1.10 sorc

[gekko]

Well, it's about time I got some 1.10 experience. I've been talking with a few people about the 1.10 patch somewhat frequently since it was released, and specifically about the character stories MongoJerry has blessed us with. And I finally realized that if I want to be critical of the patch and the character builds now available, I'd better get my own hands dirty.

Now, what do I mean by being critical? As much as I've enjoyed MongoJerry's accounts, several points have ruffled me the wrong way. First were the cross character skills -- as you may have seen in a previous thread, I'm dead set against any and all cross class skills. Specifically, Gunter: as a friend pointed out to me, Gunter was essentially a firewall sorc with much higher life and resists and access to a nearly irresistible, stunning telekinesis that covers half the screen. To MongoJerry: please don't let my criticism stop you -- we need more accounts like yours. My criticisms is more directed at the direction blizzard has chosen for the patch.

My second beef with your characters, btw, is that they begin in hell difficulty, usually with their endgame equipment. I like that most (if not all) the equipment was found, but what I'd really like to see is how a no-twink character does straight from act 1 normal to hell baal.

So, on to my actual point. I have decided to download the patch and start a new, single player character, and see how well I can do in 1.10 with a no-twink sorceress. The original plan is to full clear and do as little repetition as possible. I have chosen to cold tree as my primary because my most recent sorc was a fire sorc, and the one before was primarily lightning.

I now have a few things to work out before I begin. I'm hoping that players with more experience in the 1.10 beta than I can help me plan out this character.

1) does cold mastery now pierce immunities? In other words, can I get through the game with only cold skills without having to rely entirely on a mercenary for non-cold damage?

2) will blizzard + glacial spike have enough power to deal with the monster regeneration in hell difficulty? Or will I be forced to equip a mercenary with some poison damage or prevent monster heal equipment?

That's all, for now. The plan, as question (2) suggests, is glacial spike and blizzard. What I have yet to decide is how much of which cold armor, how much cold mastery I will need, and whether or not to make this a 100% cold only sorc. Right now I am looking at three options:

1) cold only -- no teleport, no warmth, no energy shield, no alternate attack forms AT ALL. The most challenging on those fronts, however, that would mean more points to pump mastery and both of my attack skills ASAP.

2) cold + utility spells -- some warmth, teleport, possibly energy shield. A bit lighter on the points for the cold tree, but better mana regeneration and teleport would more than make up in terms of difficulty.

3) cold + blaze + static field -- much tighter on the skill points, particularly if I invest in fire mastery. Less reliance on cold mastery, though cold immunes against which blaze doesn't work will be a major problem. Blaze also means a mercenary will be tougher to factor in, meaning if I *need* something to prevent monster heal, I'll be in trouble. Also probably would mean a choice between blizzard OR glacial spike, but not both.

I'm leaning towards either (2) or (3). I don't think I have the balls to tackle a cold only sorceress for my first 1.10 character, particularly if cold mastery doesn't cut through immunities like I hope it does.

So, my plan is slowly taking shape. Any thoughts/comments/advice would be appreciated. Keep in mind I plan on full clearing normal with as little sandbagging as possible. If I reach NM or hell, I'll see how things are going and likely forgo the full clear idea.

Choice of merc, exact skill placements, and ideas on what types of items I should be hoarding would be appreciated.

gekko

[MMAgCh]

does cold mastery now pierce immunities?  In other words, can I get through the game with only cold skills without having to rely entirely on a mercenary for non-cold damage?

No. It's supposed to, according to the patch log, but right now it doesn't.

Even if it did, being able to break immunities isn't all it's hyped up to be. Firstly, you cannot count on being able to pierce all immunities: a fair amount of normal monsters and CE/magic resistant bosses have cold resists well over 100%. Since resistance-lowering skills are only at 20% effectiveness when attempting to pierce immunities, even L20 Cold Mastery could only pierce immunities if the monster had no more than 112% cold resist. Looking at monstats.txt, many monsters on Hell difficulty have cold resists of 130% and more, which are basically impossible to pierce with CM.
Secondly, even if you do manage to pierce an immunity, it still leaves the monster highly resistant which, coupled with high life regeneration, would make killing it a pain.

