Max TK and ES

[whyBish]

Hello,
I'm making a HC sorc with max TK and (eventually but no hurry) max ES. Since ES means I won't want to be running around low on mana, what skill should I use for offense? (I have about 6-7 static, which is all I need for normal)

The following skills are under consideration, but note I will probably only have 30-40 points in them and a mastery or synergy

Frozen Orb
Advantage : Cold mastery can be used to help with cold resistant monsters
Good damage, but mana cost possibly too high?

Blizzard
Advantage : Cold mastery can be used to help with cold resistant monsters
Decent damage/mana but good enough without synergies and full mastery?

Chain Lightning
Advantage is that it is in the same tree as ES so benefits from the ~6 lit skills I will eventually have, disadvantage is that it is in the same tree as static.

Meteor
Lowest mana cost, good bang for buck in terms of mana and skill points

[Caaroid]

Hello whyBish,

first of all let me warn you, ES sorceresses are a tricky bunch. I have one, right now a mule, since KinArad proved not to be hell-viable. She had ~ 600 life, 2.5k mana, 92% ES, 33DR, 13MDR and was a FO-Nova build (probably her greatest weakness).

First, to answer your question: were I to remake KinArad, I'd make her FO. If FO is your main skill, you do need the maxed mastery, and maybe even the synergies to kill comfortably with.

Now with the warning: the ES sorceress in essence exchanges the protection resistances have to offer with the ability to have huge amounts of mana, and the ability to never have to go into hit recovery or block-lock. This worked wonderfully in normal and nightmare (yes, I did try out tanking Lister with 1 hp, and yes, it really does work), but in hell the damage just ramps up so much that 2.5k mana was truly insufficient. When I had a decent level BO on me, and had ~ 3.5k mana, life was smooth (the increased mana regen speed counts a lot there), but otherwise it was all painful. Add to this, that poison bypasses ES, and that mana burn monsters kept 1-hit-killing me even in NM, and you got one very unhappy sorceress player.

What I'd do if I remade my sorc, I'd build her the standard no-block way, having high resistances, but pump energy instead of vitality. I'd also aim for ~ 80% ES instead of 9x%, since with higher resistances my life could take a few hits without serious problems. As of now, I do not consider the no-resist, no-block ES sorceresses hell viable unless you have a really truly insanely huge mana pool.

Bleaching the bleak picture: in norm and NM, KinArad was no end of fun. I haven't had a sorc with over 1k mana since 1.0, and it is truly refreshing to be able to cast and spam all those no-damage spells you have :P

Tell me how your sorc works out, and please convince me that remaking Kin Orb only would be worth the effort :)

[whyBish]

Well my list of skills to max eventually is TK,ES,Warmth (no rush on ES and warmth though) so will only have about 30 skill points in offense entering hell.

This is for HC BTW, so I won't even have as high a mana pool as you, but will have higher life, and aiming for about -70 dr (but gambling is failing me on this accord ;) ) I will still have max or near max resist all but will not have any block (above 5%), since points in dex are points that aren't going into vit (or eng) and that seems to be the point of an ES sorc :P

Since I won't have as much mana to spare, and since I will only end up about 20/10 in any skill by lvl 80 I am still concerned that if I go orb it won't be strong enough, and will cost too much mana.

Note that only about 25% of the time I will actually use anything other than static, since I play in an AB party the rest of the time.

[Caaroid]

Orb has no alternative. If you only have 30 points for offense, what else would you choose? Fireball is at least 60 points, firewall and nova 40, the lightnings 80+, meteor 40+ (60-80)... I really see no alternative to Orb in that case.

About DR: I bought a jeweler's of amiace off of hell Charsi, and I put 3 SOLs in it. 33 DR. That was the shield I used all through hell.
The real problem is, that there is no way you can lower the damage that your mana takes. I had like 400 energy at that point, lots of (ok, low-mid quality) mana charms, 2x 100+ bahamuts, frosties, gloom's, silkveave, shako and a PSapphire skin. I really have no idea how I could've had more mana (sort of an OHM), and I had serious trouble even in 1 player hell act 3 (ok, Travincal is tough for anyone, but hey).

Until hell, nothing can stop you... with the exception of MB bosses. They ARE one-hit killers, 2.5k mana goes down in a single hit. I play softcore, but even there it became frustrating.

Good luck with your build.

BTW: I saw a pvp-er running around with TK/ES/Fball/Mastery combo, and she did comparatively good. If you also plan to max warmth (great idea if you have the points to counter the mana loss), this does not seem to be viable.

[Iknowwhen]

I tried my best to build a PVP ES sorc and the result was not a good one.

