leech, or Life Steal. Both terms refer to the same thing: a mod found on many items which heals lost hit points based on how much physical damage you deal in combat. For instance, with 5% life leech you regain 5 lost hit points for every 100 points of damage you do. It is important to note that this does not work on all monsters (skeletons, for instance, can not be leeched from) and that it only applies to physical damage.

LOD

Lord of Destruction, the Diablo 2 expansion set.

Loh

Laying of Hands, the most popular pair of gloves in the game. Among some other useful mods, it massivelyincreases the damage done against Demon type monsters, which includes all the act bosses. This makes the Laying of Hands particularly useful for MEPH and BAAL RUNS. Laying of Hands is part of the “Disciple” set.

Maphack

A hack which reveals the entire map to the player and also adds extra information such as the location of monsters, other players and items. In addition it gives maximum light radius and removes all weather effects.
Unlike most hacks, this one even works on closed realms and is often used by MEPH RUNNERs to make things easier and quicker. Many players feel that Maphack bestows an unfair advantage, however, and consider the use of it to be cheating. Whether or not that is true, using it is certainly not condoned by Blizzard, and involves another risk at well: many of the versions of Maphack downloadable on the Internet have had keyloggers added which will help the hacker who added it to steal your account.
NOTE: since I do not condone the use of maphack, any E-mails requesting for a safe link to download it will be ignored. You will likely find a similar attitude on the GameFAQs Lord of Destruction board, so I wouldn’t ask there either.

Martyr

A somewhat rare Paladin build which relies on the use of Sacrifice, a skill that greatly boosts damage, but deals a bit of damage to the Paladin as well.
When used in combination with Fanaticism, Sacrifice can deal massive damage comparable to that of Charge, but much quicker. The downside of this build is that it deals physical damage only, and that massive life leech is needed to prevent the Paladin from killing himself: 8% on Normal, and 16% on Nightmare and Hell. Generally the Martyr is just not as effective as either the ZEALOT or the AVENGER, and is only played by Paladin experts who want to try something different.

Meph Run

A game with the goal to kill Mephisto, usually on Nightmare or Hell. These runs are popular because Mephisto drops good items, is relatively easy to kill, and can be reached very quickly. Most characters can do Nightmare Meph runs in mere minutes. Hell Meph runs are more hazardous because there are many powerful monsters in the area around him, but can still be done very quickly by Sorceresses using Teleport or Barbarians using Leap Attack (either skill can be used to get past groups of monsters without a fight). Many MEPH RUNNERS make use of MAPHACK to be able to do their Meph Runs even quicker.

Meph Runner

A character specifically intended to do (usually Hell) MEPH RUNS with. These characters are almost always Sorceresses, using Teleport to get to Mephisto quickly and Frozen Orb to kill him. The purpose of these characters is to gather rare and valuable items to use on other characters, trade with other players, or even sell on EBay for real cash.

MF
Magic Find, a mod found on many different items which increases the chance to find magical, rare, set or unique items as opposed to normal or socketed ones. It is often hoarded by MEPH RUNNERS to increase their chances of finding good items. Many characters have both standard combat gear and MF equipment, switching to the latter only when they are trying to find good items (MF gear tends to be less effective in combat). Particularly Sorceresses and Barbarians are popular MF characters: Sorceresses because their skills are deadly even without any combat equipment, and Barbarians because they can dual wield weapons with high MF values such as the Gull Dagger or the Blade of Ali Baba, and have the skill Find Item which basically gives them a second chance at a good drop whenever they take down a boss. Once Magic Find goes beyond 110%, it suffers from DIMINISHING RETURNS, however more MF is always better than less.

ML (or MS)
Mana Leech or Mana Steal. Both terms refer to the same thing: a mod found on some items which helps recover spent mana based on how much physical damage you deal in combat. For instance, with 5% mana leech you regain 5 mana points for every 100 points of damage you do. It is important to note that this does not work on all monsters (skeletons, for instance, can not be leeched from) and that it only applies to physical damage. Many melee characters rely exclusively on mana leech to be able to keep using their skills, and do not invest in Energy at all.

Mod

In lowercase letters, ‘mod’ refers either to an enhancement on a boss or an item, or to a patch used to modify the game in single player mode for a new gaming experience. (AR is a popular example of the latter.) Spelled as MoD, it refers to the Minions of Destruction, a group of very quick and powerful monsters fought just before the final confrontation with Baal. They are feared not only for their quick movements, ITD and high damage, but also for the high latency their appearance tends to cause online and/or on low-end systems.

