@@omartrufflez5305 its more of a pain to the 1st time player who would choose pure summoner build and then regret not having teleport staff 😂 my first character was necro and I did choose skelly build, you probably know what happened in maggot lair 😂 it was ages ago tho, probably 15 years back lol
Still undecided what build I'll play when D2R drops, but I know one thing... I'm playing all the way through, side quests, full(ish) clears, listening to all the NPC dialogue, like its the first time again...
Would be amazing if this was linked into the builds you put together in previous videos. Great stuff! I actually got into Diablo 2 again after years of never sucesfully finishing hell and got all the characters through with your tips and knowledge share. It's amazing how much there is to know in order to finish the HELL. There is very little chance of success without learning a lot. You are doing a lot for us casual players! Thanks a lot!
Disagree on Throwing Barb, later on (after lvl 40 I think) you get modifiers "replenish quantity) on throwing AXES, so you'll never really run out of "throws". Also Throwing axes count as both Throw and Axe weapon, so you get benefit from both masteries. Left click you put couple of points into Frenzy and swing couple of times to get damage\speed\AS boost, then you start nuking monsters. I forgot what Elite version of throwing axes are called, but they have very strong base damage as they are axes. It's actually very fun build to play around, and I think it might even be better now, considering you can get some boost with runeword items that give different auras and perks.
I've always done sorc for first play simply because teleport is priceless. mf is easier and can find gear for all your builds you want to make. and start bringing them up. also having a rusher to trade rushes for your new characters is great
Ww is still good. Llama’s problem was that he refused to slow down and farm a bit in his guided ww playthrough. You need decent gear for ww including a decent amount of crushing blow.
@@jprec5174 Well I think he primarily judges the builds based on how fast you can progress through the game and transition to magic finding, which is applicable to a lot of players not just speedrunners. But honestly, even end game WW barbarian is not that great because he is still only good at aoe damage and struggles with bosses, as it is hard to fit crushing blow onto a WW barb without gimping your magic find %.
@@johngaughan9399 You do not need ebotd to enjoy WW. Oath is pretty ez to craft in SP and gives You quite a jump in damage .. dual oaths + Even a cheap Lionheart /goblins and You are set... Most if not all youtubers are so used to caster privileges (sorc and hammerdin mainly) that doing a simple Tri whirl seem like pulling this magical thing so súper hard to do....
The best way to do a ssf playthrough with whirlwind barb is to play d2 classic instead. Dont xfer to expansion until you find steeldriver. When you do, shael it and upgrade it.
@@scuniverseyoutuber4404 steeldriver is unique I realize that bonesnap unique maul would be way easier to find, steeldriver only drops in later acts like hell mode
I quite like Barbs for MF, but you need enigma for the Teleport. But the find item skill is major. I remember I used to join cow levels CS runs, etc and just run around using it on all the corpses. Found a fair few decent items doing so without the mad dash for the grab. Recycle barb I call him haha.
@@dbarnes8923 I mean... you need infinity lol. Ber x 2 mal x 1 and ist x 1... isn't exactly starter friendly and you don't really need to MF at that point
One thing on this list perplexes me. I am currently doing a Bowazon only playtrough with PlugY (at lvl 78 rn) and to me Ice Arrow and Lightning Fury are definitelly NOT on the same tier. I don't know what tier they are but Lightning Fury is without hyperbole like 10 times better than Ice Arrow. I have my character optimized for Ice Arrow but got fed up with it and bought random 20ias Javelins from Charsi and tried Lightning Fury and it just clears screens its so good. You can also have a shield equipped with Javelins which gives you options to stack res, as a bowazon, I'm strugling super hard with survivability because of it.
Are you using Ice Arrow or Freezing Arrow? Freezing Arrow will output more damage and handle Lightning Immunes pretty well. It'll just guzzle mana though
@@GiuseppeG11 Yes, but It's not just damage. The lightning javazon is so much better in every regard. It has better AOE, better Single Target, Better Survivability. The only thing it does worse maybe is dealing with immunes but I'm not sure of that either.
I really hate how the whirlwind barb was destroyed. He was so much fun in Classic. yes, his skill was broken for the time. 10xhits per target up to 10 targets? But they shold have reworked it in 1.13 imo. Even with a barb only armor.
WW barb is pretty good since you can reach it’s potential at lvl 50 once you max it. 20 points into sword mastery, 20 points into WW, rest into BO. As long as you have a good weapon you should be good. Frenzy requires a lot of deadly strike and good weapons
honestly WW barb is my favorite and no matter how "bad" it is, I will always play it and it's my favorite. I do wish they would show it love and fix it to be more viable, but unless they do balance changes after d2r releases then it's going to be a no go for the most part.
@@shaylinjames2729 it's good the problem is that you need a very fast weapon or DW to get value out of it. You also need a ton of life steal. Unfortunately barb is not viable until you have the resources to craft a grief. Without grief it's near unplayable.
@@shaylinjames2729 Project Diablo and or Path of Diablo will probably use the D2R graphics on their $hit. So you can run with their class changes...eventually.
This video is a very good idea to welcome more people into D2R when it launches! This will also help me to make recommendations if friends ask for advice on what character to pick at first. I would love more tier lists like this so that we can benefit from your encyclopedic knowledge of D2! Best characters for: mf in lvl 85 areas, PvP duels, leveling (that could even be split into sub-categories like baal runs), finding keys, farming high runes, gold finding, farming bases for runewords, ladder reset, etc.
Thank you Llama. I see you catch the feeling of your survey. Most players on D2 are aged and have small time to play, so SSF. Don't get me wrong, we still play sometimes MP but most SSF. Ill probably do a Holy Grail on single player at first to learn again old mechanics of D2 (very used to pd2 aka best mod).
@@MykeThaFartSmella69 I'm not sure but I think 'solo self funded/found' aka you play through the game without inheriting god tier gear from outside the current play-through
The problem i always had back in the day was that the best builds were one element (because of synergies, you only had a few points to throw into another element, meaning it wasn't strong enough to kill anything in hell). So when you were in hell and ran into something immune to your type (in particular, my frozen orb sorc dealt with this a lot)...all you could do is run away to try to teleport passed it. Good for meph runs-if you had maphack so you didn't die on your way to the boss. Hell difficulty is the primary reason why soloing is such a pain, because almost every enemy is immune to something so you will run into a lot you can't touch.
@@AwoudeX Hmm, that's a possibility. Couldn't really use firewall back in the day because any PC that wasn't state of the art would damn near completely lock up at firewalls (was a popular 'trick' for PKers, to throw up a few fire walls to lag out most opponents so they couldn't run away). Same issue with lagromancers, one of those bastards crossed your screen you would see like the first few skeletons/revives, then only see one screen every few seconds until they had completely moved off your screen. Can't tell you how many times i'd see a necro go hostile on me, then a second later my game froze up until i was dead and he left. Praying that isn't the case these days
I'm kinda mad you didn't put Holy Shock/Freeze Zealot here, he can be really strong and his clearing pace is so nice. But overall hard to disagree with your choices, great argumentation on why are they good/bad
@@ickn2005 Right! Hammerdin is so easy to build up. It's like you could find little bits and pieces easily every single time along with making just a few runs of the count and you're set. I remember playing H-din 2006 I think? It's blurry... but my buddy was like why are you using that skill it's really bad. Then I was the first one to make it through hell with a pally haha!
@@muhammetmelikkolgesiz9252 dude the title of the video says „SSF” which standa for Solo Self Found and I just spoke about that manner of playing through the game with the so called Tesladin (or holy zealot as people name the non-Dream Holy shock zealer) and he does just fine throughout the game, he might be a bit slower than his high-end version, but he’s definitely playable for SSF plathroughs! Just finished such playthrough and he was completely fine with a few deaths here and there but overall the character seemed strong
@@cjregunay1668 not fighting them if it’s not neccesary, otherwise by having some degree of physical dmg from my weapon. It’s takes time to whittle them down but possible
Very reasonable! Thanks for the well-informed opinion. I feel better knowing what to completely avoid. Some of the mid-tier I will still try out, but I am now NEVER gonna waste my time on any of the D tier hype.
Conc Barbs are badass and super underrated. Yes, they are slow but they are also tanky af and very Hell viable. However they are pretty heavily gear reliant imo.
you obviously know this but damn perfect timing, really had no idea what is good in LoD since I've been playing pd2 lately but hadn't played d2 for like a decade before that. thanks for sharing the knowledge!
I actually prefer to start with Zeal+Holy Shock Paladin and run nightmare Countess to get enough runes for other build. Double spirit runeword is enough to do good damage, also gamble circlet and amulet for +2 pal sk. The next upgrade is "Crescent Moon" (Shael+Um+Tir) Phase Blade. "Treachery" (Shael+Thul+Lem) Armor is also good for this build. Starter helmet could be Ort+Sol. This build is quite cheap and lightning immune monsters are usually undead, thus could be killed under Sanctuary aura.
I guess druids might get better because of tankiness, sorc a bit weaker as they can die so easily ... Overall Pala, summon necro and trapsin still rock hardcore
@@TheSummoner Amazons are completely fine once you know what you're doing. The rough thing with them is it's easier to die because of a mistake you make 5 seconds ago than other classes because their casting frames are too awful for emergency teleports and decoy takes more knowledge to use well for CC than curses, warcries, etc.
