A level 99 character is the standard laboratory for Diablo II build testing — and with D2CE it takes three fields: Level, Experience, and then the stats and skills to match. This guide is honest about the purpose: an offline test character for evaluating builds and theorycrafting, not a shortcut to present as a played character. It is equally honest about the trap: a level 99 character still wearing starter gear is a weak character, because in Diablo II power lives in items at least as much as in levels.

Step by step: building the level 99 test character

1. Start from a copy. Duplicate or back up an existing character, or create a fresh level 1 character in game, exit, and edit that — never convert your main character into the experiment. The backup method is in how to back up D2R saves.
2. Close the game and load the character in D2CE. Orientation: the D2CE user guide, files in the save file location guide, editor on the download page.
3. On the main screen, set Level to 99 and set Experience to a value that belongs to level 99. D2CE’s level information table shows the minimum experience required per level — use it, rather than guessing, so the Level and XP fields agree with each other. A character whose XP says level 40 while its Level says 99 is an inconsistency the game may resolve in ways you did not intend.
4. Set the attributes to match the build you are testing, using the stats guide: a plausible level 99 allocation, not four random huge numbers.
5. Set the skills with the Skill Trees button, following the skills guide — main skills and their synergies, with prerequisites respected, totalling roughly what 98 level-ups plus quest rewards could actually grant.
6. Save with CTRL-S, load the character in game, and verify: level displays as 99, stats and skills are as set, and the character plays normally.

Titles are a separate field

Do not expect the character’s title to update itself. In D2CE the Title is its own editable field — the titles the game awards for finishing difficulty levels (for expansion characters: Slayer for Normal, Champion for Nightmare, and Patriarch / Matriarch for Hell, with the hardcore variants such as Conqueror and Guardian in the same family). If your test character should present as a Hell-finishing character, set the Title field explicitly alongside Level. If you leave it alone, you will simply have a level 99 character with whatever title it already had — harmless, but a useful reminder that level, progress and presentation are separate data, and quest progress itself is edited separately via the Quests button.

The gear problem: level is not power

Here is the honest framing this guide promised: a freshly made level 99 character in starter gear will still struggle. Hitpoints and mana scale with level and Vitality/Energy, but damage, resists, attack rating and survivability in Hell come overwhelmingly from equipment. A build test with bad gear tests the gear, not the build. So finish the job properly:

• Use item creation and .d2i imports to give the character the equipment the build assumes — weapons, armour, charms’ worth of stats where relevant — keeping properties within the game’s limits so the test stays meaningful.
• Set up the mercenary to match, using the mercenary guide: a real build test includes its mercenary’s level and gear.
• Unlock waypoints for the areas you need to test in, so travel time does not distort the trial.
• Fund the character’s gambling and repairs with level-appropriate gold — at 99, the gold caps are at their highest.

What this is for — and what it is not

Used well, a level 99 test character answers real questions in an evening instead of a month: does this build clear the areas it claims to, how does it feel with its end-game skills, where does it actually struggle? Used as a trophy, it proves nothing — it is an offline file you edited, and the only person who would be fooled by presenting it as played is you. Keep it clearly a test character (many players put “Test” in the name, using the rename guide), keep it offline, and keep your real characters backed up separately. If anything goes wrong, see the unreadable-save guide and the Patch 3.x compatibility status; browse all task guides from the guides hub.

Your character’s name is a field in its save file, and D2CE edits it directly. Renaming takes a minute — but it comes with one file-handling caution that matters more than the edit itself: in the D2R save folder, the character’s .d2s file is named after the character. Change the name inside the file without thinking about the file name, and you have created a mismatch that confuses both players and tools. This guide covers the edit and the caution together.

