Frrost Nova Sorcie - opinions please ?

[Caaroid]

And not a nice one. This is a THEME character, don't you get it? :)

Anyway, since you asked:

Frost nova has 2 synergies, blizzard and Frozen Orb. given a 20-20-20 setup one would get:

Frost nova: 280-337
Orb: 267-282

+10 cold skills:

Frost nova: 530-612
Orb: 415-435
(Orb damage calculated with 1 point in it's synergy; ice bolt is a prereq that you have to take to get Blizzard and Orb.)

Orb has a 1 second timer, meaning that one can cast (at 9 frames) 25/9 = 2.8 times as many novae as Orbs, giving Nova an effective damage of 1472-1700.

But enough of the good news. Frost nova costs 38, Orb 39 mana at level 30, and as anyone who has ever used Orb can testify, it hits more than once. That is, even if one wanted to make an all-out FN sorc, one'd need VERY strong presence of mind not to start spamming orbs...

Taking into considerartion, that a 20-20 Ice bolt-Orb combo would do 569-597 damage, this is definitelly not a path advised for the masses.

But will make a lovely theme character I am sure.

[Rohar]

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 =/

Well, so far .... Elemenara is clvl 24 and her character skills are as follows

Frost Nova @ 9
Fireball @ 7
Warmth @ 4
Nova @ 1
Pre-regs @ 1

She therefore doesn't even have a point in Blizzard yet - her next few levels of her skill plan, up to about 30 are as follows:

23 Fireball @ 7
24-25 FN @ 9-10
26 Fireball @ 8
27 Fireball @ 9
Iz - GS @ 1, Blizzard @ 1
28 Fireball @ 10
29 Frost Nova @ 11
30 Frozen Orb @ 1

So no, at the moment she doesn't have help from any synergy bonuses at all, and won't do til killing Izual.
So her damage is a bit limited at the moment - I usually have + 2 or 3 FN bonuses from her equipment, so her FN damage is in the mid 20's to 30's.
I'm not too surprised at your comment - I had serious doubts about going down this route for a fair while for that same reason. However, It's been surprisingly effective so far, although I foresee her having a bit of a tough time killing stuff with the lack of damage and the mana drain in late Act III and Act IV. That's why I've got Fireball along - to provide a less mana intensive/more efficent damage attack , as well as for when I start bumping into cold immunes.
Hopefully once she gets Frozen Orb in Act V, her damage should get quite a bit better - I plan to max Frozen Orb and probably pump Cold Mastery some, but I'm not sure about Blizzard, given I'm going for a tri-elemental build and will want to consider at least some Fire Mastery for the synergy effect on Fireball, if nothing else. I'll hopefully be reporting more, probably End of Act III or IV.

[Fragbait]

Hail ryan4nayr,

Allowedly, the CBF mods on frenzytaurs is a huge drawback.
Nevertheless the skill might be of some help for the party with other critters, because of it's huge chill duration. If Rohar plays on the net - which I'm guessing, and eventually wants to play in a party, it can't hurt if some extrafast/fanaticism pack isn't as deadly anymore.
How about a true 'lamer' party, with a FN Sorcie, an Cold-Aura Pally and a Decrepify Necro? Combine this with a Warcry Barb that stuns and an Assassin with Mind Blast, and you have a fine group of unhurried english gentlemen there.

Lady Fotheringill: 'Shall we repel these demonic hordes now?'
Lord Palmerston: 'Not after we've had our tee.' :lol:

This would follow the slogan 'If you can't increase your own attacking speed anymore, decrease your enemy's' intransigently.
Name for the party: 'You can't badger us.' (Just have a go with smugness!)

In this spirit, have Fun!


Greeitngs, Fragbait

[Rohar]

Actually, I'm pretty much been a single player person only up til now, although I've ocassionally played TCP/IP with friends.
Been a bit deterred by the lag and also, don't like the thought of venturing out into the unknown and braving the dangers of Player Killers and stuff.
However, I wouldn't mind starting to venture out on Battle.net, especially in the company of a party of trusted friends (would any of you guys care to team up with me?) , and doing something like you're suggesting. Elemenara was created as a single-player character, so she could only be played on Open Battle net though.
I'd be fine creating another Frost Novaress for realms play, though - either in Elemenara's style, or perhaps going for a diff build ...

[AtomicKitKat]

You could add a Frost-zon using Lots of cold duration items+HST+Knockback(but not HBT, since Decrepify would be overwritten) Phoenix Strike third charge completely FREEZES(not chills) enemies(so I guess that would be out) Oh, and you forgot to add a Hurricane Druid. Did I forget anyone?