@@Sara_Feingold I see, well I've honestly never played hardcore before, hence why I was quoting the opinion of MrLlama, but I guess his is more tailored towards speedrunning than regular playing.
Fishymancer (summ necro with corpse explosion) is possibly one of the safest and least gear dependent one. His wind druid also almost made S tier, and wind druid survivability is pretty high as well. You get a constant stun (due to hit recovery from mobs) or at the very least a massive slow all around you. And don't forget massive life with Oak Sage, and the best minion in the game next to valkyrie, the Bear.
It would be very interesting how the tier is in groups. I know you made already a guide on optimal groups, but maybe if you have already two S-tier damage dealer how would advantages and disadvantages of the a-d tier characters come into play and would the difference be closer or higher for certain types?
I think a singer barb is S-tier for group play in HC, at least for an initial play through with junk gear. Mainly because you can trivially make the toughest enemies (souls, dolls) harmless. Use taunt on souls (or archers, etc) to stop their attacks and pull them into melee range and stun them. Use howl or stun on dolls. Extra fast, extra strong, frenzy boss pack? Baal waves? Also harmless, everything gets stunned. Nowhere are you safer than with a singer barb in the group, except perhaps with a summon necro. Gear is trivial to find - you can run dual spirit swords, stealth, lore, crafted barb caster amulet, and resists on everything else (rings, boots, gloves, belt, charms), and it’s viable all the way through A5 hell. With your massive life pool, you only need to max lightning resist, so you don’t need a spirit shield or smoke armor, and with everything stunned, you don’t need defense or block. The weakness is that damage sucks past A1 hell, and the build is useless against bosses. Lightning enchants also suck, since you have no leech and you attack at close range. Champions have a low chance to be stunned, but you can outrun them if necessary. And of course you are useless against physical immunes. You can have a second set of melee gear to patch some of those weaknesses, but it has to be really good gear to do anything with low skill investment, and needing to invest STR or DEX to equip a good weapon loses a lot of VIT. All the downsides make it a poor solo build, but the crowd control and BO make it an amazing party build. It lets otherwise squishy party members do more damage because the need for caution (kiting) largely disappears. I wouldn’t say a hammerdin is a group build, in the sense that they are so overpowered that being in a group usually drags them down, because they are tanky enough that they don’t need help on defense or crowd control, and they kill faster than most builds with little worry about immunities, so they don’t need help on offense either…. They’d be better off running on their own separate from the rest of the party in a lot of cases (except maybe places hammers suck, like maggot lair).
I love Paladin aura build, lvl 56 right now, just every point I can get into Holy Shock and Resist Lightning, and I just casually strolled through Normal and Nightmare only having to swing my sword at boss enemies, everything else dies in a couple ticks of shock damage. And it is instant, and it all hits at once. So like walking into a pack of 30 enemies(players 8) all 30 take 1-600 lightning damage per tick, they all drop dead in no time. It's basically a mostly AFK build, i love it.
@@jalefar8247 This is my first play through and just about to finish Act 2 of Nightmare and yeah starting to think I might have to respec for Hell since the aura is doing less and less dmg. Though I know I can get another like 30 levels of holy shock using the Dream runeword i think? So i am wondering what the dmg will be with 2 Dreams and like 25 hard points into Holy Shock
@@richmusick4881 Yeah and getting two Jah runes seems unlikely at best haha even on Players 8 all through Normal and Nightmare I have only gotten up to Sol and I hear people talking about literally never seeing a single high rune in all their games
@@FirstLast-gk6lg Also works very well and will be cheaper if you want to farm for an Infinity first for your merc. You might even be able to make a Grief farming for it which isn't too bad to get. I managed to get 2x Sur (LK farming, i'm done with that as it is way too boring for me), 4 Gul (2x LK, 2x Cows and Chaos) and 1 Lo (cows) but never got the luck for a Jah. As all the runes i've found in SP doesn't even equal a Jah in the end, the odds of getting 2x playing casually is insanely low. I would use it for an Enigma instead even for that build without hesitation.
Totally most overpowered and busted skill in the history of the franchise. Does anyone remember how good diablo was before everyone realized how insanely autopilot and stupid hammerdins are? Fuck, I'm old.
I'm surprised Summoner makes it in so high above Bone necro, but it's a pleasant surprise :) You're literally the only YTer I've ever seen ranking the two like that though.
A properly played summon necro is absurdly strong. At low gear levels nothing compares. Back in the day I had a GG geared summon necro on bnet and it would clear uber tristram faster than a geared frenzy barb :D I 100% agree with it being the second strongest character for self found after Hammerdin
@@Mammel248 surprised it's not first tbh. I cleared up to ancients in hell ssf easily and safely on hc with summon nec. Paladin can do it too but probably not as safely.
Bone clears most stuff faster (Bone Spears travel faster than Skellies after all), but is so dependent on getting White from Nightmare Countess. I think that's the thing holding it back from S tier here.
I feel like there should be two separate tier lists, one for twinked and one for untwinked. Untwinked javazons struggle through hell solo, but twinked javs can handle literally everything very quickly except the cow king on p8.
@@absalomvane7776 the point of this tier list is not what characters can solo through hell, it's how easily they can do it. You can respec any character to eventually clear any act.
I believe Leaf availability combined with being able to buy a +3 fireball base with a little effort pushes Fireball sorc to S tier. There is nothing like being able to SMASH normal and nightmare with minimal effort because you have +6 fireball on your weapon alone. EDIT: Fire gets a bad rap because there are so many fallen in A1 (fire immune) If you can stomach having to tele around to the next area you'll be fine.
Totally agree with this. One personnal point. From the S tier builds, the sorc is the only one that requires way more gear to deal with Uber bosses than the rest but the teleport part to farm gear definitely make up for it. For an all content untwinked i would put it borderline top A. I also found that balancing Bone spears and Summons for necro does make it better for P1-3 and before getting the right gear to switch to full summon/poison/bone. The 1-2k bonespear damage that one can get really make targets like council members, NM/Hell bosses at lower level more manageable and also help getting that first kill for explosions. The summons are great tanks, add some good DPS especially against bosses and allow your merc to survive way more easily without being well geared which covers where a bone necro struggles. I also do find that build easier than hdin for the earlier part as it never really struggle with Souls (at the worst, use Dim vision), who are just a real pain in the butt until you get an enigma for your Hdin. They scales way better into endgame gear by that point however and never require a skill reallocation to deal with higher player settings. For solo and hardcore, i would put them just after Summoner for this reason, especially that the necro have skellies, revives, bone armor, prison and curses as extra available protection.
Bowazon nearly C-Tier, was once easily S-Tier. Same for WW Barb, its sad what they did with 1.10 :(. Kicksin was also nice prior to 1.10, I always had fun with it in 1.09. Please make these builds great again Blizzard and bring back Hell Cows and cow channels in general ...
Synergies happened. I strongly disagree that rushing hell cows and then sitting in a corner until you're level 85 was more fun than what we have now. I also strongly disagree that 1.10 "ruined" anything. Synergies are an awesome idea they just need much better balance to widen the meta and bring more builds into viability.
@@aliebrubaker7473 I think that is more-or-less definitionally false. Before, you could use any one of the top tier skills for your class, and your other 91 skill points were free to be used however you liked. After synergies, you could use any one of the top tier skills for your class, and then 40-80 of your other points get tied up in actually making that skill live up to its promise. Synergies made the meta "builds" more defined, but they sucked viability out of more creative spreads. But I do agree that D2R could use a balance patch, to flatten that curve a little
@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos then explain how in 1.09 and before there were basically only six or seven builds that could even be really used. Zealot, WW Barb, Meteorb/FW Sorc, Nova Sorc, Wolf Druid, Fury Javazon, Fishymancer. Anyone playing anything other than those builds was meme'ing. Sin was an actual joke. Bear or elemental Druid, nope. Bowazon was meh. Frenzy or Zerk Barbs were pretty ick. Sorcs using blizz or fireball or lightning would be scratching cows versus orb. We have at least that many builds now and the synergies are balanced like garbage. If they actually put any effort into balancing it would make a huge difference. One thing synergies definitely does is create a case/use meta. Monsters are difficult in hell because synergies added power creep like crazy. Certain builds are absolute rulers of their domain (Smiter for Ubers, for example, or the Pitzerker for non-act boss mf runs) where they are extremely strong but are atrocious for other content. Both of the above are trash for clearing cows or chaos/baal. Pre synergies, damage was just straight balanced on a 1:1 ratio against monster strength so any build that hit certain damage milestones could do all content as well as others or nearly. At the end of the day, pre or post synergy a lot of viability rests straight on the developers shoulders. I believe synergies allow for a wider meta because skills can have multiple synergies and builds can be more complex without just being weak IF the skills and synergies are balanced.
Very long time ago I had a holy bolt pally. Holy bolt has probably the highest synergies in the game with 2 skills at 50% so about 16k holy bolts isn't to hard to hit and you could hit something like 7k self found with dual spirits a lore. You can only really farm pindleskin crypt / mauso and ancient tunnels but those are all capable of dropping most of the best gear. So actually an ok build to hell MF with pretty low gear but not really as good for solo playthrough for obvious reasons but you could honestly make it work. I ended up using that character to bot farm in HC hell with nigma and an Edge/Delirium/Treachery bow merc, good times.