MR (or MDR)
Magic damage reduction, a mod found on many items. It reduces the damage any magical effect deals to you by a set amount. For spells which linger for a while, such as Firewall and Meteor, this applies every second. In previous versions of Diablo 2 it applied to every frame, which resulted in even a few points of MR significantly reducing or even eliminating the damage from frame-based spells, including Diablo’s lightning hose.

MS
Multi Shot, a property found on some bosses which causes them to fire whatever projectile they might use multiple times with every ranged attack. This is generally not such a dangerous mod, except when seen in combination with Lightning Enchanted. The combination of these two results in the feared MSLEB.

Msleb

Multi Shot, Lightning Enchanted Boss. A boss on Nightmare or Hell that spawns with both of these modifiers is easily one of the worst monsters you will ever encounter. Due to Multi Shot, the boss releases far, far more lighting bolts than he normally would whenever he takes a hit. Furthermore the bolts are closely stacked, which means you typically get hit by many at once, particularly at close range. An unlucky melee character can easily be killed at full health from only a single hit. MSLEBs tend to slaughter parties, particularly careless ones.

Mule

A character specifically made to hold spare items in his inventory and stash, either until a character intended to playing can put them to use, or to be used in trading. The process of bringing items found by playing characters to mules is known as MULING.

Muling

Bringing one or more items to a character specifically created to hold them:
a MULE. This is common practice with online players who always have less stash space than they seem to need. There are three common muling methods:

1. Muling alone. The player creates a passworded game and stays in it for at least five minutes, then drops the items he wishes to transfer and leaves. Due to him having been in at least five minutes, the game will stay up for five more minutes even without any players in it. This gives the player the time to log on with his mule and reenter the game, picking up the items he left.
This method is somewhat risky because disconnections, time outs and other nasty surprises can result in the game being wiped or the player being unable to log on in time, resulting in the loss of the items.

2. Public muling. The player joins a game where other people are playing, finds a safe spot where nobody is likely to stop by, drops his items, logs off and quickly brings in his mule to retrieve the items. This is a very risky method of muling, as you cannot be sure the game will still be up when you return (or, even more frustrating, full), and if another player comes across the items you’ve dropped, chances are he’ll take them. This risk can be reduced by finding a good spot to drop the items to be muled: towns are bad spots, but deep inside large open areas (like the deserts in act 2) or optional dungeons are typically good places. Of course the mule needs to have the proper waypoints to actually reach the equipment you left for him!

3. Muling with a friend. This basically involves starting a game with somebody you know and trust, giving him your items, leaving the game, coming back with your mule and getting your items back. Needless to say doing this with a stranger is a naive and risky move, but if you frequently play with friends you can rely on each other for absolutely safe muling. Even if a disconnect occurs, your friend will still hold the items he took from you so he can give them back to you in a different game.

Muting

A commonly used reprimand by Blizzard against people attempting to scam accounts or generally creating havoc in chat channels. When muted, a player can no longer chat or send private messages, they can only talk in games. In particular, this makes setting up trades next to impossible as this is usually done outside games.

Necro

Short for Necromancer, one of the character classes in the game. The general impopularity of the Necro, caused by several NERFs over time, has resulted in no particular builds having become famous.

Nerf

The term commonly used for the downgrading of a skill or item in Diablo 2.
Nerfing is Blizzard’s usual response to skills or items which turn out to be overpowered. This is much to the dismay of players who have built characters based on these skills/items, and see their hard work being destroyed overnight because suddenly they deal only half the damage they used to. As a result, every patch results in at least some players complaining.

NM
Short for Nightmare, the second difficulty mode out of three. Normal and Hell are not normally abbreviated, Nightmare is. Diablo 2 players tend to be lazy typers.

Nrg

Short for Energy, one of the four primary statistics of any character. It is particularly important to characters who use mana-eating skills regularly and cannot leech it back in melee combat. Particularly Sorceresses and Necromancers need to build up their Energy.