Items I used :

Vipermagi skin, 35%/12 with an UM in
Shako (with a Shael in)
heart of the oak (37%)
lidless wall (Perf D in)
2 SOJS
Mara (28%)
skill belt
Frostburn
Silkwave
(2nd lot I have a crappy call to arm with lidless wall)
20/16/6 unique sc
10 light GC
some sc with FHR/mana

with these items, I have more than 40 lvl of energy shield (which reached the 95% max absord dmg), and 110%FCR - basically the max you need for a sorc, 80% all res in hell, +13 all skills and a huge mana pool.

I am going all ENERGY and zero into VIT, no bloack (meaning no dex), I have around 400 points into energy.

After BO, I have around 3500 mana and 4XX life at lvl 82.

The skill I have chosen was thunder storm, with max thunder storm and light mastery and above items, I am doing around 35XX damage.

I also figured, I need some help from a merc (well, some may argue duel/PK with merc is no manner but in this case of an PVP ES sorc, I really don't see how can I do enough damage without one).

So I had chosen an Act 1 bow fire merc.

I leveled her to 73 (directly hired her in hell at lvl 71), so that she can use a WF, I also had couple other nice items for her, including the unique sharkskin armor (40% OW) and the latest runeword - Duress (33% OW and decent res), also with some help from a friend, I as able to get a perfect upgraded 220% unique razor bow.

I suppose if damage from WF doesn't work, then OW should make her a nasty killer also.

on paper, this kind of setup seems the best possible you can put on an PVP es sorc build and I did expect something good came out of it.

I tried out with my friend last weekend, the game was created in hell.

1. against a charger, I almost has zero chance to do any damage on him, the 3XXX light damgage in PVP is pretty much a joke, the damage of the merc is nothing to a high defense Pal. I can fly, no doubt, if I try to avoid getting hit, I can get away and the match will never end, but I just don't have any chance to beat him.

2. against a WW bar, same situation.

3. against a well setup sum nec, i did able to dispatched about 1/5 of his army but at the end, I can't beat him either.

Also, the point is, if an es sorc will be against a melee char and he/she will have some kind of OW, you are going to die, real fast.

If you are going to against a char with some kind of poison attack, you are going to die fast also.

Merc is basically a non factor (I even tried to use another enchant sorc to party and enchant my merc first before the duel - which added 4XXX fire damage), still the damage is not nothing at all, OW is not very obviously also, I think the penalty on OW using be merc is pretty high.

with max abosrd in ES, I did able to take some amazing damage though, I am able to take 3-4 hit of huge charge damage, 2 WW from a duel handed axe bar with BOTD, and that sum nec who got bone spear as his second attack, doing around 3XXX magic damage, basically can't do any damage to me at all (less than 20 life taken per hit).

So, with these items and setup, I think I can still solo hell with the help of a bow merc, but its pointless.

as for PVP, I really can't see any light yet...

[Caaroid]

Iknowwhen: Thunderstorm is dead. Forget it.

A friend mentioned having seen a 92% absorb fireball PVPer. ~ 800 life, 3k mana, and a decent fireball damage. She took out most characters that did not do huge single-hit damage (ww barbs, etc. etc.), but was at a loss against some other chars. (Same build as yours, but had mage instead of frosties for the fire skill and cast).

If I were you, I'd remake my sorc along these lines. And hire your merc in normal, it only takes +1 day to get her to lev 7x (that's what I did with my ES sorc).

Do keep us updated about your results.

[Obi2Kenobi]

*agrees with above poster*

Especially about the hiring the mercenary in normal. The level she is hired at doesn't matter, but hiring her in normal will really help.

[Iknowwhen]

of course, hiring a bow merc in normal will have better life, better resist and better damage, however, leveling her up to 7X level will be really a pain.

bottom line is, I believe the importance of the damage from merc is much less in 110 than in 109. And mostly likely, they will die in 1 or 2 hits no matter what level of difficulties they were hired from.

As for the fireball PVPer suggested above, I really can't see how it may work. 92% absord is a HUGE difference than a 95% abosrb es sorc.

Your life base is already very low, taking extra 60% of the damage (5% vs 8%) is extremely dangerous in PVP. Also, I can't see what is the benefit you can gain from dropping a fosties by using a magefist.

You will have a huge drop off on you mana pool, the extra +1 skills and mana regen is nice, but I don't think it can compensate that.

If a ES sorc will be using fireball, she will face 2 major problems :

1. not enough skill points, at around lvl 80, you can only max 2 skills other than the basic requirement for ES. If you go Fireball and say max fire bolt, and say you have extra 10 fire GC to boost your fire mastery, your damage will still be pretty low in a PVP stand point. Any charater with decent resist and maybe a little bit of absord will take you out easily.

2. Fireball also required to aim and that could be a problem. If a sorc will cast something in PVP which required to aim, IMO, she better max block, otherwise...., if she max block, again, the efficiency from the protection of ES will be going down.