I don't feel that going single-tree is a wise idea if you are going to play solo unless you really want the extra "challenge". Having at least two elements available to you means many situations will be much easier to handle.

[Pren]

No, cold immunity doesn't pierce immunes.

A fireball that does 8 times as much damage as glacial spike takes 4 casts to kill something in hell cold plains - you do the math.

cold mastery is a one point skill.

#1/2: Warmth is unnecessary with mana potions sold in stores. But as soon as you start to play 1.10, you'll realize how ridiculous it sounds to worry about 'wasting' points on teleport.

#3 wouldn't work at all.

You might, instead of tedious full clears, choose just to play with variable player counts to speed up your experiment into the later acts.

What merc is there other than town guards?

Delirium a doom or crescent moon wielding might merc, which you will use teleport to position next to your enemies, because you won't be able to solo at all in many areas of hell otherwise.

With early testing, sorceress are worthless in 1.10 without a godly merc/party. Fireball seems to be the only skill that actually deals 1.10 levels of damage, and only by maxing it out. Meteor doesn't do that much more damage than fireball, I imagine, if you consider cast times, and firewall... again, requires a merc/party. I'd love for people to come up with more than one or two ways for 1.10 sorcs to work. Fireball and MAYBE nova are the only ones I can think of having a hope of functioning, or MAYBE firewall. I don't have the patience to whip up a sorc with slvl30 skills and a godly merc though, and that's just twinking anyway.

[Pren]

One thing I meant to input.

Wands of Lower Resist should be pretty popular with sorcs. Even if they fix the 'double cast' bug where you can lower resist twice to break immunity and shatter normal resists, lower resist+cold immunity would still work I hope. That'd enable you a few seconds to take down crowds. Unfortunately, I don't think cold spells have the strength to follow through with that.

[gekko]

With early testing, sorceress are worthless in 1.10 without a godly merc/party.

*shrugs* Nevertheless, I'm going to try. And not only that, I'm trying no-twink and full clear for as long as possible.

If I discover what seems to be considered a fact of life -- that 1.10 is simply not playable without godly equipment, teamates and/or merc -- then I'll either shelve the D2 disk and go back to good ol' Myth II, forget about hell and simply make my chars for enjoying norm/NM, or start seriously looking around for a good mod (I've been endlessly harrassed by a buddy to install Seven Lances).

In the meantime, I'd like to see first hand how the beta patch is going to further ruin my sorceress.

gekko

[whereagles]

Hey man, don't worry. With a little thinking you'll manage to find solutions. Just go for what you think will be fun. If it turns out it isn't funny.. well, then try another character or build or another game.

[Shade]

One thing I meant to input.

Wands of Lower Resist should be pretty popular with sorcs. Even if they fix the 'double cast' bug where you can lower resist twice to break immunity and shatter normal resists, lower resist+cold immunity would still work I hope. That'd enable you a few seconds to take down crowds. Unfortunately, I don't think cold spells have the strength to follow through with that.

From my experiments with Lower Resist, 'double cast bug' applies only to poison immunity.

Another thing to consider is using items with -%Cold resistance. Does anyone have any idea how these items work with Cold Mastery?

[Snorelax]

One thing I meant to input.

Wands of Lower Resist should be pretty popular with sorcs. Even if they fix the 'double cast' bug where you can lower resist twice to break immunity and shatter normal resists, lower resist+cold immunity would still work I hope. That'd enable you a few seconds to take down crowds. Unfortunately, I don't think cold spells have the strength to follow through with that.

From my experiments with Lower Resist, 'double cast bug' applies only to poison immunity.

Another thing to consider is using items with -%Cold resistance. Does anyone have any idea how these items work with Cold Mastery?

IIRC, -%cold resist works just like Cold Mastery, and so I'm pretty sure it's additive with it.

I also thought that cold mastery was supposed to be a percentage reduction and not a straight reduction like Conviction. Blizzard has said a couple times that they were going to make it percentage based, but I'm not sure if they ever did or not.

[whereagles]

As far as I know, up to 1.09 cold mastery always worked as a percentage reduction.