I was so disappointed when I tested out and found that Holy bolt does damage only to Undead and not to anything else. If it did magic damage to everything else and extra damage to undead, fist of heavens might actually be interesting to try out.
@@Moonface00z I heard its good mod, but what makes me anxious is Splash Damage on EVERY melee weapon, it should be added for few certain skills like concentration, berserk, maybe some skills in martial arts, but making it for all weapons in close combat makes it just thrashy, cheap solution, didnt like to see it.
I see alot of newer players try to play Hdins but get wrecked in Maggots lair or whenever the mob runs close to the wall so I just have to say this to the newer players: Hammers will spawn from the pally himself and then spiral outwards meaning to hit those targets against the wall or in the maggots lair you have to walk up to them and cast at point blank range. That's also why Hdins with Enigma will teleport on top of their target when casting hammers.
Tbh maybe I'm just super Newby but whirlwind barb is actually doing really well in NM for me. The real trick is managing to keep up your attack rating by choosing a weapon type early on and sticking with it. Swords seem to work really well as their high attack speed synergizes with whirlwinds damage procs. Its not as reliable as shout barb, but if you have the attack rating to keep up with the area levels, whirlwind barb is probably a solid high C low B tier build imo.
Bruh no joke I did a SSF like 10+ years ago. On a hamdin after same thing happened to me. But was a different reason... 🤣 then my bro got hamdin account banned lvl 92 ladder used MH for 3 days w.o me knowing.
Some skills could use buffs, like Nova, druid summons, assassin martial arts...but so many skills in this game fall into one of a few categories 1. Worse versions of other skills (ice/fire bolt, power strike et al from javelin tree, cold/fire arrow, teeth, twister, poison explosion) 2. Skills that compete for a single slot (paladin auras, druid sage/creeper summons, necro golems) 3. Situational skills that require too many points to be useful (Stun, Conversion, Holy Bolt) 4. Mechanically deficient skills that are never going to be good without a complete redesign (thunderstorm, armageddon, blaze, inferno, wake of inferno, poison dagger, impale, sacrifice) 5. Skills that always have been useless or have been neutered by changes to game mechanics (increased stamina, warmth, solar creeper) 6. Skills that might be ok if they weren't bugged (Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Fend) 7. Skills that have been inexplicably split out into multiple semi-redundant skills (elemental assassin ma skills, frost/chilling/shiver armor, dodge/avoid/evade) 8. Boring skills, like most melee skills which are just "attack, but harder" or "attack, but faster" 9. Skills that are hampered by opaque and arbitrary rules (Multishot, Whirlwind, Vengeance) So once you get down to it there aren't really that many candidates for buffs. Like you can buff Paladin defensive auras all day long and still no one will use them or even put points in them for anything other than synergies. You can make Concentrate hit harder but it's still mechanically identical to just attacking. You can buff Ice Bolt damage through the roof but no one wants to use it because it's boring and slow. The skill trees should have gotten a complete overhaul with LOD but alas...
I actually just started mine yesterday. Didn't get to play much, I think he's like level 7. But I have okay'ish gear for him, IK set minus the armor. Also Arreats and some other random decent uniques for him if I want to try them out. I've got Sigon's and Angelics for early leveling. I'm looking forward to it. WW was great back in the day. (Playing with plugy mod)
I'm a big fan of full Mav's frozen arrow. Big CC, resistances and MF. Cheap to start out and if you get decked out with cold facets it can contend with Ice. Strafe deals with cold immunes pretty well too.
I always played SSF. Once the druid came out in the expansion, I played Werebear. It is slower, but you one shot everything outside of the act bosses. Huge Life pool makes it so you can stand toe to toe and destroy them. Run into the center of a pack and take them out, without worrying about being overwhelmed. Fighting Duriel (the scariest boss in my opinion) was an easy stand in his face and send him back to hell, not even losing half health. Ive never made that fight, and many other fights so easy with any other character or build .
Great video! There are so many guides that have builds which include a ton of expensive items. If you can afford COH, Last Wish, etc. you probably don't need a guide.
Part of me feels like double swing/frenzy barb could be in the A tier. At least from memory back in D2 OG. One of my favorite characters was my ds/frenzy barb. He murdered in pvm and was difficult to kill, for a melee char, in pvp. (Admittedly certain ranged specs could annihilate him.) He could regenerate life fast enough with life life leech to tank diablo's lightning and baal's big attacks through nightmare difficulty. I didn't have to really ever drink pots until hell. I never really played around much with whirlwind back then because I thought it was too tedious. But that's the barb I'm playing through right now in d2r. It's been noticeably harder than I remember with my ds/frenzy barb.
I do not understand Blizzard Sorc in S-tier and Lightning Sorc in B-tier? They both run into immunity issues, but 1 item fixes that for Lightning, while your Merc must do a decent amount of damage to get by as a cold sorc. In terms of gear, both can get by with the full Tal's set, Spirit, and Magefists and both need Infinity, but it is far more effective for Lightning.
For me S tier Poison Nova Necro. Hammerdin. Javazon. Bow enchantress. Nova sorc. These are the fastest killers in the game (8 player) I wonder if i am playing the same game as LlamaSC who has poison nova as B tier and enchant sorc as D tier. Bow enchantress can take out everything like the hammerdin with the right gear and probably faster.
Interesting to see Dtail sin in C-tier, I find Dtalon along with a beefy shadow + maxed Dsentry is quite strong pvm... rng was good to me and dropped a pair of 200% gores in nm CS :D Totally agree with WW barb D-tier for ssf, you do need gear for him to get his damage and leech up to sustain such a hungry skill and even then manaburn is cancer.
@@majupiju2347 of course, he does ssf in all his playthroughs so that makes a huge difference. My main point (that may be a bit obscure to people not playing assasin) is that he had the dragon tail icon for a "kicker" when I consider a "kicker" to be a dragon talon build. You can build with both but that likely means you're not getting death sentry which is the best PVM skill the assasin has (and you dont really have to worry about scaling the lightning damage on it through synergies, all you are after is the corpse explosion).
DTail&Tiger Trapsin hybrid with Infinity merc and Lawbringer. Thank me later. ;D Insane lightning and fire AoE damage. Definitely not C-tier lol, she can faceroll players 8...
For new players for single first time just build anything you like. I've seen the silliest builds in D2 and alot of them work. I've seen bow pally or Meele sorc. D2 it's great for the first time tho once your in nightmare you might want to respect .
I can't wait for the guides on some of these builds. I'm looking forward to playing a druid all the way through for the first time ever. I never played druid back in D2 originally and have been waiting for D2R to do the complete play through.
You'll need to do an elemental druid (I suggest Hurricane). Fury werewolf is more gear dependent. Summon druid is only viable on Project Diablo 2 and maybe Path of Diablo.
Well, I was not expecting WW Barb to be so abysmally low. I've never really played barb, but that playstyle is typically the one everyone would recommend. I wonder why everyone was poggin' so hard for it 🤔
Something to keep in mind is that even when he isn't speed running, Llama rushes through the game. He is ALWAYS dramatically under-leveled, and usually quite under-farmed compared to just about anybody else's playing experience. He runs through areas, and if he does stop to kill anything, it's a boss pack. If he's playing a physical damage character, it's inevitably going to be one that attacks fast, does zero damage, but applies crushing blow and open wounds, so that he can say, "See, it's slow, but we're still doing some decent damage!" That's a bad recipe for success when it comes to a WW Barb. It's a terrible character FOR HIM, and for HIS PLAYSTYLE. I find a barb self-found playthrough to be pretty miserable in general because I feel like the grind to level 30 is tedious as hell. But once you unlock WW, things get a lot better, and I liked WW a hell of a lot more than I liked a Singer barb, or a Frenzy barb, or a Concentration barb. But that's because I level up my characters, and I farm, and I try to keep up in power instead of just rushing to beat the game at level 62. If you play like Llama, WW is a terrible, not fun build. If you play like most people play this game, you'll have a much better experience.
@@ferallemur, well, I certainly appreciate your well-thought-out response. I hadn't considered that it was strictly through the eyes of speed running only. Thank you for pointing that out, as well as giving the counter mindset.
The LF Amazon should be "S" tier - she can plow through enemies like they aren't even there. It's an excellent build for playing non-expansion mode too (where you don't have acess to all the good stuff that was introduced in LoD). Hammerdin shouldn't even be on the list - it's considered a joke among veteran Diablo players.
@@AlexeiVoronin we're not talking about how YOU feel about it, we're talking about utility. Can the character do it and a hammerdin is THE cookie cutter in this game. Charging around, killing the large packs with ease, high defenses and hp, high damages and almost no immune.
@@AwoudeX But how people feel about it is important - we play the game for the sake of enjoyment. If merely einning is all thgat matters, then they might as well just add a "Win now" button to the main menu (kinda like they offer instant level-up in WoW). That will surely save us the whole hassle of actually playing, right?
@@AlexeiVoronin wrong, part of the game should be cookie cutter, so casual players can play those builds instead of some fringe weird build that requires best of realm in EACH slot... A huge part of the enjoyment comes from playing together and your reductio ad absurdum (the "win now" button claim) doesn't change that. Not all people feel the same.
