All-Around Sorceress Build
Hello to the D2X community! :wave: This would be the first build I've posted anywhere, and for my playing style she seems to work quite well.
Although, I have tried several other Sorceress builds: Blizzard Sorceress (SLOW, but powerful.. not for me), Tri-Elementalist (Magess; SLOW, but versatile.. still, not for me), MeteOrb (First build, very common, somewhat restricted.. again, not for me).
All of these builds were very capable throughout all difficulty levels, some had trouble in 8-Player games though. The Blizzard Sorceress was the most powerful of all of the builds listed above. She was SLOW due to the delayed attacks and the single use of the Cold Skill Tree. If she hit a pack of fast moving monsters she would have to Teleport away and try and land a Blizzard in the right direction/timing to hit the monsters to slow them down. The only recourse for this is to use a Holy-Freeze Mercenary.. although they aren't great tanks, they will slow down ANYTHING.. Even Cold-Immunes.
The Magess (Tri-Elementalist, known here-on-in as the Magess) was VERY versatile throughout all difficulties and 8-Player games. She was the SLOWEST of all builds. This is the downside to being able to kill ANYTHING in the game. She used Meteor, Orb, and Nova to dispatch those pesky demons. The problem inherent in this build was the low amount of damage each skill possessed which made this Build cast each skill in rapid succession to kill everything on screen. This was extremely tire-some after playing for hours having to be on-point with each skill and timing them to hit. Magic-Find runs were annoying in 8-Player games in Hell.. so many immunes + lots of Hit-Points due to the players in the game had me casting too many times and spending too much time either getting to the Magic-Find farm or killing the farm.
The MeteOrb Sorceress is so over-done I won't even mention anything more about it.
Now, for the reason I made this thread:
Lightning and Ice Sorceress Build
I'm not declaring this build to be the "Best" Build by any means. This is just the one I find to be the most fun and FAST to play anywhere, anytime. Given my style of play this Build best suits me, and hopefully will either give some insight to other players or a means to build a fun character for them using my Build.
Skill Layout:
Cold Skill Tree:
Cold Mastery - 1 *(With +Skills you should get ~120% Pierce)
Frozen Orb - 20 **(MAXED, with +Skills this should be near 1k DMG per shard)
Ice Bolt - ~15 (What skills are left over to boost Frozen Orb)
Shiver Armor - 1 ***(Defense booster)
The rest of your points in the Cold Skill Tree are for pre-requisites (5).
Lightning Skill Tree:
Lightning Mastery - 20 (MAXED, This passive skill boosts your damage)
Lightning - 20 (MAXED, This skill give bonuses to your main attack)
Charged Bolt - 20 ****(MAXED, Main attack)
Energy Shield - 1 (+Skills can boost this up to 75% absorb easily)
Teleport - 1 (+Skills will bring this down to 1 Mana casting cost)
Thunderstorm - 1 (+Skills will bring this up to ~2k damage, useful for PvP)
Static - 1 (+Skills will boost this to cover the screen, almost)
The rest of the points in the Lightning Skill Tree go into pre-requisites (3).
Fire Skill Tree:
Warmth - 1 (+Skills will bring this up dramatically, great for Mana Regeneration)
No other points here.
By level 80 you should be able to use all of your High-End equipment and the only skill left to finish "pumping" is your Ice Bolt. Charged Bolt should be MAXED first then save some points for the pre-requisites and then "pump" Lightning Mastery and Lightning. After you can do nothing more in the Lightning Skill Tree move on to the Cold Skills, OR mix them how you see fit. I went about getting the Frozen Orb as soon as I could and let my +Skills boost it while I "pumped" my Lightning Skill Tree.
Attribute Point Layout:
Strength: Enough for gear
Dexterity: None (Energy Shield with gobs of Mana will "Block" for you)
Vitality: As much as you can spare
Energy: As little as you can put in here (50-100 Max)
Equipment:
This build isn't cheap. Period.