Example: target has 150% resists, cold mastery is 80% piercing, so final resist is 150*(1-0.8)=30%. A straight reduction would make final resist 150-80=70%.

Also, in 1.09, in all cases percentage reduction came after straight reductions. For instance, 50% damage reduction and -20 damage (say, amulet of everlasting) would apply to a 170 damage blow as this: 170 (apply -DR) -> 170-20=150 (apply %DR) -> 150*0.5=75 final dam. If it were the other way around, you'd have 170*0.5=85 -> 85-20=65 final dam.

If 1.10 works the same way, you'd be looking at..

1. Apply lower resist and -target cold resist
2. Apply cold mastery

So.. you do 1000 damage to a monster of 180 cold resist, under 50% lower resist and 10% to target cold resist, and 50% cold mastery. Monster will have

1. 180-50-10=120%
2. 120*0.5=60% final cold resist

Your 1000 damage spell does 400 damage in the end to a monster who was initially immune. Suppose you didn't have a lower resist wand. Then it would be

1. 180-10=170%
2. 170*0.5=85% -> higher than 75%, monster remains immune

You'd be doing zero damage without the LR wand.

Of course, all this uses 1.09 algorithms. Someone could perhaps check if the algorithms remain. Jarulf did this for 1.09, so he prolly knows which .mpq to crack.

[Shade]

If 1.10 works the same way, you'd be looking at..

1. Apply lower resist and -target cold resist
2. Apply cold mastery

So.. you do 1000 damage to a monster of 180 cold resist, under 50% lower resist and 10% to target cold resist, and 50% cold mastery. Monster will have

1. 180-50-10=120%
2. 120*0.5=60% final cold resist

In 1.10, if you are dealing with immunities, all resistance-lowering skills have penalty of 0.2.
In case of your example
1. Apply Lower Resist and -target cold resist.
180-(50+10)*0.2=168
2. Apply cold mastery.
168*(1-0.5*0.2)=166.32
Monster is still immune.

[MongoJerry]

Now, what do I mean by being critical? As much as I've enjoyed MongoJerry's accounts, several points have ruffled me the wrong way. First were the cross character skills -- as you may have seen in a previous thread, I'm dead set against any and all cross class skills. Specifically, Gunter: as a friend pointed out to me, Gunter was essentially a firewall sorc with much higher life and resists and access to a nearly irresistible, stunning telekinesis that covers half the screen. To MongoJerry: please don't let my criticism stop you -- we need more accounts like yours. My criticisms is more directed at the direction blizzard has chosen for the patch.

I'm glad you've enjoyed my accounts, despite your feelings regarding cross-character skills. However, your animosity toward cross-character skills seems to have clouded your reading of the accounts of Gunter, so I'd like to correct your impressions of a few things. First, War Cry doesn't cover half the screen. In fact, it has a small radius -- perhaps 1/3 of the screen wide which in two dimensions means that it only reaches 1/9th the area of the screen. One can't saunter into a room and expect to stun everything in sight with one War Cry cast. It takes time and sometimes tactics to gather all of the monsters to you.

Second, without fire mastery or synergies, the firewall granted by the Trang Oul's set doesn't do very much damage. Gunter couldn't do nearly the damage that a true firewall sorc could do. Despite how pretty the firewalls made the screenshots, Gunter was really a singer barbarian who on occasion cast a firewall to kill physical immunes or slightly increase the damage dealt against individual opponents. It was war cry that did 90% of the damage Gunter himself dealt -- not the firewall. If I hadn't chosen to make a pure casting barbarian for character reasons, Gunter could've done just as well by having a decent weapon on weapon switch and placing a point in Berserk for use against physical immunes. Actually, since he had found the runes and a 4-socket phase blade that would've allowed him to make an unwtinked 'Passion' phase blade, he wouldn't have needed to divert any skill points to the combat skills tree to get Berserk.

My second beef with your characters, btw, is that they begin in hell difficulty, usually with their endgame equipment. I like that most (if not all) the equipment was found, but what I'd really like to see is how a no-twink character does straight from act 1 normal to hell baal.

