Hi everyone,

after about 5 years, I’d like to get back into Diablo II and I’m looking for some advice.
Which character is best suited for public PvP (vs all)?

I’d really appreciate a few tips on builds, strengths, and what works well in public games.

Thanks in advance and best regards! 😊

Generally the recommendations are:

Paladin
Hdin (if you're very good at pvp), vt (smite/foh) otherwise.

Smite is really strong and cant be absorbed (foh is just extra + can help stun), cant miss, adds stun, and paladin as a whole is a class that easily gets res/block/dr so is very tanky.
Hdin is even stronger and has no resist against it, but is very difficult to hit against good players and requires more thought into gameplay and good use of smite/foh stun combo.


Windy Druid
Easy access to a strong oak, multiple summons, very high damage which cant be absorbed (hurricane can but its just extra + slow)


Pnb necro
Has a golem, very high damage which has no real resist and cannot be absorbed, curses for team fights.


Anything else normally has either high intro gear requirements, or has a lot more weaknesses (I'm generalising here but its mostly true).

This post was edited by Bradymuck on Jan 10 2026 02:31pm

Windy and hdin can be good with basic gear

Barb and smite need a little better gear but they are good all around

Bone nec is pretty OP

Fire druid is a fun off meta build gaining popularity but high skill cap

PVP is too much fun I love it

nec is cheapest and most versatile, probably best to start with

hdin is boring af if you spin2win. but fun as hell if you're good. hdin has the highest skill cap of any character

Hammerdins suck now cause no more frw bug. They are no longer ghosts and are exactly where you think they are.

Same with zons and the cta swappers.

Nothing better than d2r imo, yall used every cheat imaginable on lod.

Always smite!

some strong ones for pubs imo are:

v/t
bone necro
hammerdin
ele druid

pretty much all of them are both good for gm duels and bm duels

hammerdin shines in 1vs7 imo and pure bm duels

Hammerdin hands down.

Nec is super cheap, and frankly massively overpowered. In GM duels u can only put 13 points in bone Spirit (main spell) because of how unbalanced it is if u max it.