Making monsters more dangerous, but not more boring is one of our main goals in Hoard of Bugtraction. So we made them stronger, but toned their life a bit down. We don't like to hack away several minutes at some Quill Rat just because it blocks the way down to Den of Evil.
We also tried to focus on equal risk for ranged and melee character concepts, since in unmodified Diablo II melee characters are heavily underrated compared to ranged characters, especially casters. Of course, playing a melee build always involves to be closer to danger. But you shouldn't play a ranged class just for burning away all enemies from safe distance, this will become tricky in HoB.

Global Changes

• difficulty skill bonus to all monsters in Nightmare is 5 instead of 3
• difficulty skill bonus to all monsters in Hell is 9 instead of 7
• increased damage of Bosses and Champions
• multiple elemental enchantments on bosses won't trigger repeatedly dying events anymore
• all monsters' defense in Nightmare and Hell is slightly improved
• all monsters' attack rating in Nightmare and Hell is slightly improved
• all monsters' base damage in Nightmare and Hell is slightly improved
• more variety in monsters' melee range and movement velocity
• all monsters' life in Nightmare and Hell is slightly toned down
• all monsters' experience values in Nightmare and Hell are slightly improved for characters beyond level 85
• global Leech Penalty of all monsters in Nightmare and Hell is in both difficulties 2, thus nominal value is halfed
• changed some area levels in Nightmare and Hell
• changed population in some areas

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Monstrous Skills

During the remarkable time span of original Diablo II's popularity monsters in Sanctuarion have learned some dirty tricks. We'd love to address those players who may think a Skeleton isn't surprising anymore.
Beware!

Known Skills' Changes

• improved targetting ability and velocity of Oblivion Knights' Bone Spirits
• toned down poisonous clouds of certain Tomb Vipers
• toned down lightning missiles of certain Souls
• all Skeletons may Avoid missiles
• Zakarumits in areas beyond Travincal won't flee even if Hypnotic Ball is destroyed
• the Summoner justifies his name

New Skills

Following list is not commented. Some names may indicate what the skill will do, some won't. Allow us a bit of secret-mongering.

• DieHard
• MakeFire
• MakeCold
• MakePoison
• MakeLight
• DieFire
• DiePoison
• DieCold
• ChainFire
• (BlazingArrow)
• Disease
• MakeFast
• MakeTough
• MakeDeadly
• MonDodge
• MonAvoid
• MonEvade
• MonCharge
• MonRabies
• ElementalFist
• MonGuidedArrow
• MonThunderStorm
• DyingCurse
• MonFireClaws
• ScimThrow
• TeethNova
• IceCannon
• MissMaiden
• ManaKill
• Bloodloss
• MonEnchant
• MonChargedBolt
• MonIceBlast
• MonFireBall
• MonGlacialSpike
• MonPoisonball
• MonFireNova
• MotherCry
• MonChillArmor
• MonBurnArmor
• LifeForKill
• SlowDown

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Monster Species

You'll encounter hardly any monster in Hoard of Bugtraction which is not known from unmodified Diablo II - Lord of Destruction. We've focussed on material already available in game data. But we've managed to activate some unused units.
However, keep in mind that all your experience with a certain kind of monster needs verifying in HoB.

Reactivated monster species are:

• Elemental Ghost
• Elemental Construct
• Quill Bear (of course ...)
• Evil Hole
• Evil Gate
• Mosquito Nest
• Cerberus
• Butcher
• Swamp Nelly

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