D2R Ladder Season 3 is now officially released and everyone knows what you should start with. But I’m not here to talk about any of that. Instead, here are the five builds that you should absolutely not choose as your first character into the realms of a new season. Keep in mind that this is my opinion based on my personal experience, so it may differ from what others suggest.

All Necros are a brilliant choice. One of the most powerful builds in the entire game is an absolute savage of a monster and player killer. Everyone should carefully deal with this build. What you should start with is a Fury Droid that is wearing full IK set.

Barbarian

So, my first on my list of builds that you don’t want to start with is the Barbarian unless, of course, you can correct the game’s code and somehow guarantee yourself a long run drop early on.

I would absolutely advise against starting season 3 as a Barb. You see all those powerful Find item builds that excel at solo farming Travincal Pindleskin or The Pit. But until you get your green, which requires you to have D2R Ladder Items to make it. You will only have a fraction of a bill’s efficiency and it can become frustrating.

And as for Whip, it you also need Enigma to be efficient. So, when you can actually afford your Grief and Enigma, it becomes pound or pound to the best solo farming character in the entire game. But until then, you won’t enjoy playing it as much. With that said, the Barb as a starting character is a no for me.

Amazon

Next, on my list is the Physical Bowazon. Although I might just go for it myself to spice things up, that is not something that I would recommend to start with if you want to be efficient about it.

Even though we got some new toys to play with in the form of Hustle Runeword and some bug fixes, like the Attack Rating on Strafe, it still doesn’t change the fact that you need a lot of expensive gear pieces to make rebuild work.

So, unless you are fine with the struggles of getting all of that expensive gear and want to sort of challenge yourself, I would stay away from starting as a Physical Bowazon. Instead, you can choose a much cheaper and effective alternative and roll called with your Freezing Arrow Bowazon. With it, you can start farming where the Stony Tombs with just your play through gear on day one.

Necromancer

The third build that made it on my list is the Bone Necromancer. You have a date with death. The nature of its damage being Magic and is being only a handful of magic immune. Creatures in the game make him a great playthrough character, but that’s about it.

He’s terrible at boss farming and below average at farming Elite/Champion Packs. One thing here in excels at is PVP, that’s the Spirit but for that, you also need a lot of gear and there are many builds that will get you that gear much faster.

Additionally, I hope at the new Metamorphosis reward won’t make you start a druid as your first character. So, it begins. I would advise again starting with any melee character if you want to be as efficient as possible.

Druid

In fact, starting with any Druid is also a no for me. Let’s face a little of facts here. If you just want to set things on fire, there are safer and mobile options to do, such as the Fire Ball Hydra Sorceress, which also has teleport or a Wake of Fire Assassin, which now has its minus RS from gear.

Sorceress

Now, let’s go off a bit with a Frost Nova Sorceress since that is my fifth build that I don’t recommend you start your D2R Ladder Season 3 journey.

This was perhaps my mostly played character in season 2, but what I was mainly doing with it is farming The Stony Tomb with all the squishy maps on players 1. And even on players 1, it’s still difficult to be effective at farming something like cows or Chaos Sanctuary. You had to sacrifice quite some Magic Find percentages in favor of clear speed.

Now, with a nerfed Cold Mastery that comes with Patch 2.6, while they obviously aim to reduce the amount of Blizzard Sorceress. It also basically kills the Frost Nova, anyway.

These are five characters that I don’t recommend you to start.