Diablo 2 & Sorceress builds

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Warmth gives no synergy at all to either Fireball or Meteor. I believe the only skill it synergises with is Enchant, hence why people generally don't recommend pouring points into it.

Dual immunes are irritating, but thankfully there aren't that many around, even in Hell. And if you do come across some, this is where Static Field really shines.

 

Cold Mastery (CM) entry from The Arreat Summit site:

Cold Mastery will only lower the resistance of monsters that are hit by the Sorceress, this bonus cannot be shared with party members.

Cold Mastery will not work against monsters that are Immune to Cold. So even if you have Enemy Resistance -105%, they will still be Cold Immune and you will still be unable to damage them. So what's the point of 100%+ you might ask? Well if they are NOT Cold Immune, it will lower their Cold Resistance down below 0% which essentially means they will take more damage. It's just like when *you* have negative resistances in Nightmare/Hell difficulty

If a target has 75% Cold Resistance and you use Skill Level 1 Cold Mastery, the target's resistance will be 75% - 20% = 55%.



So it says that Cold Mastery does not break immunity. It is officialy announced. So only cold based sorceresses won't cut it in hell.

You have a nice idea of breaking immunities via Lower Resist+Conviction. If you can break the immunity via these, that is, if you can lower the resistance to %99 your CM will also apply and you can kill them...however this is only theorically useful. And breaking immunities are not easy. WHY?

Because Conviction and Lower Resist work at only %20 efficieny when dealing with Immune Monsters. That is, a lvl 20 Conviction normally gives -%125 to resistances. Against an immune monster it will only do -%25, which may not be enough to cancel the immunity: (see below)

Example:Oblivion Knights have 180 cold resistance in Hell. You can not practically break this immunity at all! (you need -%400 resist!)

Frozen Abyss in Act 5 even have a flat 210 Cold Resist, and they act faster if you try to chill them! (chill effectiveness is -33!) As a note, Gargoyle Traps have 1000 (this is not a typo!) CR in Hell Difficulty. Bony good luck with that! If you can break the immunity of these monsters please tell me!

Andariel is very weak to fire, IIRC she has a base -50 resistance to it in normal, so a lvl 5 fireball is more than enough to kill her fast. Add in a ruby-socketed bow for your hireling and she will be toast in seconds, trust me. Gulp 20-30 antidote potions before fighting her, each gives +%50 poison resist for about 30 seconds and their duration is cumulative. Add in a random + poison resist item and Andariel's poison can not hurt you at all!

Duriel is very easy if you have Static Field . This spell is designed for Duriel! Its big disadvantage is its low range, and Duriel is right infront of you most of the time so it is not a problem...that is, you must hope that your merc can survive a few hits from the beast. (he should!) Cast SF repeatedly (fastest cast rate helps here!) and big cockroach will lose more than half of his HP. Then use your fireballs and he will fall fast. He is the real sorceress bane though, having the best resistances against elemental attacks. Note that Cold spells are the least effective. (well duh, he has a cold aura!) A general strategy, try to stay in melee range and dodge his attacks, if you stay too away from him he will use CHARGE attack which does extra extra damage and can KO you in one hit! Teleport is useful here if you are cornered or if you want to dodge a deadly charge coming right at you, though since you are constantly chilled it is hard to pull it off...once again, items with Faster Cast Rate bonus really make difference in this battle, the difference between survival and death! Good luck!

Teleport is a very useful spell. It is very valuable. It saved my life countless times. It can also be used to teleport your hireling out of trouble or let him focus in one big bad immune monster. Or reach a boss (Mephisto comes to my mind, it is useful to avoid dangerous and annoying Council Members.) fast for item runs! Also, this skill is invaluable when battling Big Mr. D himself as he likes casting bone prisons around, it is essential to be able to get out of those fast, or the Red Hose Lightning will follow and you will die in a blink. If you teleport around constantly Big D can not hurt you at all! Remember to run to left or right when Mr D. uses his Red Hose Lightning attack, think it as a big tree falling, if you run backwards you will still get hit and take damage and it does big damage, killing you instantly if you have low LR. Anyways, I am saying that Teleport is definitely worth the skill points!