Harlequin Crest Shako (Ist'ed 25% MF) - +2 Skills, +Mana, +Life, 50% MF, +2 Attributes, Damage Reduced by 10%
The Oculus (Ist'ed 30% MF) - +3 Skills, 30% FCR, +20 Vitality, +20 Energy, 20% ResAll, 50% MF
Frostburn (Upgraded) - +40% Max Mana
Magefist (Upgraded) - 20% FRC, 25% Mana Regeneration
Mara's - +2 Skills, +20-30% ResAll, +5 Attributes
Arachnid Mesh - +1 Skills, +20% Faster Cast Rate, Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Enigma - +2 To All Skills, +45% Faster Run/Walk, Increase Maximum Life 5%, 15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana, +1-99% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Chains of Honor - +2 To All Skills, +20 To Strength, All Resistances +65, 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Spirit Monarch (2) - +2 To All Skills, +25-35% Faster Cast Rate, +55% Faster Hit Recovery, +22 To Vitality, +89-112 To Mana, Cold Resist +35%, Lightning, Resist +35%, Poison Resist +35%
Stone of Jordan (2) - +1 To All Skill Levels, Increase Maximum Mana 25%, +20 To Mana
War Traveler - 25% Faster Run/Walk, +10 To Vitality, +10 To Strength, 30-50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Sandstorm Trek - +20% Faster Hit Recovery, +20% Faster Run/Walk, +10-15 To Strength, +10-15 To Vitality, Poison Resist +40-70%
Marrowwalk - +20% Faster Run/Walk, +10-20 To Strength, +17 To Dexterity, Regenerate Mana 10%, Half Freeze Duration, Level 33 Bone Prison (13 Charges), Level 12 Life Tap (10 Charges) [These are great for PvP and Life Tap on your Mercenary for rushing or just killing anything]
Call To Arms - +2-6 To Battle Command, +1-6 To Battle Orders
Tal Rasha's Guardianship (Ist'ed 25% MF) - 88% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth (Upgraged) - 10-15% Better Chance Of Magic Items
Tal Rasha's Adjudication - +2 To Sorceress Skill Levels
Using the Tal set you will receive wonderful MF% bonuses, FCR, FHR, and much more.
Charms:
Annihilus
Torch
Gheed's
+Lightning/Cold Charms with ResAll/MF/FCR/FHR/FRW
The rest should be Small Charms with MF/FCR/FHR/FRW/ResAll
Aim for 500+ MF and Max Res with your Tal gear on and you will be just fine using your "Battle Gear". You can also "swap-out" some of the rune choices for Facets if you'd like to do more damage.
Mercenary:
As always I choose the Holy-Freeze Mercenary as the Prayer doesn't help much at all, the Might Mercenary is useless for Casters, the Defensive Mercenary isn't that great even for defense boosting (Casters rarely see melee), and the Thorns Mercenary can be achieved using a simple rune-word armor.
Holy-Freeze Mercenary Equipment:
Vampire Gaze (Um'ed & Upgraded) - 6-8% Life Stolen Per Hit, Damage Reduced By 15-20%, Magic Damage Reduced By 10-15
Bramble - Level 15-21 Thorns Aura When Equipped, +50% Faster Hit Recovery, +25-50% To Poison Skill Damage, +13 Life After Each Kill, +5% To Maximum Cold Resist, Fire Resist +30%, Poison Resist +100%
Infinity - Level 12 Conviction Aura When Equipped, +35% Faster Run/Walk, +255-325% Enhanced Damage, -(45-55)% To Enemy Lightning Resistance, 40% Chance of Crushing Blow, Prevent Monster Heal, 0.5-49.5 To Vitality
Some could use the Dream Helm and Chains of Honor armor for a pretty high-damage Mercenary (2-5K Damage). This Mercenary will hold the crowd at bay with the Holy-Freeze Aura, kill any melee with Thorns Aura, drop all resistances with Conviction Aura, and use Jab to hit a monster multiple times achieving maximum health in a few hits. The Bramble armor really helps keep this Mercenary as a tank while you stomp the monster with your Cold and Lightning attacks. I've even noticed where my Mercenary will make some immunes vulnerable to what they were immune to.