Well I’m planning a SSF throwbarb as first char for D2R so wish me luck. At least it’s slow so I’ll have plenty of time to admire the remastered graphics. Then I’ll move on to hardcore with probably a lightning assassin. Great vid as usual MrLlama
For HC you cant get any better than summon necro, first time trying it in regular mode i only died once at a bottleneck in act 4 hell cause I rushed myself
Lightning fury not S tier??? There are nice areas you can one shot entire screens of mobs same with lightning sorc, this element will have you go all places with ease in hell once you're decked out, so start as a blizz and when you've got some gear going, switch to lightning to have a far wider range of things to do other than meph runs in hell...
My favorite PvM character I ever built was a vengeance paladin. Such a fun PvM skill in the mid game. All elemental builds have issues in Hell difficulty due to monsters with resistances, though, so hammer/smite was always my go-to to defeat e.g. Uber Tristram bosses and those annoying resist-everything wraiths near hell Baal (and I think in arcane sanctuary?). There's a lot of builds on your list I've never tried though so maybe when D2:R comes out I'll try some new stuff.
I'm sorry MR llama the enchant sorc as melee solo is where you went wrong. Try going down the exploding arrows Enchantress with treachery path. And gloves have to be laying of hands or grave Palm(chaos sanctuary), Some sort of ias belt, one 10% fcr ring with resists the other needs raven Frost, and the bow is your main source of damage but on the switch is spirit and hex fire and be sure to have some high frw boots with resists/life. It makes it able to kill most enemies in the game if you fire enough bolts/arrows at it. Using a cross/bow frees up your mana pool to use energy shield for survivability.
Summon necro doesn't scale well in diablo 2 original. I seem to remember getting a set that had +5 to summon mage skeletons, +5 skeletal mastery. The experience was similar to "can't progress, but you can hold them off indefinitely" which turns into "not enough bodies to win" on bosses.
We're planning to do a party of 3 once D2:R releases. Do you have any suggestions for a party comp there? We could just each pick an S-tier and go, but I'm wondering if there'll be something stronger based on synergies between classes?
Lots of fun combinations you could make. I really like enchantress + summoner. Maybe a pally in there for the conviction aura and to be the front guy in some places like the maggots lair. But enchanting the summons is hilarious.
I liked vengeance/conviction pally ever since D2 started giving the monsters immunities. You basically do 4 kinds of damage, and 2 of them are going to have like -100 resists on them. And although this is SSF, having high level conviction aura always made you popular with party members.
The ideal weapons for this is Breath of the Dying in ethereal burserker axe. (Gives you poison and magical) For a cheaper option is run full Immortal Kings with a Crown of Ages.
I would like to see a more long-form video discussing the pros and cons to the top builds for each class. Also why specifically you put the builds where they are: I'm surprised to see summons ahead of bone and trapsin as high as it is. I knew the builds were good, but I wasn't thinking they were ahead of a sorc. So having a bit more detail about what pushed them up and how you weighted "good" would help me understand what I'm missing.
"Fishy" (summons + CE) takes most of normal to get rolling, but is extremely safe and can tackle pretty much any pack in NM/Hell without worry. The only thing that slows it down is a dual phys/fire immune that can't be broken by amp or lower res. The biggest drawback to this build in SSF is getting your initial corpses, solution: never get hall of pain waypoint. Make skeles from the corpses before they revive and that starts the pain train. If you make it to late end game and enigma, teleporting onto amped enemies kills removes hitboxes and stacks your skeletons/revives to pummel whatever you are telestomping. Pro-tips: never put more than 1 point in skele mages, unlike PoD they are next to worthless in vanilla AND enjoy all the curses - you can basically crowd control just about anything with curses (dim vision, attract, decrep) which makes this even safer in NM/Hell.
@@sroy2 got it, and thanks for the detailed description. I legit haven't played a summoner since like 2002 because ppl hated on you for causing lag on Bliz's primitive servers. :D
@@sroy2 I legit just finished Llama's guided playthrough and summons are a nightmare. He struggled to clear every boss. I get that it is safe which makes it appealing for SSF, but good grief was it a mess. If you want to roll a fishy just roll bone till your in hell. Or roll a sorc/pally first then crush everything overgeard. I wont be able to recommend Summons for anything other than being really safe, and my preferred leveling spec will stay bone.
Hammerdin and summon necro is all fun and games until you reach maggot lair.
Corpse explosion is great in maggot lair
Only have to do it once
@@teroe2322 CE is great in every area of the game 😁
@@anupregmi4205 yea its the strongest skill in the game
@@omartrufflez5305 its more of a pain to the 1st time player who would choose pure summoner build and then regret not having teleport staff 😂 my first character was necro and I did choose skelly build, you probably know what happened in maggot lair 😂 it was ages ago tho, probably 15 years back lol
When I was young I always specced for most light radius because my monitor was bad. No wonder I had hard time killing Diablo.
I put 20 skill points into Warmth and melee everything with my Sorceress and it takes over 60 hours to get to Hell.
pro strats
Try it with a leaf made in a +3 Warmth Battle Staff, the +9 total to Warmth might cut your time down to 50 hours :)
But were you cold though?
More lightradius builds!!
The author of 50 shades of grey asked if they can use your story for their next book on masochism :')
Still undecided what build I'll play when D2R drops, but I know one thing... I'm playing all the way through, side quests, full(ish) clears, listening to all the NPC dialogue, like its the first time again...
Stay awhile and listen!
Would be amazing if this was linked into the builds you put together in previous videos. Great stuff!
I actually got into Diablo 2 again after years of never sucesfully finishing hell and got all the characters through with your tips and knowledge share. It's amazing how much there is to know in order to finish the HELL. There is very little chance of success without learning a lot. You are doing a lot for us casual players! Thanks a lot!
Yes!! Good idea!
I lost alot of HC chars in hell.
@@scrubfive9239 happens to the best ;D
Disagree on Throwing Barb, later on (after lvl 40 I think) you get modifiers "replenish quantity) on throwing AXES, so you'll never really run out of "throws". Also Throwing axes count as both Throw and Axe weapon, so you get benefit from both masteries. Left click you put couple of points into Frenzy and swing couple of times to get damage\speed\AS boost, then you start nuking monsters. I forgot what Elite version of throwing axes are called, but they have very strong base damage as they are axes.
It's actually very fun build to play around, and I think it might even be better now, considering you can get some boost with runeword items that give different auras and perks.
this is the video we've all been waiting for. also i played frozen orb first time through, good job younger me. 10 / 10 would recommend.
Younger you knew what he is doing ;D F-Orb with Fireball Metero max can clear everything and can wear alot MF without loosing much power.
Just switched into a bliz/orb sorc and enjoying it a lot.
It's about time someone made a tier list for D2!
Maxrollgg has plenty of tier lists, although they're mostly for characters already 70
I've always done sorc for first play simply because teleport is priceless. mf is easier and can find gear for all your builds you want to make. and start bringing them up. also having a rusher to trade rushes for your new characters is great
Whirlwind was so crazy in vanilla, where it didn't depend on the AS of the speer. xD
Ye like d2 classic whirlwind barb 😀
Ww is still good. Llama’s problem was that he refused to slow down and farm a bit in his guided ww playthrough. You need decent gear for ww including a decent amount of crushing blow.
@@jprec5174 Well I think he primarily judges the builds based on how fast you can progress through the game and transition to magic finding, which is applicable to a lot of players not just speedrunners. But honestly, even end game WW barbarian is not that great because he is still only good at aoe damage and struggles with bosses, as it is hard to fit crushing blow onto a WW barb without gimping your magic find %.
WW is very effective but it requires so much HR''s and ists and shit... still my top 1 enjoyable character to play
@@RodrianoEU not it doesn’t. All you need is an Oath and duress and you can do players 8 hell. No other melee build can do that.
D2 twenty years ago: Barb slaughters everything in a whirlwind of death armed with a Rare Pike. D2 today: I'd rather spam Concentration
Holy shit! You just brought back memories of a pike ww barb I had back then. Hahaha thanks for jaring that memory loose.
its sad
Ebotd warpike ww barbs are still strong.
Ww is still one of the strongest builds in the game. People just have shit ww technique.
@@jprec5174 most people dont have the time to make an EBOTD doing SSF
@@johngaughan9399 You do not need ebotd to enjoy WW. Oath is pretty ez to craft in SP and gives You quite a jump in damage .. dual oaths + Even a cheap Lionheart /goblins and You are set... Most if not all youtubers are so used to caster privileges (sorc and hammerdin mainly) that doing a simple Tri whirl seem like pulling this magical thing so súper hard to do....
The best way to do a ssf playthrough with whirlwind barb is to play d2 classic instead.
Dont xfer to expansion until you find steeldriver. When you do, shael it and upgrade it.
Or just run nm andy for bonesnap that works too
WW Barb is the best character in 1.00 classic.
@@scuniverseyoutuber4404 steeldriver is unique
I realize that bonesnap unique maul would be way easier to find, steeldriver only drops in later acts like hell mode
Please do a MFing build tier list
I'd love to see what you think
Of course Blizz Sorc would be the go to build :D
I quite like Barbs for MF, but you need enigma for the Teleport. But the find item skill is major.
I remember I used to join cow levels CS runs, etc and just run around using it on all the corpses. Found a fair few decent items doing so without the mad dash for the grab.