Checklist:

1. Amazon(Either cold arrow, but NOT Freezing)
2. Assassin(Mind Blast, or copy the Amazon's build, but use kicks/Blade Fury. Hell, combine both styles)
3. Barbarian(Warcry)
4. Druid(Hurricane)
5. Necromancer(Decrepify)
6. Paladin(Holy Freeze)
7. Sorceress(Frost Nova/Orb/Blizzard)

And of course, any/everyone of these should have a HF merc with a Razortine/Kelpie Snare(any of the Hit Slows Target weapons), or carry that weapon themselves. :D

Baal would feel older than he already is. :P

Edit 1:
Lying
(Post)
Title

Edit 2: Just realised the Druid could use Twister to stun the enemies that the Barbarian misses, Seriously though, if Rohar brings his FNovaress to B.net, is anyone interested in making the party above? 1 of each class. :)

[Kevin]

Shockwave fits the the "Slow the %#$! down" theme quite well, but it is a stopper skill (as is warcry and mind blast) so it depends on how liberal you are getting with this. :)

But just for fun you would have to have a fanatic zealot with the fastest darn weapon around just to have him look completely off his rocker. :)

[Caaroid]

Most people note the huge slow duration of the Forst nova... but it happens to be the same as that of Frozen Orb, what, as I already attempted to point out, is nearly clearly superior to Frost Nova. What I believe would make Frost Nova a sweet skill if it freezed targets... if an Assassin can do that, why cant a sorceress? (And don't you go Glacial Spike on me here!)

--------

As for the slow-the-chitters-down party: do not forget CLAY GOLEM! My PvP necro friend helped my orbseress versus hell ancients, and the Golem+Decrep+Orb made him appear to swing like once in every 2 seconds (the double thrower, that is).

[Rohar]

I had never paid much attention to Frost Nova until a few weeks ago, when I equipped my then 20-something SC Ladder Enchantress with Malice in a +2 Frost Nova, +1 Shiver Armor, +1 Fire Ball battle staff-- just in time for the Act III jungles.

Wow, what an eye-opener! Fetishes, Flayers, and especially Soul Killers and their Shaman firebreathers had meant inevitable multiple deaths for my earlier sorcs. Not so for this Enchantress! Frost Nova not only stopped them in their tracks, making them easy targets, but painted them blue, making them even easier targets. I took savage glee in shattering Stormtree by whacking him with a stick... The Kurast sewer and temples and the Durance were a breeze...

Ok, back again - reporting on Elemenara's progress - I was originally going to wait til beginning of Act IV to report back, but given it's been a fair while and I've got a couple of things to say - I'll do a mid Act III report and then not report back til killing Diablo at least.

Elemenara is currently venturing through the Flayer Jungle, and it's going well - she's completed the early quest. After Zyr's post in which he said the above, I was looking forward to trying out FNova at high levels in the Kurast Jungles. And my anticipation was not disappointed - Frost Nova at slvl 12-13 meant that any flayer hordes coming in close proximity, were swiftly punished and reduced to puddles of melting ice when they got into Elemenara's range. For the tougher creatures, I found that even though Elemenara wasn't built for melee, chilled opponents could be dealt with quite easy via melee when I hit low mana. So far Elemenara is still death free - the only character I've ever had that I can remember ever still deathless at this point. A HC Frost Novaress is looking more and more attractive by the minute :)

Ok, that's it from me - I'll report more later :)

[Zyr]

Zyryalana, my Enchantress, is now lvl 56 in Act III NM, and I can report that a single point in Frost Nova proved as helpful in the jungles in NM as in Normal. :)

(She's at a standstill right now while I figure out how she can deal with the Dolls. She has died no less than six times in the Durance to Undead Stygian Dolls, and has yet to make it to Mephisto. A friend just gave her (well, me, but you know what I mean) the Enchantress's dream weapon-- a Demon Machine. However, using the crossbow means sacrificing the 69% Resist All from The Ward w/PDiamond she has been using, making her even more vulnerable to the Dolls. I may have to replace her faithful Blessed Aim desert merc with one of his Holy Freeze brethren.)