The main reason I went with Lightning and Cold was that Fire is the least resisted in Normal and most resisted in Hell. While Cold and Lightning can be utilized for crowd control and maximum damage.
An all Lightning Sorceress was very tempting (Nearly 40-50K damage with Lightning) except that the attack would be as low as 50 up to 50K. I'd rather be able to hit you a lot with a Frozen Orb (~1k damage per Shard) and a Charged Bolt attack that dishes out 24 bolts (~1k damage per bolt) to cover the entire screen. Even for the "big bosses" like Diablo in Hell Difficulty can't take too many hits from her. Call to Arms boosts her Life/Mana over 2K each making her an amazing tank with Energy Shield. I can drop right in next to the boss and my Mercenary will drop his/her Resistances, return Physical damage, and slow the minions if needed.
- Enigmagination
(US West Ladder: AKA: Hailkiliahu)
* From my understanding this skill reduces the amount of cold resistance in monsters, increasing damage where you can't see it in the way of damage like the Lightning and Fire Skill Trees.
** This skill is wonderful for handling the entire screen and the pesky Lightning Immune monsters. It is timed, but with this skill on left-click and the main attack on right-click you will soon be covering the entire screen in Cold and Lightning attacks.
*** Shiver Armor provides the most defense increase from the three (3) given types, it also FREEZES melee attackers.
**** Charged Bolt is wonderful, with +Skills you can easily achieve 20k+ damage from one cast. Mix this skill with Frozen Orb and the screen is yours. Also, with this build you will be able to get right next to any boss with Max Res, tons of Life/Mana, and dispose of them with ease.
Hello to the D2X community! :wave: This would be the first build I've posted anywhere, and for my playing style she seems to work quite well.
Although, I have tried several other Sorceress builds: Blizzard Sorceress (SLOW, but powerful.. not for me), Tri-Elementalist (Magess; SLOW, but versatile.. still, not for me), MeteOrb (First build, very common, somewhat restricted.. again, not for me).
All of these builds were very capable throughout all difficulty levels, some had trouble in 8-Player games though. The Blizzard Sorceress was the most powerful of all of the builds listed above. She was SLOW due to the delayed attacks and the single use of the Cold Skill Tree. If she hit a pack of fast moving monsters she would have to Teleport away and try and land a Blizzard in the right direction/timing to hit the monsters to slow them down. The only recourse for this is to use a Holy-Freeze Mercenary.. although they aren't great tanks, they will slow down ANYTHING.. Even Cold-Immunes.
The Magess (Tri-Elementalist, known here-on-in as the Magess) was VERY versatile throughout all difficulties and 8-Player games. She was the SLOWEST of all builds. This is the downside to being able to kill ANYTHING in the game. She used Meteor, Orb, and Nova to dispatch those pesky demons. The problem inherent in this build was the low amount of damage each skill possessed which made this Build cast each skill in rapid succession to kill everything on screen. This was extremely tire-some after playing for hours having to be on-point with each skill and timing them to hit. Magic-Find runs were annoying in 8-Player games in Hell.. so many immunes + lots of Hit-Points due to the players in the game had me casting too many times and spending too much time either getting to the Magic-Find farm or killing the farm.
The MeteOrb Sorceress is so over-done I won't even mention anything more about it.
Now, for the reason I made this thread:
Lightning and Ice Sorceress Build
I'm not declaring this build to be the "Best" Build by any means. This is just the one I find to be the most fun and FAST to play anywhere, anytime. Given my style of play this Build best suits me, and hopefully will either give some insight to other players or a means to build a fun character for them using my Build.
