History VideoGame / MedianXL

* ActionBomb: The Mercenary Bomb is designed to turn your mercenary into one by reducing its wearer's defence to zero and causing a lot of powerful [=AoE=] spells to fire when the wearer dies. If wearing this armour, your mercenary will vaporise when hit by practically anything, but most monsters won't survive either.

** Killing Lucion involves charming him, leading him to Malic, then surviving both bosses' attacks as they fight each other as well as you until Arihan dies.

** Many uberbosses have a 2% chance to drop a trophy on Destruction difficulty, which might be cubed with the corresponding ubercharm for a small bonus, or with the Sleep charm for a more powerful bonus.

* RecurringBoss:
** The five Act Bosses reappear as mini-bosses in Yshari Sanctum.
** Preceding the Uldyssian fight is a BossBonanza where you have to fight 10 Edyrem minibosses, all of which take the forms of bosses that you should have fought in the regular game or in easier endgame quests.

* TheTurretMaster: A Necromancer that focuses on summoning totems, stationary minions which either provide buffs to allies or attack enemies. The Barbarian and Lord Aldric Jitan's Fortress skill and the oskill Limpet Laser also function as turrets, although they are not actually treated as minions by the game.

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The level cap of the game is 125; without grinding, you're likely to reach 120 very soon after reaching Destruction difficulty, then never be able to reach level 121 at all, since it requires so much experience that it's unattainable without dedicated farming in the Cow level or the Torajan Jungles; on the other hand the only items that require level 121 to be used are two secret unique items and the Kabraxis' Stone rune, unless if you raised one particular item's level requirement too high by pumping it with too many Mystic Orbs.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Purify is an oskill that deals damage independently of ''everything'', including resistances: it is the only way to damage and kill certain high-level uberbosses. Malic (an unkillable boss in the Bastion of the Triune) has a similar skill, which you'll need to make use of in order to kill the main boss Lucion (specifically by charming Arihan, luring him to the Messenger and letting the two fight).
* AuthorAvatar: The uberboss Archbishop Lazarus' lore does not refer to the actual Lazarus character in the first VideoGame/{{Diablo}}, but rather describes him as:

In addition, his minions are called Groupies and the charm he drops is called 'Glorious Book of Median', which is a reference to Brother Laz, the first creator of the mod. The boss actually used to be called Brother Laz until version 2017 removed all references to real life people.

* BossRoom: Xazax, the boss of the Maggot Depths, is fought in his own area called the Wretched Sands.

** Completing the Void requires you to use the Scream of Trag'Oul skill at the correct place, which summons two bosses: Rathma and Mendeln.

* EliteMooks: Enemies come in three flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites; and orange uberquest monsters, which only appear in {{Bonus Dungeon}}s or as minions of a BonusBoss. Umbaru Spirits in the Teganze uberlevel can also spawn as champions, which have improved stats compared to normal ones. You also have access to four: the Necromancer's Iron Golem and Rathma's Chosen and the item-granted Veil King and Void Archon, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

* FunWithAcronyms: The oskill O.H.M.A.N., short for Orb of Homing Multishot Arrow Novas.

** Witches in the Desolate Road and World Nexus, the Death's Mechanics in the Proving Ground, the Lightwells in the High Heavens, the Ratfinks summoned by Belial and Zorun Tzin, the Holy Nephalems in the Pools of Wisdom and Halls of Valor, the zombie Citizens in Ureh and the Sand Maggot Ghosts in the Wretched Hive are untargetable and cannot be hit or killed by anything. Xazax's Penitents are targetable and not invulnerable, but have so much health that you aren't going to kill them any time soon.

** The Idiot Ball unique ring, which reduces your strength, vitality, magic find, damage reduction, and has a chance to summon a hostile EliteMook when you're hit.
** The QQ sacred unique ring, which gives 1 HP and nothing more.

* MarathonLevel: The Torajan Jungles and Teganze are absolutely huge - expect to take a lot of time slogging through the mobs in order to reach a boss or dungeon entrance, especially if you die and have to walk back all the way from the Kurast Docks since none of these two areas have waypoints.

