Classic Diablo 2 Fake Levels
im all over the place in this one i really just freestyled it one draft take so i may be alittle everywhere forgive me
i wrote one of these many years ago, this is about basically how character levels are what i like to call " fake " or in other words not as they seem
this can be divided into multiple sections below ill mention a few of them
A. Stats
B. Skills
C. Gear
when manually adding a characters information in you can get what id consider a " true " level its basically just manually adding the character up
here is a random example
lets say we are talking about skill points and your sorceress is level 1, is she really level 1 though? i would say no because she has 0skill points its as simple as that
so a level 99 would actually only be level 98 in terms of how many skills she has when including skill quests 12 from skills well, she would be 98+12= 110 a level 110 sorceress
the whole point to this is i just think things are not always as they seem
fake skills
fake synergies
skills that can be cancled
synergies that can be cancled
and some that are ok but are they really worth it?
some that there is just better options
and more whats not really taken into account is whats going on in the bigger picture after all has been cancled and the posibility of a user using a fake skill or synergy
some are alittle more obvious some not so much i cant really dive into everyone but let me give an example of a well-known one that mostly everyone knows about
Fist of heavens synergy holy bolt we will say for example most almost everyone knows this does not add more damage to FOH,
to be 20 levels lower then he is so lets say hes 99, which is really 98 skills plus he has 12 from his skills and is really a level 110, but then he basically wasted 20 points
on a useless skill that he doesnt know so really hes level 90
thats an example but while this is a weak-example because MOST people know about this even some still overlook it but rarely there is alot of senarios out there that are overlooked
the reason i am so successful at pvp is because of where i put my skills, thats the main reason people cannot beat me
user* refers to the person controling the characters mouse control abilities and capabilities
char* refers to the stats skills and gear and how a character is built
gear* refers to gear
the point is you can be a better user with better gear then i am but you would likely still lose to me because my character is a higher level then yours and i have a deep understanding
of what is fake, what is low value, what is high value, and most importainally what can be cancled, and what cannot
and you cannot cancle me because well.. since im aware of cancability im not using anything that can be cancled to begin with
this kinda sounds alittle wack but alot of truth into it, since i already mentioned a foher im going to use this character as an example in this thread i may not list every single thing
that is fake or low value or canclable and may just topic some of them as an example
A. holy bolt - which was already mentioned obviously a fake synergy as it doesnt add damage to foh
B. Convcition - so this has some fake with it in the sense that you can only get -150 resistance anything over cap that rolls over is fake so will pend on your gear
over skilling here can knock off even more levels
C. Convicition - Cancle - well as seen in example B you could for example put only 16 into conviction for example and have it do exactally 150 and " smart skill it "
but at the end of the day this skill can still be out right cancled by a character that has high enough lightning resistance to just outright make you have wasted
all the skills you put in it
if this is what a player is going to be doin to you at high-end end game play the full picture on the can of worms here is that there is a very ugly world where
a foher does not have conviction, in this world, does a foher even have foh? this is a hybrid intense world theorycrafting what would be " best in slot " in sort of
a never ending loop hole... or does it end?
D. Resist Lightning - now in classic its quite common for a foher esp a foh vs foher to have resist lightning i have seen this build alot
resist lightning would also be cancling conviction out as well and i have also seen it where the player has both convicition and lightning res
and alternates them stacking a cancle and convicitioning
but at the end of the day with really good gear you could essentially be cancling out the convicition and not even needing lower resistance
boosting your character level quite abit compared to your opps who could have potentially wasted 20-40 skill points
desync - clag no longer work in D2R but i will be mentioning it breifly, first off an expert can see an invisable player at all times but he can get alittle lost sometimes
whats importain to note is that any contact with clag what so ever cancles clag that means if that din touches a rock on the field his clag is cancled(he will be able to be seen on the map)
any skill that touches him =clag cancled
because of this a fohers Holy Shock was a great counter to "clag" because u always know when hes coming so turning on holy shock for 1 second cancles his clag in a large
radius anywhere near you making clag Never Work, so people ussually have a big speech about clag and desynching and how it doesnt work anymore on D2R
well the truth is, it never worked, experts could always see you, because of this what im going to recommend to clag,desynch users what you really need to do is
keep doing what you were doing before and it should be just as effective seriously, just believe.
the whole point with this is fohers were considered to be a strong counter to hammerdins fohers were considered to destroy hammerdins as hammerdins who get close
are exposed by holy shock making them visable and then a foher would just range them easily staying away from hammers so it is a quite well known thing for along time
that foh is better then a hammerdin
but is that really true?
classic is pretty much dominated by Bleed
zvz - bone flesh bleeding arrows
bvb - sback bleeding weapon
melee or throw sorceress barbs paladins amazons are actually a thing their bleed variants are quite good
pvp (paladin vs paladin) is, but isnt dominated by bleed which we are back on topic and to the point while a foher completely outplays a hammerdin because of foh range
a foher can not do anything to a hammerdin what so ever because of bleed
please try to follow
because of this you have all of these crazy hybrids now that just walked into the door because at the end of the day all u really need is a level 1 charge and gnasher
or sback to destroy a foher
which ironically the counter for this sort of melee rush is a hammerdin how ironic
so now pretty much a pure hammerdin build instead of using a scepter or shield could simply use sback or gnasher to bleed out a player and at the same time
he cannot get bled out himself because you cannot charge or melee a hammerdin successfully
with that being said the only way for a paladin to challenge a hammerdin that is using bleed is for him to be doing the samething
now..... because both dins have hammers and bleed neither of them will be able to use the bleed because of the hammers cancling both players bleed which is pretty ironic.....