Skill Layout:
Cold Skill Tree:
Cold Mastery - 1 *(With +Skills you should get ~120% Pierce)
Frozen Orb - 20 **(MAXED, with +Skills this should be near 1k DMG per shard)
Ice Bolt - ~15 (What skills are left over to boost Frozen Orb)
Shiver Armor - 1 ***(Defense booster)
The rest of your points in the Cold Skill Tree are for pre-requisites (5).
Lightning Skill Tree:
Lightning Mastery - 20 (MAXED, This passive skill boosts your damage)
Lightning - 20 (MAXED, This skill give bonuses to your main attack)
Charged Bolt - 20 ****(MAXED, Main attack)
Energy Shield - 1 (+Skills can boost this up to 75% absorb easily)
Teleport - 1 (+Skills will bring this down to 1 Mana casting cost)
Thunderstorm - 1 (+Skills will bring this up to ~2k damage, useful for PvP)
Static - 1 (+Skills will boost this to cover the screen, almost)
The rest of the points in the Lightning Skill Tree go into pre-requisites (3).
Fire Skill Tree:
Warmth - 1 (+Skills will bring this up dramatically, great for Mana Regeneration)
No other points here.
By level 80 you should be able to use all of your High-End equipment and the only skill left to finish "pumping" is your Ice Bolt. Charged Bolt should be MAXED first then save some points for the pre-requisites and then "pump" Lightning Mastery and Lightning. After you can do nothing more in the Lightning Skill Tree move on to the Cold Skills, OR mix them how you see fit. I went about getting the Frozen Orb as soon as I could and let my +Skills boost it while I "pumped" my Lightning Skill Tree.
Attribute Point Layout:
Strength: Enough for gear
Dexterity: None (Energy Shield with gobs of Mana will "Block" for you)
Vitality: As much as you can spare
Energy: As little as you can put in here (50-100 Max)
Equipment:
This build isn't cheap. Period.
Harlequin Crest Shako (Ist'ed 25% MF) - +2 Skills, +Mana, +Life, 50% MF, +2 Attributes, Damage Reduced by 10%
The Oculus (Ist'ed 30% MF) - +3 Skills, 30% FCR, +20 Vitality, +20 Energy, 20% ResAll, 50% MF
Frostburn (Upgraded) - +40% Max Mana
Magefist (Upgraded) - 20% FRC, 25% Mana Regeneration
Mara's - +2 Skills, +20-30% ResAll, +5 Attributes
Arachnid Mesh - +1 Skills, +20% Faster Cast Rate, Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Enigma - +2 To All Skills, +45% Faster Run/Walk, Increase Maximum Life 5%, 15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana, +1-99% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Chains of Honor - +2 To All Skills, +20 To Strength, All Resistances +65, 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Spirit Monarch (2) - +2 To All Skills, +25-35% Faster Cast Rate, +55% Faster Hit Recovery, +22 To Vitality, +89-112 To Mana, Cold Resist +35%, Lightning, Resist +35%, Poison Resist +35%
Stone of Jordan (2) - +1 To All Skill Levels, Increase Maximum Mana 25%, +20 To Mana
War Traveler - 25% Faster Run/Walk, +10 To Vitality, +10 To Strength, 30-50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Sandstorm Trek - +20% Faster Hit Recovery, +20% Faster Run/Walk, +10-15 To Strength, +10-15 To Vitality, Poison Resist +40-70%
Marrowwalk - +20% Faster Run/Walk, +10-20 To Strength, +17 To Dexterity, Regenerate Mana 10%, Half Freeze Duration, Level 33 Bone Prison (13 Charges), Level 12 Life Tap (10 Charges) [These are great for PvP and Life Tap on your Mercenary for rushing or just killing anything]
Call To Arms - +2-6 To Battle Command, +1-6 To Battle Orders
Tal Rasha's Guardianship (Ist'ed 25% MF) - 88% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth (Upgraged) - 10-15% Better Chance Of Magic Items
Tal Rasha's Adjudication - +2 To Sorceress Skill Levels
Using the Tal set you will receive wonderful MF% bonuses, FCR, FHR, and much more.