** The [[DualBoss two main bosses]] in the Void, Rathma and Mendeln, fight each other as well as you.

* MookMaker: The Infernal Machine is capable of summoning an army of dangerous elite monsters.

* PoisonMushroom: The Idiot Ball unique ring, which reduces your strength, vitality, magic find, damage reduction, and has a chance to summon a hostile EliteMook when you're hit.

** Preceding the Uldyssian fight is a BossBonanza where you have to fight 10 Edyrem minibosses, all of which take the forms of bosses that you should have fought in the regular game.

* SituationalSword: The special unique ring Assur's Bane. It is the only source of the skill Purify (in addition to Neutrality Pact, which is only dropped by a boss that requires Purify at the first place), which is absolutely essential when fighting certain bosses. When farming or fighting bosses that do not require it, then it is usually considered subpar compared to another unique or rare ring that fits the character better.

** In version XVc, the boss Chrysaor was renamed to Terul, and his second form to Zorun Tzin.

''Median XL'' is a popular GameMod for VideoGame/DiabloII which makes extensive changes to many features of the game, including the character classes, monsters, and items. Median is popular and technically proficient enough that it was commented on by some of the Diablo 3 designers during an [[http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops interview at Blizzcon 2009]].

* DeadManSwitch: Some items have the affix 'X% chance to cast Y spell when you die', which does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

** Astral Guardians in the Dimensional Sanctuary: their attacks give you 100% physical resistance, protecting you from the Creature of Flame's OneHitKill.

** You can only use the skills from the Yshari Sanctum sets (Holybolt, Arcane Blast, Iron Shield) near Valthek's Godsman Guard minions, which mean while you need to clear the summons, you must leave at least one alive, because you need Holybolt to kill Valthek.

* PoisonMushroom:
** The Idiot Ball unique ring, which reduces your strength, vitality, magic find, damage reduction, and has a chance to summon a hostile EliteMook when you're hit.
** All Cycles of Lust, whose only affix is always a malus to light radius. Some Cycles of Greed, Luck and Wealth can also be this, since all of their possible affixes can be either negative, zero or positive.

* SetAMookToKillAMook: The Druid's Elvensong minion and the Charm oskill series can convert enemies to fight for you. This is also the gimmick to kill Lucion: obtain the Dire Charm spell from a previous boss, charm Lucion and move him to Malic, the only thing that can kill him.

* ShockAndAwe: Aside from the Sorceress's lightning tree and several Assassin traps (among other skills), there's also the Paladin's Vessel skills and the Unholy Paladin's Mind Flay skill, which has you doing your best impression of [[Franchise/StarWars Palpatine]].
* SituationalSword: The special unique ring Assur's Bane. It is the only source of the skill Purify (in addition to Uldyssian's Sword, which is only dropped by a boss that requires Purify at the first place), which is absolutely essential when fighting certain bosses. When farming or fighting bosses that do not require it, then it is usually considered subpar compared to another unique or rare ring that fits the character better.

* StuckItems: You are effectively forced to equip the Vizjerei and Horadrim sets for the Valthek fight. While in theory you are free to equip whichever items you like, without the skills granted by these sets you can't scratch neither Valthek nor his Godsman Guard minions.

** You cannot kill Assur, the MCS, Atanna Khan, Archbishop Lazarus or Zorun Tzin (and complete these respective uberquests in the process) until you obtain the Purify skill.
** The Dark Portal skill is needed to reach the Vizjerei Temple, Khalimgrad, Realm of Lies, Realm of Sin, Black Road, the Void and the past versions of the Canyon of the Magi and Arreat Summit (and by extension all areas that are accessed from these). In turn, in the Void you need the Scream of Trag'Oul skill, obtained by transmuting the scrolls dropped by the seven sub-bosses into the Sigil of the 7 Deadly Sins, in order to reach the final boss.
** It is impossible to defeat Valthek in the Yshari Sanctum until you've already assembled the special sets from the five previous bosses in the complex. Likewise, killing Arihan in the Triune requires you to have obtained the Dire Charm skill from the previous boss Vaca Loca first.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Purify is an oskill that deals damage independently of ''everything'', including resistances: it is the only way to damage and kill certain high-level uberbosses. Primus' Messenger (an unkillable boss in the Bastion of the Triune) has a similar skill, which you'll need to make use of in order to kill the main boss Arihan (specifically by charming Arihan, luring him to the Messenger and letting the two fight).

