sorceress builds

[Sjafi]

I've been thinking about sorc builds for 1.10 for a while and there's two I like so far. One is a max firebolt/fireball/1 pt. mastery, max icebolt/blizzard/1 pt. mastery, remaining points in static. At first, I was going to go with max fire mastery/fball, but I realized that you get much better payoff maxing a synergy in the fireskills rather than fire mastery because of the benefit fire mastery gets from +skill items.

The other, max hydra, 10 firebolt, 10 fire mastery, 5 icebolt, 10-15 iceblast, max gspike, remaining points in warmth/static. I chose gspike over orb because of the timer that intereferes with each other, and I like to have one timer spell on my right click and one spammer spell on my left.

What do you think? Improvements? I'm leaning more towards the fball/blizz one because of cold immunes being so fast, that hydra requires me to dance all over the place in order for it to do it's damage while fireball, I can keep firing at them sometimes able to stun them.

I dunno, I think too much. <_<

[apandapion]

I think that it's not worth it to make dual tree sorcs anymore unless you regularly intend to play alone. What really is better, being able to utterly smash most of the monsters of the game, yet be ineffective against some of them, or to be weak against everything?

If it is feasible to leave things immune to your chosen element to your allies, then I would suggest that you instead consider some builds which maximize the power of one element. In most cases, such a plan will lead to you having two or more hefty skills from that element, so against what you can kill you'll have a great deal of flexibility.

Anyone gone the single element route and regretted it?

[Sjafi]

I have gone the single element route, and regretted it. I went with chain lightning and massive synergies when 1.10 first came out. I hated the fact that I couldn't kill anything that was lightning immune. It made soloing just useless. Sure, go single element if you want to rely on a part 24/7, I sometimes like to solo rather than party all the time.

[soccerguy315]

If you're always going to play in a group, then 1 element is ok, but I don't think they are as fun to play either. I mean, I personally would like to be able to strategically beat everything, even if it's not the fastest, because it's unrealistic to party [with a good party] all the time. Back when I was playing, the favorite character I made was my tri-elemental sorc. It was hard on mana in the beginning, and difficult in the 15-25 levels because I was waiting to dump points into the skills at level 24, so my spells were not that strong. But I used Meteor / Thunderstorm / Blizzard. I like TS because you can always have it running and deal 500 damage or however much it does to whatever is near you (the only problem is it makes LEBs go like crazy, haha, but you can wait for it to run down). I mean, if a fire immune was coming at me, the TS would hit it, and i'd place the blizzard between it and me, and that was that. Same with cold immune, but switch blizzard with meteor. I like meteor because it makes a firewall kind of thing when it lands, so you can use the AI to your advantage and run around and keep them in there and make a chain of them on the path the monster will take, and watch them walk through it and get fried.

It might not have been the fastest killer, well, it wasn't, because that was back in the day of the firewall sorcs and bloody runs all the time, I don't know if that's still the case. BUT, it was a huge amount of fun playing, and I got really great items (found), and I knew that I could beat any enemy that I came upon. Personally, I would rather not rely on having a group with you to kill monsters, sometimes, you will be alone, and it sucks if you're questing and have to "park" him or leave the game or something.

But yea, there's my story of my tri elemental sorc, lots of fun, go for it! :D :lol:

[Zallambo]

Actually you could get the best of both worlds. When the 1.10 patch really comes out (its bugged in the beta), sorceress cold mastery will work on cold immunes. So if you focused all your points in cold skills, you would be able to hurt anything (with lvl 25 cold mast immunes would effectively have only 27% cold resistance, making them quite suseptable to damage). Of course the cold skills don't do as much damage as other skills do now too.

[Animation]

Sjafi,

I've also been thinking about Sorceress builds for 1.10.