Charms:
Annihilus
Torch
Gheed's
+Lightning/Cold Charms with ResAll/MF/FCR/FHR/FRW
The rest should be Small Charms with MF/FCR/FHR/FRW/ResAll
Aim for 500+ MF and Max Res with your Tal gear on and you will be just fine using your "Battle Gear". You can also "swap-out" some of the rune choices for Facets if you'd like to do more damage.
Mercenary:
As always I choose the Holy-Freeze Mercenary as the Prayer doesn't help much at all, the Might Mercenary is useless for Casters, the Defensive Mercenary isn't that great even for defense boosting (Casters rarely see melee), and the Thorns Mercenary can be achieved using a simple rune-word armor.
Holy-Freeze Mercenary Equipment:
Vampire Gaze (Um'ed & Upgraded) - 6-8% Life Stolen Per Hit, Damage Reduced By 15-20%, Magic Damage Reduced By 10-15
Bramble - Level 15-21 Thorns Aura When Equipped, +50% Faster Hit Recovery, +25-50% To Poison Skill Damage, +13 Life After Each Kill, +5% To Maximum Cold Resist, Fire Resist +30%, Poison Resist +100%
Infinity - Level 12 Conviction Aura When Equipped, +35% Faster Run/Walk, +255-325% Enhanced Damage, -(45-55)% To Enemy Lightning Resistance, 40% Chance of Crushing Blow, Prevent Monster Heal, 0.5-49.5 To Vitality
Some could use the Dream Helm and Chains of Honor armor for a pretty high-damage Mercenary (2-5K Damage). This Mercenary will hold the crowd at bay with the Holy-Freeze Aura, kill any melee with Thorns Aura, drop all resistances with Conviction Aura, and use Jab to hit a monster multiple times achieving maximum health in a few hits. The Bramble armor really helps keep this Mercenary as a tank while you stomp the monster with your Cold and Lightning attacks. I've even noticed where my Mercenary will make some immunes vulnerable to what they were immune to.
The main reason I went with Lightning and Cold was that Fire is the least resisted in Normal and most resisted in Hell. While Cold and Lightning can be utilized for crowd control and maximum damage.
An all Lightning Sorceress was very tempting (Nearly 40-50K damage with Lightning) except that the attack would be as low as 50 up to 50K. I'd rather be able to hit you a lot with a Frozen Orb (~1k damage per Shard) and a Charged Bolt attack that dishes out 24 bolts (~1k damage per bolt) to cover the entire screen. Even for the "big bosses" like Diablo in Hell Difficulty can't take too many hits from her. Call to Arms boosts her Life/Mana over 2K each making her an amazing tank with Energy Shield. I can drop right in next to the boss and my Mercenary will drop his/her Resistances, return Physical damage, and slow the minions if needed.
- Enigmagination
(US West Ladder: AKA: Hailkiliahu)
* From my understanding this skill reduces the amount of cold resistance in monsters, increasing damage where you can't see it in the way of damage like the Lightning and Fire Skill Trees.
** This skill is wonderful for handling the entire screen and the pesky Lightning Immune monsters. It is timed, but with this skill on left-click and the main attack on right-click you will soon be covering the entire screen in Cold and Lightning attacks.
*** Shiver Armor provides the most defense increase from the three (3) given types, it also FREEZES melee attackers.
**** Charged Bolt is wonderful, with +Skills you can easily achieve 20k+ damage from one cast. Mix this skill with Frozen Orb and the screen is yours. Also, with this build you will be able to get right next to any boss with Max Res, tons of Life/Mana, and dispose of them with ease.
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