* BarrierChangeBoss: The heroic shield mechanic, formerly used by some endgame bosses, randomises the boss' resistances every few seconds. This means that the boss is most of the time invulnerable to damage, but sometimes one of the resistances might drop under 100%, leaving the boss temporarily vulnerable though still highly resistant to this element. For being disliked by the majority of players, this mechanic was removed in the 2017 version.

* BonusLevelOfHeaven: The Khalimgrad uberlevel is set on the High Heavens, where the Ethereal enemies are the physical manifestations of common angels.

* BossOnlyLevel: Certain uberquests (Dimensional Sanctum, Proving Grounds, Infernal Cave, Butcher's Lair, Chamber of Blood, Cathedral of Light, Vizjerei Temple, Diamond Gates, Spirit World, Edyrem's Path and Genesis) only consist of fight(s) with the boss(es) and their minions.

* CallForward: The [[AllThereInTheManual lore of the]] [[BonusDungeon postgame dungeons]] draw heavily from VideoGame/{{Diablo3}}, and feature encounters with future adversaries such as Zoltan Kull, Azmodan and Belial.
* CashGate: One of the trials of the Black Road challenge consists of having 666666 gold in your inventory.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: Inverted by the Necromancer's Veil King minion, which will switch sides and become a nasty enemy when killed.
* DefogOfWar: In each act, you can speak to the appropriate NPC to have the map of all areas in the act completely revealed if you so desire.
* DegradedBoss: The Minions of Terror that used to accompany Diablo Clone (an old uberboss) are reskinned from Griswold, an Act I boss.

* DragonsAreDemonic: You used to be able to fight dragons in this mod, but in true Diablo fashion, they're just a different type of demon spawned by Baal.

** In order to upgrade the Crystalline Flame Medallion, you need to let Uldyssian summon both the Avatars of Imperius and Malthael, and then kill both of them within 30 seconds of each other.
** Similarly, completing the Black Road challenge's Trial of Blood requires you to lure both Skovos and Lycander to the same place, and then kill them at the same time.
** Defeating Arihan, High Priest of the Triune, requires you to make him fight Primus' Messenger, then survive both bosses' attacks as Primus' Messenger kills Arihan.

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Samael]], the secret BonusBoss added in version 1.3, is described as 'something that lurks beyond' Sanctuary, the High Heavens and the Burning Hells alike.
* EliteMooks: Enemies come in three flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites; and orange uberquest monsters, which only appear in {{Bonus Dungeon}}s or as minions of a BonusBoss. Umbaru Spirits in the Teganze uberlevel can also spawn as champions, which have improved stats compared to normal ones. The Necromancer also has three: the Veil King, Void Archon and Rathma's Chosen, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

* EquipmentBasedProgression: Averted in normal gameplay, played straight in the endgame content. Your character reached level 120? You're just getting started. At this point, levelling up is so time-consuming and difficult that you'll need to find or craft better gear to make your character stronger.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: There is no story-related reason that the Cathedral of Vanity is located in an underground cave, or that the sewers of Kurast actually leads to an AlternateDimension. The issue here lies in Diablo II's engine limitations, which do not allow creating new levels, so it is impossible to add an uberquest location without replacing a level in the process - and the only levels that can be replaced are the throwaway side areas with the same enemies as everywhere else and serve no quest-related purpose. This particular example has been averted (with a few exceptions) since the introduction of the MXL Core in the 2017 version of the mod, which allows adding new areas so all uberquests can be given their own location.
* HardModePerks: Most uberquests (except Tran Athulua, Kurast 3000 BA, Death Projector, The Butcher, Fauztinville and Assault on Mount Arreat, which also involved with challenges) are designed to be tackled on the highest Destruction difficulty only. Usually there's nothing that stops you from doing them on Hatred or Terror (unless if there's an AbilityRequiredToProceed, all of which are only available on Destruction), but the rewards will be unremarkable: sacred unique and set items, Great Runes, ubercharms, etc... drop exclusively on Destruction.

