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Hi
I recently discovered that the restarting of the ladder was not enough to keep me away from the warm, tight embrace of Diablo, so I decided to start over again with a new sorceress. As always, this will mostly be used for mephisto and pindleskin-running. I will focus on either the fire- or the lightning tree this time with frozen orb as a secondary attack.
Now seeing as I plan to do meph-runs, one would be quick to discard the lightning-sorc as our good Lord of Hatred loves the shimmering light of the lightning tree. However, I could always kill Mephisto easily with a maxed frozen orb.
Another advantage in using the lightning tree (specifically chain lightning) is that Pindleskin might be much easier to deal with, in contrast to having to fire vollies of fireballs into his midst.
To summarize:
Lightning skill - Pros: Easier and faster to kill Pindleskin
Lightning skill - Cons: Cannot be used against Mephisto
Fire skill - Pros: Incredibly powerful weapon against mephisto
Fire skill - Cons: May not be as effective against Pindleskin as Chain lightning.
Any thoughts? I like to kill things quickly and move on. I need something which kills a lot of monsters, and something that kills them fast.
A third solution would be to max out the cold tree, but that seems rather useless, seeing as Frozen orb is powerful enough without masteries and synergies.
I am now roughly lvl 15, and I've only used 1 skill point (warmth). I am good and ready to start choosing my build, after I've gotten some much-needed input from you nice folks :)
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Is it fair for us to assume 90 skill points? (roughly level 78)
When you say Frob as a backup, do you mean to invest 20 or 40 skill points into it? (Mastery or Ice Bolt)
From my experience with firewall, hydra and meteor, I must say I have a very large love of Meteor. I remember testing out level 43 skills on a fire only sorc, and meteor always tickled my fancy the most. The timing of meteor becomes second nature within 10 levels of using it. If your sorc has decent fast run, you should be able to avoid the bane of meteor sorcs . . . extra fast monsters. Even with Frob slowing them down these buggers can be a pain. But with experience comes the ability to tele/run and cast meteors ahead of you, that will hit your chasers.
As far as pindle goes? I never was a huge pindle runner, so I would yield my experience with meteor to some one experienced with chain lightning. From what I remember, he was toast within a few casts (My only experience was in 1.09 during cow games I would try to run anya's temple before the portal was open). The undead soldiers new charge scares me, and has already taken a few character's lives. Has their length of charge increased? Damage? Frequency?
Either way, my vote is for meteor, and even with only 50 skills (count about 40 due to pre-reqs) you could have a decent killing machine. Of course I am bias and I prefer one skill tree sorcs (massive power is SUCH a draw to me :P ) so my advice would be to go with 60 skill point meteor, granting that level 20 (plus more if you go past 78) Frob would be weaker, but meteor so much stronger.
Just my two cents! When in doubt I advise using UDieII character editor in single player. Its providing me with lots of input. The number editing in UDieII is confusing at first but easy to pick up. Once you do that, there's almost no limit to the possible characters/equipment set ups you can try.
Cheers,
Munk
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Here's my vote for the dual nature Sorc. Do yourself a massive favour...save all your money and shop a wand of lower resist. You can buy a wand with 70+ chages of level 2 lower resist in hell (if not before, though it's like clvl dependant), and definitely level 1 in normal starting at some point.
Level 2 will take 37% of the bosses elemental resists away, which depending on their resists in the first place will boost your damage by at least that much. My hybrid and javazon use these wands a lot.
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The Staff of Zakarum in hand, at the entrance of Duriel's lair, I decided it was time to invest my points in some skills.
I went with the fire-tree. I am now blowing away people with my fireball. I purchased a staff with + 3 to fireball, but will continue the search for that 2-socketed, +3 to fire skills, + 3 to meteor, + 3 to fireball -staff, so I can make myself a Leaf-runeword. :)
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A staff with +3 fire skills will necessarily be magic. You can only make runewords in non-magic items.
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07-14-2004, 09:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-14-2004, 09:34 PM by [wcip]Angel.)
