About Shrines ... and how to use them! A compilation of experience by Moriah. A lot has been said about shrines, what they are, what they do, their messages, but not much has been collated about their practical use. This article hopes to provide some pointers in this direction. This is a compendium for the use of those new or casual players who come across shrines quite often, but see Diablo as a bit of relaxing passtime, rather than those who play the game with the intent of playing to specialist limits. To this end, some people's opinion of the author's recommendations may vary. This is by no means a "be all and end all" article on shrines. The shrines themselves are classified into small related groups of similar functions, rather than alphabetical. Some cross-referencing may be required for those who want to find a specific shrine in this list. ------------- The Primary Attribute Group: Abandoned Shrine "The hands of men maybe guided by faith" Dexterity +2 Creepy Shrine "Strength is bolstered by heavenly faith" Strength +2 Eerie Shrine "Knowledge and wisdom at the cost of self" Magic +2 Quiet Shrine "The essence of life flows from within" Vitality +2 Mysterious Shrine "Some are weakened as one grows strong" +5 to a random attribute, -1 to the others See the footnote on randomness. Fountain of Tears (No message) +1 to a random attribute, -1 to another random attribute Tainted Shrine (multi-player only) (User) "Those who are last may yet be first" (Others) "Generosity brings its own rewards" +1 to a random attribute of the other players, -1 to all other attributes of the other players, while the user is unaffected This group is pretty self-explanatory. You touch any of these, your corresponding primary attribute will be raised and possibly some others are lowered. These are important early on in the development of a character, when all the attributes can still be raised and can be used to allow the reading of a spell book or the wearing of a certain set of armor, maybe even wield a better weapon. - Please note that a Mysterious Shrine can lower some attributes, thus using this shrine just after a level-up, but before level-up points distribution, will lead to better management of the available items to a young character. - The Tainted Shrine is the only one which will end up with a negative result, as up to three other players will suffer a net loss of two attribute points. This can be annoying if the other players need the attribute points to wield a weapon, wear a specific set of armor, want to use a scroll or staff etc. Please refrain from using this shrine in a co-operative team-game. A last note, the Author observed in a recent co-operative game that the players in Town were not affected by a Tainted Shrine. - A Fountain of Tears can be used as a gamble to gain that extra Strength point for a better sword or an extra Magic point for reading a book, using a scroll or wielding a staff. ------------- The Secondary Attribute Group: Blood Fountain (No message) +1 Life for every usage, until Life is maxed out Cryptic Shrine "Arcane power brings destruction" Restores Mana to maximum and casts a Nova-like spell from the player using the shrine Divine Shrine "Drink and be refreshed" Restores all Life and Mana and provides 2 full potions (either 2 full rejuvenation potions or 1 each full potion of Healing and Mana) Eldritch Shrine "Crimson and azure become like the sun" All healing and mana potions are turned into rejuvenation potions Purifying Spring (No message) +1 Mana for every usage, until Mana is maxed out Spooky Shrine (multi-player only) (User) "Where avarice fails, patience gains rewards" (Others) "Blessed by a benevolent companion" Other players have their Life and Mana restored These shrines, like the first group, are also pretty straightforward. You touch them and your Life, Mana or both are restored. - The Cryptic Shrine is the only one to be used with caution, as the Nova-like spell effect can inflict a good deal of damage. Then again, this spell effect can be activated via the Telekinesis spell as well (in fact, any shrine can be used via the Telekinesis spell) in order to deal some damage to the monsters within reach of the caster's area. - Both the Blood Fountain and the Purifying Spring can be rather awkward to use, as a single click will only give a single point of Life or Mana. A Sorceror with 500 Mana to refill will be clicking for a while. But on the bright side, these are the only reusable shrines, guaranteed to work each and everytime they are encountered. And they can appear on all dungeon levels. - The Eldritch Shrine is particularly useful to a co-operative group working its way through the game without surfacing, if they managed to save all the normal healing and mana potions. Ideally it is used once a member of the group can fill their entire inventory and belt with these. Later on, the newly formed rejuvenation potions can be redistributed through the members of the party. - The Spooky Shrine is best used when a member of a co-operative party is running low on potions as an extra free refill. If two or even three members of a party could benefit from