Botd Enchantress Input

[Serdash]

Botd Enchantress Input

Well, as promised, I'm starting my BotD Melee sorc. Or rather, she's currently level 35 and sitting on a heap of stat and skill points. As a druid loving Nefarious Fluid would tell you, saving all of your stat and skill points is the way to truly play the game.

So I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted to do here. Enchant is an obvious one, but would maxing out the synergies for Fire Damage really be necessary? I have a few views on how this will go down. Obviously the sorc will use BotD as a weapon, the rest is up in the air.

ES + Blocking
-Enchant would be maxed for AR purposes only.
-Energy Shield and Telekenesis would be maxed, and she would sport a few pieces of Damage Reduced by X equipment to fill in the rest.
-BotD would ensure decent leeching, possibly fortitude for the off weapon ED% to supply a little more damage.
-Gerke's would require a little more dex to get max block, but +30 dex from BotD makes it easier, and the shield comes with flat DR and MDR and Resists, and can be overall nice.

Problem with this one is it's mostly generic physical damage, and the blocking is slow.

DR + Blocking
-Same as above, but drop out ES and max the Enchant synergies and put points in other utility skills(Static Field, Teleport, Lightning Mastery)

Putting points in lightning mastery would make me able to load up on some lightning damage charms and increase the damage of those(I think?) and it still suffers from slow blocking, but handles PIs a lot better.

Either of the Above + No Blocking + Utility Shield
Real men don't need blocking. Or in this case, real fragile ladies toting translucent axes of monsterous death. Would let me take on something like Tiamat's Rebuke for elemental damage to be boosted by masteries, or Lance Guard for Deadly Strike. Could even go with Medusa's Gaze for target slowing.

Basically, I have a weapon in mind for the sorceress, and that's about it. I have gear to supply most things(+9 Memory for ES Prebuff, semi-decent Flat DR gear, etc.) And I know any of these could probably work with minimal difficulty, but I just want to get an opinion on what the best course would be.

Because I"m too lazy to figure it out, and I've never played a melee sorc before.

EDIT:
A few notes, a Sorceress using a Berserker Axe will need 58% IAS for 12 fpa, 86% IAS for 11 fpa, and 138% IAS for 10 fpa. BotD comes with 60% built in, so getting that extra 16% is easy enough with gloves or amulet, but shooting for 138% would be stretching her gear some. Although it would be doable with Treachary + Gloves + Amulet.

 

[DeathMaster]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

So I rightly assume this is SC. Why not go option 3, max damage/utility gear, go for the power.

 

[Jason Maher]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

What a horrible situation to be in...

 

[Serdash]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

What a horrible situation to be in...

That doesn't help.

While max damage/utility gear is indeed an option when I can die without trouble, I'm not trying to go for a build that's going to make me bored from having to run around and collect my body every 2 minutes. Looking for input from people who have built an enchantress, or a melee sorc in general, or even people who have had experience using ES + DR or just Flat DR on a sorceress, possibly in combination with melee or just blocking.

Trying to find the balance between optimizing safety and being far too overzealous with safety.

 

[San]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I'm pretty sure that if you prioritize high flat dr / defensive mods on your equipment and in doing so disregard offensive traits, you'll fail. Oh yes. BotD is a gg weapon, but enchant alone (especially unsynergized) is not going to make you wet your pants while wielding that weapon.

What you need is good offensive abilities combined with some crowd control. Thought about a Delirium on your merc? Maybe try out a A3 cold sorc? I tried Gloom once on a barb, and the ctc Dim Vision was extremely useful when being owned by ranged monsters, which really are the nastiest stuff you come up against in Hell.

 

[stephan]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I'd certainly max Enchant, Warmth and FM. Since you are a melee build FM is applied twice, so with just a level 30 Enchant you'll be doing ~4500 damage per swing. If you take time to prebuff it (and Enchant lasts a long time so it's worth it) you can get much higher than that and I think you have an Infinity, so that's really going to hurt things.

Fortitude is pretty awesome, not only does it give you reasonable physical damage (combined with Might from merc and your strength) but also some FCR to make teleporting a little easier. It was an important skill for my 2 handed melee Enchantress.

I'd skip ES and the point damage reduction. Better get something like Stormshield if you want safety IMO. I don't think it will cost you any extra stat points.

 

[sorcererbob]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I'm building an enchantress too, although I'm apparently less rich than you... richboy! Have you considered Dream (or even dual Dream)? I know the Jah in it is not cheap, but you have BotD. This is beyond my price range, so not a consideration for me.

Personally, my plan is to not get a backup skill because I imagine I would end up using that as a primary skill and melee would be a backup to that. My plan is to aim for survival (HC, yay) with maxed Enchant and it's synergies, ES and TK, and full DR gear (G-bane, Gerke's Shield etc). I reckon I can approach 50DR, which should be enough for all but the hardest hitters. I'm going to neglect resistances and absorb. And a passion PB is my weapon.

i'm praying that nothing (or nothing I can't run from) will hit hard enough to break through the wall of DR. I'm ignoring blocking, because mana and health is more important - I don't want elemental attacks punching holes in my health.

