Frrost Nova Sorcie - opinions please ?

[Rohar]

Oh, thank you very much - this advice is wonderful :D ! I'll definitely look into making a Stealth Armour - I already have a Tal rune dropped from slaying the countess, so hopefully, I'll find an Eth soon ... :) Might not come in time for Andi, since clvl 17 usually comes after facing her. However, I currently already have about 22 % poison resistance and I'm still looking out for Andi fighting apparell (always a priority of mine in Act I), so hopefully she won't be too much of a problem (I'm probably going to try a mixture of frost nova & fireballs - slow her first, then run away and pound her with fire while she's chilled). I'll look for the runes for the other runewords too - and I'll probably look into a sapphire socketed armour/skull socketed helm til I get any of the runewords :).
I'll hope that an good orb drops too, although I'll probably resign myself to using a staff unless that happens, and maybe go staffless and hope the drop in skills doesn't affect my damage capacity too much, if I desperately need resistances from a gem/rune socket shield.
I'll look into crafting caster boots/belts once I have the Horadric Cube and a perfect Amythest (note to self: must remember to store up Amythests for conversion in the HC, instead of selling them, like I usually do) - I'll have a look at the formulas on Arreat Summit so I'm well informed. Once again, thanks muchly for all the great advice ! :)

Rohar

[Caaroid]

IIRC she has -50% fire resist... good plan

[AtomicKitKat]

By about clvl12, she usually(50%) drops eth runes. That's from personal experience, rather than reading mpqs. Or if you can get another 3 Tals, you can make the Eth. :lol:

El=>
Eld=>
Nef=>
Tir=>
Eth

[Rohar]

Or if you can get another 3 Tals, you can make the Eth. :lol:

El=>
Eld=>
Nef=>
Tir=>
Eth

Thanks once again for the advice - I may well do that - not to mention - farming the countess may well push my clvl up and possibly allow me to face Andi with the stealth runeword away - then again - I might want to wait til I've got a better armour than those available in Act I, even if I do farm the countess for an Eth (her poison resistance is up to something like 33 % at last count anyway, plus I have a 2 emerald chip socketed small shield stashed, which should be plenty for blunting Andi's attack - although I may have to do it with Elemenara's frost nova and fireball at base levels (since no staff, in order to use a shield) if I can't find an FN orb by then - making for a somewhat safe but slow battle - kind of a bit like looking away from a gorgon to safely avoid her gaze, but your fighting ability suffers somewhat as a result)
Any ideas on how long I should wait til using stealth in an armour - what would be a good kind of armour to use ?
And btw, I'm a little confused - did you mean 3 Tirs or 3 Tals ? I wasn't sure from your post ...

[LavCat]

Has anyone here ever tried to make a sorceress with Frost Nova at high levels and as one of her main skills as a variant ?

I had not until tonight, and I wasn't thinking of this thread. I needed to start a level one character to play in a basin game, and I decided to make a cold sorceress -- since I had an unused +1 cold skills, 10% fast cast amulet. The hard part was finding a name that was not taken, but then I had to think of some skill to use.

As much as I love to use enchant, I have three enchantresses of different flavors. I wanted to try something different. I had never put more than one point in frost nova, and thought it might be fun.

At the moment I plan to max frost nova and perhaps its synergies, relying on a friendly enchant for fire damage. Physical damage would be the third modality, maybe loading up on lightning damage charms. Should compare well to throwing poison potions as we were tonight.

Does anyone know if cold damage equipment adds to the freezing time of frost nova or not?

