Introduction to Legitimacy

		What is legit? Hacked items Duped items Why legit?

What is Legit?

The long and short of it: Legit means no cheats, hacks, hacked items, duplicated items (dupes), or bug abuse.

Legit is short for legitimate, which means: authentic, genuine, conforming to known principles or accepted rules. In the sense of Diablo, it means playing the game was it was meant to be played. No using 3rd-party programs to gain an advantage over the game including trainers, character editors, hack files and hack mods. Among other things, these utilities can be used to alter character stats, level and items. Hack files actually change the game code in order to cheat - most commonly to give the player "god mode" where they can take no damage, give access to all spells at any level, or to make every monster drop a magical item. Clearly none of this is how the game was meant to be played.

Third-party programs are hardly the most common cheats. There are plenty of in-game cheats that do not require any other program. Most cheaters on battle.net fit into this category - many not even aware that they are in fact cheats. Legitimacy also means not using these in-game cheats including hacked and duped items. These cheats are the most difficult to avoid for new players, because they are not familiar with them. Below are lists of the most common cheated items.

Most games also have various bugs, and Diablo is no exception. Legit means no abusing the more serious of these bugs - the ones that drastically affect gameplay. Duping, or duplicating, is a bug that allows an item to be copied into two items. More specifically, this bug allows a player to change an item into an exact duplicate of another item. With a small bit of rational thinking, it is clear that is definitely NOT what the developers intended. Luckily, this bug takes deliberate effort to abuse, which means it is easy to ignore. The mana shield no-stun bug is another bug that drastically affects gameplay that prevents hit recovery when using mana shield with very little HP. This bug basically allows any character who uses mana shield on a regular basis to keep their HP low so that any attack that hits them won't stun them. They are free to retreat or cast spells - basically anything you can't do while stunned. This bug is a big deal because it allows characters to just walk away from danger that would otherwise get them killed. Abusing either of these bugs is cheating. Read the bug discussion for more information about these bugs and how to avoid them.

Hacked Items

There are several items in this game that have been hacked into existance by cheaters. There are a few different methods, but the whole idea is to get an item that the game can not generate. There are three types of hacked items: unique item hacks, stable unattainable hacks, and spell charges and durabilty hacks.

Unique Item Hacks

Unique items are the ones with the gold text and can have many affixes on one item. Each unique only has one specific base type (stormshield and gnarled root are two exceptions). For instance, stormshield is either tower shield or a gothic shield, but both versions have the same stats. Demonspike coat is full plate mail and the royal circlet is a crown. Some unique items have been hacked into different base items. Dreamflange is one such unique that has been made into rings, amulets, armors, and shields. These are all cheats, the only legitimate form of dreamflange is a mace. The only uniques to trust are really those you find yourself anyways. Luckily unique items are fairly common. Here is a listing of some common uniques that circulate battle.net, the forms they come in, and their true forms:

		Common Graphics Common Forms True Graphic True From Lightforge Helm Mace *note: Lightforge can not be found in multiplayer. It only exists in single player and is extremely rare. Upon reloading the game it will morph into gold. Dreamflange Armor, Helm, Ring, Amulet, Shield, Broad sword Mace Thinking Cap Armor, Helm, Ring, Amulet, Shield *you know something is wrong when the graphic doesn't even fit the ring slots Cap - obviously Demonspike Coat Helm, Ring, Amulet Full plate mail Gnarled Root Ring, Amulet Club, Spiked Club Butcher's Cleaver Ring, Amulet Cleaver *note: Butcher's cleaver is a Single player only quest item with its own unique base item type.

Stable Unattainable Hacks

Not only is there a limit to the gold you can carry, but there is a price limit at the NPC vendors for items that they can sell. Griswold can not sell items more expensive than 140,000 gold and Wirt can not sell anything higher than 135,000 gold. Because of this cap and they way the prices of items are calculated, several items that would otherwise be possible for the game to generate are too pricy to sell in the first place. One of these items is the Godly plate of the Whale. This item is valid based on affixes that are allowed able to appear together on armors and therefore stable - it will not be destroyed from game to game. It is unattainable, however, because the only source for this item is Wirt, and it would cost well over 350,000 gold. Despite popular myth, this item was NEVER purchasable in ANY version of Diablo. Stable unattainable hacks include items such as this GPoW and were hacked into existance. A list of common hacked unattainable items is located later in this article.

Spell Charges + Durabality Hacks

It is quite common to see cheated items with hacked durability or spell charges. On these items the charges/dur. has been hiked up to indestrutable durability and/or 255 max charges. It is quite easy to do this, and even some "legits" have all their items indestructable. While it is possible to legitimately bring an item to indestructabilty, it takes a lot of work and is not very common. Spell charges are set when an item is created, and can not be changed by any legit means.

