The only 'difficulty' in Hell comes down to overcoming the resistance penalty. But generally you can beat the game with a plethora of builds/gearing, though your time to kill may suffer as a result which is how people gauge your worth.
There's also Uber Tristram which I've only really done as a Smite Paladin which many consider to be a PvM beast anyways so I can't speak too much on that. But there's very little "holy fuck, I'm going to get raped" moments in D2 compared to D1. Playing a straight Warrior and walking into a room full of succubi or acid dogs, yeah, fuck off Brevik.
Funnily enough, the hardest challenge in D2 is Normal Duriel.
Regardless, like Lilura noted, a lot of D2's fun comes down to the PVP and how bonkers you could make your character and ruin someone's day. Just kill someone and type "ez pk" and watch someone's mind explode.
No, not really. Damage is also important since monsters have a not insignificant amount of health regeneration. There is also the fact that there are many immunities especially for elemental characters. Sustain is also important and a mere 2% LL/ML ring won't suffice. Furthermore you need a proper defensive concept. That includes things like potentially max block, FHR, movement speed, etc.
Smite Paladin is not really a PvM beast. He is a beast at boss killing. His kill speed outside of that is mediocre at best.
There are no "holy fuck I am going to get raped" moments? Are you joking?Have you ever played self found only?
Hammerdin is the best mob killer Paladin archetype, especially against melee mooks.
No, sorry he is not. He is strictly single target with little to no AoE capabilities. Anything with lots of monsters kills his kill speed. Hell before Uber Tristram no one really gave Smite a second thought.
Diablo 1 definitely had better atmosphere, art, tone, and spell selection. Playing it has a sorcerer was pretty cool. The caster classes in D2, while flashy and fun in their own right, were simply inferior. Mana regeneration was not an acceptable trade off. Beyond that, Diablo 2 was better in nearly all other ways. The threats in Diablo 1 were largely claustrophobic. You often weren't able to accurately assess what was inside the doorway, and could easily wind up in a situation where you couldn't escape. This largely contributed to standing away from a door, and firing through it until the screams stopped. Diablo 2 had threatening tight spaces like the maggot lairs of Act II, and just about all of Act III, but they were less vulnerable to this strategy (for a variety of reasons). The real threats were the champions (and their packs), followed by certain mission/act bosses.
That is complete bogus. For one there were no distinct caster classes. All 3 classes cast the same spells. Furthermore most spells were useless. The spells which were used 99% of the time were Fireball, CL, Teleport and Stone Curse. I won't even mention Mana Shield because you buff that once and forget about it for the rest of the session. By contrast D2 has proper caster classes and nothing in D1 even remotely approaches the necromancer or the druid for example. Sorceress is the only character which is comparable and even she trounces D1 in terms of build variety all on her own.
Mana regeneration was not a viable trade off? You are aware that mana regeneration early is basically non existent, right? And even if you have a Sorc with maximized Warmth you will run out of mana pretty quickly and please spare me the Insight reply.
I see not a shred of an argument why any D2 class is inferior to D1. Far better build variety, far more fun and most importantly far more distinct.
There is literally only one aspect in which D1 is superior which as you mentioned is atmosphere. D2 is plenty atmospheric still though and flat out beats D1 in any other category. More classes, more distinct classes, huge build variety, more end game things to do, better itemization, etc.
