I've started a softcore sorc and she's finding the game pretty easy. Up to Act 5 NM since Friday

Interestingly she was killing much more than 2 equivalent level "cookie-cutters" in Chaos Sanctuary

Another nice thing is that people have tried to give me some of the drops I generate. Not your usual BNet style!

Rising sun sounds nice

I'm planning on building a Leaf user, not necessarily withouth support skills from other trees (I'm not quite into variants in D2 yet)... Probably will use Inferno and Blaze, as I never used them (well, not consistently) and I don't like FW anyway... That's like 3 skills only, low pre reqs... Some more for warmth and I'll probably use FO for support as it's my fave skill... and no mastery. Probably pump TS. I tend to notice every sorc I use has TS and FO... I wonder

Interesting you both, with Elric on another thread, feel it needs to be doubled

I've just re-read Sirian's bio of "Hotfoot" and he almost went the way of the full charge but decided it was too unsafe

I still feel though that with the faster characters today it is now playable and very good fun indeed

If those characters are semi-retired now but have decent (say skill 20 including items blaze) try running them through an Act (eg from Kurast Docks in a straight line to Travincal) with 50% faster run/walk. Use something that gives + mana per kill (eg Leaf) so you can see all the blue swirlies you cause

I think it will give you a different take on the character

Incidentally the one I started on Friday has run her way to Hell Act 2, doing all quests, with me out most of the weekend. Act 5 NM on her own

Much faster than normal for me

I'll do some exp/time measurements when I hit the cow level with her, a javazon and a necro

Cheers

Brista

The softcore character I started just rescued Anya in Hell. I'm playing mainly on my own as few people like doing the quests these days

The build is completely viable for questing, I reckon untwinked you could finish the game in a couple of days if you had nothing else to do

I'll let you know how I get on in the Cow Level

Finished the game this evening. Started Friday, finished Tuesday. Blaze and Thunderstorm. Definitely the easiest character I've ever played

Matriarch, level 63, FlameMe, Europe realm

First of it isn't terribly good for the cow level. You kill quite a lot in the first minute or so but it thins off. It doesn't rival Lightning Fury or even Static/Nova but it beats Orb

What did surprise me was how fun and effective it was for questing both in HC and in SC

I flew through the game from start to Matriarch in 5 days. Not full-on 18 hours a day but in the evenings after work and a full Sunday

And it was really really fun

It can be an issue partying because you don't really fit in with normal party styles

So
a) Stay at the back and spam your 1 point firewall
or
b) charge ahead leading a swathe of destruction and loot behind you, nabbing all the shrines and a fair share of goodies
or c) work your strategy out with the people you're playing with so that they benefit from straggled-out, decimated monster groups rather than charge after you into a huge mob of monsters and get themselves killed

I've used all 3, unfortunately the last method is the hardest to achieve in public BNet games

Anyway I thoroughly recommend it to anyone else, the coincidence of getting Ort + Ral + Tal as a quest reward with making Tir + Ral (Leaf) and Tal + Eth (Stealth) give this build a big advantage in terms of item economy for new, untwinked characters. You can have a +6 staff and +25% r/w armour before the paladin can imbue his first cutlass!

Good gaming

I tried blazing in a straight line most of the time, using cthons boots (30% faster run). I found that even at this speed I would go past the monster so quickly that most of them do not go in the flames. They usually stop and ignore me because I'm so far ahead of them.

Could you give some advice on technique please?

The basic idea is to get long straight lines across the field you are exploring

Let me take the Cold Plains as an example

Run right around the field, with the wall visible but not right next to it

Keep the Alt key pressed down. (You're allowed to double back for exciting goodies

Keep your lines fairly straight, if you curve then less of the critters that will chase you will die

You'll be basically be drawing a slightly smaller than Cold Plains-size square and will end up back at the Way Point

This will kill nearly all the rogues, many of the gorillas, a small proportion of fallen and probably no shamen

Now go back round again

This time we're getting the shamen. The shamen don't move much but they don't stand still either. You may have noticed with firewall that they tend to wander just out of it, quite annoyingly. This is actually good news for Blazers. Run straight at them and draw a tight loop around them. Think of a noose

Still keep your main lines pretty straight.

