Looking for a truely viable 1st character build

fishymancer can do the game with next to no gear

i started d2r with trapper, pretty tough and partly because I'm not familiar with her play style

hammerdin is pretty ok, you can do end game content with stuff you can buy with pgems like wizard spikes and cheap runewords etc

Like others have said, Sorc, but I tend to stray from the pack here and go with Hydra/ Orb. All the points you put into Fireball early aren't wasted, and you don't need to worry about respecing when you get to NM/ Hell.

Hydra is a very safe playstyle that will kill things that are not fire immune off screen for you, so you can worry less about being mobbed and killed, and it's easier to MF with then Blizzard. Orb is for the fire immune and is a low point investment as you only need to put points into Cold Mastery to get to 100% with gear. The rest of the points can go into fire.

Draksen wrote: 5 years ago

My son made 2 months ago a lightning assassin in single player mode D2LoD. It was really fun until act 1 hell, then he stopped because of the lightning immunes. So I guess the lighting sorc may face the same "wall" ?
According to the poll on the main page, 40% of the players are tempted by a sorc as 1st character. How do you plan to play it, dual elements?

Reading this, i think you don't mean "viable" but "uncomplicated" instead. You want a character that can face everything without knowing what are you up against. Lightning Assassin or Lightning Sorc are very viable and strong but need to play around those immunities.

There are 2 solution, you can take characters that play around that like Summon Necro (Lower Physical Resist with Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion) or Hammerdin (Magic Immunities are very rare). This enough if you just want to get through the game.

The Second Solution is the change of you own mindset and try to understand the game and you character better and take action according the situation (it is not required to kill every Mob in the game to beat hell and almost every character has tools for crowd control). Then can almost all builds be "viable", even a Necromancer with a Poison Dagger.

Here is is Video of MrLLamaSC Preparing for Hell:

I went against the grain of hammerdins and sorcs and my first playthrough was Frenzy Barb. Dumping points into Double Swing till Frenzy comes online and picking up the one point wonders till you finish Frenzy and start pumping Battle Orders. Easy runeword gear from countess and cows...Lore, Stealth, Black, strenght, Malice. Anything problematic just Howl it away, if Howl isn't working it's becuase player level+ Howl skill is less than mobs, so just farm a previous area till you level. Only immunity of note physical and that is easily solved with 1 point in Berserk.