T-Hawk: Fissure Fisher

20 Fissure (+3 from a plain pelt found in A1 Normal which I used permanently)
20 Volcano, synergy only
20 Firestorm, synergy only by the variant rule, but I started using it in combat after Shadow had to drop out with our Firestorm/Boulder character
20 Cyclone Armor
Rest in Twister as synergy to Cyclone

My equipment isn't anything worth mentioning. Cold resist, lightning resist, and life were the only important stats, and by the end of the game I'd collected rares with all three modifiers in most equipment slots. Lots of Ort and Thul runes socketed in things, led by my "Ort Ort Thul" Jeweler's armor of the Whale. For a weapon I used a simple Balanced Knife of Vileness (PMH) shopped at Malah in normal; Balanced Knife because it's the largest stack size among throwing weapons.

Sullla's writeup is dead on that this was the perfect character match for me in the variant. I have no patience for nickel-and-dime character builds; give me offense any day. Top speed is the only speed to play D2. I originally picked the Fissure role because it seemed like a ranged supporting character and the team could handle occasional absences. But both of those turned around - Fissure_Fisher really was critical to the team's offense, and I ended up making almost every session, several from hotels while traveling on business.

That said, there wasn't any micromanagement involved in the character's offense. Just max Fissure and synergies and aim for the biggest not-fire-immune monster pack. Fissure did get a bit tedious towards the end, but unlike Zed at least I could mix it up with PMH duty against monsters immune to my element, and Firestorm at times too. I did contribute micromanagement in other roles, mostly by knowing the game's map layouts to minimize backtracking and reclearing.

And despite the character's offense, he was entirely dependent on the group for defense. Solo, this character had no way to disable or slow or distract monsters. Every single one of my deaths (besides Uber Diablo and the party wipe in Halls of Vaught) occurred when I got reckless and advanced out of Oak Sage range or failed to retreat with the party. Many times I had to beg Sulla to come stun things so I could actually get off some Fissures. My character had moderate shield blocking (no stat restrictions, so a tower shield of deflecting and substantial dexterity), but that was good against maybe two monsters at a time. 900 life is barely adequate in Hell difficulty, but 2100 life as long as I stayed near the Sages was quite hefty. And Zed speaks well of Cyclone Armor, but I found it less than inspiring. It does a good job of minimizing the annoyance factor by blocking small ranged scrapes, but the serious threats are usually physical damage (melee, archers, witches) so I still had to do a lot of running and dodging. The offense/defense balance of this character, and the team as a whole, was very well done by our grandmaster.

This was my first real co-op venture in Diablo, or really in any online RPG. I play D2 entirely offline for a variety of reasons, so unlike most of our other team members, I could well be up for another online team variant.