View Full Version : I'm starting HC - what's the easiest char build?
I'm thinking a caster Paladin or a Sorc or Druid would be the easiest to play for a practically first-time hardcorer...
Any suggestions, what's a good build?
Thanks.
The FAQ's above have some nice suggestions and lots of ever useful tips to boot. welcome to HC.
Aside from the suggestions there playing what you are experienced with and have had success in Sc is often a good idea.
The best build is one you feel comfotable with while having nothing for gear to work for. Sorcs work for some but most not. Druids, depending on builds are pretty good just for thier very high life with OAK either as a caster or as a Wereform. Hammerdins are very good with little gear also.
But as I said, pick the one you fell most comfortable with about making it work with only shopped and easily found items.
Ive enjoyed a Lightning Trapper as my first HC char
can buy +skills claws from Anya
drop sentries down and get away from mobs
not heavily item dependent
Fade and Burst of Speed give more survivability
Racoontje
13-07-2004, 23:43
Pick a character build that relies on skills, not items. Ie, not a concbarb, most likely.
Probably you'd want a sorceress, but then again you'd be another thirteen-in-a-dozen one. I /really/ /really/ like a full lightning zon.
Would a caster Pally be good, maybe FoH? I don't really want to stand in the middle of the pack casting Hammers - FoH would let me be more mobile.. too item dependant or too crappy, or decent?
I don't feel like making a sorc :)
What are some of the funnest, easiest builds in HC? Lightning Javazon? Lightning Trapper Sin?
I'm leaning toward Sin.. good? And other ideas/suggestions?
Lightning Java is not item dependant, nor is Frost Zealot or Shockadin. All will have difficulties with dealing with immunes in hell but you can party up and be a real killer of the non light or cold immunes. I've read light trapper is a fun easy build just never made one.
FOH is poopy, it doesn't do well against crowds and consumes a lot of mana. Plus it's on a timer, which is really silly considering all it does is attack one guy. I guess if you count the holy bolts it can hit a mess of things, but if they're not undead you're outta luck.
I did an LS trapper for my first ladder guy and it was pretty easy starting from nothing. At level 20 or so you'll be thinking "OMG this character is terrible" (mostly from lack of mana) but by 40 or so things should be going smoothly. Shop a wand with big +mana on it as soon as you see one that's affordable, you really need to get your blue bulb large enough that you can drop a complete round of traps and a new shadow without having refill halfway. That's about 150-200 mana, get it to there with items instead of energy and you'll be on top of the world.
For really low levels (1-12 ish) just melee with a claw or something. Once you hit 12 start dropping points into charged bolt sentry which can carry you through a2 and a3. Once you're 24, start pumping LS and drink a lot of blues (20 mana/sentry). At 30, drop one into DS. Max it after LS. Then max CBS. After that you can either pump a shadow master a bit higher, or another LS sentry, or add more fade.
With no gear, IMO a trapper is a lot easier caster to play than a sorc. You get a castable tank, castable resists, mindblast and cloak of shadows (dim vision). More than that, you get traps that you can drop at the edge of the screen and have lot further range than most of the sorc skills.
Nice, sounds fun :)
Anyone else echo the Trapasin build for me, or a is a Javazon or Pally more recommended?
I'd say a poison nova skeletonmancer. You only need to max the poison skills and skeleton warrior . Then some points in summon mastery and the usual 1 point wonders (all curses, clay golem, summon resist, corpse explosion)
I used this one for the first ladder and I was the only one in my team that felt secure in hell.
edit: trapsin is ok too, really fun if you combine it with dragon talon and some crushing blow. You could be killed by IM then however.
Trapper is a good build.......It or Skellies would be my personal preference but for some reason I have 2 sorcs and a sin this time. Actually my Sorc choices came becasue my running mates cose other things and no sorcs.