Zyryalana will never be Hell-viable, as I put points in Blizzard, CM, LM, Fire Bolt, and Fire Ball in order to try different possibilities. I'm slowly levelling two replacements. Zyrylyanya, who'll have maxed Lightning and points in LM in addition to Warmth/Enchant/FM, is now level 23, and has just whacked her way through the Act III jungles with the same +2 Frost Nova, +1 Shiver Armor, +1 Fire Ball Malice battle staff used there by her elder sister.

(EDIT: Misspelling! <_<)

[Fragbait]

As I said, no text.
Just wanted to hear from her again, because I'm a bit fascinated, too.


Greetings, Fragbait

[Rohar]

Elemenara ? or Zyr's sorcies ? Wasn't sure from the question ...

[Fragbait]

No text.
Really.

Really really!

[loked]

in and early periot of you post, there was something about doing a trielemental,

you can only max from 4 and a halft to 5 skills, so maxing the main skill and syenergi is hard, and even if some you do all the skills then there is the problen of than 2 of the skills might not be able to have a syenergi or mastery, and you can not boost syenergis with +skills, but if you didnt know, the syenergies skill, can be boost by +skills, an gets all the bonus from the skills, in this plan a trielemental can be done, by just maxing the mastery syenergis, and then leating the +skills to boost the main skills, but ofcourses this take a lot of +skills on the gear :P, ok here goes how it can be done

fire skills:
meteor 10 skills
fireball 20 skills
1 point on fire mastery
lighing:
tunder storm 10 points
lighing mastery 10 points

cold:
blizzard: 20 points
cold blast: 10 points

prerequisites: 12
total skills points needed: 93, -skills from quest which are, 12= necesary lvl 81
you must get atleast 10 +skills, to all trees to get all skills at lvl 20, that is not that hard, not sacrifing much of a gear; and belive me you dont have to worry about imunitis, your merc must be a psicial ataqur and that is it.

hope i help

[Rohar]

Ok, just checking .....

Actually, your post prompted me to go do some playing with Elemenara (Prior to that, progress had been a little bit slow, mainly due to the fact that my attention had been diverted from her by two of my newest characters (a Frost Zealot Pally, and a hardcore wind druid) Anyway, she's currently in upper Kurast, about lvl 27, having just collected the last of Khalim's organs from the sewer. The rest of the jungles and Kurast went fairly well, although she did finally suffer her first death in the jungle, at clvl 26 and another one in one of the Kurast dungeons. Still, I'm still very encouraged by how long she went deathless -(If she beats Mephisto & Diablo without dying, then I'm definitely going to seriously consider a hardcore Frost Novaress ).

Next up, The Kurast High Council and Mephisto ...

[Fragbait]

Hi Rohar,

I think you're going to have a hard time with these two. The High Council and the bosses before Mephisto (especially brem) may cause a lot of trouble. I can remember my Blackjade having had her fire resists in her 40ies, and those hydras can't be chilled with fnova...
Well. That's long gone. I played her up to the end of nightmare, and left her when she was lvl 53. Maybe I should take her out for a spin sometime...
You still doing your damage mainly with fnova? I experienced in nightmare that I used fnova (lvl24 or something) mainly to chill my enemys. I decided to go with meteor for my second attack, with a +1skills, +2meteor, 20% fast cast staff on the switch. Quite fun when you have a baba to tank for you and you give your foes 3-4 fnovas to 'calm them down' a bit. Damage was in the 70ies, and 30 seconds chill duration when not resisted rocked. That was before 1.10, I don't know if that's still true.
Anyways, keep going. I know this can be incredible fun!

Greetings, Fragbait

[Rohar]

Heya Fragbait,

Been playing a bit more, and actually the first half of the council, up in Travincal, went down quite easily. One or two tight spots where I almost died, but for the most part, Elemenara didn't have too many difficulties. I suspect the second half of the council, in Durance of Hate level 3, might be a bit more difficult.

As for how I'm doing my damage, I'm still using a quite a lot of Frost Nova, but I'm using a fair bit of Fireball also, because despite having quite a lot of mana gen from warmth and items, mana drain is still a bit of an issue at times. I've also got a +2 bonus to Ice Blast from an Orb, so that gets used sometimes as well. And she's also for some reason got a reasonable to hit chance (about 70-80%, depending on the exact monster, so I'm even meleeing a bit. (Hmmm, after hearing about Zyr's experiences and reviewing my own, I think both Frost Nova and Enchant at high levels might be an attractive combo).
I've basically decided that while I want to use Frost Nova mostly, since mana drain is looking like always being an issue, I'm going to employ any skill in my arsenal that might be helpful.

