Oh, I just really posted this as it will have some relevance given the ladder reset :P
I have found leveling a no-twink will tend to go more quickly and less dangerously on a skelemancer or hybrid zon. A no twink cold sorc is certainly viable with the bonus that you will likely end up with a powerful nightmare meph runner. A point to note on the skelemancer is that the maggot lair is simply an exercise in frustration and torture, much like it is for the hammerdin.
The sorceress will often have trouble, if being built for the end game (meaning not gimping yourself for high level reckless antics later ;) ) with Baal. If you are going a orb route, then he is actually easier to beat if you pump up your life through any means possible (without investing too many stat points as they are relatively useless for a sorc in vit) so that you have more life than mana. Orb is not terribly mana expensive, nor is meteor if you happen to do that cooker cutter build, so you don't need much mana. The last no twink sorc I made went this route and ended up having a field day with Baal as he did not cast his very annoying mana/health curse on me, and I had full blocking :P By Nightmare...well he shouldn't be too hard then as you will find some gear, especially if you take some extra time to farm Mephisto.
As a hybrid zon, focusing in charged strike, a few points in guided arrow, or strafe (pick one really) and start pumping lightning fury when you get to lvl 30 and you don't even need a valkyrie as a tank through nightmare.
To sum it up, charged strike, especially with any amount of leach and resists that can be shopped, will take down any of the act bosses very quickly. Even just dual synergized with LF this is a killer. Do yourself a favour, mostly to save mana and a little time and shop a wand with charges of lower resist. It will only be level 1 if you shop it but that's still 30% resist decrease, all of the bosses even in nighmare will drop to a 1 synergy charged strike very quickly.
A hybrid zon makes for a great first character, making a pure bowie is hard on yourself until you get some nicer gear and you will definitely need to be spending points in valk, which I don't find necessary until nearing hell. After a few points in lightning fury you will absolutely mow down cows and other clumps of low lightning resist monsters. I found doing the chaos sanctuary in all difficulty levels (hell with a strong valk) to be quite easy with this build.
All of this advice is predicated on the belief that you will be playing solo against the bosses and through some of the more difficult areas. Really, as previously stated, you can take any gimp character through the game by partying. There are tons of bnet games devoted to defeating diablo and especially baal runs for levelling. It is entirely possible to be almost level 50 entering nightmare if you do baal run after baal run. If you are partied with nice people you may get to keep some of the nice equipment he can drop.
I have found leveling a no-twink will tend to go more quickly and less dangerously on a skelemancer or hybrid zon. A no twink cold sorc is certainly viable with the bonus that you will likely end up with a powerful nightmare meph runner. A point to note on the skelemancer is that the maggot lair is simply an exercise in frustration and torture, much like it is for the hammerdin.
The sorceress will often have trouble, if being built for the end game (meaning not gimping yourself for high level reckless antics later ;) ) with Baal. If you are going a orb route, then he is actually easier to beat if you pump up your life through any means possible (without investing too many stat points as they are relatively useless for a sorc in vit) so that you have more life than mana. Orb is not terribly mana expensive, nor is meteor if you happen to do that cooker cutter build, so you don't need much mana. The last no twink sorc I made went this route and ended up having a field day with Baal as he did not cast his very annoying mana/health curse on me, and I had full blocking :P By Nightmare...well he shouldn't be too hard then as you will find some gear, especially if you take some extra time to farm Mephisto.
As a hybrid zon, focusing in charged strike, a few points in guided arrow, or strafe (pick one really) and start pumping lightning fury when you get to lvl 30 and you don't even need a valkyrie as a tank through nightmare.
To sum it up, charged strike, especially with any amount of leach and resists that can be shopped, will take down any of the act bosses very quickly. Even just dual synergized with LF this is a killer. Do yourself a favour, mostly to save mana and a little time and shop a wand with charges of lower resist. It will only be level 1 if you shop it but that's still 30% resist decrease, all of the bosses even in nighmare will drop to a 1 synergy charged strike very quickly.
A hybrid zon makes for a great first character, making a pure bowie is hard on yourself until you get some nicer gear and you will definitely need to be spending points in valk, which I don't find necessary until nearing hell. After a few points in lightning fury you will absolutely mow down cows and other clumps of low lightning resist monsters. I found doing the chaos sanctuary in all difficulty levels (hell with a strong valk) to be quite easy with this build.
All of this advice is predicated on the belief that you will be playing solo against the bosses and through some of the more difficult areas. Really, as previously stated, you can take any gimp character through the game by partying. There are tons of bnet games devoted to defeating diablo and especially baal runs for levelling. It is entirely possible to be almost level 50 entering nightmare if you do baal run after baal run. If you are partied with nice people you may get to keep some of the nice equipment he can drop.