You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc der

[Millard]

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.

 

[stephan]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

There are two false premises here:

1. You can't survive without ES
2. MFing is a team effort and/or must be done in 8 player games.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

stephan, what the hell are you talking about?

There are two false premises here:

1. You can't survive without ES

I could say that "You can't survive if you never spend any skill or attribute points and run around letting your merc solo everything" and that would be false. energy shield makes you two to three times as hard to kill if spec'd for max telekinesis only.

and If you stack mana (2500+ ) and put hard points in ES (for 85%+), in addition to maxing telekinesis, you become pretty much unkilllable due to natural mana regeneration.

2. MFing is a team effort and/or must be done in 8 player games.

what ARE you talking about? MFing is certainly not a team effort. When i say it's an 8 player game i'm talking about when you're not MFing, because you obviously don't need more than one element to MF.

edit: i just re-read my post and i wasn't very clear. When i'm talking about about 8 player games i mean for questing/leveling. MFing is obviously solo for the most part.

 

[stephan]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

stephan, what the hell are you talking about?



I could say that "You can't survive if you never spend any skill or attribute points and run around letting your merc solo everything" and that would be false. energy shield makes you two to three times as hard to kill if spec'd for max telekinesis only.

In my experience not all. You just run out of mana really fast which leaves you with chugging potions or getting killed anyway. But hey all my sorcs without ES were safer than the one I made with ES, so what do I know?

what ARE you talking about? MFing is certainly not a team effort. When i say it's an 8 player game i'm talking about when you're not MFing, because you obviously don't need more than one element to MF.

Perhaps if you only MF Mephy or Andy. Letting your merc taking down Lister or a throne room full of Gloams is simply too slow. Same story for the Pits. You could use the 20 wasted points in TK for a useful attack.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

In my experience not all. You just run out of mana really fast which leaves you with chugging potions or getting killed anyway. But hey all my sorcs without ES were safer than the one I made with ES, so what do I know?

i'm trying to think of how horribly you could have possibly screwed up that build. lol. what was your total mana, 500?

 

[Scudstorm]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

Millard, mate.

My pure light sorc can solo 8-players Hell games, anytime, anywhere, no ES, no worries (except at Nihl, I'm not a fool).

Of course, letting Cretin take down LE Lister in a 8-player game isn't a spot of fun as Stephan pointed out, but I think your Fire sorc would have the exact same problem - only that she'll have it every time instead of only when Lister spawns LE.

How many areas can your sorc run?

 

[Runestar]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

Are you sure that it is worth sinking 40 skill points into ES/TK just for said benefit? You are right in that a sorc built around the effective use of ES is fairly durable (as should it, considering all the resources spent), but those points could just as readily be devoted into maxing out fire mastery or even fire wall.

I am simply wondering if those "bad" sorcs you saw were simply due to player ineptness, and less so because their build stank. For all we know, they would still face a similar fate even with ES.

 

[Shanksie1337]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

I agree with Runestar, bad sorc's might just be bad sorcs, not a bad build (or bad gear).
Personally i've never made an ES sorc, but then i've never felt the need to waste points in survival skills. 95% of my sorc's wear full Tals which gives me good safety with resists and whatnot. Add some charms and i've never felt unsafe. My sorc is one of the chars i die the least on, about the only place i'll ever die is claw viper temple with lag, but for the life of me i can't remember the last time she died.

All this talk of sorcs dying all over the place is imo due to bad players, every class has a selection of really bad players, why should sorcs be any different? Especially when you consider that standard advise to any new player is "make a sorc and mf" so the chances are that more new badly geared players play as sorc than any other classes.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

Now, before you say "ENERGY SHIELD SUCKS" due to the general consensus of talking heads on a forum despite having never tried it yourself...

I've tried ES myself. Several times. And I'm sorry, but for the most part: Energy Shield sucks.

If you invest enough into it, ES is not bad... and you can make a really durable sorc. But the cost of that investment will be reduced power & efficiency, and in the vincinity of Extra-Fast + Manaburn packs, survivability too. And being a sorceress, in my opinion it's not critical to be durable - you shouldn't be getting attacked (successfully) a lot anyways.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

Millard, mate.

