Chain Lightning

[gekko]

Considering a lightning tree sorc, and looking for some help, suggestions, advice, from those with more experience using the tree.

Simply put, I have very little experience with the lightning tree aside from the obvious teleport, telekenesis one point wonders. And this from a self-pronounced fan of the sorceress class. Even worse, I have ZERO experience with the tree in 1.10. But I'd like to change that.

A few questions come to mind:
1) how many points are required in synergy skills and mastery to make lightning, chain lightning and charged bolt usefull in hell? The original plan was for max CL and mastery, with spare points going to either lightning or CB, or even thunder storm.

2) what other tree skills work well with the lightning tree? Orb generally seems to best skill to use with minimal (i.e. 20-25) points investment, but I've done that so many times, I'd like a change. Is blizzard worthwhile without investment in synergies? Can firewall hold its own without maxed mastery?

Any other comments, suggestions, or other interesting tidbits from those with experience in the lightning tree would be welcome.

gekko

[ryan4nayr]

There are a few who would sing CL's praises. I'm not 1 of 'em.

I'm a LOT more impressed by Ltng, & to some degree CB (nicely synergizes each other :) ). And other ltng skills too... but these are unfortunately usable only by other classes.

Mistress of The Storms the sorc ain't <_<

Ltng/CL has their own slower FCR table (as a "fix" for pre-1.10's IAS bug), so you'd be standing still for a small bit while casting. Some sort of defensive gear &/or strategic placing is needed.

0% 19 fpc
7% 18 fpc
15% 17 fpc
23% 16 fpc
37% 15 fpc
52% 14 fpc
78% 13 fpc
117% 12 fpc

Still lots of fun though, though I'm sure many others would lament not being able to hit 10k dmg. Just that CL seems to deal double digit dmg more often than quadruple digits.

[bigeyedbug]

There are a few who would sing CL's praises. I'm not 1 of 'em.

I'm a LOT more impressed by Ltng,

Would you explain this further?

[arrunique]

I have a softcore lightning sorc at about level 94 or 95. She was actually my first char to beat 1.10 baal so I leveled her starting with almost no gear.

how many points are required in synergy skills and mastery to make lightning, chain lightning and charged bolt usefull in hell?

All of them. Every skill point other than a couple of utility points should go into the synergies for chain and lbolt. If you only play solo you might get away with dropping some points into orb but if you want to be able to function in party play you need to specialize.

or even thunder storm.

Thunderstorm is a waste of skills in pvm. It is both too weak and too unpredictable to be of any use.

Can firewall hold its own without maxed mastery?

Firewall has sexy damage numbers but in practice you can't use it solo, monsters simply move too fast.

Unfortunately you can't practicly hybrid with the lightning tree. An orb/charged boltress might be possible but you really need damage reduction gear because charged bolt is pretty much a melee skill.

On the bright side lightning immune monsters (except for the trees) are the wimpiest so a buff merc can take them down. The downside of the lightning tree as opposed to the other two trees is you can't assist your merc with static.

Lightning builds are particularly dependent on fast cast gear. They are also really mana intensive.

If you happen to be on US EAST ladder hardcore I have a +3 lightning amulet with damage reduced by 20 I'm willing to part with.

Good Luck

[ryan4nayr]

There are a few who would sing CL's praises. I'm not 1 of 'em.

I'm a LOT more impressed by Ltng, & to some degree CB

CL has a nice ring to it, esp. with D1 old-timers, but it's just too slow a killing spell for me & my friends. I feel sorry for my friend who actually chose to build a CL/Hydra sorc. I just like my Ltng+CB sorc better, I guess.

If you haven't built sorcs b4, same deal as always: +skills, FCR, +mana, +life, +resists (now necessary due to A4-A5), in that order. +skills is particular useful since CL hits more theoretical targets, CB gets more bolts, TS hits faster... & as mentioned, there's the other FCR table to take into account.

TS had never been a primary mass-killing spell, & still isn't.

[Taem]

It seems like you have your heart set on CL. I prefer charged bolt.

At the pinnicle of my sorceresses career on 1.1 ladder hardcore, I was doing 342-364 damage and 24 bolts. I had an 8 FPS cast rate. My total average damage over 10 seconds up close and personal was 264,750 (or 26,475 a second). Her fast teleporting allowed her to almost never get hit if I landed in a pack of monsters.

She had an 86% absorb from Mana Shield and a LOT of mana to offset this. It was basically like having 10x my hit points. I had no trouble with any bosses, despite what others will tell you.

I put strength up to 80 for gear, left dex at zero, although with so much mana shield, it would of been nice to get a 75% block and neglect vitality. The rest of my points went into vitality and energy 50%. It also helped having a Holy Freeze Merc.

I do want to stress that even though I felt like a tank, if got surrounded by the right pack of monsters, such as gloams, I was reduced in mana and vitality in the wink of an eye. Thus is life in 1.1 Hell for all builds.

The gear I got I found, traded for, or cubed. I did a lot of MF'ing but the best gear I found was just walking around normally and finding it from some ransom monster. I did not twink over anything, so people here who tell you this gear will take you forever to find, you can tell them to go somewhere because after three-four weeks of playing, I ended up having all this:

Arachnid Mesh
Shako + 12% resist all jewel (was looking for a +3 lightening skills circlet with 20% fast cast)
Raven Frost
Dwarf Star
Silkweave
Frostburns
Heart of the Oak (it took me a month of constantly upgrading runes to get a Vex... the rest I found from questing~I used the Occulus before I had this)
Vipermagi (eventually, I wanted to get a Chains of Honor, but that was very far out of my reach)
Magical Amulet +3 lightenig skills, +10% fast cast
Grand Charm of Lightening x 4 (I was looking for 6 more)
Small charms of 5% hit recover x 7 (6 FPS hit recovery helps)

I was also looking for ahinilas which would of maxed my resists also, but I never did see the D.clone.

[arrunique]

I do want to stress that even though I felt like a tank, if got surrounded by the right pack of monsters, such as gloams, I was reduced in mana and vitality in the wink of an eye. Thus is life in 1.1 Hell for all builds.

My lightning sorc wore tgods for the 20 lightning absorb (and extra strength to wear stormshield). If I ever teleported into a gloam pack my mana instantly dropped to 0 from energy shield and I couldnt potion it up because I was constantly being bolted. My absorb and resists meant they didnt actually hurt me but since I couldn't regain mana I was stuck until my pokey merc trundled along and took out enough that I could quickly throw down a rejuv and port out of there. The real danger was in a combo pack of gloams and invaders/assailants or frenzytaurs. That was pretty much the only way I could be killed.

For the record I think a fanat extra fast assailant is the most dangerous monster in the game. Duriel hits like a wuss compared to him. Come to think of it extra fast is the most dreaded boss attribute for me in hell.

[bigeyedbug]

For the record I think a fanat extra fast assailant is the most dangerous monster in the game.&nbsp; Duriel hits like a wuss compared to him.&nbsp; Come to think of it extra fast is the most dreaded boss attribute for me in hell.

Definitely. It makes most of the other mods 10x worse--no time for preparation, positioning, mod-reading, singling-out, etcetera. At least this is true if you achieve more in the game through guile than equipment. If you've got the best itamz, I would think Conviction, Cursed, or something like that might be #1 on the list.

[whyBish]

If you happen to be on US EAST ladder hardcore I have a +3 lightning amulet with damage reduced by 20 I'm willing to part with.

Pity I stopped playing and that was the wrong server ... that item is godly :)