Diablo II: Resurrected 100% Achievement Grind

Day 0: Pre Ladder Abyss Warlock Prologue

May 8 to May 9, 2026

The project technically started here, but this was before the ladder reset announcement. The Abyss Warlock cleared Hardcore Normal and explains why some achievements were already unlocked before the ladder Sorc became the actual focus.

Day 1: Ladder Sorc Start, Ancient’s Pledge, and Nightmare Setup

May 23, 2026

The real series start. Act 1 was slower than normal, the gear was rough, and Duriel was hard enough to force a Countess farming detour. That also turned into the Ancient’s Pledge mini arc: farm Rals, cube Ort, shop a 3 socket Large Shield from Fara, and get those Sorc’s resists up.

Later, the Sorc started coming online with Spirit, Lore, and a crafted caster belt. Gour told me to organize my inventory, so naturally I used controller auto sort to make it worse. Nightmare Andariel died, and the game was finally fun again.

Day 2: Nightmare Clear and Mephisto Farming Begins

May 24, 2026

Act 5 got sketchy. There was a close call around the 4 hour mark, then Worldstone Keep turned into cold immunes, Gloams, no TPs, and general misery. The Nightmare achievement finally popped.

After that, Mephisto farming started. The early MF setup was rough, but it eventually got us an Oculus and Chance Guards. Oculus is a huge Sorc find, but not advised in Hardcore, so the plan became using it as a weapon swap MF tool instead of casually running around with it like a retard.

I'm sure I'll regret this later.

Day 3: MF Farming, Goldwrap, and Gearing up for Hell

May 25, 2026

Mephisto farming got stale, so the Sorc’s gear got rebuilt for Hell. Taking off Spirit and using Suicide Branch made the setup safer: losing 1 in skill but stronger resists while staying above a useful FCR breakpoint. It didn't work and was getting my ass kicked in Hell so back to farming...

Then Goldwrap dropped in Nightmare Terror Zone Halls of the Dead. It pushed Magic Find up to around 234%, but replacing the caster belt dropped the Sorc out of the faster cast setup. For Mephisto and Terror Zone farming, the extra MF is probably worth the slower teleports for now.

Day 4: Hell Re entry and Spirit Setup

May 26, 2026

After getting tired of farming Mephisto and Terror Zones, I more or less decided to just deal with the slower cast rate so I could keep Spirit for the +2 skills. By this point the Sorc was level 71, resists were mostly fine, and the hope was to push farther into Hell and maybe start getting better runes or a 4 socket polearm base for the merc.

Den of Evil did not seem too bad at first, but Corpsefire was still kind of scary. He killed my merc and chunked me a little bit, but we got him. I also realized I already had the Cairn Stone key from another day, so I walked through Stony Field and that dumb cave you need to get to Dark Wood for no reason.

Day 5: Homunculus, Eye of Etlich, and Act 2 Push

May 27, 2026

Near the start of stream, Mephisto dropped Nightsmoke. Not super exciting, but still something. Later, a random Act 1 pack dropped Homunculus, which is a pretty big item drop even if it is Necromancer only and not directly useful for the Sorc.

Radament also dropped The Eye of Etlich, which is kinda nice for a level 15 amulet. I pushed through Act 2 and had some close calls, so that section is probably worth rewatching for possible tension/highlight beats.

After more gear shuffling, this is more or less the setup I actually decided to tackle Hell with: Suicide Branch, Ancient’s Pledge, Smoke, Lore, Ghoul Necklace, Ghoul Clutches, Death Gyre, Garnet Ring, and Viper Track boots. The final sheet was around 70% FCR with 75 fire, 75 lightning, 73 cold, and 75 poison resist. From what I remember, I ended up finishing Acts 1 and 2 with this setup more or less.

Day 6: Gull Detour, Trav Panic, and Merc Upgrades

May 28, 2026

I leveled a Warlock to 11 so I could gamble a Gull dagger, only to find out daggers were not showing up in the gambling screen anymore. This change was made alongside the Reign of the Warlock expansion updates, because daggers were reclassified to hold class-specific skills (similar to wands, staves, and scepters). Consequently, you can no longer gamble for popular low level items like the Gull Dagger. So that was a very productive detour.

The big stream moment was Travincal. I almost died multiple times and kept walking in and out of Durance in a panic trying to get away from the Council. Watch the clip here.

I finished Act 3 on stream and stopped there. After that, I went back to farming Nightmare Mephisto, which dropped Tearhaunch, Duriel’s Shell, Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest, and Bloodthief. The merc drops should help while I keep looking for a real Insight base.

