help respec sorc to single tree

T

tokerdin

New member
im ready to make my infinity and im thinking of going blizzard. even though i already have a 20 light dmg echutas w/o griffons. for cold damage gear no fathom or night wing but i do have a 15 cold dmg glacial spike ormus. Still havnt found the ohm i need for CTA. which is what ive been waiting for to respec. but i need some time to get used to my char before the RFL.

im leaning towards blizz but i might be convinced to try lightning.

my main question is what to do with cold mastery on a sorc with an infinity merc? Does it stack with conviction? if so it seem like it would be worth more points than without.
 
You stated this char is for the RFL, but what is her purpose going to be? All-around MFer? Are you planning on using her for all 3 categories?

Basically my opinion is that Blizz is superior to Lightning is most situations, unless you have access to some seriously godly gear for lightning (Griffs, 5/5 facets, full skiller inventory etc ect). The only reason I would go Light is if you either plan on taking her to 99 or having her on full-time cow duties (and even then, it's a very close call for me and I can't say I'd do it).

So my recommendation is to go full Blizz. This allows you to do AT/CS for Round 1 of the RFL, they make excellent Trav runners if you don't have a barb, and Blizz sorcs are great in cows too.

You get the added benefit of having a versatile MFer (bosses and areas), rune hunter, and overall strong character with minimal gear tweaking.

So what about your mastery question? Yes it stacks with conviction, as well as any other -ecr gear you have on your char. How many points should you spend in it though? There are a couple ways of looking at it.

Short answer: max it. It takes 107 skill points to fully max out a pure blizz sorc (CM included), which is completed at level 96.

There is of course a longer answer, as there always is with D2. Here are some important things to consider:

- Conviction (Infinity is slvl 12, or -85% resistances) only works at 1/5 efficiency against immune monsters (ie. -17% resistances)
- The minimum you can reduce enemy resistances to is -100%
- You will run in to unbreakable CIs (unless you stay in the AT)

So depending where you plan on running (and if you don't plan on hitting 96) you can plan accordingly to how much -ecr you want. For example, if you're being an AT runner you only need CM to give you -115 ecr to bottom all (or most, I think there can still be CI bosses in there?) monsters out with the -85 from Infinity. That is a slvl 20 CM, so very doable with decent +skills and minimal hard points invested, therefore a lower clvl needed.

If you want her to be effective in as many spots as possible you'll need a total -ecr of -198 to bring the highest breakable Cold Immune monster down to the minimum (115% CI monster, broken by -17% Conviction gives you 98 CR remaining on the monster). This is again doable though it requires some better gear to meet a sufficient mixture of +skills and -ecr gear. You can get there with a slvl 37 CM (doable with good gear and skillers), or a lesser +skill build if you add in other -ecr gear.

Of course it's not necessary to bring them right down to the bottom -100%, but that's the ultimate in terms of power.
 
I'm going to leave the comments of gearing aside, as there's plenty with more experience there.

I will say that in general, Lightning tends to get more of a boost than Cold once an Infinity is acquired, as far as single tree Sorcs are concerned. This is due to how Immunities work and the presence of Cold Mastery. This does not necessarily mean Lightning > Cold in practice though, I'm talking about resistance/immunities in a vacuum.

Monsters that are marked with "Immune" refer to any monster that has 100 or more (percentile) resistance to that element. These values range drastically, generally by type. Physical Immunity is the easiest to break as it is always just at 100 (if they are immune). Across all elements, Cold tends to get a bad wrap. It has a decent amount of monsters that are Immune to it and their Immunities are often high (and some higher than 117, which I'll explain below).

Conviction lowers enemy resistances to Fire, Cold and Lightning (Not Poison, that requires Lower Resist and neither deal with Physical or Magic Resistance). Infinity has a Level 12 Conviction Aura, which equates to -85 Resistance. Enemies can have as little as -100 to any resistance (meaning they instead take double the listed damage). If an enemy is immune, Conviction (and Lower Resist) only work at 1/5th (20%) of their listed value, meaning 17 in the case of Infinity.

If you take the monsters resistance, and subtract 17 from it and it's still over 100, Cold Mastery and any other -Enemy Cold Resistance (ECR) will do nothing. If the value is less than 100, Cold Mastery and -ECR work at full effect. So now you see why it's important that Immune Monsters have less than 117 (in practice most if not all monsters have rounded resistances to 5s, so technically probably 115) in whatever immunity you're trying to break, as it can be an all or nothing affair.

