Desnar said:
I just started ladder, i played a lot in the .09 patch but im fairly new to .11. im wondering what the best builds would be for some things, keeping in mind im still very poor (best eq = skulders and spirit sword)
best for:
1. countess
2. summoner
3. nihalak
4. pits
5. baal
all in hell.
Since you are just starting you need to focus all your assets on one build. You want to use a sorceress because she can teleport(faster runs) and you don't start off with enigma.
Any dual element sorceress will work. Lightning requires more expensive gear to work, so I recommend going with cold and fire. I very highly recommend max block with a whiston's guard shield (very low dex requirements.) You will be glad for max block teleporting through the halls of pain/vaught.
Use an act 1 normal defiance merc and stick an insight polearm on him. You should easily be able to cube the runes for insight.
A standard cookie cutter build is the meteor-orb. You use fireball as your machine gun for most of your killing, meteor for long range bombing of archers, and orb for fire immunes.
You might also consider a blizzard-fireball build.
My personal favorite is a blizzard-firewall build, though she is slightly slower runnung the pits. Use glacial spike as your main synergy rather than ice blast and you can freeze lister's minions for easier Baal runs. Firewall requires no synergy to be effective so your blizzard and glacial spike will be powerful.
A hydra-orb build is also quite good (I am using one now) and plays a little differently than the other builds. She is a very safe build an can run some of the moe dangerous areas that are not usually run for more variety.
Check out the stikied guides in the sorceress forums.