Grizabella, the Realistic Fighter Mage

[MongoJerry]

GRIZABELLA: THE REALISTIC FIGHTER MAGE



Ever since Diablo II came out, I have always been, well, enchanted with the idea of the skill Enchant. I have always wanted to make a sorceress who focused on this skill and could power up her party and then jump into the fray and start hacking and slicing up foes herself. Sadly, Enchant has always been severely underpowered, especially when compared to the party skills of other character classes (Battle Orders, Necromancer curses, Paladin auras, and Druid spirits, especially). So when I found out that Enchant had its damage boosted and that a badly needed attack rating bonus had been added to it, I rushed to try it out.

Sadly, as we all know, Enchant is still severely underpowered even if one maxes it, its synergy skill (Warmth), Fire Mastery, and even add a few modest +skills items. At least, it's severely underpowered if the sorceress herself wants to use it as her main attack. But that didn't stop a group of us over at diabloii.net from discussing the possibilities for fighter mages. We created some fun twinked up versions of fighter mages like the "Werebear Enchantress" (a sorceress who uses 'Beast' to transform into a werebear). That was fun, but I still wanted to answer the question, "Is it possible to make a realistic version of the melee sorceress that can succeed in hell difficulty?"

So I created Grizabella, the realistic fighter mage. My goal was to use only equipment that one could reasonably expect to find after about a month's worth of playing time. So no 'Breath of the Dying' or 'Beast' weapons, no Bul-Kathos rings, no 'Chains of Honor' archon plate, no Stormshield. None of that. I used the following equipment principles as a guide:

1. She can use any equipment that my twinked characters found while adventuring.
2. She could use any equipment that my hardcore battlenet characters found themselves in 1.09. Since I don't do a lot of magic finding and never do cow runs, this seemed reasonable.
3. She could be twinked a couple of mid-level runes that could reasonably found or traded for after a month's worth of play.
4. She can wear anything she finds herself, of course.

When I created Grizabella two weeks ago, I had no idea how far she would get. I had only been playing the patch for a week, so I didn't know a lot about how all the new equipment worked or how the monsters had changed. I had run through hell with a totally twinked-up werebear enchantress but that was it.

When Grizabella finished nightmare, I wrote her up on diabloii.net and asked people in a poll to guess how far Grizabella would get in hell without dying. The rules I established for Grizabella were:

1. She plays solo.
2. She plays in /players 1 mode.
3. She must get every waypoint and quest in game order.

She could skip or reroll monsters if she needed to, but she had to fulfill every quest. The poll responses were all over the map, including many who thought she wouldn't even get through Act 1.

I kept the diabloii.net crowd updated on Grizabella's progress, and people seemed to really get into it. At first, as you'll see, I kept my reports short, thinking that people didn't want to be bothered with too much detail. But as more people seemed to follow Grizabella's adventures, I got into it more and started telling the whole story. It became so popular that I thought that perhaps LurkerLouge folks would enjoy the story, too.

Plese note that this is not intended to be an official "fighter mage guide" and I don't want to pass myself off as some sort of "fighter mage guru." This is simply one guy's build, one character's adventures, and reports of the things I noticed as I was playing this spunky and yet underpowered character.

Here are the reports, starting with the very first one I gave right before Grizabella stepped into hell (with minor edits).

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Grizabella's level 76 now, has completed Nightmare, and is about to step into hell for the first time.


CURRENT EQUIPMENT

Sigon's Gage (Gauntlets)
Sigon's Sabot (Grieves)
'Passion' Phase Blade
Coral Tower Shield of Deflecting socketed with 2 perfect diamonds
'Call to Arms' Phase Blade (weapon switch)
Sigon Shield socketed with a perfect diamond (weapon switch)
'Delirium' Crown
Skin of the Vipermagi socketed with an Um
Nightsmoke upgraded to a mesh belt
Rare amulet: 4% mana leech, +17 all resists, 10% magic find
Rare ring: 5% life leech, +15 str, 26% pr, 2 dr
Rare ring: 6% life leech, +107 ar, +1 max damage

