The Stone of Jordan (engl. “Stone of Jordan”) is one of the most well-known items in the history of Diablo. The legendary ring is even responsible for one of the toughest bosses in the series making its way into the game. And that is only because a few players got too greedy.
What kind of item is this? The legendary ring originally comes from the classic version of Diablo 2 and was especially coveted by sorceresses and other magic users. Its stats made it particularly exciting at first:
- a bonus to all skills
- more mana
- additional damage
Above all, the mana bonus elevated the ring to a strong item option. With the release of the Lord of Destruction expansion, however, the Stone of Jordan was replaced for most players by better items.
Its legendary reputation was not due to its particular strength, but because it became the currency for players – and later even the necessary reagent for a special quest.
What makes the ring so valuable? The Stones of Jordan were at some point traded by the Diablo community as currency since gold was “worthless.” The rings, however, were rare and could be easily transported.
As a result, the price of particularly rare items was specified for a time in “Stones of Jordan,” or short “SoJs.” The item became so iconic for the game that it even made an appearance in the successor Diablo 3.
Stones of Jordan were especially popular in the original version of Diablo 2. Later with Lord of Destruction, the legendary Act 5 was introduced:
“Stone of Jordan” – Duping issue and Über-Diablo
Because the value of the best items in the game was eventually indicated only in SoJs, cheating occurred. Players exploited bugs to duplicate the rings, called “duping.”
During this process, items are copied and players receive dozens of rings without having to farm for them. Blizzard took action against the duping method by introducing new features to remove duplicated items and eliminate the bug.
This worked only to a limited extent. By this time, there were already several new methods and the market was flooded with Stones of Jordan. So much so that players had already agreed on another currency: particularly rare runes for strong rune words, which were also duplicated.
However, to at least finally remove the rings from the market, Blizzard introduced a new event: Über-Diablo. The boss could only appear if enough Stones of Jordan had been sold to merchants in a game.
After between 75 and 125 stones, the special version of the final boss appeared in certain locations in the game. From Über-Diablo comes the unique spell “Annihilation,” or short “Anni,” which together with a special torch is a must-have for almost all builds in Diablo 2.
Über-Diablo is considered one of the hardest bosses in the history of Diablo. In later parts, Blizzard tried to maintain this tradition with the “Über-Bosses” from Diablo 3. However, there was no exact counterpart.
The ring itself has gained such a well-known status in the community over the years that real
Stones of Jordan have been given away as real items to some people during promotional activities.
Whether Diablo 4 will also get a Stone of Jordan is still unknown. At least some of the toughest bosses are making a comeback:
Diablo 4 hides the cruelest boss of the series in the dungeons – Pray that you don’t meet him