My pure light sorc can solo 8-players Hell games, anytime, anywhere, no ES, no worries (except at Nihl, I'm not a fool).

Of course, letting Cretin take down LE Lister in a 8-player game isn't a spot of fun as Stephan pointed out, but I think your Fire sorc would have the exact same problem - only that she'll have it every time instead of only when Lister spawns LE.

How many areas can your sorc run?

tip: You don't have to kill lister, just train him out of the room. if you take him far enough away from baal, baal will end the wave and go into his cave even if lister is still alive. this only takes 5 seconds to do as lister moves pretty fast.

And pure light is a great build for baal runs, as i said i don't see why you'd need versitility on an MF sorc. I have a light sorc too ( i actually have one sorc of each element)

But you'd be more survivable if you took ES, you say you can't kill nihl? I didn't have any problems with him on my light sorc back when she wasn't even that geared.

my fire sorc can do basically everything except chaos/baal but i don't need to it's just an MF sorc keyrunner. (actually, i *can* do baal but its a waste of time on a fire sorc so i usually don't.) Kill the 3 key mobs, kill andariel, kill mephisto and his council, kill shenk--> eldrich--> sharptooth --> eyeback --> thresh socket, then new game, if i didn't start/join a new game before then. I don't see why you need versitility on an MF sorc.

by the way, you say "except at nihl": Nihl is absolutely no problem on my fireball sorc. ES helps ( so does a nature's peace ring, really). most baal runs i join i'll kill nihl in about a minute before entering throne.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

and you can make a really durable sorc. But the cost of that investment will be reduced power & efficiency, and in the vincinity of Extra-Fast + Manaburn packs, survivability too.

I still have no idea why people think that ES somehow makes you auto-die vs mana burn mobs.

either your stacking mana with high % ES, in which case you should be able to regen mana faster than they can burn it--

or you're doing the basic vita sorc, exept with ES and max telekinesis. (see my fire sorc), in which case you're exactly as well off as a non-ES sorc. You do not loose survivability relative to non-ES sorcs vs mana burn mobs.

 

[stephan]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

I still have no idea why people think that ES somehow makes you auto-die vs mana burn mobs.

It's not so much that you auto-die, as it is that the whole great extra survivability is gone with one hit. An unreliable source of survivability is not a source of survivability at all. Not at the cost of 20+ skill points.

or you're doing the basic vita sorc, exept with ES and max telekinesis. (see my fire sorc), in which case you're exactly as well off as a non-ES sorc. You do not loose survivability relative to non-ES sorcs vs mana burn mobs.

Vita sorcs don't have trouble surviving anyway, and they now can spend 20 points in a back-up attack so they don't have to clear the whole throne room with their merc.

You can either be a. survive and be single element or b. survive and be dual element. Easy choice if you ask me.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

more info on Nihl runs and energy shield:

1) contrary to popular belief, those claw vipers do not do poison damage they actually do physical damage... they're really buggy mobs.

In any case, the massive "poison" (actually physical) damage you take from them can be absorbed by ES. (this is unusual because most poison damage ignores ES.)

2) the hit recovery and just strait up damage reduction you get from ES does wonders for fighting those bastard skeleton archers.

3) i'll loose a crapton of mana from the corpse explosion but it i'll still be at ~80% health. (in the off chance my merc gets a killshot instead of me and something gets exploded... always use nature's peace for nihl runs)

4) Meteor is good for picking nihlthawhatever out of the crowd.

all in all i'd strongly recommend the fire build i posted for running DKEYS.

 

[Scudstorm]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

you say you can't kill nihl?

No. I said "no worries, except at Nihl" and I was referring to /p 8. At /p 8, a CE on one of those critters means 6k dmg at 50% physical and 50% fire. ES or not, it's not a place where being bold is a good idea.