the use of this shrine, so much the better. ------------- The Spellbook Group: Enchanted Shrine "Magic is not always what it seems to be" All known spells are raised by one level, then a random spell loses two levels See the footnote on randomness Fascinating Shrine "Intensity comes at the cost of wisdom" Firebolt is raised by two spell levels, upto a maximum of 15, but total character Mana is reduced by 10% Ornate Shrine "Salvation comes at the cost of wisdom" Holy Bolt is raised by two spell levels, upto a maximum of 15, but total character Mana is reduced by 10% Sacred Shrine "Energy comes at the cost of wisdom" Charged Bolt is raised by two spell levels, upto a maximum of 15, but total character Mana is reduced by 10% The Enchanted Shrine seems hopelessly out of place here. It is one of the most sought after shrines, while the others are generally avoided like the plague. This is because the others make a player lose its maximum Mana for each time such a shrine is used. Thus, a highish level character could end up with very little mana for casting spells, even such spells like Healing and Town Portal. For instance, a Sorceror with 500 Mana. If he uses a Sacred Shrine, then he will lose 500 x 10% = 50. If he were to use an Ornate Shrine next, he loses (500 - 50 = 450) 450 x 10% = 45, ending up on 450 - 45 = 405 Mana. In only 2 simple touches, he's nearly lost 100 Mana for the rest of his virtual existence. Hardly an ideal preparation for Hell at Hell difficulty. So, why then is the Enchanted Shrine so good, if the others are so bad? Let's take a look at its mechanism: The Enchanted Shrine works by adding +1 spell level to each known spell upto the game's maximum of spell level 15, then subtracts 2 from one of these known spells. This latter effect gives the impression that a single known spell has lost 1 level. However, should the chosen spell already have been at spell level 15, then it will drop to spell level 13. The Enchanted Shrine works on *all* known spells, i.e. all the spells that a character has knowledge of. Please note that only Sorcerors can read spellbooks with a Magic requirement of 255, with the help of some items with at least +5 Magic, of course. The Warrior and the Rogue can't. But the Warrior and the Rogue can get their spell levels to 15 by using these Enchanted Shrines. All but one of their spells. Add to this the rarity of some spellbooks like Teleport and Bloodstar, as well as the rapid Magic increase needed to read these at the higher levels, and you can see why the Enchanted Shrines are so important. It takes a bit of time to read all the spells from books, but it takes a lot longer to bring them up to high levels with Enchanted Shrines. Thus Enchanted Shrines will be sought after by almost all characters throughout most of their active playing lifespan. Apart from the bad rap earlier on, a last word in favour of the other three shrines. They can be useful if a character has a limited lifespan or limimted functionality. Take an ironman character, for instance. Such a character will encounter these shrines early on in their lifes, if at all. The Firebolt spell is what will cause a Guardian spell to do damage and the Charged Bolt spell is an excellent alternative to use on non-Lightning immune monsters. The Lightning and Chain Lightning spells may be highly inefficient at low spell levels, but the Charged Bolt spell will be much higher and much more useful to the ironman and ironwoman. Even the Charged Bolt spell cast by a Sorceror from his starting staff depends on his known Charged Bolt spell level for its power and damage, thus a small sacrifice at the start of the game could well pay much larger dividends in the deeper levels later on (for this ironman character). Speaking of ironman play and tactics, some people treat the Enchanted Shrine much differently during these games, as the total range of known spells will vary greatly and even a small change to a crucial spell can "make or break" the current game. Therefore, most ironmen act vary cautiously with Enchanted Shrines. A regular character should not even reconsider, just go ahead and take the "free library", as it were. ------------- The Dungeon Spells Group: Holy Shrine "Wherever you go, there you are" The player is subject to a Phasing spell effect Magical Shrine "While the spirit is vigilant, the body thrives" The player has a Mana Shield spell effect cast upon him or her Murky Pool (No message) The player benefits from an Infravision spell effect These are generally of little use. A nice addition to the lineup of shrines on offer, but the present game of Diablo as it stands does not really warrant their inclusion. None of these shrines will really make any impact on game-play. - Holy Shrine. One could use this shrine as a short distance time saver, but it could also add to the distance needing to be covered. Most of the time, the player will be transported over a wall, as most of the time these shrines are set in a wall or placed near a wall. Be sure that you can handle the situation if this shrine Phases you to an unexplored section of the level, though that rarely happens. A possible