Sorceress blocking%

[whyBish]

Chilling Armor, which almost no one uses, afaik, is insanely good vs. inferno, last I checked.

Chilling Armor (by ranged) and Shiver Armor (by melee) both, regardless of the distance of the attacker, trigger when you are attacked, *not* because you are hit.

Frozen Armor triggers because you are *hit*. Note that if you *block* you are *not* considered to be hit.

So my preference is usually Shiver Armor. Works for me. YMMV, depending on how you play and what you enjoy.

Yes, I personally prefer shiver armor to frozen armor for that reason, but it depends on what level blocking you have (after taking into account whether you run :P ). A Low block (and low def - but that is fairly standard these days) means that frozen armor becomes more useful than shiver armor, and for some his also allows one less skill point 'wasted' on defence :)

I've never tried chilling armor vs. inferno, but considering that the arctic blast monsters are cold immune, and that balrogs are only in a couple places in a4 & throneroom, I think the skillpoint would be much better spent elsewhere, especially when you will be facing a mix of monsters and not solely archers. If you are facing solely (non-balrog) archers and finding them a problem, you would probably get better effect out of a HF merc (although CA has the advantage of being selectable situationally unlike the merc).

Also note that in my 'ranking' I didn't mention "Not being there', and Life/Vit. Not being there is a hard one to rank, because it assumes you have control ove rthe situation, and when you are online you can lag out (also stair traps can be an issue), and since I have a high ping (~500) I would rank 'not being there' low, whereas someone with a good connection would rank it much higher. (Also explains why I am sometimes seen teleporting into mobs in HC, I have a tendency towards tank-ish chars for the conn. reason). As to Life/Vit, I just didn't want to touch that. It is far too personal a decision, depends much on HC vs. SC, availability of equipment (i.e. str/dex requirements of equipment or expected equipment, which leads to twink/mule/trade differences and so on), and also playstyle, not just in terms of tactics (hanging back vs. tanking at the extremes) but also strategy (I know people whose 'style' is to quit chars after lvl 70 which is often without trying hell, skill selection affects competing mana and equipment needs), and teamwork (It used to be more common in 1.09 to be partying with at least a druid or barb (Basin HC West, NZ Time), unfortunately in 1.10 I personally meet fewer of these and so need to be more generous on Life). So as you see, I would need to write a whole guide or there-abouts to cover the Life/Vit decision. :)