I just bought the D2R + D3 package on sale. I played D2 to no end in the past (single player, and never played D3), but I don’t know much about D2R other than it gives a facelift to the game.
So what are the most significant balance changes compared to the original? Skills, uniques, affixes? Runewords? New item types even? My general assumption is that most builds that worked well in the past will still work well now.
If you stopped after patch 1.10 (with the runewords like Enigma or Infinity) all tried and true builds from then will still work well: Hammerdin, BlizzSorc, Javazon, Summon Necro, Trapsin, WindDruid, Frenzy Barb … all still work well. The only “old” build that got hampered a bit is WW - Barb, because of the changes to attack speed. D2R mostly opens new possibilities and didn’t nerf anything (aside from arguably WW - Barb)