How much you want to put into Cold Mastery then will depend on other sources of -ECR, and knowing what monsters you plan to face against as @Pb_pal mentioned. If you're optimizing for one location, you can dial this value in. If you're trying to be more "All Comers" you can just go for maxing it. Being single tree, this is arguably less of a dealbreaker than other builds or dual element sorcs.
 
Only place you might use Infinity with cold sorc is Travincal. I can't be certain about some rather special area, but for areas like CS or AT you would prefer Insight and simply accept there will be some bosses you won't be able to kill (not true for p1 AT, merc kills everything cold immune there fast). By running CS you don't care much though, only mages you won't be able to kill and who cares about those. For p7 AT I don't know, perhaps Infinity could be better than Insight.

Lightning sorc is not really popular unless you go run Baal. She might do Pit running, but you will have to deal with archers and that is annoying.

Fire sorc is very efficient cow runner (with fireball and Infinity merc). Other than that, lolfire sorc.

When it comes to cold mastery, for most practical purposes it is not worth it to go above ~175 area since only bosses with certain mods have that much while creeps are usually in 33-50 cold res area. 200 is the upper most limit what is okay to have, though that is already pushing it a bit too far. Rather take points to armor for more defense or static for more range than pumping cold mastery across the roof.
 
As said, Infinity goes best with lightning. If you can afford Infinity, I suggest to start another sorc rather than respeccing an existing one and not having a blizzard sorc then because that's the most efficient overall item find character. She can do every type of item finding well, except gathering Baal/Nihlathak/Diablo GCs which, in my eyes, is not worth doing on its own.

I think you have the wrong gear priorities with respect to your Blizzard sorc. First, you don't need Death's Fathom at all. I think it's only good for PvP. Your character deals way more than enough damage without it. Your ice blast Ormus isn't that useful as well. I think the main point of using glacial spike is freezing crowds to a halt, but non-immunes are typically killed by blizzard very quickly. From time to time, a tough monster has a lucky day and runs through your blizzard curtains without being hit, but in that case you better use ice blast which deals more damage and freezes for a longer time.

I suggest stuff like Shako, Ali Baba, Rhyme, Skullder's, Chanceguards, Goldwrap, rare boots with resists. For teleporting and softening up tough enemies before the killing blow, it's Oculus+Spirit. I'm even thinking about giving give up Spirit for Lidless Wall, saving a lot of str points that way because I'm using Ali Baba+Rhyme most of the time anyway.

Eschuta's elemental bonuses aren't really useful for sorcs because they will add to what's already a very huge number for them. It's still a nice lightning sorc item, however, because it adds 40% FCR on top of its +3 skills and lightning sorcs need a bit more FCR because lightning and chain lightning have tougher FCR breakpoints. If yours doesn't have +3, I would use a Wizardspike instead.

Also, just breaking immunities isn't enough. A monster will typically have 90-99% left after Infinity, so you will also need equipment which lowers resistances further (Infinity's additional -lightning res will only work on attacks of the wielder). For a lightning sorc that's Griffon's, lightning facets, Tal's set etc.

Xios said:
Physical Immunity is the easiest to break as it is always just at 100 (if they are immune).
Click to expand...
That might be right for regular monsters, but bosses with skoneskin and ghostly champions can have more than 100%.
 
krischan said:
I think you have the wrong gear priorities with respect to your Blizzard sorc. First, you don't need Death's Fathom at all. I think it's only good for PvP. Your character deals way more than enough damage without it.
.
Click to expand...

DF is still also the best all around PvM Blizzard sorc weapon, hands down. My only blizz sorc setup that doesn't use one is a gold farming one with a 6xLem Crystal Sword. Otherwise, Death's Fathom all day, all night. I see no reason not to use it IF you happen to have it.

Sure, it's not a necessity at all, as Blizzard is such a strong skill.
 
Grape said:
DF is still also the best all around PvM Blizzard sorc weapon, hands down.

(...)

Sure, it's not a necessity at all, as Blizzard is such a strong skill.
Click to expand...

That was my point. It doesn't improve item finding as much as another 100% MF will because you can kill quickly enough without stuff like that. With the items mentioned above, I'm doing Pindle and Tunnels at /p1, LK at /p7, and Meph and Andariel at /p3. She can do all of it at /p7 as well, but that's not efficient, of course.

It depends on the purpose of a character. For me, it's item finding. That's all I'm using my cold sorc for because that what she's best at. A lightning sorc is probably a lot of fun versus Baal, but then it's not about efficient MF.
 
