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Unique Monsters are one of the types of Elite Monsters, a counterpart of Champion Monsters. While Champions are a group of equally powerful monsters, Uniques are single empowered creatures, and are sometimes accompanied by weaker minions to form an "elite pack". Depending on the game, Unique Monsters may have some randomized attributes or spawn patterns, or may have pre-designed properties. Super Unique Monsters are a name for the pre-designed variety in Diablo II (and for some of them in Diablo III, informally), while the completely randomized type are called Rare Monsters in Diablo III.

Diablo[]

The Unique Monsters of Diablo were created by hand and are always the same in every aspect, although their placement within the game's levels is random. The first game doesn't have the randomized variety of Unique or Champion monsters found in later games, so they are essentially the same as Super Unique Monsters.

Diablo II[]

In Diablo II, Unique Monsters are monsters that are stronger with random name generation, colors and semi-random magical bonuses, nearly always followed by minions. Most of the Unique monsters you find will be randomly spawned throughout the game, apart of some specific spots that always have a random Unique. However, Super Unique monsters will always spawn in every game and in the same location. Their name is always highlighted in golden color, and they always have 3-6 minions. They have one bonus on Normal, two on Nightmare and Three on Hell. Their bonuses are applied from left to right. They have these possible colors upon being generated (numbers of color palettes in the files):

Monster Color Palettes

Example of all random color palettes

  • 8-9 - Red
  • 10-13 - Orange-Yellow
  • 14-20 - Green
  • 21-29 - Light Blue-Dark Blue
  • 30-35 - Purple (Unused)
  • 36-37 - Red (Unused)

(Note that 30-37 are unused by the game because of a bug introduced in Lord of Destruction. An unintentional change in randtransform.dat file from D2Client.dll makes it so the game skips the last 7 color palettes when generating monsters, explaining why you don't see random purple Uniques, or that the purple colors of some super-uniques were changed to other colors in expansion, and there is also the consequence of Pitspawn Fouldog (31), Stormtree (35), Battlemaid Sarina (36), Dac Farren (36), using default colors of their monster types. Also, there are monsters that don't have a palette file, so they can't use the random unique palettes. These are: Fetish Blowdarts, Mosquito Demons, Siege Beasts, Frozen Horrors, Abominables, and the Reanimated Horde. Putrid Defilers have a palette file, but are specified in the files not to use random colors).

All Uniques always have these properties:

  • 400/300/200% Hit Points (Unique)
  • 200/175/150% Hit Points (Minions)
  • 500% Experience (Unique and Minions)
  • Level +3 (Unique and Minions)
  • Can't be frozen, only chilled (Unique)
  • Ignore target defense doesn't work (Unique)
  • Stun can only be applied in 10%
  • Open Wounds drains only half the amount of life

Diablo III[]

In Diablo III, Unique Monsters are called Rare monsters instead.

The 'Unique' category is reserved for special monsters that usually spawn for quests, events or just rarely in the same location, being similar to Diablo II Super-Uniques. Their names are colored in purple, and instead of listing affixes beneath the name, almost all of them have a title.

Super-Unique monsters are not officially making a return in Diablo III. However, some Unique monsters spawn in every game, including all bosses: aside from the encounters vital to the game's storyline, some of them are certainly present every time players log in. These Uniques can be considered Super Uniques for that reason.

Like Champions and Rares, non-boss Uniques have affix skills (and sometimes even their own special abilities), but they always have a fixed set of 1 to 4 affixes regardless of the player's level, even if those affixes are not allowed for that level. Some monsters may even have affix combinations normally not allowed, such as Plagued + Desecrator. Their affixes deal more damage than those of Rare and Champion monsters on same difficulty, and they generally have considerably more Life.

In very rare cases, Unique monsters may have extra skills, such as triple attack speed or additional elemental damage, that are not available through affixes. Some of them can have random affixes as well.

While Unique Monsters have access to Missile Dampening affix, they will never spawn with Avenger, Health Link, Horde and Fire Chains. They will also normally not have Minions, although some Unique monsters spawn in densely infested areas and will not fight alone. There are Unique monsters who can summon other creatures at will.

Diablo Immortal[]

DI Unique Monster

A Unique Harbinger in Diablo Immortal

In Diablo Immortal, unique monsters are identified by the purple glow they emit, and their size which is bigger than normal monsters of the same specie. They have massively increased health; shown by multiple health bars (up to four) stacked in front of each other. Core quests and Helliquary bosses have 4 health bars, wanted enemies and hidden lair bosses have 3, side quest bosses have 2.

They also deal greater damage than common monsters. With each health bar that is depleted, the monster drops 3 health globes. Loot is dropped only after the monster is killed.

Unique monsters almost always have affixes attached to their name. In addition to that, they have a title that is shown below their health bar. They can have up to three monster traits. Unlike other elite monsters, the traits are not shown below their health bars and are meant to act as a surprise.

DI Unique Health

All unique monsters are "immune to control" and "teleport" traits, though they still receive damage from status effects. Apart from these. They can have up to three additional traits. The traits of a unique monster are not shown below their health bar, and are meant to be a surprise to the player.

See Also[]

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