+2 then :)
Right now I'm running around killing things fast and efficient even without the +3 to fireball-staff I bought at the end of act 2. I found a gull dagger, and I'm now running around killing things at lvl 21 with 171% MF :)
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Quote:+2 then
Try +0. A non-magical, pre-runeword staff can only have +skill bonuses to up to three specific skills. It can never have a bonus to an entire skill tab.
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Are you absolutely certain? I could have sworn I saw a non-magical staff in Drognan's stash with 1 socket and +1 to fire skills.
I'm not completely sure, as I spent a lot of time looking through staffs. It could have been magical, but I don't think it was. (Of course, if non-magical socketed staves cannot spawn with the + to skill tree-thingie, then ovbviously, it was magical.)
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Absolutely, completely, 100% certain.
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07-15-2004, 12:35 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-15-2004, 12:35 AM by [wcip]Angel.)
Ok, I believe you :)
Then theoretically speaking, what would be the best combinatons of skills and stats one would be able to find on a "leafable" 2-socketed staff?
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If we're talking about any "leafable" staff possible, you can have up to +3 to up to 3 skills. These skills must all fall within a block of four adjacent rows/tiers. That is, you can't have 1st tier skills together with 5th or 6th tier skills and you can't have 2nd tier skills together with 6th tier skills.
If we also have the restriction that the staff must be buyable, we're limited to just the first four tiers.
Which set of staffmods is "best" depends on what skills you intend to use.
You can also have extra bonuses from superior quality, but these are worthless if you never hit anyone with the staff.
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Since you can't buy a runewordable staff with Fire mastery on and since +skills on the staff won't enhance synergy boni this limits it to spells you actually attack with and/or Enchant and/or Warmth (in the Fire tree)
Possibly it might be nice to gain access to some spell so that you don't have to invest in it - static, teleport and shiver armour are all decent candidates from the other trees
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I already have 1 point in teleport and static field. Teleport is the most important reason why I can only play soreresses.
I am now at lvl 65. I've maxed frozen orb and fireball. I have 1 point in fire mastery and 1 in cold mastery. The rest are distributed between fire bolt and meteor, but I'm maxing the latter before the former.
I'm running around with an indrecible 328% Magic find. (cow boots, rhyme shield, gull dagger, perf topaz-tarnhelm, dual 29% nagels and a 27% res all/21%MF amulet) I have been running around between Andariel, Mephisto and Pindleskin tonight, but it's getting too easy; even with MF-gear. I'm thinking of moving on to Hell difficulty. (already cleared out Baal as well as the NM cow lvl), so there's nothing holding me back in NM, really.
In most cases, all I need is the lvl 20 Frozen orb. It kills just as fast as the maxed fireball (+synergies), and I only pull out the ol' ball of flame when I encounter a cold immune, which in NM isn't all too often. I suspect I will need to make more use of it come hell.
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Right, so Leaf in a +3 Fireball staff is basically what you're after. You can shop them from Drognan - get the map where the exit is next to him
When I shopped +3 Blaze staves one time it took about 2 hours and the next it took 5 minutes. If you want +3 Fireball and something else be prepared to be extremely patient - I really doubt you could expect to find, say, a +3 Static +3 Fireball 2 socket staff in any reasonable amount of time unless you got incredibly lucky
Hell is a very lively place for a solo sorc. Be careful and watch out for the archers, some of whom will be targetting you from off-screen
Be prepared for a second, quite distinct difficulty ramp in Act 5 Hell
Have fun :)
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Right, so Leaf in a +3 Fireball staff is basically what you're after. You can shop them from Drognan - get the map where the exit is next to him
When I shopped +3 Blaze staves one time it took about 2 hours and the next it took 5 minutes. If you want +3 Fireball and something else be prepared to be extremely patient - I really doubt you could expect to find, say, a +3 Static +3 Fireball 2 socket staff in any reasonable amount of time unless you got incredibly lucky
Hell is a very lively place for a solo sorc. Be careful and watch out for the archers, some of whom will be targetting you from off-screen
Be prepared for a second, quite distinct difficulty ramp in Act 5 Hell
Have fun :)
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Yepp. Archers are a painfully accurate and they don't need more than 3 arrows to put me in the ground. My merc is suffering from CCE-syndrome* right now and is also quite weak, even though he keeps up with my leveling. I made it up to the outer part of the cloister in act 1, but was loaded with items. (Unique divine scepter? What the hell do I need this for? I'll never play a pally! But I guess it might be worth something, so in the inventory it goes. (Yes, my stash is overloaded.)