If anyone will really serious think about making a PVP ES sorc, as of now, I think a frozen orb sorc maybe the only choice left.

[Caaroid]

Well. We can do it the easy way, and we can do it the hard way.

EASY WAY:
I've knowledge of a fireball ES sorc who does good. Your build doesn't do good. Orb sorceresses are a joke. Q.E.D.

HARD WAY:
She had 92%. I did not suggest that. HOWEVER: She also had 800 life. Not 400, 800. In PVP, no matter your dam. red, damage WILL bypass ES. Either since it is too big for ES to absorb, or since it is poison/OW.
MAGEFIST: damage, cast, hallo? The idea is not to get hit, you need the cast rate badly. You also need the damage from +1 skill. You have BO (come on, you PVP, right?). The bonuses for BO and Frost are additive; you don't loose as much as you think you do. I really should make a table detailing the optimal faster mana regen/+% max mana setups. If I will, I'll post it here.
FIREBALL: Learn to aim :) Now really. Fireball sorceresses are for the nimble-fingered. Otherwise play an enigma boner. 20-20-1 fireball does 2.7-3.0k damage at skill lev 30. You cast at 8 frame. TS does 1.5-2k, once per second.

Basically, a fireball ES PVP-er has the following advantages over a normal fireball PVP-er:

• ES comes before resists -> FOH palas won't 1-hit-kill you
  <>
  
• You have a HUGE mana pool (she had like 3k mana after her perfect CTA), what allows easy teleport and fireball-spamming
  <>
  
• Fast, low-damage attacks you won't put you into hit recovery that easily<>
  [st]The disadvantages:
  • WEAK offense. Not weak, WEAK.
    <>
    
  • OW, poison.
    <>
    
  • Huge-hitting effects WILL kill you.<>
    [st]
    One last point: the ES sorceresses are known to be BAD at PVP. I gave you a suggestion as to the optimal ES PVP-er. A naked Blizzard sorc will always be a lot more dangerous than any ES sorc can ever hope to be.
    
    P.S: I don't have a CTA. And I PVP. But not with an ES sorc.

[whyBish]

Orb has no alternative. If you only have 30 points for offense, what else would you choose? Fireball is at least 60 points, firewall and nova 40, the lightnings 80+, meteor 40+ (60-80)... I really see no alternative to Orb in that case.

Cheers, this is exactly what I was looking for.

[Caaroid]

I did throw together the excel sheet. Punchnig in the data, assuming level 16 BO (pvp is about equipment, right? = perfect CTA-7, shako-2, skin-1, soys-2, mara-2, lidless-1, anni-1), and 1 point in warmth, magefist provides faster mana regeneration, and Frosts "only" give you 16% more mana. Only if warmth is 10 or more does Frost provide faster mana regeneration.

While this alone would not mean that mage is better, the increased fireball damage and faster cast rate make it a better choice.

[Chesspiece_face]

(pvp is about equipment, right? = perfect CTA-7, shako-2, skin-1, soys-2, mara-2, lidless-1, anni-1)

Don't forget arachnids-1!!! =)

[Caaroid]

Don't forget arachnids-1!!! =)

I knew it was supposed to be 18, just did not get the last two :) Battle comand is the other one.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Don't forget the 10 +1 GCs.

[Caaroid]

I never knew cry gc-s worked on sorceresses.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Oh, yea, +tab doesn't work... :( Forgot it was an oskill

[IKKE]

Well guys, i made a sorc after this point
she's now lvl 71 iirc
maxed orb
maxed telekenise
lvl 15 orb (5 more to go)
lvl 15 mastery (5 more to go)
lvl 1 warmth (dont got any mana problem...yet... :P)

with equip sehs got
iirc she got 119 str
64 dex
119 vit
119 energy
life about 710
mana about 690

it works very nice, i still got 45 stat points spare
my equip
nightwings 13% (+5/5 die jewel)
mara's 27%
Occulus
skin viper 31 (gonna switch it for upgraded 35/13 :P)
lidless wall shield ( no sock yet)
mage fist gloves
a rare 10% fcr (to get breakpoint) + resists
a manald heal
still dont know what belt i should use, talrasha with his 20 dex 37dam goes to mana, or glooms trap with 15% increased rate+mana
boots wartravs

I found my char owning lvl 8x and 9x already when about llvl 63
when I hit a pala (with 19xx life) with 2 orbs (full frontal) its totally dead.
I found the build real nice, im now thinking of going for stormshield instead of lidless :D


1 question, does DR goes before ES ?

[Caaroid]

DR comes after.

Problem with an orber: dual raven and a blackoak makes you heal your target. Of course, you can always call them noob, however it is hardly productive :)