** Akarat's Followers and Ethereals in Khalimgrad reduce the resistances of nearby enemies when killed, breaking the invulnerable shields of the respective bosses in the process.

* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: The difficulty levels of the mod are named after the titles of the Prime Evils: Hatred, Terror and Destruction.
* InstantDeathRadius: Witches do nothing until you get close enough to one: she'll then laugh, if you do not immediately get out of range, she teleports at you and kills you with an irresistible and unblockable attack that deals [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 50,000 physical and magic damage]].

** Witches, the Death's Mechanics in the Proving Ground, the Lantern Archons and Lightwells in Khalimgrad, the Ratfinks summoned by Belial and Zorun Tzin, the Dark Nephalems in Judgement Day, the zombie Citizens in Ureh and the Sand Maggot Ghosts in the Wretched Hive are untargetable and cannot be hit or killed by anything. Xazax's Penitents are targetable and not invulnerable, but have so much health that you aren't going to kill them any time soon.

** Killing Arihan, High Priest of the Triune, involves charming him, leading him to Primus' Messenger, then surviving both bosses' attacks as they fight each other as well as you until Arihan dies.
* MiniDungeon: Most dungeon uberquests are very small, consisting of little more than the boss room.
* MinimalistRun: Older versions of the mod used to have the Attribute Challenge, which requires you to defeat an uberboss while keeping a number of attribute points unspent. Shortly after it was removed, the Belladonna Elixir (an item that resets all attribute and skill points) was introduced, meaning that there's little to no point of keeping the challenge in the game.

* PermanentlyMissableContent: The Level Challenges and the Ennead Challenge will become permanently inaccessible to characters that outlevel them without having completed them first.

** The six Emblems, needed to upgrade the Deity's Bow and Glorious Book of Median, have an extremely small chance to be dropped from any monsters in Destruction difficulty.

** Uldyssian appears as both an unkillable boss in the Diamond Gates and a killable boss in his tomb. Before the fight against Uldyssian himself, there's a BossBonanza where you have to fight 10 Edyrem minibosses, all of which take the forms of bosses that you should have fought in the regular game.

* SetAMookToKillAMook: The Druid's Elvensong minion and the Charm oskill series can convert enemies to fight for you. This is also the gimmick to kill Arihan, High Priest of the Triune: obtain the Dire Charm spell from a previous boss, charm Arihan and move him to Primus' Messenger, the only thing that can kill him.

* SmashedEggsHatching: Smashing a Dragon's Egg causes an angry Baalspawn dragon to hatch.

* SuperEmpowering: Using Rathma's Chosen turns one of your minions temporarily invulnerable and gives it a massive boost to damage.

* TimeLimitBoss: The Dark Star Dragon's Class Charm upgrade can only be done if it is defeated on Destruction difficulty within 3 minutes after entering Old Bremmtown and without dying.

* TheTurretMaster: A Necromancer that focuses on summoning totems, stationary minions which either provide buffs to allies or attack enemies. Some of the Assassin's skills, as well as the Barbarian and Lord Aldric Jitan's Fortress skill, also function as turrets, although they are not actually treated as minions by the game.

* WakeUpCallBoss: Volrath the Vile, the BonusBoss of Level Challenge 0, can only be fought at level 5 (no more, no less), and is designed to be the first real challenge for new characters (before he was removed, that is).

* YouNukeEm: The Assassin's Beacon uberskill calls a nuclear missile to strike a nearby location.