Recycle barb I call him haha.
Top 3 are Hammerdin, zerker barb, Blizzard or orb sorc
@@dbarnes8923 I mean... you need infinity lol. Ber x 2 mal x 1 and ist x 1... isn't exactly starter friendly and you don't really need to MF at that point
the best motherfucking build is the Samuel L Jackson build, duh
He did on stream.
Mr Llama, My friend said he has played with you. He’s the one who turned me onto your channel. We both grew up in Tulsa in the 90s
One thing on this list perplexes me. I am currently doing a Bowazon only playtrough with PlugY (at lvl 78 rn) and to me Ice Arrow and Lightning Fury are definitelly NOT on the same tier. I don't know what tier they are but Lightning Fury is without hyperbole like 10 times better than Ice Arrow. I have my character optimized for Ice Arrow but got fed up with it and bought random 20ias Javelins from Charsi and tried Lightning Fury and it just clears screens its so good. You can also have a shield equipped with Javelins which gives you options to stack res, as a bowazon, I'm strugling super hard with survivability because of it.
Are you using Ice Arrow or Freezing Arrow? Freezing Arrow will output more damage and handle Lightning Immunes pretty well. It'll just guzzle mana though
Pretty sure this isn't a tier list on what does the most damage since Smite would be near the top if it was just based off of that.
@@GiuseppeG11 Yes, but It's not just damage. The lightning javazon is so much better in every regard. It has better AOE, better Single Target, Better Survivability. The only thing it does worse maybe is dealing with immunes but I'm not sure of that either.
@@andrewburek1469 I'm running Freezing Arrow, I always mix them up.
I really hate how the whirlwind barb was destroyed. He was so much fun in Classic. yes, his skill was broken for the time. 10xhits per target up to 10 targets? But they shold have reworked it in 1.13 imo. Even with a barb only armor.
WW barb is pretty good since you can reach it’s potential at lvl 50 once you max it. 20 points into sword mastery, 20 points into WW, rest into BO. As long as you have a good weapon you should be good. Frenzy requires a lot of deadly strike and good weapons
honestly WW barb is my favorite and no matter how "bad" it is, I will always play it and it's my favorite. I do wish they would show it love and fix it to be more viable, but unless they do balance changes after d2r releases then it's going to be a no go for the most part.
@@shaylinjames2729 it's good the problem is that you need a very fast weapon or DW to get value out of it. You also need a ton of life steal. Unfortunately barb is not viable until you have the resources to craft a grief. Without grief it's near unplayable.
@@shaylinjames2729 Project Diablo and or Path of Diablo will probably use the D2R graphics on their $hit. So you can run with their class changes...eventually.
@@robbytherob oath exists though, it makes ww viable without hr investment.
This video is a very good idea to welcome more people into D2R when it launches! This will also help me to make recommendations if friends ask for advice on what character to pick at first.
I would love more tier lists like this so that we can benefit from your encyclopedic knowledge of D2! Best characters for: mf in lvl 85 areas, PvP duels, leveling (that could even be split into sub-categories like baal runs), finding keys, farming high runes, gold finding, farming bases for runewords, ladder reset, etc.
Thank you Llama. I see you catch the feeling of your survey. Most players on D2 are aged and have small time to play, so SSF. Don't get me wrong, we still play sometimes MP but most SSF. Ill probably do a Holy Grail on single player at first to learn again old mechanics of D2 (very used to pd2 aka best mod).
I think your chat missed the fact that this tier list is SSF.
might be a stupid question but what is ssf
@@MykeThaFartSmella69 I'm not sure but I think 'solo self funded/found' aka you play through the game without inheriting god tier gear from outside the current play-through
im still trying to figure out what the fuck SSF means
@@JungleScene It is solo self found, it is a term for a gameplay mode in Path of Exile where you cannot trade with other players.
This is great news for me and my friend. We decided to go Summon Necro and Trapsin for our HC playthrough when D2R comes out.
Wow! Nice combo
The problem i always had back in the day was that the best builds were one element (because of synergies, you only had a few points to throw into another element, meaning it wasn't strong enough to kill anything in hell). So when you were in hell and ran into something immune to your type (in particular, my frozen orb sorc dealt with this a lot)...all you could do is run away to try to teleport passed it. Good for meph runs-if you had maphack so you didn't die on your way to the boss. Hell difficulty is the primary reason why soloing is such a pain, because almost every enemy is immune to something so you will run into a lot you can't touch.
there are some skills that don't require many points to do enough damage to wear down that pesky immune. firewall is one of them
@@AwoudeX Hmm, that's a possibility. Couldn't really use firewall back in the day because any PC that wasn't state of the art would damn near completely lock up at firewalls (was a popular 'trick' for PKers, to throw up a few fire walls to lag out most opponents so they couldn't run away). Same issue with lagromancers, one of those bastards crossed your screen you would see like the first few skeletons/revives, then only see one screen every few seconds until they had completely moved off your screen. Can't tell you how many times i'd see a necro go hostile on me, then a second later my game froze up until i was dead and he left. Praying that isn't the case these days
So happy to see Bonemancer build on A tier. Necro's my all time fave char.
Zerk barb is also not completely awful for ssf. I did it with an insight bill. Maxed howl ftw, battlecry on everything you plan to actually kill.
I'm kinda mad you didn't put Holy Shock/Freeze Zealot here, he can be really strong and his clearing pace is so nice. But overall hard to disagree with your choices, great argumentation on why are they good/bad
The self found part is what would get most people, for those builds are expensive to truly shine.
@@ickn2005 Right! Hammerdin is so easy to build up. It's like you could find little bits and pieces easily every single time along with making just a few runs of the count and you're set. I remember playing H-din 2006 I think? It's blurry... but my buddy was like why are you using that skill it's really bad. Then I was the first one to make it through hell with a pally haha!
@@muhammetmelikkolgesiz9252 dude the title of the video says „SSF” which standa for Solo Self Found and I just spoke about that manner of playing through the game with the so called Tesladin (or holy zealot as people name the non-Dream Holy shock zealer) and he does just fine throughout the game, he might be a bit slower than his high-end version, but he’s definitely playable for SSF plathroughs! Just finished such playthrough and he was completely fine with a few deaths here and there but overall the character seemed strong
@@arekwisniewski6933 How'd you deal w/ lightning immunes?
@@cjregunay1668 not fighting them if it’s not neccesary, otherwise by having some degree of physical dmg from my weapon. It’s takes time to whittle them down but possible
Wow, I guess young me did alright.
I absolutely loved Frozen Arrow when I was younger and I kinda wanna do it again just for nostalgia purposes.
Very reasonable! Thanks for the well-informed opinion. I feel better knowing what to completely avoid. Some of the mid-tier I will still try out, but I am now NEVER gonna waste my time on any of the D tier hype.
Conc Barbs are badass and super underrated. Yes, they are slow but they are also tanky af and very Hell viable. However they are pretty heavily gear reliant imo.
you obviously know this but damn perfect timing, really had no idea what is good in LoD since I've been playing pd2 lately but hadn't played d2 for like a decade before that. thanks for sharing the knowledge!
I actually prefer to start with Zeal+Holy Shock Paladin and run nightmare Countess to get enough runes for other build. Double spirit runeword is enough to do good damage, also gamble circlet and amulet for +2 pal sk.
The next upgrade is "Crescent Moon" (Shael+Um+Tir) Phase Blade.
"Treachery" (Shael+Thul+Lem) Armor is also good for this build. Starter helmet could be Ort+Sol.
This build is quite cheap and lightning immune monsters are usually undead, thus could be killed under Sanctuary aura.
Nice :) From the little I have been researching and know about Diablo 2 from way back when, this seems like a good list to me~
Can you give us a PVM SSF HC tier list? I would guess it'll be fairly similar with a few things changed due to the nature of HC.
I guess druids might get better because of tankiness, sorc a bit weaker as they can die so easily ... Overall Pala, summon necro and trapsin still rock hardcore
According to Llama amazons are also pretty rough to initially get through the whole game in HC.
@@TheSummoner Amazons are completely fine once you know what you're doing. The rough thing with them is it's easier to die because of a mistake you make 5 seconds ago than other classes because their casting frames are too awful for emergency teleports and decoy takes more knowledge to use well for CC than curses, warcries, etc.
@@Sara_Feingold I see, well I've honestly never played hardcore before, hence why I was quoting the opinion of MrLlama, but I guess his is more tailored towards speedrunning than regular playing.
Fishymancer (summ necro with corpse explosion) is possibly one of the safest and least gear dependent one.
His wind druid also almost made S tier, and wind druid survivability is pretty high as well. You get a constant stun (due to hit recovery from mobs) or at the very least a massive slow all around you. And don't forget massive life with Oak Sage, and the best minion in the game next to valkyrie, the Bear.
Summon necro is always going to be the main. But I enjoy mixing Wind and Summon Druid as a hybrid.
It would be very interesting how the tier is in groups. I know you made already a guide on optimal groups, but maybe if you have already two S-tier damage dealer how would advantages and disadvantages of the a-d tier characters come into play and would the difference be closer or higher for certain types?
I think a singer barb is S-tier for group play in HC, at least for an initial play through with junk gear. Mainly because you can trivially make the toughest enemies (souls, dolls) harmless.