Open

Refers to Open Battlenet, as opposed to the CLOSED REALMs. Characters created to be played in single player mode and/or TCP/IP can be taken to Open Battlenet as well, and can be played there. The disadvantage of Open, however, is that because characters and equipment are stored locally, many people use character and item editors to create godly characters with hacked, overpowered equipment. It gets a little frustrating to try and play a legitimate character when you are surrounded by cheaters, which is why most online players choose to play on the realms instead.

Pally

Short for Paladin, a popular character for use in parties because his beneficial auras help party members in addition to himself. Paladins have had their skills strengthened and weakened a lot over the various patches.
Currently the Paladin is considered one of the more challenging classes to play – while powerful, he is forced to engage in melee to be truly effective, and has no good way to deal with large groups of enemies. Physically immune enemies can be a pain for him as well, hence the AVENGER build.

Personalized

An item which has had the name of its owner added to its name, which is the reward for one of the quests in Act 5. Personalization does nothing except adding the name, and is therefore a rather mundane quest reward. Furthermore personalized items may be worth less in trade to those who do not wish to have to look at another player’s name on their item. Because of this, and the fact that a very tough opponent needs to be defeated to finish the quest, many players skip it.

PI
Physical Immune, a boss mod which results in complete immunity to any physical attacks. Magical damage (raw magic, poison or one of the three elements) is needed to damage these enemies. Physically immune enemies are of no concern to Sorceresses but can be a real pain for melee characters. Some monster types found in act 5 spawn with physical immunity by default in Hell mode, resulting in entire packs of these annoyances.

Pierce

An Amazon skill which allows her arrows and javelins to pass through an enemy, possibly hitting one or more foes behind him. This skill is great for crowd control. It comes by default on the unique crossbow BURIZA, which is one reason for it being as popular as it is. See also GA/PIERCE BUG.

Pincers

Cleglaw’s Pincers, a commonly found and rather mundane set item except for the fact that one of the modifiers behaves strangely. It is supposed to slow a target by 25% upon hitting. When used in combat against other players, however, it first negates any faster walk/run mods and THEN slows the target even more; some people have also reported that it stacks, causing further hits to make you slow down to a crawl. Amazons, in particular, can exploit this to severely slow down an opponent in PVP and get an easy kill in. For this reason Cleglaw’s Pincers are generally considered unfair to use in duels. It is unclear whether the way the slowdown effect on Cleglaw’s Pincers works is a bug.

Pindleskin

A super unique monster at the entrance to Nihlathak’s temple in act 5. There would be nothing particularly interesting about him, except that on Hell mode, he is capable of dropping items in the weapon lvl 90 and armor lvl 90 classes, something which even Baal cannot. For instance, many of the items in Griswold’s set are in these classes.
Because Pindleskin is very easy to get to after completing the third quest of act 5 (a portal from town will lead directly to Nihlathak’s temple) and because his potential to drop unique items is a little better than normal because he is a super unique monster, Pindleskin is a popular target for item runs, particularly for players who are after one of the select few items that Baal cannot drop.
Pindleskin is not the only one capable of dropping items that Baal can’t.
Three other super uniques in act 5, namely Thresh Socket, Snapchip Shatter and Frozenstein, have the exact same drop odds that Pindleskin has. However, since Pindleskin is only a stone’s throw from Harrogath using Anya’s portal, he can be killed quickest of all. His odds of coming up with set or unique items are far worse than those of act bosses. Above all, Pindleskin runs take a lot of patience.

PK
Player Killer (the person), or Player Killing (the action). This refers to the act of seeking out and killing other players in regular games, as opposed to PVP, which is mutually consenting duelling. Particularly in hardcore PK’ers are considered a menace. Nevertheless Blizzard has willingly included the option to kill other players as a design feature and has so far been unwilling to add any protection in the form of hostility needing to be mutual to allow players to attack each other, or placing a “no PK” option on a game when you create it.

Players X

A powerful command available in single player mode, that allows a player to simulate having more players in a game. That means more items are dropped and monsters give more experience, but they also have more hit points. This command can be used to create a more challenging game, but it also allows a player to do more level building than usually possible on single player, which is especially useful late in the game.
To active the command, simply type the chatline ‘players X’, without the quotes, where X may be any number between 2 and 8. For instance, to simulate 8 players
you would type:

players 8

The game gives no confirmation of any kind that the effect has taken place, however you’ll soon notice the difference if you come out of town. Note that using the players X command in the middle of a game works, but it does not affect the monsters already on screen or close to you.

