What's a good usually SOLO character build for Diablo II Ladder? Specifically for MFing

Question

I've been playing Diablo II singleplayer and nonladder for years, and I think I'm going to play in the Ladder this coming time around. I play solo a good deal of the time, and I've never actually gotten a character into the 90's, which I'm shooting for this time around.

I'm iffy about Sorceress builds, because my F-keys are not fully functional 100% of the time.

I usually go Lagromancer, (lots of skellies) but I have literally all the viable equipment, even ladder equipment, on my lvl 85 one, so I'm looking for something different.

My zealers never work out, I don't know why. (I can never find a good enough weapon I think)

I'm not sure what to even DO with assassins. They just don't seem like good characters, I can never follow through with them.

I've literally never touched druids. Seriously.

My primary concern here is mfing (Magic-finding) I want to get lots of gear that's viable for other ladder characters I make. Uniques usually, sets are often too niche and mercurial for my liking.

Answer 1

So you are a druid and you want to use him for Magic find. For Magic find it's best to use Spells for damage and wear Items with Magic find on it. If you are a bear with a 2 hand weapon, you have a lot of life and damage but no space to wear mf items.

So my suggestion is :

Hurricane Druid

Skill setup :

• Hurricane 20
• Twister 20
• Tornado 20
• Cyclon Armor 20
• Oak Sage 20

The last one to max is Cyclone Armor since it only gives a longer duration of your Hurricane and not more damage.

Stats :

Stats are easy to set, if you wear a one hander and a shield, try to reach a good block rate. Skill as much str. as needed to wear your armor. and the rest goes to vitality. All in all it should be around this at level 99 :

• 100-150 dex (goal to have max block 75%)
• 50 str
• 0 energy
• xxx vitality

this is what you skill, not what u have in the end.

Items :

Since you said you want to play solo and I don't know if you trade with someone I chose some cheaper and some expensive items.

Rings :

• 1 raven to get not frozen and have a lot of dex.
• 1 blue ring with MF / Bul Kathos Weddings band / Stone of Jordan

Amu:

• +3 Elemental skill Amu
• Any mf amu
• or expensive Tal rasha Amu + Belt for MF Bonus

Helmet :

• Peasent Crown for fun! Runspeed +1 skills and Mana - all you need / Shako for expensive build
• or a rare+2 Druide circlet with bonus like all resi / fast cast / life + mana

• Expensive uniques : Ravenlore , Spirit Keeper Weapon :

• Spirit Sword Runeword made by TAL THUL ORT AMN , made in a small 4 sockets sword of flail for low str. req. ( +2 all skill , 25-35% faster cast rate etc. that what u need )

Shield : - Lidless Wall / Moser's Blessed Circle + 2 perf. diamons in it. - Stormshield or later a monarch with 4s for the same runeword as in your weapon with same stats.

Gloves :

• Magefist for 20% fast cast

Boots : - Something with 40% runspeed to have some fun. Or rare one with resists + magic find. That's up to you.

Belt : - Tal rasha belt for MF or later Spider web for +1 and 20% cast rate. Before that you can take what you find with MF life and resists. Faster hit recovery is as well nice!

Charms :

• small charms with 20 life / 7 mf / 5 @ll resi are the goal. So for the beginning you keep all you charms you get which help you to level better. Here the best stats for charms

1*1 charms = 20 life / 5 all resi / 14 mana / 7% mf 2*1 charms = keep the ones with +5 stats on it, thats max per slot. 3*1 charms = +1 elemental skill

of course annihilus and gheeds unique charms are perfect to have but not easy to get in beginning.

MERC

For merc you always want to have an Act2 Merc with a big weapon. Etheral 4 Socket weapon with Insight in it would be good to have for a mana regen aura. Whatever Poleaxe you find with 4 sockets you can use at first just to get the aura.

runes you need : ral tir tal sol , easy to find. min level for insight is 27 i guess. (I write all that from my head just to let you know...)

Act 2 Merc with Defense aura would be good to begin with. Later a2 on nightmare. depending on the weapon you have for him. As soon as you have a big etheral weapon for him, get the damage aura merc. So he kills the cold immunes on hell...

you know what :

I offer you a Teamspeak or Skype conversation, since I could write tooooo much here and I don't really know if you have the chance to trade with someone, have a d2 trade forum account or have friends who can give you better items, or if you really play solo without ANY other players in party. Or if you are always alone in game. That all changes something. From merc decsions to skill priorities.

Answer 2

If you are iffy about Sorceress builds, I'd recommend trying out Hammerdin(Paladin with Blessed Hammer as damaging skill).