Use taunt on souls (or archers, etc) to stop their attacks and pull them into melee range and stun them. Use howl or stun on dolls. Extra fast, extra strong, frenzy boss pack? Baal waves? Also harmless, everything gets stunned. Nowhere are you safer than with a singer barb in the group, except perhaps with a summon necro.
Gear is trivial to find - you can run dual spirit swords, stealth, lore, crafted barb caster amulet, and resists on everything else (rings, boots, gloves, belt, charms), and it’s viable all the way through A5 hell. With your massive life pool, you only need to max lightning resist, so you don’t need a spirit shield or smoke armor, and with everything stunned, you don’t need defense or block.
The weakness is that damage sucks past A1 hell, and the build is useless against bosses. Lightning enchants also suck, since you have no leech and you attack at close range. Champions have a low chance to be stunned, but you can outrun them if necessary. And of course you are useless against physical immunes. You can have a second set of melee gear to patch some of those weaknesses, but it has to be really good gear to do anything with low skill investment, and needing to invest STR or DEX to equip a good weapon loses a lot of VIT.
All the downsides make it a poor solo build, but the crowd control and BO make it an amazing party build. It lets otherwise squishy party members do more damage because the need for caution (kiting) largely disappears.
I wouldn’t say a hammerdin is a group build, in the sense that they are so overpowered that being in a group usually drags them down, because they are tanky enough that they don’t need help on defense or crowd control, and they kill faster than most builds with little worry about immunities, so they don’t need help on offense either…. They’d be better off running on their own separate from the rest of the party in a lot of cases (except maybe places hammers suck, like maggot lair).
@@Randomorph I thank you for your comment and taking the time to write it, it was really useful.
I love Paladin aura build, lvl 56 right now, just every point I can get into Holy Shock and Resist Lightning, and I just casually strolled through Normal and Nightmare only having to swing my sword at boss enemies, everything else dies in a couple ticks of shock damage. And it is instant, and it all hits at once. So like walking into a pack of 30 enemies(players 8) all 30 take 1-600 lightning damage per tick, they all drop dead in no time. It's basically a mostly AFK build, i love it.
Auradin is very good. I always spec like this and then respec to hammers once reaching hell difficulty.
@@jalefar8247 This is my first play through and just about to finish Act 2 of Nightmare and yeah starting to think I might have to respec for Hell since the aura is doing less and less dmg. Though I know I can get another like 30 levels of holy shock using the Dream runeword i think? So i am wondering what the dmg will be with 2 Dreams and like 25 hard points into Holy Shock
@@FirstLast-gk6lg The damage will kill anything in the game. But it requires two dreams.
@@richmusick4881 Yeah and getting two Jah runes seems unlikely at best haha even on Players 8 all through Normal and Nightmare I have only gotten up to Sol and I hear people talking about literally never seeing a single high rune in all their games
@@FirstLast-gk6lg Also works very well and will be cheaper if you want to farm for an Infinity first for your merc. You might even be able to make a Grief farming for it which isn't too bad to get. I managed to get 2x Sur (LK farming, i'm done with that as it is way too boring for me), 4 Gul (2x LK, 2x Cows and Chaos) and 1 Lo (cows) but never got the luck for a Jah.
As all the runes i've found in SP doesn't even equal a Jah in the end, the odds of getting 2x playing casually is insanely low. I would use it for an Enigma instead even for that build without hesitation.
Hammerdin is in fact the S tier build for playthrough, MF and PVP, which is actually not that cool tbh
yea. its way too strong, I never play it because its easy mode. Likely going to play vengeance pally for D2R
Totally most overpowered and busted skill in the history of the franchise. Does anyone remember how good diablo was before everyone realized how insanely autopilot and stupid hammerdins are?
Fuck, I'm old.
@@richmusick4881 it’s still good you’re just being bitter
@@richmusick4881 franchise? Game maybe but franchise? I feel D1 apocalypse and D3 corpse spear are more powerful.
@@procow2274 Kudos for mentioning apocalypse
I'm surprised Summoner makes it in so high above Bone necro, but it's a pleasant surprise :) You're literally the only YTer I've ever seen ranking the two like that though.
A properly played summon necro is absurdly strong. At low gear levels nothing compares. Back in the day I had a GG geared summon necro on bnet and it would clear uber tristram faster than a geared frenzy barb :D
I 100% agree with it being the second strongest character for self found after Hammerdin
@@Mammel248 surprised it's not first tbh. I cleared up to ancients in hell ssf easily and safely on hc with summon nec. Paladin can do it too but probably not as safely.
Bone clears most stuff faster (Bone Spears travel faster than Skellies after all), but is so dependent on getting White from Nightmare Countess. I think that's the thing holding it back from S tier here.
I feel like there should be two separate tier lists, one for twinked and one for untwinked. Untwinked javazons struggle through hell solo, but twinked javs can handle literally everything very quickly except the cow king on p8.
Untwinked javazons are fine SSF if they have Freezing Arrow for immunes. It's hardly a struggle.
@@absalomvane7776 the point of this tier list is not what characters can solo through hell, it's how easily they can do it. You can respec any character to eventually clear any act.
I believe Leaf availability combined with being able to buy a +3 fireball base with a little effort pushes Fireball sorc to S tier. There is nothing like being able to SMASH normal and nightmare with minimal effort because you have +6 fireball on your weapon alone.
EDIT: Fire gets a bad rap because there are so many fallen in A1 (fire immune) If you can stomach having to tele around to the next area you'll be fine.
Totally agree with this.
One personnal point. From the S tier builds, the sorc is the only one that requires way more gear to deal with Uber bosses than the rest but the teleport part to farm gear definitely make up for it. For an all content untwinked i would put it borderline top A. I also found that balancing Bone spears and Summons for necro does make it better for P1-3 and before getting the right gear to switch to full summon/poison/bone. The 1-2k bonespear damage that one can get really make targets like council members, NM/Hell bosses at lower level more manageable and also help getting that first kill for explosions. The summons are great tanks, add some good DPS especially against bosses and allow your merc to survive way more easily without being well geared which covers where a bone necro struggles.
I also do find that build easier than hdin for the earlier part as it never really struggle with Souls (at the worst, use Dim vision), who are just a real pain in the butt until you get an enigma for your Hdin. They scales way better into endgame gear by that point however and never require a skill reallocation to deal with higher player settings. For solo and hardcore, i would put them just after Summoner for this reason, especially that the necro have skellies, revives, bone armor, prison and curses as extra available protection.
Bowazon nearly C-Tier, was once easily S-Tier. Same for WW Barb, its sad what they did with 1.10 :(. Kicksin was also nice prior to 1.10, I always had fun with it in 1.09. Please make these builds great again Blizzard and bring back Hell Cows and cow channels in general ...
What happened in 1.10?
Synergies happened. I strongly disagree that rushing hell cows and then sitting in a corner until you're level 85 was more fun than what we have now. I also strongly disagree that 1.10 "ruined" anything. Synergies are an awesome idea they just need much better balance to widen the meta and bring more builds into viability.
A kicker can still be good but needs to be hybrid and still use death sentry
@@aliebrubaker7473 I think that is more-or-less definitionally false. Before, you could use any one of the top tier skills for your class, and your other 91 skill points were free to be used however you liked. After synergies, you could use any one of the top tier skills for your class, and then 40-80 of your other points get tied up in actually making that skill live up to its promise.
Synergies made the meta "builds" more defined, but they sucked viability out of more creative spreads.
But I do agree that D2R could use a balance patch, to flatten that curve a little
@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos then explain how in 1.09 and before there were basically only six or seven builds that could even be really used. Zealot, WW Barb, Meteorb/FW Sorc, Nova Sorc, Wolf Druid, Fury Javazon, Fishymancer. Anyone playing anything other than those builds was meme'ing. Sin was an actual joke. Bear or elemental Druid, nope. Bowazon was meh. Frenzy or Zerk Barbs were pretty ick. Sorcs using blizz or fireball or lightning would be scratching cows versus orb.
We have at least that many builds now and the synergies are balanced like garbage. If they actually put any effort into balancing it would make a huge difference. One thing synergies definitely does is create a case/use meta. Monsters are difficult in hell because synergies added power creep like crazy. Certain builds are absolute rulers of their domain (Smiter for Ubers, for example, or the Pitzerker for non-act boss mf runs) where they are extremely strong but are atrocious for other content. Both of the above are trash for clearing cows or chaos/baal.
Pre synergies, damage was just straight balanced on a 1:1 ratio against monster strength so any build that hit certain damage milestones could do all content as well as others or nearly.
At the end of the day, pre or post synergy a lot of viability rests straight on the developers shoulders. I believe synergies allow for a wider meta because skills can have multiple synergies and builds can be more complex without just being weak IF the skills and synergies are balanced.
Very long time ago I had a holy bolt pally. Holy bolt has probably the highest synergies in the game with 2 skills at 50% so about 16k holy bolts isn't to hard to hit and you could hit something like 7k self found with dual spirits a lore. You can only really farm pindleskin crypt / mauso and ancient tunnels but those are all capable of dropping most of the best gear. So actually an ok build to hell MF with pretty low gear but not really as good for solo playthrough for obvious reasons but you could honestly make it work. I ended up using that character to bot farm in HC hell with nigma and an Edge/Delirium/Treachery bow merc, good times.