Step by step: renaming a character

1. Close the game completely. Renaming a character the game currently has loaded is asking for the game to rewrite the file on exit.
2. Back up the save folder. A rename touches identity, not just numbers — you want the original file untouched somewhere safe.
3. Load the character in D2CE and find the Name field on the main screen. New to the editor? See the D2CE user guide, the save file location guide, and the download page.
4. Type the new name. D2CE supports UTF-8 character names (support the project specifically fixed and maintained in the 2.x releases, for PTR 2.4-era saves), so accented and non-Latin characters that the game itself accepts can be entered — keep the name to characters the game can display, and a length in line with names the game would let you create.
5. Confirm the field shows in bold and the title bar carries the asterisk for unsaved changes, then save with CTRL-S.
6. Now handle the file name (next section) before launching the game.

The file name caution

Each offline character lives in a file named <CharacterName>.d2s inside Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\. D2CE edits the name stored inside the file; whether the file on disk is renamed for you is not something to assume. Our advice:

• After saving the rename in D2CE, look at the save folder. If the .d2s file still carries the old name, rename the file itself to match the new character name exactly — same spelling, same characters — so the file name and the character name agree.
• Do not rename the file to something that matches no character, and do not leave two files claiming to be the same character. A file whose name and contents disagree is a classic ingredient in “my character disappeared” scares — see why an edited character can disappear.
• Keep the backup under the original name, stored outside the save folder, so restoring it can never be confused with the renamed character.
• Then launch the game and confirm the character appears in the list under the new name, loads, and plays normally.

What a rename does and does not change

• It changes the displayed character name — in the character list, in game, and anywhere the save’s name is shown.
• It does not change the character’s class, progress, gear or identity in any deeper sense; its other fields (including any companion data) are untouched. The mercenary keeps its own name — renaming your character does not rename the mercenary; mercenary work lives in the mercenary guide.
• It does not apply online. Online characters are server-side; there is no file and no Name field to edit, and this method cannot rename them.
• It pairs with other identity fields carefully. The Title field (Patriarch, Champion and so on) is separate from the Name field — if you are tidying a character’s presentation, review both, as described in the stats editing guide and the level 99 guide’s title note.

If D2CE will not open the save at all, start with the unreadable-save guide and check the Patch 3.x compatibility status for current-version saves. Browse the remaining one-job guides from the guides hub.

Whether an offline Diablo II character is hardcore is a status flag stored in its save file — and D2CE’s Status field can change it. This guide is deliberately plain about what that means: you are editing a flag on a local, offline character. Nothing here touches ladder or online characters, which are stored on Blizzard’s servers and cannot be converted by any editor. Read the warnings before the steps; this is the one edit on this site whose consequences cannot be undone from inside the game.

What the conversion actually is

In D2CE, the character’s Status field on the main screen includes the hardcore flag. Clearing that flag makes the character softcore: from then on, death works the softcore way — the character survives, with the normal softcore death penalties, instead of being permanently lost. Setting the flag on a softcore character makes it hardcore by the same mechanism, and this guide’s steps work in both directions. What you are not doing is moving a character between game modes or servers: the character stays exactly where it was, an offline character in the same save folder, with the same gear, progress and stash access.

Step by step

1. Back up first — this edit is why backups exist. Copy the character’s .d2s (and, per the backup guide, the whole save folder) somewhere outside the save folder. If you later regret the conversion, this backup is your only way back to the character’s original status.
2. Close the game completely and load the character in D2CE. Get the editor from the download page; find the file with the save file location guide; the D2CE user guide covers the main screen.
3. Locate the Status field and change the hardcore setting: clear it to convert hardcore → softcore, or set it for softcore → hardcore. The edited field shows in bold and the title-bar asterisk marks the unsaved change.
4. Save with CTRL-S.
5. Load the character in game and confirm its status reads as intended on the character screens before you play it seriously.

