I had not played D2 for many years, and so was really jacked by the way LOD changed the hireling set up. I like playing Single player and discovered something that works VERY well with the archer you can get in the 1st chapter. My character was a Paladin.

At first, I just leveled up normally, killing the little critters and taking few risks. After gaining a few levels, I ended up with some chips and gems, along with a 3 socketed longbow.

I put 2 emerald chips and a skull chip into the bow and handed it over to my hireling. Boy! When she said "I'll make good use of this", I had no idea! She proceeded to wipe out EVERYTHING I couldn't reach.

When I got a new helm or armour, I gave my old ones to her. She ended up like an armoured tank, quickly doubling and tripling her AC as she went up in level. By doing this, she stayed within one level of my own throughout most of the game. As I reached higher chapters, I found other, better, socketed bows and just changed the grades of the gems, rather than the type. She already has cold and fire so the double poison of two emeralds made her devastating. The skull allowed her to keep herself healed. Every hit allowed her a percentage back in life. Kept me from having to get off of potions for her 90% of the time.This combo worked so well that when I hit the maggot lair in Chapter two with low lightning resistance, I just baited the lightning bugs out of a room and ran and hid behind her in the narrow hallways. She even killed the queen maggot for me!!I also ended up with several sets of armour and helms that cast frost Nova under percentage. I put the ones that I wasn't using on her, comparing later finds to upgrade the percentage as I was able. Before I knew it, the two of us were freezing everything in sight - it was very amusing.

In normal mode, we were even freezing the last lackies in the game, like Mephisto and all the goons around Diablo. The high council in Travincal looked good in blue, too.

Anyway, I can't speak for later (nightmare, hell) levels, as I haven't gotten that far yet but I sure was impressed with the archers ability as done so far. It's a great way to help you stay alive as you push for the 30+ levels, assuming that you don't get impetuous and try to take on too much at once.