World Event Info

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One of the most anticipated new features of the v1.10 patch was the "World Event". Blizzard teased it relentlessly, promising that it would be difficult to achieve, like nothing we'd ever before seen, and extremely rewarding. What exactly it would be was a subject of much debate, though a few hints were discovered in the v1.10 beta test game files.

With the arrival of v1.10, thousands of players were immediately testing the World Event out, and much more info appeared. As of October 28, 2003, the night the patch was released, we know almost everything about it, thanks to numerous reader mails. If you have more information to add to this page, send it in.

How many people are scoring Annihilus Charms? Well, there are already a couple of them up for sale on eBay, less than a day after v1.10 went live, if that tells you anything.

What we know now:

• The World Event occurs at semi-random intervals, apparently across the entire realm at any given time, when some number of Stones of Jordan are sold to any NPC merchant. You do not need to sell any in your game to get the World Event, though it seems to help.
• World Events only occur in Hell games, and only SoJs sold in Hell games will count towards making one occur.

• When the World Event triggers in your game, you'll see orange text proclaiming, "Diablo Walks The Earth"
• Once you get this message, the next SuperUnique monster that anyone in the game gets close enough to spawn will spawn as the Diablo Clone.

• He is extremely difficult to kill and very dangerous (see below) but when killed he will almost always drop a single item, the unique Annihilus Charm. We thought he would always drop it, but a forum post by Blizzard says that this is not the case. Thanks to GhostAssassin for spotting this info.)
• The Annihilus Charm can not be placed in the trade window; you must drop it on the ground to transfer it to another character.

• All reports of the World Event are from non-ladder games, and it's not at all clear how anyone on the Ladder will ever get a world event, given how extremely rare SoJs are in v1.10. If there isn't a duping exploit used to create them, it seems like it will take weeks and weeks for enough SoJs to be sold to trigger one. Perhaps the amount that must be sold is set far lower for ladder games? Or perhaps all games on a given realm (Hardcore included?) share in the World Event odds, and once players are into Hell games on the Ladder, they'll have a chance to get a World Event, thanks to players in non-ladder games liquidating their vast stores of duped SoJs?

Characteristics of Diablo Clone

He's stronger and much tougher than the normal Diablo. Killing him has nothing to do with completing Act Four; he's a bonus monster. In addition to all of Diablo's normal attacks, the Diablo Clone can cast Armageddon, just like the Druid Skill, but of course Diablo Clone's does actual damage.
Diablo Clone has 95% resistance to Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, and Physical Damage. He also blocks at 95% and has extremely fast health regeneration and tons and tons of hit points. We'll post more exact stats once they become available.

Player Emails

These are brand new, posted the evening of October 28, 2003, the day the v1.10 patch was released. If you have your own World Event story

The first person to mail us about a successful kill was Luciencool, a distinction that earns him nothing. However since he's already got four Annihilus Charms, he doesn't really need any more prizes, now does he?

Hey just a note, the SOJ counter is running. I have sold many SOJs to venders and the Diablo clone has always taken the place of Corpsefire. It has taken 115 SOJs, and as many as 250. (not mine but total on the counter) I have done this and gotten the Annhilus Charm on 4 Different characters so far. He is very tough, has a powerful armageddon attack, and heals extremely fast. Do not even bother with him unless you have an uber character.

The Annhilus Charm CAN be removed from inventory and dropped on ground for a transfer or etc. However it will not be placed in trade screen so it is in effect untradable.

Here's a mail from Chris, who was the first to mail in any screenshots.

I'm not sure if anyone else has or not but 4 of my friends and I have fought the diablo clone in Cold Plains. The number of SoJs was 70 and the barb berserk attack seemed to take it down very well (although there were two sorcs and a druid doing there fair share).

I could drop the charm once picked up but I couldn't move it into the trade window.

And here's a longer story from another Chris.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the charm, but I did make the game and here is the story behind it.

