Here are a few thoughts having recently played an untwinked solo hc sorceress through to guardian. Nothing new or exciting here, but maybe it will be of some interest.
I haven't played a sorceress since my very first character at the begining of classic D2 (when my chain lightning sorc had her hat handed to her on my first encounter with the council in travincal), so she wasn't any kind of variant: a standard cookie-cutter orb/hydra/static build, with pretty much all her stat points to vit (since this was hc).
My overall comment is that the only reason people complain about amazons being too powerful (at least compared with sorcs -- maybe they're both too powerful) is item inflation from duping: my hc sorceress was much stronger and easier to play than any of my 'zons. Frozen orb is a seriously overpowered skill, and static field makes bosses very easy; but I love hydra -- it's effective, although with the timer it has its limits, and especially in hc it can be used in so many tactically different and wonderful ways.
The start was slow -- lots of melee, with the usual trouble spell-users have of running out of mana early on. (I don't mind using potions, but I finally got fed up and added 5pts to energy, although this really wasn't necessary in the long term. It's not hard to get hold of a great wyrm's or bahamut's item to solve the mana problems.) Once she got to the end of normal/ActII, she was a runaway train. The summoner is fine with lots of vit as insurance against his initial attack. The Claw viper temple is easy when you can teleport to the altar. Duriel is no problem if you stay close to him (at least, these days with the loading lag fixed) with a high vit character, except possibly on hell difficulty.
I don't agree with anyone who says that hardcore characters are more difficult to play than softcore (oops, I mean "core") characters -- with the exception of one of two difficult encounters. In fact, typical high vit hc characters are much easier to play than many of their sc counterparts. It's still a bit of a mystery to me why vit was such a rotten, useless stat in D1 but is such an overwhelming stat in D2.
Act III is a doddle with a cold sorc: I can't imagine cruising through the mind-numbingly boring flayer jungles any more easily than with glacial spike, and -- on higher difficulties -- frozen orb. (I'm hoping that Bliz's big secret new feature of 1.10 is that they've removed the great marsh and the flayer jungle from the game). I always just run through the jungles to Kurast as fast as I can, then pick up the missing bits of Khalim's will when I need them. (And what the heck is the point of that "golden bird" quest, anyway?) Moreover, early in Act III she found an orb with +2 (or was it +3?) to Blizzard, and spent most of her time between lvl 24 and 30 casting this on her merc and decimating monsters by the dozens.
I lvl'd up to 30 before tackling Diablo on normal, but with close to maxed fire and lighting resists, some static field, and a few orbs and hydras, he was no trouble at all. I wish he was that easy with my 'zons. After that, it was frozen orb your way to nightmare; actually, apart from the ancients, it was pretty much frozen orb your way to hell.
My sorc had only a few dangerous moments in her career (though, of course, one moment is all it takes).
The first was in nm/Act I, when her clvl was around 35: I ran into my first MSLEB in the catacombs, a tainted boss, and one lb hit almost wiped out her life ball before I realized what was happening. (MSLEBs are one of the many places where hydra is such a great skill to have.)
Nm/Duriel was no problem (he didn't even succeed in killing my merc), but hell/Duriel flattened my merc on his initial charge, and got a couple of charges in on me as well before I got my back to a wall. 800 life, a 35% damage reduction energy shield, and a few full rejuvs were enough to survive, however. Also, with static field, so much easier than with a 'zon. Early on, I wondered about whether it was worth investing points in energy shield, but it definitely paid dividends, and then some.
In hell/Travincal, I ran into a MSLEB Geleb Flamefinger (I think he was the one, anyway). He was the only monster that I couldn't kill. I trapped him in the west (upper left) corner of Travincal with myself on the outer raised edge. I'd run out, fire an orb at him, and run back behind the cover of a building to avoid the bolts. He'd keep healing himself, and I just wasn't able to take him down. So in the end, I left him parked there. I had always thought that smashing the compelling orb would make the Zealots run away from you, but they didn't do that even after I'd completed Act III, apparently because I hadn't completed the "kill the high council quest" because of parking Geleb.
I had a couple of nasty moments in the hell/ruined temple, which I usually leave to later: the first two times I went in, it was the "bad" cramped layout, with a couple of nasty boss packs lying in wait. I just ditched out, though my merc wasn't as fortunate. The third time, it was the "good" layout, and it was no trouble at all.