Duplicated Items

As mentioned before, it is possible to dupe items an unlimited number of times. As a consequence, there have been items that have been duped from one player to another for years now. These items are called common dupes. Although there is not way to spot a dupe just by looking at an item, if two duplicate items are placed on the ground on the same level, one copy will be destroyed and the game will report "Duplicate item detected. Destroying duplicate...". Some of these common dupes are unique hacks, unattainable hacks and some aren't hacks at all. There are many items that have come from legitimate sources that have just been duped many times - duping which had made them illegitimate, of course. In order to avoid common dupes, don't take items from other players and use some common sense. All the common dupes are very powerful items - no one is going to give them away to you if they were legitimately found. If players are willing to give away such items then those items must not have any value to them, which means they are dupes. Here is a list of some commonly duplicated items, their names, and what makes them cheats (not all dupes are on this list, it is meant to give you an idea of what to look out for):

		Name illegimate attributes Commonly duped items hacked unattainable - items without this attribute can be found/bought legitimately! common dupe - these generally have perfect stats (i.e. +200% godly, +40% obsidian, +20 zodiac) hacked dur./charges - usually indestructable dur. and 255 charges (staff only)   Godly plate of the Whale hacked unattainable common dupe hacked dur. Godly plate of Osmosis hacked unattainable common dupe hacked dur. Godly plate of the Ages hacked unattainable common dupe Naj's Light Plate common dupe hacked dur. Godly helm of the Whale common dupe hacked dur. King's sword of Haste common dupe hacked dur. King's Sword of the Heavens common dupe hacked dur. Godly shield of the ages common dupe Stormshield common dupe Windforce common dupe hacked dur. Merciless bow of the Heavens hacked unattainable common dupe hacked dur. Arch-Angel's staff of Apocalypse common dupe hacked dur./charges Obsidian amulet of the Zodiac common dupe Dragon's amulet of the Zodiac common dupe Drake's amulet of the Zodiac common dupe Obsidian ring of the Zodiac common dupe Dragon's ring of the Zodiac common dupe Drake's ring of the Zodiac common dupe

Note that it is also possible to dupe elixers and books and then read/drink the dupes until a characters spells and stats points are maxed. This is abusing the dupe bug and is, of course, cheating.

Exported Items

Exported items refer to items that have been duplicated directly off of one player to another using a third-party program such as a trainer. This is the same thing as duping. This form of cheating is quite vicious in that the people who do this are trying to pass off as legit by duping legit equipment using these cheats. As a result, the victim of exporting can lose their reputation as legitimate as these exported items spread - it is not possible to prove who is the original owner of any duped equipment. Luckily, because most exporters (as they are called who cheat this way) are also trying to pass as legit, they won't spread duplicates of your items around and simply keep the items for their own characters. Out of two players, the guitly party will know who they are, and the person who actually found the items will know who they are. This cheat becomes especially dangerous when trading. Exported items can spread as players trade items for another. To avoid getting exports of some other player's items, it is a good idea to avoid trading for high quality items (i.e. obsidian ring of the zodiac). In fact, it is a good idea not to trade at all - not only to avoid exports, but you will have the most pride in items you find yourself.

Scanners can be part of the reason players export items. Although they are very professional tools, I would recommend staying away from them - especially new players. Sometimes what happens when using a scanner is a player thinks they are legit as long as they scan legit on a scanner - this isn't the way to think about being legit, especially when some cheats can not be picked up by scanners. The reason for this is that scanners can not detect exported items. Because they don't show up on the scanner, the player considers himself legit. Duribility hacks will also not be detected by them.

Why legit?

You may be hearing "no, no, no" and asking yourself "why? why? why?". Why would you want to go out of your way to avoid all these things - what is the benefit of being legit? While it is true that cheating will make you very powerful very quickly, there are many perks to playing legitimately.

1. More challenging - because you don't start off with the best gear in the game, the game will be more challenging overall, even virtually impossible at some points. As your character develops, experience and gear will improve and eventually you will be able to clear all areas of the game.
2. Increased life span - more challenging game play will hold your interest in the game longer, as will the desire to develop your character. The desire to find the best equipment in the game will also prolong your Diablo experience.
3. Knowledge of game mechanics - playing legit will mean you will learn how this game works and other things that cheaters never will. Not only will you learn it from in-game experience, but also from the community of other legitimate players.
4. Because cheaters suck! - or so is the common legit player attitude.