life-saver could be when the monsters surrounding the shrine are too tough to handle and you want to escape their clutches for a strategic repositioning (retreat). Then touching this shrine by hand or with the use of the Telekinesis spell will allow the player to escape quickly. - Magical Shrine. A shrine only of use early on in a level where you intend to use a Mana Shield. Else use it after an untimely death, when returning from a "Restart in Town", knowing that the shrine is there to save on some Mana (for casting the spell) or a scroll (when the character doesn't know Mana Shield yet). - Murky Pool. This can be handy to reveal the locations of monsters around some corners and walls. Mostly though, a reasonably experienced player can guess where the monsters will be soon after entering a level. Nevertheless, any help is better than no help at all. Knowing that a Murky Pool is available will allow a character to equip himself or herself with items "of the Night" or "of the Dark" in order to use the Infravision effect to its fullest extent, though an article on the use of Light Radius as a combat tool is another matter altogether. Due to a bug in Diablo, be sure to exit the level, set the desired Light Radius, then re-enter and use the Murky Pool. ------------- The Item Group: Glimmering Shrine "Mysteries are revealed in the light of reason" Identifies all items currently in possesion (equipped and in the backpack) Gloomy Shrine (single-player only) "Those who defend seldom attack" From all items in possession (equipped and in the backpack), all Armor type items gain +2AC while all weapons lose 1 point off their maximum damage, both effects lasting only for the current game Hidden Shrine "New strength is forged through destruction" All non-indestructible equipped items gain +10 durability points (current and max), then a random item from this group loses 20 durability points (current and max), reset to a minimum of 1/1 See footnote on randomness Religious Shrine "Time cannot diminish the power of steel" All items in possession (equipped and in the backpack) are fully repaired Spiritual Shrine "Riches abound when least expected" Each empty backpack slot is filled with a small amount of gold coins Stone Shrine "The powers of Mana refocused renews" All spell staves currently in possession (equipped and in the backpack) are fully recharged Weird Shrine (single-player only) "The sword of justice is swift and sharp" All weapons currently in possession (equipped and in the backpack) gain +1 to their maximum damage for the duration of the current game By far the largest, most diverse and most complicated section of the shrines. As the section heading goes, these shrines affect items in the player's direct possession, i.e. equipped items or items in their backpack. And the Hidden Shrine's effects work on equipped items only, if those items are non-indestructible ones. - Glimmering Shrines. These are useful for identifying an inventory of items when a player lacks the funds to have them identified by Cain, is prevented from identifying the items by Cain (due to Role-Playing restrictions or ironman game) or has too many items to identify with the found scrolls. It will save a bit of money, though generally this shrine is for low level characters who'd rather spend their money on good items from Griswold, Wirt or Adria than Cain. Another use of the Glimmering Shrine is the time factor. You've just cleared level 7 or 8, found a few good items, but your potion supplies allow for at least another 4 levels in the Caves. Do you take that annoying break to have Cain identify those bows or are you going to use that Glimmering Shrine in the West corner? Most people would use the shrine, of course, including the various Rings and Amulets they've accumulated on the way. - Gloomy Shrine. A small boost on all armor type weapons, while the current game lasts. This is marginally helpful with combat, as the monsters will miss their (non-magical) attacks by a couple of percent per item (Armor, Helm and Shield). So, make sure that you, the player, have the best of each of these types of items equipped or in your backpack. To avoid the negative effects of the damage loss to your weapons, place them all on the ground before touching this shrine. - Hidden Shrine. Volumes of articles have already been written about this shrine. This isn't one of them. Thus this article will only give a brief outline on the mechanism of its actions and best use for the player. Its mechanism will first determine if the character has any non-indestructible items equipped. Then raise all qualifying items by 10 durability. Lastly, it then subtracts 20 durability from one of these items (if those items are non-indestructible still). Please note, any item with more than 256 durability, eg going from 250 to 260, will have their durability reset to "max - 256", or in this example, 260 - 256 = 4. This update is done when the game's runtime code performs a check on the item. On the other side of the coin, any item with 255 (max) durability is deemed indestructible, thus an item going from 245 to 255 will be made indestructible. Evidence suggests