[AtomicKitKat]

Yeah, sorry, I meant Tirs. I'm not very fond of editting my posts, since that signifies that I made a mistake. :P

I'd go with Stealth Quilted(only needs 2 str points, so you can save all those extra points for even more energy), but that's me. I think you can go up till Studded Leather for "light" armours(which impede R/W the least), then either use the cube recipe to "upgrade"(not sure if it will work) or look for a 2-socket Ghost Armour(exceptional equivalent of quilted I think?), because those runes are pretty cheap anyway. I think FN was my second choice, after Inferno, when I was making sorcs back in Classic. It's a pretty fun skill, but one hell of a mana hog. Let's see, if memory serves, 8 mana at slevel 1, and another +1 mana per level, so that makes 28 mana per cast at slevel 20. Hmm. Now you've got me all interested. I've already made like 8 new 1.10 characters so far, and not gotten any of them past Baal yet! :lol:

[Zyr]

My main problem seems to be mana ... as I expected, it is quite mana hungry , and I tend to find myself running my mana ball dry quite often.

Sapphires and skulls, in hat and armor, are a darned effective way to deal with the mana problem at low levels. I've also found it more effective at low levels to simply use less mana-- chill the evil critters, then whack 'em with a stick, rather than trying to do all the damage with spells.

Your Holy Grail is a two-socket staff with +3 Frost Nova, +3 Fireball, and +3 Warmth. (Be realistic and settle for just +2 or 3 to FN and +1 or 2 to FB, or the other way around-- while getting +3 to all three is possible from either Akara or Drognan, the probability of it happening prior to the heat death of the universe is vanishingly small...) Use the stick as-is until level 19, when you can put Tir + Ral into the sockets, making Leaf-- and your life will be totally transformed. :) The power of this rune word has to be experienced to be believed. The +3 to fire skills means an automatic +6 to Warmth, so your mana problems will pretty much cease to exist. And what shield that can be equipped at low levels is gonna give you 2 def/character level and +33% Cold Resist?

I totally concur with AtomicKitKat's endorsement of Stealth! (I strongly disagree with the suggestion to put the rune word into quilted armor, though-- at minimum, two-socket Superior Studded Leather is easily shopped at Charsi, and would have def ~40.) Breast Plate and Light Plate are also "light" armor, and impede R/W and stamina no more than quilted armor. Since 1.10 Ladder play began, I have created 17 characters (many of them mules), and have put Stealth into one Light plate, one Gothic Plate, one Ghost armor, two Superior Ghost Armors (>2500 GP per durability point to repair those babies-- but worth it if ya gotta have yer belly button showing ;)), and one Demonhide Armor. Yeah, I like Stealth... :D

IMO, it's very much worthwhile to run the Countess until you get the runes for both Leaf and Stealth; she has dropped Ral for me in Normal.

I also concur that Lore and Rhyme are wonderful. But the runes for Leaf and Stealth are easy; Ort and Sol (for Lore) and Shael (for Rhyme) are not so easy. Lore is as good as it gets for a sorceress until her level is high enough to gamble (and wear) something better. A hat with a PSapphire and PSkull has served my characters very nicely from level 18 until the runes for Lore and/or level 27 came along.

[AtomicKitKat]

Ahh, but Breastplate has a str req of 60. That's a whole 8 levels worth of stat points that could be put to better use in vit or energy. Sorcs without cold armour aren't particularly high in the defense department. And considering ALL her primary kill skills are spells, she won't be needing any dex so shields aren't really going to help that much. I never bother with anything bigger than studded for non-Enchantress sorcs.

[Zyr]

Ahh, but Breastplate has a str req of 60.

Nope, only 30. Pick one up and examine it next time you're in the Act III Normal Spider Forest, AKA Breast Plate Alley. ;) (Or just check Arreat Summit.)

In fact, none of the "light" armors into which I've put Stealth in 1.10 requires as much as 60 str. Ghost Armor requires 38, Light Plate needs 41, and even Demonhide Armor demands only 50 str. (I originally made the "medium" Stealth Gothic Armor for a MA Assassin, who needed the str anyway for the desired claws, and it's now on a melee Paladin.)

