I found full Tals set Occy and had my spirit monarch by day 3.
You only need to reach level 40 to do nm ancients. You'll be 41 after ancients, then 42+ after baal . You can farm the gear you need for other characters to play for later.
I make a cold Sorc get to hell ancient tunnels by level 42+. I can handle it fine without dying much, because everything is so slow, and find all the gear I need. Try not to use a merc it will just keep dying.
I make an amazon using lightning fury and start farming hell pits at level 42+. I just start killing all those little devilkins and undead and anything that is not lightning immune. Lightning fury will vaporize them even at low skill levels. You do not have to have the best javs, even basic ones will vaporize them.
I make a lightning Sorc and farm countess in hell at level 42+ to get runes I need.
That's all you need are those three areas to farm. Screw everywhere else until you find gear that suits you. You level very fast in those areas and find monarch shields to make spirit within the first day.
These three areas do not require anything more than just basic gear and you don't need any resist to kill the trash that's very weak.
as a hardcore player, I would be to scared to attempt any of those areas in hell at 42. even with top end gear for a lvl 42 i would be afraid.
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A Fireball/FrozenOrb sorc is by far the best starter class with crap gear.
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For newer players, sure. Forb is the easiest. You wont have an effective dual sorc at lower levels though, for that its best to pump into one or the other.
Combine what info is above into 1 pure light sorc, even without infinity, you can clear the Pits and Countess with proper play and farm your runes and gear.
It was just for getting up to Hell Baal. Respec to whatever you want afterwards. Me, I prefer switching to Blizzard. I’d rather farm runes in Cows and Chaos. 
Lite immune archers often spaws with countess
With a cold/fire you can handle everything except the countess, this one you just stactic her and let the merc have the killing blow
Fixed that for you… Doesnt happen enough to deter the strategy. Even if they do, Merc handles them as long as you get him a good eth thresher early on and a treachery.
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Countess is a great source for lower runes. I’ll farm her a lot in normal to get a stock of Tir runes as well as most of the runes for Insight, Ancients Pledge and Spirit. I usually acquire the rest as I press onward.
I find archers with countess about 1/3 - 1/4, and about 1/2-1/3 of the time they are champions
Element enchanted archers will dispach your merc in a blink
We are not talking about a “eth thresher” merc and lem takes roughly 100-200 runs to be droped for treachery
We are talking about a merc with crap gear from NM
I go pure lightning sorc and finagle my way through Hell (Ancients especially), and get to farming Hell Countess/Summoner/Eldritch/Shenk/Pindle and maybe Nihlathak as well, this gives lots of runes, uber keys, and XP to get you to 85+ fast. Then I go Blizz sorc and farm out Andy/AT/Trav/Meph/Cows and maybe Chaos or Baal or Nihlathak as well. And then I’m pretty much at the point where I have lots of everything one could need/want for any variety of characters/builds, and I relax and enjoy leveling up the rest of the crew and doing whatever I feel like. This is what I did for D2R launch until now, anyway. I’m sure it’s not the best or most effective or efficient or anything else, but it worked for me. I think if I was ever allowed to play ladder (not enough character slots) I would try going Barb first to farm out Travincal like a madman, just to mix it up, since most every ladder I’ve played I Just end up starting with Blizz sorc and becoming a Meph addict for a couple weeks, but that’s such a boring/standard way to begin.
You should be able to farm an eth insight base and treachery going into Hell.
Lem can be cubed up or acquired from the NM forge, I know mine was back in Sept. I have also seen them dropped in A5.