Enchantress advice

[galtwish]

Enchantress advice

I'm in a bit of a quandry with my L71 enchantress, and would like your advice. She absolutely wrecked Normal and NM on P8--several deaths due to not getting out of the way/stunlocked and trying to teleport when I should have ran. She just whipped the NM Ancients and secured the WSK 2 waypoint, and I don't see Baal presenting significant difficulties, but I'm wondering if she can cut it in Hell. Here's a rundown:

20 FM/Enchant/Warmth, 11 saved skill points
187 saved stat points

I'm casting a L35 Enchant w/L33 Fire Mastery

Kuko w/Shael, Cow King's Boots, Twitchthroe + Iratha's + Ravenfrost + rare ring w/103 AR, lots of fire damage charms, 85% chance to hit off LCS

Resists are 85/59/85/38
life 425

HF merc w/rare 10% IAS/399% ED Stygain Pike + Lionheart + Stealskull

I don't have Razortail, Demon Machine, Reaper's Toll, Shaftstop, Vampire Gaze, or an eth 5os elite polearm. I'm entirely self found at this point.

Hell gear is scheduled to be Smoke to replace Twitchthroe, and some 40% FRW boots (likely Natalya's).

I'm thinking of going with Witsan's or Moser's w/Voice of Reason phase blade and Cold Mastery on switch, as I already have these items. If I do this, I'll use Duress for my armor.

I can make an Obedience for the merc in a normal Thresher, but I would certainly perfer and eth polearm, as it will be a Merc only weapon. If I don't go with this, it'll be Hone Sundan w/Shael/Shael/Amn, Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest or Rockstopper, and Duress.

My questions are as follows:

Should I push on or wait for a eth elite polearm to fall from my LF cow/pit runner? She's a pretty poor Hell Meph farmer, and NM isn't much better (no Skulder's or Shako).

Should I go with VoR/Iron Pelt and socket a Sol in the Iron Pelt? I've got a Memory staff with +ES--should I use that, pump Telekenisis, and try for melee against FIs?

Should I go with Buriza on switch? I really don't want to invest the stats here until I'm sure about it's effectiveness in Hell. I have Harmony in a superior Great Bow for anther option down the "way overreaching on stat allocation" path.

I've read the Mat enchantress threads a couple of times and I feel a little undergeared for a character that can't deal with FIs very well. Some sage advice would be most welcome.

 

[Thyiad1]

Re: Enchantress advice

Crushing blow.

EDIT
(I was thinking melee weapon on switch not for the bow and/or the moron - I knew what I meant)

 

[Borje]

Re: Enchantress advice

A viable option would be to get Frozen orb maxed and put some points in mastery, it would also be very usefull for slowing down all the monsters before hitting them with your Kuko...

 

[smips]

Re: Enchantress advice

Use those stat points . I don't think 400 life is going to cut it in Hell. Also, as Thy said, you NEED CB in Hell, especially for bosses. As for FI's in Hell...I'd tele past them personally .

 

[NagisaFurukawa]

Re: Enchantress advice

My 'Rift' Enchantress leads me to believe that the Frozen Orbs from 'Voice of Reason' are a respectable way of disposing of Fire Immunes, though she also had Venom from 'Treachery'. As stated by Smips, your life pool is really low. That will definitely be a problem if you're thinking about going melee.

Ultimately, your success depends on your mercenary. Your Hone Sundan setup gives him a nice amount of CB. I'm somewhat worried about how well he will survive, but some fancy teleporting should probably handle that. Anyway, if you end up having trouble surviving, you can always fall back on Cloak of Shadows charges from either 'Nadir' or Darksight Helm. =).

 

[galtwish]

Re: Enchantress advice

I was thinking of going with Energy Shield, hence the saved stat points. If I go with melee, should I use a Shael'd Fleshrender/Bonesnap + Energy Shield +ENG, or Voice of Reason + Cold Mastery +VIT?

I'm leaning towards VoR as the added Dex will help with blocking and AR, and because I don't have good PDR gear--only String of Ears, Rockstopper, and Iron Pelt, the latter two likely going on the Merc.

