What's the next step?

[troxejas]

Alright, here's my situation.

I've started replaying Diablo(USEast NL) after a few years off. In the last couple months, I've taken a Meteorb, Zealot, Conc Barb, and a Fishymancer through hell. I've done some decent mf'ing with the sorc and necro, and have accrued a modest, but decent stash of unique and set items.

Here are my two questions:

1. Which would be the most logical char to play next. I've never played a druid, sin, or zon before. I've looked through the guides and a pit strafer caught my eye, mostly because I have a lot of the mf gear already(shako, skullder's, nagels, travs, chancies, etc). A trapsin also looks intriguing because they look to be not terribly item dependant. On the Druid side, I guess a wolf shapeshifter(not sure which kind)would be the easiest because I have some melee equipment already. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2. Like I said, I've had some decent mf runs and have some decently equipped chars. I am wondering how you get to the next level of having high end runewords like Enigma, BOTD, COH, Exile, etc. I find unique/set stuff, and trade it for other good unique/set stuff. I've found an Um and an Ist(once each) and traded them for some pretty good stuff. I've traded for a SOJ once, and it poofed a few days later. So how do I get to the next tier?

Thanks for reading my way too long post.

[Jenius]

Honestly, I find mfing a slow and tedious way of gathering wealth. Once I got a few hrs to spare from mfing, I turned my sights on an easier and quicker way of making cash on Diablo 2.

You can easily classify traders in three groups.

1. Ones who want to get (or get rid of) items quickly so they can spend there time doing something other than trading.
2. Ones who want exactly what an items worth and not a penny less, or want to buy an item for exactly what it's worth and not a penny more.
3. Ones trying to make a profit off an item so they pay less and charge more.

Basically, the trick to making wealth on D2 is to ignore group #2 and to be group #3.

Buy items off of people who want to get rid of their items quickly because they don't want to spend time in trade games, and then turn around and sell said items for more to a person who wants to just get the item immediately and go back to their dueling or whatever.

The best part is this way everyone is happy, the impatient people got (or got rid of) their items, group #2 trades with itself and you (group #3) make a small (or large) profit. When I'm specifically looking to buy or sell items I just create the game with "Afk leave account etc" as it's script and I go read webcomics or do household chores, when I come back I get a few people interested, I /m them all complete a few trades and end up making a couple hrs out of 5-10 minutes worth of work on D2 (keep in mind this can still be an hours worth of time, it's just 5-10 minutes actually doing something on the game) and make a few traders happy.

If your heart is stuck on mfing though, I cant really help ya. I've probably only gotten 3-4 hrs worth of stuff from mfing, and most of that (4 socket eth thresher) was from stuff only valuable on ladder for ladder only runewords.

[handofnaz]

1. I've had very little experience with druids and assassins, and find them to be much more fun and effective as 'play' characters than they are for MFing. I've heard that trappers and wind druids can be quite good at MFing, though. Your Fishy and Meteorb can comfortably run the Pit (and between them, possibly all the other MF-worthy locations and bosses in the game), but if you've got your heart set on a Strafer, go for it. They're lots of fun to play, although tweaking MF gear gets a little complicated since you have to take battle mods (howling, leech and such) into consideration.

2. Sorry for tooting my own horn here, but some have found this (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=422336) useful. I hope it helps you in some way too.

[troxejas]

1. I've had very little experience with druids and assassins, and find them to be much more fun and effective as 'play' characters than they are for MFing. I've heard that trappers and wind druids can be quite good at MFing, though. Your Fishy and Meteorb can comfortably run the Pit (and between them, possibly all the other MF-worthy locations and bosses in the game), but if you've got your heart set on a Strafer, go for it. They're lots of fun to play, although tweaking MF gear gets a little complicated since you have to take battle mods (howling, leech and such) into consideration.

2. Sorry for tooting my own horn here, but some have found this (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=422336) useful. I hope it helps you in some way too.

I have read through that guide several times, and it has been very helpful. I should clarify that I'm not looking for an mf char specifically. I'm looking for the next char to play in general, I just mentioned the strafer because I have most of that equipment already, whereas I'll be starting basically from scratch if I go the sin/druid route.

[troxejas]

I can also ask another question. I have these other char's sitting around with pretty good gear.

Fishymancer-Pieces of Trang, homunc, leoric, necro ammy, summonGc
Pally-um'd HOZ, Guardian, Gores, Dracs
Sorc-Full Tals, SS, Ist'ed Occy, Shako
some other stuff on a mule.

Do I(and could I) trade a whole char's setup for one good RW(COH, BOTD, etc)? I know this is venturing into trade values, but my question is more about the idea of pillaging my other char's to get one godly setup and hope that i can reaquire some of the stuff later on.