I haven't played since 1.09, so when I started playing again, I decided to make a good ol' nova/orb sorc. After a while, I realized that Nova was sorta on the sucky side; not that the spell had been weakened, but that all the other spells were so much better, with their little synergies.
I'm about to call my sorc, now in her early 70's, a scratch, and start on a new build.
People have told me that Fireball is the way to go, but I really don't like the idea of a mono-tree sorc. Is it possible to have a Fireball/Orb sorc?
If I use Orb, it means I'll have to drop one of the synergies for Fireball, most likely Firebolt. Will she still be doing decent damage?
I want her to be PVM. I've calculated out the skill points, and there are 17 prerequisite skills/utility spells that need a point in them. Subtracted from the 112 skill points in the game, thats 95 skill points.
This means I will be able to max 4 skills, and nearly max a synergy.
Do you think this can be done? Here's what my skill allocation looks like in my mind. Note that I haven't looked at the damage of Fireball with only 1 synergy and Fire Mastery maxed.
Frozen Orb:20
Fireball: 20
Meteor: 20
Fire Mastery: 20
Prereqs and Utility spells (1 each): Firebolt, Inferno, Firewall, Charged Bolt, Lighting, Chain Lightning, Energy Shield, Teleport, Static Field, Telekinesis, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Frost Nova, Glaciel Spike, Blizzard (17 total)
The rest would go into Firebolt.
What do you guys think?
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A clvl 99 character with all quests will have 110 skill points, not 112.
One obvious exclusion from your list is cold mastery. There's absolutely no reason not to put at least one point in it if you use any cold attack spell. If you want your frozen orb to do something, more points would definitely be a good thing.
Another obvious exclusion is warmth. Unless you're avoiding it on purpose in order to make a weak character, the extra mana regeneration from a single point (especially with +skills gear) is quite worthwhile.
Personally, I'd also add a cold armour and enchant as one-point-wonders, but they're not quite as important as the cold mastery and warmth.
Energy shield's utillity, OTOH, is debatable. Its damage absorption costs a lot of mana right now.
If I dump energy shield, that means I get 4 of my skills back. I really rather wouldn't use the armor, but I totally forgot about cold mastery, thanks :)
I notice you can buy potions in 1.10, mana potions that is. I'd rather just chug a few pots....
My real question though is, will this character be viable, or at least, better than nova/orb?
Hate to double post, but something is wrong with edit...
I did some math, and maxed Fireball+Meteor+Fire Mastery is about 2500 damage.
Is that better than Nova? I seem to recall my slvl26 nova and slvl26 lightning mastery together doing about 1000 damage.
Will this build be good?
EDIT:
Not so much an Edit, as an update. I hope people are still reading this because I need some item advice...
I've completed normal difficulty with great ease; much easier than my old nova//orb sorc ever managed.
I'm currently using Viper Skins as my armor. Back in my 1.09 days, this was the lowest common denominator of mage armor. What should I plan on using (MF sorc)
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Hello!
Some advice about sorceresses in 1.10.
SKILLS:
I built a fireball/orb sorc. It was a dedicated fireball sorc, meaning no meteor, max bolt (saving points on synergy), max mastery. She had no ES, since ES is a suicide skill (or you need TK and Vulpine, and elemental attacks still hurt a LOT), and she had 20 orb 1 mastery.
In hell, she killed with her orb noticeably faster.
I know, sad.
Anyways, if you want to go 2-tree MF, there is no other route, orb with fireball (maybe do the meteor thingy, just a few extra levels and you're done).
EQUIPMENT: 1.10 SC ladder: Tal set is achievable. Just do some rune runs, and you'll have it. From that time on, there is no question about it :)
SIDE NOTE: Lightning. I made a Nova-CL-Mastery build, since I wanted to be able things (CL) but like nova (Nova :)), and she eneded up killing faster with nova than with CL. CL is slower, even if it is affected by fast cast, and the hectic damage output makes it a MEEH skill. If you want to use lightning go trapassin. Or FoH pala :)
My sorc, now lvl 73, is using Meteor as a synergy as opposed to firebolt. I know that I'm losing skill points, because Meteor takes an extra 3 points to get to (4 if you count meteor itself) but I've found it a valuable tool.
Owning monsters goes something like this... Cast orb, and while I'm waiting to be able to use Meteor, spam a few fireballs. Then I cast meteor after the delay timer from orb stops, and start over.
It's very effective, and easily the best sorc I've played in 1.10.
No energy shield eh? I've been dying a bit in Durance of Hate, because of those little tiny skeleton bugggers (what are they called?) 2 hits from them and I'm usually dead. I don't have energy shield, but I've been considering getting it, so that I stop dying from this pesky midgets.
How can I prevent myself from dying without shield? I upped my armor a little bit by changing from Skins of Vipermagi to Skulders, but they still have a 70 percent chance to hit me. Here's my equipment and skills:
Equipment:
Topazed Shako
Occulus
Topazed Skulders
Lidless Wall (considering putting a diamond in this. would that be good?)
Eye of Elitch (gawd I need Tals Ammy)
2x Soj
Goldwrap
Magefist
Silkweave
Annihulus
+1 Fire Skills GC
A bunch of mfsc
A total of +11 all skills, and an additional +2 fire skills, and a little more than 300 magic find.