This time it's a square with some artistic Celtic knots in it

You never get all the creatures without tedious micromanagement. But neither can they take much of an interest in you. So don't worry about missing some or even lots. As long as you're killing lots too!

The general advice for shooters is to noose them or brush just past them. You have to run close to them to maximise your killing

Finally for very tough monsters with lots of hit points (eg 8 player Hell cows) I found the following pattern good:

|\.../|
|.\./.|
|..\..|
|./.\.|
|/...\|

A fast character can keep a fairly large pattern (about the size of six screens) continuously aflame and cows milling around in this die pretty fast

(Great for those cow games that start with the party scrabbling for purchase with panicking players waking up loads of cows)

>I tried blazing in a straight line most of the time, using
>cthons boots (30% faster run). I found that even at this
>speed I would go past the monster so quickly that most of
>them do not go in the flames.

Faster, faster - 30% is slow for this build

They usually stop and ignore
>me because I'm so far ahead of them.

It feels like that but it's not. Run round a field to see how many monsters there are then do a second lap. Generally at least half of them will be dead

If that's not true for you then you need to be closer to the monsters as you run past them and you should try to keep you lines straight

The thing about this build is that you're breaking with a lot of the conventional playing styles that we're all used to (kill the monster, get the treasure)

Similar play experiences might be the Hurricane druid, and a trapper using Speed and sprinting through the Foothills dropping one WoI per monster group (very effective, by the time you drop your sixth trap, your first has about finished)

>Could you give some advice on technique please?

I'd be happy to give you further advice or to show you
My accts are *sjdru, *sjass and *sjnec on Europe and *sjpal on USEast. Message me if you notice me online and we'll meet in a game

First even though a merc is forgetable, he has his used!
I went for a barb, because he knocks target back! And thats handy to push still standing shooters into the trail!
but if not use teleport often he actual draws alot of monsters out of the blaze path and thats not the idea! But with freqently use he runs down the blaze line to meet monsters in the track!

When running back track in the blaze path, it can be very difficult to see where there is monsters ! well a teleport , and the merc runs up to them. Flaminga, my blaze babe follows, makes a hot spot behind the barb, making a pyre behind where the barb stops to fight. A short teleport and voila a well done boss!!

Going the full charge
its quit a trill to play, waking a whole area, having 4-6 bosses with unknown attributes chasing you from a few different direction, getting cornered and then making snap decisions. The biggest thing is to learn that safety comes from moving forward, in general troubles are behind you, this feels very different and counterintuitive to my diablo knowledge! But even conered without mana (no teleport) its amazing how little space is required to make a pyre that only imunes stands for more than a second!

Its like there is a lot of options besides the charge ahead, the tanking sorc would have a very favorable time to!

I am thinking now to develope blizzard, simply because it feels like right to hit anything obnoxius enough to not chase you, with something heavy coming down from the sky for a while. 4 seconds of headache is deserved and keeping the style its actual just moving on, while blizzard finish! Just have to get use to coming back later to see what drops !

I imagine that blaze and blizzard must have its good uses together
especial when luring monsters into an overlaping blazetrail, like in door openings!
Only thing to worry a little is a steep manacost!

well looking forward to finnish my fastes single player character ever!

with regards
Jondifool

Let's see if this ascii drawing will work
@ = char
> = direction char is facing
F = firewall
. = blanks to make the forum display properly

traditional firewall casting:
...............F
...............F
...............F
.....@>........F
...............F
...............F
...............F

blaze firewall casting:

FFFFFFFFFF
....@>....

