There are three difficulty levels in Diablo 2 Resurrected, Normal, Nightmare and Hell. They must be completed sequentially to unlock the next difficulty. Hell is the hardest difficulty and features more powerful enemies that can be brutal for players who aren't prepared.

Hell mode can leave players unable to progress if their character doesn't have a top-tier build. Trying to beat bosses like Baal or Diablo on Hell difficulty will be nearly impossible for players who don't pre-preparation. But they can drop superior d2r items, opening up entire new tiers of uniques, sets, and runes to get. This isn't just a boon, and it's a necessity. So this guide will help you understand the differences in Hell Mode and, most importantly, how to deal with them to progress.

The Nightmare difficulty introduces the following modifications:

Some of the explorable areas become larger.
If you die on the Nightmare difficulty, you lose 5% of your current experience; you can regain 75% of lost points if you find your corpse.
The enemies are stronger: they have more health, more defense and deal more damage. Usually, they also have higher elemental resistance.
40 points lower the resistances of your character, hired mercenaries, and summoned creatures.
Health / Mana Drain properties on skills/items are only half as strong.
Mercenaries and summoned creatures deal only 35% of their usual damage to story bosses (bosses encountered at the end of an Act - on Normal, they deal 50%).
Status effects that slow down enemies, like Chill or Freeze, have their duration halved, decreasing their effectiveness.
One of the Sorceress Spells, Static Field is less effective (won't reduce enemy HP below 33%).
You can encounter more enemies in Act 5.

Knowing these changes is only half the battle. Players will need to adjust their character attributes and skills and their playstyle to make it through Hell mode.

The biggest issue to worry about is the reduced resistance for characters and the increased resistance for enemies. Using a Paladin or a Necromancer on Hell mode makes it easier because they are the only two character classes with immunity-breaking skills. The Necromancer can also use Bone Spells and Curses, which don't count as elemental damage, so enemy resistance is less likely. Some items will increase for players who don't have a lot of resistance, no matter what class the character is.

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