Re: rusher advice needed
1. can I say have 3 chars, 1 for each difficulty, already have the staff used so the door is open to duriel. I would not complete the quest with these characters, I would create the game then leave and bring the char i do want to complete the quest on.
ex.
rush mule1 to normal act 2, do staff, put it in and leave.
create mule2 kill andy, do summoner leave.
mule 1 creates game leaves, mule 2 comes in and rush the rest of the way through norm.
mule 2 completes everything up to opening duriels lair and leaves.
create mule 3, complete summoner quest, leave, mule 1 creates game and leaves. continue to NM summoner and leave.
mule 2 creates game with duriels door open and leaves. Mule 3 continues to hell summoner and leaves.
That would leave 3 shortcuts to duriel, one for each difficulty.
Mule 1 completes the staff head quest and leaves? If so, mule 2 CANNOT enter the palace basement area and CANNOT enter town portals there or arcane sanctuary or beyond. Mule 2 will be stuck and can't finish A2 in that game.
Each and every mule you wish to talk to Tyrael and complete A2 must have finished the staff head quest.
There is a "shortcut" which avoids needing the maggot lair piece. However, that "shortcut" requires killing each and every mob along the path from arcane sanctuary to duriel's lair in exchange for not doing the maggot lair piece. Killing every mob is required because the mule skipping the maggot lair can't enter town portals or waypoints in canyon of the magi or beyond.
If you are limited to 1 rusher and 1 mule per game, experience tells me that completing the maggot lair quest with a sorceress is faster than killing the mobs between arcane sanctuary and duriel's lair. Those factors change as you add more mules per game into the equations.
There is another shortcut that works much better. Your sorc rusher doesn't need to be in the game for the mule to complete A2. Talking to Tyrael then talking to NPCs in town completes A2 - killing Duriel just opens a door. Once your sorc rusher has killed Duriel, make a portal and send mule 1 down into duriel's chamber. Log off sorc rusher and join with mule 2, who is in A2 town. Mule 1 and Mule 2 join the same group. Mule 1 explores the chamber, talks to Tyrael, takes the portal back into town, talks to the NPC's and moves to A3. Mule 2 gets credit for exploring Duriel's chamber and talking to Tyrael. Mule 2 then talks to Jheryn and Meshif then moves to A3. Drop mule 2 and continue rushing mule 1. When mule 1 is rushed, finish mule 2.
2. regarding the 20 lvl restriction. assuming i can find someone that either:
needs normal baal and is lvl 40 so i can rush right to hell or
finding a second person that needs nightmare baal and is lvl 40+
can I take a lvl 1ish char to hell hellforge?
Glitch rushing works. A L20 character can get past the ancients to kill normal baal and glitch a character into nightmare. A L40 character can get past ancients to kill nightmare baal and glitch a character into hell.
People pay for getting their characters glitched. I've seen Puls to HRs offered for a glitch tag along. You will make more money glitch rushing others than the hellforge is worth. If you go the route of rushing your own characters, double up on the income by glitching others. If you are able to rush others, offer nightmare/hell rushes in exchange for L20+ and L40+ characters able to complete the baal quest.
3. assuming I am not going to invest too heavily at this time into a sorc, will basically any sorc build do for rushing? I can switch to barb for parts that may be easier with him(also mediocre gear atm but can take up to hell meph).
Not investing in a sorc may be the issue. Sorcs need VERY LITTLE gear to be effective in hell. Barbs need quite a bit of help in hell. Any amount of investment to get a sorc hell rush viable is more than enough to build wealth just by using the sorc instead of the barb. Spirit sword, Lore helm, Rhyme shield, Stealth/Smoke armor, non-elite insight merc weapon, treachery merc armor, life leach merc helm and random yellows/blues to fix resists/FCR/FHR can beat the game.
But to answer your question: Many sorc builds are viable for rushing. My personal favorite is pure frozen orb (max FO, synergy, CM, teleport) using the gear I mentioned above, minus the merc stuff since you won't need a merc. Pure lightning also works but takes a bit more mana to go as fast. Your merc needs to be pretty beefy to survive hell, which matters if you rely on insight for mana regen. All hybrids work but take more gear than a single element sorc to kill as fast.
4. would it just be easier to create a rushing sorc in classic and convert the mules to xpac after hell andy to avoid the lvl restriction? what lvl would the sorc need to be and would it need decent gear at all?
If you are dead set on doing hellforges and rushing, yes. However, the time it takes to create a classic rushing sorc will let you gear up a full Tal's sorc on expansion. A full Tal's sorc can run anything and becomes your means to build wealth. It's just faster to gear up a sorc on expansion and skip the middleman of classic.
I am really only rushing the chars for hellforge and socket quests. I will probably delete them after accomplishing that once I have more than a couple of them. Just so sick of spending 5-10 min on countess for an ort rune. Maybe if I can get some real income I can afford a LOD sorc for rune runs, but in the meantime the only income I have is trying to grab stuff before 7 other people do off hell baal.
Runes are really devalued since the drop rate changes. I personally don't think hell countess is worth it unless you want spirit/insight/crafting runes. I don't think hellforges are worth it either. In addition, 3 normal socket quests are easier/faster than 1 normal/nightmare/hell socket quest set.
The point is I am poor, my barb cannot quickly kill high lvl mobs very quickly because I cant get a Lo or mal for a grief. have a flamebellow and a barnars and lvl 86. I can kill meph in the time it takes to kill 10 act 5 mobs due to crushing blow wep switch.
the only other option I can think of is making a glitch meph killer, and just hunting games where they have killed meph already. I just don't know if he will actually give me anything useful though. No one wants crappy uniques anymore, got barnars for like 5 perf gems for example.
Pgems, spirit runes and crafting supplies are the most reliable way of obtaining early game wealth once uniques no longer sell at a premium. Luckily, those items are as plentiful in nightmare as in hell. Collect them in nightmare until you can afford gear that lets you survive in hell.
Barbs excel at Travincal council, horking, gold find for gambling, and Nihlathak for Dkeys. Those would be much better options than running countess or doing hellfoge rushes. None of those require something so expensive as a Lo or Grief.
oh well. Got it figured out so maybe another 15 runs or so I can get a grief