Matriarch Sura, Nova/FO Sorc

[Colorless Green]

Matriarch Sura, Nova/FO Sorc

This one was even quicker than the last one. Created Saturday night, hit hell Eldritch Sunday night. I spent a little while yesterday levelling up (I did teleport past more than a few of the less entertaining areas, so my level wasn't as good as I'd've liked it), and now she's a mat.

Despite the fact that synergized FO is almost definitely stronger, nova was my primary killing skill, and FO was only used on LI's and some act bosses. While it isn't the powerhouse it was in 1.09, it's definitely a hell-viable skill. I may use it as a backup skill more often now - I'd consider it's power on par with firewall.

So, smooth sailing more or less the entire game. I had a couple more deaths than normal primarily because my life was so low and I never bothered to switch into my more defensive planned setup. Rerolled the ancients twice because of FI/LI's, and when I got a roll without that particular dual immune, they went down first try and without potions. Baal was similarly easy and the merc never died. I also lucked into a fairly solid baal map seed, so I might hold on to it and try some runs after I level up a bit more. Um/Gul from hellforges. Excellent.


Matriarch Sura
Level 84 Sorceress

Str: 156/163
Dex: 134/143
Vit: 95/144
Ene: 35/76
Unspent Stats: 90
Life: 709
Mana: 920

Resists (occy/cm):
FR: 54/18
CR: 75/59
LR: 59/39
PR: 59/39

FO Damage (occy): 611-640
Nova Damage (cm): 1258-1680

Skills (base/appropriate switch):
Warmth: 1/14
Static Field: 1/16
Nova: 20/32
Lightning Mastery: 20/32
Ice Bolt: 20/32
Frozen Orb: 20/32
Cold Mastery: 5/17
Cold Pre-Reqs x4: 1/13

Equipment:
Head: Harlequin Crest (PTopaz)
Body: Skin of the Vipermagi (Um, 34 base res)
Hand: Magefist
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Boots: Beast Nails Heavy Boots (31 mana, 20 CR, 22 MF, 30 FRW, 10 FHR)
Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope (25 res)
Ring: Stone of Jordan
Ring: Stone Master (14 Ene, 75 mana, 14 FR, 10 FCR)
Switch1: Oculus (2 dex, 30 def, 16 FR, 7 mf jewel)/Spirit Monarch
Switch2: Crescent Moon Phase Blade/Spirit Monarch
Holy Freeze Merc: eth Insight Thresher/Vampire Gaze/Shaftstop
Charms: Gheeds, 3 Lightning Skillers, rest are some combination of serpent's, snake's, of vita, and of sustenance.


Incidentally, the unspent stat points are because of the planned eq setup (basically, swapping in Waterwalk and a PDiamond Stormshield), which I will probably switch to for Baal runs, or any other runs where dying might be a problem. It maintains >105% FCR on both switches, and has max block/resists on the stormshield switch. This would drop the kill speed slightly, but it should drastically increase the survivability.

Nova = fun. Most entertaining non-cookie cutter sorc build I've played in 1.1x.


-CG

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Um/Gul from hellforges. Excellent.

Damn you, I'm working on a Sol/Hel combination myself... at the end of NM I have the first half anyways.

Nice work, btw. It's always nice to see a non-cookie-cutter.

 

[RibGriller]

Ah yes, very nice. I recently finished a Nova/FB/Meteor sorc (NovaBomber). The best part for me was teleing into a huge group of archers or delvkins and spamming the heck out of Nova and watching them drop like flies. I'm sure you've had a lot of fun doing stuff like that.

The only difference in our set up was that I used a griffon's/light facet and I tried to use a +3 Nova Ormus', but my resists were suffering for it. Same scenario with Eschuta's vs Occy. I could Um the Ormus', but dunno if I'm willing to yet.

She's a great Countess runner no doubt. I brought her into a p8 Baal run with one other guy, but Lister and crew (FI) just tore her up. She does just fine on p1 or p2 though. Maybe you'll have better luck/skill than me.

Sorry, this post wasn't supposed to be about me, but I thought I'd share my experiences with Nova.

So, when do you use Occy, and when do you use CMoon?

 

[NeoKnuckles]

Yeah, first thing I thought when I read this was "COUNTESS!" She should own it like crazy.

Nice sorc. Think you're up for some fire wall/nova goodness?

 

[Cygnus]

Geez, weekly mats/pats? Reminds me of a certain Nightfish...

And it's always good to see an unusual build. Congratulations!

Mana > Life -- did the blood mana curse bother you much?

 

[Colorless Green]

She does just fine on p1 or p2 though. Maybe you'll have better luck/skill than me.

I did the whole run on p1. I'm only 84 still, chances are I wouldn't do any baal runs until ~88 or so, and I'd be scared to move it much beyond p1 until I got the rhythm down. Nova is a bit weak at higher player settings even with the -res on CM (I don't have a griffon's yet), but the synergized FO should do reasonably well.

So, when do you use Occy, and when do you use CMoon?

Occy for exploring, FO, and static, Crescent Moon for nova. A general fight involved a FO cast immediately upon seeing an enemy to chill the first couple in the pack, TP'ing up to static and position the merc, then switching to the CM to spam nova until they're dead.

Yeah, first thing I thought when I read this was "COUNTESS!" She should own it like crazy.

Chances are she'd be an excellent countess runner, but I also have a level ~88 FO/CL who levelled from 68-87 on p1 countess runs, so I have no desire to do any more of them anytime soon. Besides, I have a fairly strong HF rush setup, so countess is somewhat obsolete. In general, though, I could actually see this being a stronger countess runner than FO/CL if you're poor, since it needs less levels to reach full killing speed, and the FCR requirements are more forgiving. Given a reasonable amount of wealth, though, I'm pretty sure FO/CL can do better.

Mana > Life -- did the blood mana curse bother you much?

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I don't think blood mana happens in hell. I don't recall seeing it at any point in hell, and mana>life isn't that unusual in my MF sorcs. It was a bit annoying in norm/NM, where my mana:life ratio was probably about 6:1. Spamming nova on normal baal could kill me pretty easily if I wasn't paying attention, but the regen from drinking a big red pretty much equalled out the damage from blood mana. It would probably screw up a hell baal run pretty bad if it ever hit me.

-CG

 

[SNLR]

You have a great combination of gears there, making your sorc to hit mat as possible as lv 80+.

Congrats on your build.