Just play whatever you feel like ;)
I'd say a poison nova skeletonmancer. You only need to max the poison skills and skeleton warrior . Then some points in summon mastery and the usual 1 point wonders (all curses, clay golem, summon resist, corpse explosion)
I used this one for the first ladder and I was the only one in my team that felt secure in hell.
edit: trapsin is ok too, really fun if you combine it with dragon talon and some crushing blow. You could be killed by IM then however.
Summoner with maxed CE would be better IMO. I don't think skeles last long enough in hell with low mastery (untwinked).
Summoner with maxed CE would be better IMO. I don't think skeles last long enough in hell with low mastery (untwinked).
Max CE however devistating is simply overkill and a waste of points. With the potential +skills that are easy to get you can have lvl 6 CE easy and kill everything on the screen in 3-5 clicks insteand of 1-2 with maxed. This gives you 19 points for somehting else like maxed Bone Wall for better Armor, or the maxed Mastery for very good skellies, or even a maxed Spear to kill with.
HCTwinJava
14-07-2004, 00:47
the easiest and funniest HC char is a lord of skeletons.
skills:
sommon tree -
raise skelly warriors: 20
skelly mastery: 20
raise skelly mages: 20
1pt in all other 7 summon skills
curse tree -
amplified dmg: 1
weaken: 1
terror: 1
decrypify: 1
dim vision: 1
poison/bone tree -
bone armor: 1pt (for your sexy look only)
- 73 skill pts used so far. you can use all your rest of spare skills to raise revives to 10, summon resist to 5, corpse explosion to 10 (teeth as prereq: 1).
stats -
str: up to 30 so you can wear breast plate for your entire life. or never above 60! With 60, you can have a much large selection of belts, gloves, etc.
dex: forget it
vita: all the rest of your stat points. You'll be guranteed to have 300+ vita at lvl 65.
energy: forget it.
Equipment -
any good items you can use will work. particularly, you want:
+skill wand (best and cheapest: +2 to all skills or +3 summon skills, with +useful single skills like skelly mastery)
+skill head (whatever the best you can get, - Anya will give you a total of 3)
any body armor you can wear that gives +resist +life +mana.
some good rings, charms, gloves, boots, etc.
+(summon) skills from items are always preferred.
Merc -
You need one, a very good one:
act1 rouge merc first, switched to defensive merc in Norm act2, switch to offensive merc in NM act2.
Golem to use -
for big boss, use clay golem.
for the rest of the game past your lvl 30, use fire golem exclusively.
Curses to use -
Amp everything until lvl 24.
From lvl 24 on, alternate between Amp / Decrypify however you like.
The last thing to do:
Have a full belt of 3-color potions, and some in inventory.
Game play:
just go out to have your summons kill things for you.
norm diablo will by far be your toughest foe in the entire game.
Hell maggot's lair will be your hardest place to move on.
At the end of the game:
your only mistake that can wipe out your skelly warriors in Hell: when they are iron maiden'ed, you cast Amp on your enemies.
the only boss pack who has the power to destroy your entire army: the fire lord seal boss pack in Hell CS.
your only rightful action that destroys all your minions except merc (and iron golem if you use him): save and exit.
The funniest HC char is surely a lord of skellies:
with 30+ minions around, you'll be able to just walk into any of most dangerous places in Hell like wandering in Heaven.
If you are so bored of playing him, you can go to Hell ancients, activate them and then play a countdown game by going from 30 to 0. Whenver you count a new, smaller number, you unsommon one of your minions. I can gurantee you that 3 ancients will die before you can count down to zero. Well, that assumes you won't have a fast hand and a quickest math mind. Otherwise, the ancients will play countdown on you too. They will only need to count a zero and unsummon your lord of skellies. And then your necro's heoric deeds will be remembered for ever - by yourself of course.
DiabloII is easy, fun, and is now over!
Only drawback is with that many skellies most wont run with you as you will lag them.
