Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by NagisaFurukawa on Apr 20, 2009:

Patriarch Chrono, Zealot/Templar/Cleric

Introduction

Chrono is a PDR Zealot/Templar/pseudo-Cleric, a build which sounds oh so inelegant. Any name ideas? :D. He is a 2-handed Conviction Zealot, using Fist of the Heavens and/or Holy Bolt as his backup skills. Before proceeding any further, the obligatory character introduction calls.

The "real" Chrono Harlaoun, despite coming up short in terms of grand displays of power (boo), is more than a capable enough fighter. What he lacks in strength and/or talent, however, he more than makes up for with his experience, commitment, and ability to keep a level head in battle, traits which have gained him the title of Admiral.

Anyway, back to the build. Chrono had the services of two very nice weapons. For his Zealot half, he used The Reaper's Toll. A classic mercenary weapon, this little toy would be equally potent on a fast-hitting character. As for Templar / Cleric half, there was Boneslayer Blade. An interesting weapon with chance to cast Holy Bolt when struck, as well as Holy Bolt charges, both of which were synergized. His own build aside, Chrono had the services of a wonderful[ly death-prone] barbarian mercenary, wielding 'Voice of Reason' for its chance to cast Frozen Orb on striking.

Honestly, it occasionally felt like being a mercenary to the mercenary, though standing around while meister was dying proved very expensive. :(.

---------------------------------------------------------

Stats
LCS

Strength: 110 (132)
Dexterity: 70 (90)
Vitality: 295 (315)
Energy: 15 (15)

Life: 1178
Mana: 177
Resists: 75/43/85/75

Defense: 794
PDR: 57
MDR: 16
FHR: 0% (9 frames!)
FCR: 10% (14 frames)

Zeal: 120-1344 assorted damage, 960 AR, 6 FPA
Fist of the Heavens: 1836-1956 lightning damage
Holy Bolt: 4018-4510 magic damage

Skills
Conviction: 20 (22)
Fist of the Heavens: 20 (22)
Zeal: 2 (4)

Holy Shock: 20
Blessed Hammer: 19
Prerequisites: 1

---------------------------------------------------------

Equipment
Weapon 1: 'Shael' The Reaper's Toll
Weapon 2: Boneslayer Blade
Helm: 'Sol' Monk's Tiara of Life Everlasting
Armor: 'Sol' Iron Pelt
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: Thundergod's Vigor
Boots: "Storm Blazer" Light Plated Boots
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath
Ring: Raven Frost
Ring: "Bone Grip" Rare Ring

Rich (BB code):
41: The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
'Shael'
Two-Hand Damage: 40 to 479
Durability: 63 of 65
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xdd5efbbf
+240% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 1 seconds
11% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Shael Rune
Inserted into a Thresher

20% Increased Attack Speed

Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

40: Boneslayer Blade
Gothic Axe
Two-Hand Damage: 56 to 218
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Dexterity: 79
Required Strength: 115
Required Level: 42
Axe Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x179c4f14
+8 to Strength
+212% Enhanced Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
35% Bonus to Attack Rating
50% Chance to cast Level 20 Holy Bolt when struck
Level 20 Holy Bolt (185/200 Charges)
197% Damage to Undead (Based on Character Level)
395% Bonus to Attack Rating Against Undead (Based on Character Level)

20: Monk's Tiara of Life Everlasting
'Sol'
Defense: 44
Durability: 25 of 25
Required Level: 52
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x93e674ec
Damage Reduced by 30
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Tiara

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

22: Iron Pelt
Trellised Armor
'Sol'
Defense: 483
Durability: 154 of 157
Required Strength: 61
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf81f67fb
+25 to Life
+60% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 27
Magic Damage Reduced by 16
+125 Maximum Durability
+237 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Sol Rune
Inserted into a Trellised Armor

Damage Reduced by 7

Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

27: Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 80
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xcdb085ed
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

25: Thundergod's Vigor
War Belt
Defense: 156
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe076ace3
+20 to Strength
+20 to Vitality
+196% Enhanced Defense
+10% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
+3 to Lightning Fury (Amazon Only)
+3 to Lightning Strike (Amazon Only)
+20 Lightning Absorb
5% Chance to cast Level 7 Fist of the Heavens when struck

