Just registered here (and if I've committed some sort of unstated taboo in posting this thread, please tell me), and I wanted to ask something that's been bugging me for a long time, which is what exactly it takes to beat this game.
It takes a bit of dedication, is all. Obviously, some builds are easier than others, and untwinked is always going to be slower than the twinked-to-the-gills style of play.
I finally completed Hell with an untwinked summon/CE necromancer, in the process burning through all of my enthusiasm. Beating the game that way was unbearable; getting through the Sand Maggot Lair was literally the work of hours.
Don't let this experience sour you on fishymancer/skellimancer characters. They are great at area runs, and the Maggot Lair, while a pain, is something you only need to do once per difficulty. It's not even hard, just annoying. To get through it quicker, unsummon most of your army, and just use your merc. By giving him a good weapon and supporting him with your curses (mainly Amplify Damage and Life Tap, if he needs it) and Corpse Explosion, it goes by pretty quick.
Also, do you know about the /players command? Hit [enter], type '/players8', hit [enter] again. This simulates more people in the game, which has a number of effects: monsters get more life, do more damage, tend to drop more items, and (this is the big reason) give more experience. You can set it back to /players1 in areas like the Maggot Lair, but keep in mind changing this setting doesn't affect monsters that have already been spawned (so use it
before entering an area if you can). By playing on /p8 the whole time in Normal difficulty, I'm often level 30+ before facing Mephisto, depending how thoroughly I clear areas. This means less grinding for levels, but it also means your minions and merc will have an easier time, because the to-hit formula uses relative levels of attacker and defender. Basically, level up, and your minions/merc will hit more frequently and
be hit less frequently.
Anyway, last month I decided to give it another try, and I really feel like I have to be doing something wrong. I tried to go with an untwinked Lightning Javazon, but was confounded by Act 2 Hell, again. My CL/Orb Sorceress didn't make it any further. I finally got bogged down with a Hammerdin and said screw untwinked. I respecced by Sorceress, Loaded her down with ~500 MF, and ground out some better equipment for my other characters. Not first-tier stuff, but way better than I'd had. That didn't do anything for my Javazon, who still couldn't get anywhere, but the Hammerdin made it all the way to the Worldstone Keep lvl2 before he got stuck.
I've never played a hammerdin, but Lightning Fury should be rocking the game through Hell and back. I'd go with Freezing Arrow as a backup skill; just keep a bow on your weapon switch.
Nightfish has a
nice guide, but the recipe is simple. Max Lightning Fury (big mobs), Charged Strike (small mobs and single targets), Freezing Arrow (lightning immunes), and Cold Arrow (damage synergy for FA). Keep your resists high, even on the bow switch (especially lightning resist, as you will use this switch for killing gloams in Hell difficulty). Load up on +skills gear, as it increases your damage output, get some piercing (from Razortail belt and the Pierce skill), and away you go. Physical damage on your weapons doesn't matter much at all.
No matter how carefully I move, or how methodically I work, I can't so much as reach the waypoint. There's always some stupidly-powerful unique pack, or a swarm of wil-o-wisps or undead fetish, or just a big pack of well-composed monsters, that manages to surround and kill me, even with a belt full of rejuv potions. I made it to this point, easy enough, but I just can't get past this.
The problem might be less in your skills, and more in your expectations. Hell difficulty is supposed to be hard. When playing untwinked, Normal can be tough (as opposed to dangerous) because your characters probably have weak gear and their skills are lower level and not heavily synergized. Nightmare is more dangerous, but also when your characters come into their skills and start finding good gear, so often you steamroll through. Then you hit Hell, and hit a wall.
Remember you need to be able to reliably inflict at least two types of damage to kill things in Hell, because of immunes. This doesn't mean you do one type and the merc does a different type. It means you need to do two types, and if you're lucky, the merc does a different type. Otherwise, you will need to skip some monsters. Some people are okay with parking monsters, but others (like me) like to be able to kill everything, at least in theory. The fishymancer does loads of physical (minions + merc + CE) plus loads of fire (CE is half fire) damage, and has curses to lower physical and elemental resists. A paladin can use Vengeance or one of the elemental damage auras, and has access to Conviction (and Sanctuary, for undead) to break resists as well. Other characters have their own solutions, whether they use skills or gear to deal with immune monsters.