Hell/meph was no problem either, a few statics + hydras from a safe distance, though here is a place where I wish I could dismiss my merc when I don't want him. However, on one Meph run, there were some champion stygian dolls on Meph's lvl: I didn't avoid one of their explosions and it nearly killed me. Thank goodness it was only a 1 player game.
Then there's the ancients. They are really the only thing that makes hc hard. (I skipped Nihalthak on all difficulty lvls.) I don't know if that's good or bad. I waited till clvl 52 to do them on nm. I used a trick shown to me by KingOfPain (I think he and Griselda, and maybe some others, spent a some time investigating their AI a while back). I trapped them across the "notch" in the edge of the right hand side of the summit. Madawc is dumb and easy to trap, and his throw attack doesn't cross the notch. Talic made it around the notch, but he was easy to handle one-one-one with my merc. Then I took out Madawc with hydras cast out and firing on the other side of the notch. After that Korlic came after me, and he's the really scary one-hit-kill guy. I played footsie with him, teleporting to the other side of the notch as he leap attacked me, while casting hydras. He went down safely with no hits on me...
I tried the same thing on hell. The first attempt was at clvl 72, but within a few seconds, my merc was dead, I was amp'd and slowed, and I bailed out with a tp. I went back at clvl 75 and after a couple of resets got some good mods (no nasty auras). I didn't succeed in trapping the ancients across the notch, but in trying to do this I ran around the summit casting orbs, which reduced their life pretty quickly. Korlic went down first (he was fire enchanted with some other not so bad stuff -- well, I don't know what it was because I'm always too terrified to read it, but it can't have been that bad) and then I knew I was home free. They turned out to be much easier than I'd feared. After that, Baal was an anticlimax -- I wasn't planning to do him immediately after I'd taken care of the ancients, but it was too simple to avoid the tempttion (orb through the keep, dispose of the minions, use the pillar as protection and static/hydra Baal).
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Final base stats (clvl 76):
Str: 34 (35 with itemz, not that it made any difference)
Dex: 25 (44 with itemz, not that it made any difference)
Vit: 366
Eng: 40
(with 5 pts left to allocate)
With equipment, she had:
Life: 1,000
Mana: 301
F/C/L/P resists: 73/56/75/73 [on Hell diff]
Final (useful) base skill lvls (with additional +3 to all, +1 to lightning skills, and +2 to orb) :
20 to Frozen orb, Fire Mastery, Hydra
10 to Static Field
1 to Warmth, Tk, Teleport, Energy Shield, Cold Mastery
Final itemz (omitting some irrelevant stats):
Helm: rare circlet (gambled) +19% res all; MDR 3; +2 to def Paladin auras (ok, didn't use that one, but would've been nice in the unlikely event I was a Paladin)
Ammy: blue +1 to sorc skills
Ring1: rare +14% fire, +13% light, +1 mana/kill
Ring2: great wryms of thawing +83 mana, half freeze time
Armor: runeword "stealth" leather
Weapon: rare crystalline globe (found) +2 to sorc skills, +32 life, replenish life +4, MDR 4, +2 mana/kill, +2 Frozen orb, +1 Blizzard
Gloves: crafted caster demonhide +12 mana, regen mana 10%, +29% cold, +2 mana/kill
Belt: crafted caster sharkskin 7% faster cast, +40 life, +11 mana, +10% regen mana, 29% light res
Boots: rare heavy 10% faster run/walk, 30% fire res, 33% poison res, 25% magic find
Shield: large shield socketed with 3 p-diamonds -- this is why I needed 34 str
Assorted +life, +mana, +res, +fast run/walk, +fast hit recovery, and one grand +1 to lightning skills charms
Imbued an orb on normal (used for a while and then discarded), and a tiara on hell (rotten mods and sold immediately in disgust)
Merc :
Act II, normal defiance Merc (lvl 76) -- maybe not the best, but after raising him from a baby, I couldn't let him go.
Equipment:
3xAmn etherial Stygian Pike (da 43-216)
Blessed diamond mail (AC 808)
Godly circlet of the locust (AC 86, 5% life leech)
Notable finds:
um rune off the hell/hellforge quest, and an eaglehorn off hell/meph.