The security issue most people mention against ES is really simple: Tele is the sorc's best defense. You want to be able to tele at all times. 4 things can prevent you from teleing:

1. No mana;
2. Hit Recovery;
3. Blocking;
4. You're dead.

Now, on non-blocking builds #3 rarely happen. And on any Spirit-wielding sorc (i.e. 99% of the PvM ones), there is enough FHR to make #2 negligeable. If some monsters are hitting you hard enough that you're at a NDE, you want to get the hell out of there and come back from another angle. ES will make that harder.

A well-built PvM vita sorc should not need ES' extra security blanket, ever. And when one doesn't need ES, ES only becomes an annoyance with the sole effect of making you chug mana pots :guiness:; and that of wasting skill points, of course.

 

[Millard]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

No. I said "no worries, except at Nihl" and I was referring to /p 8. At /p 8, a CE on one of those critters means 6k dmg at 50% physical and 50% fire. ES or not, it's not a place where being bold is a good idea.

The security issue most people mention against ES is really simple: Tele is the sorc's best defense. You want to be able to tele at all times. 4 things can prevent you from teleing:

1. No mana;
2. Hit Recovery;
3. Blocking;
4. You're dead.

Now, on non-blocking builds #3 rarely happen. And on any Spirit-wielding sorc (i.e. 99% of the PvM ones), there is enough FHR to make #2 negligeable. If some monsters are hitting you hard enough that you're at a NDE, you want to get the hell out of there and come back from another angle. ES will make that harder.

A well-built PvM vita sorc should not need ES' extra security blanket, ever. And when one doesn't need ES, ES only becomes an annoyance with the sole effect of making you chug mana pots :guiness:; and that of wasting skill points, of course.

Ok you clearly have no idea.

once you get 1000+ mana, not having enough mana to teleport is a complete non-issue because of natural mana regen. You'll regen the mana you need immediately. Also i'm using tal's belt on my fire, 37% damage taken goes to mana... which means if something actually burns my whole mana bar i'll get plenty back to teleport with frmo whatever health i lost. and If you're chugging mana pots from energy shield you'd be chugging health pots if you didn't have energy shield.

It should also be noted that once you get 2500+ mana on an ES sorc, you don't even need to bring potions because your natural mana regen is as good as a potion. My PvP orb sorc can clear out hell chaos (except for the cold immunes of course), skipping strait to the seals, without bringing or using potions and without taking any significant damage.

Also energy shield GREATLY IMPROVES your hit recovery because you don't take hit recovery stun unless you loose 8% hp from a hit...which would be rare if you're using ES.

 

[Scudstorm]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

Ok you clearly have no idea.

Please do not be so aggressive =.=

once you get 1000+ mana, not having enough mana to teleport is a complete non-issue because of natural mana regen. You'll regen the mana you need immediately.

With 10 Gloams shooting at you non-stop? I don't think so.

Also i'm using tal's belt on my fire, 37% damage taken goes to mana... which means if something actually burns my whole mana bar i'll get plenty back to teleport with frmo whatever health i lost.

Not every build has access to DTM. Any 200fcr sorc, for instance.

and If you're chugging mana pots from energy shield you'd be chugging health pots if you didn't have energy shield.

No. The health bulb is protected by resists. The mana bulb isn't.

It should also be noted that once you get 2500+ mana on an ES sorc

How do you suggest gettnig that much mana without using bugged items? Your suggested stat allocation is:

156 str after all gear, for spirit shield.
base dexterity
about 85 energy
Rest in vitality

My PvP orb sorc can clear out hell chaos (except for the cold immunes of course), skipping strait to the seals, without bringing or using potions and without taking any significant damage.

And my PvM sorc can clear out hell chaos at /p 8 (even with the light immunes), without taking any significant damage. Of course, she has to chug a mana pot or two per run because she's still lacking a SoJ, but you would too if you only have 1k mana

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

It should also be noted that once you get 2500+ mana on an ES sorc...

To me, 2500+ mana is about the same as 1500 life & max resists on a sorc - attainable with a moderately good gear, but not unreasonable, and only about 50-60% of what heavy investment and great gear can accomplish.

