Preliminary Enchantress Guide

[Crystalion]

...most improved skill in 1.10.
Look at the other candidates:

way past my bedtime, but did you neglect?...

fire claws
rabies
lightning bolt (zon)

And I think a good case can be made for many other skills as well (these are just the most glaring omissions in your list off the top of my sleepy head).

Which isn't to say I think MongoJerry should change his paragraph. A little hyperbole in the intro of a guide is somewhat traditional, no? :)

[AtomicKitKat]

Heh.

You DO only have about 8 seconds to get the reader's attention...

[whyBish]

I would suspect that rabies is probably the only skill with a chance to rival enchant in increased effectiveness in 1.10, but I haven't used it, so can't comment.

Fire claws, falls into the category of holy shock, but takes more skill points and doesn't have the pulse damage, and doesn't fit in well with other skills

Lightning bolt, well, it was arguably worse than enchant before, but turning phys dmg into lit dmg isn't much use when you can only chuck javs (now if you could chuck lances ... :P )

P.S. we really should start a separate thread on 1.10 most improved /degreaded etc.

[Caaroid]

Most skills, come on!

• Fireball became THE tweaker sorceress skill in the game, previously it was a variant skill that only few silly people like myself used
  <>
  
• Hammer became so unbelievably powerful that it became the skill of the game (just as in 1.04, and no, I have no hammerdin because I find them tedious to play)
  <>
  
• Holy bolt, now come on! you CAN have a build built around it, whereas previously you could not (as opposed to Enchant; you could have underpowered enchantresses before but pure priests where totally unheard of)
  <>
  
• Lightning sentry (4000 or even 6000 damge 5 times from a safe distance? with a freely summonable tough tank and the ability to stun masses)
  <>
  
• Bone skills (a bone oriented necro is not an underpowered barely playable variant having to rely on corpse explosion rather a near-immortal damage dealer that destroyed PvP in 1.10)<>
  [st]
  ... and the list goes on.
  And yes, I agree that there could be a dedicated thread to this issue :)
  
  Caaroid

[whyBish]

OK, yeah I accept those last three :P

Making a poison nova necro is taking up some of my time now :)

[LavCat]

LavCat, I believe Ormus only sells magic staves, but I'll look into it.&nbsp; Does anyone know if you could avoid getting all magic items by using a rushed mule character?

Ormus stopped selling white/gray items at level 20. Level 30 skills had not yet appeared.

[monkorn]

Hey MJ, while playing my Enchantress(kuku with 10 static so far, act 5 nm @70ish(still fearing hell)) I saw something that I didnt see you mention, so I might as well assume you dont know about it and tell you about it.

A lower level enchant can not over-ride a higher level enchant. When you try, it will do the cast animation for your sorc, but not the enchant animation on the character or remove mana.

This can be used when enchanting a large group of minions. First enchant about 75% of them, than once you feel you will be hitting the same monsters more than a few times, move that fire charm into your cube or take off magefist. This way you enchant them without losing that much mana, even if it is slightly weaker.

[Crystalion]

A lower level enchant can not over-ride a higher level enchant.

He knows. Don't know if it made the cut on the guide (too much to re-read each revision). This is a factor with the choice of using skill shrines and BO (Battle Orders) before Enchant... more powerful, but then you can't do "lazy" refreshes.

One trick you can use, because of this, with MongoJerry's suggested switch to better enchant gear when you Enchant, is to be lazy, but every so often, in the field, try a "field grade" enchant on one of your prior batch (high-grade) enchantees. If it fails, then you know Enchant has not run out yet (and you paid no mana for the failure).

If it succeeds, then you know you let that whole batch expire, and its time to hit them again.

In my case, however, I instead use a lazy combination of three methods:

1) whenever there's a natural town break, I do (and encourage by messaging first) enchants at the town healer (who I touch to refill my mana as I work).

2) when things are going well in the dungeon I "touch up" the enchants ("well" = looks safe to grab a second or two for a buff or two) (sometimes you can see someone hit without the fire animation ever, and you know they need the buff)

3) when I see party members/minions come through a TP or WP and don't see a mess of enchant animations for all of them, I know it's down, and needs re-application (which is obvious if a player has died, but more commonly comes from a minion being summoned fresh).

I also have gotten lazy and do:
4) don't bother to enchant myself, because targeting is so iffy you're "certain" to enchant yourself over and over when doing a bunch of them

Unfortunately I "succeeded" once in not missing, and later had my personal enchant dropped in battle for a while, before I realized I wasn't being effective (and what must have happened). So I can't recommend #4 :)

[Fridge2]

When I'm playing my new enchantress (tons of fun! :D ) I often find it difficult to cast an enchant on my party members, as they are moving. And if I miss, then I cast it on myself again and waste mana (such a waste). So I lock on with my left click first, and then if I miss, all I do is run. Or even better, hold shift and left click, then right click.
It often gets a bit weird because I'm trying to cast enchant while attacking with the locked on shifted left click(yikes!), but it works most of the time. Maybe setting the left click to something like throw or another red icon will work?

Anyways, that's it, I think.
Greetings,
Refrigerator

EDIT: Yes, this is me, I have a new hard drive and forgot my password, so I'm using a temporary account for now.

[LavCat]

Yes, hitting everybody and their minions can be a real pain. Two nights ago I suggested to a friend the idea getting a holy freeze merc and going hostile. Of course then the enchant might not quite work.

