I can think of many different things in terms of setting up a fresh character that has no real basis on equipment. But here, in the multiplayer sessions, I also don't HAVE starting gear to lend over. Which is both good and bad, but in this sense you gotta be very creative.

My question is this: What did you find to be good in terms of setting up a character, either at the start of a ladder or simply beginning a strictly untwinked character?

My bone necromancer got slammed quite a bit because I thought it could be versatile. I was wrong

I started with a sorceress in the Lightning tree -- and ran into Rakanishu (ow!).

On a dead note, even as a softcore (SC) character that is trying to get into the multiplayer groove, I am thinking of bringing up my assassin. This is my Meteorsin that I discussed earlier. But I need to change my strategy a bit.

I'm at sort of a deadlock here. What should I do?

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Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

1) Most builds can do Norm without much trouble (but if you don't have the gear, then I guess they might).
2) Use a merc to handle an immune critter like Rakanishu.
3) Skill-based damage dealers (like sorcs, Bone necros), generally have an easier time playing without gear, at least until about mid-NM. I've personally made a naked level 33 Tooth necro (no merc) and soloed A5 Foothills (it wasn't trivially easy or anything, and catapults were suprisingly dangerous). If I were level 50, like I should have been, then I'd have put the 17 skills points into GolemMatery, so that I had 4 fairly-strong tanks.
4) WW barbs, Fury Druids, and multi-zons are considered powerful characters because very little in HU is immune to phys, so you can just find a source of AmpDamage and solo just about everything (you might need help with some bosses). However, until you have the gear, these builds can be overly slow and unenjoyable (I personally can't stand the click-repeat style of gameplay (Convictors at least have pretty things to look at, while Blazers are downright novel).

If your looking for an easy, overpower char, Necromancer would be best.

This isn't a thread that is for me to gather info. It's a relative thread describing what worked for you in the beginning.

Personally, I do have found necromancers to be mild-maintainence without gear, especially if you don't play your cards right. But once you have a sucessful strategy going, they are viable in many situations.

But as someone pointed out, you won't survive alone. You gotta work together. Eventually your build will team up with others to face the greater challenges in Nightmare and Hell, especially with this mod.

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

Sooner or later U have to team up with other, but I had some great time with amazons. Poizons could become very effective, with few equip (basically U need just a javelin) one just need +p.jav skills.

edit: get something for poison immunes

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

As someone suggested, when you do have a poizon your best bets are either act2/5 merc or act3 cold -- but when you get above that level where your poison's doing very significant damage, you may not want the holy freeze effect anymore.

But I agree, poizons have an easy setup (you get plague jav at 20) but plague javelin is the only one with +% AR. Why not Disease Spray?

You can also opt for a high-damage javelin with a replenishing mod which drops your repair costs of the javelin to 1. Plague Javelin factors in javelin damage before the poison damage starts so if you can gather quite a bit of elemental damage, that would work too, but that's straying off the focus.

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

Maybe it's just me, but I play zons as ranged chars, fighting from far away if possible and that is poison jav & plague jav. I use disease spray at times when a larger group gets close and the poison clouds can have bigger effect.

As for merc, this kind of char don't need the holy freeze effect just a decoy/valk if soloing (in multi there will be tank(s)).

IMHO it's an easy starter.

edit: as for AR i had some higher lvl zons some time ago and I don't have problems with hitting (even bosses). If you have problems just use 1 or 2 Eth runes

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

Eth runes are very handy if there are AR problems. I'm currently working on a bladesin that uses claw+shield at this moment. She will be mostly range but will fight up close if she has to. The blades will also be for when she gets iM'd (I hate Iron Maiden.. read about my martialsin!).

The big Q is, though, she will need a trash removal skill, and Death sentry is a lv.36 skill. So she has a long way before gaining that.

Necromancers have it easy, however: Corpse Explosion is a lv.6 skill for him and it is effective with a few points, unless you can control crowds well (if you can, only 1 point is necessary).

How difficult is a poisonmancer? He just got poison explosion and I've switched him to using daggers. Problem is, I think he needs a few more points in Bone Armor.

And finally, my summonmancer is actually slow yet effective early-game. You just have to keep the summons alive. For tough monsters, you have three effective skills before lv.20: Amplify Damage, Weaken and Iron Maiden.

Weaken lowers elemental power in HU, which I haven't acknowledged yet and regret doing so.

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

My first char: Dtailsin.
Now, its time to laugh:
rounding 90k dmg ( maybe 85, maybe 91k, cannot remember properly ) at lvl 60 wearing full iratha set , upgraded all pieces . Got no problem of AR due to "blessed aim aura when equipped", so I went into max.vita, regardless of both dex or str, charms did the rest
Wearing rare resist war boots for a kicking dmg super-boost.
death glove-belt combo for the typical reasons for low meleers. Mahim Oak Curio ammy , a soj, and an horadric ring. yay!

Soloed all till ancients, I got stuck there, and then, I began to change my equip and play tag with people xDDDDD

It was my first char, didnt even know about the power of crafts, only did a holy armor one because of the sanctuary aura, to break undead physical resistances.

I recommend a dtailsin for beginners, because they can kill pretty all in normal difficulty with the appropiate gear ( dont abuse/upgrade iratha! ), and with fearsome effectiveness to non-immunes living enemies. They are way funny, and got nice skills to the self-survivality ( a pair of strong shadows to take mob's hits, Fade, BoS , "dual-claw-block", dragon flight )

The only drawback? Quite party unfriendly appart of casting shadows to distract the bad guys. No curses nor team boost ( bo, spirit, aura, etc... ). Just like sorcs, they like to run / dflight / tele and damage foes before the heavy cavalry friendly troops engage battle. Also they will run away from danger with xtreme prejudice x). And playing with a sin who casts CoS is ANNOYING!

Those are my impressions

♥

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"I am who I am. Your approval isn't needed"

Reminds me of my firesin, except most of her points were devoted into FoF and Phoenix; using kick skills mean you don't need claw mastery so those extra points are freed up to do other things.

I might give that a shot, depending on how well I do with SilenceToo (Shadow Blader).

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.

Skills were easy: 20 tiger strike, 20 dragon tail,1 dflight, 1 cobra, 1 to all shadow disc, except fade, who got another 20. Then I forsake the assa Charge with tiger, and hit with tail . get out from battle running or with dflight, come in again running with dflight or running ( yeah, quite repetitive ) Sometimes didnt need to charge the tiger, just kick-kick-kick.

On bosses, combine both tiger and cobra if needed, and tail, repeat, boom, repeat, boom boom, "Hey, Macarena",

you cleant a whole act in 25 minutes.

♥

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"I am who I am. Your approval isn't needed"

The assassin can do the Macarena? Tiger Tail seems to be a good setup, but what about all that hard work just to get the setup running?

Tru dat, but I've managed to have my assassin help others along with getting through Smith -> Andariel until she got Fade.

Then I forgot about Shadow Warrior, a lv.20 skill x.x Gotta re-roll.

_________________
Go and terminate with extreme prejudice
Most people just take steps. I take dubsteps.