Pre-Expansion

any tips for playing pre expansion? do most people play on ladder? what characters are good for this mod? any stats or skills that are more important? any discord communities? what are your best tips for settings to make the game run as well as possible and look good?

Started a Barbarian. I'm level 14 now rocking this yellow Claymore sword two-handed. it required 47 strength and had a decent 18-46 damage on it. I spent 1 point into Bash and i'm maxing Blade Mastery first. I spent around 55 in strength and rest into vitality for now.

Getting some help on settings from ChatGPT based on my 1080p 75Hz screen and my PC's spec made the game look and feel much better then my default settings.

Resolution Scale: 100
Sharpening: 50
Texture Quality: High
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Ambient Occlusion Quality: Medium
Character Detail: High
Environment Detail: Medium
Transparency Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Medium
Anti-Aliasing: FXAA
Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Unchecked
Framerate Target: 0
VFX Quality: High
VFX Lightning Quality: High
Full‑screen mode (better performance, fewer distractions).
V-Sync ON and Framerate Cap set to match the monitor refresh rate to avoid screen tearing. My screen runs at 75 Hz.

If it's not a challenge or specific goal to grind certain item on pre-expansion, don't play classic. LoD is just better and there is much wider community and market.

Barbarians in classic are all about Whirlwind. The skill works differently and it is WAY more powerful there (fixed, large number of hits regardless of attack speed). Get yourself a Bonesnap unique Maul (for high base damage and that 40% CB) and angelic set rings/amulet (for the attack rating bonus) and you'll be in hell in no time. Sigon set helmet/gloves combination also helps with attack rating and gives some life leech. Don't forget to get at least 1 point in berserker for magic damage against physical immunes in hell.
Also, don't forget to use the cube recipes for low level blue items crafting. Getting yourself a magic Maul with extra damage and two sockets early on (act II normal) helps speeding up things, put some damage/AR gems in there and it will be the best weapon you can have for a while.