How to build a MF-sorc

[[wcip]Angel]

I want to customise a sorceress to only do Magic-find-runs. I'm thinking Mephisto and Pindleskin, and perhaps baal-runs if need-be.

Which skills should I go for? I built a lvl 14 sorceress today without using many skill points (1 in warmth and 1 in firebolt) so I can build it the way you feel is best. I really don't have enough knowledge on 1.10-MF-sorceresses to build a good MF-sorceress.

Should I go for firewall and thunderstorm?

(I'm listening to music, so I can't seem to concentrate on my writing, thus the horrible sentence structure :P )

[Jakes-Element]

Well first of all it all depends on what kinda of items you have and what skills would you like to go for
My suggestion - Ice orb
Fire Ball
Thunder storm
and Synergies

[adeyke]

I wouldn't bother with thunderstorm. Even with slvl 20+32 thunderstorm and 20+32 mastery, you'd have only 4168-4922 (4545 avg) damage per hit, striking once every second. You're not going to have that much +skills, so it's going to be much lower. With just +5 skills (you couldn't really devote every slot to pure skills if you want a MF sorc), you'd be at 1095-1528 (1311.5 avg) damage per hit, striking once every 1.4 seconds (so about 937 damage per second). That isn't a lot. It does have the advantage of being a passive (cast and forget) skill, but it then also has the disadvantage of picking its own targets, which might not be the ones you want to hit.

There might be a better use of skillpoints.

[Guest]

I'm not sure that you would be running the right monsters. My mono-cold Sorc runs Andarial and Meph, and I use my Hammerdin to do Pindle (Hammer does *edit* +50% damage to undead, and Redemption is awesome with all the guys on the ground).

[adeyke]

It's a +50% bonus against undead, not double.

[[wcip]Angel]

I really don't have any good equipment yet (guardian Angel and um runes being the best), hence the MF-character ;)

Another question for a low-lvl sorc as myself:

I was fiddling around with some sets I had acquired in previous games; among others the hsaru and angelic, which you can wear simultaniously if you should so desire.

Anywho, I was wearing 2 angelic rings, and I noticed when I put the second ring on, that the attack rating-bonus also applied when I already had a ring equipped, leading me to believe that I get the partial set bonus from BOTH rings. This is quite nice, seeing as the partial set bonus is 50% MF (in addition to the attack rating); which doubles into 100%MF if you wear both rings.

Sort of a poor man's MF-build ;)

I experimented a bit and saw that, although the partial set boni did in fact take its effect, you didn't get a the full set bonus twice for wearing the extra angelic ring. (it'd be weird if it did, but I had to try.) ;)

To me.. somehow.. this was a question :blink:

:P

edit:
It's 5.28 in the morning. It's summer, and evidently .. I am once more hooked on Diablo II.

[adeyke]

The dual angelic ring thing is well-known. The second ring won't count as an extra item in the set (e.g. the amulet and one ring are two set items, while the amulet and two rings are still just two set items). However, it will have all the blue and green bonuses as the other ring.

Dual angelic rings and amulet are a favoured item combination for the huge AR bonus.

[Guest]

100 mf... cripes. That's better than two perfect nagle rings.

[adeyke]

To get the 100% MF, you need both rings and two other items (amulet, armour, or weapon), though. So comparing those four items with just two Nagelrings isn't exactly fair. You can match the 100% MF with just a Wealth or just a Gull.

[Munkay]

Angel,Jun 14 2004, 10:20 PM] It's 5.28 in the morning. It's summer, and evidently .. I am once more hooked on Diablo II.

I understand that feeling, the daggerzon post has me fanatically leveling my own daggerzon towards 85.

After booting up my accounts again I've come to see many of my items be swallowed up by the black abyss that is character deletion. I've taken a liking to killing nightmare mephisto. It sounds a bit corny, but its helped me enough, and with a high level sorc its very easy to do. It also allows you a bit more flexibility for equipment (mine wears a 4 socket gothic plate with topaz's, and a 3 socket topaz helm, a few magic rings, and a magic amulet). The drops won't be the best, though I've been able to trade my drops for some soj's, which in turn give me more flexibility (if I had the patience I'd re-invest them into better MF equip).

I like to put on the headphones, listen to some good tunes, and just relax and rake in the items. This may be too slow for what you want to acheive, and much understood. Just thought I'd throw in my two cents though,

-Munk

[Caaroid]

Before offing the topic to oblivion, let me flatly state, that (even though I hate mono-tree sorceresses with a passion), for MF purposes there's hardly any other way to go.
The holy quartet of an MF sorc is:

• MF % (dooh)
  <>
  
• Killing speed
  <>
  
• Safety
  <>
  
• Movability<>
  [st]The idea is, that you only kill 2-3 monsters per session, but you kill them wearing as much MF as possible (thus: not much +skills). This sort of demands that you have a mono-sorc, getting her power from synergies instead of skill lev 40.
  
  Another issue is defense: defense in the sense of safety to the character. If you have to take extra measures not to die, your killing speed will suffer, thus lowering your Windforce/Hour ratio.
  
  Finally, especially if you want to run the harder-to-reach areas (like Meph), you need one who has the moves.
  
  Ok, MH helps a lot in fulfilling these plans I guess, but for us legit players planning and skill are the only tools at our disposal. I have tried many a build, and my favorite is:
  20 orb 20 mastery 20 tk 20 teleport rest in ES.
  The maxed orb+mastery is sufficient killing power for Andy/Meph/Pindle/many lev 85 areas. The maxed teleport grants you 1 mana teleport (depending on +skills); allowing you to teleport around like a maniac even with a low low low mana supply. The maxed TK/few ES combo is only advised if your mana pool is ~ 800 or more, but it can significantly increase the efectiveness of the character. (Mind you, since you maxed Teleport, even if ES eats up all your mana, you'll regenerate that 1 point fast enough to be able to jump away... most of the time).
  
