D2R Ladder Season 5: Top 5 Budget Builds For The New Ladder Start

Since D2R Ladder Season 5 is coming soon, here I want to present to you my personal top 5 builds for different classes to start at the beginning of the season.

I will show you the skill trees, the D2R Ladder Items, and the stats with empty inventory so you can directly see which charms you need to improve your resistances. I will also include as many Magic Finds as possible without losing too much stability or performance. In addition, there are also farming recommendations for each build to progress quickly. 

Paladin Build 

Let’s start with the Paladin.

There are two popular builds the Hammerdin or the FOH. In the end, we can play both builds with the same gear. I prefer the FOH because it is so much more comfortable to play, especially as long as you can’t teleport yet.

Here is the gear of the FOH Paladin build.

• Double Spirits
• Skin of the Vipermagi
• Rockstopper
• Pick Rose Branded Amulet 
• Trang-Oul’s Claws Heavy Bracers
• Credendum Mithril Coil
• Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
• Ring of the Apprentice
• 2 Nagelrings
• Nai’s Puzzler Elder Staff

The build already has maximum fire and cold resistance. With lightning and poison, you would have to add charms. In addition, we also have up to 78 Magic Find depending on how high the Nagelring has rolled. The Holy Bolts have up to 4000 damage at maximum cast rate.

Paladin Farming Spots

The top farming area for an FOH Paladin is the Chaos Sanctuary.

With the staff, we also get there very quickly. It is also good that we have maximum fire resistance. You can also get resistances by Salvation Aura. But it is inconvenient to be dependent on it. It is so much better to have the Redemption Aura standard, so you heal mana and life points by consuming Corpses. 

There are many other good spots to farm as well. The Pit also has only undeads and demons and it is a T85 area.

The Forgotten Tower is also no problem, just like the Arcane Sanctuary. 

Besides Diablo, you can also run Andariel. The only animals that can appear there are spiders. Mephisto basically works too, but the way through the Durance of Hate is ugly without teleport.

In Act 5, Pindleskin is a nice farming spot. But whoever loves to farm the cow level rather plays a Hammerdin because there are the FOH is useless. 

Necro Build

Next, we have the Necromancer as the starting character quite unpopular, but this has the advantage that the D2R Ladder Items for him are quite cheap, especially the torch later on.

In addition, we can play a Poison Necro very easily, which can even farm quite a few areas because he has both poison and fire damage.

Here is the gear of the Poison Necro build.

• Trang-Oul’s Claws Heavy Bracers
• Trang-Oul’s Scales Chaos Armor
• Trang-Oul’s Wing Cantor Trophy
• Lore Grim Helmet
• Venomous Amulet
• Immortal King’s Detail War Belt
• Immortal King’s Pillar War Boots
• Blackbog’s Sharp Cinquedeas
• Spirits
• 2 Nagelrings 
• Garnet Ring of Dexterity

In the change, hand the Gull and the Rhyme shield, so we can get a boost of 125% Magic Find when changing weapons. So, the Necro can poison the monsters and then just switch weapons. It counts how much Magic Finds a character has at the time of the kill, not at the time of casting.

By the way, a handy companion for all characters is an inside mercenary. Since Necro doesn’t have much life, you have to play very carefully and touch a lot.

Necro Farming Spots

The poison damage has a disadvantage that it works slowly. It’s a nice thing. With this playstyle, you can use the MF switch and so the Necro really gets a good bonus.

For the Poison Necro, the Forgotten Tower is a good spot and also the Secret Cow Level works fine thanks to Corpse Explosion.

Arcane Sanctuary is also okay. You can farm Eldritch & Shenk. But in principle, you can also run many more maps and preferably Terror Zones because poisoning new monsters can also be killed with the fire damage of Corpse Explosion and the lower resistances can even break immunities.

Assassin Build 

The Assassin has become a very popular starting character because once you have double Mosaic, there are no limits and the Runeword is not even that expensive.

For farming the resources, Lightning Trapsin is great. Thanks to the fire bomb, it also has some alternative damage against light immune monsters.

Here is the gear of the Lightning Trapsin build.

• Spirit
• Leadless Wall 
• Treachery
• Lore
• Cunning Amulet of Bone Spirit
• Laying of Hands Bramble Mitts
• Credendum Mithril Coil
• Natalya’s Soul Mesh Boots
• 2 Nagelrings

In the change, hand either Gull and Rhyme or the Teleport staff. In principle, you can choose one of these two possibilities with each build .

Assassin Farming Spots 

The Assassin only has Magic Find from the two rings. The boost would not hurt, here.

But to get Mosaic quickly, it’s best to farm D2R Ladder Runes, anyway. So, you run the Forgotten Tower, hoping for a good rune drop. The low rooms can be cubed up.

The cow level should also work as soon as you have sufficient damage. It is also great for farming D2R Ladder Runes and your claw bases.

Kindle Eldridge and Shenk are also easy, just like all the usual spots for lightning builds. And of course the Arcane Sanctuary. You can also find some super chests here. 

Amazon Build 

Keep the mentioned farming areas in mind because they are also interesting for the Amazon. The build is of course a Javazon.

Here is the gear of Javazon.

• Titan’s Revenge Ceremonial Javelin
• Laying of Hands Bramble Mitts
• Credendum Mithril Coil
• Dark Adherent Dusk Shroud
• Rite of Passage Demonhide Boots
• Telling of Beads Amulet
• Valkyrie Wing
• Spirit
• 2 Nagelrings

Amazon Farming Spots

As mentioned, the build can farm all the usual spots for lightning characters but the true potential is in the cow level. So, whoever likes to farm, their best builds are Javazon.

Sorceress Build 

The most popular starting classes are of course the Sorcerers. Thanks to the teleport, she offers a big advantage. She can complete boss runs very fast. 

My recommendation is a Lightning Firewall build as long as you have no Thunder Charms and stuff to play mono build yet. The Firewall only should handle light immune monsters. For that case, it is sufficient to maximize it without synergies or mastery.

Here is the gear of this build.

• Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest Death Mask
• Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye Swirling Crystal
• Tal Rasha’s Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt
• Skin of the Vipermagi
• Spirit
• Arch-Angel’s Amulet
• Magefist
• Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
• 2 Nagelrings

The Sorceress is, of course, a glass cannon with about 1,000 life. We have to pay attention. The resistances are weak compared to the other builds but the most important are okay, lightning and fire. In addition, we get up to 140 Magic Find.

Sorceress Farming Spots 

The Sorceress can also farm her usual lightning spots, but that’s not what we made her for.

Thanks to teleport, boss runs are done very quickly. Both Andariel and Mephisto can be farmed very easy. This would probably also work great with the Fireball Sorceress as well as with a pure Lightning Sorceress when you just concentrate on the bosses.

But with the hybrid Sorceress, we can also do much more. Even the hell rush shouldn’t be too hard.