Days 7-9: NM Meph Farming and Vipermagi Payoff

May 29 to June 1, 2026

The next stretch was mostly Nightmare Mephisto farming across a few days. I got the achievement "Accessorizing for fun and profit" by equipping Cleglaw’s Brace as a complete set.

The farm also got us some Frostburns, which are nice when I can afford the resists, and I finally realized Blade of Ali Baba was a safer AND higher MF swap than Oculus. With Ali Baba and Rhyme on swap, Magic Find jumped to around 277% without dealing with Oculus randomly teleporting me in Hardcore.

By rough estimate, this was probably somewhere around 600 to 800 Nightmare Mephisto runs by the time it finally happened, counting the earlier farming nights and another roughly four hour grind on June 1. Then the stupid Skin of the Vagi (heh heh) finally dropped. Skin of the Vipermagi hit the ground with +33 all resists, +1 all skills, and 30% Faster Cast Rate.

Day 10-11: Diablo Scare, 110% FCR, and Hell Meph Begins

June 2 to June 3, 2026

The first Hell Act 4 attempt was still scary. Chaos Sanctuary was slow because of cold immunes, Diablo killed the merc, fired his red lightning, and I panic alt-tabbed before Alt+F4ing out safely.

That scare is what pushed me to shift gears. Crawling through Chaos Sanctuary with all the immunes felt too slow, but Hell Mephisto still felt unsafe to farm. I have farmed Hell Meph with worse stats before, so the new plan became hitting the 105% FCR breakpoint, keeping the resists decent enough, and taking a more calculated risk instead of waiting for perfect gear to farm meph.

I socketed Vipermagi with a Perfect Topaz, got to 110% FCR for teleport, and could still swap to Blade of Ali Baba and Rhyme for about 190% MF on Meph kills. The resists are not perfect, but with the faster teleport and full rejuves ready, it felt good enough to start running Hell Mephisto.

Hell Mephisto attempts started paying off almost immediately. On run 20 with the MF counter, an ethereal Andariel’s Visage dropped. That is a huge merc upgrade once the level requirement is handled, even if the fire resistance penalty needs to be fixed later.

I only did about 40 Meph runs before I got bored and swapped back to Hell Act 4. With 110% FCR, I teleported straight into Chaos Sanctuary instead of crawling through it, got the seals, and killed Hell Diablo with no real problems.

After Diablo, I pushed into Hell Act 5 toward Anya. Shenk spawned Fire Immune and Cold Immune, so the merc had to deal with him. I suicide teleport to Crystalline Passage, got Amped and chunked, and made it in. Mobs in Crystalline Passage have erased me before, and the mobs were already beating the shit out of the merc, so we're gonna have to take things slow here. On to Anya. We got the waypoint in there. so I'm calling it quits for now.

Day 12: Anya, War Travelers, Ancients, and Hell Baal

June 4, 2026

The Act 5 push finally paid off. I made it through Frozen River, dealt with Gloams, rescued Anya, and the permanent resistance helped keep all my resists at 75. That gave me a little more room for adding more MF in my Mephisto runs.

Hell Mephisto also paid out War Traveler Battle Boots on run 61. The 46% Magic Find roll is nice, but they are not a free equip because my old boots were helping carry resistances and War Travs need 95 strength. Still, Nice MF, nice move speed and a good item in general.

Ancients were beaten in the dumbest possible way. Potions dumped all over the ground, the merc dying almost immediately, and exploiting Korlic? I don’t know if this is a known exploit or not, but I beat Korlic, who was cold and lightning immune, by sort of bugging him out and making him run back and forth in a spot in the bottom-right corner. It took forever, but it got the job done.

The first Worldstone Keep attempt got me Amped immediately and I bailed. The next attempt turned into a full suicide teleport mission. Worldstone Keep had Gloams and all the usual stuff you don't want to see in Hardcore, but I made it through to the throne. The waves were mostly manageable until Lister, where the merc kept getting deleted and the Blizzard/Meteor setup ran into immunity problems. I ended up swapping the merc from Insight to Viperfork just to get enough damage to finish the wave.

Baal himself was painfully slow, so I respec’d into full Blizzard mid fight. That finally got the damage where it needed to be. Baal died, Hell difficulty was cleared, and two major achievements popped: completing Hell difficulty and completing Hell difficulty with the Sorceress. Now to focus on Meph runs and maybe Warlock...