how it made a circle of life
a half foh half hammerdin bleed hybrid would be required to kill that player - we may not need bleed ourself and can use a switch for this match up
1. you would have to cast hammers around you strong enough to thwart a bleed charge attempt
2. you would need foh for a range attack interestly enough the top half of this post refers to a bunch of convicition cancles whats interesting about this sort of hybrid
is that a good end game hammerdin will just cancle your convicition meaning if we do not even have convicition its likely not going to hurt or make us any weaker anyways
because he will likely have the 275LR covered anyways
so lets start with
20 FOH - required to range the bleed hammerdin
20 Blessed Hammers - goal high enough damage to prevent a bleed charge and protect vs any melee attacks
20 vigor maybe? faster run walk is really good for other match ups potentially aswell like vs barb
20 Conc - hammer damage
8 holy shock
this is at level 91 which for classic is pretty much the standard i will not be addressing this build past 91 at this time but
your hammer damage is likely high enough and you prolly want to go alittle more into foh damage but this should work fine
you know i dont think faster cast rate would really be needed either so you could go two sojs to really just focus damage
magefists 20fcr + 10fcr from amulet would be enough and extremely easy to gear
you could also get a +2 10fcr 3bh 3conc scepter but this is not easy to gear and would just give easy of access to the fcr on your amulet
standard 30fcr gear with like sojs tarn etc would work well 30fcr is enough to place hammers to keep melee attacks off you while you range with foh
any sort of hybrid builds that are not like this one but may need attack rating could use blessed aim as a synergy for hammers instead of vigor
<The All Knowing & Knowing Is Power> (knowing what ur opp is using, and hiding what your using) (you generally do not want to answer questions like what level is your conviction and etc)
as these answers will be used against you.
knowing this sort of information makes understanding whats going on change everything other wise you are just dueling none the wiser thats a bunch of jibberish but
while you get some decent numbers from the skills about maybe it would be better to go abit weaker as odd as that may sound
if a player knows where you have put your skill points your potentially counterable and canclable and can be exploited and taken advantage of in some how way shape or forum
or in other words it would prolly be alittle suspicious if a player was hitting you with foh with concentration and hammers up with no convicition first off this is going to look
extremely noobie no one in the world in their right mind builds hammerdin foh hybrids like this on classic and i doubt expansion
but the point is 1 point into convicition does still give you like -80 resistance pending, respectively going alittle less damage on hammers (as much as you need to survive melee)
and wasting a few points getting a level 1 convicition that -80 resistance could get cancled by a player but it could also confuse him also or make him do an unprepared gear switch or
a poor gear switch and have him really not knowing what kind of paladin you are or where your skills are placed
paladin vs sorc - bleed lock
paladin vs paladin - bleed lock - or range with foh while protecting with hammers
paladin vs barb - classic hammerdin duels waiting games always happen with the barb not wanting to go into the hammers casting fohs at him while in a pool of hammers is a big suprise
paladin vs zon - bleed lock
paladin vs necro - break prisons so fast and out run the spirits even if clagging doesnt work storm on and off the map anyways as if it did pretend that it does, it doesnt mater that it doesnt
anyways spirits at the necros feet auto aim you and teeth spray detect you anyways even if you could clag focus on storming on and on the field quickly breaking prisons and out running the spirits
i dont really think i got off topic but i did talk about a whole range of things here whats good to remember is understanding the full extend of the match ups what can be cancled countered whats very useful
and not very useful is a big difference in a fight, this sort of hybrid style hammerdin sort of has " low numbers " compared to any pure character clearly but generally most pure characters are going to
have small mistakes here and there where you may have the oppertunity to cancle out 20 skills, cancling 20 of his skills makes your hybrid numbers really normal and not low at all
now this does have some partial examples of fake levels in it but this is just scratching the surfice and some characters have no fake levels while others have them everywhere
some have them more stat based some more gear based some more skill based some with a mix of it all
but at the end of the day this article is sort of a representation of why players cannot kill me because of they come near me well, i will just bleed lock them and really theres nothing preventing
me from doing so besides hammers, and if u cast hammers i will just foh you, and even tho im a weak hybrid im not really that weak because you have enough LR to cancle convicition anyways
and if you dont a level 1 convicition could get ya, and if you have enough LR to cancle the level 1 convicition thats ok its a very small loss that wont be effecting our match up
im going to stop here thanks for listining this build is not where i currently am at, i have been beyond this point for along time
lmk if anyone has any questions about classic diablo 2
i dont want to address it here but i do want to edit something in and just say that a bleed throw paladin could also be used to range the other paladin and would do more damage i think bleed ticks pretty hard
This post was edited by Jvun7 on Jan 9 2026 03:58pm
D2:R