Re: Coming Back Would Love Some Help!
Well, sounds like you hit the trap that many folks get into on softcore, the hell rush. It's really only beneficial for those who have enough gear to upgrade once they hit those high levels. The best approach for your first character is to level them up the normal way, taking advantage of a few growth spurts when beneficial (such as some trist runs early on, or some baal runs once you hit high enough level for that act). The benefit of levling normally is you collect gear along the way, so you don't start behind the 8 ball (much) when you hti higher levels. Not to mention you gain experience playing your class. When you don't' have great gear and are leveling, you really have to use all your skills to survive. I've done some thign swith my toons that have amazed some peeps, and i didn't consider them really amazing, since i had to do most of those same things to survive as i leveled.
So it's up to you, re-roll another toon, or just work the grind on the one you have (hope it's not a hammerdin...you've got a long way to go gear wise if that's the case, they are very gear dependent). But here's a few tips for yoru recent 80 if you want to build it up. keep in mind that it will most likely feel very boring for awhile...your going to have to run stuff that isn't a great challenge until you amass enough gear to make playing viable. here's what i'd do...
1) run multiple baal runs yourself, killing everything along the way (I'd start with normal Baal if your seriously naked as a toon). This is an excellent approach to get socketable items, and pgems, as well as random magic drops. grab all the wands, orbs, and magic armor you find (they sell for good gold), and once you hit a decent amount of gold, gamble it away on rings, necklaces, and the like.
2) repeat this process until you have a decent selection of pgems available, then hit the trade forums and browse for a bit, checking prices out. place a few bids for items that would benefit your 80, and do the in-game trade, or create a mule account for the trade. Do this a few times and you will start to see your gear grow.
3) head up to nightmare baal once you get some decent items, and repeat the process. In nightmare baal you will start to see some gear that will really benefit you in the long run. Skin of the vipermagi, peasant crown, etc. make yourself a set of MF gear (helm/armor with perfect topaz for the extra M, find a set of rare magic boots with mf on it, etc.), and this will speed up your gear grinding. By the time my HC sorc was in hell i already had 2 blue rings with decent MF, a pari of rare magic boots with MF and fast run/walk, and armor and helm all set up with topaz's
The key is its not hard, but it will take time. And in the future, don't accept rushes
they key for a rush, is if you have the gear ready once your toon hits that level, then its worth it. If not, don't get the rush. As an example, if you have good gear for your toon in teh 40's, a rush to normal baal isn't bad at all. But i'd walk them from that point. If you have good gear for the 50's or 60's, a nightmare rush is probably doable, though i still play all my toons once i get past normal. You really need experience with playing the classes to do well, unless you really are given a complete uber set of gear (which happens too much nowadays, unfortunately).
But this still isn't really beneficial. I was watching my son and his friend play. His friend was 'rushing' my sons new paladin (his friend has a hammerdin, with about 95% gear given to him and he was rushed by his brother). his friend couldn't play the toon worth squat, had no clue what his gear was about ( he was calling his peasant crown a shako), and after that my son asked me if I could rush him instead on our next gaming day. I told him id get him to nightmare, and he'd have to play after that
