Its a very open theme. Sometimes you would need more than others. The berserker axe is probably the bext axe, giving good damage, and an aggressive toon, it's like, you would need good leech in order to stay on top. But there is the issue of the life tap curse, you know, skellies n such, they don't give leech naturally. So doing life tap curse, now there is a good curse, maybe dracula's grasp, you leech like crazy then. N the merc gets it too.
I am making a tankzon for thes leader reset, and leech will be something of a factor. I will focus on highter defense, n maybe also doing the inner sight spell. Now that is an overlooked spell. The defense minifier may seem a bit small, but add 5-10 points, you get about 30% lowerede defense from monsters n even bosses. In terms of leach, now you start hitting more, n that increases survivability. I like that. Then you get penetrate, +30% attack rating.
Crafting blood ring, maybe even blood helmet, it's a good thing, to get that leech as soon a possible. Yes, there is undead monsters everywhere, but it's like, one can play strategically, do some potting along the way ... and sometimes, monsters of other sorts are mixed in with the skellies, one can do the switcharoo, take one, then take another. That goes for your zealerman too. Do some skellies, if you don't have dragula's crap, then do some other monsters, then go back.
I mean, when you're at a high level liek you are, you deal probably 2000 damage plus, Even if many monsters have like 50% leeach effectiveness in hell, EVEN just 1% .. now you're leeching 20 - 50% = 10 life, but that's every single hit, so you het 5 times a second, minus defense, like 3 times a second on average, that's sixty life every seconds... and that's even just 1 percentage point. So it adds up a bit fast. But obviously, the more the merrier. 5% .. now you're talking. 100 life each leach hit. Very cool. It sucks up life very nice.
I did spearzon too back in the day, some years ago, i mean 2-h spearzon. Upgraded hone sundan, now there's a weapon, i think i reached 100% crushing blow, lol. But still did not do CRAZY amount of damage. But the point here is leach. She leeched enough to just jerk up the life barn constantly. But the zon naturally has quite little life ... sadly. And i don't buy cta and such .. it gets so tiresome to cast that every 2 minutes or so... so managing with like 1300-1500 life in hell, it's just not enough, you get a nasty pack, you need very good armor n such, i did manage to get around, but the nasty packs, they take 200-500 hit points off each hit, it's just too risky for hardcore. Hardcore is a different beast. You cannot play the percentages. You will die sooner or later. Sometimes you will get a lot of hits in a row, while maybe missing yourself, then it's ko. I was forced to go back to nihtmare in order to fully enjoy the build. Otherwise i would need really strong gear, like fortitude n such, evne if i proc'd the fade on treachery, still not hard enough to take the nasty packs.
But leech is still vital to make it okay.
D2:R