Hmm, I have to admit it has been a while since I have had a look at AT Blizzer's setups. I was sure that 'Ist' DF was the end-game weapon as far as efficiency goes. Diminishing returns with MF etc. Otherwise it would be 6xIst weapon. :P
 
The question about efficiency depends on one's goals. For example, random bosses (and super-uniques like Pindleskin) have fixed drops, no matter which /p setting you are using. that means, if you are after uniques and set items in the Tunnels or versus Pindleskin, you are doing it at /p1. If you need XP or you need more socketables, it's /p7. DF is certainly more effective at /p7.

I want to finish the task of finding all set items and uniques in the game. Only Griffon's and Mang Song's are missing for me. That means, Pindle and Tunnels, Tunnels and Pindle, at /p1. I'm still doing other things as well, else it would become boring too quickly.
 
I'm using Isted Oculus for my mf runs, because I don't find the difference in mf worth it compared to Isted Ali Baba. The CTC Teleport is annoying at times though, and slows me down somewhat. It's not an issue at Pindle obviously, but at AT it is.

My complete setup is Isted Shako, Mara's, Isted Skullder's, Isted Oculus, Spirit Shield, Arachnid's, Chance Guards, War Travelers, mf rings with resists, Gheeds, two shimmering GCs and small mf charms. That gives me 570% mf already. You can certainly go higher, but often at the cost of less +skills or no 105fcr breakpoint, which isn't worth it in my opinion, due to diminishing returns of mf.
 
@krischan yes, I was actually mostly thinking about P1 MFing, as that's what the majority of AT Blizzer's do.

I am very surprised if one is more efficient there in that regards with Ali Baba than Isted DF.

SPF Hall of Records has some insanely efficient Blizz AT MFers, and iirc most of those used DF.
 
Grape said:
Hmm, I have to admit it has been a while since I have had a look at AT Blizzer's setups. I was sure that 'Ist' DF was the end-game weapon as far as efficiency goes. Diminishing returns with MF etc. Otherwise it would be 6xIst weapon. :p
Click to expand...

Some theorycraft:

Bosses HP (2x those of normal monsters) in AT
Embalmed 7894-14732 @33 CR
Horror mage 4530-8786 @0
Invader 10888-19356 @0
Plague Bearer 8288-15786 @0

Standard sorc:
Shako (Ist)
3x Tal (armor ist, amulet, belt)
Fathom (Ist), let's say 23%cd as average
Spirit Shield
40 MF Chancies
30MF Nagels (could be blues with >30MF)
50MF Travelers
cube + Gheed + 33x SC (maximum 231 MF, let's say we get 210).

Overall: 193MF Tal's, 255 MF rest of equipment, 250MF inventory, total: 698 MF (my sorc has 720)
Blizzard damage (not casting BC): 5190-5476, aka 5333 average

This means you would 1 shot Embalmed ~40% of time, 1 shot Horror mage always, 1 shot Invader never, 2 shot him always and 1 shot Plague Bearer ~32% of time.

Removing Ist Fathom for 6x Ist sword means you also have to make up 10% fcr to have a breakpoint, so you need 10 fcr ring hopefully with 15 MF. Overall loss: 23% csd and 3 skills, overall gain 135 MF getting to ~835 total. Effectively that increased your magicfind efficiency by ~2.82%.

Blizzard damage now with casting BC: 3740-3964 aka 3852 average.

This means you can 1 shot Embalmed, but extremely rare, 2 shot happens most of the time, 3 shot is extremely rare. You don't have guaranteed 1 shot on Horror mages anymore, but must ice blast him too. Invader is now 2 and 3 shot material as is Plague Bearer. You should not lose over ~2.82% killing speed because then Ist Fathom wins easily over extra MF from a sword. This means if your sorc runs were 45 seconds with Fathom, now you must be able to do them in 46.27 seconds. So, you should not lose more than a second in runtimes for a sword to be worth it. From experience and numbers presented in here, you will lose damn much more than a second by that change.

As for best AT runners out there, they usually do AT in ~34 seconds at most, and in that runtime you shouldn't lose over 0.9 seconds for MF sword to win. Impossible.

So, yeah, Ist Fathom is end game and unbeatable option because it makes you more efficient not per kill, but per time invested since you will kill considerably faster.

Now doing math for 105 fcr sorcs makes no sense since they are quite similar to 65 fcr variant, but with like 100 MF less. Same story applies for them too.

