PVP | Diablo 2 Wiki | How to access, Good Manners & Ability Changes

PVP or Player vs Player in Diablo 2 refers to the mechanics involving fighting other players in the world of Sanctuary. Players can find information on various mechanics that are applied and guidelines for those who wish to engage in combat with other players.

PVP Information for Diablo 2

Hostile

By default, players in Multiplayer cannot attack each other, the spells or attacks don't cause any effect or damage to other players. If a player wants to battle against other users, they can do by going hostile. Select the "Hostile" option from the party menu. If a player becomes hostile towards you, you will be notified in a warning message on your screen. Hostile players will appear with a red X on your map. By going hostile, both players will automatically be able to attack each other. A player will always receive a message notifying every change to relationships with them. When a player becomes hostile against another player, they will also become hostile with the entire party of that player.

Characters must be at least level 9 to become hostile, otherwise they won't able to. If hostility is activated in a town level, all the Town Portals of the every Hostile players will disappear. There is a 10 second delay between declaring hostility and using a waypoint or town portal to leave town.

If a player loses connection, their character will remain still for 15 to 30 seconds, this prevents players from attempting to flee from battle by purposely disconnecting their internet connection or killing the game process.

Neutral

You can attempt to stop hostility against an enemy player by becoming Neutral tothem, but this won't force them to become neutral towards you. They will still be able to attack you but you won't be able to attack them back until you go back to town and declare hostility again.

Drops & Death

If you are defeated by an enemy player, your character will drop a random amount of gold that a monster would drop if defeated, instead of all the gold you carried. Your character will also drop a trophy ear, it has no use. It is marked with the character's name, class and level. If your character is killed by an enemy player during PVP, you won't lose any experience.

Battle in PVP

PVP battles are very similar to any other battle in the game. The players can move freely and use their skills against each other. It's not possible to engage PvP in a Town Level, and the players' characters must all be at least at level 9 or above in order to be able to play PvP.

Ability changes in PVP

There are some exceptions and changes in PVP that you should consider:

• All damage is reduced by 83%.
• Ice Arrow and Freezing Arrow (Amazon) will only chill players instead of freezing them.
• Confuse (Necromancer) doesn't work on other players.
• You can cast Bone Spirit at someone trapped in a Bone Prison and it won't damage the Bone Prison (Necromancer)
• Howl (Barbarian) doesn't work on other Players.
• You  can't cast Find Potion (Barbarian) on other Player Corpses.
• Taunt (Barbarian) doesn't work on other Players.
• Grim Ward (Barbarian) doesn't work on other Players.
• Frozen Armor and Ice Blast (Sorceress) will only chill other Players instead of freezing them.
• Cold Mastery (Sorceress) will cut other Player's Cold Resistances, even when maxed.
• Static Field (Sorceress) has a limited effect against other Players
• Thorns (Paladin) will do 1/8th the damage.
• Holy Freeze (Paladin) will only slow other Players instead of freezing them.
• Conversion (Paladin) will not work against other Players.
• Iron Maiden has an additional 1/4 damage penalty. 
• Absentee Skills such as Meteor, Fire, Blaze, Hydra etc, are automatically interrupted when the caster enters the town level.

These changes are infuential enough to consider making a different Build particularly focused on PVP. For more information, visit Builds.

PVP Manners

PVP might be annoying when other players only become hostile when they are in advantage, or attack you opportunely when you cannot attend to PVP battle properly for some reason. Sometimes PVP can take too long if the players are fully equipped with healing potions, or it can feel unfear when overpowered characters of skill are used in battle. This has been a common problem in open games with no rules. If you have a group of friends or trusted people, you can simply create a game with a password and only let them in. You can also search for communities that have open game servers that demand their players to respect certain rules when engaging PVP.

PVP might require certain Manners from the players for it to be fun and regular PVP players learn about these issues eventually and an unofficial 'code of honor' is usually respected in PVP with that purpose. 

There's nothing that forces you to follow this Manners, the game itself will not punish you with a direct mechanical consequence, but not following the manners may give a negative experience to other players. It will be perceived as a bad behavior. And some communities may remove you from their servers. Other players may not want to PVP with you anymore. Unless, you are in open game that specifies that does not require any manners and has no rules other than the game mechanics. 

Moderate Faster Run/Walk

When Faster Run/Walk is too high, the movement of a character might convert a Battle into a long chase, and it also could make it less fun for players in PVP. So it is a good manner to moderate to a maximum of 110% Faster Run/Walk.