I have found all of the runes necessary to make the 'Passion' and 'Call to Arms' phase blades. I figure if I found one Ist and one Lem in a week, then after a month's worth of intensive play, I could find or trade for another set to make the 'Delirium'. I have found two Skins and one Um with my hardcore account. I found the Nightsmoke while adventuring, and the runes to upgrade the Nightsmoke are easy to find. I bought the Coral Shield of Deflecting at the Act 1 hell shop and socketed it using the Larzuk quest reward. The amulet and rings are ones I've found over the last few days and could use major upgrades. The Sigon stuff is easy to find.

(ed. Since Grizabella was created, the 1.10s patch came out and started requiring an Ohm to make the 'Call to Arms' Phase Blade. That'll definitely make it take longer to make this equipment. However, I did find a Doomslayer, so let's just say I traded the Doomslayer for an Ohm and call it even.)

All of her charms were found in patch games and are probably underpowered. Her inventory is completely full of them. They consist of charms that complete her max resists, give her 50 pd, and give her a boatload of life.

My holy freeze mercenary is equipped with (I found all of these):

Unique Bec-de-Corbin socketed with an Amn
Tal Rasha's Mask
Duriel's Shell



STAT POINT ALLOCATION

When I finished allocating points, my naked (no items) stat allocation looked like this:

Str: 75
Dex: 194
Vit: 161
Energy: 35

After equipping everything, my stats look like this:

Str: 100
Dex: 195
Vit: 171
Energy: 35


SKILL ALLOCATION

My skill selection process was pretty clear:

FIRE

20 points Warmth
20 points Enchant
20 points Fire Mastery
1 point Firebolt (prereq)
1 point Fireball (prereq)

COLD

9 points Chilling Armor
1 point Shiver Armor
1 point Frozen Armor
1 point Cold Mastery
1 point Ice Bolt (prereq)
1 point Ice Blast (prereq)

LIGHTNING

1 point Telekinesis
1 point Teleport
1 point Static Field
1 point Energy Shield
1 point Charged Bolt (prereq)
1 point Lightning (prereq)
1 point Chain Lightning (prereq)


RELEVANT STATISTICS

With this equipment and stat setup after Enchant, Battle Command, Battle Orders, and Chilling Armor, I get:

1267-1607 Zeal damage (1022-1266 is fire damage due to Enchant)
5234 Zeal attack rating, 6446 Berserk attack rating
75%/75%/75%/66% resists
75% block
1722 Defense
1499 Life
404 Mana
21% Life leech
4% Mana leech
+7 Skills (on weapon switch after Battle Command)
+3 Skills (off weapon switch without Battle Command)



GAME PLAY WITH GRIZABELLA

A fight against a typical monster pack works something like this:

1. She runs up to the first monster and Zeals as quickly as she can before she gets swarmed in order to trigger the Confuse Aura on the 'Delirium' crown. It usually triggers after one or two Zeals.
2. She then Teleports backward to get herself and her mercenary out of the monster pack.
3. While the monsters are busy fighting each other, she walks around and statics the monsters as much as she can.
4. She then teleports to and kills any strategic monsters like shamans and oblivian mages that need killing right away.
5. She then mops up all the normal monsters using Zeal and/or Berserk. Typically, the Confuse aura lets her take on the monsters only a few at a time.

At least, that's the idea in theory. In practice, things get a lot more hairy. Fire immunes take a long time to kill. I'll have to switch to using the 'Call to Arms' phase blade to kill Immune to Poison monsters, since it has Prevent Monster Heal. Monsters that are allowed to regenerate are nearly impossible for Grizabella to kill.

A melee sorceress has many obvious disadvantages compared to other melee classes. She can't deal nearly as much damage, can't handle large groups of monsters as well, can't obtain nearly as much life, and doesn't have all the passive skills that other melee characters have. Because of all of these disadvantages, it is important that she take advantage of the two advantages she does have:

1. She can teleport around at will and knock off critical creatures like oblivian mages while the main monster pack is turning around or busy fighting each other. Also, teleport brings the mercenary with her, which means that she can direct the mercenary to attack a specific target. This is crucial, because often her mercenary can deal more damage than she can.