that an item at 256/256 durability is also indestructible, but the author of this article hasn't seen anything to verify this yet. Next comes the best use. Players are advised to use a minimum of some form of headgear, a piece of body armor and any item of attack (weapon) and preferably a one handed weapon with shield. This way, the character using the Hidden Shrine will have a net overall gain of +10 or +20 to his or her items, possibly more. By using four items of 245/245 durability, all of them could be made indestructible at the same time, when the character will have gained +40. - Religious Shrine. Free repair of all items. What more can be said about these, other than the same for the Glimmering Shrine. - Spiritual Shrine. Good for almost 1000 gold pieces. Especially helpful to new characters for a much needed boost in order to buy some supplies, items, have Griswold do some repairs etc. - Stone Shrine. Good for new Sorcerors and ironman players, providing a free refill to their staves. These shrines will otherwise save a bit on recharges by Adria. Much the same as for the Glimmering Shrine and Religious Shrine. - Weird Shrine. A small boost to your weapons. It will allow for a few more attacks capable of stunning the monsters, though the player should not rely on this to have a major effect. It will also help marginally with weapons (or crowns) that steal Life or Mana. ------------- The Miscelaneous Group: Cauldron (Message related to the effect) Random True Shrine effect Goat Shrine (Message related to the effect) Random True Shrine effect Secluded Shrine "The way is made clear when viewed from above" This will open the entire Automap for the current level Thaumaturgic Shrine (single-player only) "What once was opened now is closed" All opened chests on the current level are closed and randomly refilled The last group of the Diablo Shrines. Definately a mixed bag. - Cauldron. These are only found in the Hell section. The effect is chosen at random from the list of shrines which have "Shrine" in their name, with the exception of the Enchanted and Thaumaturgic Shrines. This could be good, this could be bad. Know the possible shrines and you know what the risks are. Strictly for the gamblers and ironmen. - Goat Shrines. Much the same as for the Cauldrons, except that Goat Shrines can only appear on levels four through to nine inclusive. Again, as the users don't know the effect in advance, they face the same dangers with Goat Shrines as they do with Cauldrons. Strictly for the gamblers and ironmen. Thaumaturgic Shrines are excluded from being Goat Shrines and Enchanted Shrines are limited to levels 4-8 as Goat Shrines. - Secluded Shrine. This will reveal the level's minimap. In fact, it will reveal more pixels on the minimap than playing the level does. Also good for locating the "other" set of stairs or possible locations of shrines, book rooms, treasure rooms, the Butcher on level 2 Lazarus' lair on level 15 multi-player etc. This can also confuse some players about what areas they have already explored and where some monsters could still be hiding. Some caution is advised. - Thaumaturgic Shrine. Good for some extra gold coins, scrolls or potions for developing characters, though the effort is largely negligable for established characters. This can be useful for ironman characters in single-player mode, as the refilled chests could yield more potions, or even a weapon. The contents after the refill is chosen at random, so you never know ... ------------- ------------- Hellfire section. This will add the new shrines as found in Hellfire only, in alphabetical order, followed immediately by a commentary on their uses. The shrines described here do not add a lot of new features. Largely the added features of this section as a whole acts rather destructively, but none of the effects will cause permanent loss of your attributes or items. More Primary Attribute Shrines, some shrines that affect experience and gold and one shrine affecting items. The existence of oils in Hellfire has made some of the more sought-after shrines from Diablo rather redundant, the Hidden Shrine being the prime example. Blacksmith's Oils can raise an item's maximum durability by 1 point permanently if the item was previously repaired to full. Oils of Fortitude have the same effect, upto a durability in the 80s. Other oils eliminate the need for Gloomy and Weird Shrines, though they are still nice to find. ------------- Glowing Shrine "Knowledge is power" The character gains upto 5 points of magic, but at the cost of 5% of their experience For characters with less than 5000 experience points (EP), they get +1 Magic for every 1000 EP, which reset to 0. Characters do not lose their character levels. - This is only useful to early to mid-level characters. At high character levels, the 5% loss to experience can be hard to make up and most of the time, their Magic attribute will be maxed out in their 30s as well. A note of caution to various Barbarinas out there. This shrine will only take EP from you, it can never give you magic. Even Cauldrons or Goat Shrines can disguise themselves as Glowing Shrines, thus