I think you should seriously consider DR as a viable alternative. If nothing else it allows you to use a bunch of gear that otherwise doesn't get used because you can neglect +skills and resistances (yay prebuff and ES).

 

[DeathMaster]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

Personally, my plan is to not get a backup skill because I imagine I would end up using that as a primary skill and melee would be a backup to that. My plan is to aim for survival (HC, yay) with maxed Enchant and it's synergies, ES and TK, and full DR gear (G-bane, Gerke's Shield etc). I reckon I can approach 50DR, which should be enough for all but the hardest hitters. I'm going to neglect resistances and absorb. And a passion PB is my weapon.

i'm praying that nothing (or nothing I can't run from) will hit hard enough to break through the wall of DR. I'm ignoring blocking, because mana and health is more important - I don't want elemental attacks punching holes in my health.

I seem to remember mana burn would destroy your ES in no time, and then 50 DR is nothing against what could hit you.

 

[sorcererbob]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I'm pretty sure that if you prioritize high flat dr / defensive mods on your equipment and in doing so disregard offensive traits, you'll fail. Oh yes. BotD is a gg weapon, but enchant alone (especially unsynergized) is not going to make you wet your pants while wielding that weapon.

This.

My experiences with melee sorcs were that swarms were a problem, even when I invested quite a bit into defensive measures. If you go with full ES and some PDR you'll do better than I did, but what that'll do to your attack isn't appealing. In the end I'd much rather go with a reasonably strong attack and adjust my tactics instead (read: guerrilla tactics with teleport is mostly how I'd play). Tanking isn't really a good tactic for many melee sorcs.

If you do want to go with full ES so you can tank better, you might consider going with Warmth & FireMastery, and then getting Enchant from DemonLimb instead. You're limited to a level23 Enchant by this, but you'd end up with medium-decent fire and physical damage, and a nice amount of defense. I think your biggest problem with the lower level of Enchant would be AR... probably enough that I'd consider using a Blessed Aim merc (or, if you have Infinity, that won't be as much of a problem).

But if I tried a BotD melee sorc, I'd probably plan for a medium-high ES (80-85% absorb with full TK - so ~30-35 hard points into lightning) with Gerke's for the MDR/PDR/blocking, and then I'd put the rest into Enchant & synergies & offense. You'll be able to prebuff your Enchant nicely and still get a pretty decent damage, while having a solid-if-unspectacular defense. Again, I'm not sure how great of a tank you'd be, but you should at least be safe around medium and small packs. Manaburn and big swarms would likely still be something to watch out for.


Generally, I would say that achieving a nice balance between power & safety with a melee sorc is somewhat difficult (but not impossible); you're going to be stretched moderately thin if you try to achieve both together, and I wouldn't really say there's a plan that makes one approach better than another.


To comment on ES, a big mana supply and enough regeneration helps a lot - even around manaburn packs. My own full-ES sorc had very few problems with manaburn because she regenerated mana so fast that a lot of the time ES would stay active, even getting hit by manaburn. My only real problems were with manaburn + extra-fast packs, as several rapid hits in succession would be really hard on my life pool.

 

[jiansonz]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I have only played one pure Enchantress - the one in the Sword of Destiny tournament. She´s using a 2h-weapon (because of tourney rules) and is completely dependant on her HF merc to stay safe. She only fights when she can be left alone (i.e. she hits "over the shoulder" of the merc).
My whole gameplay revolves around separating out single (or at least no more than 2-3) monsters to fight, thus avoiding getting hit. I´ve made it to Act V Hell now, but it´s been very slow going in (/p3) Hell difficulty.

She has level 2 ES (her small amount of mana makes a higher level ES pointless) and TK is maxed (because I had nothing better to do with my skillpoints...). Gear is quite limitied. Only rare and crafted items are allowed, and we can´t gamble. So it´s very hard to compare our characters in a meaningful way. But know that it is indeed possible to get by with very little defensive capabilities, if you are prepared to go slowly at times.






"No blocking" can´t be correct, right? :scratchhead:

 

[Oblivious]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

She´s using a 2h-weapon (because of tourney rules) and is completely dependant on her HF merc to stay safe.

I´ve made it to Act V Hell now, but it´s been very slow going in (/p3) Hell difficulty.

Only rare and crafted items are allowed, and we can´t gamble.

You always find some way to truly amaze me :thumbup:

 

[purplelocust]

Re: Botd Enchantress Input

I would vote for a sturdy ES, having just been pretty happy with the ES on my Nova sorc.

Medusa's Gaze would be an interesting choice- I tried using it several times and didn't find it particularly useful for the Lower Resist, but slowed monsters are always good. One thing to consider is that sources of slow can add on a character or merc, but that they can overwrite each other. That is, if you have 20% slow and your merc has 75% slow, your "slow" will actually speed up the monster if the merc already hit him. So in other words, if your merc is using Kelpie, it may be better to have no slowing gear instead of a little slowing gear of your own.