I’ve spent thousands of hours playing Diablo 3 on Hardcore so you don’t have to warn me about not getting attached lmao! Also, a warning: depending on your skill and playstyle, not all beginner build ideas will necessarily be suited to a smooth hardcore experience. Keep in mind that the endgame versions of the builds here are going to be held back a bit by the fact that they are only assembled with easily accessible gear and thus may not be able to tackle some of the game’s toughest content yet, but they can eventually be upgraded or rebuilt entirely provided RNG blesses you with the right gear. Beginner build guides on the forum and, more centrally, the Beginner build guides compendium is a nice place to look both for clear leveling paths (gearing, skill point allocation, etc.) and for easy-to-assemble build ideas for endgame. I want leveling gear and at least some serviceable version of endgame gear to be at least mostly farmable (monster infrequents, target farmable sets) or purchasable (faction items). Basically I want something that performs consistently and is relatively forgiving of the mistakes that I will make. In all seriousness, though, there are a couple of things I’d look for in a first hardcore build:

Great advice, right up there with “just get it” for farming Best build is the one that never gets hit

Diablo 2 best hardcore character