 

[sike]

Re: Enchantress advice

Ela

- A little tricky is that part with ES. :scratchchin:
- If you want to relay on it to actually serves you as a life/extended life by having ~50%< then maxed Telekinesis is the first thing; otherwise it's going to be a horrible waste of everything.
- However, if you thought about some bits of help, 1pt or 20-25% (not more) extra absorb assuming you alredy have ~500 mana and with your maxed Warmth should be working great. Though if you have even ~300 mana pts a plain 20% (again, not more!) ES can help to disburden all the dmg of your life, but NOT relaying on than in any way; just as ''extra'' special dmg reduction. But, probably you don't have that much mana and in that case better don't touch it.

- As first priority i would take care of AR, never really enaf of it. If you have an Insight then it's probably good to have Normal Combat A2 (and the ES^^) if not then a Normal Offensive Moron will solve your AR.
- There is aswell an option for LMastery; maybe if you have Skystrike (should be dropping after every crossroad) it has some nice extra ~1-250 light dmg so you already have enaf of fire from Enchant and this would give you second element with some pts in LM or an extra source of LDmg (charms etc.); it would surely be even faster than Kuko. Other than that a Riphook is a great bow, you sacrifice bit of added FDmg but again make-up that with much faster speed. 30% slow is simply anawoidable mod let alone the 30% OW, for Hell, FTW!
- Get some %slow, even plain cold damage if nothing (2sec duration<).

- Enojoy the game now!
- And ofc. post back how it goes

 

[galtwish]

Re: Enchantress advice

I won't be putting any hard points in Energy Shield--that's what a Memory staff is for. I'm leaning towards the Energy Shield/Fleshrender build as dropping 100 points into dex to weild a phase blade VoR doesn't seem great. I'll switch up the merc to Lionheart/Insight/Guillame's when I get to the heavily FI areas I have to fight through and teleport through the areas I don't have to worry about. Energy shield should help with this as well. I'm going to push my Teslafroster through A4 and A5 in Hell and strip his gear before moving forward with Dextress the Enchantress.

@ SIke: Masteries don't work on ranged attacks, or I'd be using Harmony. Kuko and Demon Machine are used because the explosion carries the Enchant damage with is enhanced by the Fire Mastery when it is cast.

I made a run at the Throne Room, but Stygian Dolls + OKs made it way too hard to just rely on TK and the merc against wave 2.

 

[sike]

Re: Enchantress advice

@ SIke: Masteries don't work on ranged attacks, or I'd be using Harmony. Kuko and Demon Machine are used because the explosion carries the Enchant damage with is enhanced by the Fire Mastery when it is cast.

Right, right afcourse! :doh:

- I haven't slept now for a few moments due to Pindle not dropping a thing.. so my concentration isn't at the nivoo. It's not that i'm a noob

- All in all, it is very nice to see someone acually knowing what he is doing apart from: ding! ding! ''Alf, serve me all what i'm going to need to know please'' ding!

 

[VoX Dei]

Re: Enchantress advice

Overall, I'd say keep it simple, keep it ranged by using:

- FO as FI solution (this worked fine on a standard dm+razortail enchantress I had);
- Merc with CB gear (guillaume's, hone sundan, etc) assisted by Static as boss killer.

 

[galtwish]

Re: Enchantress advice

Update: Lots of help from the ES--800+ extra "life" is pretty darn amazing. Gloams are pain, no surprise there. I've taken to teleporting past most FIs and played Act I and II on P8 for the most part. Andy was a joke on P1, Duriel wasn't too hard. I've gone in swinging with Fleshrender + Whitsan's and at least there haven't been any deaths. The only complaint is that my stash is nearly full with ES and Enchant pre-buffs and P8 drops some good socketables.

Kuko is holding up just fine for Hell, but I dropped about 70 fire damage in charms for resists and lost almost 1000 max damage on LCS--I was shocked at the difference.

Frozen Orb would have been just fine/better, but I really wanted to try out ES. I must say that going single element is making me a "better" player--I think I've used TK 5 times to stun monsters my merc was fighting prior to this sorc. Now I use it to push monsters in front of each other, interrupt OKs, and other good stuff. So thanks for the thoughtful advice.

It seems like I'm either hitting a lot more than the LCS 60%--does the explosive arrow just blow up when it should hit the target?

 

[smips]

Re: Enchantress advice

It seems like I'm either hitting a lot more than the LCS 60%--does the explosive arrow just blow up when it should hit the target?

The arrow doesn't have to hit for the explosion to occur. So most of the time you're getting the damage from the exploding arrows, but not from your attack. Good thing enchant carries, huh?