Pvm

Player vs Monster, the way most people play the game. This is done either solitarily or in parties with other players.

PVP

Player vs Player, aka duelling. This refers to two (or more) players fighting each other. This is different from PK in the sense that both players agree to the duel in this case. Duels generally follow a set of rules, which include no potion using, no running into town, and sometimes, no use of certain items like the PINCERS and no use of mercs. Many players build characters specifically intended for duelling. The BURIZON is probably the most powerful duelling build currently in existence, followed closely by certain types of Sorceress and Barbarian.

Ranger

An interesting Paladin build using a bow. Some of the Paladin’s skills, most notably Fanaticism and Holy Shock, work remarkably well with bows, making this build somewhat viable. They are not as powerful as BOWAZONS or more classic Paladin builds like the ZEALOT or the AVENGER, but for an alternative build, they are surprisingly capable.

Realm

Any of the servers on closed Battle.net, where characters and items are stored on the server and cheating is far less common than on OPEN. Currently there are six realms in existence: USWest, USEast, Europe, Asia 1, Asia 2 and Asia 3.
Interestingly Asia 3 has only existed as long as the expansion has, and as a result no SOJ ECONOMY exists there. Rather, runes are the currency on that realm.

Res

Resistance, a mod found on many items. Resistances help to reduce the damage taken from fire, cold, lightning and/or poison attacks. This is particularly important in Nightmare and Hell mode, where the innate resistances of your character are reduced well below zero and elemental attacks can cause massive damage if you do not find the right equipment to counter this.

Rollback

This is restoring a database to the state it was in at an earlier time. For Diablo 2, this can mean that several hours or even days of realm play are “reset” and everythins is returned to what it was like before. This is an extreme measure that has been taken in the past to fix severe realm bugs or duping. Since a rollback cancels everything that happened in the meantime, there is always somebody who found a great item or levelled up their characters a lot, and will not be amused when all that progress is gone.
Hence, rollbacks are rare.

SC
Small charm. Traders are lazy typers.

Scam

A generic term referring to tricking other players. Most commonly seen in the online community are ACCOUNT SCAMs and TRADE SCAMs.

Shako

A certain type of elite helmet. When people mention “the Shako”, they typically refer to the highly powerful (and rare) unique Shako known as Harlequin Crest. This is widely acknowledged to be the best helm in the game, but few players actually have one.

Silks

Silks of the Victor, a powerful but affordable suit of armor that, among other things, improves a character’s mana leeching. Not many suits or armor exist that have this mod. It is a particularly popular armor for AVENGERs who need all the mana leeching they can get.

Singing Barb

An alternative kind of Barbarian who does not use his weapon in combat, but relies exclusively on various War Cries. Unlike other Barbarian builds, singing Barbs (also known as BARDs) require a vast supply of mana. If that can be provided, they are surprisingly effective.

Skill Bug

A bug exploit that flared up in February/March 2002. It involved using a BUGGED ITEM to decrease your dexterity stat below zero, after which it was possible to boost your skills up indefinitely. The result was people with ridiculous skill levels (up in the thousand rather than the normal maximum of 20) running around creating havoc in Hell games: Sorceresses with Charged Bolts filling the entire screen, Paladins with a Holy Fire that clears out the entire Cow level within three seconds of him entering the portal, Barbarians with a Battle Orders giving you six digit hit points, et cetera.
The exploit has been fixed by Blizzard and as bugged items are getting deleted, the skill bug is fading again.

SMITER (or SMITADIN)
An interesting Paladin build based on the skill Smite, which uses the Paladin’s shield to attack. While normally low in damage, Smite can be powerful if used with the right shield (the class-specific Paladin-only shields in the expansion can do good damage) in combination with the skill Holy Shield which boosts Smite damage. The true power of Smite, however, lies in the fact that it automatically hits and stuns the target. Smitadins are sometimes seen in PVM as well as PVP, and while they are rare, the players who use them claim they are highly effective.

Soj

Stone of Jordan, the most famous unique from classic Diablo 2 which continues to have a great impact on the expansion. Back in previous versions, it was possible for a high level player to use a gambling trick to collect these useful rings at a steady pace.