I was so disappointed when I tested out and found that Holy bolt does damage only to Undead and not to anything else. If it did magic damage to everything else and extra damage to undead, fist of heavens might actually be interesting to try out.
This is where PD2 comes in. They are the updated version of D2
@@Moonface00z so much this
@@Moonface00z could agree more. Project Diablo 2 🙌
@@Moonface00z I heard its good mod, but what makes me anxious is Splash Damage on EVERY melee weapon, it should be added for few certain skills like concentration, berserk, maybe some skills in martial arts, but making it for all weapons in close combat makes it just thrashy, cheap solution, didnt like to see it.
@@lovegood2188 After this change melee is still subpar in comparison to ranged skills. Don't be intimidated by this change, try the mod!
I see alot of newer players try to play Hdins but get wrecked in Maggots lair or whenever the mob runs close to the wall so I just have to say this to the newer players: Hammers will spawn from the pally himself and then spiral outwards meaning to hit those targets against the wall or in the maggots lair you have to walk up to them and cast at point blank range. That's also why Hdins with Enigma will teleport on top of their target when casting hammers.
Wow good video. You did many playthrough and this is a great overview. Crazy to think that shout is above WW barb. This is very helpful. Thanks!
Tbh maybe I'm just super Newby but whirlwind barb is actually doing really well in NM for me.
The real trick is managing to keep up your attack rating by choosing a weapon type early on and sticking with it. Swords seem to work really well as their high attack speed synergizes with whirlwinds damage procs.
Its not as reliable as shout barb, but if you have the attack rating to keep up with the area levels, whirlwind barb is probably a solid high C low B tier build imo.
I played 100+ hours on my necro solo. My game crashed and lost my character:/ well. Welcome aboard mr din. Time to throw some hammers lol
Bruh no joke I did a SSF like 10+ years ago. On a hamdin after same thing happened to me. But was a different reason... 🤣 then my bro got hamdin account banned lvl 92 ladder used MH for 3 days w.o me knowing.
Would be great if D2 could make every skill at least viable. Gets old playing the same builds over and over
Yep couldnt agree more
Llama wants some skills to be shit for meme game. But its fair to have alternatives
This should have been fixed for D2R. Having unviable skills just for nostalgia sake sucks.
Some skills could use buffs, like Nova, druid summons, assassin martial arts...but so many skills in this game fall into one of a few categories
1. Worse versions of other skills (ice/fire bolt, power strike et al from javelin tree, cold/fire arrow, teeth, twister, poison explosion)
2. Skills that compete for a single slot (paladin auras, druid sage/creeper summons, necro golems)
3. Situational skills that require too many points to be useful (Stun, Conversion, Holy Bolt)
4. Mechanically deficient skills that are never going to be good without a complete redesign (thunderstorm, armageddon, blaze, inferno, wake of inferno, poison dagger, impale, sacrifice)
5. Skills that always have been useless or have been neutered by changes to game mechanics (increased stamina, warmth, solar creeper)
6. Skills that might be ok if they weren't bugged (Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Fend)
7. Skills that have been inexplicably split out into multiple semi-redundant skills (elemental assassin ma skills, frost/chilling/shiver armor, dodge/avoid/evade)
8. Boring skills, like most melee skills which are just "attack, but harder" or "attack, but faster"
9. Skills that are hampered by opaque and arbitrary rules (Multishot, Whirlwind, Vengeance)
So once you get down to it there aren't really that many candidates for buffs. Like you can buff Paladin defensive auras all day long and still no one will use them or even put points in them for anything other than synergies. You can make Concentrate hit harder but it's still mechanically identical to just attacking. You can buff Ice Bolt damage through the roof but no one wants to use it because it's boring and slow. The skill trees should have gotten a complete overhaul with LOD but alas...
Surprised by seeing Whirlwind on D-tier. Had fun on my Whirlwind playthrough. (Will admit it had a slow start, but fun).
I actually just started mine yesterday. Didn't get to play much, I think he's like level 7. But I have okay'ish gear for him, IK set minus the armor. Also Arreats and some other random decent uniques for him if I want to try them out. I've got Sigon's and Angelics for early leveling. I'm looking forward to it. WW was great back in the day. (Playing with plugy mod)
Charger Paladin is pretty easy to ssf since you can focus on weapon damage rather than +ias and base weapon speed.
I'm a big fan of full Mav's frozen arrow. Big CC, resistances and MF. Cheap to start out and if you get decked out with cold facets it can contend with Ice. Strafe deals with cold immunes pretty well too.
I always played SSF. Once the druid came out in the expansion, I played Werebear. It is slower, but you one shot everything outside of the act bosses. Huge Life pool makes it so you can stand toe to toe and destroy them. Run into the center of a pack and take them out, without worrying about being overwhelmed. Fighting Duriel (the scariest boss in my opinion) was an easy stand in his face and send him back to hell, not even losing half health. Ive never made that fight, and many other fights so easy with any other character or build .
Great video! There are so many guides that have builds which include a ton of expensive items. If you can afford COH, Last Wish, etc. you probably don't need a guide.
It's funny, last I played was around 1.10, maybe 1.11? The tier list I'd set from back then is basically exactly what you have here. Fun.
This is the video I've been waiting for! Thank you!!
Part of me feels like double swing/frenzy barb could be in the A tier. At least from memory back in D2 OG. One of my favorite characters was my ds/frenzy barb. He murdered in pvm and was difficult to kill, for a melee char, in pvp. (Admittedly certain ranged specs could annihilate him.) He could regenerate life fast enough with life life leech to tank diablo's lightning and baal's big attacks through nightmare difficulty. I didn't have to really ever drink pots until hell.
I never really played around much with whirlwind back then because I thought it was too tedious. But that's the barb I'm playing through right now in d2r. It's been noticeably harder than I remember with my ds/frenzy barb.
I use a Fend zon.....it's like the dollar store version of zeal. is playing this type of zon a form of self harm? if so I think I need help 😥
Man last time I played Diablo 2 WW was king. So sad to see it fall! Was fun spinning around.
I do not understand Blizzard Sorc in S-tier and Lightning Sorc in B-tier? They both run into immunity issues, but 1 item fixes that for Lightning, while your Merc must do a decent amount of damage to get by as a cold sorc. In terms of gear, both can get by with the full Tal's set, Spirit, and Magefists and both need Infinity, but it is far more effective for Lightning.
For me S tier
Poison Nova Necro. Hammerdin. Javazon. Bow enchantress. Nova sorc. These are the fastest killers in the game (8 player) I wonder if i am playing the same game as LlamaSC who has poison nova as B tier and enchant sorc as D tier. Bow enchantress can take out everything like the hammerdin with the right gear and probably faster.
Subscribing to your channel now, great content! Do you plan on doing a playthrough for shapeshifting Druid before D2R release?
That would surely be DBrunski s pick for D2R
Could be one to throw in there for the guided playthroughs :D
Interesting to see Dtail sin in C-tier, I find Dtalon along with a beefy shadow + maxed Dsentry is quite strong pvm... rng was good to me and dropped a pair of 200% gores in nm CS :D Totally agree with WW barb D-tier for ssf, you do need gear for him to get his damage and leech up to sustain such a hungry skill and even then manaburn is cancer.
ssg for mmc with my ddf rng pvm crt and a bdsm aol.. this is how Diablo slang sounded to me before i started playing :D
I think he is rating the builds lower because they take more gear to start getting strong.
@@majupiju2347 of course, he does ssf in all his playthroughs so that makes a huge difference. My main point (that may be a bit obscure to people not playing assasin) is that he had the dragon tail icon for a "kicker" when I consider a "kicker" to be a dragon talon build. You can build with both but that likely means you're not getting death sentry which is the best PVM skill the assasin has (and you dont really have to worry about scaling the lightning damage on it through synergies, all you are after is the corpse explosion).
DTail&Tiger Trapsin hybrid with Infinity merc and Lawbringer. Thank me later. ;D Insane lightning and fire AoE damage. Definitely not C-tier lol, she can faceroll players 8...
@@sixmillionsilencedaccounts3517 well duh.. "infinity" :D without it you drop to /players 3 or lower to maintain speed =)
For new players for single first time just build anything you like. I've seen the silliest builds in D2 and alot of them work. I've seen bow pally or Meele sorc. D2 it's great for the first time tho once your in nightmare you might want to respect .
I can't wait for the guides on some of these builds. I'm looking forward to playing a druid all the way through for the first time ever. I never played druid back in D2 originally and have been waiting for D2R to do the complete play through.
You'll need to do an elemental druid (I suggest Hurricane). Fury werewolf is more gear dependent. Summon druid is only viable on Project Diablo 2 and maybe Path of Diablo.
Ive been playing zoo drood just for fun
Im doing a summon druid with a mix of transformation. Because it's fun and this game is not a job. Ffs
Thank you so much Lama, great content as always!
Well, I was not expecting WW Barb to be so abysmally low. I've never really played barb, but that playstyle is typically the one everyone would recommend. I wonder why everyone was poggin' so hard for it 🤔
Something to keep in mind is that even when he isn't speed running, Llama rushes through the game. He is ALWAYS dramatically under-leveled, and usually quite under-farmed compared to just about anybody else's playing experience. He runs through areas, and if he does stop to kill anything, it's a boss pack. If he's playing a physical damage character, it's inevitably going to be one that attacks fast, does zero damage, but applies crushing blow and open wounds, so that he can say, "See, it's slow, but we're still doing some decent damage!"