Day 13: Post Hell Farming, Full Blizzard, and the Cold Facet

After June 4, 2026

After Hell Baal, the Sorc finally respec’d fully into Blizzard. The plan is to farm Hell Mephisto, safe safe Terror Zones for Blizzard when they rolled well, and Terrorized Pindle as the casino for high end items like Death’s Fathom and Nightwing’s Veil.

The gear puzzle became the usual Hardcore Sorc shit: how greedy can I get with Skullder’s, Goldwrap, War Travelers, and MF rings before the resists/FCR become suicidal? One test pushed the Magic Find number high, but dropped lightning, cold, and poison resistance too far, so that version got rejected. I got it up to 377 MF by manually swapping to Skullder's when killing meph.

The huge payoff from this stretch was a perfect cold Rainbow Facet: +5% cold skill damage and -5% enemy cold resistance. It is the exact kind of Blizzard Sorc drop you want, but the plan is to hold it for a real endgame socket like Death’s Fathom or Nightwing’s Veil instead of wasting it in temporary gear.

This stretch also picked up a couple cleanup achievements: “Do over!” from unsocketing gear with the cube, and “They see me rollin’, they hatin’” after putting together all uniques in every gear slot.

Day 14: Terrorized Chaos Disaster and the Lillipher Loss

After the Hell Baal clear

Unfortunately, I am really dumb, and after an entire day of Hell Meph farming, my greed got the better of me. My dumbass decided I should test a Terrorized Chaos Sanctuary, which in all honesty is a really poor idea, and I dunno what I was thinking.

I was really thinking, “hmm, maybe we can get a sneaky Veil for my rainbow facet.” Lillipher died in Terrorized Chaos Sanctuary when Lord De Seis spawned directly on top of me. That ended the first Sorc’s post Baal farming arc and turned the series into building up a new Sorc.

The painful losses were Skin of the Vipermagi and the ethereal Andariel’s Visage. Some pieces are replaceable, but losing Vipermagi and the eth Andy’s hurt the most. The immediate lesson was also pretty clear: never doing Chaos TZ again like that.

So we're not gonna play for a little while and start a new character ASAP so I can do hell Meph runs on a sorc again.

Day 15: Vado, Nightmare Baal, and Replacement Gear

June 2026 rebuild stretch

The last Sorc was named after my wife. This new one is named after my cat. Something something 9 lives or something lol.

I got Vado up to speed by running trist runs. I mostly did all of normal in a group this time. Lillipher was completely SSF but I just wanna get back on my feet here. After that I started some tele-baal runs and got a good group going. Then the group was joined by a very abrasive guy who insisted that he rush me through Nightmare... uhhh ok? lmao. So he rushed me through Nightmare and I was off to do some NM Baal runs. After that I found a decent group for NM Baal runs. I mentioned to the group that my character died and that I had lost an eth Andy and vipermagi and someone in the group was able to parse from that I was Jackafur? It left me really baffled honestly. Maybe he just added me as a friend and saw my bnet ID and Im just getting a big head. With all that I was back in hell and able to do NM Meph runs all in one day. Not bad.

So off to NM Meph I went. Spectral Shard dropped, so I’m going to use it to push my FCR past 105 so I can farm Nightmare Meph comfortably. I lost my Suicide Branch when Lillipher died, and I still haven’t seen a Wizardspike yet, so this is probably my best bet getting FCR where I want... for now at least.

The high dexterity requirement is annoying and might force me to use dex charms, but 50% Faster Cast Rate, +50 mana, and +10 all resists is exactly the kind of boring stat stick I need right now.

Then Nightmare Meph actually came through way faster than the last Vipermagi grind. On run 33 of the new Sorc, Vado replaced Skin of the Vipermagi. It is not the same roll Lillipher lost. The old one had +33 all resists, and this one rolled +24, but I will absolutely take it. Getting the armor back that fast after the Chaos death is a big win for the new sorc. Now I just need to somehow get the eth Andy's back. heh heh heh.

The new character also pushed the account to 27 / 43 achievements after “Explorer Reporting” and “Completed Grimoire” unlocked on June 10.

Day 16: Vado Dies, Then Vayda Dies Too Because Of Course

June 2026

The site used to end with Vado getting back on his feet. That is not where the story is anymore. Vado died too. I do not have the clean death writeup here, but the important part is that the first recovery Sorc after Lillipher also ended up dead.