Also, keep in mind crowd control. Some classes like the sorceress and paladin have poor crowd control skills, while others like the necromancer have excellent ones. A necromancer can cast Dim Vision to shut down gloams, a barbarian can use Howl to disperse the minions while he goes one-on-one with a boss- or just stun them with War Cry, and so on. If you have little or no crowd control, you need to make up for it by being able to kill crowds before they kill you, or you need good tactical control of the flow of battles (Teleport is a hugely advantageous skill here).
The problem I have is mostly just dying almost instantly. I can smash most of the mobs I come across pretty easily, but the ones I can't usually are on me before I can escape. Extra-fast+cursed, aura-enchanted+mana burn, etc.. Those, plus the undead fetish and wil-o-wisps usually kill me before I even know they're there. Maybe half of the time, I can make it to lvl2 alright, but I rarely make it more than a few yards further than the last time I died before I get jumped by something I can't handle. Maybe I'm just not fast enough, but the second I see my health-globe start to plummet, I reach for the escape key and try to escape, and I usually don't make it.
Try using even more integer damage reduction. Stick a Sol rune in your armor and helm (replacing the helm with Lore is good too). Gamble a circlet 'of life everlasting'. This will actually help
a lot against archers, as their damage tends to come in the form of very fast small hits, rather than fewer, higher-damage hits. Make sure your chance to block is 75%. With Holy Shield, I believe the paladin blocks in a single frame, so make use of it. You might need to swap out Spirit for something with better block and/or resists. If you have the runes, Sanctuary is great (stick it in a high-resist paladin shield). The blocking is big, the resists are huge, and the fact it gives +20 dexterity means you save 20 points for vitality (=60 life). Sure, you lose out a bit on the offensive side, but as you've said, your problem is staying alive.
I actually tried something like that with my last Amazon. I found the lighting immunities to be a pain, so I respecced and invested about 30 points into the poison skills. Part of the problem was that I couldn't get a handle on how to use them properly, but mostly it didn't seem to work fast enough to make much of a difference, especially in the places where I had the most trouble ( i.e. the Sand Maggot Lair). My current Amazon might be able to manage, if I twink her mercenary a bit, but she has other problems at the moment in the hit-recovery area that I'm still working on.
Hit recovery, or dodge lock? If the amazon dodge skills kick in, they can lock you up, and it can be deadly against fast attackers, particularly fast ranged attackers. Since you can't speed up the animation for them, either skip them entirely (yes, this means going without any points in Valkyrie, but Decoy is a smarter minion anyways) or put in fewer points if dodge lock is the problem. In the guide I linked,
Nightfish recommends against points here, and I'd agree, at least for the WSK. Those blowgun fetishes can put you in dodge lock in a heartbeat.
And just as a point of curiosity, are those things bugged? Because it seems no matter how I stack my character, they can never stand up to that damage.
I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but their lightning bolts hit multiple times. If you can get some integer lightning absorb while keeping your lightning resist high, the lightning is harmless. Remember that absorb is better than MDR in most cases. MDR comes before resists, which means than at 75% resist, 10 absorb is worth 80 MDR. MDR is generally worthwhile only for a) a sorceress using Energy Shield, or b) someone packing on the PDR as well to exploit the PDR/MDR overflow mechanic. In the latter case, for attacks that do physical + magic damage (as many attacks in Hell do), damage gets reduced by the total of your PDR+MDR, provided you have some of each. For you, you'd get a lot more mileage from Thundergod's Vigor.
Oh, and do the Anya quest! Sure, it might be a pain, but you only need to do it once. Going from 60 to 70 will cut your damage (from that element) by 25%, which is huge. I do this quest in every difficulty for every character. Even if your resists are maxed without it, doing the quest opens up more gear flexibility.