Telekinesis is a cool spell anyway, not useful in battles but you can use portals, way points, and shrines from a distance. Go ahead and use the waypoints in the towns from far away, the other players will envy you! This makes you cool in MP games, look an EXP shrine! ZAP! Sorc. got it! Yay! Too bad that the skill is nerfed so it can not pick up items. It was pretty useful for looting set and unique items in the previous versions. Now it can only loot gold and scrolls. (but who really needs them?)

I think all sorc builds need at least a decent Energy. I generally ignore DEX and once STR reaches 80-90 and Energy to 110, I pour all my points to VIT for more HP...High DEX builds may be more powerful though, do you have something in mind?

Frozen Orb is THE spell for Normal and Nightmare. It kills anything not immune to cold so fast, that is if you can aim it right. You learn with practice to do maximum damage with it though. I used Fireball and Meteor in Hell against Cold immune monsters, and it is sure way more effective than Thunderstorm . TS sucks hard as you can not aim it at all, it takes a lot of time to kill the zombies in act 1 with it. Even Corpsefire and his henchmen are serious threats if all you have is TS. I rolled a few meteors and fireballs inbetween them and they were dusted. Nice.

Hope this post helps you. Have fun with your sorceress, they are the coolest character in D2!

[ April 04, 2007, 10:18: Message edited by: Silverstar ]

 

So I discovered when I looked at the skill tree last night. From what I can see, it's going to be variable as to what is the best to raise. It seems that fireball improves by a set amount with each point invested in it. So in the early going, you are better off pumping fireball exclusively. Meteor gives a 14% bonus to fireball damage, so eventually, once you get your fireball skill up to a certain level (and I don't know what level that will be yet) the 14% improvement will be more than what you get from investing directly in the skill. It also appears that level 1 fire mastery should be taken pretty early. The first point spent improves fire damage by 30%, which is more than you get from pumping either meteor or fireball. However, I doubt you get an additional 30% fire damage for each point spent in FM. It would appear that FM is one of those skills with diminishing returns the more points you spend in them.

There's that pesky lightning tree again. You already talked me into spending two points in the lightning tree on telekenesis and teleport, and now I have to spend more? Hopefully SF is a one point wonder skill, because I simply won't have the skill points to invest in it heavily.

I had no idea that antidote potions gave a temporary boost of +50% resistance to poison. Out of curiosity, if the effects of the antidote are cumulative, then why is it necessary to gulp 20-30? It would seem like the number you'd need to get up to the maximum allowed 75% would be the much more modest two antidote potions.

Another vote for static field! :sigh: OK. How many points is this going to cost me, and what's so great about this spell?

I have using a shield in mind. From my experience, pouring tons and tons of points into vitality doesn't help the sorceress that much because you get such a poor return due to the low vitality:life ratio with this class. As a result, it is very difficult to get a sorceress on hell difficulty to survive more than a hit or two, regardless of how much you spend on vitality.

As such, I was planning on using a shield to reduce the frequency of hits, but the only way that helps is if you invest enough points in Dexterity for max block, and even with a good shield, attaining max block requires a significant investment in dexterity. Even with a shield with a good initial % chance to block, you will still need 150+ points invested in dexterity by the time you get to the higher levels to maintain the 75% chance of blocking. So the decision to use a shield is certainly all-or-nothing. If you aren't planning on using a shield you may as well leave your dexterity at base and pour everything into vitality beyond what you need to wear your equipment.

I will never have enough stat points to get my energy up to 110. I'm already looking at sinking 150 or so points into dexterity, and I'll need to sink about 70 points into strength. Right there that's 44 levels worth of stat points. If I have to invest another 80 or so points into energy, that means that I will have to keep my vitality at or near base until I'm level 60 - not going to happen.

 

Ahh, but the cumulative effect is the duration not the resistance boost. One potion lasts for 30 seconds, so if you gulp 20 of them you will have +%50 Poison Resist for about 10 minutes, which is handy as you will agree.

Same applies for thawing potions. Each gives +%50 Cold Resist for about 30 seconds. And their duration is cumulative. Handy against certain cold enemies, no doubt.