So I made Vayda. This is where the Vipermagi thing started becoming a complete joke. The first one took something like 600 to 800 Nightmare Meph runs, then Lillipher died with the good +33 one. After that the game suddenly remembered Vipermagi exists. Vayda got a good +33 roll, except it was ethereal, because of course it was. Then the other ones were mostly shitty low 20s rolls.

Then Vayda died too. So the actual order is Lillipher died, Vado died, Vayda died, and then I made Jack.

Day 17: Jack, Red, a Griefer, and a Rainbow Facet

June 2026

I really should have recorded this one, but I did not. I met this guy Red in a public game and we ended up playing together basically all day, from Normal through Hell. It started as just normal leveling / progression stuff, but it turned into this weird little journey where we just kept going.

Then things got a little crazy in Hell Act 1. I heard the PvP sound and immediately started teleporting away, then TP'd out. The griefer was a level 92 Warlock and chased Red around with teleport, but Red got away by using that Paladin charge ability and running into the den of evil and eventually got back to town safetly. Then Red talked mad shit to him for what felt like 10 minutes straight lmao.

Eventually Red told me he did not realize it right away, but later figured out the guy was a known griefer. I think his name was Hands or Mr. Hands or something, but I kinda forgot. Either way, we survived the whole thing and just kept going.

After all that, we made the long journey through the rest of Hell and killed Baal together. Then a fucking Rainbow Facet drops from Baal. It rolled fire, +5% fire skill damage and -4% enemy fire resistance. I do not really have a use for that on a cold Sorc outside of trading, and Red was actually playing fire, so I let him keep it. I know he actually wanted to use it, so it felt like the right call after playing together all day. Plus he was SUPER hyped when it dropped. He did offer to hand it over, which I think was a kind gesture because I had given him a Lem rune earlier, but I told him to keep it.

Day 18: Jack Hell Meph, Vipermagi #6, and Finally Shako

June 25th 2026

Jack started doing Hell Meph after that. The big thing here was not really a bunch of random shitty drops. It was the game finally giving Jack the kind of gear that actually matters after the Sorc corpse pile.

The Vipermagi count is now up to 7? One died with Lillipher, one died with Vado, three are sitting on the mule, and Jack is wearing one now. Bro this is a joke at this point. The first one took forever, then the good +33 died, then I got the eth +33 troll roll, then a bunch of +21 and +22 type garbage. Finally, sometime between Hell Meph run 50 and run 96, Jack got a real one: +32 all res and Magic Damage Reduced by 13. I am socketing it and putting an Um in it.

Then Hell Meph run 96 (96 for Jack its well over 1000 total at this point) finally dropped Shako. That is the big one. +2 skills, huge life and mana, 10% damage reduction, and 50 MF all in one slot. After Lillipher, Vado, and Vayda all died, Jack finally got enough gear to feel like a real character again.

Day 19: Hell Countess, Accidental Ohm, and Call to Arms

June 29, 2026

At some point I decided I needed a Lem rune so I could upgrade my Vipermagi, so I started farming Hell Countess. I dunno when it happened or when it dropped, but I noticed I had put an Ohm rune in my inventory at some point. I was kinda like, "ok I got Puls, Um, Ist, Ohm... wait I have a fucking Ohm?!"

So now CTA was suddenly on the table. I traded an Ist for a Mal because I needed Mal for Call to Arms, and then immediately realized, “oh fuck, I needed the Ist for CTA too... whoops.” I tried offering my lightning Rainbow Facet and Highlord's for an Ist, but no one bit.

So I went to lobby chat and engaged in some charming conversation. Eventually someone came in after I jokingly offered 5 Magefists for an Ist. He joined the room I made and just dropped an Ist on the ground. I offered him some other stuff, and he said he would take a Tal helm for his alt's merc. Sweet. Shout outs to that guy.

After that, through another goofy trade, I got the CTA base and finally made Call to Arms. And holy shit, this is really fucking sick. I have actually never had one of these before. Really nice to have. Now I just need to make a HOTO.

Day 20: Crown of Ages, Hands Lore, Arach, and HOTO

June 30, 2026

A lot happened pretty fast here. I was farming Pindle because he was Terrorized, and then he dropped Crown of Ages. It actually rolled with some pretty decent stats too: 2 sockets, +1 all skills, 30% FHR, all res +29, damage reduced by 14%, and indestructible.

To my excitement, I realized this thing could maybe sell for a fucking Jah rune. I did not end up getting a Jah out of it, but it was still clearly a real trade piece. I had trouble moving it normally, but eventually I found a way to trade it off. It turned into enough value to get Vex and Arachnid Mesh, and some change, which honestly helped Jack way more right now anyway.