* RareRandomDrop: Many uberbosses have a 2% chance to drop a trophy on Destruction difficulty, which might be cubed with the corresponding ubercharm for a small bonus, or with the Sleep charm for a more powerful bonus.

** Uldyssian appears as both an unkillable boss in the Diamond Gates and a killable boss in his tomb. The latter fight is a BossBonanza where you have to fight 10 Edyrem minibosses, all of which take the forms of bosses that you should have fought in the regular game.

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The level cap of the game is 125. After reaching level 120, the levels from 121 to 125 require so much experience that you aren't making significant progress to 121 without spending an absurd amount of time farming Signets of Experience in the Torajan Jungles; on the other hand, there's no monster that is level 121 or more and only the Kabraxis' Stone rune and two unique items that require level 121 to be used, unless if you raised one particular item's level requirement too high by pumping it with too many Mystic Orbs.

* AuthorAvatar: The uberboss Archbishop Lazarus used to be called 'Brother Laz', after the original creator of the mod. Since the 2017 version removed all the references to real life people, this trope has been downplayed, but not averted, as the documentation still refers to him as "one 'Archbishop Lazarus' with a calculation engine powered by lightning", and the charm that he drops is still called 'Glorious Book of Median'.

** Uldyssian appears as both an unkillable boss in the Judgement Day summoning uberquest and a killable boss in Tal Rasha's chamber. The latter fight is a BossBonanza where you have to fight 30 Edyrem minibosses: the 23th to 25th take the form of the Ancients Talic, Madawc and Korlic; and the last five take the form of the Act Bosses, all of whom should have been fought during the course of the main game.

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: The level cap of the game is 125. After reaching level 120, the levels from 121 to 125 require so much experience that you aren't making significant progress to 121 without spending an absurd amount of time farming Signets of Experience in the Torajan Jungles; on the other hand, there's no monster that is level 121 or more and only two unique items that require level 121 to be used, unless if you raised one particular item's level requirement too high by pumping it with too many Mystic Orbs.

** In the 2017 version of the mod, the boss Brachyceran was renamed Xazax, and his charm from Brachyceran's Token to Xazax's Illusion. Everything that had allusions to real people also got renamed, with the real life references removed (except the boss [=MarcoNecroX=], which only got removed).

* TimeTravel: The uberlevels Fauztinville and Old Bremmtown are set in the future, and lore-wise you use a time machine to get there.

** One of the five Robot Bosses in Fauztinville and the five Seals in the Black Road a teleport skill to access, which is thankfully easy to obtain with the low-level runeword Pax Mystica.

* BigBoosHaunt: Come in three flavours, each filled with a different kind of undead enemies: Kurast 3000 BA (skeletons), Old Bremmtown (ghosts) and Ureh (zombies).

* EliteMooks: Enemies come in three flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites; and orange uberquest monsters, which only appear in {{Bonus Dungeon}}s or as minions of a BonusBoss. Umbaru Spirits in the Teganze uberlevel can also spawn as champions, which have improved stats compared to normal ones. The Necromancer also has two: the Veil King and Void Archon, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

** One of the five Robot Bosses in Fauztinville requires a teleport skill to access, which is thankfully easy to obtain with the low-level runeword Pax Mystica.
** You cannot kill Assur, the MCS, the Startled Witch, Archbishop Lazarus or Zorun Tzin (and complete these respective uberquests in the process) until you obtain the Purify skill.
** Likewise, it is impossible to reach the final bosses of Yshari Sanctum and the Void before getting the whole Vizjerei and Horadrim sets and the Sigil of 7 Deadly Sins from previous bosses in each uberquest.

* BossBonanza: You have to fight a total of 30 Edyrem minibosses before you can reach Uldyssian.
* BossOnlyLevel: Certain uberquests (Dimensional Sanctum, Proving Grounds, Infernal Cave, Butcher's Lair, Chamber of Blood, Cathedral of Light, Vizjerei Temple, Judgement Day, Spirit World, Nephalem's Sacrifice and Genesis) only consist of fight(s) with the boss(es) and their minions.