About Static Field

This spell cuts the monster's HP at the time of casting by %25. Example, say a tough monster has 10000 HP. You use this skill and it drops %25 HP, to 7500 HP instantly. That is ofcurse if he has 0 Lightning Resistance, as the spell still does Lightning damage. If the creature had 50 Lightning Resistance he will resist half the damage done but still lose 1250 HP. Not bad for a lvl 6 skill.

Ofcourse this skill is very useful against big bad monsters with tons of HP. This spell can never kill an enemy, and each repating casting will cause it to lose potency. As it does the %25 of the current HP of the enemy, the more wounded the enemy is, the less effective this spell will be.

You may not kill a fallen with this spell BUT this is highly useful against bosses. 4-5 repeative casting of this spell will nearly halve the HP of any boss. Then you can use your other main damage spells for a quick kill.

The main disadvantage is its very short range. You need to be almost in melee range for this to be effective. Further skill points increase the range, but I always give this ONE point. Even with one point this spell is very useful, with some + skill items its range is semi-decent. I open all boss battles with this spell. If you have Energy Shield , good defense/resistances and a good blocking chance, and Fast Cast Rate items there is little risk in using this spell.

Example, teleport next to Bhaal fast and cast this baby fast and furious a few times and teleport out ASAP before he gets a chance to retaliate you. Suddenly you will realise his HP is dropped dramatically so you can now use heavy hitter spells.

This is especially useful against Duriel as you are generally in his melee range, so why don't you use this spell for best effect?

This skill is nerfed though. It will not drop a monster below %33 of max health in Nightmare, and %50 in Hell. Still, quickly dropping a monster to %50 HP in Hell is nothing to be sneezed at.

Ofcourse, dreaded Lightning Immune targets are completely unaffected by this spell, but oh well...they tend to have lower HPs anyway.

Hope this helps.

 

My bad - I thought you meant the resistance was also cumulative, in which case you'd only need two per minute. Still, I seriously hope that 10 or so antidotes would be more than adequate. I certainly hope it doesn't take me more than 5 minutes to take down normal Andariel. IIRC, she only has about 1000 hp.

In which case, this spell is even useful against Andariel, as there's nothing in my arsenal that is going to take her down by such a large percentage in the early going.

Also, with no nerfing on normal difficult, repeated castings of this spell should be hugely effective. 1st cast = 75% of original life, 2nd cast is 56.25%, 3rd is 42.19%, 4th is 31.64% and 5th is 23.73%. So by blowing off 5 of these, Andariel should be down to fewer than 1/4 of her original hitpoints. After that the returns diminish rapidly, so that would the point I switch to FB.

Finally if extra skill points only increase the range and not the efficacy of the spell, then it makes no sense to dump skill points in it - like you said, a few +skill items will suffice.

 

That's the thing about one-point wonders - you put one point only. For a Meteorb, the Lightning skills you use (Teleport and Static Field - Telekinesis only gets a point as a prerequisite and never gets used in my game), as well as Warmth, all fall under this category. It's tremendously useful against bosses. Also, the only double immunes you come across are uniques, so using Static Field a few times makes them very easy to kill for your merc (especially if you get the Holy Freeze or the Might merc in Nightmare)

 

You are right ofcourse, but better be safe than sorry, antidote potions are cheap enough anyway, and I like the lovely gurgling sound when you gulp down a potion.

Andariel on normal mod has 1024 HP. And, she has 50 Lightning and 50 Cold Resistance! Wow, that is a lot of trouble for a non-fire using sorc! (she also has an odd 80 poison resistance, well, duh!) Your Static Field will be half effective then. First casting will drop her HP by 128, I think. Your fireball can do more damage after 2-3 castings, as she has a nice -50 Fire Resistance, your fireball will always do +%50 damage! Thus, a lvl 5 fireball can do up to 80 HP dmg to her approximately. Give your rogue hireling a nice three (chipped) ruby socketed bow and she will kick in an extra 30 dmg or so with each shot. (that is if she can survive enough, beware that act-end bosses do x10 dmg to hrielings! Why don't you have her gulp extra antidote potions as well?) Andariel will go down fast, don't worry!

Yes. Lightning tree is like more of support type for me, there are gems still very useful with only one point, and makes the life so much easier for your sorc. The best investments for only one lousy skill point! ( static field, telekinesis, teleport ...and maybe energy shield if you have spare points.)

