There is no doubt that you want to create the most powerful build possible to begin the ladder season in order to get a head start. However, we still recommend that you choose the class and build that best suits your playstyle, and even try out some of the abilities that were updated in patch 2.6. Before we get into the Top 4 Best Ladder Builds, let's take a moment to quickly go over the best builds for each of the classes in Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder Season 3, as well as show at what stage those builds are at their peak effectiveness:
Tapson, Lightning Sentry Assassin is a character in the game.
This is without a doubt the most effective assassin build in the game; it's simple to use, deals a lot of damage, and keeps you relatively safe all at the same time. It uses the "1-2 punch" of lightning sentry to start killing enemies with lightning damage and then death sentry to start exploding those corpses with massive corpse explosion physical and fire damage. Additionally, as of patch 2.6, the removal of death sentry as a synergy for lightning sentry actually has a nice side effect. This is because the removal of death sentry as a synergy for lightning sentry actually has a nice side effect. Now that we have more money, we can put more into fire blast, which will improve our damage mix even further. This build is great for beginners because it does not require a lot of gear to get started, making it the ideal choice for assassins who are just getting started in the game. It has high mobility even before it gets teleport thanks to the assassin's burst of speed skill, and while you shouldn't be taking too many hits with this build, even if you do you're still pretty tanky. That being said, the gear can be quite rare and expensive if you really want to take this build as far as it can go.
The Fissure Druid, also known as the Fire Druid, is a build that is simple to learn but challenging to master. It is excellent for clearing out large numbers of demons with the help of the Fissure ability.
This build performs exceptionally well in areas with a high concentration of enemies that are not immune to fire, such as the secret cow level, the flare jungle, and the stone tomb. But once that fire druid is geared, once you get a raven lore helm which reduces enemy fire resistance by 25 percent, a Phoenix D2R runeword shield which gives you another negative 28 to enemy fire resistance, and an infinity rumored on your mercenary which gives you the Palin conviction aura which further reduces elemental resistances, then the fissure druid outperforms the wind druid in the majority of situations.
There is no other build that is more suited to elite hunting than the berserk barbarian, which is widely considered to be the best barbarian build in the game.
Once he has acquired all of the necessary equipment for this build, he will be able to teleport at the same rate as a sorceress who is using an enigma. You begin by amassing an unprecedented quantity of magic find, and then you combine that with the find item skill that barbarians have, which allows you to yell at a dead body in the hope that it will give you a second piece of loot as a drop from the body. This build is absolutely phenomenal for farming ultra-rare, unique sets, and rare items in Diablo 2. When the champion, unique, or super unique monsters that you are hunting are surrounded by minions, the howl ability of the berserker makes them just run away, clearing the area so that you can engage in a one-on-one battle with your target. Because the berserk ability itself deals magical damage, it will be extremely unusual for you to face an adversary that is immune to your attacks. The Berserk Barbarian performs well in most farming runs, but it is the best build for farming the pit. It is also amazing at farming Pindleskin and the newly buffed Stony Tomb. However, the Berserk Barbarian is not a build for the early game because it requires a significant investment in gear to get it going.
Smite Paladin (Smiter)
The Smiter is an exceptional build for killing bosses, particularly uber bosses; as a matter of fact, it is the optimal build for gathering hellfire torches. He relies on the power of the ability smite, which deals a significant amount of damage to a single target with an attack that never misses, and he is enhanced by the fanaticism aura, which increases both damage and attack speed. It stacks even more attack speed, allowing you to attack in a blindingly quick manner, and then it stacks crushing blow, allowing you to deal enormous chunks of damage with each hit. On top of that, the spider is exceptionally tanky because he can stack a lot of resistance on his gear, cannot be frozen, and holy shield grants a huge defense buff along with a lot of block chance. When you combine that with the incredible sustain provided by Dracool's grasp gloves, which have a 5% chance to cast life tap, you get a skill that allows you to leech back 50 of the physical damage you deal as healing and gives you a chance to heal yourself for the same amount. This is a physical build, so you are doing physical damage with a 5% chance.
However, because you are attacking so insanely quickly, you are going to have a lot of uptime on that life tap, and as a result, you are going to be regaining health very quickly. If you're wondering why the Smiter is so low on this list, considering that he has low-cost starting gear and excellent late-game options for gearing, it's because, apart from farming Ubers, he doesn't have much to offer. This is not the build you are going to use for farming in general; rather, you are going to use it for Ubers number one.