* FlunkyBoss: The only bosses that are not accompanied by minions are Duriel, Diablo, the Ancients and the Butcher.

''Median XL'' is the most popular GameMod for VideoGame/DiabloII. Median XL is a mod which makes extensive changes to many features of the game, including the character classes, monsters, and items. Median is popular and technically proficient enough that it was commented on by some of the Diablo 3 designers during an [[http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/156898.Diablo-III/features/133759.20090831.BlizzCon-Diablo-III-devs-discuss-design-decisions-direction-depth-drops interview at Blizzcon 2009]].

* EliteMooks: Enemies come in three flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites; and orange uberquest monsters, which only appear in {{Bonus Dungeon}}s or as minions of a BonusBoss. Umbaru Spirits in the Teganze uberlevel can also spawn as champions, which have improved stats compared to normal ones. About monsters on your side, there are the Necromancer's Veil King and Void Archon, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

** All Cycles of Lust, whose only affix is always a malus to light radius. Some Cycles of Greed, Luck and Wealth can also be this, since all of their possible affixes range can be either negative, zero or positive.

** Uldyssian appears as both an unkillable boss in the Judgement Day summoning uberquest and a killable boss in Tal Rasha's chamber.

* EliteMooks: Enemies come in four flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites; and orange uberquest monsters, which only appear in {{Bonus Dungeon}}s or as minions of a BonusBoss. About monsters on your side, there are the Necromancer's Veil King and Void Archon, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

* DeadManSwitch: Lord Aldric Jitan and his Rakkis Guardsmen cast Singularity when killed - stay away from the dark vortex!

** Completing the Void requires you to use the Mage Rage skill at the correct place, which summons two bosses: Rathma and Mendeln.

* PoisonMushroom: The Idiot Ball unique ring, which reduces your strength, vitality, magic find, damage reduction, and has a chance to summon a hostile EliteMook when you're hit.

** The Soul of Wrath in the Void is immune to all damage, but all of its attacks are CastFromHitPoints. Your job therefore is to provide an outlet for its rage until it kills itself, while also surviving its attacks since it heals when killing.

* BossOnlyLevel: Certain uberquests (Dimensional Sanctum, Proving Grounds, Infernal Cave, Butcher's Lair, Chamber of Blood, Cathedral of Light, Vizjerei Temple, Judgement Day, Nephalem's Sacrifice and Genesis) only consist of fight(s) with the boss(es) and their minions.

* HardModePerks: The Crystalline Flame Medallion, the components of Assur's Bane and the Sigil of the 7 Deadly Sins only drop on Destruction difficulty, making it impossible to complete any uberquest which [[AbilityRequiredToProceed require the special skills]] provided by these items on Hatred and Terror.

* TheMaze: The pre-1.1 version Yshari Sanctum was a gigantic, sprawling maze of a level, where a death can set you back for dozens of minutes as you search for your corpse. Downplayed since 1.1, after the maze has been split into five parts, all of which can be accessed from the city of Caldeum.

* SpikeShooter: Druids can do this in trap rat form with the Quill Storm skill.
* StuckItems: You are effectively forced to equip the Vizjerei and Horadrim sets for the Valthek fight. While in theory you are free to equip whichever items you like, without the skills granted by these sets you can't scratch neither Valthek nor his Godsman Guard minions.

* TacticalSuicideBoss: Bartuc, who normally is immune to all damage, can only be damaged after he uses the Wychwind ability, which temporarily reduces his resistances.

* EliteMooks: Enemies come in four flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; green heroic monsters, which are even stronger but only appear in specific Heroic levels; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites and heroics; and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin uberquest monsters]]. About monsters on your side, there are the Necromancer's Veil King and Void Archon, which are vastly more powerful than the run-of-the-mill minions and each player can only have one of each at any given time.

** The Until You Realise It Sucks sacred unique bow. Doubled orb effects, 33% chance to create a town portal on attack, 500% faster block, 50% increased block chance, 62 levels of the very powerful oskill OHMAN... except that most of these bonuses end up useless because it only allows the use of melee, summoning and buff/debuff skills, abd with a required level of 120 it's impossible to apply Mystic Orbs without making the item unusable. It seems awesome until you realise it sucks, indeed.

