20 years of Diablo 2 and apparently I still don't know what to pick up...

First things first: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to translate this from Dutch. Hopefully it makes sense.

So here’s my confession.

I’ve been playing Diablo 2 on and off for something like 20 years. Multiple characters, plenty of hours, the usual story. I always thought I had a pretty decent idea of what items are worth picking up.

Then I saw someone post an insane shield they found here… and it hit me.

There is a very real chance that I would have left that thing on the ground. And even worse: if I had picked it up, there’s a good chance I still wouldn’t have realized it was valuable.

So now I’m having a small existential Diablo crisis.

How do you actually learn which rare/magic items are worth picking up and which ones are just Charsi food?

I know the basics (runeword bases, uniques, high runes, etc.), but when it comes to things like rare shields, circlets, claws, javelins, weird niche bases… I clearly still have no idea.

Is there some kind of rule of thumb, checklist, or resource veterans use?

Or is everyone secretly just ID’ing everything and hoping for the best?

Signed,

A 20-year Diablo veteran who apparently is still a noob