Warnings, stated plainly

• It cannot be undone in game. The game offers no conversion in either direction. D2CE can flip the flag again, and your backup can restore the original file — but within the game itself there is no way back, so decide before you save, not after.
• A converted character is an edited character. However you feel about that is your call on your own offline save — but do not present a converted character as an untouched hardcore survivor in any community context where that distinction matters. The honour system around hardcore is social, and this tool does not launder it.
• Titles and status displays follow the flag. Character titles related to difficulty completion are a separate field in D2CE (the Title field), so review what your character displays after converting rather than assuming everything adjusts itself.
• Ladder and online characters are completely unaffected — because they are unreachable. They exist only on Blizzard’s servers; there is no local file, no Status field to edit, and no conversion. Any tool claiming otherwise is not telling the truth.

The most common legitimate uses are mercy and experimentation: rescuing a long-running offline hardcore character after a death feels unjust (a crash, a power cut), or deliberately moving a character to softcore to test dangerous content — paired, perhaps, with a level 99 test setup — without risking the original. If the edited character fails to appear afterwards, see why an edited character can disappear, and check the Patch 3.x compatibility status before editing current-version saves. More guides are on the guides hub.

D2CE has a dedicated mercenary dialog for the jobs players actually need: bringing a dead mercenary back without paying the in-game resurrection fee, hiring one, changing mercenary type, and setting the mercenary’s level and experience. The dialog also shows the mercenary’s gear, and the final D2CE release (2.22) improved exactly this area — it reads all supported mercenary slots, including mod-enabled ones. Here is how each control works, including the two rules that surprise people.

Step by step: the mercenary dialog

1. Close the game, back up, and load the character in D2CE. (Start points: the D2CE user guide, save file location, the download page.)
2. Open the Mercenary dialog. It shows the mercenary’s state, type, level, experience, derived stats, and equipped items.
3. To resurrect a dead mercenary: uncheck the Dead checkbox. To hire a mercenary when none is hired: check the Hired checkbox. The same checkboxes work in reverse — unchecking Hired dismisses (“fires”) the mercenary.
4. To change mercenary type: use the Type control — but read the rule below first: type can only be changed while the mercenary is not equipped with items.
5. To set level and experience: edit the mercenary’s Level and XP values directly. The hard cap is in the next section.
6. Save with CTRL-S and verify in game: the mercenary should be present, alive, and wearing what the dialog showed.

The two rules that catch people out

• Type changes require an unequipped mercenary. If the mercenary is wearing gear, the type cannot be changed — remove the equipped items first (move them to the character or stash), change the type, then re-equip. This protects you: different mercenary types use different gear, and a type change over equipped items would strand equipment the new mercenary cannot use.
• Mercenary level cannot exceed your character’s level. D2CE enforces the game’s own rule: you may set the mercenary’s level and XP, but not above the character’s level. If you want a level 90 mercenary, the character must be level 90 first — see editing character stats or making a level 99 test character if that is the real goal.

The other statistics shown in the dialog — the mercenary’s attributes and combat numbers — are read-only: they are derived from the mercenary’s type, level and equipped items, not typed in directly. To make a mercenary stronger, change the inputs the game itself uses: level, XP, and gear.

Mercenary gear and slots

The dialog displays the mercenary’s equipped items in their slots, and you work with that gear the same way as character items: items can be created, imported and exported as .d2i item files using the workflow in creating items with D2CE, which is the practical way to hand a mercenary a specific weapon or armour piece without finding it in game. The v2.22 change matters here: that release added logic to read the supported mercenary slots and update the dialog to display all of them, including mod-enabled slots — so on saves from mod setups that enable extra mercenary equipment slots, current D2CE shows the full picture rather than only the standard slots. Keep item properties within the game’s limits, and remember a mercenary can only benefit from gear its type can actually equip.

A resurrected mercenary returns without the in-game gold fee, but if you are rebuilding a treasury as well, see adding gold with D2CE. As with every edit: if the character misbehaves afterwards, restore the backup and re-apply in smaller steps; if the file will not open, start with the unreadable-save guide and the Patch 3.x compatibility status. More one-job guides: the guides hub.