I haven't played a sorceress since my very first character at the begining of classic D2 (when my chain lightning sorc had her hat handed to her on my first encounter with the council in travincal), so she wasn't any kind of variant: a standard cookie-cutter orb/hydra/static build, with pretty much all her stat points to vit (since this was hc).
My overall comment is that the only reason people complain about amazons being too powerful (at least compared with sorcs -- maybe they're both too powerful) is item inflation from duping: my hc sorceress was much stronger and easier to play than any of my 'zons. Frozen orb is a seriously overpowered skill, and static field makes bosses very easy; but I love hydra -- it's effective, although with the timer it has its limits, and especially in hc it can be used in so many tactically different and wonderful ways.
The start was slow -- lots of melee, with the usual trouble spell-users have of running out of mana early on. (I don't mind using potions, but I finally got fed up and added 5pts to energy, although this really wasn't necessary in the long term. It's not hard to get hold of a great wyrm's or bahamut's item to solve the mana problems.) Once she got to the end of normal/ActII, she was a runaway train. The summoner is fine with lots of vit as insurance against his initial attack. The Claw viper temple is easy when you can teleport to the altar. Duriel is no problem if you stay close to him (at least, these days with the loading lag fixed) with a high vit character, except possibly on hell difficulty.
I don't agree with anyone who says that hardcore characters are more difficult to play than softcore (oops, I mean "core") characters -- with the exception of one of two difficult encounters. In fact, typical high vit hc characters are much easier to play than many of their sc counterparts. It's still a bit of a mystery to me why vit was such a rotten, useless stat in D1 but is such an overwhelming stat in D2.
Act III is a doddle with a cold sorc: I can't imagine cruising through the mind-numbingly boring flayer jungles any more easily than with glacial spike, and -- on higher difficulties -- frozen orb. (I'm hoping that Bliz's big secret new feature of 1.10 is that they've removed the great marsh and the flayer jungle from the game). I always just run through the jungles to Kurast as fast as I can, then pick up the missing bits of Khalim's will when I need them. (And what the heck is the point of that "golden bird" quest, anyway?) Moreover, early in Act III she found an orb with +2 (or was it +3?) to Blizzard, and spent most of her time between lvl 24 and 30 casting this on her merc and decimating monsters by the dozens.
I lvl'd up to 30 before tackling Diablo on normal, but with close to maxed fire and lighting resists, some static field, and a few orbs and hydras, he was no trouble at all. I wish he was that easy with my 'zons. After that, it was frozen orb your way to nightmare; actually, apart from the ancients, it was pretty much frozen orb your way to hell.
My sorc had only a few dangerous moments in her career (though, of course, one moment is all it takes).
The first was in nm/Act I, when her clvl was around 35: I ran into my first MSLEB in the catacombs, a tainted boss, and one lb hit almost wiped out her life ball before I realized what was happening. (MSLEBs are one of the many places where hydra is such a great skill to have.)
Nm/Duriel was no problem (he didn't even succeed in killing my merc), but hell/Duriel flattened my merc on his initial charge, and got a couple of charges in on me as well before I got my back to a wall. 800 life, a 35% damage reduction energy shield, and a few full rejuvs were enough to survive, however. Also, with static field, so much easier than with a 'zon. Early on, I wondered about whether it was worth investing points in energy shield, but it definitely paid dividends, and then some.
In hell/Travincal, I ran into a MSLEB Geleb Flamefinger (I think he was the one, anyway). He was the only monster that I couldn't kill. I trapped him in the west (upper left) corner of Travincal with myself on the outer raised edge. I'd run out, fire an orb at him, and run back behind the cover of a building to avoid the bolts. He'd keep healing himself, and I just wasn't able to take him down. So in the end, I left him parked there. I had always thought that smashing the compelling orb would make the Zealots run away from you, but they didn't do that even after I'd completed Act III, apparently because I hadn't completed the "kill the high council quest" because of parking Geleb.
I had a couple of nasty moments in the hell/ruined temple, which I usually leave to later: the first two times I went in, it was the "bad" cramped layout, with a couple of nasty boss packs lying in wait. I just ditched out, though my merc wasn't as fortunate. The third time, it was the "good" layout, and it was no trouble at all.
