One could be tempted to believe the programmers of Diablo II used our article as a checklist for creating annoying enemies. To make the game more difficult, nearly every method of unfair fighting is used, including sudden charges forward, death explosions, attacks from off-screen, and worst of all, hitting the player with lightning every time the player hits a certain foe.
- The infamous "Scarab Demon" enemy type, which shoots lightning in all directions every time you hit them. Also known as "that fucking bug that shoots fucking lightning in all directions every fucking time you hit one." The same thing also go for when an enemy is "Lightning Enchanted." Their danger level normally drops a lot by the time you can start to stock up on Lightning Resist, but early on they can be incredibly difficult to deal with, especially with melee characters. On earlier versions and on comparatively weak computers of the time the game was released, enough Lightning Enchanted enemies clumped up could cause their Charged Bolts to become invisible.
- Lightning Enchanted enemies could be a lot more dangerous before Patch 1.10. Multiple Shots and Lightning Enchanted had a bugged interaction where Multiple Shots increased the amount of Charged Bolts released by Lightning Enchanted, and caused those Charged Bolts to home at you. Suddenly sniping them from a certain distance no longer worked, and hitting them on melee could mean instant death. This has been fixed, and Multiple Shots does not impact Lightning Enchanted anymore.
- For melee players, especially barbarians, the scariest trait has to be "Physical Immune". You can have the most powerful sword in the game and it will deal hip damage because the only thing getting through is your pitiful fire damage. Combine this with "Lightning Enchanted" and your only real recourse is to go back to town, save, and exit, hoping that when you run into the enemy again he won't have that particular Game-Breaker combo.
- The gloams/souls (Gloams, Burning Souls, Black Souls) that show up in acts 3, 4, and 5. (So hated that they were listed here in three separate places...) They shoot lightning, at range sufficient to hit you a screen and a half away, which deals insane damage. (The insane damage is a bug, as Gloams also drain mana, and the value for their mana drain is used in place of the value that was supposed to be for their lightning. In Hell, that's up to 200-300 damage per attack instead of the 5-190 it should have.) And they're invisible most of the time. Very often your first warning of a pack of gloams is when a volley of lightning bolts from something you can't even see hits you in the face and wipes out three-quarters of your hit points...and that's even when you have max lightning resistances sometimes! They are also unleechable. Have you been relying on leeching mana from monsters to power your attack skills? Whoops! Gloams won't give you any mana! Leeching life to keep from dying? Can't get that either! Sucks to be you.
- Before Patch 2.3 in Resurrected (which means it still applies for Legacy Lord of Destruction), the Tomb Vipers that show up as guest monsters in Act V. Unlike their equivalents in Act 2, these Tomb Vipers have an extra attack that works like the Amazon's Poison Javelin, leaving poison clouds as the projectile flies, and these poison clouds deal damage to whoever runs into them. Problem was, these Tomb Viper poison clouds were programmed in such a way they dealt the same damage as the projectile itself in every collission (which can happen up to once per frame). And the poison clouds can also stack. The mere act of running towards a poison cloud could mean thousands of Poison damage in an instant, enough to kill most characters (especially for mercenaries and minions due to Artificial Stupidity). It was regarded as "working as intended" when it was discovered, but Patch 2.3 in Resurrected fixed it so that the poison clouds deal their own, fixed, much lower damage, on collission.
- The Claw Vipers don't seem that fast, but if they get within a few feet of you, they can cover the remaining distance at roughly twice the remaining speed, hitting you, knocking you back and stunning you with their charge attack. It's almost impossible for a non-melee class to get the amulet from the second level of the temple alone. Running into a large group of them can make you feel like a pinball.
- The highest ranking variants of the Reanimated Horde are naturally Extra Fast-er than the rest, and their deadlier and more frequent charge attacks give the Claw Vipers a run for their money. Since their type can self-revive, players back tracking through an area previously riddled with this sort of undead may be in for a painful surprise.
- Archer groups with Cold Enchantment. One hit freezes you, so that you can't get to them quickly, and they're shooting at you the whole time. They're especially hell on melee classes, since melee attacks are also slowed to a crawl when you're frozen. One of these groups spawns in act 1, every time without fail. They will wreck your low-level characters and absolutely ruin your day.
- Archer bosspacks in general can do quite a lot of damage from range in Hell, especially if they're loaded up with nasty mods. If you encounter them with melee classes to tank for them, you should probably retreat so you can take out any distractions first.
- Undead flayers. They're tiny little skeletons that run around with giant cleavers as big as they are. They run up to you at super-speed, stab you in the face for a bunch of damage, and zip away. They're so small and fast-moving that it's very tough to click on them. Missed... aagh... missed again... HA! Gotcha, you little motherf— KABOOM! (Oh, did I mention they explode when they die? And the explosion damage is enough to kill many characters outright?) Luckily their explosions don't work on mercs and minions for some reason, so you should let yours do the dirty work for you.
