Tips for Diablo 2?

[Pearwood]

I'll second giving Hardcore a try, it feels that the game was balanced around Hardcore so softcore is pretty easy. My personal favourite class is assasin, you have a lot of elemental toys so mixing your attacks to make use of enemy weaknesses is no problem, a strong melee focus but by no means weak at range and a lot of handy self buffs including a really nice summon.

Also once you've done with the standard game I'd recommend getting a mod, I use one called Median XL that changes the game almost completely.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Necromancer and Sorceress break the game. Your character will become so powerful that you will be able to slaughter entire dungeons with a few clicks. The Necromancer also can summon an army of undead creatures, making it so the enemies can never really get to him. Have fun!

I played (Single-player only, so no sets or fancy runewords or anything like that) a Necro all the way through, but even on Normal, my minions fail against the big D himself. He just wipes the whole army with a puff of fire. So I run away like a little girl to go get more from the corpses, rinse, repeat until there are no bodies left on the damn map.

Give me a hint here? He's sitting on my character selection screen, mocking me...

Oh man, Diablo himself throws all strategies out the window. I got all the way to the end of the game with my Paladin, not having too much trouble (although the hard-to-hit was starting to kick in) and then I got tossed like a rag doll. Pretty much everything is useless against him. The way I beat him was by leveling up another five or ten (can't remember) levels. Do this by starting at Heaven's stronghold and then killing every monster right up until Diablo. Then, without summoning him, go to a different zone. When you return to Hell, all the monsters should have respawned. Rinse and repeat. It took a while, but when I was finally strong enough to beat him, it was worth it.
Also, the skeletons may be useless for damage, but they make great distractions. Send a bunch after him and while he spends a few seconds wiping them out, hit him a few times, then run away. Hit and run tactics basically.

 

[Panzervaughn]

Once you get through ACT3, You can farm mephisto for loot, Theres also the above-ground are before his temple that has 8 named mobs thats also a high concentration of loot.