Your shared stash is the one file every offline character depends on — and D2CE has been able to edit it since version 2.14 (March 2022). That makes stash editing both the most convenient muling tool in the editor and the edit with the largest blast radius when something goes wrong: a damaged character file loses one character, but a damaged shared stash touches them all. This guide explains what the stash file is, how personal and shared storage differ, and the backup discipline that makes stash editing safe.

The stash file: one .d2i in your save folder

In C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\ — see the save file location guide — each character is a .d2s file, and the shared stash is the .d2i file sitting alongside them. Do not confuse it with D2CE’s single-item .d2i exports: the same extension is used for both, as explained in creating items and using .d2i item files. The file in the save folder is a stash, not an item; treat it accordingly and never replace it with anything else.

Personal vs shared: know which space you are editing

• Personal stash — each character’s own private stash page, stored with that character. Only that character can reach it. When you edit a character’s items in D2CE, this is the storage that travels with the .d2s file.
• Shared stash — the stash tabs shared by all of your offline characters, stored in the .d2i stash file. Anything placed here is available to every offline character on the account, which is exactly why editing it affects everyone at once.

Before changing anything, decide which of the two you mean to change. Moving an item “to the stash” in an editor session only helps your other characters if it lands in the shared space, in the .d2i — not in one character’s personal page.

Step by step: editing the shared stash

1. Close the game completely — the game writes the stash when it runs, and editing underneath it invites conflicts.
2. Back up the .d2i stash file separately, by name, in addition to your whole-folder backup. Keep at least one known-good copy outside the save folder.
3. Load the shared stash in D2CE (shared stash support is built into current D2CE releases — 2.14 and later, including the final 2.22; get it from the download page).
4. Make your changes: move, create or import items as needed, using the item tools described in the item creation guide, keeping every item’s properties within the game’s limits.
5. Save, then launch the game and check the shared stash from two different characters — the whole point of the shared stash is that both should see the same contents.
6. Only delete your separate .d2i backup after at least one full play session with the edited stash.

When stash editing goes wrong

If characters load but the shared stash is empty, wrong, or the game misbehaves around it, close the game and restore the .d2i from your separate backup before doing anything else. If D2CE itself cannot read your files, work through the unreadable-save guide; if a character has vanished from the selection screen after edits, see why an edited character can disappear. And remember the version limit: the shared stash of a current Patch 3.x / Warlock-era game has newer structures than this editor was built for — check the compatibility status before trusting it with a current stash. The full editor workflow is in the D2CE user guide, and more tasks are on the guides hub.

D2CE can create items, and move them between characters as portable .d2i item files — import, export, socket them, and set their quality flags. It is the most powerful feature in the editor and the one with the easiest misunderstanding attached: the extension .d2i means two different things in Diablo II tooling. This guide covers item creation step by step, then explains that dual meaning carefully, because confusing the two files is a genuinely destructive mistake.

First: the two meanings of .d2i

• .d2i item files — in D2CE’s item workflow (item import/export arrived in v2.16), a .d2i file holds a single item that you can import into a character or export from one, and share between characters and saves.
• The .d2i shared stash file — in your D2R save folder, the file with the .d2i extension is the shared stash itself, holding every item every offline character shares.

Same extension, completely different contents. Never overwrite the stash file in your save folder with an item file, and never treat an exported item file as a stash backup. If the stash is what you want to edit, use the shared stash guide instead, and read the save file location guide so you can identify each file in the folder with confidence.

Step by step: creating and importing items

1. Close the game, back up the whole save folder, and load the character in D2CE. Get the editor from the download page; the D2CE user guide covers the item dialog in the wider workflow.
2. Open the character’s items and use D2CE’s item creation to build the item you want, or import an existing .d2i item file someone exported (or that you exported from another character earlier).
3. Set the item’s properties within the game’s limits (see below), including sockets — and use the Gems, Potions & Skulls Creator to fill empty inventory slots with the gems, potions or skulls you want to place in those sockets or use alongside the item. The matching GPS Converter can convert an existing gem, potion or skull into another kind or quality.
4. Set the quality flags you intend: an item can be made ethereal, superior, or indestructible where the item type supports those qualities.
5. To reuse an item elsewhere, export it to a .d2i item file and keep that file outside your save folder.
6. Save the character with CTRL-S, then test in game: equip the item, check its tooltip reads correctly, and play briefly before trusting the save.