+ to it is I doubt anyone thinks you are a TPPK Necro
BTW Infector of Souls can be schooled a couple of ways. One is to Confuse them which works best IMO, but a series of bonewalls can also help hold them back a bit, but wiht this build your walls wont be very strong. I suggest the confuse, it has a pretty short duration but it works like a dream making them all attack each other while your minons beat them down!!!
Lvl 18 is confuse.........say scarabs kill your minions too fast? Confuse them and stand back and wathc the firworks!!!
ZounceHC
14-07-2004, 02:10
Imo TRappers are fun and effective whereas I find summon necros effective but not as fun, actually I find them boring. Summon, Summon, Amp, Amp etc.
They are very party friendly though and I find people keen to run with summoners as they provide a "safety wall" between you and monsters. I have just made a hybrid trapper with maxed LS (+synergies), Dragon Talon(enough for 3 kicks with +Skill items), Dragon Flight (1 Skill), Tiger Strike (1 Skill), Weapon Block (1 skill), Shadow master (1 Skill), Mind Blast (1 skill this skill is important for crowd control).
I've decided to go dual claw for various reasons. Firstly to increase my base vitality (you dont need dex for chance to block), secondly to block elemental attacks and thirdly to deal more damage (a 2nd claw obviously is more offensive than a shield).
I am currently in Act1 Hell (lvl 76) and can kill at a steady pace. Nm was a breeze. I found this char easy and fun to get to Act1 Hell.
Having Kick as a second skill is completely unnecessary I just did it for fun and to kill Light immunes. Also I like pvp and thought kick would be good for dueling others.
As a first Hc char the necro summoner would be the safest though.
Good Luck in HC
(warning HC is 10X as addictive and time consuming as SC) imo
Excellent input! I'm off to start HC with a summoning Nec :)
Dirty Don
14-07-2004, 20:06
I agree with the summoner necro. When I start on a new realm I always make one of those first. Great for farming gems in NM cows and you can mf just about anywhere.
It's slower than say a sorc, but a lot safer. And once you get your minions up you can kill like a champ.
If I were you I'd try to get a Tele-staff or ammy to gather you minions when they get spread out.
xeyloderixed
14-07-2004, 20:44
after trying out a few starting chars, i have to say "not skellimancer". sure you can solo all the way through, but it damn well takes a lot of time. my skellimancer took 5 4 hrs to complete hell a5 from crystalline wp to baal, and thats really time consuming. imagine how much time i spent soloing the whole game.
if ladder were to reset again i would pick a char that kills very very quickly early on-mid game. all of those can work: lightning trapper, javazon (but gets into trouble early nm without leech), most sorcs (not lightning). all of them have a spell that is a synergy to your end game spell (fball, charged bolt sentry, gspike, charged strike) so you should be able to kill well starting from 12 (others, at 18). this strategy is just to get you to hell faster and safer, not necessarily to solo. soloing is for those who are bored/loners anyway; teaming up for hell is sooo much safer and faster.
Summoner with maxed CE would be better IMO. I don't think skeles last long enough in hell with low mastery (untwinked).
They do last long, at least long enough. They can't kill a thing, but that's what your PN is for. And if they die, they're cheap, so you can cast them again. PN is also very cheap since you can't spam it.
It's such a brilliant build, it should be named after me :)
soloing is for those who are bored/loners anyway; teaming up for hell is sooo much safer and faster.
I beg your pardon! How about soloing is for people who "can handle it" and "have learned not to trust the average moron on Bnet" or "like to play in multiplayer games without having to play the grabbing-game every time a unique drops" or even "like to steal quests from idiots spamming for TPs" ((((*tips hat to Conner for thinking of that little gem)))).
I like to play on my own sometimes even when partied in multiplayer games just to see what the boobs out there will say when I'm in the Ancient tunnels:
Them: "Ancient Tunnels??? Where the hell is that???"
