Hey everyone! I recently decided to take on a difficult, long challenge: reaching level 99 SSF on a classic, hardcore Diablo 2 character. After calculating and estimating how long it would take me to reach this goal offline with Stitch, I concluded that the best option was a sorceress because she can teleport. After some time, I lost my third sorceress, and I realized that while this character is faster than the others, it's less durable, and if I accidentally teleport into a crowd, I'm dead.

After yesterday's death, I thought, "Maybe I should change my character class, which would take longer to complete the challenge, but at least be safer (because losing a character on hardcore is incredibly painful)." I'm currently looking for a good build that can quickly clear CS at 1 ppl and then quickly kill Diablo at 8 ppl (remember, I play offline, so I can adjust this). Could you please tell me if there are any good builds, other than Sorcerer and Barbarian (The Sorceress is glass, and I recently completed another challenge for the Barbarian and don't want to start with it), that could reach level 99 on Classic, hardcore or not? I'm leaning toward Amazon because I think she can clear everything quickly with her darts (though I'm not sure). Necromancer seems to be capable of something too. I really appreciate your advice and hope I can choose a suitable build and complete this challenge!

Thanks in advance.

hammerdin

Hmmm, well that's not a bad option, but as far as I know, Hamerdin takes a long time to clear CS

I play classic consistently, so here is my opinion.

BEST for hell classic is Barb hands down by far.

Sorc is only good if you have max block and res, otherwise you can become toast when the mobs hit in A4.

Next up is Hammerdin, yeah kinda slow, but extreme tank with max block (holy shield) and res, you should be able to tank hits and cast and clear mobs using pots.

I play necro.... its SLOW, and unless you have the items, mana, and skillset to revive/curse/corpse explode fast, your minions will get crushed and you will be next.

Amazon....there is no way without a high damage gothic bow...Carrion Song was awesome for this back in the day.

Now I have never gotten to 99, highest I got was 90 and then I just couldn't do runs anymore, how long do you think it will take to get to 99? Best of luck and if you have any questions I'll help

Going to take you over a year running 24/7 24 hours a day grinding 7 days a week for 99 😁😉XD

Hammerdin is strong 💪

GLHF!

Thank you so much for explaining everything. I think I'll stick with Paladin. I'll look into some builds. Maybe there's a Hammerdin + Smiter build, so I can quickly clear CS with hammers, and then use Smit to kill Diablo 8 players? Or maybe we can make a playable FoH Paladin, so I can quickly clear CS? I'll need to research all of this, but thanks for your help, I'll get to level 99!

Thank you so much for believing in me) It will take me 2 years, but I will get to level 99

And I didn't say how long it would take me. According to my calculations, I could complete it in about 1.5 years with Sorc, but with Paladin it would take significantly longer, at least 2 years.

pally and sorc can solo p8 until lvl 92 then its better exp/hr to p1 seals and rush diablo
barb kills far too slowly to p8 things after lvl 91
i wouldnt do p1 seals until then as the 2 main seal bosses are more exp than diablo


i would choose pally for this and its not even close
even on p1 it takes soooo long to kill dual immunes with no bo on sorc

youll have to decide for yourself if you want an easier time killing extra fast seal bosses or faster diablo kills
fohdin for the former hdin for the latter

barb is okish but without chant and amp killing phys immune on p8 is gross

gearing up a hdin/fohdin to clear p8 cs is piss easy
since you are offline you cant abuse quest drops it will be very grindy to gear up a sorc or barb that kills p8 cs quickly

only "viable" thing would be hammerdong