Returning player needs ideas on first character

[BoomBoom]

Hi

i had a diablo lay off of about ten months and i am about to start my first character but i do not want to use a metororb which you use for a few weeks/months and then never use again.

I need a superquick farmer.

to find Pgems (the best trading items in town)
Destruction keys (once i have a bit of FCR)
Andy&Meph (Hell)
Anything else anyone can think of

These are my starting with nothing choices

Lightning trapper

Hammerdin

Light Sorc

Trapper. Pretty good if he can mind blast everyone and then just let the lightning do its job. but LI a prob. Not a big fan of these though

The light sorc has the bonus of teleport and when all the right gear is avalialble is the fastest mass killer in hell-LI a prob without Infinity
Fully decked out in the right goodies this is my fave character

The Hammerdin can be used for ever and will kill everything, but has no teleport and is boring. I know that an Enigma will come along but not for a very long time.

No time for Windies
Or Javazons-Sorry
Necro-love these but just for the hell of it. i only every play them untw and for the fun of it


I would appreciate the opinions of anyone on this forum

Many thanks

[Miikai]

I use lightning sorc to do all mf and key hunting.

Meph and andy can be a pain.

[Marzuk]

Meh, I don't quite agree with your methodology here.


i am about to start my first character but i do not want to use a metororb which you use for a few weeks/months and then never use again.


The problem with this is a "finished" build is radically different than a "first character" build. Stats and Skill allocation for gear you don't have can cripple your character. This almost tends to ensure that your first character would be a throw away character.


I need a superquick farmer.

Well, the problem is there is no such thing as a superquick farmer that can farm a variety of things, unless you have really good gear, especially if you are aiming at hell. Teleport is a huge advantage when it comes to speed, so that almost rules out any starting class but sorc (for me).


The light sorc has the bonus of teleport and when all the right gear is avalialble is the fastest mass killer in hell-LI a prob without Infinity
Fully decked out in the right goodies this is my fave character

The fastest sure, with several HRs worth of runes. Lightning sorc's make poor first characters if you intend to MF in hell IMO, because damage is low without big ticket items and a decent amount of plus skills. It is also a very mana hungry tree (except for charged bolt).

Personally I build a first character deliberately as a throw away, and do all the things that people usually shy away from. I tailor the character to maximum efficiency assuming poor gear. This gives me a big advantage IMO. I usually start with a Bliz sorc with high warmth, and points spent in energy. I may even spend a few points in teleport. Killing meph is then easy with moat + blizzard! You could practically run meph nude with a build like this.

You could use this character, load it up with more MF than you could put on anything else, and still do fairly well in a short period of time. Just trade items for Pgems when you find them if you want Pgems.

[BoomBoom]

Mii-thats what i like to hear

Marzuk- Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me that regardless of what i want to do the best option for me would be to use a fire/ice Sorc

Damn you, but thanks. you have probably saved me a lot of time

(Perhaps i could use a light sorc to farm from the council in NM and hell. gems and skillers)

[Miikai]

I killed all around monsters in nm and collected pgems and traded them for low mf stuff.

[Marzuk]

Well, Ive struggled with this sort of issue because I dont like to trade. Not a very viable attitude for me to adopt I admit. Recently I have been trying to trade, and I have observed that with the exception of certain very very rare NM drops (HoZ, Travs, Pcombs etc) that its very hard to convert what I have MF'd in Nightmare to items.

It seems that for the most part, people dont want to part with pgems for Shaftstop, Duriels, etc. The problem then of course is those are the best items which I can reliably get in NM if I MF the crap out of Meph. Even when I do get pgems for those items, its usually very time consuming (post a trade, find the people etc). With pgems, I can convert to pul, but that only breaks into the midrange, and doesnt seem to get you into the higher end.

[BoomBoom]

I have to admit that by the time i finished playing which was about six months before the end of the season i had stopped doing MF runs and looked exclusively for

Destruction Keys
Skillers
Socketables.

Due to the duping there were only a few items that anyone was interested in. As opposed to an Eth cryptic axe which always did good business or a 5 socket zerker axe which went for 5hrs. those prices are gone but the items are still there.

Nith is great to run, but you need super gear to run him properly and quickly.

one of the best places to run is the world stone keep. you can find everything you every wanted there. if you get an MF item then its a bonus.
everything that is not magical can be found there.

But of course i was running this with an infinity light sorc with everything you could ever want on a character and a Merc who was a monster and could kill any non boss by himself

[phool]

fire sorc imo

[squiggle]

Meph running - Orb/tk
Key running - tk/light or nova (nova is so fun :D light better probably)

[AnimeCraze]

I think a light trapper (with fire blast) will be best for running dkeys. That and the summon necro are the only 2 classes I can think of that doesn't get blown into pieces when you have practically no gear.

Running bosses will require teleport though (ie. a sorc).

[Marzuk]

I tried a summon necro, after looking at various guides. All I have to say is if you are poorly equipped, your skellies will not cut it in hell. They are very weak, and kill very slowly. Most of the time they seem to be used for shields while the merc kills a few things and you pop corpses.

Im not doubting that a high end necro is great, but the low end is not that impressive. (At least the build I played)

[strathos]

I think a light trapper (with fire blast) will be best for running dkeys.
Have you ever tried this, because slain monsters rest in peace doesn't work with traps. I used to run destruction keys with a hammerdin, but now I do it with a lightning sorc (+firewall against vipers) because I don't own an enigma yet. Nature's peace is essential either way.

[lendial]

for boss runs, meph/andy/diablo/baal make a blizz sorc because -res will just slaughter anything not immune.

for superunique hunting, light sorcs can do shenk/pindle/eldritch. they also benefit the most from infinity.

i find that too many monsters have fire immunity.

if you can afford it hammerdins are the best bet