  I forced a few people to build a sorc along these lines, and all of them seemed satisfied with the results.
  
  (If you don't mind playing a paladin, however, especially the ubah-cheese Hammerboy, it might be a better way to go. They seem rather powerful on paper, they seem rather powerful in action, but I have no personal experience playing them since the left-click-cast makes me so depressed that I don't even want to kill Engima WW-sins for days.)

[[wcip]Angel]

tk?

---

I found this guide on how to make a good MF-sorc:
http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-guides/sorcmf.php

Yepp, you can see in the URL, that I found it on dii.net (don't look at me! It was google who brought me there! Who knows what she was thinking.) Anyway, despite it being hosted on the Site of Pure Evil People® (SPEP), is there any truth to what the guide says? I've never used the mana/energy-armor-thing.

[adeyke]

TK = telekinesis. Energy shield gets a synergy from TK. You lose (32 - (base points in TK)) / 16 mana per point of damage ES absorbs.

Note that ES comes before resistance, so having it will severely drain your mana if you're hit, even if the damage would be harmless.

The guide is for 1.09 and shouldn't be trusted for 1.10. The part about % damage to mana and energy was wrong even in 1.09, though.

The % damage to mana is based on the damage you actually receive. So if you have slvl 1 ES (20%) and are hit by a 100 damage attack, you'll take 80 damage and lose 40 mana (assuming no TK synergy at all). So you'd need 50% damage to mana in order to maintain your mana.

With slvl 2 ES (25%), you'd need 67%. With slvl 3 ES (30%), you'd need 86%. With slvl 4 ES (35%), you'd need 93%. With slvl 5 ES (40%), you'd need 133%. And so on. The higher your ES, the more % damage to mana gear you'd need to break even in terms of mana. And it does only work on physical damage.

(If you have points in TK for synergy, the percentages would be lower, of course). With maxed synergy, slvl 5 ES (40%) would really just need 50% damage to mana to maintain the mana.)

[[wcip]Angel]

Ok. I just hit lvl 18, and can start using some skill-points. I put 1 into telekenises and 1 into teleport.

Are we all in agreement, that I should be using frozen orb?

Secondly, someone suggested fireball. Is this superior to firewall when MFing?

[Obi2Kenobi]

My MFer used Orb (before dieing). It was nice. I used neither Fireball nor Firewall. I didn't have enough skill points for either to be effective at my level, since I was only level ~70 and had maxed the Orb synergy.

[Guest]

My current mf sorc, ~clvl 80, uses these skills:


20 Frozen Orb
20 Cold Mastery
20 Ice Bolt
8 Energy Shield
Rest into Teleport


I messed up. I didn't have much plus skills, so I thought I'd put extra points into ES. If Meph hit's me twice with his ice ball of doom, I have no mana, and only a few hit points left. In retrospect, I probably would have left ES at level 1, and pumped TK.

[Caaroid]

Hah! Reply to adeyke and Unreal, targetted at Angel:

In light of adeyke's post, it is easier to understand why I said MAX TELEPORT. Your mana will take huge hits. And damage to mana only works with physical attacks (and with gloams, maybe because of the gloam bug?). With a maxed teleport, you can get away from danger (I did tell you this Unrealshadow13, now did I not?) even when your mana has been emptied. And the maxed TK guarantees that you'll not loose THAT much mana.

Mind you, if you have less than ~ 800 mana, ES is really just not worth it. It's only there to reduce the damage the stray hits do to you on your way to meph/andy, as you won't spend more than 3-4 minutes in any game anyway. (You can learn the basic "feel" of durance lev2, and with a sturdy enough sorc you can find your way down there in a minute).

Hope this helps.

[[wcip]Angel]

It helps, but I'm not convinced about what skills to use

1. Cold sorc-only, using synergies
2. Frozen orb + firewall
3. Frozen orb + fireball

...

[Caaroid]

I also have a 20-1 orb 20-20-20 fireball sorceress. She is fun -- but essentially a fireball sorceress. And she gets her defense from equipment.

If your aim is to MF, I'd say Cold, WITHOUT synergies. Orb DOES NOT NEED THEM (sorry for caps, but I fail to stress this enough, just look at poor Unrealshadow13). You only want to kill two monsters in the whole game, Andy and Meph. Orb is good enough for that.

[devzero]

Personaly I am aiming for hell Baal, and for that you will need deecent killing speed in at least 2 dammage types. I have a couple of builds in mind, but havnt decided upon witch one to do just yet.

All my sorc will at minimum have 1 point in static, warmth, tk and teleport.

1:) 20 frozen orb - 1 cold mastery (no synergies), 20 fire bolt, 20 fire ball, 20 fire mastery and 17 meteor at lvl 99 (take points in meteor last)

2:) 20 frozen orb - 10 cold mastery (no synergies), 20 warmt, 20 enchant, 20 fire mastery, 11 teleport at lvl 99 (take points in CM and Tele last) Use kuko or demon machin on switch to take out cold immunes. Razortail for 99% pierce

Both plan on using a nice act 2 HF merc for taking out dual immunes. At the moment im mostly in favour of build 1, but build 2 got low cost teleport and high mana regen going for it. Build one runs the risk of running out of mana while teleporting down.