I always see strategy guides focusing on character builds that suggest items like Bloodfist for a starting character; I'm tired of seeing those guides. Don't get me wrong, Bloodfist is a great set of starting gloves, but they're far from the best you can get. As such, I decided to write a guide on unbelievable starting equipment.
I go to the University of Waterloo, where I have a large group of friends who play Diablo II online, and we all spent a lot of time looking at statistics and play-testing different ideas. Presented here are two different sets of equipment. The first is what we decided was simply the best for any class, along with detailed statistics on everything. The second set was developed by my friends in the General Strategy Forum, and is specifically for spellcasters who want to get a head start using their skills. You will notice very quickly this guide is not exclusive to the LoD expansion; the items may be found in either version of the game.
This is all stuff you will need to acquire beforehand, as the levels you can find them at are (comparably) much higher than the levels you want to equip them at. The set items are relatively easy to trade for, especially in LoD where they're simply not saught after. You can probably get someone to simply give them to you there.
And either
* This is the Unique Hammer from killing Hephasto the Armorer. It deals 6-16 damgage with 5-20 fire damage, an extra 35 defense, and 40% fire resistance just for fun. This will carry you through Act 1 if you want it to, but it will soon become evident you don't. It is true any weapon will carry you through the Blood Moor and Cold Plains, but you will need to get to level 8 with your starting weapon, at which point you'll probably be heading through the Barracks to kill The Smith, and a random low damage weapon simply will not do. You need this weapon or Khalim's Will.
** This is simply an excellent weapon, and my preferred weapon for starting characters. It has 6% Mana Leech, meaning Barbarians and Paladins can play early levels with no fear of running out of mana with their Bash or Zeal. They really shouldn't need to use the mana though, since the flail does 1-15 normal damage with 1-40 Lightning damage added, at +40 Attack Rating and -40 attack speed. For a while people were warned not to use it in games where Act III might be done, since your copy of Khalim's Will would vanish along with the one used to smash the Compelling Orb. However, right now most people just get the Waypoint for Durance of Hate level 2 and kill Mephisto, meaning your precious Khalim's Will should not be at risk. It's simply your own choice whether or not you take the chance.
*** The Viper Amulet is acquired from the Claw Viper Temple in Act 2. It gives +25 poison resistence, +10 life and +10 mana. The extra 10 life is nice for a low level character, but this amulet will be replaced by Cathan's Sigil at level 11, or the Angelic Wings at level 12.
As everybody and their mother knows, each character has different starting stats. This makes a guide like mine much more involved to create than at first it seems, as the different classes can equip things at different times. Simply for reference, here are all seven character classes' starting stats:
Class Str Dex Vit Ene Amazon 20 25 20 15 Assassin 20 20 20 25 Barbarian 30 20 25 10 Druid 15 20 25 20 Necromancer 15 25 15 25 Paladin 25 20 25 15 Sorceress 10 25 10 35
Before you do anything else, make sure you transfer all the items directly to your character. You don't want to be pausing to move items between characters when you could be spending that time outgrowing those items and putting on the next set.
When you decide to set out into the wonderful world of massacring monsters by the hundreds, you want to put your Arctic and Hsaru items in your character's inventory with Biggin's Bonnet, and equip the Viper Amulet. Your Hellforge Hammer or Khalim's will will obviously go directly to your character's hand. If you're a Barbarian and feeling saucy you can equip both in different hands, but that's sort of silly.
This is surprisingly simple. You will put all your points in to Strength until you have a natural Strength of 50. This means your first 4 levels for a Barbarian, 5 for a Paladin, 6 for Amazons and Assassins, 7 for Druids and Necromancers, and 8 for Sorceresses. If you're using the second set, you'll need 65 strength, so add 3 levels to those numbers. Since you will likely want at least this much strength later in the game anyway, it shouldn't be that much of a detriment to your character build. At worst, it's simply changing the order a little bit. After your 50 or 65 Strength, what you do with your points is entirely up to you.
This is a mixed batch. All the items are already in your inventory, so it will be nice and quick to equip everything, but timing is an interesting issue. At level 2 you can equip the Arctic Furs, as long as you have 12 Strength. The Arctic Mitts, however, must wait until you have 45 Strength. At level 3 you will put on all of Hsaru's set and Biggin's Bonnet. If you are a Barbarian or Paladin, you can immediately equip the Arctic Mitts, since the Buckler in Hsaru's set gives +10 strength. Amazons and Assassins will have to wait one level, Druids and Necromancers will wait two, and Sorceresses will wait three. These levels will be happening so quickly in an eight player game you won't even notice the time you spend getting them, so don't worry about it. At the time you equip the Arctic Mitts, here is what your character will look like:
You're going to change equipment at level 8. Around the same time as you're ready to put on your new clothes you'll likely have either just rescued Cain, or just reached the Outer Cloister. Either way, you'll be prepared to quickly return to town and change equipment. You are going to put on all of your Isenhart and Sigon items. You'll be getting a +10 Strength boost with Isenhart's Set, and another +10 with Sigon's Gage and Wrap, so don't worry about having the Strength to wear Sigon's Sabot. At level 11, which will again happen more quickly than you think, you will put on your Cathan jewelry. As such, you will want to put them in your inventory when you put on your Sigon and Isenhart equipment.
At level 11, here is your character (these are the actual values from my level 11 Necromancer. Exact values will be different depending on where you are putting your Stat Points, and how you rolled on defense values for your Armor. My Necromancer has 60 natural strength, not 50.) :
This equipment has you killing everything in Act 1 in at most 2 shots, gaining back any life you lose faster than you lose it. I've never used a potion with this equipment setup before Act 2, where you can't leech off skeletons. You move very quickly and don't get hit much, dealing damage very quickly due to the +50% IAS. Even a Sorceress is a brutal beatdown machine in this gear.