I was playing Diablo LOD and minding my own business in a private game. The soj counter was going continually going up the entire game and it hit 75. Note: I did not spend any sojs in any games and there were none spent in this game. A message popped on the screen "Diablo walks the Earth." I had no idea what it meant or the significance as I had barely played in months. I continued on my solo Baal run, and "big nasty" Diablo clone pops up when I started killing the minions. I tried taking him myself, pointless effort might I add as he heals mega fast and my windforce equiped zon was barely able to do a slivers worth of damage before getting killed. After visiting diabloii.net to see how to kill him, I realized the significance of what was taking place and proceeded for hours trying and pleading to get people to join my game. Finally, a well rounded group of characters joind and we were able to kill him.

From this experience, I have concluded that it appears that the "big nasty" diablo clone randomly pops into any game on battle.net, randomly generates to the nearest superunique of a player in the game, and stays in that game until he is killed by the players in the game or until the game dies because everyone left and the game timed out or the game is disrupted. I also believe that there can be only one "big nasty" diablo on battle.net at a time.

Another account from Charum, the first HC player we heard from who saw a Diablo Clone.

I created an expansion hardcore hell game (1.10) with my lvl 78 bowazon (no ladder), after a few minutes and 200+ sojs sold to vendors, 'diablo walks the earth' shows on the screen. I was in act 5. I had heard that he spawns in place of the nearest boss monster, so I take the first waypoint and go up a little, then I see his lightning attack. He had spawned in the place of Eldricht (spelling?). After a few minutes of trying to get close without dying, I decided to go back to town, since I was the only one in game. I didnt get to kill him this time, so I don't know what the drop is. I think he was also casting armageddon, or some similar looking spell, in addition to his usual stuff.

Another successful find, this one by Kolohe.

Just wanted to let you know that I got an Annihilus Charm last night.

It took a 91 barb with gf/doom and my 92 mf barb (thanks flux!) to kill him. I found him in my game next to Eldritch after seeing the "Diablo walks the earth" message.

He regenerates his hit points FAST FAST FAST.

1 charm dropped, but that may have been because the 91 barb was in town healing at the time.

Incidentally, you CAN remove the Annihilus from your inventory, but you CANNOT show it in the trade screen. It will not pick up off the trade window. You CAN, however DROP it on the ground for others to see. The 91 barb picked up my charm and looked at it that way.

And yes, it looks just like meph's stone.

Here's one from Swap(U) with some useful strategy tips.

Flux,

My friend and I managed to open the World Event yesterday and I will tell you what I observed.

For one thing, I think we got lucky because we only used about 20 sojs to get him out. When he came, the screen shakes (like it does when he comes out in act4) and it says.. "Diablo walks the earth"

- He appeared by the Tristam portal in Stony Fields, he was very hard at first, I was using an amazon with better then basic gear and my friend was using his amazon, with really good gear.

- What I noticed, it seems like: either he has extreme leech or fire heals him because he heals at a VERY rapid rate causing it very difficult for him to kill.

- Eventually I switched to my Sorc, which has better then average stuff, (sorc was a pvp sorc, so all i had was orb)

-We got down the system of attack where Diablo sits in one spot and targets me while I teleport around him dodging his (rapid) attacks while my buddy loads him full of arrows.

-This actually worked! After we found out this neat strategy he was dead in no longer then 15 minutes.

-He disappears when he dies and a little unique charm drops, so if you're doing it with your buddy, you only get one.

-It seems like he was less resistant to cold, or just.. my orb did more damage to him.

-All his spells are very strong, my dual lightsaber barb could not hold against his lightning attack.

Beta Sightings

During the beta, players who violated the EULA *cough* and rooted around in the game files discovered entries for the "diablo clone" but no set spot for him to spawn in. He had gargantuan stats; 95% resistance to everything along with very high blocking, hit points, and health regeneration, plus he could do all of Diablo's spells and more.

Several players modded him into the game in the beta, but didn't know quite how he would appear. Some players thought he would spawn with a full pack of minion Diablo's, and it wasn't clear what his treasure drops would be like. As you see in the screenshots below from the Beta, there was a lot of variety of Diablo type and difficulty level. You can only get a World Event on hell difficulty on the realms in v1.10.

Keep in mind that all of these are things players hacked out of the game; there wasn't any way to actually get the World Event during the beta, or to get an Annihilus Charm to drop, short of modifying the treasure class item dropping information.