To top it off, this (and other tricks, for example using the same casting method to scout areas for mobs) make playing a firewall sorcie actually pretty fun, especially at places like cow level where they're "traditionally" thought to be illsuited for.

so far i have collected those items for her (currently lvl 13)

isted oculus
peasant crown with shael
spirit shroud with shael
2x sojs
mage fists
volcanic amulet
glooms trap
silkweave
lidless wall
2x fireskills charms
and 20x small 5% faster run/walk charms

i am aiming for 65 strenght, what silkweave needs. 0 points in dex, 0 points in energy and and the rest in vitality

could it be usefull to invest in dex, as vit will get the majority of points here? or is a sorcy so life impaired that she needs so much in life to keep up?

not as fast as Lightning Fury, admitedly but it DOES work. A combination of Blaze, FO and TS will take out a group of cows if used well. I find that if I set up an area full of fire and run around in it as the cows try to chase me, I can throw FOs at them and keep them in the fire long enough for them to fry Dropping a meteor on their heads speeds things up nicely (i have an orb with +3 fire skills/+1FM/+1Meteor)

I have a Matriarch who uses Meteor for Fire Damage, so she only has a single point invested in Blaze (then a few +skills, and some Fire Mastery). On occation, Meteor was no good (vs mobile critters), so I resorted to Blaze: even with only a single point, I was tearing things up! I can only imagine how powerful 20/20 Blaze/Fire Mastery would be, especially with some +skills on top of that. I you then throw on that there are many, many Blaze Babes who run around Hell, I think your comments are a little...naïve. You shouldn't comment on something you don't know - besides, if I can solo-8 with Fire Arrow and a 23 Gothic, I'm sure Blaze is more than effective!

May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.
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Why do u think I dont? I wrote that I tested it.
Here are more details:
The char is a closed BNet Char (Europe):

SquadLeuchtfuß - sorc: lvl 20 blaze
lvl 20 firewall
lvl 20 fire mastery
lvl 20 blizzard
+ skill items

At first u should notice that firewall does about 5 times the damage of blaze. As Dani stated firewall can be used like blaze, if you cast it next to your feet. I used to addionaly turn on blaze to increase the damage but I didnt notice a difference with or without blaze.
Secondly, letīs talk about cows. U will notice that you are running much faster then the cows. To enable them to follow you, you must walk forward and back in a straight line or just wait for them. While you do that there is a 90% chance of getting mobbed.
If you just run - without waiting - the cows dont follow you. There is a point when they just stop following you.

As far as I can see the initial suggestion was to just run away without returning. If your return 10 minutes later and find some dead monsters and its a 8 ppl hell game, then I strongly doubt that you did the kill. It was your parties work instead. You gave no evidence that blaze killed the monsters.

Edit:
Never seen a blaze sorc on Europe, (except mine who is actually not using blaze). Maybe European monsters are harder. There are no studies about that.

"Once u reach 8 ppl hell games u wont kill a single monster with blaze because the damage is far too low."

A statement like that is a tad different to 'Firewall is more effective.' The latter statement is perfectly correct, but your original statement is even worse than people saying you cannot solo a Curse Necromancer! Blaze Sorceresses are uncommon everywhere, because most people use spells like Firewall and Nova; most people are sheep.

I have played solo-8 with low-level Blaze and only mid-level Fire Mastery: I was killing things (note: I said solo - NO ONE ELSE was there to get the kills), and amazingly quickly too. This was IV/Hell I did that, though I am sure if I loaded that character now, I could do the same in Act V or the Moo Moo Farm...well, unless I've killed the Cow King (I cannot remember).

Anywho, although Firewall is more powerful...it's also supposed to be, after all Blaze is a prerequisite for Firewall. However, if you seriously do not believe it can kill, I have my doubts about either your testing, or your tactics. Also, critters are not more powerful on Europe...in the ME mod on the other hand

May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.
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You finally touched on the reason why blaze CAN be so effective, though I don't think you actually realized it. With the spell timers, you can have a very limited number of firewalls at one time -- which means no stacking; the dmg listed is what you've got. However, since the dmg AND duration go up with blaze, adding more points makes it much more effective. As the duration ramps up, it allows for virtually unlimited dmg if used properly. Why? Because against most enemies, it becomes possible to stack blaze 3, 4, 5 or even more times over. So the "low" dmg of blaze gets to multiply itself, many times over if you're skillfull.