However, it might be quite expensive. The items that you will need:

• Enigma: +1-99% magic find(based on level), +2 to all skills, +1 to teleport, +strength
• HotO(Heart of the Oak): +3 to all skills, +30-40 allres, 40% fcr
  • or a Wizardspike for a bit cheaper build: 50% fcr, +75 allres
• HoZ(Herald of Zakarum) shield: +2 to all skills, +2 to combat skills, +50 allres, str, vita, lots of block chance
  • or a Spirit shield: +2 to all skills, +25-35 fcr(aim for 35 if you are going to use Spirit), some resists
• Harlequin Crest(shako): +2 all skills, +50% magic find
• Arachnid mesh: +1 to all skills, 20% fcr
• Magefists: 20% fcr
• War Traveler: str, vita, 30-50% magic find
• Mara's Kaleidoscope: +2 to all skills, 20-30 allres
  • or some rare of crafted amu with +2 paladin skills and 10+ fcr and some other nice adds
• Rings(choose whatever you like most):
  • Nagelring: 15-30% magic find(for the rest it's kind of useless)
  • SoJ(Stone of Jordan): +1 to all skills, +max mana
• Annihilus: +10-20 all stats, +10-20 allres, +5-10% exp gain, +1 to all skills
• Hellfire torch: +3 to paladin skills, +10-20 all stats, +10-20 allres
• Gheed's Fortune: 20-40% magic find, 80-160% gold find, reduce vendor prices

So at level 80 this set up will provide you:

• 180-220% mf(+mf from amulet/rings/charms if you have it)
• +13(+15 if you use 2x SoJ) to all skills, +2 to combat skills, +3 to paladin skills(adds up to total of +18(+20 with 2x SoJ) to combat skills and +16(+18 with 2x SoJ) to other paladin skills)
• 120-160 allres, +30 allres from Anya's quest, sums up to 150-190 allres
• 80% fcr(breakboint at 75%, so you don't need more. Unless you are going for the top breakpoint, which is at 125%)
• 2 free sockets: 1 in the Harlequin's Crest and 1 in Herald of Zakarum. Put and Ist rune into both for a total of 50% extra magic find(25% each). Or a Perfect Topaz into helm for 24% to make it cheaper(total of 49%, almost 2x cheaper than 2x Ist)

On a switch you should have:

• CtA(Call to Arms): +1 to all skills, +1-6 Battle Orders, some other shouts. Try to get as high Battle orders as you can
• any Spirit Shield: for +2 to all skills.

Switch should only be used to pre-buff yourself. Do not butt yourself if you run with a decent Barbarian, their shouts will be better anyway.

Skills:

• 20 Blessed Hammer
• 1 Holy Shield
• 20 Concentration
• 20 Vigor
• 20 Blessed Aim
• Rest into Holy Shield

Blessed Hammer is your main damaging skill. Before 1.12 or 1.13 there were almost no monsters with immunity to it, since 1.12 or 1.13 there are just a few(still a lot less than with immunity to cold/fire/lightning).

Use holy shield to get some toughness and increased block chance. 1 point if enough, put more points into there after you have maxed out other skills

Concentration is you main damage buffing aura. Use it while casting Blessed Hammers

Vigor is a synergy to Blessed Hammer. And a nice skill to have while you are in town to run a lot faster

Blessed Aim is another synergy to Blessed Hammer

Your merc:

Personally I always use a Combat Act II merc from Normal difficulty(somewhy they are tougher than from Hell) and I always try to equip it with:

• Ethereal Insight: 12-17 meditation aura(woohoo, unlimited mana!), decent damage, +23% magic find
• Ethereal Fortitude: tonnes of defense, enhanced damage
• and some random helm(could be Andariel's Visage for some str or Shako for mf or ...)

Stats:

• Strength: enough to equip all items. In perfection you won't have to put a single point into strength.
• Dexterity: enough to have 75% block chance after all the buffs
• Vitality: everything else here
• Energy: forget it, nothing here

Do not forget, that when you level up, your block chance will be re-calculated. So before throwing all points into Vitality, buff yourself, look at your block chance and add a few points into Dex to get 75% again.

A quick recap:

• 75% fcr(or 125% if you want to be a bit faster)
• 75% allres in Hell
• 75% block chance with Holy Shield
• As much life as you can get(with this build you should easily get 3k+)
• As much magic find as you can get(if you also use magic find charms, you should easily get 300%+)

Answer 3

Sorceress builds are pretty good. I am an Orbballer and she can solo NM Andy at level 50, Mind you, her gear isn't the greatest yet. Orbballer you need to spend most of your stat points into Vit, with 100 strength and toss a few points in Energy now and then.

The key skills to max with an Orbballer are Fire Ball, Frozen Orb, Cold Mastery, Fire Mastery. Putting some points in warmth is recommended, and then making sure to have the placement of the points to get those skills. I recommend also maxing Cold Bolt, for the synergy but you don't need to. You also should drop a point in Telekinesis, Static Field and Teleport. Early on, you are a pot whore(you need to use ALOT of Mana pots) later on, as warmth gets up a little, and you find better gear, your Mana will get lightened, so you can do more. The Frozen orb is your star, it'll wipe out most of the mobs. The only time you need something else is for Cold immune monsters, which is why you max fireball.