caution is recommended (see footnote on Hellfire). Mendicant's Shrine "Give and you shall receive" Half of carried gold turns into experience points - Not much to say here. If you can spare the gold, especially with the use of the Auric Amulet, this can be a nice short-cut to that next level. A Hellfire character could possibly carry 40 x 10000 gold pieces = 400 000. Half of this is 200 000. Arch-Liches, Biclops and Flesh Things will give 20 000 EP at Hell difficulty (Crypt levels 3 & 4). That is 10 kills minimum. And you can still buy the lost expensive item from Griswold or Wirt. Of course, the lower the difficulty or monster levels, the kill count goes up. The same monster on Normal difficulty give only 4000 EP at their maximum, thus it will be 50 kills. Still, its a nice bonus for all that gold around the place, when you're ready to leave the game. Use the Mendicant's Shrine before you do your "shopping" at Griswold, Wirt or Adria, then shop with the left-overs. Who knows, the shrine might just give you another level-up and they could offer you some nice cool stuff that you could not get before. Murphy's Shrine "That which can break will" This will check, in order, the Helm, Left-Weapon, Right-Weapon and Armor for being non-indestructible. If a destructible item is found, it has a 33% chance of losing 50% of its durability. If no item is selected, it will target 33% of the gold in the backpack. Once it has found a target or has been through the entire list, the shrine routine will exit. - There's only bad news to be had from this shrine. Avoid. Oily Shrine "That which does not kill you..." Warrior : +2 Strength Rogue : +1 Magic, +1 Dexterity Sorceror : +2 Magic Monk : +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity Bard : +1 Magic, +1 Dexterity Barbarian : +2 Vitality All the while the character stands in a small Fire Wall spell effect (please move). - A Primary Attribute raiser. Pretty self-explanatory and therefore its most useful for low-level characters and ironman players. In Hellfire ironman, this could be quite useful to the Barbarian, since his damage has vitality as a constituent. Shimmering Shrine "Spiritual energy is restored" Restores Mana to maximum - Very similar to the Cryptic Shrine, without the Nova-like spell effect. Solar Shrine "You feel stronger" : +2 Strength (Noon to 6pm) "You feel wiser" : +2 Magic (6pm to 8pm) "You feel refreshed" : +2 Dexterity (8pm to 4am) "You feel more agile" : +2 Vitality (4am to Noon) - Another Primary Attribute enhancing shrine. Sparkling Shrine "Some experience is gained by touch" The user gains 1000 x dungeon level in experience - A small bonus to experience, making it a little easier to get to that next level-up. Not much practical use, though, as even new characters need several thousands of experience points between levels. Even from level 1 to level 2, the gap is 2000. Thus on dungeon level 1, it can half the gap, even though a new character would get at least 2 level-ups from killing all the monsters by hand (or weapon or spells). This could be best used early on in a co-operative ironman game, even though they are hard to come by in Hellfire. As said before, any bonus is a bonus. Take it and run ... Town Shrine "There's no place like home" Casts a Town Portal effect close to the shrine. - The author still has to try this shrine with Telekinesis to determine if the Town Portal is cast near the shrine or near the player. Either way, it saves on an otherwise plentiful Town Portal scroll or even some Mana. And then it can act as a safety-first feature, knowing that you have an escape route other than the sets of stairs. ------------- ------------- Footnote on randomness. Due to the way Diablo starts and loads levels, some of the early shrines may not be as random as the programmers intended them to be. This includes Dexterity being favoured to be raised by Mysterious Shrines, Chain Lightning (or Flash, if Chain Lightning is not known and Flash is known) being favoured to be lowered by Enchanted Shrines and the traditional Shield slot (right hand side of the paper doll in the inventory screen, as seen from human to monitor) being picked as item to be lowered by Hidden Shrines. Footnote on Hellfire. Due to the executable routines, a Barbarian with no +/- Magic items equipped and no +/- Mana adders will have his maximum Mana restored to zero if he touches a shrine with the Fascinating, Ornate or sacred Shrine effect. If this Barbarian was suffering from -Mana previously, he will have 0 Mana afterwards. Then you can re-equip the +/- Magic/Mana items and use their benefits once more. Special note on "ironman". This is a specialised playing style, single or multi gaming, whereby a player or group of players try to get as far as they can in the game, using new (unused) characters and deliberately use only the items found on the levels. They don't return to Town and certainly don't use the services of the NPCs (Non-Playing Characters). Acknowledgements: Jarulf's Guide v1.50 Ch 7 by Pedro Faria/Jarulf. Blizzard for the game of Diablo. Various enthusiastic players, in alphabetical order: Erthshade King of Pain -Raven-