Hell/meph was no problem either, a few statics + hydras from a safe distance, though here is a place where I wish I could dismiss my merc when I don't want him. However, on one Meph run, there were some champion stygian dolls on Meph's lvl: I didn't avoid one of their explosions and it nearly killed me. Thank goodness it was only a 1 player game.
Then there's the ancients. They are really the only thing that makes hc hard. (I skipped Nihalthak on all difficulty lvls.) I don't know if that's good or bad. I waited till clvl 52 to do them on nm. I used a trick shown to me by KingOfPain (I think he and Griselda, and maybe some others, spent a some time investigating their AI a while back). I trapped them across the "notch" in the edge of the right hand side of the summit. Madawc is dumb and easy to trap, and his throw attack doesn't cross the notch. Talic made it around the notch, but he was easy to handle one-one-one with my merc. Then I took out Madawc with hydras cast out and firing on the other side of the notch. After that Korlic came after me, and he's the really scary one-hit-kill guy. I played footsie with him, teleporting to the other side of the notch as he leap attacked me, while casting hydras. He went down safely with no hits on me...
I tried the same thing on hell. The first attempt was at clvl 72, but within a few seconds, my merc was dead, I was amp'd and slowed, and I bailed out with a tp. I went back at clvl 75 and after a couple of resets got some good mods (no nasty auras). I didn't succeed in trapping the ancients across the notch, but in trying to do this I ran around the summit casting orbs, which reduced their life pretty quickly. Korlic went down first (he was fire enchanted with some other not so bad stuff -- well, I don't know what it was because I'm always too terrified to read it, but it can't have been that bad) and then I knew I was home free. They turned out to be much easier than I'd feared. After that, Baal was an anticlimax -- I wasn't planning to do him immediately after I'd taken care of the ancients, but it was too simple to avoid the tempttion (orb through the keep, dispose of the minions, use the pillar as protection and static/hydra Baal).
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Final base stats (clvl 76):
Str: 34 (35 with itemz, not that it made any difference)
Dex: 25 (44 with itemz, not that it made any difference)
Vit: 366
Eng: 40
(with 5 pts left to allocate)
With equipment, she had:
Life: 1,000
Mana: 301
F/C/L/P resists: 73/56/75/73 [on Hell diff]
Final (useful) base skill lvls (with additional +3 to all, +1 to lightning skills, and +2 to orb) :
20 to Frozen orb, Fire Mastery, Hydra
10 to Static Field
1 to Warmth, Tk, Teleport, Energy Shield, Cold Mastery
Final itemz (omitting some irrelevant stats):
Helm: rare circlet (gambled) +19% res all; MDR 3; +2 to def Paladin auras (ok, didn't use that one, but would've been nice in the unlikely event I was a Paladin)
Ammy: blue +1 to sorc skills
Ring1: rare +14% fire, +13% light, +1 mana/kill
Ring2: great wryms of thawing +83 mana, half freeze time
Armor: runeword "stealth" leather
Weapon: rare crystalline globe (found) +2 to sorc skills, +32 life, replenish life +4, MDR 4, +2 mana/kill, +2 Frozen orb, +1 Blizzard
Gloves: crafted caster demonhide +12 mana, regen mana 10%, +29% cold, +2 mana/kill
Belt: crafted caster sharkskin 7% faster cast, +40 life, +11 mana, +10% regen mana, 29% light res
Boots: rare heavy 10% faster run/walk, 30% fire res, 33% poison res, 25% magic find
Shield: large shield socketed with 3 p-diamonds -- this is why I needed 34 str
Assorted +life, +mana, +res, +fast run/walk, +fast hit recovery, and one grand +1 to lightning skills charms
Imbued an orb on normal (used for a while and then discarded), and a tiara on hell (rotten mods and sold immediately in disgust)
Merc :
Act II, normal defiance Merc (lvl 76) -- maybe not the best, but after raising him from a baby, I couldn't let him go.
Equipment:
3xAmn etherial Stygian Pike (da 43-216)
Blessed diamond mail (AC 808)
Godly circlet of the locust (AC 86, 5% life leech)
Notable finds:
um rune off the hell/hellforge quest, and an eaglehorn off hell/meph.