As was mentioned earlier, enchanting oneself one level higher is one solution to the problem. Never hurts to max warmth either.

[Refrigerator]

Ok, I've experimented a bit more with it and found it is very picky. If you want to actually cast enchant you have to click it quickly after you left click select them. Doesn't seem to work reliably or predictably really, but if you right click just after you left click on them, then it should work.

Oh, also, MongoJerry, I like how you say "one must be careful". It adds... I don't know, a little something

[Occhidiangela]

Understand your overall stance, it is consistent with your previous guide critiques. When I get my Tourette's guide in better shape in a week or so, please give it a once over. Close scrutiny is a good thing for guides.

And what's with all the entries on non-Enchant attack types? Once a Sorceress devotes half her power to Frozen Orb or Inferno or whatever other attack she's lost her claim to the name of Enchantress IMO, simply because half the time she won't even be using Enchant!

Why your objection here? Enchant is, as noted, a use and wait spell. In the interim, what do you do to further your efforts at scotching the badguys? Stand around for 5 minutes waiting for Enchant to wear off? Not likely, and methinks in SP a path to mind numbing boredom: perhaps, not, tastes vary.

Second point raised in the guide is that there are immunes in the game, lots of fire immunes, so what to do about them? The guide then explores some ideas. How is that bad? I think you boresighted on the Enchantress name the way we Variant Scum™ might tend to. (Yes, we.) Given "how the skill works" any guide about a build that goes "Enchant First and then deal with fire immunes later," be it melee or otherwise, has to address what else you do to handle other threats.

Me, I think MongoJerry needs to comment on Necro wands with charges of Lower Resist, but that is another shopping drill. :) <===== JERRY, Take Note here, eh? ;)

Optimizing Enchant eats some 60+ skill points, so what does one do with the rest of one's skill points?

I would go for the Cold Tree as an alternative offensive route, since a maxed Warmth aids and abets the mana hogging Orb or Spike skills. (Not sure why I like Glacial Spike better, could it be the lack of a timer? On that score, I am starting to agree with Sirian, the timers really were a poor idea, all visual lag considerations aside.)

Another path is to invest in Static Field for a melee sorceress, or the Cold Armours per your suggested thematic approach.

The Enchantress can't just "Enchant and win." In classis, with no immunities, it might have been possible to do that. In LoD 1.10, you have to do something else to kill bad guys. Given your aversion to item listing, which I share somewhat, this leaves skill investment as an area that a good guide must address.

You point out the defensive skills in the Cold Tree, which any careful analysis shows simply will not address Monster regeneration in Hell for those that apply cold damage to attackers. So, for a team, the Enchantress who uses Enchant/Fire for the Party and Cold Armors for herself (great theme, by the way) falls apart for SP unless we go into variant land, where you have to trust your merc in SP with that build. Unless we then address items that do damage other than fire extensively.

I don't think Mongo Jerry is building a variant as we variant scum know it, he seems to be presenting a style. (Per the outline presented at RBD by Charis.) The name is rather obvious, given the name of the major skill. It is also easy to understand in "bnet-ese" which, if you note where Mongo Jerry intends to post the finished guide, makes it logical to use the name "Enchantress" to highlight her major focus in skill point investment.

So, all that prose to say, maybe: consider the source and the audience, which goes beyond purists. Your comment that the build is Uberish, particularly in a party, is not without merit.

[Archon_Wing]

I got as far as the first sentence and already started hating it. The quoted sentence while immediately throwing a challege out in the open (with a boast) looks like it heralds something that only a *ahem* "UB3R l337 D00D LOLOL!!!111" (If you'll pardon my AOLish) could appreciate.

Maybe an exagerration, but Enchant has been quite boosted, relative to other skills.

And what's with all the entries on non-Enchant attack types? Once a Sorceress devotes half her power to Frozen Orb or Inferno or whatever other attack she's lost her claim to the name of Enchantress IMO, simply because half the time she won't even be using Enchant!

I suppose that when we see fire immunes, that guide should say, "Whoops, run away and scream!!" Hmm, perhaps, that a "one-trick pony" doesn't work and you are forced to use skills from other trees. It's always been like that, handling immunes. And since this character has invested mostly in enchant, and is optimized in enchant, there's not enough points to make frozen orb into a primary skill. The guide states that an enchantress has little use for mana. She is not a caster. FO is meant to take a sideshow, believe it or not. Why? She doesn't have the resources to spam high level FO! Why use ice bolt as a backup, when you can use frozen orb?

Why did you have to be so hostile about the items? True, Mongojerry should have linked to http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp :rolleyes: Is it wrong to give an idea to what someone should be looking for? Yes, mods would be nice to discuss, but the above link should be enough for the most part. It's not worth trashing the whole guide for.


Needless to say, I didn't really find how your critique of Mongojerry's guide (whoops, I meant first paragraph and a few lines in between) was really helpful.

[NeoLunar]

Really really off topic but i just have to ask this...

When are you gonna start another adventure series?

I'm sorry... I'm really sorry...

[whyBish]

Maybe an exagerration, but Enchant has been quite boosted, relative to other skills.

Anyone questioning how much enchant has been boosted should come play an HC basin game on west. There are a fair few enchantresses floating about, often stopping by all acts to enchant other player. Enchant is possibly too strong now.

The intersting thing is, due to the large number of skelemancers, enchant is especially effective online, since there are bound to be at least two in the full hell games.