** You can't kill ''any'' enemy in Toraja before you get the Crystalline Flame Medallion from Judgement Day, which gives you access to Edyrem minions.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Purify is an oskill that deals damage independently of ''everything'', including resistances: it is the only way to damage and kill certain high-level uberbosses.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Wretched Hive is full of maggots of unusually large size.

* BossOnlyLevel: All summoning and some dungeon uberquests only consist of fight(s) with the boss(es) and their minions.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: There is no story-related reason that the Cathedral of Vanity is located in an underground cave, or that the sewers of Kurast actually leads to an AlternateDimension. The issue here lies in Diablo II's engine limitations, which do not allow creating new levels, so it is impossible to add an uberquest location without replacing a level in the process - and the only levels that can be replaced are the throwaway side areas with the same enemies as everywhere else and serve no quest-related purpose. This trope is set to be fixed with the MXL Core, a feature introduced in the 2017 version of the mod, which allows adding new areas so all uberquests can be given their own location.

** Witches, the Death's Mechanics in the Proving Ground, the Lantern Archons and Lightwells in Khalimgrad, the Ratfinks summoned by Belial and Zorun Tzin, the Dark Nephalems in Judgement Day, the zombie Citizens in Ureh and the Sand Maggot Ghosts in the Wretched Hive are untargetable and cannot be hit or killed by anything.

* MarathonLevel: Expect to take at least an hour (if not more) to fully finish Yshari Sanctum.
* TheMaze: Yshari Sanctum is a gigantic, sprawling maze of a level, where a death can set you back for dozens of minutes as you search for your corpse.

* SuddenNameChange: In the 2017 version of the mod, the boss Brachyceran was renamed Xazax, and his charm from Brachyceran's Token to Xazax's Illusion. Everything that had allusions to real people also got renamed, with the real life references removed (except the boss [=MarcoNecroX=], which only got removed).

* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: The Edyrem summons that you get from the Crystalline Flame Medallion are rather mediocre and unremarkable, with one exception: they are the only thing capable of dispelling the immunities of the enemies in Toraja.

* EliteMooks: Come in four flavours: yellow elite monsters, which are stronger, often have special abilities and encountered alongside normal monsters; green heroic monsters, which are even stronger but only appear in specific Heroic levels; dark green veteran monsters, encountered near the end of each Act in higher difficulties, and are not {{Palette Swap}}s of normal monsters like elites and heroics; and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin uberquest monsters]].

** You cannot kill Assur, the MCS, the Startled Witch, Brother Laz or Zorun Tzin (and complete these respective uberquests in the process) until you obtain the Purify skill.

* BarrierChangeBoss: The heroic shield mechanic, used by some endgame bosses, randomises the boss' resistances every few seconds. This means that the boss is most of the time invulnerable to damage, but sometimes one of the resistances might drop under 100%, leaving the boss temporarily vulnerable though still highly resistant to this element.

* BigBoosHaunt: Kurast 3000 BA is filled to the brim with skeletons of all kinds, Old Bremmtown is haunted by ghosts that materialise directly on top of you when you approach their hiding spots, while Ureh is full of zombies.

* CallForward: A number of elements are taken from Diablo 3, such as the Uberlevel "The Unformed Lands", and even a secret boss fight against Malthieal.

* DragonsAreDemonic: You can fight dragons in this mod, but in true Diablo fashion, they're just a different type of demon spawned by Baal.

* MushroomMan: Glowing Fungi and their elite counterpart, Shrooms, resembles a humanoid with a mushroom cap for a head.

* StuckItems: The Vizjerei and Horadrim sets are effectively this for the Valthek fight. While in theory you are free to equip whichever items you like, without the skills granted by these sets you can't scratch neither Valthek nor his Godsman Guard minions.

* TheTurretMaster: A Necromancer that focuses on summoning totems, stationary minions which either provide buffs to allies or attack enemies.