However, I must point out that blaze is more than useless against certain types of enemies. It's certainly not an uberskill that will get you through act IV (classic rules!) hell with your eyes closed, but if you use patience and skill it can be a more than viable choice.

gekko

Never assume. I have played a Blaze sorcie with maxed Blaze/FM, and yes, stacking helps. The problem is, that Blaze doesn't have the versatility of Firewall. Also about stacking, well, good luck stacking against extra fast Minotaur boss.

Although the idea of stacking blaze was already mentioned, noone told how to do it.

Here is what I did:
1. Get some metres between you and the monsters (some faster run will help u)
2. Create a "hot spot" by running around this little spot
3. Use glacial spike to stop the monster inside the hot spot.
(Beware: Doesnt work against fire or cold immunes!)

Pls imagine the cow beeing inside the hot spot. I told it to smile but it didnt.

Edit: Run at least 10 times across the hot spot to get enough damage!

Stacking blaze can be done in a lot of different ways! As can a blazebabe be played in a lot of different ways! Defensive- offensive
On the run is my way to describe it!

You mention Glacial spike to stop monsters in the hot spot, people playing with blaze also use FO and Blizzard of cause a little different but to create same outcome! To keep monsters in the flame!
At the moment I think that consensus is that FO does most for your blaze babe! Though I personal think that Blizzard is more in the spirit of how to play it! But this again depends on how you prefer to use blaze!

IF you play defensive( here meaning keeping monsters in front of you Creating hot spots and lure the monsters back into it! Well the blaze is used in one way there needs some practise to master! (this is a way where a merc actual can survive and Glacial Spike does work good here!!)

If you play offensive (including tempting fate). And just keep monsters pursuing you bye not running to far away maybe putting in a FO! Then blaze is used different again and off cause it needs practise. (the question here is where do you lead the monsters?)

And if you play with blaze on the run, meaning running past monsters (dealing with monsters behind you and in front of you, and actual closing in from all direction) then again blaze is used different!
(thats my favorite way!- and I really like blizzard in that style)

In retro conclussion on a skill from test is actual rather different than conclussion from play! Because tests does not include a learning stage ! And also you only test what you can imagine can be done! So this was actual just some ideas if you want to test more on blaze vs Firewall and get some more impact on your conclusions! Just remember that a prober blazebabe have a lot of faster Hit recovery, loads of life and most important a blazing speed!

Good luck!

Fade to black: I am my shadow.

The actual missile moves faster, not the cast speed. Test it with an old Sorceress: throw an Ice Bolt, then follow up with a Glacial Spike. You will notice the Glacial Spike is about twice as fast (not to be taken literally).

May the wind pick up your heels and your sword strike true.
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Fade to black: I am my shadow.

I have a fireball/ice blast sorc, and she does just fine all the way through Hell difficulty, unless she meets a fire/cold immune of course. My ice blast is probably in the low to mid 20's, and I've only invested one point into cold mastery (probably higher with adders by a bit, but not much). I have used ice blast in Hell at 20/1, before I was able to swap out some +fire for +all gear. Its 255 damage is small compared to my almost 1000 point fireball, but it still does the job.

Where it really shines is as a crowd control skill. At slvl 20, it freezes for almost 2 seconds in Hell, which is really a lot of time in a tough situation. See a party member in trouble? No need to wait for a merc's holy freeze pulse- just fire away! Or, shoot one blast at each oncoming monster, and stop them dead in their tracks. You can hold choke points that way.

