Re: Hi, playing again after so long..
ghostmark said:
it seems that i will be able to take out those cold immune monsters with merc + telekinesis + static field.
This works well up until your merc gets swarmed. Even with maximum faster cast rate gear, you won't be able to keep them off him if the group is large enough. Remember also that the knockback on Telekinesis doesn't trigger all the time. I believe it triggers 100% of the time against small targets, 50% of the time against medium ones, and only 25% of the time against large targets. Griswold, the Ancients, and all act bosses are immune to any kind of knockback, whether from TK or not. One of the 'living tree' monsters (thrashers, I think) normally spawns as cold immune in Hell, and they are large sized and pack a whallop. Unless your merc has uber gear, they will shred him in seconds.
One tactic is to continuously pull your merc out of the fray with Teleport. This only works so long as you have somewhere safe to go, but it can help you string out enemies for the merc to handle one on one.
Another thing is that the paladin's Conviction aura and the necromancer's Lower Resist curse can break (ie, negate) immunities. Obviously, you're not going to be able to use Conviction (at least not without going multiplayer, or getting a very rare runeword), so let's ignore that. Lower Resist, however, sometimes appears on wands, daggers, and staves that you can shop for or run across during play.
The way LR and Conviction work is like this: you total the amount of -resist. If the monster is not immune to the element in question, you just subtract that from its resistance. However, if the monster is immune to the element in question (this means 100 or greater resistance), then you divide the resistance-lowering by 5. This means if you've got slvl (skill level) 5 Lower Resist charges on a wand (-47 resist all), it will only subtract 9 from an immune monster's resistance. This means any monster with 109 or greater cold resist will remain immune even after being cursed. However, for a monster with 108 or lower cold resist, it will suddenly become non-immune (but it will still be heavily resistant). Suddenly, the resistance-lowering effect of your Cold Mastery will come into play, and you'll be able to kill such monsters.
There is a problem, though. Most monsters that are cold immune have greater than 109 cold resist, so you will find you cannot break these immunities, and will need to rely on the merc.
I have three suggestions for you. The first is to not worry about Energy Shield. A single point in it is nice, and maybe some in Telekinesis so it lasts longer, but I'd recommend against a heavy investment for you at the moment. It really only works well if you have the gear to support it, namely a lot of +skills gear and point-based damage reduction. The idea here is you get hit for, say, 200 damage. ES reduces that by 90%, or 180 points, which come off your mana (you may lose anywhere from slightly less than 180 up to almost 360 mana, depending on how many hard points you spent in Telekinesis). This leaves 20 damage that makes it through your ES, and if you have items with 'damage reduced by x', you can entirely eliminate the damage. At least, that's the idea.
The second is to use two elements. Frozen Orb is nice because you don't need to spend a lot of points on synergies and Cold Mastery for it to work well. Obviously, the more points you spend, the better it will work, but it's not like some other skills that are almost useless without a lot of points. Thus, you see a lot of two-element sorceresses that use Frozen Orb along with something else. Pick either fire or lightning, get a powerful attack there, and use Frozen Orb as a backup. Chain Lightning + Frozen Orb and Fireball + Meteor + Frozen Orb (ie the 'Meteorb' sorceress) are common choices. If you decide to go for CL/Orb, then it's easier to justify spending points in Energy Shield, as it will get boosted by the same +lightning skills gear that helps your attacks.
The third, if you're dead-set on using a single-element sorceress, is to get an Act I merc. Many sorceresses like an Act II or Act V merc because they will engage the enemy in melee, keeping them in place for your spells to hit them. This works well most of the time, but when a single-element sorceress needs it most, it's useless. Why? Because keeping the enemy still so your spells can hit them doesn't help when the spells are useless against the enemy. A ranged merc will let you constantly pop around with Teleport, while your merc shoots at them with an attack that will hopefully injure them. If you're using the runeword mod, I highly recommend a Harmony (Tir Ith Sol Ko) bow. Even if you have no items now, you will most certainly have the runes to make this runeword before you reach Hell. It's great because it has good enhanced damage, and adds 55-160 each of fire, cold, and lightning, making nothing immune to the damage (no single monster is immune to physical, fire, cold,
and lightning damage). Slap on some open wounds gear on the merc to stop them from healing (the 'prevent monster heal' mod doesn't work on mercs), and you'll be able to take out anything, even if it takes a while.