Skills (without the +11)
Frozen Orb: 20
Cold Mastery: 2 (accidently put a second point in, but it isn't the end of the world :-))
Fireball: 20
Meteor: 20
Fire Mastery: 9 (working on it, gimme some time)
Utility Spells (teleport, static field): 2 (1 each)
Prereqs: 9
My Orb is doing damage in the 400-500's, fireball does around 5k, and meteor does more than 11k.
Any changes/suggestions?
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No, seriously.
I have not played a non-blocking character since 1.0 (save polearm druids).
Loosing 1 skill and 20% cast while gaining 35% PDR, insane block and huge resists is a good trade-off I think. Of course, you also loose life (156 str req is an ouch, and then you need dex to block as well), but my Storm sorc finds that she hardly dies at all.
Why no ES?
since 1.10, most shielding effects come before resistances (cyclone armor, bone armor and ES). While it can be beneficial in case of horrendous resistances (or when amped), it really hurts the sorceress. For example, if you had a character with Guardian Angel, and 90% lightning resist, and she got shot by a gloam, she'd first take damage to mana, then would resists apply, then damage to life.
So, for example taking your +9 to skills into consideration, you'd have a level 10 ES, absorbing 59% damage to mana. A hypotetical gloam shoots you for 200 damage, that causes 200*(0.59)*2 = 236 damage to mana, then you have 200*0.41 = 82 damage to life. You resist 90% of that, and take 8.2 damage. Instead of taking 20 points of damage to life and none to mana. Even if you spend 20 points into telekinesis, you can only reduce your damage to mana to the level of, say, 100. So in case you have a high-resistance build, ES is a skill that will get you killed (3-4 hits drain your mana supply).
Funny to see this D1 über-skill nerfed this badly.
Can you block magic attacks?
If you can't then SS would be pretty useless, as I never get hit by melee attacks.
I don't use energy shield because I wanted the extra 4 skill points to increase my ownaging power. I've considered it on several occasions, but people have said that it's a suicide spell now. (people on these forums)
I'd rather rely on my dodging skills, then assume I'm going to be hit. My resistances are all in the negatives, and I have only died once from Meph.
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Quote:Can you block magic attacks?
You can only block attacks that have a physical component to them. However, this includes ranged attacks like arrows from a burning dead archer.
My sorc is designed specifically for doing Meph runs. This means that the only baddies I face are Meph, sometimes ghoul lords, and on occasion a stray Council Member. All three of them use ranged magical attacks, with an occasional swipe if I let them get too close. I see no need for Stormshield.
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Well, if you don't want to block Meph's ball, it's your choice :)
Didn't know meph did physical.
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His Big Bad Ball is blockable. Then again, if you're meteoring/fireballing him, you can easily dodge those, so there might not be that much need of block. Also, if you could afford the Tal route, you could simply soak up that damage (then again, since you play non-ladder, you might not be able to do so).
FYI, everyone and their mother is using full Tal on their sorces on ladder.
why is tals more common in ladder?
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Where did that come from?!
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You should be fine without blocking, especially if you're just running meph. However, I don't know why you're dying in 2 hits to dolls - you should have well over 500 life+ . Or put a point in one of the melee cold armors - that will buff your defence rating as well as slowing down your attackers.
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Okay, I don't have the m4d 733t game-mechanics skills, but Frozen Orb and Meteor are both on timers, so the % cast on Lidless might be unnecessary. It depends on how heavily you rely on fireball. My sorc uses Visceratuant with a p-diamond; better blocking, and you keep the +1 skills. Otoh, she's not a meph runner...
For dealing with dolls: Try using an orb with + to cold skills and a cold armor on your weapon switch; maybe throw in a Sigon shield. Make room and stuff some life charms onto her--my sorc gets about 200 of her health just from charms, and it helps.
What merc are you using? An act 2 defiance or freeze merc might keep the dolls from mobbing you.
USWest SC ladder.
No more death by quill rat. 
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More affordable. And relatively more common, too. We don't have huge stockpiles of duped runes, so you can easily trade a better-drop Hell Hellforge for a Tal armor. As far as I know, you can't do that off ladder, since runes are worth a lot less there.
(It's the same thing with SOJs and Enigma; on ladder you get an enigma for 4, whereas you said off ladder you'd only get a LOL.)
I've solved my Doll problem... Holding down right click and teleporting like made means I don't get hit at all. My main problem is dealing with Unique Ghoul lords which sometimes spawn by Meph. For doing Meph I've developed a pretty solid killing method, but my friend says there is a way to get Meph stuck, where he just walks back in forth, because his pathfinding isn't good enough.
Does anybody know what he's talking about?
As for cast-rate, its the only thing that keeps me alive while teleporting.
I have about 600 health.
I don't have a mercenary, for two reasons:
You have to resserect them, and since I die so much, I rarely have any gold.
Second reason; I don't have any swell weapons or armor. My best stuff is what I've got on right now.
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A bit off topic, but to answer your question:
Trapping mephi with a sorc is pretty easy, you only have to lure him down to lower moat, then teleport over. Then you have to run away so that you are as far away from the moat as possible, while still seeing Mephi. You can normaly do this without having to kill any of the council members by teleporting straight over, but you can not dammage anyone on they way, as they then will start attacking.
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