You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc
Ok. After playing BNET and watching bad sorcs that simply can't hurt mobs in 8 player games with any of their elements and watching them get obliterated by mobs left and right due to complete lack of defense, and comming here and looking at all of these terrible builds posted everywhere, i've decided to post a rant about how to make an GOOD sorc.
First off, lets think about what an MF sorc does:
1) Teleports to some specific mob (mephisto, andariel, or keyholders)
2) doesn't really fight much of anything other than that one mob.
3) kills it, loots, starts a new game.
Now, do you need a 2nd element to do this? no. So why would you spec a 2nd element for an MF sorc? and even if you do find an immune which you really have to kill, don't you have a mercinary for that? I mean, what are you paying that bum for, anyway?
another thing i should mention is that battle net is an 8 player game. If you want to make a "meteorb" sorc for single player, knock yourself out. In an 8 player game, killing those immunes is someone elses problem not yours, you ought to be focus firing the mob that you can do the most damage too, rather than running back to your corpse for lack of energy shield.
Now, before you say "ENERGY SHIELD SUCKS" due to the general consensus of talking heads on a forum despite having never tried it yourself, let's think about what energy shield does for you:
1) FASTER HIT RECOVERY.
In diablo 2, everytime something hits you for more than 8% of your health, you are affected by a stun effect. This will cause you to stand still for a second meaning you take more damage. You can avoid this by speccing into energy shield, which will cause you to loose mana instead of health, preventing attacks from breaking that 8% health threshold which would otherwise result in stunlock and death.
(note that i put this at #1 because it is by far the most underrated aspect of energy shield)
2) YOU NOW HAVE TWO (2) HIT POINT BARS
With a balanced energy shield at roughly 50-70% (which you can easily get with just 1 base point in ES and reasonable +skill gear ), the damage you take is split between mana and health. The most obvious benefit of energy shield is that it makes you a lot harder to kill.
3) MANA REGENERATES FAST
Unlike health, mana regenerates naturally and at a rather quick pace assuming you put one point into warmth. What's more, the mana regeneration is based on your total mana... so the more mana you have, the faster your mana regenerates. Note that once you hit about 1000 mana+, running out of mana and being able to cast is no longer a problem because you can cast just from natural mana regeneration--Your mana will regenerate as fast as you spend it.
...
Now I know there are lots of sorcs out there who consider it artistic to paint the landscape with piles of their own corpses but for those of you who aren't into that please spec into energy shield so you don't die so much.
i should also mention that contrary to popular belief, mana burn mobs do not one shot energy shield sorceresses automatically. When you spec into energy shield, this does not lower your hit points at all. You still have just as many hit points and resists as you did before, and are not suddenly going to drop dead at the sight of a mana burn mob.
Ok, so now that that's out of the way, here's some builds:
FIRE BALL / ES ( Highly Recommended build for a magic find sorceress. This is the setup my MF sorc uses. Can MF anything easily, with the exception of baal runs. )
LIGHTNING:
1 point each: static field, charged bolt, lightning bolt, chain lightning, teleport, energy shield
20 points Telekinesis**
**this is key, because it improves the mana efficiency of your energy shield, bringing it down from 2.0 to 0.75 mana lost per damage absorbed
COLD:
1 point Frozen armor
(optional) 3 points to pick up glacial spike for the frost stun, which comes in handy if you want to make your sorc slightly more versitile.
FIRE:
20 points firebolt
20 points fireball
20 points meteor
1 point each: warmth inferno, blaze, fire wall
All REMAINING POINTS: fire mastery
RECOMMENDED GEAR:
Weapon/Armor/Belt: Tal Rasha's (for 3 piece set bonus which gives -15% enemy fire resist and +65% magic find)
Amulet: Tal Rasha's or Good rare/magic/crafted amulet with MF and maybe FCR or sorc skills.
Helmet: Tal Rasha's or Shako w/ ptopaz
Gloves: Magefist or chancies
Boots: War travelers or good rares.
Rings: Nature's peace if you are doing dkey runs. Otherwise use FCR rings or Nagelrings.
Shield: Spirit monarch
Stat allocation:
156 str after all gear, for spirit shield.
base dexterity
about 85 energy
Rest in vitality.
NOVA / LIGHTNING / ENERGY SHIELD
This build is good for keyrunning and can also do baal runs pretty well (although i do keyruns on my firesorc because my merc would have no problem killing countess even if he didn't have infinity and even if i couldn't easily kill her with chain lightning despite having only one base point in chain lightning.)
COLD SKILLS:
1 point frozen armor
FIRE SKILLS:
1 point warmth
LIGHTNING SKILLS:
1 point each: charged bolt, static field, teleport, chain lightning, thunderstorm.
20 points: lightning bolt
20 points: Nova
20 points: Lightning Mastery
20 points: Telekinesis
Remaining points: You can put them into lightning bolt synergies if you want offense... or for more defense, put them into energy shield itself and then start STACKING mana (with +mana charms, frostburns, and soj's, hoto, CTA if you can get them)
...
and the frozen orb build should be obvious, 20 points in orb, 20 points in ice bolt, 20 points telekinesis, split the rest between cold mastery and energy shield.
Have a good day.