I hope you know that I don't use a character editor for any of my characters. I started Grizabella, Gunter, and Maldar at level 1 and did every quest and hit every waypoint along the way through normal and nightmare. I twinked Grizabella with equipment, but Gunter and Maldar were played completely untwinked in normal and nightmare difficulties. In fact, in Gunter's case, he was played as a pure singer barbarian throughout nightmare difficulty in 8-player mode (although he had constant mana problems).

I start my accounts in hell, because for the most part I think the adventures of the characters in normal and nightmare would be uninteresting to read about for most people. Let's face it, it's not like normal or nightmare difficulties are very dangerous. They're just the long slow grind that one has to get through to get to the "big show" in hell. Besides, if I talked about an oddball character's adventures in nightmare difficulty, I'd end up discussing a lot of tactics that I would end up using in hell which would take away a lot of the "tension" from the story. For example, there are a lot of people over at diabloii.net who think that Maldar is going to get slaughtered by the hell Ancients and the intrigue and general "how's he going to pull this one off?" feeling is keeping people interested in Maldar's adventures. I won't say that I think the hell Ancients will be easy, because they won't be, but I think that if people knew how Maldar beat the Ancients in nightmare, there would be less interest and intrigue in his story.

Besides, while telling Gunter's story, I had a hard enough time coming up with new ways of saying I taunted/war cried/firewalled/killed things. If I had told Gunter's story in nightmare, can you imagine how many times I'd end up saying things like "Just like I did in nightmare, I taunted and war cried these guys to death. Oh, just to make a pretty screenshot, I threw in a firewall for good measure?"

With early testing, sorceress are worthless in 1.10 without a godly merc/party. Fireball seems to be the only skill that actually deals 1.10 levels of damage, and only by maxing it out. Meteor doesn't do that much more damage than fireball, I imagine, if you consider cast times, and firewall... again, requires a merc/party. I'd love for people to come up with more than one or two ways for 1.10 sorcs to work. Fireball and MAYBE nova are the only ones I can think of having a hope of functioning, or MAYBE firewall. I don't have the patience to whip up a sorc with slvl30 skills and a godly merc though, and that's just twinking anyway.

I've been so busy playing my oddball characters that I haven't played a cookie-cutter sorceress in 1.10, yet. However, the fact that my varient characters have managed to get through hell tells me that what you're saying can't possibly be true. If my varients had access to the high-powered area of effect spells that normal sorceresses do, they would totally destroy 1-player hell.

My guess is that you're thinking of 8-player hell and I suspect that your definition of "worthless" is a character who can't walk through 8-player hell and destroy anything in his or her path without being touched. Personally, I like that Blizzard has increased the difficulty of the game. "Hell" is supposed to be challenging and 8-player hell should be something that requires a party to succeed in.

[Bolty]

Hey man, don't worry. With a little thinking you'll manage to find solutions. Just go for what you think will be fun. If it turns out it isn't funny.. well, then try another character or build or another game.

Perfectly said. In the end, this is a game, and it's about having fun - think of a build for 1.10, try it - if it doesn't work, try another one based on what you learned! In the end, I'll wager you'll have more fun than if you followed someone's strategy guide.

And then, the most fun: write a strategy guide BASED on what you learned, and watch others try it out. :)

-Bolty

[Pren]

I think this post was dual wielding Passions. :)

But you're mistaken. It greatly annoys me beyond words that it is possible for some characters to easily stroll through act 5 at /players 8 while other characters can/not barely do it in /players 1.

However, something I havn't had the time to test that might be true is that the tests I did were in fact in /players 8. Because the game keeps track of your /players setting between games now (as Griz found out), it's possible that they were. But during my tests I'm almost certain I set it to 1 each game just to be sure. But, I'm playing Realms these days to try to get in on the 1.09 action before 1.10 destroys it, and last time I tried to revert from 1.10 i had to reinstall the game - a 30 minute process on this computer. So somebody else will need to do further tests.