- Oblivion knights were the absolute bane of melee characters. They're undead casters in the last bit of Act 4 and sometimes Act 5, who throw random curses at you. Every so often they'd throw Iron Maiden, which causes you to damage yourself every time you make a melee attack. If, God forbid, you're in the middle of a high-damaging, long-animation attack such as Zeal or Whirlwind, it's an insta-kill. In fact, damage scales faster than HP in D2, so on higher difficulties Iron Maiden is an insta-kill if you land any melee attack. The 1.13 patch removed Iron Maiden from their list of curses, so their Demonic Spiders status has been greatly bumped down. That being said, when alongside other enemies their curses still make them incredibly dangerous, such as them casting Lower Resist when there are nearby Gloams.
- Similar to Oblivion Knights, Unique Fallen Shamans were absolute nightmares before later patches toned them down. See, the main shtick of Fallen Shamans is that they can resurrect the Fallen of their "tribe". Now, Unique Shamans also had the ability to resurrect other Shamans, and they had minions that could do the same, making any encounter with them a mad dash to kill them quickly and pray to Akarat they don't spam their resurrections. Mercifully, later patches eventually both removed their ability to resurrect other Shamans, as well as giving them standard Fallen as minions. In Act 5 Nightmare and Hell, the Cold variants get Glacial Spike. Sucks for mercenaries that get too close.
- Fetish Shamans. They pace about faster than Fallen Shamans, and instead of a puny fire ball type attack they use the most damaging fire attack encountered so far in regular monsters possibly until Act 4: Inferno. With all of a shaman-type monster's benefits. Oh, and they also have their own fetish to attack you after they're killed. AND they take on the class of the shaman in question ie. Unique shaman, unique leftover fetish with the same mods.
- Act 5 Wendigoes. Beefed up fundamentally, now also with the ability to stun. Champion packs of these exemplify this trope.
- The Yetis sort of look tamer once you run into Minotaur packs. Especially a unique pack with nasty mods (Fanaticism AND Extra Strong AND Extra Fast on top of their Frenzy, anyone?) that spawned on top of you because you clicked on that evil urn hoping to get an easy-to-handle succubus pack to score on EXP and loot. The minotaurs' main gimmick is that every variant uses Frenzy, which makes them attack faster, move faster, and deal more damage with each successive attack. Unlike you, they get Frenzy even if they miss. As if that wasn't bad enough, these guys are an absolute nightmare on harder difficulties, as each different version is impervious to something. The most common versions, Blood Lords, are immune to physical damage on Hell difficulty, meaning they're nearly unkillable as a melee class, and the second most common version, Death Lords, uniquely carry the Cannot Be Frozen trait on every difficulty. No matter what class you are, these things WILL give you major trouble at some point. Pray you never encounter a double-boss pack of Blood Lords and Death Lords on Hell.
- Monsters that attack using Blood Star. Due to the game's dearth in providing substantial defense towards the generic "MAGIC"-type damage (ie Bone Spear, Berserk, Blessed Hammer etc) for players, a frequently-encountered stream of blood stars will cause immense grief to characters that don't explicitly load up on hit points and the mod "Magic Damage reduced by [integer]".
- Hell Bovines are these to casual players. If a 1280x1024 or higher playing resolution was available, once you step through the portal you'd find yourself almost totally surrounded by bovine packs.
- You know this game RUBS this trope in with those suicide minions in Act 5.
- Willowisp enemies. Fast moving, with long range lightning spells and the ability to turn invisible. A group of them in Hell will tear apart literally any character no matter how strong if you let them. Twice as unfortunate for their tendency to hang out in mandatory areas in act 5, like the Frozen River or the Throne of Destruction.
- Wraiths are a annoying as much as they're feared. A single hit and all of you mana is gone. Not only wraiths come in packs, they all stack on top of each others, meaning that they ALL hit you at the same time. And just to make it more painful, they are physically immune in Hell difficulty.
- On higher difficulties, any enemy that can burn Mana on hit. Due to a bug, enemies with Mana Burn are able to burn 256 times more Mana than intended if it's a melee attack, so once you're hit, all your mana is gone, which can be lethal depending on the situation you're in. Furthermore, there's a hidden Mana Burn Resistance stat, that cannot be improved in any way, that is penalized in Nightmare and Hell difficulty like other Resistances, so, for example, any Mana Burn enemy in Hell is going to burn 512 times more Mana than they should. Usual builds are usually going to be fully stripped of their mana in a single touch.
- Another dreaded combination is Holy Freeze on top of Stone Skin. Your speed is crippled to slow-motion and that damn monster just refuse to die.