Still, your point about the need for Attribute Points in Energy and Vitality is well-taken. A Frost Nova spammer would be much more Energy-intensive than the Blizzard/Fireballer and Enchantress I'm playing. And Vitality has to be high enough to keep maxlife higher than maxmana, not only because Life Is Good, but to avoid Blood Mana paralysis. :)

[Rohar]

Ok, time for another mini-update on the progress of Elemenara, my Frost Novaress

By the way, I'm chuffed at the all the interest I've generated in the Frost Novaress as a character build - and really grateful for all the advice - you folks are great ! I love this place! :D
Elemenara has just defeated Andariel - I was lucky enough to find Death's Hand on Catacombs lvl 3, and this being the ultimate Andi-killing item, made things a lot safer.
I'm having a blast with her - Frost Nova does seem pretty strong once you get high enough - Elemenara now has it at about lvl 10 (base slvl 7+3 staff). I'm finding that she takes out most monsters with about 2 or 3 casts of FN (Obviously, that'll increase as things get tougher). I'm also pleased to report that Elemenara killed Andi mostly with Frost Nova - I used a little Fireball, but Frost Nova probably did about least 70-75% of the job. I've been following the equipment advice and doing a lot of Countess runs to obtain the runes for stealth, and although I haven't yet got an Eth, I have got 2 Nef's (I checked the Arreat Summit, and apparently, it's 3 Nefs that make 1 Eth) - so I'm going to do a few more before entering Act II and hope that either a 3rd Nef or an Eth turns up.
I'm having so much fun with her, that I'm tentatively considering creating a hardcore Frost Novaress down the line. (I'm going to want til I find out how I get on with some of the other act bosses, especially Duriel and Diablo before I decide). I'll report more much later - maybe when I'm in Act III or IV.

Rohar.

[AtomicKitKat]

I foresee big-time problems with Duriel. He's immune to cold in NM/Hell, and fairly resistant in Normal. Your best bet would be to run in, Static 5 times(or as many as you can), then spam all the Novas(lightning one) you can. Hope you're getting that one up. The Summoner could be an issue, unless you guess where he is beforehand and fling fireballs in his general direction.

I think a solid Shimmering Shield of Sentinel(is that right? MDR and resist all) would be your best friend against LEBs, especially Ancient Kaa, who's magic resistant. I've also taken a fancy to wearing "chance to cast Frost/Nova when struck" items. Helps to cut down the actual number of casts needed. :P

[Rohar]

Hmmm, I actually plan on keeping Nova at slvl 1 for now (It's going to be my tertiary skill and probably reserved for when I come across fire/cold immunes) and concentrating on FN and Fireball till act V at least, which is when I will look at Frozen Orb & Nova so I'm not sure that will work.
Although I do think static is a good idea for him - I'll take a merc in as well, static Duriel as much as I can as you suggest, and then blast him with fire - I did that with my meteor/fireballghtning sorcie and he went down fairly quickly, and I don't think I got hit much, if at all.
The only issue i can see is that I think Duriel's hit points have gone up since then, and Elemenara's fireball is likely to be lower than my other sorcies was - she had it at slvl 12 + 3 from a staff. Elemenara's fireball, on the other hand will be probably slvl 7, plus any bonuses I have from a staff, so the fight will probably be longer and less comfortable. Do I guess from your last sentence that you have a Frost Novaress now too ? :) If so, might I enquire what build you're going with for her, out of interest ?

Rohar

[lfd]

I foresee big-time problems with Duriel. He's immune to cold in NM/Hell, and fairly resistant in Normal.

Whilst that's true in 1.09, he's been adjusted in 1.10 - he's 50% cold resistant in normal, 75% cold resistant in nightmare, and 95% cold resistant in hell. By the time you reach him in nightmare/hell, you can have sufficient cold mastery to reduce those resistances to more manageable amounts, although he still has a bucketload of hitpoints.

[AtomicKitKat]

I decided to go with Nova/FNova/Fireball too, just for the sake of comparison. But I've been playing a lot of Gunbound lately, and have 3D animation classes for a couple months, so... :unsure:

[goldfish]

Let me just point out that both FNova and Nova are low-range, circular, right-button-only skills.