That's a bad recipe for success when it comes to a WW Barb. It's a terrible character FOR HIM, and for HIS PLAYSTYLE.
I find a barb self-found playthrough to be pretty miserable in general because I feel like the grind to level 30 is tedious as hell. But once you unlock WW, things get a lot better, and I liked WW a hell of a lot more than I liked a Singer barb, or a Frenzy barb, or a Concentration barb. But that's because I level up my characters, and I farm, and I try to keep up in power instead of just rushing to beat the game at level 62.
If you play like Llama, WW is a terrible, not fun build. If you play like most people play this game, you'll have a much better experience.
@@ferallemur, well, I certainly appreciate your well-thought-out response. I hadn't considered that it was strictly through the eyes of speed running only. Thank you for pointing that out, as well as giving the counter mindset.
The LF Amazon should be "S" tier - she can plow through enemies like they aren't even there. It's an excellent build for playing non-expansion mode too (where you don't have acess to all the good stuff that was introduced in LoD).
Hammerdin shouldn't even be on the list - it's considered a joke among veteran Diablo players.
No one wants to like hammerdin. But you can't deny it is an extremely powerful build.
@@masonvukovich3158 Powerful - yes, for sure. But powerful in a way that feels cheap. Undeserved.
@@AlexeiVoronin we're not talking about how YOU feel about it, we're talking about utility. Can the character do it and a hammerdin is THE cookie cutter in this game. Charging around, killing the large packs with ease, high defenses and hp, high damages and almost no immune.
@@AwoudeX But how people feel about it is important - we play the game for the sake of enjoyment. If merely einning is all thgat matters, then they might as well just add a "Win now" button to the main menu (kinda like they offer instant level-up in WoW). That will surely save us the whole hassle of actually playing, right?
@@AlexeiVoronin wrong, part of the game should be cookie cutter, so casual players can play those builds instead of some fringe weird build that requires best of realm in EACH slot... A huge part of the enjoyment comes from playing together and your reductio ad absurdum (the "win now" button claim) doesn't change that. Not all people feel the same.
Well I’m planning a SSF throwbarb as first char for D2R so wish me luck. At least it’s slow so I’ll have plenty of time to admire the remastered graphics. Then I’ll move on to hardcore with probably a lightning assassin. Great vid as usual MrLlama
What is SSF means?
@@ergunakdogan8772 Solo Self Found
Great job. Would love to see one for HC!
For HC you cant get any better than summon necro, first time trying it in regular mode i only died once at a bottleneck in act 4 hell cause I rushed myself
So among 7 characters with 3 skill trees each, after 20 years, you've managed to get to about 12 builds that don't completely suck ass.
You know you're a bad skill when a man with 10k+ hrs can't recall your name. Feelsbad
Lightning fury not S tier??? There are nice areas you can one shot entire screens of mobs
same with lightning sorc, this element will have you go all places with ease in hell once you're decked out, so start as a blizz and when you've got some gear going, switch to lightning to have a far wider range of things to do other than meph runs in hell...
Yeah, I’m surprised lightning wasn’t S tier. Just run Infinity and destroy everything. 👌
For a Trapassin Blade Fury is great way to spray a group or a boss with a "prevent monster heal" weapon.
Enchantress is Amazing in group play, in solo its rough. If you find a Demon Machine, Solo enchantress is actually really fun!
Dual dream enchantress can do 50K+ per hit, its just really expensive.
It is beyond insane. The only build aside from Hammerdin that annihilates huge crowds and bosses both without having the change skill.
My favorite PvM character I ever built was a vengeance paladin. Such a fun PvM skill in the mid game. All elemental builds have issues in Hell difficulty due to monsters with resistances, though, so hammer/smite was always my go-to to defeat e.g. Uber Tristram bosses and those annoying resist-everything wraiths near hell Baal (and I think in arcane sanctuary?). There's a lot of builds on your list I've never tried though so maybe when D2:R comes out I'll try some new stuff.
I just noticed you uploaded a let's play as a vengeance pally the day after I wrote this, haha. Glad you got to experience the fun as well.
I'm sorry MR llama the enchant sorc as melee solo is where you went wrong.
Try going down the exploding arrows Enchantress with treachery path. And gloves have to be laying of hands or grave Palm(chaos sanctuary),
Some sort of ias belt, one 10% fcr ring with resists the other needs raven Frost, and the bow is your main source of damage but on the switch is spirit and hex fire and be sure to have some high frw boots with resists/life. It makes it able to kill most enemies in the game if you fire enough bolts/arrows at it. Using a cross/bow frees up your mana pool to use energy shield for survivability.
TH-cam voice 😍
Wind druid takes almost NO gear to do well with, and once you're geared he is a wrecking ball. Definitely S tier for me.
Agreed, I’m pretty well feared at 87 and can walk through almost everything endgame atm. Only a few areas get me,
LOVE THE SUMMON NECROMANCER...MAIN REASON I PLAY THE GAME!
Arctic Blast Druid OP
Hydra is viable in hybrid builds. I'm working through hell in HC with my frozen orb/hydra sorc.
Thank you for the list!
Question,are you going to do a pvm tier list for project diablo 2?
Can't wait to play my trap assassin again!
I'm playing the frozen arrow sorc.
Aura Paladin. Make your presence shiver Diablo himself!
Can't wait for D2R!!! Nice video.
@mrllamasc Do you know if there are any plans to rebalance any of the "D" tier skills at the least?
Summon necro doesn't scale well in diablo 2 original. I seem to remember getting a set that had +5 to summon mage skeletons, +5 skeletal mastery. The experience was similar to "can't progress, but you can hold them off indefinitely" which turns into "not enough bodies to win" on bosses.
@MrLlamaSC Holy shock / Holy freeze is a solid solo self-found choice. I believe it's sharing place with zeal on the chart.
We're planning to do a party of 3 once D2:R releases. Do you have any suggestions for a party comp there? We could just each pick an S-tier and go, but I'm wondering if there'll be something stronger based on synergies between classes?
th-cam.com/video/lNdi3aCAkWk/w-d-xo.html he made a video about this kind of
Lots of fun combinations you could make. I really like enchantress + summoner. Maybe a pally in there for the conviction aura and to be the front guy in some places like the maggots lair. But enchanting the summons is hilarious.
I was going to make a hurricane druid but I’ll do more research. For now I’m working on the fire elements and will get a grizzly bear for a tank
I remember playing Summon Necro, the whole party became furious when we went to Maggot Lair lmao.
That and arcane sanctuary
I liked vengeance/conviction pally ever since D2 started giving the monsters immunities. You basically do 4 kinds of damage, and 2 of them are going to have like -100 resists on them. And although this is SSF, having high level conviction aura always made you popular with party members.
The ideal weapons for this is Breath of the Dying in ethereal burserker axe. (Gives you poison and magical)
For a cheaper option is run full Immortal Kings with a Crown of Ages.
I have played a Fend Amazon. It's very hard to hit small enemies, but a god boss killer.
I would like to see a more long-form video discussing the pros and cons to the top builds for each class. Also why specifically you put the builds where they are: I'm surprised to see summons ahead of bone and trapsin as high as it is. I knew the builds were good, but I wasn't thinking they were ahead of a sorc. So having a bit more detail about what pushed them up and how you weighted "good" would help me understand what I'm missing.
"Fishy" (summons + CE) takes most of normal to get rolling, but is extremely safe and can tackle pretty much any pack in NM/Hell without worry. The only thing that slows it down is a dual phys/fire immune that can't be broken by amp or lower res. The biggest drawback to this build in SSF is getting your initial corpses, solution: never get hall of pain waypoint. Make skeles from the corpses before they revive and that starts the pain train. If you make it to late end game and enigma, teleporting onto amped enemies kills removes hitboxes and stacks your skeletons/revives to pummel whatever you are telestomping. Pro-tips: never put more than 1 point in skele mages, unlike PoD they are next to worthless in vanilla AND enjoy all the curses - you can basically crowd control just about anything with curses (dim vision, attract, decrep) which makes this even safer in NM/Hell.
@@sroy2 got it, and thanks for the detailed description. I legit haven't played a summoner since like 2002 because ppl hated on you for causing lag on Bliz's primitive servers. :D
@@sroy2 I legit just finished Llama's guided playthrough and summons are a nightmare. He struggled to clear every boss. I get that it is safe which makes it appealing for SSF, but good grief was it a mess.
If you want to roll a fishy just roll bone till your in hell. Or roll a sorc/pally first then crush everything overgeard. I wont be able to recommend Summons for anything other than being really safe, and my preferred leveling spec will stay bone.
There's something so addictive about tier lists :P
Frenzy Barb, Veng Paladin, Wind Druid & Frozen Orb Sorc
any class as some sort of defense vs stygian dolls but sin what do you do ? cloak of shadow and mind blast?
Decided to make a new assassin and lvl ele MA eventually using Phoenix strike. Doed a handful of times and having so much fun still
Arctic fur jav zon sleeper build if you've never tried it...need an act 3 merc tho....and I have no idea what I'm talking about