Well, the Hammerdin is a decent choice, you'll just be slower playing through the acts and farming items due to the lack of Teleport (which many battle.net users cheat away with Enigma).
edit: Make sure to use Vigor and use it a lot. More than Conc during a1-a3.
I wish you the best of luck with the hell Ancients. Good thing is, they won't spawn with pure magic immunity (hammer damage type).
Oh and I repeat this for importance: get PlugY. It enables all the runewords, that you otherwise could only create in b-net ladder games.
What a great guide, advising you to get carried through the whole game and expecting you to have the runes for Enigma. Summarizes the downfall of D2 very nicely
However, if you want to play on your own, which I would advise, the fastest way to build up your item pool and beat the game on hell is this:
1.Start a Sorceress using one big Bomb-skill => Blizzard. It has many synergies, so it deals tremendous amounts of damage even without gear. Normal is tougher than on other chars and the Sorc will remain fragile throughout the game, but once you have teleport, you can save a lot of time finding the right way and also save your ass if necessary.
2.After you have killed Baal in normal mode, farm him for exp, no mf gear or such, just lvl to like 45-50, adjusting to /players 8 eventually. Stop when it doesn't feel effective anymore.
3.Now at lvl45-50 you play through nightmare (/players 1) with a very strong Blizzard already. Though, because of mana issues and the low exp to be gotten, you should rather avoid fights and run/teleport through the areas. Blizzard will take care of bosses better than any other skill in the game. Coldworm the Burrower in the Maggot Lair will be immune, but you don't have to kill him, just loot the chest. Or have your Merc kill him. You want the offensive Merc from act 2 nightmare (Might aura). He will be your way of killing cold-immunes in hell.
4.Repeat step2 on Baal nm until maybe 74.
5.Force yourself to Mephisto hell. Somehow, someway. You'll be in grave danger very often due to bad gear. Be cautious about your mana to always be able to teleport out of danger. Avoid fights more than before, skip quests that slow you down(like Den of Evil unless your Merc has better equipment than you to kill the immunes).
6.Once you're at Meph hell, the farming for items begins. He is the prime source for most uniques, because he is the most accesible and easiest to kill boss. Your only danger is in the way to him, if you teleport into something bad, you may die. You're not farming him for exp though, so don't bother. A very easy (and cheesy) way to kill Mephisto, is to port to him and port back across the river, he'll get stuck on the stairs leading into the lava. It's ok to do so after a while, if you can also beat him regularly, just saves time on the item grind.
6a.Your gear. By now you will have found out, that you wouldn't need any gear at all to kill Meph, maybe some mana and fast cast items to make the way to him less tedious. This means: Stack mf% as much as you can, use any 4socket armor, any 3socket helm and fill them with perfect Topazes.
7.Now you'll start to accumulate pretty much all of the unique and set items that are within Meph's drop range. Shako (Harlequin Crest), Arachnid Mesh and The Reaper's Toll (for your Merc ofc) being the most interesting ones.
After that there are two options.
a) beat hell with that Sorc or start a fresh character with all those items you've collected.
Just try act4 every once in a while with your Sorceress, substituting mf gear for combat gear and see how it goes. The one big bottle neck (for every char) will be the Ancients in act5, when you're past them, it's game over
I don't know about your play time, but this may very well take longer than a week. In Bnet you could see Baal hell die within a day, but than it's not you beating the game
Oh and don't plan on finding a Stone of Jordan or the runes for Enigma. That would take years, no kidding.
And as a last but most useful hint: Use the PlugY mod, it doesn't cheat the game in any way (unless you set it up to), but saves you an enormous amount of time just by offering a giant, shared stash for your characters.
edit: Make sure to use Vigor and use it a lot. More than Conc during a1-a3.
I wish you the best of luck with the hell Ancients. Good thing is, they won't spawn with pure magic immunity (hammer damage type).
Oh and I repeat this for importance: get PlugY. It enables all the runewords, that you otherwise could only create in b-net ladder games.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
However, if you want to play on your own, which I would advise, the fastest way to build up your item pool and beat the game on hell is this:
1.Start a Sorceress using one big Bomb-skill => Blizzard. It has many synergies, so it deals tremendous amounts of damage even without gear. Normal is tougher than on other chars and the Sorc will remain fragile throughout the game, but once you have teleport, you can save a lot of time finding the right way and also save your ass if necessary.
2.After you have killed Baal in normal mode, farm him for exp, no mf gear or such, just lvl to like 45-50, adjusting to /players 8 eventually. Stop when it doesn't feel effective anymore.
3.Now at lvl45-50 you play through nightmare (/players 1) with a very strong Blizzard already. Though, because of mana issues and the low exp to be gotten, you should rather avoid fights and run/teleport through the areas. Blizzard will take care of bosses better than any other skill in the game. Coldworm the Burrower in the Maggot Lair will be immune, but you don't have to kill him, just loot the chest. Or have your Merc kill him. You want the offensive Merc from act 2 nightmare (Might aura). He will be your way of killing cold-immunes in hell.
4.Repeat step2 on Baal nm until maybe 74.
5.Force yourself to Mephisto hell. Somehow, someway. You'll be in grave danger very often due to bad gear. Be cautious about your mana to always be able to teleport out of danger. Avoid fights more than before, skip quests that slow you down(like Den of Evil unless your Merc has better equipment than you to kill the immunes).
6.Once you're at Meph hell, the farming for items begins. He is the prime source for most uniques, because he is the most accesible and easiest to kill boss. Your only danger is in the way to him, if you teleport into something bad, you may die. You're not farming him for exp though, so don't bother. A very easy (and cheesy) way to kill Mephisto, is to port to him and port back across the river, he'll get stuck on the stairs leading into the lava. It's ok to do so after a while, if you can also beat him regularly, just saves time on the item grind.
6a.Your gear. By now you will have found out, that you wouldn't need any gear at all to kill Meph, maybe some mana and fast cast items to make the way to him less tedious. This means: Stack mf% as much as you can, use any 4socket armor, any 3socket helm and fill them with perfect Topazes.
7.Now you'll start to accumulate pretty much all of the unique and set items that are within Meph's drop range. Shako (Harlequin Crest), Arachnid Mesh and The Reaper's Toll (for your Merc ofc) being the most interesting ones.
After that there are two options.
a) beat hell with that Sorc or
Just try act4 every once in a while with your Sorceress, substituting mf gear for combat gear and see how it goes. The one big bottle neck (for every char) will be the Ancients in act5, when you're past them, it's game over
I don't know about your play time, but this may very well take longer than a week. In Bnet you could see Baal hell die within a day, but than it's not you beating the game
Oh and don't plan on finding a Stone of Jordan or the runes for Enigma. That would take years, no kidding.
And as a last but most useful hint: Use the PlugY mod, it doesn't cheat the game in any way (unless you set it up to), but saves you an enormous amount of time just by offering a giant, shared stash for your characters.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450