Bosses are actually probably not going to get handled by Frost Nova much though, or at least not til synergys start kicking in, because of the lack of damage and mana drain. Mephisto will be dealt with Fireballs (I'll be using the old wake him up and then run round the pool of blood to safety trick, which rather rules out FNova) , then Diablo with Fireballs and slvl 1 Blizzard (might use frost nova a bit to chill him) Baal, I'll wait and see what my damage with Frost Nova is nearer the time before deciding on my exact tactics (by this time, I suspect FOrb will be playing a part in my arsenal too). Some of the other superuniques might get handled by Frost Nova, with the exception of Izual (It would be a nice case of poetic justice to use Frost Nova mainly on him, but I think it would take forever, so I'll probably use a combo of Frost Nova and Fireballs).

In reply to your query about would Frost Nova would still rock with BlackJade, I suspect if you started to climb the cold skill tree and then invest points in Blizzard/FOrb, you'd find it still would :)

[Rohar]

Ok, another progress report

Elemenara finished Act III in reasonably fine style - she went down to a Champion Mauler in Durance Hate act III, and suffered one death to Mephisto's cold orb, but otherwise she carried things off reasonably well.

On to Act IV - and to my surprise, frost nova still seems to be faring reasonably well at the static level of about 13-14 that I've had it for a while. I've still got the same mana intensive problems, mind you, but it does seem to be killing things in about say 4-5 hits. Izual I dealt with with liberal use of Frost Nova and Fireballs, and I made absolutely sure that a Frost Nova dealt the death blow (just had to have a bit of poetic justice). Elemenara's now got Blizzard at slvl 1, which lends some synergy support and provides me with some AOE support. I left her at the river of chaos waypoint, so now all that remains is the river of flame walking, the CS, the seal bosses and then it'll be time for Diablo himself.
I reckon I'll probably level once more before facing Big D himself (current clvl is 28)
and I haven't decided whether to put that point in fireball or FN - I'm edging towards FN though.

So her main weapons will be Frost Nova 12+2, Fireball @ 10, with some support from Blizzard @ 1, probably.

Anyone prepared to bet whether she can do it first time, with no deaths ? Or if not, how many before she emerges triumphant ? Advice, if anyone wants to give it, would also be welcomed :)

Rohar

[Fragbait]

Hi Rohar,

That would be a risky bet, not knowing your resists and general playstyle and such... And for FN you've got to get in closer range...

But - I say you can do it without dying. Gogo Elemenara! :)
Perhaps someday she can mess with my Blackjade (lvl 53)...

Greetings, Fragbait

[Rohar]

OK, List of Elemenara's resists (not including Poison, since it isn't going to figure while fighting Big D) :

Lightning Resist 75
Cold Resist 75
Fire Resist 52

I'm going to be on the lookout for items that increase fire resist if possible.
She also has - 5 MD, but I know it got nerfed, so I'm not sure how helpful that might be. Tactics, since Diablo has a huge amount of HP's, I figure FN is going to be used for the chilling effect, and so that I can say it played a part in defeating Diablo, rather than a main attack - I'd love to do it with FN mainly, but given the high HP of Diablo and the fact that FN is rather mana hungry, I figure that's better used that way than as a main attack and let Fireball & possibly some Blizzard do the main damage. True, I said that I wouldn't use a lot of frost nova vs Izual too, and landed up using it liberally, but Izual only has a cold melee attack and FN himself, while Diablo has nasty fire attacks and LBoD - much greater threat.

As I said, any advice welcome :)

Rohar

[Rohar]

Well, I'm afraid despite my hopes, she didn't make it first time - in fact, she suffered five deaths before finally emerging triumphant. Most of them were due to LBoD and Firestorm, as far as I can remember.

On the positive side, her equipment held her in good stead - I remember she survived at least one full blast of LBoD without dying and with about roughly 1/3 of her life orb full. As I expected, I had to use mostly Fireball and Blizzard - it is very hard to sneak into Frost Nova range of Diablo without taking a severe beating in the progress - I did manage a couple of times, and for the record, Frost Nova did deal the death blow.

So, given the setback, will I still be doing a HC Frost Novaress of some sort?
Yes - I believe my problem was lack of power against Diablo - hopefully, If I'm either teaming up with people/and or put a few more points into a level 24 AOE skill (mostly likely Blizzard for the synergy, but we'll see.), that will hopefully make the difference next time.
. Plus, maybe in HC if I'm concentrating on getting vitality and life, that will make a
difference too.
So on now to Act V and Harrogath!