Upgrades that pair with item work

D2CE’s Options → Upgrade submenu applies bulk improvements to what a character already carries: upgrade all gems and skulls to their perfect state, upgrade all potions to the highest quality or convert them all to Full Rejuvenation potions, raise weapon and armour durability to 255, and restock stackable items to full (for example, 12 keys). These are often the fastest honest route to a “prepared” test character: create the base gear, then upgrade its consumables and socket-fillers in one pass.

Keep properties within game limits

An editor will write numbers the game would never generate. Items whose properties sit far outside the game’s own ranges are the classic cause of saves that misbehave, display nonsense, or fail checks elsewhere. Work like the game does: plausible damage, defence and requirement values for the item’s type and level, a socket count the base item can actually have, and one quality concept at a time rather than stacking every flag on everything. If a character stops loading after item work, restore your backup and re-apply the item in smaller steps — and see why an edited character can disappear and the unreadable-save guide before experimenting further. Note, too, the Patch 3.x caveat: items and item formats from the current game era are outside what this 2023 editor knows.

Item creation pairs naturally with a dedicated test character: see making a level 99 character for build testing, and browse further tasks on the guides hub.

Gold is one of the simplest fields in D2CE: the editor exposes the gold your character carries and the gold in the stash as editable values on the character. Giving yourself a fortune takes seconds — the only real skill is knowing where the game’s own ceiling sits, because gold in Diablo II is capped by character level, and values past that ceiling do not survive contact with the game the way you might expect.

Step by step: adding gold

1. Close the game, back up your saves, and load the offline character in D2CE. (Orientation: the D2CE user guide; files: save file location; the editor: download page.)
2. Find the Gold fields on the main screen and set the carried gold to the amount you want.
3. Set the stash gold as well if you want the character’s reserves topped up, rather than only the coins on its person.
4. Confirm the edited fields show in bold and the title bar carries the asterisk that marks unsaved changes.
5. Save with CTRL-S.
6. Load the character in game and check both the character and the stash: the gold should be there, and — if you stayed within the caps below — in the amounts you typed.

The caps: gold is limited by character level

Diablo II does not allow unlimited gold. How much a character can hold — in its stash and on its person — rises with character level, and the game enforces those limits itself. D2CE’s user guide points at the reference built into the editor: the level information table, which shows, per level, the minimum experience for the level and the maximum gold limits for a character’s belt and stash, using the version logic of the loaded character file (if no file is loaded, it assumes Diablo II: Resurrected). Two practical consequences follow:

• Check the table before you type. Look up your character’s level and keep your gold at or under the listed maximum for that level.
• Do not exceed sane values. A figure far beyond the cap for the character’s level invites the game to clamp, ignore or mishandle the excess — and makes the save an outlier for no benefit. A level 20 character has no use for a level 90 hoard; if you genuinely need a big treasury, raise it on a high-level character, or make a level 99 test character first and fund that.
• Stash and character are separate pools with separate limits. Fill each within its own cap rather than dumping the whole sum into one field.

Why add gold at all?

• Gambling and shopping while testing a build, without interleaving farming runs.
• Mercenary resurrections and repairs on a test character that dies a lot — pair this with editing your mercenary if you are rebuilding a full setup.
• Recovering a character that lost its treasury to an unlucky streak, on an offline save you treat as a sandbox.

Gold also interacts with the shared economy of your own saves: gold in the shared stash belongs to every character, and the shared stash itself is separately editable — see how to edit the D2R shared stash before moving large sums around between characters. As always, if the file will not open, consult the unreadable-save guide and the Patch 3.x compatibility status first. More task guides live on the guides hub.