Soj Economy

This refers to the Stone of Jordan being the currency in many high-level trades in Diablo 2 and the expansion. Previously, when they could still be obtained easily in gambling, many high level players had a good stock of these. Now, however, they are much harder to come by, and the stock decreases for various reasons while unique and set items become more and more plentiful.
The unfortunate result is that there is massive deflation and many items previously worth X SoJs don’t even fetch a single one anymore. Nevertheless many players persist in using the SoJ as currency, even though it has already become one of the most valuable items in the game. This has made trading harder than ever.
UPDATE: massive DUPING in January and February 2002 has increased the number of SoJs on the realms immensely. Furthermore, it seems that because most SoJs originate from classic Diablo 2, they are immune to the DUPE DELETION methods Blizzard employs to fight duping. As a result SoJs have become much more common than before, and inflation was the direct result. After the two duping sprees, the SoJ’s value was back at where it was when LoD just came out, and many items have gone up in SoJ value.

Sorc

Short for Sorceress, one of the game’s character classes. In the early days of the expansion this was the single most commonly seen character, but when people started to discover the potential of the Buriza Do-Kyanon, the BURIZON became very common as well.

SP
Single Player. Refers to playing alone with a locally stored character, as opposed to a character stored on a closed realm. Single player mode means you will not be able to party up (except on Open Battlenet or in TCP/IP games) and makes trading non-existent, but it eliminates the issue of lag and gives you access to the powerful PLAYERS X command.

Spearazon

An Amazon relying on the use of spears in melee combat. This was once a popular build due to the skill Jab being bugged – it allowed them to use even the slowest of weapons at an awesome pace, stunlocking single opponents and leeching life by the bucketful to survive against enemy groups. When Jab’s speed bug was fixed, the Spearazon sort of faded away, and is now rarely seen. Nearly every Amazon in existence is either a BOWAZON or a JAVAZON.

Speedzon

One variation of the BOWAZON, the Speedzon strives to achieve the fastest attack speed possible with her bow. This is done by using one of the fastest bows in the game (ideally Windforce, though most have to settle for cheaper ones) and a lot of equipment with Increased Attack Speed mods. The ultimate goal is to achieve the maximum possible bow fire rate, which allows one arrow to be fired every 7 frames. Once every 8 frames is more common, though.
Speedzons avoid using the BURIZA, which is powerful but much slower. Many of them have become Speedzons because they feel using the Buriza is cheap, and want to try something different.

Str

Short for Strength, one of the four primary statistics of any character. It is particularly important to characters who use melee weapons. Normally it is built up to match the requirements for whatever equipment the character intends to use at a high level. For Paladins and Barbarians this tends to be far higher than for Necromancers and Sorceresses.

Tankazon

An interesting Amazon build meant specifically to perform TANKING for another character. These Amazons typically have damage reduction gear and invest heavily in the three passive dodging skills (Dodge, Evade and Avoid) to allow them to survive close encounters. Some of them even use one handed melee weapons and shields, which is of course against the default nature of the Amazon.

Tanking

Getting up close to a monster, keeping it in place so that long distance attackers can strike it safely. For instance, in COW RUNs, it is common for tough Paladins or Barbarians to get up close and keep the cows from overrunning the Sorceresses and Javazons that fight from a distance. A character used for tanking is also referred to as a tank.
Tanks are often mentioned in Sorceress guides, since a Sorceress is much more effective if she doesn’t have to back off all the time. With a good tank (for instance, a Barbarian mercenary or a tough party member), she is much more effective because she can spend all of her time casting spells rather than running to create more distance.

TCP/IP

An online game session in which one player hosts and other players join his IP address. This allows players to play together online without using Battlenet. Locally stored characters can be used to play on TCP/IP, and as such it is not cheatproof per sé: however TCP/IP games are usually played among trusted friends. This is the preferred mode of play for players who wish to be able to play with their friends, but also want to be able to play the same characters offline.

Throwing Barb

A Barbarian build using Double Throw and Throwing Mastery to cause as much damage as possible from a distance. This was perhaps inspired by the Ancients in act 5, as one of them uses Double Throw and actually does a lot of damage.
Nevertheless, throwing barbs used by players can only deal physical damage and typically do not last in late Nightmare and Hell. They are somewhat effective in PVP, though.

Trade Hack

An old hack which has recently become more popular. It allows a malicious player to pretend he’s

Original D2Sector reference. This article describes the historical game version indicated; some advice and external resources may be outdated.