Fast Cast Sorc

[swirly]

I've been thinking of building a fast cast sorc sometime and was wondering what everyones thoughts were on the build. For skills I was thinking of the following:

1 warmth
1 fire bolt
20 fireball
20 fire mastery

1 static field
20 nova
20 lightning mastery
1 telekinesis
1 teleport

1 ice bolt
20 ice blast
1 cold mastery

107 skill pts total
12 skills from quests
lvl 96 needed

I would aim on using fireball as my main kill skill instead of nova. So basically I could use ice blast to freeze things and then fireball them to death. Nova would be mainly used to kill things if they are fire immune or if I get in trouble like if I get surrounded or some such. For items I was thinking of the following:

Oculus
Lidless
Shako
Vipermagi
2* soj
maras
magefist
silkweave/rare
caster belt

With a caster belt with 10 cast rate I should be able to get 110 fcr I believe. That might give me a little problem with double teleport, but this is pvm and so I don't think it will be that big a deal when it happens. I'm not sure how much mana the build would really need. I know nova requires alot, but not sure about fireball. I know its like half as much as nova from chippydips site. I'm hoping that between the 2 soj's and my warmth I should have enough for fireball and to nova only occasionally. That way I could wear rare boots to help my resistances a little. I might switch out some of the the items like maras for a caster amulet with 2 sorc skills or some such since I have a pally that is trying to make one for him (he is a hammerdin) and so gets others in the process. I figure overall the build should be able to make it through the game. The hardest things should be fire and lightning immune bosses cause I would have to ice blast them to death which could take a while. I figure those don't appear all that often and if I really want I could prob ice blast them and then run past. As for my merc choice I was thinking of an act 5 merc. I know a holy freeze act 2 merc might be better, but I just feel the act 5 one fits the theme. He attacks faster than the other mercs and so fits with the speed attacks thing. Also with the right equipment he should be able to tank some and thus let me stand back and shoot things. So anyone have any comments or suggestions for the build? I figure I'll probably only get nova up to 10 or so and then max it the rest of the way later. This would cut the end level down to 86 which is much easier to achieve and then any more lvls I get could be put into nova to finish it off.

[Mael-Storm]

I have already done a fast cast sorc as well as a fire ball sorc.
I would just like to suggest that you use as a belt string of ears with a 14 or 15 reduced dmg and also find somroom to get a little energy shield otherwise whever this char gets hit as far as i can tell she is dead. (unless you are are pumping vitality but this kind of sorc needs a little bit more mana than most, trust me she burns the stuff fast)
The other thing i suggest is to use more nova and less fire ball. The dmg on fire ball isent so great even when maxed out with maxed fire mastery while nova is just about the same, around 1000 dmg but with nova it spreads around better than the splash dmg on fire ball.
(im not sure about this but i also think that they cast at around the same speed) :P

[TheVillageIdiot]

Looks like a decent build, althrough I think Glacial Spike would better than Ice Blast.

[Kevin]

Shouldn't really have a problem with that build. It looks a lot like my charged bolt sorc. CB is her primary, FB is the secondary, and Ice Blast is for the rare fireghtning immume monsters. I am assuming that was the whole idea for ice blast with you, to deal with the FI/LI monsters, which makes it the better choice over GS, since it does more damage and you are only worrying about a single target. Of course she is only L75 right now so the skills aren't all that high. She managed to kill the Ancients in a 4 player game in Hell the other day, so I should have the game complete right around L76.

My skills are currently something like:
Charge Bolt - 20
Lightning Mastery - 20
Fireball - 15
Fire Mastery - 8
Ice Blast - 15

I have one point in Frozen armor (to help me get the teleport off if I get hit). I did get Energy Shield in Act 3 Hell. I didn't really need it in normal or NM, and I probably should have gotten it for the start of Act II Hell just to make life a little easier.

I played with the equipment that I found (like I always do). I had a wall of the eyeless for a long time, I got lucky and got Silkweaves, which helped a fair bit with the mana, and I just found a lidless as well, though it is ethereal. I am using a stealth armor (the FHR is nice, as is the cast and run boost), a +3 lightning skills ammy a +2 rare orb that I got as a quest reward from Anya on Hell (first Anya item I have ever used) that replaced an older +2 magic orb I had. Belt is a caster belt, gloves might be caster as well. She is fine pretty much anywhere if there are 4 or fewer players, things get tricky with 8 players though.

Fireball will still eat your mana because you will need to cast a lot of them to kill, it does alright though. Ice Blast isn't too hard on mana and you really only need to get it to the L18 breakpoint with the +skills, I didn't start developing it until NM sometime. Don't have a lot of experience with Nova, though you need to get closer to the monsters with it than you do with CB (yes CB is more effective if you get in close) so that might be an issue. My man pool was actually alright several levels back, so I started to put points into dex and I now have about 12% block with a 40% shield. It helps more than I thought it would.

Just some thoughts. I don't think you will have a problem and I think you can survive with Fireball as the main skill, though when you see the power of Nova you may be tempted to switch. :)

[swirly]

Yeah I am a little worried about nova being overly tempting too. Thats one reason I was thinking of only taking nova itself to 5-10 to start with and then finishing it off later. That way it should still kill things, but maybe won't be quite as fast as a maxed one would be. Also would be less mana intensive.

[Griselda]

If one wanted to actually kill stuff with cold, glacial spike might be more effective than ice blast. But, as a supporting, crowd control type utility skill, ice blast has a significantly longer freeze time.

The biggest challenge in this build will be the middle levels, when I think it will be tough to find enough skill points for all three trees.

If I play another sorc, I'm thinking of limiting myself to 10 points in any one skill, just to give the monsters a fighting chance. But, a non-rushed three-tree sorc might provide a similar challenge in the questing years, and a nice amount of power in her matriarchal days, if a conscious effort was made to keep all three skills balanced as the character levels.

Of course, that's the way that I like to play. YMMV. :)

-Griselda

[swirly]

Actually I have to disagree with you about glacial spike being better for killing things. At level 20 ice blast does 255 cold damage and glacial spike 165-173 cold damage. They will both of course end up higher than 20, but even then ice blast does more damage. As you said, ice blast also has a longer freeze duration. The only benefit I see to glacial spike is that it freezes a whole group. Hmmm reading the arreat summit it does say that glacial spike fires much faster than ice blast, but neither have casting delays so I guess that it is just the animation length is faster for glacial spike or the travel time. I'm not sure about that at all. Will it really make a difference when you get to 110 faster cast rate?

[Griselda]

I actually like ice blast myself, so I haven't played much with glacial spike. :P In fact, I first picked ice blast because of the longer freeze length and higher damage. But, the ability to damage one monster more significant benefit than it might seem when just comparing the numbers (to use an extreme example- people post from time to time wondering why everyone uses frozen orb when the listed damage is so low). Both skills get the job done, so I guess it's just a matter of figuring out which one you'd enjoy casting more. :)

-Griselda

[swirly]

Yes I agree that damaging a group can be very good. Let me quote the arreat summit though on glacial spike. "Effect: A shard of ice that inflicts massive cold damage and explodes to freeze nearby enemies.
A more powerful spell than Ice Blast, Glacial Spike fires much faster than Ice Blast, and does an area Freeze attack that Freezes monsters within a radius of 2.6 yards." So the way I read that is that it only really damages what it hits and then it freeezes everything around it. The other monsters while frozen wouldn't be taking any damage from the splash. I don't know if that is correct, but that is how I interpreted it.