As previously stated, this equipment is for spellcasters who want to jump in to their skills with both feet. This set of equipment is only recommended for Trapassins, Necromancers or Sorceresses, whereas the other equipment can be used by anyone.
If you want to use this gear, you're going to have to change equipment at level 10 for a Sorceress, 9 for a Necromancer, or 8 for an Assassin (these may be lower with +strength charms). At this point you will put on all of Sigon's set except the Tower Shield, which will have to wait until your next level. At level 12 you'll put on your Angelic items to complete the equipment set. Here's what you'll look like at level 12, assuming exactly 75 strength after bonuses:
This is clearly good equipment for a spellcaster, with +2 skills, +100 mana and 20% damage to mana, with +135 life that regenerates in case you get hit. You can also hold your own in close combat should the need arise. Why wouldn't you use this equipment with non-spellcasters? There are actually several reasons.
First, damage is too low. There's only 14-38 physical damage to leech from, and you only have 10% life leech. This means you get 1-3 life back per hit instead of 8-9 with the other equipment, as you will see later. The extra leech more than makes up for having 115 less life and no life regeneration, since you're rarely without a full life bubble.
With this equipment you also move slower, with 20% less run/walk speed, and have no faster hit recovery. Thorns 32 is great, except with defense as high as it is by the time anyone starts hitting you 32 damage will be a joke. You also don't get to block as often, at less than 50%. Finally, you lack resistances. No poison resistance hurts when you're taking down Andariel in a multiplayer game, or running through Act 2. This equipment gives 102 total resistance, while the other equipment gives 174. I also found through playtesting the first was better for close combat, which had me killing faster while taking less damage.
This is whatever equipment you plan to have your character grow in to. As such, you should start to tailor your char's Stats to what (s)he will eventually look like.
If you've looked at the statistics on Broad Swords and the bonuses applied to your weapon in this equipment set up, you might notice that despite having +15-20 fire damage, the range of damage is still 1. My explanation for this is very mathematical and technical, so if you don't feel like dealing with technobabble, don't read this, just move on to The End Result.
Broad Swords have a natural damage of 7-14. Their damage doubles at 100 Strength, which would put them at 14-28. Isenhart's Lightbrand has +10 minimum damage as an intrinsic property of the sword, making its base damage 17-18, but the damage doubling is skewed because of the +10 minimum damage. Because the minimum damage must, by definition, be less than the maximum damage, the game pushes the maximum damage up along with the minimum to keep the laws of mathematics from breaking down.
When the game calculates your damage with this equipment set, it takes the base value for the Broad Sword and doubles it to 14-28, then adds the 15-20 fire damage for 29-48. It then adds +20 minimum damage for the Isenhart's Lightbrand bonus, adding it twice because it gets doubled along with the damage of the sword, making the minimum damage 49, which forces the maximum damage to become 50, making your range 49-50. If the Isenhart bonus were applied before the fire damage, the sword would be doing 34-35 damage + 15-20 fire gives 49-55 damage. This means if the game calculated damage the way you expect it to, you would actually have a higher average damage, 52 instead of 49.5.
For leeching purposes, since you have 27% Life Leech, here is what you get back when you hit: Your damage is 49-50, 15-20 of which is fire. This means your damage would read 34-30 if we just subtracted the fire damage away, which translates to 30-34. If you look at the numbers in the previous paragraph this makes sense, since if the Isenhart damage were calculated seperately it would be 34-35, but you lose 5 from the maximum because that's what the difference in the two max damage values presented above are. 35-5=30. Leeching 27% of 30-34 means you get back 8.1 to 9.18 life per swing, or 8-9.
You now have either a brutal beatdown character, or an excellent spellcaster. My preferred equipment is the first set. Your current equipment will carry you through all of Act III with no problems. I've even heard of a Trapassin using the spellcaster equipment in Nightmare.
The only problem I've ever had with this was with my Sorceress using the first set, and only because the blocking speed is so slow on Sorceresses I found myself caught in block-lock with my 66% block rate. I had to start picking uses for my 25 saved up skill points then. It is noteworthy that I still never died, even while surrounded by mobs, with this Sorceress. It's just really boring not getting to attack.
I have personally used the first equipment set to destroy Mephisto solo in an 8-player game with every character class (my Sorceress didn't have to change clothes when I gave her spells). I haven't been able to take Act IV solo in this equipment, only because of the Flesh Spawners and their ilk.
This is also excellent low-level PvP gear. After I had accidentally assembled the complete Sigon Set, I was playing with it in a public game, and some level 18 Necromancer entered the game and picked up a pair of boots I had to leave on the ground to have enough inventory room. This Necromancer then tried to taunt me in to a fight to reclaim my boots, and went hostile with me. I looked at my Character screen and saw I was still level 11. So I did what any character would do when outclassed in such a way: I charged out to combat. Being a Necromancer, he summoned all sorts of minions to do his bidding. Also being a Necromancer, I held down the left mouse button. I never even cursed him. He lives today only because Battle.net lagged the game out. I never even used a potion. I would have been upset about the boots, except they sucked and I was about to sell them for the 2k gold they were worth.
I hope this has perked some ears toward little-used sets, namely Isenhart and Sigon. More importantly, I hope this will help your characters level more quickly and more easily to a point where they can start to become unique.
I'd like to thank all my friends at the University of Waterloo who helped come up with the first equipment set, and my friends from the General Strategy Forum for helping me assemble the second. I really just modified what they had already started on, and without them I wouldn't have been able to construct this guide.