-Griselda

Bob I noticed your post on the D2Net Sorceress forum. I enjoyed reading it very much. There were some requests for running tactics - please feel free to paste any of mine into your guide if you want to

There's another post on the mathematics of Blaze in the Workshop I think. It's long but the most interesting observation is this:
fast r/w is an exponential factor in the spell's damage (ie like Fire Mastery). This is because if you run twice as far and have the same monster density in your trails you're doing twice as much damage. Seeing as there are three other exponential factors increasing Blaze damage (Blaze skill in terms of increasing damage, Blaze skill in increasing duration and Fire Mastery) you have a hugely damaging spell on a character built to maximise these factors

Good equipment analysis. I didn't talk about equipment much because I twinked FlameMe very lightly - a few charms, 4 common runes and a pair of Vidalas boots then 2 SoJs at level 30. I kept meaning to twink her more but somehow I never got round to it

Good point about Memory. Oculus is also a contender - that random teleport adds to the whirlwind chaotic fun of this play-style and overcomes the build's main weakness - being mobbed and trapped.

You're correct that Thunder Storm is poor against Fire Immunes. So I just ran past them.

Yes I love the Blaze vs Dolls effect. Snap, crackle and pop

It's also funny with Dark Stalkers. 6 simultaneous screams as they all run in and drop

I'd love to meet up. Europe realm, Accts *sjdru%l

Dani, very good point about Firewall. It is a very versatile spell - I think in the rush of 1.08 cookie-cutters it was easy for people to lose sight of this. But it's not as simple as you make out. The balance you have to judge on is
Blaze passive, huge area covered if you run fast, customisable shape, decent damage, timy mana cost
Firewall you have to cast it, timer, not a terribly convenient area - especially against moving targets, huge damage, moderate mana cost
An extra-fast frenzied taur boss is not fast enough to catch me and hit me. Firewall would be much worse than Blaze against it(assuming it's not Immune)

Personally I don't think I could finish the game as fast with Firewall as I could with Blaze but ymmv and it would be nice to see a Firewall write-up from you

LucianDK Dex is not useful because you're running

Squadbumm You miss the point. If they chase you and you run far away most monsters stand stupidly in the fire. Try it in the Canyon of the Magi with a Cats and Crushers spawn. You run round it and you don't see many monsters die on screen but if you go around a second time most of the monsters will be dead. Leaf's Tir rune helps. You see the blue swirly and you think "Oh I've killed something." Incidentally I'm on Europe so that's not the explanation

I do agree with you though that it's not devastating in 8 player Hell cows. Best I could do was with a bow tie shaped Blaze trail - it's drawn in one of the earlier posts. But then again few sorceress spells are. It's decent though, with more killing power than Orb

Gekko I don't agree. Stacking Blaze is slow Blaze, what Jondifool calls defensive Blaze and I don't think this is the best way to use the spell. Act 4 Hell took less time with a Blaze headless chicken approach than just the Diablo fight has taken with some of my other characters. As a matter of fact I did pause to think about the best way to kill Diablo once I had let him out and trapped the pentagram. He died while I was still thinking
It is much stronger in the Expansion than it is in Classic

Jondifool You lead the monsters to the Act End boss of course. Especially recommended in Hell Durance.
You may well be right about Orb - I almost never had time to cast though which is why I went for Thunder Storm. I spent entire Acts tempting fate (at least it felt like it)

Finally Firewall is not more effective. It's different. Is a spoon more effective than a fork? If you start a completely untwinked ladder character in 1.10 who will kill Hell Baal first the Blaze sorc or the Firewall sorc? Which skill would allow you to finish the game with the lowest character level? Which build is more effective if you want to tease a friend by killing everything before he gets a whack in and nab all the shrines? Besides I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the 'headless chicken' approach - too much thinking is bad for you

With my Hardcore blazer I bailed 5 times during normal, sadly being a tad too slow in a similar situation a little after, while exping in the Throne of Destruction

For ranged attackers who are stubborn about moving into a well set blaze patch, I use TK to push them into it. It may take a few tries, but it almost always works.

And for setting up a blaze patch, I will let my merc engage the critters. While he is fighting, I set up a massive stack of blaze behind him. Then I put myself on the far side of the patch, so its sitting between me and the merc. And then, I do a stationary teleport. The merc comes to my side, and the monsters chase him through the blaze patch. The merc meets them half way, and stops them allowing them to die in flames.

Bolshoi