Me(laughing): "Its right next to the Flayer dungeon, come on down..."
WingBlade
15-07-2004, 00:01
Them: "Ancient Tunnels??? Where the hell is that???"
Me(laughing): "Its right next to the Flayer dungeon, come on down..."
Oh, is that where it is.... :flip: <sarcasm>
I beg your pardon! How about soloing is for people who "can handle it" and "have learned not to trust the average moron on Bnet" or "like to play in multiplayer games without having to play the grabbing-game every time a unique drops" or even "like to steal quests from idiots spamming for TPs" ((((*tips hat to Conner for thinking of that little gem)))).
I like to play on my own sometimes even when partied in multiplayer games just to see what the boobs out there will say when I'm in the Ancient tunnels:
Them: "Ancient Tunnels??? Where the hell is that???"
Me(laughing): "Its right next to the Flayer dungeon, come on down..."
Hehe I agree, nebby was a little wrong here...
HCTwinJava
15-07-2004, 01:03
after trying out a few starting chars, i have to say "not skellimancer". sure you can solo all the way through, but it damn well takes a lot of time. my skellimancer took 5 4 hrs to complete hell a5 from crystalline wp to baal, and thats really time consuming. imagine how much time i spent soloing the whole game.
If I read correctly, it's 54 hours spent on just solo'ing a portion of Hell act5. That was pretty unusual, to say the least.
For the first 1.10 ladder, it took me a total of one week to get a completely untwinked summoner (I'd always prefer to call him Lord of Skellies) 1 million exp (=lvl 84-85). He got a total of about 20 levels from public Baal runs in Norm/NM. Other than that, he solo'ed pretty much everywhere in different games of vairous sizes, never joined party play since Hell act1, completed all quests other than killing Nik.
So, roughly, 54 hours or slightly more was enough for a level 1 such dude to grab a guardin title on his own.
Here is a fun story, and also a piece of truth about that dude:
he wore a 2-socket field plate of mammoth throughout his NM/Hell questing, having a total of defense rating < 200 for all the time. Only two scary times during entire Hell play: one was in maggots lair, the other was in one of the Hell act5 ice caves. He's never got a close call except once: when doing Norm Diablo quest, Infector of Souls chased him all the way down to the gate of the CS - Decrepify + repeatedly casting golems could only slightly slow him down - and I barely had the time to just open up a TP to escape, until I reached the gate. Of course, he came back with another army and killed that big guy.
Hehe I agree, nebby was a little wrong here...
Ahh, err. Yes. I guess I needed to add the SARCASM modifier, but I thought it was obvious.
You see, the joke is, that the Ancient Tunnels, being a place in act2 that is never visited, is just like a place in act3 that is never visited, like the Flayer Dungeon, because so many people don't even do the flail quest...well, now see how humor loses the fun when you have to explain it...oh, well, I was never really that funny anyway. Back to the THE HOLE with me...
PhatTrumpet
15-07-2004, 03:24
It's really a trade-off between speed (effectiveness) and safety. A Skellymancer is by far the safest, yet all you can do is sit around and wait for your skeletons to get a corpse or two. A Blizzard Sorc blasts through the game like it's her job, and even makes quick work of MF boss runs, but you're not going to have nearly as much life and protection as other characters. If I were to make a scale of good starter characters from safest to most effective...
Skellymancer
Javazon
Trapasin
Blizzard Sorc
Hammerdin should be noted also, as it's both effective and not all that safe (in comparison, just because you have to get pretty close to things in order to kill them). Even though Blizzard is at the bottom, it can actually be a safer build than a Hammerdin depending on how it's played.
So if you're really nervous about your mortality and have a decent amount of patience, stick with a build near the top of the list. If you have confidence in your abilities (and a really good connection), stick with a build near the bottom of the list.
I can't stand playing a Skellymancer, and would never again make a Javazon over a Trapasin. The Blizzard Sorc is my personal favorite.
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