 

I took out Andariel last night in what turned out to be a very anti-climatic battle. She went down in about 15 seconds. My rouge merc even survived. I just went right up to her, started blasting off a bunch of static fields, then switched to fireball to finish her off. The only thing I used was a couple of rejuvenation potions (well, and a few antidote potions too). I also had items that gave me poison resist, as well as an item that reduced poison length, so it wasn't bad at all. The only reason I even had to use rejuvenation potions is that my sorceress has so few hitpoints.

So I'm on to Act II now, and have picked up a defiance merc. Cold and might mercs are nice, but I have found that on the higher difficulty levels, survivability wins out over damage, and a high-level defiance merc is 10 times more survivable on hell difficulty when properly outfitted with good armor.

Getting some lightning resistance is going to be the order of the day now. Of course, I can probably fireball my way though the innumerable scarabs from a distance, if need be. I've switched from a long bow to melee weapon with a shield, although I am noticing that I can already largely rely on fireball. A well placed fireball or two can take down anything without fire resistance, and only uniques at this point come with that.

Not on hell difficulty. Lots of regular monsters are dual-immune. For example as early as the Tamoe Highlands the lancers are immune to both cold and lightning. Of course, they would have to be specifically immune to both cold and fire to be a problem, which is an unusual combination.

This is my first true attempt at a spell-based build, and it bums me out a bit that I can't use the best armor and weapons, because I simply do not meet the strength requirements. Of late, on each level up, I'm putting 3 into dexterity and 1 into vitality and strength, meaning that my strength only allows me to use ring mail as armor.

Still, the more I rely on spells, the less need for me to put my sorceress into harm's way, so hopefully the lack of armor and hitpoints will be a non-issue. I can get up to the ability of using splint mail if I spend two levels worth of skill points on strength, which I am considering doing. I do not know what strength I will require by the end of the game to use my equipment, but that number is certainly going to be higher than 51, the requirement for splint. Ideally, I'd like to get my strength up to around 100, although that may not be wise if I can get away with closer to 75. With sinking about 150 points into dexterity, I'm going to need most of what is left over for vitality.

 

Once you have power in your arsenal, Andariel is really a walk in the park.

You may need a good orb with + fireball skill. Good luck with finding that! I never used my weapon once in Act 2, and went for staves (since my DEX sucked!) staves are very good for increasing your skills, and the damage you do at this point. You can not have a nice orb at this lvl but you can buy very good staves:Check Drgonan frequently if you have the gold for it, soon he should have a staff with at least +2 to fireball, plus something else too if you are lucky. You may have to forego your shield for it though, so since you have big DEX, does it really help? How is your blocking chance overall?

Yes definitely raise your STR for better armors. But rememeber that when you are running your Defense is practically set to zero as everything can hit you:high defense and high blocking chance only helps when you are standing and fighting. Not when running:and a good sorc should always be running unless under rare circumstances and some boss battles.

 

I'm about to beat this game for the first time..(just gotta go kill Baal...:S) and i fancied myself a Lightning Sorceress, but now that I've got Frozen Orb, I seem to be Glacial Spiking (LCLCK) and Frozen Orbing(RCLCK). For fighting Baal, should I use my cold combo, or Glacial Spike/Chain Lightning???

 

Look here for Bhaal's statistics. It seems he has good resistance to cold and fire and lightning. So if you have Cold Mastery you can reduce his resistance and do some good damage. What is the lvl of your lightning and ice spells, which does the best damage?

Best strategy is Teleport ing to Bhaal FAST (just ignore the festering whatevers around) and castign Static Field 5-6 times in a frenzy, then Teleport out ASAP! This will leave him lower than his full HP. Now you can start blasting with your favourite spell!

Be sure to have good cold and fire resistance, and avoid melee contact with Bhaal and you will be OK.

Hope this helps.

 

I finished the game for the first time today (Its been a busy day today, I finished Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time today too)
I used Frozen Orbs, and Chain Lightning, gotta love those little walls ehh??

