Diablo 2: All Unique Monster Bonuses (& How To Counter Them)
Diablo 2 is a lot of things. It's a dungeon crawler. It's a dark RPG. It's an RNG looter. But one word that you might not hear thrown around very often is "bullet hell." That's a shame because when gamers go up against some of the tougher unique monsters and their minions, the screen can easily be filled with hundreds of projectiles. Players who are on Hell difficulty and fighting a blue unique monster know that "hundreds" is not an exaggeration.
Somehow, in the middle of this mayhem, players are supposed to squint their eyes, read the monster's bonus, and try to guess what superpower the monster is employing. Trying to do so on-the-fly is a recipe for death and trial-and-error is an expensive and time-consuming process. So take a few minutes and get familiar with the status effects now before facing down these various bonuses in the middle of a storm of arrows, barbs, and magic missiles.
13 Aura Enchanted
While all of the official titles are a little bit vague, "Aura Enchanted" takes the cake when it comes to non-descriptive. The aura can be Might (increased damage), Holy Fire (bursts of periodic fire damage), Blessed Aim (increased attack rating), Holy Freeze (slows movement speed), Holy Shock (stronger bursts of periodic fire damage), Conviction (lowers resistance and defense), or Fanaticism (increases attack speed, attack rating, and damage).
Run away! The minions will catch up before the unique monster, allowing the player a chance to kill them aura-free and deal with the aura-provider last.
12 Cold Enchanted
This enchantment will increase enemy damage by up 100%, with an additional 50% in cold damage in Hell difficulty. It will slow the player for 20 seconds when an attack lands. Monsters with this resist cold (75), have double the chance to hit, and will cast a frozen nova when they die.
It goes without saying to avoid using cold spells. Also, keep a potion of thawing handy which will clear the slow debuff.
11 Cursed
Cursed monsters have a 50% chance of putting a debuff on any character they hit. This debuff cuts all defenses in half; this makes it so any source of damage (not just the initial attacker) will do an additional 50% damage.
For ranged characters, it's simple; don't get hit. For melee players, run in, kill a monster, and then run out. Have a cleared pathway ready to go for kiting purposes. The running might take a while, but there is plenty of time to burn on this and other games before Diablo 2: Resurrected is released.
10 Extra Fast
The double movement speed becomes apparent as soon as the monster and the minions appear on the screen. But there is also an extra 25% increase in attack speed that can be hard to pick up on until it's too late.
Decoys and distractions work well for these groups. For those who don't have that luxury, stacking return damage and putting on thick armor will go a long way.
9 Extra Strong
This will increase the monster's physical damage by 150% and its minions will gain a 75% bonus to their physical attacks as well. It's very strong and some fans are holding out hope that the next version of this game will make some changes and reduce this bonus significantly.
Remember that this does not count toward magic attacks, so mages with this buff can be treated as usual. For hard-hitting enemies, even fantastic armor will have a hard time enduring, so use a classic dive-in and dive-out technique so as to limit confrontations to a one-on-one situation.
8 Fire Enchanted
This enchantment works exactly like the Cold Enchanted bonus from before but without the benefit of the slow debuff and it applies fire resistance and damage instead of cold. The frost nova on death has been replaced with a corpse explosion that deals 100% of the monster's life in damage to the immediate area.
Common sense says that fire spells will be less effective and that's true. Though this can seem like a downgrade without the slow, remember that fire spells tend to hit harder, so keep all projectiles in mind.
7 Lightning Enchanted
Pattern recognition demands that this will be very similar to the Cold and Fire Enchantments before. Predictably, the damage is now lightning damage. However, instead of a death effect, monsters will cast charged bolts every time they are struck.
The biggest obstacle here is the charged bolts, which can easily kill players who do many rapid and small attacks. The secret is to use large attacks that kill each monster in one to two hits, thus limiting their output.
6 Magic Resistant
Monsters with this buff will gain 40 resistance to cold, fire, and lightning damage. It's not to be confused with immunity as they can still receive damage from elemental sources. As content was cut from the game, sorceress players were bummed out that this bonus managed to stay in.
Physical damage dealers won't sweat this one bit. But magic casters should not despair either as the resistance only functions against those three elements. Poison and physical damage spells will remain and full strength, even when cast magically. Druids have certain aspects to them that allow them to be effective against this buff.
5 Mana Burn
Every point of damage done to health will come with four points of "damage" done to mana. In addition, there is a hidden perk for the monsters who have this buff as they gain a double hit chance and 20 magic resistance.
For melee mana users, this is a nightmare monster bonus. Do not be stingy with mana potions, this is when they are at their most useful. Players with mana leech will be able to siphon their mana back against these enemies as well.
4 Multiple Shot
Monsters that launch ranged projectiles will launch three instead of one. This buff will not appear on enemies that lack a projectile attack. How classes handle enemy projectiles is already one of the determining factors in class superiority, this will magnify those rankings even further.
Left to right motions are supreme against this buff. The bullet hell might appear outrageous, but the pattern of the split is set at an angle so that a distant attacker will not be struck by the two side missiles so long as the lateral movement is small. Melee classes will want to get in close and use stun and slow attacks.
3 Spectral Hit
Monsters will gain an additional damage source on top of their usual physical damage, one of either fire, cold, lightning, poison, or magic. Elemental resistances are beefed up by 20 and their chance to hit is doubled. The extra damage is 100%, with another 50% tacked on in Hell difficulty.
Those who have stacked resistances will be in luck, but those who haven't should use a potion or do their best to avoid being stuck by using ranged attacks. Throwing weapons will work well for those who have put the bulk of their defensive capabilities into dodge.
2 Stone Skin
On normal difficulties, Stone Skin gives the monster a 50% resistance to physical damage. On Nightmare and Hell difficulties, this is buffed to 100%. That's right, total immunity to physical damage. It can be tempting to download one of the game's amazing mods to get rid of this bonus.
Magic users will scoff at this limitation, but unprepared classes that have invested everything into physical damage might feel like this is unfair. Always keep an extra weapon that does magic damage and is socketed with more magic damage to deal with this bonus.
1 Teleporting
The mechanics on this are hard to figure out, but the community has analyzed and experimented to find that monsters under 33% health will blink away and then try to either heal or attack from range.
Find the escapees and finish them off quickly before they heal. Melee characters will have the hardest time, but if they have even one ranged spell or weapon, change rotations so that the ranged move is the finishing blow and not the opening salvo. Certain classes and their corresponding zodiac signs might have a tougher time and, in these cases, Teleporting can be negated entirely by doing all of the damage in a single burst when the creature hits about 50%.
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