So, in order to be forced into hit recovery with 1500 life, you'd need to receive ~120 damage, which is more than almost every monster in the game will do. And even when they do that much damage, you're not in imminent danger until the 3rd or 4th hit (in the worst case - usually you can take ~10 hits easily & safely). If you consider the amount of attacks you'd need to take to reach that much damage (150 damage = 10 attacks, which if 1/2 a pack of 10 attacks you and half attacks your merc, that's 750 damage from the first wave of attacks... so you'd survive the first attack and be in serious trouble on the 2nd round), you may have enough time to drink a potion and escape between attacks.

However, let's say you end up with 700 life with the ES sorc with 2500 mana. Now it only takes ~56 damage to force hit recovery, which btw, almost every monster in Hell can do. But ES takes up a very nice portion of that damage and usually you're safe, and as you said, your mana pool will come back quickly to help absorb even more damage.

The exception where ES gets hosed is mana burner monsters that empty your mana pool in one hit (which, btw, manaburners are bugged to remove WAY more mana than they should - something like 256 times more mana removed). If you look at the monsters that do 120+ damage and are a serious threat to the 1500 life sorc, you can do the math and realize that having half as much life to begin with means you'll have half as much time to drink a potion and escape. And, using my previous example, you'd be even more lucky to survive the first wave of attacks and escape.


No one is saying that ES + manaburn = insta-death. But the fact is there are certain times where ES does not increase your survivability. You may feel that the claim that ES makes you less safe at times is dubious, but having played ~30 different sorcs of just about every vein, including ~5 different ones with various levels/investments of ES, I support that claim wholeheartedly. As far as I'm concerned, the numbers behind/within the game also support it.

Likewise, if you consider the cost of an investment into Energy Shield - whether it's 1 point or 40 - does mean you're making some level of sacrifice in another area. For example, 20 points in TK spent for ES versus 20 in IceBolt for synergizing Frozen Orb... call me crazy, but I feel that 40% more damage adds much, much more to most builds than what Energy Shield does (I can compensate for slightly-worse survivability with more damage and a sound playstyle, but there's no substitute for damage). And most synergies are at least equal to or superior than Ice Bolt.

You're saying ES works for you, and that's great for you. But many of us that have tried ES in various forms, and whether you like it or not, there is experience and reasoning behind our aversion to ES.

 

[onderduiker]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF sorc

1) contrary to popular belief, those claw vipers do not do poison damage they actually do physical damage... they're really buggy mobs.

The poison javelin and clouds released by normal Tomb Vipers in the Halls of Vaught each do both 42-56 physical damage and approximately 91 poison damage over 4 seconds in Hell, with 5% chance of that damage being doubled by Crit. However, due to the number of clouds released and the way LastCollide is applied, it is the physical damage which is most dangerous, since it can be applied multiple times in very quick succession, and unlike poison damage it all adds up.

No. I said "no worries, except at Nihl" and I was referring to /p 8. At /p 8, a CE on one of those critters means 6k dmg at 50% physical and 50% fire.

Nihlathak's Corpse Explosion damage doesn't increase with player count, and Crit doesn't double its damage: unless you drag a Champion or Unique monster or one of its minions all the way from the end of one of the other halls, the maximium base damage in Hell is approximately 1,031.3-2,062.6 (50% of which is physical, 50% of which is fire) within an 8 yard radius of an Arach corpse.

 

[ChickenMcTest]

Re: You should use single element and energy shield for an MF 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.

For general purpose magic finding I think you would want to kill more smaller easier monsters than just hitting one strong one.

I used to just do that as well. I would create a game tele to Meph, moat trick, kill, and collect the loot and then make a new game. However, lately I have found running WSK and the PIT to yield better results. Also I find its less monotonous to actively kill a lot of people than just killing one over and over.

From my personal experience quickly killing large groups of monsters in areas like chaos sanctuary or World Stone Keep with the boss fight being the cherry on top yields better results than just killing the boss over and over. This is epically true when trying to find socketable items and runes. I would say most of the runes I have found have dropped off of random monsters while fighting my way to a boss.