Picking an item onto your cursor and dropping it again resets the timer.

Durability
The rigors of battle inflict great wear and tear on a hero's equipment, eventually rendering the equipment unusable. Items subject to wear show a numeric Durability rating in their description, when highlighted. The first number indicates the current Durability of the item while the second number represents the item's total Durability. When an item's Durability is low, a silhouette appears in the upper right corner of the Play Area. Items with low Durability will appear in yellow. A red item has 0 Durability and cannot be used or re-equipped until repaired. A blacksmith can repair items restoring them to their original condition. Repairing magically enhanced items can be expensive, but often is worth the gold.

An NPC in town will repair your weapons and armor for a price. By repairing your items each time you visit town you will reduce the danger of having your weapons and armor becoming worn out during battle.

Items can be repaired partially if and only if you have gold on your person AND the item is not broken (0 Durability). Broken items must be repaired fully.

Durability is capped at 333.

Ethereal
Most types of armor or weapon, even one with magical properties, can be Ethereal. Bows and Crossbows cannot be Ethereal. These items appear translucent in the Inventory, and when equipped, they appear translucent on the character wielding them. Their ethereal nature gives them an improved fundamental ability. However, they have decreased Durability and cannot be repaired.

- Weapons: +50% base damage.
- Armor: +50% base defense

• You can place Zod Runes (Indestructible) in some Ethereal Items to prevent them from being destroyed.
• Ethereal items lose durability at a slower rate than normal items.
• The durability for Ethereal items is calculated as follows: (Normal durability divided by 2) + 1. Example: An Ethereal Giant Conch will have (30/2)+1 = 15+1 = 16 durability, provided it is not a failed Set or Failed Unique.
• Ethereal items spawn with full durability (albeit reduced maximum durability).
• Durability (maximum durability) values observed ingame agree with the following empirical formulae,
  Ethereal non-magic, magic, rare, or unique item: Durability = [normal durability / 2] + 1
  Ethereal unique item with +durability (dur) as a magic property: Durability = [normal durability / 2] + 1 + dur
  Ethereal Superior item with 'Increase Maximum Durability X%' (X = dur%, 10 to 15): Durability = [[normal durability / 2] * (100 + dur%)/100] + 1
  
  Upgrading ethereal rare or unique items (using the proper Horadric Cube recipes) forces maximum durability to equal the normal maximum durability of the base item. Example: Ethereal Hone Sundan will have 15 maximum durability as a Yari, but 28 maximum durability as a Ghost Spear (upgraded). The +durability magic property of the unique items that have it carries over. Example: Ethereal Duriel's Shell (+100 durability) will have 126 maximum durability as a Cuirass, but 150 maximum durability as a Great Hauberk (upgraded).
  
  Failed Set (double durability magic) and Failed Unique (triple durability rare) items spawn with twice and thrice the normal durability, respectively, hence:
  
  Ethereal Failed Set: normal durability + 1
  Ethereal Failed Unique: [normal durability * 3/2] + 1
  
  
  Note: '[]' denotes rounding down (calculations are done with integers, there are no fractions at any step).
  
  
• Broken Ethereal Items sell for 1 Gold.
• Items that spawn as indestructible can not be ethereal at the same time. Hence, most elite unique items that are indestructable will never become ethereal.
• After being sold to a merchant, Ethereal items don't appear in the merchant's trade screen.
• Armor strength requirements are lowered by 10, and weapon strength/dexterity requirement is lowered by 10, when they are Ethereal.
• Ethereal Items do not lose Durability on Hirelings.
• Magic, Rare, and Unique Items can be Ethereal but Imbuing will not make a non-Ethereal item become Ethereal.
• Ethereal items CAN be Imbued, and still be Ethereal after the imbue.

What are Low Quality, Cracked, Crude, Damaged items?
All of these items have a lower Maximum Durability than normal, except bows which are still indestructible. Weapons of this type have lower damage than their normal counterparts. Armor of this type has unusually low Defense, often going below the minimum Defense for that piece of armor.

