ok my first char was an ik barb, i made it to lvl 83, but i just couldnt get the armor for the life of me. so i couldnt run hell, leaving me in a rut.

my second charecter is a javazon, which seemed like it was less dependent on items, which it was. but ive come to notice that without any good stuff i still cant run hell, and cant mf....

I need someone that will get some fairly decent stuff to help me make my way up... so that means i need a build that can deal some good dmg and survive w/o top notch stuff, if even possible. any help would be much appreciated.

i would say an orb or blizz sorc. alot of people start ladder with them since you can tele w/o enigma and get things done pretty efficiently.

yea ive thought about that, but once u hit hell a bunch of stuff is immune, i understand the boss most of the goods, but stuff on the way (worldstone keep) sometimes has better treasures. any alternatives?

Always the biggest problem with a sorc. resists.

I'll tell you what I did, I made a Fire Sorc and just ran Hell Meph over and over again using the moat trick (search for it) and used that character to fund my others..Hell meph is simple (with or without MH) and drops some great stuff.

Hammerdin, hands down the cheapest PvM build you can make.

hammerdin is not cheap in any way... you should go with the fire sorc and stick to killing meph until u work your way up a little bit.