This makes them somewhat harder to spam them in any sort of coordinated way (unlike a combination of right-button and left-button skills).

Not a big disadvantage, but something you should be aware of.

[AtomicKitKat]

Nobody's planning to. Fnova is used in general, Fireball is for cold-immunes, and Nova is used when it's dual.

[Rohar]

Nobody's planning to. Fnova is used in general, Fireball is for cold-immunes, and Nova is used when it's dual.

Well, my strategy is slightly different from that at the moment. FNova (and later down the time, when I hit lvl 30 in Act V, Frozen Orb) are for general use. However I also use fireball in general too in times to conserve mana, since I'm still having mana issues with Frost Nova at present (The Countess is being stubborn and not playing ball, and so far hasn't dropped a third Nef or an Eth yet despite having done seven or eight runs so far and none have dropped anywhere else, either) Down the line, however when I have enough max mana and greater mana regen & therefore mana is less of an issue, then yep - Frost Nova & Frozen Orb in general, Fire for cold immunes, Nova for dual fire/cold immunes. Hmmm, what about triple-immunes or worse though ? Any suggestions ?

[AtomicKitKat]

Would be pretty hard to find a triple elemental immune. They'd need Spectral Hit+Magic Resistant or something similar. Maybe toss in CE/LE/FE somewhere as well. Most likely culprit for that, IMO would be Hell difficulty Eldritch the Rectifier(The guy north of Shenk). Of course, the only times I've met him that way, I was using cheated paladins in Single Player. If it really comes down to a triple immune monster, your best bet would probably be to get a wand of bone spirit or something similar, and keep recharging it in town. :/

An Act 1 merc would also be a decent(I mean agile enough, since her AI tells her not to stand there like an idiot if someone hits her) source of physical damage, although it's questionable whether she would be able to outpace regeneration. Regeneration would be moot if she had a PMH/Poison weapon(although, I heard PMH on equipment doesn't work with player minions)

[Rohar]

Ok, time for another progress report on the adventures of Elemenara, my Frost Novaress, since she's just completed Act II and is about to begin Act III in Kurast

The early mid stages of Act II went quite well. Frost Nova really shone against the denizens of the tombs (espedially against all those greater mummies and their skeleton hordes). It did pretty well out in the deserts too, proving especially good against sand leapers (no annoying leaping away from this Sorcie - they were chilled and slain within a couple of hits !) and hordes of scarab demons. (I was a bit surprised that Elemenara seemed to do so well, given all the CB's they give out on being hit, but mostly she seemed to survive with fairly minor damage). Midway through the act after about my 9th or 10th countess run, she finally picked up a Eth, and got her Stealth Armour and this together with a Eth I cubed from 3 Nef's a bit and socketed in a helm, provided some much needed mana regen. The Palace Levels were ok, although proved a bit hairy, with Horror Archers smacking her quite badly before she could get in Frost Nova range. For some reason however, Frost Nova did not prove to be much effective in the Arcane Sanctuary - are the monsters there fairly cold resistant? In the end I switched to Fireball for much of the level. The Summoner proved to be pretty easily though.
Elemenara had a fairly easily run of the Seven tombs (although at times, mana still proved to be a bit of a problem) and then it was time for Duriel. Took a 315hp merc in to tank, staticed him early on, switched to fireballs later after his health was lowered substantially and ran for safety of a portal when he came charging at me after killing the merc. I had hoped that I might be able to use some Frost Nova to chill him and slow him down, but in the end, given I was finding I didn't have much time before Duriel killed my merc, I didn't use FN at all.
Survived without a death, so now it's on to Act III.

[Telveck]

I have a quick question about this. Frost Nova, fairly low damage in the begining... did the synergy bonuses help at all? Does anyone know what kind of damage it would do with all of those maxed? (Including maxed Cold mastery and Frost Nova?)

'Cause the only things I can even contimplate killing with Frost Nova are Quill Rats on Normal Difficulty =/