Getting started
If you have played Diablo, most of this will feel familiar. These are the things that are different enough to catch you out, in the order you will meet them.
1. You start with nothing
No weapon, no armour, no potions, no gold. Both mouse buttons are on your bare fist, and your first fight is a fist fight. This is deliberate - the first weapon you pick up is an event again.
If you would rather not, set Naked Heroes=0 in diablo.ini before
creating the character. It is read once, at creation, so changing it later does nothing for an
existing hero.
2. Spend your first skill point
You get one skill point per level. Press S for the Abilities window: the first sheet is your spells, the other three are your class tree.
- Green plus at an icon's bottom-right spends a point. Red minus at the bottom-left takes it back, free, one rank at a time.
- A red plate means the skill is yours but empty. Grey means not yet. A red X means the skill is listed but not built yet - it takes nothing and does nothing.
- Tier-1 skills are available at character level 1. See Class trees.
3. Put something on each mouse button
Left-click a skill to put it on the left button; right-click to put it on the right. Auras go to the right button whichever button you click them with.
To get the plain attack back on a button, click that button's well on the HUD and pick it from the strip that appears.
4. Learn what the numbers mean
| You see | Where | It means |
|---|---|---|
| Area Level | The automap (TAB) | How deep this place counts as - what it can drop |
| mlvl | Under a monster's health bar | What that kill is worth as loot |
| Item Level | An item's description | How deep it was made - and what it could have rolled |
| Tier | An item's description, in colour | Normal, Nightmare, Hell or Torment - the base's own grade |
5. Depth is the whole progression
Each difficulty is a 24-floor block of one continuous ladder, and almost everything keys off it: which bases can drop, which tier they are forged at, how good the rolls are, which spell books exist. By Hell/Hell every base item in the game is obtainable; past that you are farming for better rolls rather than new things.
6. Spells have a level band
Every spell demands a character level before it can be learned: . A book you cannot read is a book that will not drop, so you will not find Apocalypse in the Cathedral.
Deepening a spell follows the Rule of Rangs: each rank costs one more character level than the last. Nothing is capped - a level-99 character can pour every point they ever earned into one spell - but it takes the levels to get there.
7. Keys worth knowing on day one
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| S | Abilities - spells and your class tree |
| I / C / Q | Inventory, character, quests |
| TAB | The map, with the area level on it |
| F1 - F8 | Ability hotkeys. Bare key = right button, Shift + key = left button |
| F9 / F10 | Game speed down / up |
| F11 / F12 | Event log / screenshot |
| T | Town portal |
| R | Walk / run toggle |
| 1 - 6 | Belt slots |
8. Things that will surprise a Diablo veteran
- No Item Repair, Trap Disarm, Search, Identify, Staff Recharge or Rage. The class skills are retired; the trees replaced them. Griswold repairs, Adria recharges, Cain identifies.
- An aura and a right-button skill are one slot. Lighting an aura clears the skill; readying a skill puts the aura out.
- Torment is a fourth difficulty above Hell, single-player only, with its own multiplier.
- The belt has six slots and a town-portal button of its own.
- The inventory has ten tabs and thirteen equipment slots, including shoulders, bracers, gloves, belt, legs and boots.
- Plain white items are the endgame material. A quarter of basic-quality equipment drops socketed, at any base tier, and gems, runes and runewords all live in those sockets. Rings and amulets are the exception - having no white versions, they socket at magic and better. See Sockets and gems.
- There is no Continue and no save button. Picking a character always starts a fresh dungeon; the character is what persists. The game autosaves on its own - see Saving and progress.
- Press R to run, anywhere, not just in town. No stamina.
- Skill points come back. One rank at a time for free, or the whole pool at Adria for gold.
- Gold stacks far higher than vanilla's cap.