Any low (Low Quality, Cracked, Crude, Damaged) Armor appears to have 75% of the normal defense (don't forget that normal defense varies), rounded down, and low Weapons do 75% of their normal damage (mindam, maxdam), rounded down. Minimum damage is modified to 1 if it would be < 1 (e.g. a low Javelin has One-Hand Damage: 1 to 3 rather than the normal One-Hand Damage: 1 to 5). Both Any Armor and Weapons have their maximum durability degraded to [(normal durability - 1)/3], i.e. roughly 33%.

Low items cannot be ethereal and they cannot spawn with sockets. You can, however, add sockets to a low item using the reward from the first quest of Act 5 (Siege on Harrogath).

Superior Armor and Weapons
Superior items have improved Defense, Durability, Attack Rating, or enhanced Damage. More precisely:

Any Superior Armor (Helm, Armor, Any Shield, Gloves, Belt, Boots)
+5% to +15% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Durability 10% to 15%

or both properties combined.

[Superior Weapons]
+5% to +15% Enhanced Damage (or +1 to Maximum Damage, see below)
Increase Maximum Durability 10% to 15%
+1 to +3 to Attack Rating

or any two of those properties together. Note: it is impossible to have all three properties spawn together. Furthermore, increased durability will never display on Bows, Crossbows, and Phase Blade, as they are default indestructible, nor on Combo Weapons (Javelins, Throwing Weapons), as they display only quantity (they have hidden durability). If +5% to +15% Enhanced Damage does not increase weapon's base damage by at least 1 (Short Bow for instance), the bonus displays as '+1 to Maximum Damage' instead. In the case of Combo Weapons, One-Hand Damage is considered, whereas Two-Hand Damage is considered on two-handed swords.

Superior items can be ethereal, except if the base item is indestructible, and they may spawn with sockets if the base item can have sockets.

The Defense of Any Superior Armor spawned with +% Enhanced Defense (ac%) is calculated as follows,

Superior NOT Ethereal: Defense = [(maxac + 1) * (100 + ac%)/100]
Superior AND Ethereal: Defense = [[(maxac + 1) * 3/2] * (100 + ac%)/100]

where 'maxac' denotes the maximum base defense.

Notes
- '[]' denotes rounding down (calculations are done with integers, there are no fractions at any step).
- The above item defense formulae are valid for Any Armor spawned with +% Enhanced Defense and not just Superior with +% Enhanced Defense.

Class-specific Items
There are specific items that are only usable by their intended class, possessing special abilities only pertinent to that class. Be sure to pay close attention to the requirements of each item as listed in its pop-up description to see if an item is class specific.

Charged Items
Some new magic items grant the use of certain skills to any character. Some of these items have skills that are only triggered under certain conditions, such as striking an enemy or being struck by one. Charged Items allow the wielder to use the skill at will, but only a limited number of times. To engage the skill granted by a Charged Item, left-click your right mouse button Skill Selection (or press the S key). The Charged Item skill is listed near the top of your list of available skills; left-click on its icon to select it. The skill can now be performed by right-clicking on a target. Charged Item skills have a limited number of uses, so be sure to check the item's pop-up description or the lower right-hand corner of the skill icon to see how many charges remain. If any of an item's charges are depleted, you can return to a nearby town and recharge the item by having the local Blacksmith repair it.

Weapon Speeds vs Classes
Certain weapons are more effective in certain character classes' hands. The listed speed ('slow,'very fast,' etc.) is relative to other weapons for that specific character. Weapon Speed descriptions, as well as their actual swing rate, can change for a weapon when wielded by two different character classes. The listed speeds ('slow, 'very fast,' etc.) further describe a range of speeds; a 'fast' dagger might be slightly slower than a 'fast' mace, but both will be faster than a 'normal' club.

When numbers are listed for Weapon Speeds such as [0], [-20], [20], the higher the number is, the slower the Weapon Speed. So, [20] is the slowest of the three Weapon Speeds.

If I have a 'very fast' sword, and I equip a magic item that Increases Attack Speed, will it be even faster?
The answer to this is yes as well, however at some point the speed maxes out, and they cease to get faster.

