for HC as far as i've noticed soloing is the only way to go.
i personally did around 18 points to vita, the extra armour and life will go a long way.
Barb's probably one of the easiest to solo upto MQ, especially with low fg.
If you haven't noticed there's a few donation threads in the HC trading section, where i'm sure a few of the items would benefit you enormously.
If you are having trouble selecting items to buy, shoot me a pm and i'll give you some decent advice on what items to get.
currently on my first HC climb as well (although i've done 9 softcore climbs) at least 7 of which were barb climbs.
Available for help for softcore barbs as well, feel free to shoot me a pm. (i can help other classes as well).
I'd give a decent suggestion of climbing as high as you possibly can before rerolling. With under 20 fg you could reach level 40 even on HC. There's a small chance of finding a nice item worth 20 fg++++ (could reach 1k if you hit a nice one on HC) from levels 25 onwards. Finding a very nice item under level 20 is very small, although there's a lot of items which will sell 1-20 fg at low levels.
I'm not the only one here to help,
you could make a post here:
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=35883837&f=272Some suggested ideas to ask.
1. Can you suggest some items on the marketplace for me to buy? (they should usually tell you to buy some really nice stuff for the fg you have, REALLY GOOD IDEA TO ASK)
2. Stat builds
3. Are proficiencies that useful? or should i buy a higher ee weapon but i have no profeciency of or one which i have level 2 profeciency of..
As i said, i can answer some questions for u as well.