 

Well, I've been pumping strength lately to get me up to 75 to use the cool tower shield I picked up, and as a result, my chance to block has been dropping as my levels increase but my dexterity stagnates. Still, I'm at about a 50% chance right now. The decision is whether or not to stop at 75, which will enable me to use plate mail and a tower shield, or continue on to 100 strength, which will allow me to use ancient armor, and increase the weapons at my disposal as well. It is a balancing act, because the more I pump strength, the longer it will take me to hit max block on my shield. Chance to block is level based, so you need about 2 points per level into dexterity to maintain it.

While this certainly wasn't the plan, I'm also becoming a bit of a melee combat sorceress, so I can leech back mana. I made the cheap runeword "steel" (TirEl) to help her out a bit.

I'm currently level 27, in the Flayer Jungle of Act III. It's been a while since I've played D2, but I seem to recall not being of this high a level at this point in the game. I thought (obviously incorrectly) that I didn't get to level 27 until Act IV, and I'm not even half done with Act III.

 

Well in my very first time (noob times!) I killed Big D at lvl 28. or 27. (and my friend was suprised as his lvl 30 paladin still could not take down Big D, but it was his first time too, he had 1 (one) skill point in ALL skills! Sucky but funny paladin! He then managed to beat Big D with that sucky paladin, via llv 1 thorns aura and a lot of patience... ) So yes you are pretty high lvl., but now the game is harder thanks to new patches and this may be the cause.

Good for you, I prefer a total spell slinger sorc. all the time, but if your build works for you, congrats!

 

Well, it turns out I was in error - I was actually level 26 at the time I wrote that message, and I am now in Upper Kurast at level 27. So I do seem to be a bit ahead of what I'm normally at, but not by as much. I'll probably be level 28 when I fight Mephisto, and since Act IV is so short, I probably will not be greater than level 30 when I reach Big D.

Actually being level 30 would be ideal, as I plan to save the two skill points I get from the Izual quest so that when I hit level 30 I can put a point in frozen orb, cold mastery, and fire mastery. I know that I will focus on cold skills once I hit level 30 and will probably not learn any more fire skills until I'm through a good chunk of nightmare, but an early point in fire mastery is too good to pass up. Even at skill level 1, it gives a 30% boost to damage to all of your fire skills, which needless to say is always going to be useful. Especially since my fireball skill will still be the most damaging spell in my arsenal until I get several points in frozen orb, increasing it's damage is certainly worthwhile.

When playing last night I found a Jared's Stone that granted +3 to fireball and +2 to shiver armor, that also caused me to cease being a melee sorceress. The damage is sucky in melee combat, but I can't pass up the bonuses to two spells I use frequently. I've also hit 75 stength and am using the tower shield. It's turned out to be a good investment, as the tower shield had such a high percentage to block, I'm at 60% block rate, even though I haven't invested as heavily in dexterity. Reaching the 75% mark should only require a few level ups, and then I can finally get around to pumping vitality.

 

It looks like I'm more likely to be level 29 when I face Diablo, which is only about one level higher than what I normally am. It appears I wasn't advancing in levels much quicker than I normally do. Granted, with steady rises in experience point requirements at higher levels, a xp difference that results in a few levels of difference early on will only make a difference of a level or 2 later on. I hit the River of Flame waypoint last night, and I'm a whisker away from level 29. So obviously, I will reach level 29 while running the river, but I think it is wishful thinking to expect to earn one more level in the two remaining areas. In fact, I probably won't even be half way to level 30 by the time I face Diablo.

I had an odd experience the other night. When trying to craft Khalim's Will, I lost my connection. My character had Khalim's brain in his hand and when I lost the connection and logged back on, the brain was nowhere in my inventory, so I had to go back to the Flayer Jungle to get the brain. It turns out that the xp for kills in the flayer jungle are worth considerably more than the kills in lower kurast, kurast and upper kurast - which is just odd.

 

The whole point of a Sorceress is to be in melee as little as possible. Besides, you're at a point where melee is utter suicide unless you're playing an Enchantress. I'm quite surprised you've made it this far as a melee Sorceress - I usually start relying heavily in magic in Act 2, and by Act 3 I try not to let a single enemy get close. Doesn't always work unfortunately.

The XP distribution is bizarre. I've noticed as well that certain areas give much more XP than the ones that follow, even though the monsters do get progressively tougher. I'm assuming that tougher monsters don't necessarily give more XP.