* The Crappy, Crappy Equipment-syndrome
Hell is quite hard. I'm not slicing through monsters like a hot knife through air like I was in Nightmare. Perhaps I should have leveled up some more. Well, it doesn't matter now. I am 2 waypoints away from The Maiden of Anguish herself, and when she is reached I imagine I'll spend a good few hours knocking her down (as upposed to knocking her up :blink: ) time and time again for that unique shako or mesh armor. I am really ready to get my hands on a socketed, etheral ghost spear/mystic spear/colossus voulge, so I can make my merc a weapon he can actually use for other things than intimidation. (He's now wielding a cruel (252% normal pike which does about 230 in dmg. That is not really high enough for hell difficulty.
I have a question about trading. Can I PM someone here for a question?
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If I was you, I'd run the lev 85 areas in a1h. TON of exp there, relative safety (the first truly dangerous lev85 is in act2), and you might end up getting something way nicer than a silly shako.
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One Shaftstop and a ton of MF-gear later..
My mercenary lives! Yes, Shaftstop is invaluable! I now purchased a Rockstopper from a nice person at the b.net-trading forum. (I got the unique hyperion spear and a Rockstopper for 10 measly perfect gems. Generous people are few and far between, which makes the experience of running into one so much more rewarding.) My mercenenary should now be at 40% dmg reduction and 75% resistances on all but poison.
As for our fiery little redhead. She's doing well. I still haven't cracked the 80lvl-barrier, but I suspect I will soon. I clawed myself out of the crimson abyss that is Mephisto's lair unto the ivory steps of the Pandemonium Plaza. I'll go back and do the 3rd durance a few times before I take down Diablo himself, and now that my mercenary is virtually unstoppable, it'll be a breeze.
A fireball sorc is strong; quite strong. I suspect, and I'm quite sure, that a fully fledged frozen orb-sorceress filled with masteries and synergies up to the rafters would be even stronger, but less all-rounded. Cold-immunes are plentiful in Hell difficulty, and having a strong secondary spell (yes, I'm using Fireball/Meteor as a secondary spell) is life-saving. The few times I run into a dual-immne boss, I let my merc do the work (after I static the thing down to half is health, of course) and now that he is equipped with something other than a pile of garbage in the shape of a Partizan, he might actually take less than 1 minutte pr dual-immune.
I'm still exclusively wearing magic-find gear, having added a goldwrap to my outfit and replaced my Tal-Eth stealth-runeword with a skinned Vipermagi. I haven't been able to compromise my armor yet for a wealth-runeword, but I predict it's in the works. I have not seen a Fireball-sorc wielding faster-cast gear. I assume it'd be quite a show, but for now I am leaning towards the MF. I am considering using a secondary set of weapon & shield to get me down to Mephisto's durance faster. If I'm going to be meph-running, I can't get killed by undead stygian dolls every other run. (Also, having been killed by them twice in a row is likely to send me running screaming into the closest insane asylum). I'm thinking spectral-shard + lidless wall for the 80% faster cast. Is there a shield which has a higher fast cast-rate than Lidless?
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Quote:Is there a shield which has a higher fast cast-rate than Lidless?
There are only four shields with cast rate:
Splendor runeword (10%)
Lidless Wall (20%)
Wall of the Eyeless (20%)
Darkforce Spawn (necromancer only) (30%)
I built a fire/cold MF sorc, which turned out quite well...
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery
20 Fireball
20 Meteor
20 Fire Mastery
(prereqs and utility)
I found that Fireball was more useful for leveling than taking out Meph or Pindle. Meteor goes great against pindle; unless they charge you, they're very slow, and easy to lure back to a meteor.
What you say about not needing to pump the cold tree isn't entirely true, but I wouldn't reccomend it for a dual-tree sorc. My Cold Sorc with maxed FO, CM, and IB killed meph nearly twice as fast as the above build, although she was much harder to level, and I can't use her for much else aside from Meph.
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