Baal Run Farming Guide (2024)

Baal is final Boss in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. A Baal Run is usuallydone when trying to beat a Difficulty in the game but can also be repeated forgreat experience in all stages of the game. Baal summons five waves ofmonsters, one wave representing each Act of the Game. Each of these waves givessubstantial experience, but the final two waves are extra difficult and worththe most by far. Once the room is clear of monsters, Baal will enter theWorldstone Chamber, where you can try to defeat him.

Most Baal Runs are done specifically for Experience and Baal himself hasdecent drop chances for items.

Baal is located in the Throne of Destruction inside the Worldstone Keep atthe end of Act 5. There are three levels to the Worldstone Keep. There is aWaypoint in Level 2, so making sure to grab that during your first trip there isvery important. That way you can find him faster later on during your BaalRuns.

The best way to figure out if you can Baal run is dependent on how well youcan kill the Ancients. If you can manage to defeat them at a decent pace, youshould be able to clear most of Baal's Throneroom.

Here are all the SpecialMonsters in Baal's Throneroom:

1. Colenzo the Annihilator — A Warped Shaman with several Warped One minions.These are just like the Act I Shamans and are usually a quick kill.
2. Achmel the Cursed — An Unraveler who comes with several minion Unravelersand a host of Burning Dead Cold Mages. They can also Poison you.
3. Bartuc the Bloody — A Council Member who spawns with several minions. Heis always Lightning Enchanted and they also cast Hydras.
4. Ventar the Unholy — A Venom Lord. He and his minions are Extra Fast. Theyalso shoot Inferno like the Act IV ones in Chaos Sanctuary.
5. Lister the Tormentor — The leader of the Minions of Destruction. Him andhis minions all have Knockback and Lister himself has Spectral hit as wellas Health Regeneration.

As you can see they throw all different sorts of Monsters at you so there isa LOT of Experience to gain but they are sometimes tough to beat. Many wouldeven say that Lister and his minions are harder than Baal to kill.

Let us now look at Baal's stats.

From here you can see that Baal's resistances are pretty well rounded exceptfor Magical. So some of the best Characters to kill Baal areBone NecromancersandHammerdins.Of course, any Hero with enough damage like a Javazonor Smitershould have no trouble at all despite his Resistances. If you are havingtrouble killing Baal's Minions or Baal himself, we would recommend farming inlower Difficulties or at earlier Act Bosses such as Andariel or Mephisto to getbetter gear and levels.

One good strategy that people like to use is pulling the waves out of rangeof Baal to avoid getting Cursed with Decrepify. If you are looking toavoid fighting a specific wave completely, you can actually pull them farenough back out of the Throne Room to where Baal will think they are killed andcast the next wave. This is not generally done when trying to gather Experience,but can be helpful when playing through trying to beat the game.

Another small tip is when you go to face Baal, it is a pretty good idea tostock up on Mana Potions and Thawing Potions. The Thawing Potions will reallyhelp versus the Cold Damage he does and the Mana Potions will be valuable torefill your Mana after he uses his Mana Burn on you.

Another good trick is to try to hold a Namelock on Baal at all times. If youdo not let go of the Namelock, you will not have to worry about when Baal casts aDecoy of himself or Teleports, as you will know which Baal is correct. In theevent that he does Clone himself and you are not sure which is the right Baal, youcan actually look at the names. If the "Demon" writing under the name is LeftAligned with Baal, it is the Clone. If the "Demon" writing under the name isCenter Aligned under Baal, it is the real version.

Finally, when Baal spawns a Clone, if you run away and get it off screen and wait for 8 seconds,the Clone should disappear when you run back! Just make sure you get farenough away for long enough and you will be good to go.