FO/Firewall sorc

[Uzziah]

FO/Firewall sorc

I am looking to build a frozen orb/firewall sorc, two of my favorite sorc skills.

Any who my plans thus far (I am at level 17) are to use the following skill layout:

20 Frozen Orb
10 Cold Mastery
20 Fire wall
20 Fire Mastery
2-10 warmth for mana regen purposes (I hit warmth a second time by mistake oops)
1 prereqs (7 total)

That's 79 skill points I figure I will be at level 80-85 by the time I am done so I have 10 or so spare points, where should I use them (I will not be using the lightning tree at all so no teleport). Should I go more cold mastery or go ice bolt for 2% more damage per point, or should I get another skill like say glacial spike? What about more warmth for faster regeneration so I don't need as many mana pots?

The other question is what should I do about the cast delay on both of these skills? should I use a skill to have on while I wait for the delay to fade or just take my time and evade long range attacks while I wait on the casting delay?

 

[Bliven]

I thinik this build setup will be alright, but not amazing. IMO, both firewall and frozen orb make a good secondary attack to a much more synergized other tree. Also.... get teleport lol.

 

[Eric Xanthu]

Orb-wall works fine. Keep warmth at 2, you'll never cast quickly enough to kill your mana. You won't need a spammer between casts. Synergize FO if you can get CM close to lvl 27, otherwise max out CM.

 

[CDRToast]

1 point in Teleport (+1 in prereq.)
1 point in Static for the rare Cold / Fire immune to whittle him down so your merc can do his job easier

I agree on the no more than 2 in warmth I very rarely put more than one in a sorc.

I like your 10 in Cold Mastery, i remember someone had a chart with the diminishing returns after about 16-17 iirc

If you really wanna spam something in between... put some points into the Orb synergy ( i forget it's name) It'll give you something to do while you wait the 2 secondsish.

just my 2cents

 

[sirpoopsalot]

teleport is a sorcs best crowd-control skill... with timered skills it becomes even more useful, IMO. That said, with enough FR/W, you can do ok without it (sorcs are still very fragile though - you really need some way to help avoid getting hit).

I agree with EricX about Warmth, your regen should do the trick unless you have a tiny magic pool (and even then, a little +mana or +mana per kill can make up the difference easily).

For more skills, I'd probably aim for CM at 22, or 27, then throw the points into IceBolt. You could always drop a point in Shiver Armour, and another in Enchant (to help your merc), but that seems like a "bonus" approach - not necessarily the wisest choices.

Finally, as a strategy for LI's, I do recommend you use GlacialSpike to freeze the monster in place, and then drop a Firewall under him. You don't need to boost GS too high, since FW will do most of the damage. However, I don't remember if more points will affect GS's freeze length - I suspect it does (so a few more points might be helpful).

Also, I suspect you're already aware of this, but FW is pretty easy to target if you get a tanking merc - cast it where the merc will fight whatever monster he's tanking, and you can easily get the monster to stand right in the FW while the merc gets in a few hits too.

 

[Noodle]

I second the vote for Glacial Spike, as it's also a life saver against Lister and his crew, and Pindleskin's chums.

- Noodle

 

[Uzziah]

I had a firewall (passive) Barb in Hell Act 3, so I think I'll be fine placing the firewalls, the freeze then place a firewall under them is the point behind the build so yeah I know that trick, I also know how to spoke firewalls to make them into blaze paths.

I'll probably have a switch weapon to handle CI/FI's, could be static, or CL depends on what i find.

 

[Uzziah]

Update: Reached Hell act 1 over the weekend. And gained a few levels nearly through act 1 (yea! reached the pit). currently level 72.

At level 71 I completed my initial build strategy:

20 FO
10 CM
20 FW
20 FM
2 Warmth (do to a mis-click)
7 prereq.

I am going staff wielding vita sorc, with a two staff switch 1 for FO with +1 FO and +3 cold tree which takes me to 15 CM and 26 FO, and a leaf staff made with a +2 FW staff for 27 FW and 25 FM.

Damage wise I have plenty to do the job but could always use just a wee bit more

I find LI's and FI's Easy to kill with FO, CI's give me a bit of trouble I can't seem to slow them down unless they get caught up attacking my merc I am having trouble getting a FW under them, I end up resorting to using the firewall as a blaze path and backtracking to get them to follow the path.

FI/CI seem to be fairly common most my merc can handle them slowly so long as I kill what's around them. The countess was a pain and I got 0 runes from her the first time, a tir the second not worth the time to kill takes my merc well over a minute to kill her.

Still don't want any points placed in Lightning skills but now I've reached the point where I have extra skill points.

Glacial Spike seems pointless now as I kill most with FO and those I can't kill with FO I can't freeze with GS either. I am thinking either ice bolt or CM for the points as I seem to like FO over FW as my main killer (its got a better coverage for crowds).

 

[ndt]

As the Frozen Orb synergy is rather tiny (2% damage per point) you might skip it and invest in more radius for your static field, making it safer for bosses and more effective versus crowds.