2. Static field. Taking a group of monsters down to half their hit points can be a huge time saver -- especially if it's a boss or champion pack.


COMMENTS

1. After maxing the requisite Enchantress skills, Enchant/Warmth/Fire Mastery, I chose to focus on Chilling Armor simply because I wanted to play a "pure" fighter mage to see how well one would work. However, I can imagine a perhaps more practical fighter mage where a person invests those points into Meteor instead. The Enchantress can cast a meteor on top of herself as the monsters start swarming her and while she Zeals, the meteor can land and clean up the place. The Enchantress has already maxed Fire Mastery, so the Meteor's damage should be pretty good. This would be a build that would probably annoy a party less, because the sorceress could actually deal a lot of damage on her own. Of course, you would still have a problem with fire immunes, but since Enchantresses are typically built with parties in mind, that's OK. Another choice would be to spend those points in Telekinesis which would help the sorceress absorb more damage using her energy shield. The amount of extra damage one can absorb is less than a lot of people think, but there's no doubt that it helps. It's a personal preference thing.

2. 'Delirium' is absolutely amazing. I used a 'Lore' crown (+1 skills) until lvl 51 and to be honest, I was having a lot of trouble with the middle acts of nightmare difficulty -- at least in /players 8 mode. I put on the 'Delirium' crown and suddenly nightmare was a breeze. At this point, I just can't see how any legit melee sorceress could play without it. Without it, you'd have to massively twink up all of the rest of the equipment to survive.

3. I can envision a 'Delirium' sorceress variant that uses a 'Delirium' helm and an "Ignores Target Defense" weapon (e.g. Hexfire). The sorceress strikes a monster until the Confuse aura activates and while the monsters fight each other, she casts Meteor, Blizzard, or Chain Lightning on them. It would seem like a pretty straight-forward build. Or the sorceress could save herself the trouble and give the 'Delirium' crown to her mercenary (do they turn into stygian dolls?).

4. Enchant is way underpowered. The sorceress herself should get at least 4x what the spell gives now. If Blizzard is worried about game balance if Enchant is cast on a multi-zon or something, then they should just make it so that the sorceress herself gets a big bonus and everyone else gets what the spell gives now.

5. I foresee in about a month a lot of people wearing 'Delirium' helms and using 'Call to Arms' on weapon switch. It'll probably end up being standard gear. With people focused on rune runs, the runes will be common enough that one will probably be able to trade for them with modestly powerful items or even find them oneself as I did.

6. The 'Delirium' aura is really funny (see the picture at the top). I still can't stop laughing every time I see it. On a practical level, you attack really fast in that form. However, it can be a scary to suddenly not be able to teleport or use any spells in the middle of a pitched battle.

7. I've had the chance to play her in a couple of parties over the last couple of days. She works well in a party, enchanting everyone's minions and any fighter characters, giving everyone bo, and tanking and giving the proverbial first kill for necromancers. The one thing that was kind of disappointing was the use of enchant with skellamancers. Lots of people have been drooling over the idea of Enchanting a horde of skeletons with 1k+ Enchant, but I have to tell you it's not all it's cracked up to be. For one, the skeletons keep moving around, so it's a pain trying to figure out which ones you've Enchanted and which ones you haven't. Second, skeletons often get left behind around corners and the necromancer is constantly refreshing them, so they lose the Enchant that you cast. Unless you like the idea of being a skeleton babysitter and are constantly watching out for when the necromancer raises another skeleton, it's not that practical. I just cast Enchant on a random small selection of my skelemancer partymate's skeletons every once in a while (when I refresh my bo) and let that be that.

8. I was very tempted to twink Grizabella a pair of Laying of Hands gloves with their +350% damage to demons. Since many of the most dangerous fire immunes are also demons (and of course since the end of act bosses are all demons), those gloves would really help. I refrained, though.