 

Oh, I still mix it up in melee even now. When you have pretty good armor, a defiance merc, and a 70+% chance to block, you don't get hit much. I even went into melee to finish off Lister the Tormentor. The other times I'll go into melee is when there are only a couple of enemies, in which case my merc and I can do a fairly good job of taking care of them. However the limit is about two or three - any more than that and I rely on spells. The problem is I can't rely on spells exclusively at this point because Energy is my lowest stat - it's still at base. I have exactly 100 in strength, about 100 in dexterity, 50-something in vitality, and energy is base except for a few stat boosting items and charms.

Speaking of which, I'm now at level 39, and I plan on starting nightmare tonight, and there are some priority tasks that need to be accomplished in the early going. I did a few Baal runs after killing him the first time to level a few more times and round out my normal equipment. Specifically, I wanted a decent magic ancient armor, which can be acquired easily enough in Act V normal, but is nearly impossible to get your hands on in Act I nightmare, except for gambling.

Currently, the only thing I'm satisfied with concerning my equipment is my armor (blessed ancient of the tiger) with 350 defense and +40 to life) and my headgear (+15 resist all). I guess my belt isn't bad either. It's the unique normal belt (can't remember the name) that gives +10 resist all in addition to some other stuff. About my only complaint there is I have 12 instead of 16 potion slots, but that's normally not a problem.

The two pieces of equipment I definitely want to replace in short order are my gloves (still using chance guards, which are great for extra money and magic find but pretty much worthless for anything else) and the unique plated boots (don't remember their name either).

My gem and equipment finding up to this point have been very frustrating, because I had planned on using crafts to replace a lot of my normal equipment. I haven't crafted a single item yet because I have the exceptional equipment for the blood and caster crafts but lack the appropriate gem. On the other hand, I have the perfect emerald and sapphire for the hit power and safety crafts, but lack the exceptional equipment to make them. It's really annoying for pgems all around. I also have perfect topazes and skulls, but don't have any good socketed equipment to place them into, and I also am still waiting on a perfect diamond to boost my resistances in my mechanic's tower shield of deflecting. I have every pgem that I don't have an immediate need for (in some cases I have more than one), and I lack every pgem that I could presently use. Ticks me off.

And thinking about the socketed tower shield of deflecting it reminds me that resistances are another problem. On nightmare, my cold resistance will be about 40, fire and lightning will both be about 20 each, and poison will be around 10. I'll get an immediate +19% boost to all of them as soon as I get a perfect diamond, and I can probably ditch my +1 skills amulet for a horrificly expensive prismatic amulet. (1 amulet of any kind + one pgem of every kind except skulls gives an amulet that grants 15%-19% resist all and sometimes gives a suffix). Given my other pgem needs up to this point though, it appears that will be a while off yet. And that's not even factoring in that 6 pgems for +resists is a pretty steep price. Going into Act II nightmare with 20% lightning resist is highly inadvisable though.

[ April 16, 2007, 15:04: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Is it just me, or are your dex and str stats very high compared to your vit? or is your vit 150 something and not 50 something?

str and dex are 100 something including item bonuses right?

 

Yes. Those numbers are the final, blue numbers of the values, and include things like charms and equipment that boost those stats. I do not plan on raising strength any more for quite some time. My current strength score will be sufficient for me to use exceptional shields, and that will do. However, my dexterity still has quite a ways to go - by the time I'm level 80 or so, my dexterity will need to be about 160-180.

Yes, you read that right. And yes, my strength is high compared to vitality, but my dexterity is not. In fact, I wish I could have pumped more points into vitality. The plan for my new levels is 3 into dexterity until I hit max block (which will be soon) and two into vitality. Once I hit max block I'll sink two points into dexterity to maintain it and three into vitality.

On hell difficulty it is nearly impossible to have a sorceress get a sufficient life pool to survive hits anyway, so you're better off taking the approach of blocking 75% of all incoming attacks, rather than pumping vitality so that you can get hit once more before dying. When I'm level 80, I'll have earned about 400 stat points (plus a few extra from the Act III quest). At that point about 100 will have been spent in strength, and about 150 each in dexterity and vitality.