1) I really like the Blizzard/Fireball combo, except in my case, I'm thinking of maxing Ice Blast and Blizzard, rather than Ice Bolt and Blizzard. Ice Blast with +skills has a nice long freeze time, and with +skills it would be "adequate" in hell for holding non-cold-immunes still (albeit one at a time; but I plan on stirring up as little trouble as possible as I play). Also, Ice Blast and Blizzard synergize for some decent damage. On the Fire side, I'm also thinking Fireball, but I haven't decided whether to go with Hydra, Firebolt, or Meteor for my synergy. Meteor seems like a good bet, but it requires more points. But you'd have that ideal combo of smacking monsters in the face that are charging with fireball, and laying the big bomb on them with meteor. The firebolt option would be just to save points. They Hydra option gives nice tactical ability, but fireball doesnt (I dont believe) get a benefit from Hydra. Too bad. So I'm leaning towards Meteor and Fireball. That build would take 93 points, so it would be completed by level 82 in hell if you did all the quests.

2) I've never done a Nova sorceress despite their common presence on battle.net. I've done an Inferno sorceress before, but its been AGES. I was thinking of a Nova / Inferno sorceress, because Warmth 20 would be nice for both, since the Nova would need it on the mana side and the Inferno gets a damage boost from Warmth (hopefully that synergy will remain). I might consider some dex (blocking) on such a character, just a modest amount, shoot for a 50% block with a 75% shield. But I think Inferno 20, Warmth 20, Fire Mastery 1, Nova 20, Lightning Mastery 20, Teleport 1 would do it. This build "only" requires 84 points, leaving you potentially 10 more to dump in Fire Mastery to bring your Inferno damage up for Hell. I wonder if it would be workable?

3) I'd love to do a Chain Lightning / Lightning sorceress (20 each) with 20 in Firewall, 1 in Fire mastery, 1 in Lightning Mastery, 10 in Warmth and 10 in Static Field, and 1 in Teleport. This build would require 87 points and be "finished" at level 76. I'd add to warmth last, in case my mana and equipment could sustain heavy lightning use with less in warmth. In the late levels you could pump fire mastery to bring fire wall up as more of a main attack, or just leave it as a secondary element and dump into lightning mastery. This might be more of a party player, leaning towards heavy lightning while having some minor degree in fire for times when you just have to plink away at a lightning immune when solo.

4) I'd love to make another all-vitality Blaze / Thunderstorm sorceress but they didnt give Blaze any synergies, or thunderstorm either, so I have no idea whether a 400 vit, 35 energy, 60 str sorceress could cut it in 1.10. Was quite fun in 1.09, and Chromatic Ire really jacked up her life. I may try this one again, even though its challenging in places and works best without a party or a merc. :)

Lewis

[Epi]

Actually you could get the best of both worlds. When the 1.10 patch really comes out (its bugged in the beta), sorceress cold mastery will work on cold immunes. So if you focused all your points in cold skills, you would be able to hurt anything (with lvl 25 cold mast immunes would effectively have only 27% cold resistance, making them quite suseptable to damage). Of course the cold skills don't do as much damage as other skills do now too.

Actually, you can't. When/if Blizzard fixes immunity piercing for Cold Mastery, it will most likely work as other skills do now for immune monsters - at 20% efficience, that is. For slvl 25 CM it will be only -15% cold resistance, not enough to pierce most immunities, and making monsters have 85% resist in case when it will pierce (which is ~10% of all immunities, according to monstat.txt).

[Pren]

From everything I've seen in testing, without slvl30+ skills and enormous synergistic investments, sorc spells are useless in 1.10 hell.

Don't even try to use inferno. It has to be bugged. You'd need +30 fire skills to get it workable, and a severely badass tank to keep things still.

Edit: Really, being able to not-kill every type of monster instead of being unable to kill only one isn't very productive. Amazons have an immortal valk and easy access to fire, cold, and physical damage, barbs get ungodly magic and physical, necros are the most party friendly class in the game, can break every immunity except magic, can solo with super magic+CE or party with CE, paladins get physical and the tri elements, etc.

Druids and sorcs appear fairly screwed, both must invest ENORMOUSLY into a single field to get that one up to standard, and leaves room for nothing else. Assassins apparently are doing well by exploiting crushing blow with blade fury and dtalon, but considering how the game will almost not be worth playing if blizzard doesn't fix that stacking bug, it's unknown how they'll do in reality. Pheonix strike delivers a handy 3 for one skill, but I don't know if it does enough damage to be realistic in hell...

Most people will party, or they'll get godly gear and solo as barbs, necros, or amazons in 4-8 player games. I am frankly worried that you will have parties in large player count games that are unable to kill the monsters with their increased regeneration.