Lol someone watches too much Llama vids…
The best way is fire bolt, ball to beat Normal, get Forb/Mastery, then pump everything into Hydra as your secondary. You will already have 2 of its synergies pumped with bolt/ball/
Forb+hydra is a GG combo to work Hell.
This and meteorb is the way to go imo. Not too much of a fan of hydra though a lot of people tend to be these days. But it’s all personal taste. Maybe hydra would be better for HC but I’m not sure.
Ice path to Frozen Orb + Cold Mastery. Spec into Energy Shield/mana to be extra tanky. Damage is good and very safe for hc. Left over points into hydra and a single point in static field for immunes.
Lots of people will suggest Nova for this same reason. Nova can give you good clear and has enough skill points to use Energy Shield for safety.
My guide,its written before 2.5
I think its petfect for what you ask. Detailed walkthrough, its made for harcore and also solo.
Its fire. CB is too unpredictable and nova requires too close of proximity for HC to always be safe.
Enjoy
Orb / hydra. No respec.
Orb
Hydra
Alternate masteries.
Fire with TirRal Staff through normal.
Without immunities and high resistances fire is extremely strong, and works still pretty good until Act2-3 in nightmare.
When getting first Spirit Respec into Lightning Nova. Can be done early NM or later depending on the preferred playstyle.
Max out Nova + Static + some points in lightning Mastery.
Meanwhile built cold tree up to frozen Orb + one point into mastery.
Continue maxing Nova + Orb, which should carry you through the campaign and let you far most terror zones.
After campaign farm terror zones for cold sunder, and when you get it use second respec to built into cold.
Maxed out cold lets you play everything. You could stay cold or farm the necessary gear for other builts.
You must be joking, fire will start to struggle even on normal, nm is already big problem in chaos and baalrun.
Yea update lol he died several times learning HC
We were in discoord and it was comical. He finally got it down to just doing trist runs until lvl 12 then going NOVA and smashing mana pots. He is lvl 65 now and I am doing runs with him safely.
Nova + long range static is actually really good leveling
I’ve always run fireball with ease to get to lvl 30 then I respec to whatever I’m planning to roll. Its very fast and leaf is a cheap runeword for a huge budget boost early on. Ive done all 3 paths many times, in my experience 1-30 is fastest using fire.
He is playing HC, For that is ice blast much better. Not only it one shot almost everything but it will freeze enemies too so they cant do anything. Then you can just progress into blizzard or go Frozen orb. Fire will struggle gretly in certain places like baalruns or chaos.