Best Levelling and Low Level Items in Diablo 2 Resurrected

How to get gear

Due to unique and set items being difficult to acquire during levelling, I will only list items that are easy to get/make in this guide, and have relatively low level requirements to wear. This includes lower level runewords, for which you can get runes by farming The Countess (up to Ral rune on Normal, up to Ko on Nightmare, up to Lo on Hell), however you will mostly find runes that are at least 4 level below the top runes she can drop.

Other than runewords, you will also be able to gamble items, especially if you already have a levelled character that's capable of collecting bulk amounts of gold. By gambling you will be able to get efficient gear for your jewellery slots, and some of your armor slots.

During your leveling journey you will most likely find a few set or unique items, these can sometimes be optimal for levelling.

Best in slot levelling items

Helm

Lore Runeword (Ort+Sol) is ideal for any character, as it provides +1 to all skills and also gives a bit of lightning resistance. + to skills can be a great boost to your damage, and make levelling your character much quicker.

Amulet

You should either wear amulets that drop during your journey, or gamble them at vendors.

Weapon

At lower levels you should rely on found or gambled weapons that have high melee/missile damage for physical damage characters, or have +skills to your attacking skill so you can defeat monsters rapidly.

At Level 27 Insight (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) can be given to your mercenary to support you with Meditation aura and take care of any mana recovery issues. In addition Insight deals a high amount of damage as well.

For caster builds, Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) should be used for weapon from level 25, as it's one of the best weapon choices even in the endgame due to its +2 all skills, FCR, FHR, vitality and mana bonuses.

Body Armor

Stealth (Tal+Eth) can be worn from level 17 and it's an ideal body armor due to it's +25% faster run and walk, and it's especially useful for casters as it also has +25% FCR. The poison resist and mana regeneration abilities are nice additions.

The seven 1.11 patch runeword armors are also great armor choices mainly for their +2 class skills, which can hugely increase your damage. However their level requirement is between lvl29 and lvl53 depending on the runeword.

At level 47, multiple runeword armor choices become available. Duress (Shael+Um+Thul) is great for defense boost, and awesome for melee or missile characters for it's 15% Crushing blow and 33% deadly strike. If you aim for higher survivability, you have two other armor choices, Gloom (Fal+Um+Pul) and Stone (Shael+Um+Pul+Lum) with very similar defensive abilities. If you need higher all resistance, Gloom should be your preferred choice, and if you need more physical damage protection, Stone is an optimal choice. Both runewords give excellent survivability boosts and can even be used in the endgame.

Shield

On Normal difficulty, Ancient's Pledge (Ral+Ort+Tal) can be used, as it provides 48 to all resistances with a level req of 21. Rhyme (Shael+Eth) is also a very nice survivability booster with multiple defensive qualities with a 27 lvl req.

Gloves, Rings, Belt, Boots

You should either wear the above-mentioned items by gambling them, or by finding them during levelling.

Charms

You should have self-found charms in your inventory. If you want to get more/better charms, the best place to farm for them is the Secret Cow level. Nightmare Cows are already able to drop Skiller charms with up to 40 life!

Mercenary Items

At Level 27 Insight (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) can be given to your Act1 or Act2 mercenary to support you with Meditation aura and take care of any mana recovery issues. In addition Insight deals a high amount of damage as well.

At level39, you can gear an Act1 merc with Harmony Bow (Tir+Ith+Sol+Ko), which will support you with Vigor aura that makes running super fast. This can greatly help your levelling speed.

If you decide not to farm for hundreds of hours, you can quickly buy runes from our D2R Store.