Now I'm not exactly sure about Pindle himself, there difference could be less since you kill only one target. On Pindle of much higher value is to have harmony bow in town and you can then kill with CtA. I think that is possibly the best variant of Pindlerunner sorc. Or you can use fathom and play without BO, but that seems a bit fragile to me.
 
Thanks for running the actual numbers! Great work as usual.

I guess it is safe to say that DF is indeed the best PvM blizz weapon also. At least if one tries to achieve maximum efficiency.
 
But, also depends on what kind of gear player has. For newer players Ali Baba could be the thing to do. I simply ran numbers assuming player in question has at least something since only rare item listed is Fathom itself, or maaaybe tal's amulet/armor in some cases. But in general everything is not hard to find except Fathom. And, okay, perfect MF stuff like Nagels and such. I assume finding 28MF nagels or 45+MF Travelers or 35MF+ chancies is not a problem. Throwing in 660 or 700 MF into equation still comes the same conclusion - with a sword you can't really afford to lose much more than a second, and one second in such running is very easy to lose, especially since with sword you lose 1 shot ability except on Horror Mages, that is a big deal. Sometimes you just throw blizzard, boss dies immediately and you go forward. With a sword you would have to blast every single boss out there.
 
Last edited:
Pb_pal said:
For example, if you're being an AT runner you only need CM to give you -115 ecr to bottom all (or most, I think there can still be CI bosses in there?) monsters out with the -85 from Infinity.
Click to expand...

Cold Enchanted Unique Embalmed can become Immune to Cold (33+75 = 108), as can any other Magic Resistant and CE Unique (40+75 = 115): those could be removed by level 12 Conviction, but the immunity of a Spectral Hit MR CE Unique (20+40+75 = 135, or 33+20+40+75 = 168) could not (although it could never be Immune to Physical as well, so your mercenary can always kill it).

krischan said:
That might be right for regular monsters, but bosses with skoneskin and ghostly champions can have more than 100%.
Click to expand...

Strange but true: Ghostly Champions always have Damage Resist set to 80%, even if it's already higher: a monster that was Immune to Physical is still labelled as such, but DR 80% means that physical damage can be inflicted, and Amplify Damage and Decrepify are 100% effective.

Gripphon said:
Some theorycraft:

Bosses HP (2x those of normal monsters) in AT
Embalmed 7894-14732 @33 CR
Horror mage 4530-8786 @0
Invader 10888-19356 @0
Plague Bearer 8288-15786 @0
Click to expand...

In Ladder, Single Player and Other Multiplayer, Unique monsters in the Ancient Tunnels of Hell actually have the following base life:
Code: 
Unique          Base Life
---------------------------
Embalmed        12364-17308
Horror Mage      6800- 9890
Invader         16690-22254
Plague Bearer   12982-18546
It looks like your source is the Arreat Summit (or derived from it), which not only lists minimum life for non-Ladder realm games (which is lower than SP games), but does so using monster level in MonStats.txt, not area level, in Nightmare and Hell Lord of Destruction.

The Area pages of the Basin Wiki should have accurate life values for LoD Ladder, SP and Other MP, although I use my own Monster Resistances.xls spreadsheet.
 
I went full tals for safety, 105% cast for safety/efficiency, always do BC/BO, and I went all out on MF charms. Is that weird? Don't want to die with a lvl 96...
 
onderduiker said:
Strange but true: Ghostly Champions always have Damage Resist set to 80%, even if it's already higher: a monster that was Immune to Physical is still labelled as such, but DR 80% means that physical damage can be inflicted, and Amplify Damage and Decrepify are 100% effective.
Click to expand...

Oh, I didn't know that. I tend to believe that for each new thing I'm learning, I forget another one without noticing. Which one might it have been this time?
 
wow this thread has turned into a great discussion. I just learned a lot more than i bargained for lol

So i respeced to blizzard and so far i am enjoying it i went ahead and kept the insight on my merc. i can definitely see the advantage of insight with a mana cost of 51 for blizzard and 21 for ice blast i burn through my mana even with insight lol. She is a monster in AT. But im disappointed with CS (though that has more to do with my gear and low life the doom knights can still be kindof dangerous).

I think im going to make an infinity anyway and switch it out when i want. I have the ber runes to do it the game has been very generous with ber runes and no other runes lol. I hate to complain about good luck but im up to 5 bers and 3 surs lol and i want my next char to be untwinked and possibly not extended stash either. Now if i could just get another 4 soc eth elite polearm.

So i noticed talk about doing AT at P1 what is that about?
 
Log in to Reply / Create Site Account
Remove Ads - Go PurePremium

Latest posts

Back
Top