Ok. After playing BNET and watching bad sorcs that simply can't hurt mobs in 8 player games with any of their elements and watching them get obliterated by mobs left and right due to complete lack of defense, and comming here and looking at all of these terrible builds posted everywhere, i've decided to post a rant about how to make an GOOD sorc.
First off, lets think about what an MF sorc does:
1) Teleports to some specific mob (mephisto, andariel, or keyholders)
2) doesn't really fight much of anything other than that one mob.
3) kills it, loots, starts a new game.
Now, do you need a 2nd element to do this? no. So why would you spec a 2nd element for an MF sorc? and even if you do find an immune which you really have to kill, don't you have a mercinary for that? I mean, what are you paying that bum for, anyway?
another thing i should mention is that battle net is an 8 player game. If you want to make a "meteorb" sorc for single player, knock yourself out. In an 8 player game, killing those immunes is someone elses problem not yours, you ought to be focus firing the mob that you can do the most damage too, rather than running back to your corpse for lack of energy shield.
Now, before you say "ENERGY SHIELD SUCKS" due to the general consensus of talking heads on a forum despite having never tried it yourself, let's think about what energy shield does for you:
1) FASTER HIT RECOVERY.
In diablo 2, everytime something hits you for more than 8% of your health, you are affected by a stun effect. This will cause you to stand still for a second meaning you take more damage. You can avoid this by speccing into energy shield, which will cause you to loose mana instead of health, preventing attacks from breaking that 8% health threshold which would otherwise result in stunlock and death.
(note that i put this at #1 because it is by far the most underrated aspect of energy shield)
2) YOU NOW HAVE TWO (2) HIT POINT BARS
With a balanced energy shield at roughly 50-70% (which you can easily get with just 1 base point in ES and reasonable +skill gear ), the damage you take is split between mana and health. The most obvious benefit of energy shield is that it makes you a lot harder to kill.
3) MANA REGENERATES FAST
Unlike health, mana regenerates naturally and at a rather quick pace assuming you put one point into warmth. What's more, the mana regeneration is based on your total mana... so the more mana you have, the faster your mana regenerates. Note that once you hit about 1000 mana+, running out of mana and being able to cast is no longer a problem because you can cast just from natural mana regeneration--Your mana will regenerate as fast as you spend it.
...
Now I know there are lots of sorcs out there who consider it artistic to paint the landscape with piles of their own corpses but for those of you who aren't into that please spec into energy shield so you don't die so much.
i should also mention that contrary to popular belief, mana burn mobs do not one shot energy shield sorceresses automatically. When you spec into energy shield, this does not lower your hit points at all. You still have just as many hit points and resists as you did before, and are not suddenly going to drop dead at the sight of a mana burn mob.
Ok, so now that that's out of the way, here's some builds:
FIRE BALL / ES ( Highly Recommended build for a magic find sorceress. This is the setup my MF sorc uses. Can MF anything easily, with the exception of baal runs. )
LIGHTNING:
1 point each: static field, charged bolt, lightning bolt, chain lightning, teleport, energy shield
20 points Telekinesis**
**this is key, because it improves the mana efficiency of your energy shield, bringing it down from 2.0 to 0.75 mana lost per damage absorbed
COLD:
1 point Frozen armor
(optional) 3 points to pick up glacial spike for the frost stun, which comes in handy if you want to make your sorc slightly more versitile.
FIRE:
20 points firebolt
20 points fireball
20 points meteor
1 point each: warmth inferno, blaze, fire wall
All REMAINING POINTS: fire mastery
RECOMMENDED GEAR:
Weapon/Armor/Belt: Tal Rasha's (for 3 piece set bonus which gives -15% enemy fire resist and +65% magic find)
Amulet: Tal Rasha's or Good rare/magic/crafted amulet with MF and maybe FCR or sorc skills.
Helmet: Tal Rasha's or Shako w/ ptopaz
Gloves: Magefist or chancies
Boots: War travelers or good rares.
Rings: Nature's peace if you are doing dkey runs. Otherwise use FCR rings or Nagelrings.
Shield: Spirit monarch
Stat allocation:
156 str after all gear, for spirit shield.
base dexterity
about 85 energy
Rest in vitality.
NOVA / LIGHTNING / ENERGY SHIELD
This build is good for keyrunning and can also do baal runs pretty well (although i do keyruns on my firesorc because my merc would have no problem killing countess even if he didn't have infinity and even if i couldn't easily kill her with chain lightning despite having only one base point in chain lightning.)
COLD SKILLS:
1 point frozen armor
FIRE SKILLS:
1 point warmth
LIGHTNING SKILLS:
1 point each: charged bolt, static field, teleport, chain lightning, thunderstorm.
20 points: lightning bolt
20 points: Nova
20 points: Lightning Mastery
20 points: Telekinesis
Remaining points: You can put them into lightning bolt synergies if you want offense... or for more defense, put them into energy shield itself and then start STACKING mana (with +mana charms, frostburns, and soj's, hoto, CTA if you can get them)
...
and the frozen orb build should be obvious, 20 points in orb, 20 points in ice bolt, 20 points telekinesis, split the rest between cold mastery and energy shield.
Have a good day.
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