Is there any way to tell when you have reached your maximum Weapon Speed?
No, there is no easy way to tell when you reach the limit. You can get faster than "very fast". (Try the Barbarian Frenzy skill to see just how fast you can get.) It would be very hard to reach the limit, you can almost always get faster. All weapon types probably peak at the same speed, so the fastest possible Polearm weapon swing would probably be just as fast as the fastest possible one-hand sword swing.

How is extra damage calculated in magic weapons that get a certain amount of extra damage from a suffix as well as from a certain percentage of extra damage from a prefix: King's will give up to 200% extra damage and Slaughter will give up to 20 damage to maximum, so on a sword with normally maximum 80 damage will this give 200% over 80 and then add 20 damage?
Yes. In this case, first we apply the percentage, then the addition. This calculation can become very, very complex when factoring in shrines, auras, etc.

Weapon Damage
Damage vs Undead and Damage vs Demons do not display on the Character Screen. You must calculate them separately.

Melee Range
For players, range = rangeadder + size, where rangeadder is a weapon-specific constant and size refers to the target. The weapon pages list the rangeadder for each weapon. Monsters are either size 1, 2 or 3 (most are size 2 or 3).

Quality Level
Quality Level - Qlvl is an integer given to all items. This integer is primarily used for separating items into groups known as "Treasure Classes". It is also used in the formula that determines the affix level of an item. The determination of an item drop will also use this number to verify if the drop is successful.

Does the tendency to drop an item vary from Monster to Monster?
No, however Unique Monsters and Bosses have a better chance to drop Magic Items. Champions will either drop Magic Items, Gold, or Gems. Otherwise, the type of monster doesn't matter.

Does your Character Level figure into what items are dropped?
No. The items get better as Monster Levels and Dungeon Levels rise.

Is there a better chance to find magic items in locked chests?
No. But they are usually double drops.

Transferring Items between Characters (Realm and Open Characters)
You can transfer items between characters by having a friend stay in the game to keep the game open while you transfer characters.

For Realm Characters, you can also create a passworded game on Battle.net and not tell anyone what that password is. If you stay in the game for 5 minutes, it will be placed on a delayed expiration list. So when you leave the game and there are no longer any players in the game, it will still stay up for a while. If you're fast enough (it doesn't have to be too fast), you can drop items in town, quit, switch characters, rejoin your same passworded game, and pick them up with your other character. However be warned this method of transferring items can be risky. If you're unable to rejoin your game in time, you will lose all the items you dropped.

You cannot transfer items between single player characters.

What is Blizzard's policy on transferring items between characters or "muling"?
The transferring of items between Diablo II characters is not supported by Blizzard. Users should be warned that attempts to transfer items between characters online are risky and Blizzard is not responsible for lost items. Storage space is limited in Diablo II both for performance and storage space issues and because the designers wanted players to make decisions as to which items to keep and which items must be thrown away or sold.

Finding Good Items
Here are some tricks to use to get "good" items meaning more Rare, Set and Unique Items. You can trade the good items you find that are not useful to yourself for other items that you can use.

• Open up all Chests, Rocks, Barrels, etc.. Chests and other similar items have increased chances for drops. Combined with a good Magic Find % you can have a pretty good chance of getting a good item from a chest. There are also certain areas where chests are more common. Carry keys (except Assassins) so that you can open locked chests as well. You can carry some keys in your Horadric Cube. If you carry keys in the Horadric Cube they won't work so you have to take them out of the cube to use them.
• Repeatedly Kill Champion and Unique Monsters. Always kill these (if possible). They have a much better chance for good drops. You can even go to areas where they are more common or where they are easier to kill.
• Kill more Monsters. Generally the more monsters you kill within a general amount of time, the more drops you get and the more chances you have to get something good. This is why areas like the Flayer Jungle are popular. You may wish to find areas where you can kill a lot of monsters at once.
• Activate Monster Shrines or Evil Urns. This will create Unique Monsters or Champions that you can kill for better loot.