Baal Run Farming Guide in Diablo 2

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

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

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

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

Here are all the Special Monsters 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 Unravelers and a host of Burning Dead Cold Mages. They can also Poison you.
3. Bartuc the Bloody — A Council Member who spawns with several minions. He is always Lightning Enchanted and they also cast Hydras.
4. Ventar the Unholy — A Venom Lord. He and his minions are Extra Fast. They also shoot Inferno like the Act IV ones in Chaos Sanctuary.
5. Lister the Tormentor — The leader of the Minions of Destruction. Him and his minions all have Knockback and Lister himself has Spectral hit as well as Health Regeneration.

As you can see they throw all different sorts of Monsters at you so there is a LOT of Experience to gain but they are sometimes tough to beat. Many would even 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 except for Magical. So some of the best Characters to kill Baal are Bone Necromancers and Hammerdins. Of course, any Hero with enough damage like a Javazon or Smiter should have no trouble at all despite his Resistances. If you are having trouble killing Baal's Minions or Baal himself, we would recommend farming in lower Difficulties or at earlier Act Bosses such as Andariel or Mephisto to get better gear and levels.

One good strategy that people like to use is pulling the waves out of range of Baal to avoid getting Cursed with Decrepify. If you are looking to avoid fighting a specific wave completely, you can actually pull them far enough back out of the Throne Room to where Baal will think they are killed and cast 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 to stock up on Mana Potions and Thawing Potions. The Thawing Potions will really help versus the Cold Damage he does and the Mana Potions will be valuable to refill 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 you do not let go of the Namelock, you will not have to worry about when Baal casts a Decoy of himself or Teleports, as you will know which Baal is correct. In the event that he does Clone himself and you are not sure which is the right Baal, you can actually look at the names. If the "Demon" writing under the name is Left Aligned with Baal, it is the Clone. If the "Demon" writing under the name is Center 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 far enough away for long enough and you will be good to go.