Every quest in an offline D2R save carries one of three states in D2CE — Not Started, In Progress (Started) or Completed — and you can set each one individually, or complete an entire difficulty at once. Quest edits are powerful and easy to overdo: they change story progress, act access and reward eligibility in one move. This guide covers the mechanics and the caution that matters most — completing flags out of order can cost you the rewards those quests were supposed to pay.

Step by step: editing quest progress

1. Close the game, back up, and load the character in D2CE. The D2CE user guide explains the editor’s layout; get D2CE itself from the download page and find your files with the save file location guide.
2. Click the Quests button to open the Quest form.
3. Select the difficulty you want to edit — quest states are stored per difficulty.
4. For individual quests, set each one to Not Started, Started / In Progress or Completed as needed.
5. To finish everything in that difficulty at once, click Complete All Quests for the currently selected difficulty.
6. Confirm the dialog, save with CTRL-S, and repeat for other difficulties if intended.
7. Load the character in game and open the quest log to confirm the states match what you set.

The Act 5 rule

As with waypoints, Act 5 quests are only available to expansion characters — D2CE’s user guide states this directly. A non-expansion character simply has no Act 5 quest entries to edit. Do not treat their absence as an editor fault.

The reward caution — read this before using Complete All

A quest flag is not the same thing as a quest reward. Several D2R quests pay out in ways players actually care about: permanent bonuses, socketing and personalisation services, skill or stat points, and the act progression itself. Setting a quest straight to Completed tells the game the quest is done — completing flags out of order can skip the rewards and the in-game moments that grant them, because the NPC conversation or event that hands over the reward may never happen. Treat this as a real caution, especially with Complete All:

• Prefer editing one quest at a time, then checking the character in game, over blanket completion.
• If a quest is stuck or bugged mid-progress, setting it back to Not Started or forward by one state is usually the safer repair than completing it.
• If what you really need is travel rather than story progress, edit waypoints instead — waypoints alone never touch quest rewards.
• If what you need is to start in a later act, that is the separate Starting Act field on the main screen. Note what the user guide says about it: changing Starting Act does not complete any quests or activate any waypoints, and you cannot properly finish later acts if the earlier ones were skipped.

Sensible uses for quest edits

• Repairing a character whose quest state no longer matches its actual progress after other edits.
• Preparing a test character at a specific story point, paired with unlocked waypoints for travel.
• Resetting one quest to Not Started so it can be played properly.

Quest flags sit alongside everything else in the save, so keep the usual discipline: small changes, test in game, keep your backup until the character has survived a play session. If the save will not open at all, start with the unreadable-save guide and the Patch 3.x compatibility status. More one-job guides are on the guides hub.

Waypoints are the fast-travel network of Diablo II, and D2CE can switch them on directly. Behind its Waypoints button you can activate waypoints individually or press one button to activate all of them for a difficulty. This guide covers the exact steps, the Act 5 rule that catches people out, and the important limit: waypoints get you to places — they do not complete the quests waiting there.

Step by step: unlocking waypoints

1. Close the game and load the offline character in D2CE (File → Open or CTRL-O). If this is your first edit, the D2CE user guide and the save file location guide will get you oriented; the editor itself is on our download page.
2. Click the Waypoints button to open the waypoint lists.
3. Select the difficulty you want to change — waypoint progress is stored per difficulty, so Normal, Nightmare and Hell are edited separately.
4. Either tick individual waypoints, or click Activate All Waypoints to activate every waypoint for the currently selected difficulty in one action.
5. Click OK to confirm the dialog.
6. Repeat for each other difficulty you want unlocked, then save with CTRL-S.
7. Load the character in game, open the waypoint menu in town, and confirm the destinations are available.

The Act 5 rule

Act 5 waypoints are only available to expansion characters. That is a rule of the game’s data, stated in D2CE’s own user guide: a classic (non-expansion) character has no Act 5, so there are no Act 5 waypoints for the editor to activate for it. If you open the waypoint list for a non-expansion character and cannot find the Act 5 entries, nothing is broken — the character type simply does not have them. Similarly, activating waypoints on one difficulty does nothing for the others; a Hell unlock still leaves Normal and Nightmare to do if you want them.

