When the player’s hero reaches Paragon 99 the game directs the player to view their hero’s inventory screen and to click on their XP bar at the top left. Upon doing so, the player is shown the two criteria for unlocking access to the Hell 2 difficulty and Paragon 100+, i.e.
- Reach Paragon 99 and
- Kill Phangwrth on Hell 1 difficulty
Once both of these criteria have been met (i.e. your hero is paragon 99 and you have killed Hell 1 Phangwrth) the game directs you back to the Inventory screen and to click on your XP bar again. At that point the player is given a short tutorial on the differences between Hell 1 and Hell 2 difficulties and after viewing that they are asked to confirm that they wish to go ahead and join Hell 2 difficulty.
After you confirm you want to proceed, Hell 2 difficulty will be unlocked, your hero gains access to two extra weapon slots, combat stances become available and any XP you had earned whilst at paragon 99 will be applied and your hero paragon will progress to paragon 100 and beyond.
The game literally holds your hand through this process, tells you exactly where to look, exactly what you need to do, and tells you what’s going to happen and asks you to confirm you want it to happen.
You are not stuck at paragon 99.
This is not a bug.
–==[ EDIT ]==–
From the Patch Notes released 19th August 2024…
Paragon Changes
Many players at Paragon Level 99 were stuck waiting to defeat Phangwrth, Warmth-Feaster before reaching Paragon Level 100 and Hell Difficulty II. If you chose or were not aware that you needed to beat Phangwrth to progress, you would not be able to go past Paragon Level 99 and would no longer progress, effectively in Paragon purgatory.
We have since removed the need to defeat Phangwrth to continue levelling to Paragon Level 100. This gives you the ability to gain more strength to return and take down Phangwrth to advance to Hell Difficulty II.
–==[ EDIT 2 ]==–
Providing a screenshot of how to advance to Hell 2 after the boss kill…
