05-30-2004, 06:17 AM
Quote: Well I'm not starting a new one now. I'll play this one out as far as I can, and probably make a frozen arrow/immolation arrow/multishot/valkyrie-Amazon.Two points.
(1)
While I am the first person to declare that nova is near useless, when I made my ES sorc (yesterday :P), I decided to go nova-orb. Then again, I have no clue how good she'll do :)
If, however, you don't have any other heavy investment (ES is 44 points in itself), you can easily pump other skills. Maxing lightning mastery is a must (maxing cold is fun, but not essential), since it beefs up your damage considerably.
What I did when I realized that my novasorc was no longer viable was branching her off to Chain Lightning. Bad move. Do try Lightning, though, it is beefier than CL, and if it fits your play style, it might be worth it.
(2)
Tri-elementalist can only be made using firewall-nova-orb these days. (Well, TS is even more useless than nova I am afraid to say, fireball is weak without it's synergies...) I still fondly remember the time when Tri-Tree ripped the place apart with nova/orb/hydra oblivion, but in 1.10, playing ladder, you could not stop monster regen with a low-power hydra. (I don't know about a high-power one, I keep wanting to make a hydra sorc and I always end up doing something else).
(3)
(Third of the two points): Immolation arrow is said to be really powerless. Frozen arrow is awesome (don't buy the Mavina set, I thought the cold-thingies built in could make it work; they don't), a maxed Valk is just plain simply silly (I have a rune rushee in hell now, lev 47 with a maxed valk, and the valk could tank NM baal without ever noticably taking any damage). I am not a big fan of strafe, but since the multi nerf, strafe seems to be the way to go.