26: Storm Blazer
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 9
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x2861fa32
+17 to Maximum Stamina
Lightning Resist +31%
Poison Resist +40%
10% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Charged Bolt when struck
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

21: Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x73681b67
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
29% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

23: Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x5624acde
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+227 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

24: Bone Grip
Ring
Required Level: 46
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0xe36f9ca9
+2 to Strength
+5 to Mana
+18 to Maximum Stamina
+24 to Attack Rating
5% Mana stolen per hit
10% Faster Cast Rate

2: Shimmering Small Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x58a4e724
All Resistances +5
10% Extra Gold from Monsters

3: Shimmering Small Charm of Shock
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7231d9cd
All Resistances +5
Adds 1-5 lightning damage

4: Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x681bf799
All Resistances +5

5: Shimmering Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x74b19b29
All Resistances +15

6: Shimmering Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x463aa383
All Resistances +14

7: Shimmering Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0xb8c60a08
All Resistances +14

8: Shimmering Grand Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x165a9f9b
+12 to Life
All Resistances +14

9: Shimmering Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x8ce21174
+1 to Dexterity
All Resistances +4

10: Shimmering Grand Charm of Flame
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xcc93fc08
All Resistances +15
Adds 1-2 fire damage

12: Shimmering Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: Expansion [1.09 SC Vanilla, ask no questions]
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x46558eda
+2 to Dexterity
All Resistances +4

14: Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x4b5da631
All Resistances +4

15: Shimmering Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x5d7ab04e
All Resistances +14

3: Voice of Reason
Phase Blade
'LemKoElEld'
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 54
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xf158adb4
+10 to Dexterity
+50 to Attack Rating
Adds 100-220 cold damage over 7 seconds
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
+1 to Light Radius
301% Damage to Demons
367% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
Cannot Be Frozen
18% Chance to cast Level 20 Ice Blast on striking
15% Chance to cast Level 13 Frozen Orb on striking
-24% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Lem Rune
Inserted into a Phase Blade

75% Extra Gold from Monsters

Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Ko Rune
Inserted into a Phase Blade

+10 to Dexterity

Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

El Rune
Inserted into a Phase Blade

+50 to Attack Rating
+1 to Light Radius

Required Level: 11
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Eld Rune
Inserted into a Phase Blade

75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead

Required Level: 11
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

2: Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
Defense: 342
Durability: 30 of 55
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 78
Fingerprint: 0x7f058ba9
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
+183% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +30
3% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)

1: Treachery
Mage Plate
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 257
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0x60f5ac1c
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fade when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Shael Rune
Inserted into a Mage Plate

20% Faster Hit Recovery

Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Thul Rune
Inserted into a Mage Plate

Cold Resist +30%

Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Lem Rune
Inserted into a Mage Plate

50% Extra Gold from Monsters

Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

---------------------------------------------------------

Mercenary
Name: Magnus
Class: Barbarian
Level: 79

Weapon: 'Voice of Reason' Phase Blade
Helm: Arreat's Face
Armor: 'Treachery' Mage Plate

---------------------------------------------------------

Progress/Comments
Normal: 1.09 Raven Claw (thanks to Nightfind), along with an inventory full of lightning damage charms. Yeah. The killing was no slower as Chrono's progress continued either, courtesy of Conviction becoming more and more potent with every additional level.

Early Nightmare: With 57 PDR equipped, not much could even touch him. Fighting undead monsters was very fun, as Boneslayer Blade's 50% chance to cast level 20 Holy Bolt when struck, along with a decent Fist of the Heavens, made pretty quick work of them. When his mercenary hit level 54, things became even faster, as 'Voice of Reason' really tore through enemies in a matter of seconds. One minorly annoying thing was the dexterity requirement of the Phase Blade, but a 3x Perfect Emerald Black Hades, on top of Arreat's Face, took care of that little issue.