Edit: The best example I can give is a bone necro who doesn't use CE. Three max synergy slvl25 bone spears will kill most things in /players 1 in nightmare. TEETH can level nightmare. You're looking at more than three times that many spears, even spirits, in hell. Bone spear/spirit does better damage than a lot of sorc skills, and are infinitely safer to use with bone prisons and walls. A no-CE bone necro is able to solo hell successfully and safetly in /players 1, but would not be able to perform in much higher player counts. Add in CE, and he owns everyone. But, sorcs don't have CE. Their equivilent, static, cannot kill.

I honestly hope I am very, very wrong, because I want to be.

[gekko]

First, War Cry doesn't cover half the screen.  In fact, it has a small radius -- perhaps 1/3 of the screen wide which in two dimensions means that it only reaches 1/9th the area of the screen.  One can't saunter into a room and expect to stun everything in sight with one War Cry cast.  It takes time and sometimes tactics to gather all of the monsters to you.

[...]

I hope you know that I don't use a character editor for any of my characters.  I started Grizabella, Gunter, and Maldar at level 1 and did every quest and hit every waypoint along the way through normal and nightmare.  I twinked Grizabella with equipment, but Gunter and Maldar were played completely untwinked in normal and nightmare difficulties.  In fact, in Gunter's case, he was played as a pure singer barbarian throughout nightmare difficulty in 8-player mode (although he had constant mana problems).

I start my accounts in hell, because for the most part I think the adventures of the characters in normal and nightmare would be uninteresting to read about for most people.  Let's face it, it's not like normal or nightmare difficulties are very dangerous.  They're just the long slow grind that one has to get through to get to the "big show" in hell.  Besides, if I talked about an oddball character's adventures in nightmare difficulty, I'd end up discussing a lot of tactics that I would end up using in hell which would take away a lot of the "tension" from the story.  For example, there are a lot of people over at diabloii.net who think that Maldar is going to get slaughtered by the hell Ancients and the intrigue and general "how's he going to pull this one off?" feeling is keeping people interested in Maldar's adventures.  I won't say that I think the hell Ancients will be easy, because they won't be, but I think that if people knew how Maldar beat the Ancients in nightmare, there would be less interest and intrigue in his story.

Besides, while telling Gunter's story, I had a hard enough time coming up with new ways of saying I taunted/war cried/firewalled/killed things.  If I had told Gunter's story in nightmare, can you imagine how many times I'd end up saying things like "Just like I did in nightmare, I taunted and war cried these guys to death.  Oh, just to make a pretty screenshot, I threw in a firewall for good measure?"

First off, I'll readily admit I overstated the simplicity of Gunter's tactics -- I've built a singer myself and know it's not nearly as easy as it sometimes appear.

I'd also like to reiterate that I've thouroughly enjoyed your character stories, and I hope more are on the way.

I've decided to go with blaze and either glacial spike or blizzard; I have yet to decide which. No merc, except for a very few occasions: ie, when I absolutely need another body in the room (duriel, anyone?). I'm also planning on taking notes through as much normal as I can remember to: if the character is the least bit interesting, I'll post what happened here along with my freshly inspired thoughts on the patch.

Until then,

gekko

[Guest]

In 1.10, if you are dealing with immunities, all resistance-lowering skills have penalty of 0.2.
In case of your example
1. Apply Lower Resist and -target cold resist.
180-(50+10)*0.2=168
2. Apply cold mastery.
168*(1-0.5*0.2)=166.32
Monster is still immune.

that should only apply to 2 skills.

patch changes

Lower Resist and Conviction skills now work against immune monsters (those with 100+ resistance) at 20% effectiveness.

Cold Mastery and items with the magic property "Lowers Enemy Resistance" now applies to immune monsters.
Cold Mastery and elemental piercing have been changed to a constant amount.

ok, so what it says about cold and lowers resistance mods is that it should plainly removes the number of what it says it pierces. 150% cold resist vs 50% piercing = 100% cold resist.

does it do that though? no, nothing at all! dark hunters have exactly 100 cold resist in hell, and can be found from the cold plains wp, so it's very easy to test.

go there with any cold piercing amount you want(cold mastery and piercing mod are the same thing btw, so both are broken) and any 1000's of damage cold spell, and you'll see you do zero damage.

[whereagles]

Cold mastery now pierces a straight amount? Alright.. good bye pvp sorcies LOL.