The weird side story is that while trying to move the CoA, I noticed someone who was trying to trade with me pointing to a thread in their profile about PapaKush / KushBot. I clicked it because he was drawing a lot of attention to it about some scammer. Then on the first post I see a screenshot of Hands, and sure enough, it looked like the same Hands, the level 92 Warlock who tried to grief me and Red earlier.

From what I could tell, the accusation was basically that Hands / PapaKush / KushBot had been joining password protected Diablo Clone games, grabbing Anni drops, and then acting like it was fair game because he guessed the password. So apparently me and Red did not just get chased by some random idiot in Hell Act 1. We got chased by a known little goblin.

Anyway, the important part is that the Crown of Ages turned into Vex and Arachnid Mesh. Arach is obviously huge. +1 all skills and 20% FCR in the belt slot is exactly the kind of upgrade I needed, and getting Vex meant I could finally make Heart of the Oak.

So after needing a Lem rune to upgrade Vipermagi, somehow finding an Ohm, making CTA, selling the CoA, getting Arach, and making HOTO, Jack suddenly is feeling pretty awesome. This got stupid fast.

The best part is that all the new upgrades actually leveled out my resists. With the new setup, I can wear my cold sunder charm in Hell and still have full cold resist, with fire, lightning, and poison maxed too. Screenshot was taken in Hell difficulty. That is a huge deal for Hardcore. The character is finally at the point where the gear is not just patched together anymore.

Day 21: Public Terror Zones, PvP Bait, and Phobia

July 1 to July 2, 2026

I started trying some public Terror Zone games. For the most part they were actually pretty good, but I did run into one sketchy situation. I am still not sure if it was some elaborate setup where someone used text commands to make it look like their alt died and needed help getting gear back, or if someone actually died and another player was just being an opportunist.

Either way, I went to go "help" this person, and as soon as I took the TP, someone flagged for PvP. I quit right out of that bitch immediately. Not playing that game in Hardcore.

Later I was talking to some people and mentioned Hands, and someone also said to look out for mfwarlock. That name was in the game too, but I am not sure if he was the one who flagged or not. Either way, gotta stay vigilant out there. Public Hardcore games are apparently just full of little traps and goblins.

The good part is that I met this guy Phobia in one of the public games, and we ended up doing Terrorized Tombs and stuff together. On July 2, Phobia came into one of my games and convinced me to do Chaos runs with him. I was pretty reluctant because I have died in there countless times, but he assured me it would be fine, so I reluctantly tele'd Chaos Sanctuary for him.

Everything went more or less fine, but Chaos still sketches me out. After that, we did Terrorized Tombs ourselves and then did a Baal run because Baal naturally terrorized. Jack hit level 90 and got to about half an XP bar. The goal after lunch is to meet back up with Phobia and push to 91.

Also, because I am apparently still learning things after thousands of hours in this stupid game, I found out from some nice guys in the public game that you are supposed to cube / craft the latent sunder charms. I never realized that. I rolled mine and ended up with a Renewed Cold Rupture. So yeah, apparently I am a dumbass, but at least the charm is actually good now.

Day 22: Private P3 Terror Zones and the 99 Push

July 2026

Updates have been short lately because I’ve mostly just been grinding. I bought two extra copies of D2R just to park mules in my Terror Zone games and get players 3. Right now, Jack is level 94.

I’ve mostly been sharding solo in private P3 games. When Baal naturally terrorizes, I look for a group running it, and then a bunch of us, myself included, keep the TZ Baal runs going with shards. That has been a really nice source of XP.

The build is still Blizzard Sorceress with capped resistances, CTA, Heart of the Oak, Spirit Monarch, Arachnid Mesh, Mara’s, Shako with a -5/+4 cold facet, and a Cold Sunder. Blizzard damage is now around 4025–4221 after finding and keeping a plain Cold skiller from rerolling a high-level Terror Zone Grand Charm. I put the -5/+4 cold facet into the Shako because I figured Shako wasn’t really worthy of the perfect 5/5 cold facet I have saved.

As far as the build goes, it feels pretty solid. I just wish I had an Anni, a Sorc Torch, and more skillers. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get my hands on an Anni or Torch at this point, though. I haven’t seen any good drops lately.

Anyway, the current goal is to get about 1.5 bars of XP every day until I hit 95, then adjust the pace as the levels get higher. Assuming the season actually ends after only three months, that should keep me on pace.