* WakeUpCallBoss: Volrath the Vile, the BonusBoss of Level Challenge 0, can only be fought at level 5 (no more, no less), and is designed to be the first real challenge for new characters.

* RareRandomDrops: Many uberbosses have a 2% chance to drop a trophy on Destruction difficulty, which might be cubed with the corresponding ubercharm for a small bonus, or with the Sleep charm for a more powerful bonus.

* WolfpackBoss: The Cathedral of Vanity only has one room, where four bosses (the Crystal Ball, the High Clerics and Inarius) all reside with their minions.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: There is no story-related reason that the Cathedral of Vanity is located in an underground cave, or that the sewers of Kurast actually leads to an AlternateDimension. The issue here lies in Diablo II's engine limitations, which do not allow creating new levels, so it is impossible to add an uberquest location without replacing a level in the process - and the only levels that can be replaced are the throwaway side areas with the same enemies as everywhere else and serve no quest-related purpose.

* SetAMookToKillAMook: The Druid's Elvensong minion and the Charm oskill series can convert enemies to fight for you. This is also the gimmick to kill Arihan, High Priest of the Triune: by obtaining the Dire Charm spell from a previous boss, charm Arihan and move him to Primus' Messenger, the only thing that can kill him.

* TheTurretMaster: A Necromancer that focuses on summoning totems.

* HardModePerks: The Crystalline Flame Medallion, the components of Assur's Bane and the Sigil of the 7 Deadly Sins only drop on Destruction difficulty, making it impossible to complete any uberquest which [[AbilityRequiredToProceed require the special skills]] provided by these items.

** Witches, the Death's Mechanics in the Proving Ground, the Lantern Archons and Lightwells in Khalimgrad, the Ratfinks summoned by Belial and Zorun Tzin, the zombie Citizens in Ureh and the Sand Maggot Ghosts in the Wretched Hive are untargetable and cannot be hit or killed by anything.

* MeleeATrois: The [[DualBoss two main bosses]] in the Void, Rathma and Mendeln, fight each other as well as you.

* DegradedBoss: The Minions of Terror that accompany Diablo Clone (an uberboss) are reskinned from Griswold, an Act I boss.

* HardModePerks: The Crystalline Flame Medallion and the components of Assur's Bane and the Sigil of the 7 Deadly Sins only drop on Destruction difficulty, making it impossible to complete any uberquest which [[AbilityRequiredToProceed require the special skills]] provided by these items.

* LostForever: The Level Challenges and the Ennead Challenge will become permanently inaccessible to characters that outlevel them without having completed them first.

* SetAMookToKillAMook: The Druid's Elvensong minion can convert enemies to fight for you. This is also the gimmick to kill Arihan, High Priest of the Triune: by obtaining the Dire Charm spell from a previous boss, charm Arihan and move him to Primus' Messenger, the only thing that can kill him.

* WakeUpCallBoss: Volrath the Vile, the BonusBoss of Level Challenge 0, can only be fought at level 5 (no more, no less), and is designed to be the first real challenge for new characters.

** Witches, the Death's Mechanics in the Proving Ground, the Orbitals and Lightwells in Khalimgrad, the Ratfinks summoned by Belial and Zorun Tzin, the zombie Citizens in Ureh and the Sand Maggot Ghosts in the Wretched Hive are untargetable and cannot be hit or killed by anything.

* HelpfulMook: Downplayed, in that these enemies are more than capable of killing you, but you are forced to leave them alive because without them it would be very hard or impossible to kill the boss.

* InstantDeathRadius: Witches do nothing until you get close enough to one: she'll then laugh, if you do not immediately get out of range, she teleports at you and kills you with an unresistable and unblockable attack that deals [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 50,000 damage]].

* JokeItem: The QQ sacred unique ring, which gives 1 HP and nothing more.

* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: The Edyrem summons that you get from the Crystalline Flame Medallion are rather mediocre and unremarkable, with one exception: they are capable of dispelling the immunities of the enemies in Toraja.