Thought I would see how it's going for you guys since there is no posts in this section yet.

Me, I was struggling as a Dark Elf Shadow Knight kept dieing early on. Made the move to troll and it's been fairly smooth sailing.

Played as an Ogre SK, in local mode I got to lvl 35ish easily, class is beginner friendly and solid imho.
Ogre racial is really good, borderline OP I'd say !

I will have to try Ogre next after my SK dies.

Love my SK although I am struggling to find better gear for him.

Going to start working through Nightmare properly this evening =)

Loving my ogre SK, not loving the RNG which hates me. Struggling to find decent kit (you apparently need decent kit to find more decent/better kit). Nightmare is .... frustrating the hell out of me. It was not so hard on standalone where I had a little more luck

What do you mean by kit? I've had the same weapon for 10 or so levels lol. Nothing is coming close to what I'm using now. I do love how fear has a random limit, I wish more games would do stuff like that. I remember hearing a game back in the 90's that was like that with a poly morph type potion that would turn you into a different race so you could talk to them. I wish I knew what game that was.

Would you recommend 2h or 1h+shield for a SK ?

I've been using 2 handed weapons. A lot of them I have noticed is that they're not much slower than a 1 hander. I have a 2 handed mace that is 38 for the delay.

Grasping Frenzy's damage seems to be based solely on the damage of the weapon equipped, rather than the ratio. so i always go for the weapon with the highest damage... which tends to be a 2 hander.

By kit I mean equipment, armour and weapons. My 57 SK only just found a Mithril 2-hander (L23 weapon) and up to then was using a L16 Frostreaper. Right now he's in the equivalent of bunny slippers and a frilly apron, wielding a wooden spoon, because I rummaged through my bank and equipped anything I could find with Magic Find and went farming. No luck so far. (Although it really doesn't make as much difference as I was expecting - survivability is if anything slightly better in silk knickers and a funny hat than it was in plate head to toe. Go figure.)

I'm sure I'm somehow Doing It Wrong but tbh all the guides on "well equip all your fire resist before attempting Boss Whupass in Act 4 of Hell" just make me lol at the moment. Ya right. Some day

Like I said I reckon he's just got a cursed RNG Need life leech or mana regen? Nope! Splendid Feathered Hat of +5 Charisma for you!

Mithril 2hander is a good weapon for normal tier. You won't start finding exceptional tier until very end of normal and nightmare. You're in an appropriate place, sk dps isn't great, especially at lower levels. If you get burnt out on progression, make an alt and mix it up. All classes play incredibly different which is one of the biggest appeals on this game.

Side note, if a trade system ever gets implemented I would absolutely send you a new weapon after that wonderfully british (?) sounding post.

SK has been fun so far for me. Troll racial is great.. almost went Ogre, though. I'm about 40 so far and I just got that Mithril two-hander you're talking about.. it's great! Right now, I'm saved at the Act 4 town. Haven't done any quests yet. My armor is definitely kind of all over the place, but, overall, I've gotten pretty decent stuff - only died once so far. I'm sure that'll change on the next difficulty!

Heh yes British, well spotted - and lol, thanks for the thought
And yea I'm a total altaholic, tried one of everything except Bard in standalone, bunch of alts now and loving the different styles and rythms of play. I'm not complaining about the SK, or any of them really - but it's quite hard to break into Nightmare (forget anything beyond that!) so it slows it down a ton. Probably true of everything but SK's the only one I've got that far yet!