What unlocked waypoints do — and do not — give you

• They do: let you travel instantly to each activated waypoint from any waypoint in the same act network, which is ideal for farming routes, rushing a test character to a specific area, or recovering a character whose progress outran its travel options.
• They do not: complete any quest, grant any quest reward, or finish any act. You can stand at the Worldstone Keep waypoint with every Act 5 quest untouched.
• They do not: change the character’s Starting Act or story state. Those are separate data — quest progress is edited separately, as described in how to edit quest progress.

A practical pattern is to pair a waypoint unlock with the matching quest work only where you actually need it: unlock everything for travel, then leave quests alone if you still want to play through them and earn their rewards normally. Unlocking waypoints is one of the least invasive edits there is, but if the edited character fails to appear afterwards, see why an edited character can disappear — and check the Patch 3.x compatibility status before editing a save last written by the current game version.

Browse the rest of the one-job editing guides from the guides hub, including editing character stats and editing skills.

Skill points in D2CE live behind one button: Skill Trees. From there you can set each skill individually — or, in one operation, set every skill to the same value, which is the fastest way to sketch a test build. This guide covers both, and the two cautions (prerequisites and synergies) that decide whether an edited skill layout actually behaves the way you expect in game. It applies to offline characters; if you are deciding between editing skills and a proper respec, read how to respec a D2R character first.

Step by step: editing skills

1. Close the game, back up your save folder, and load the character’s .d2s file in D2CE. New to the editor? The D2CE user guide covers opening files, and the save file location guide shows where the file lives. Get the editor itself from our download page.
2. Click the Skill Trees button. The character’s skill trees appear, showing the current points in each skill.
3. To edit one skill, change its value directly. Repeat for each skill you want to adjust.
4. To set everything at once, use the Skill Trees batch operation that sets all of the character’s skills to a specific value — for example, 20 everywhere as a blank canvas — then lower or zero the skills your build does not use.
5. Confirm the dialog, then save the character with CTRL-S. Edited values are marked in bold, and an asterisk next to the name in the title bar shows unsaved changes remain until you save.
6. Open the character in game and spend a few minutes actually playing it: cast the skills, check the tooltips, and confirm the layout feels like what you intended before you rely on it.

The prerequisite caution

Diablo II skills form trees: many skills require points in earlier skills before the game will let you invest in them through play. An editor writes the numbers you give it, which means you can create a layout the game’s own menus would never have allowed — points in a late skill while its prerequisites sit at zero. Treat that as a caution, not a feature: points in skills whose prerequisites are unmet can behave oddly in game. Displays may not match what you expect, and a later in-game respec or skill purchase can interact with the layout in confusing ways. The clean habit is to mirror what legal play would produce: if a skill has prerequisites, give them at least the points the tree structure implies.

The synergy note

Many D2R skills are strengthened by points in related skills — the synergy system. When you edit skills, you are editing both halves of that equation whether you think about it or not:

• Raising a main skill without its synergies produces a noticeably weaker version than the same skill in a played build.
• Raising only the synergies can quietly over-power a skill you left at a modest value.
• When testing a build, copy the whole layout — main skills and their synergy skills — from your plan, not just the headline skill.
• A level-correct total helps too: a mid-level character carrying a full end-game layout of 20-point skills is carrying far more points than it could have earned, which skews any test.

Common reasons to edit skills

• Fixing a misclick — move one or two points instead of spending a whole respec.
• Trying a build before committing — pair skill edits with stat edits to trial a full layout on an offline copy.
• Levelling-test characters — for systematic build testing, combine this guide with making a level 99 test character.

If D2CE will not open the save in the first place, work through the unreadable-save guide before editing anything, and check the Patch 3.x compatibility status if the character was last played on a current patch. More single-task guides are collected on the guides hub.