Late Nightmare: By the later stages of NM, the mercenary was starting to feel the ill effects of having minimal leech, meaning Chrono had to do quite a bit of tanking. Not much of a problem, at least not quite yet. The Holy Bolts were doing a good 2000 damage by this point, meaning most undead, including Gloams, were dying on contact.

Hell: Chrono entered Hell in his early 70s, only to notice that things were much tougher. His PDR was hardly stacking up, and his mercenary was failing. As such, he returned to Nightmare, and did a few MP Baal runs with Kedali's poisonmancer to be able to use his Reaper's. When this was equipped, things became [un-]surprisingly easy in Hell. Although he had been rushed through Hell, he still went back and managed to finish off every quest without very much difficulty. By game's end, the Holy Bolts were dealing on the order of 4000 damage, making them very potent. Boneslayer Blade comes with a full 200 charges, allowing them to be semi-spammed at scarier undead uniques.

'Voice of Reason': This was a surprisingly potent weapon, even compared to 'Rift', though Conviction was certainly helpful. *whistle* The Frozen Orb did a lot of damage, even against breakable immunes (-%CR!), but the Ice Blast was a big winner as well, provided a little bit of crowd control in addition to the barbarian's innate Bash and Stun. The CBF is certainly nice as well, keeping the mercenary hitting at 5 frames (10 frames / 2 attacks?).

Zeal: With the Decrepify going off virtually as soon as Chrono hit melee range, monsters were unable to deal much of any damage to him, considering his PDR. This allowed him to tank for his mercenary, but don't let the low damage fool you. The curse, as well as the inherent Deadly Strike, really pumped up the damage, making it only a tad bit slow for /players 3 Act 5 Hell.

Fist of the Heavens: The damage is pretty low, and doesn't scale up very well at all with higher players settings, though this is definitely my fault with the choices in gear. Having said that, it worked very well at sniping things such as Oblivion Knights, particularly on lower settings, and looked very nice in conjunction with Boneslayer Blade / Laying of Hands / Thundergod's Vigor tossing around Holy Bolts.

Final Impression: A pretty fun build. Definitely not the non-Hell-viable build I thought it was not too long ago. Really makes me unhappy that the AS is incorrect about Boneslayer Blade being able to get above level 20 (specifically 28) CtC Holy Bolt though. Regardless, this is still a *very* potent Gloam killer, to the point at which they intentionally miss to avoid their doom... or something like that.

Sanctuary: This takes mana to use? Kind of random, but something I noticed.

Finds: Hexing Grand Charm! *gag* Amn/Hel/Ist from forges, making up for the three straight Io runes I've gotten from Hell. Nothing else was very notable, except a couple more white Mage Plates to add to my collection. *hides*

---------------------------------------------------------

Future Plans
I'm waiting for some new inspiration. Until then, back to running Baal.

12 Nanoha characters and counting. Please stop soon, self.

Thanks
Thanks to Nightfind for the Raven Claw, a bunch of people for the charms totaling 113 resist all, and Rummski for [effectively] the barbarian mercenary's setup. :).

Also, thanks for reading!
 
Originally posted by purplelocust on Nov 1, 2009:

Matriarch Magella, Nova/ES sorc

Quick summary

Wanted to try out a pure Nova sorc, used nice gear and a BO friend to make it go quickly.


Backgrouund
I've heard good things about a Nova sorc and I've been thinking about one for a while. Liquid Circus' Blova build writeup made me want to get more comfortable with Nova, so that inspired this. Sir Poopsalot is a Nova fan and I wanted to see how effective it is at putting monsters in continuous hit recovery. It worked well.

She pretty much cruised throught the game nicely. Most play was on /players 8, but if there were were many lightning immunes, she either bumped the player count down or just teleported past. I figured if things slowed down for her, I'd stop and re-gear her, but once I got her to level 81 for Arachnid Mesh, she flew through Hell and I never got around to improving her gear beyond that.

Skills:

Nova/ES sorc:
1 Warmth
1 Thunderstorm
20 TK
20 Nova
20 LM
15 ES
11-ish unspent

Stats:

Level 85
STR: 21/52
DEX: 121/139
VIT: 190/200
E: 183/193
life 1922 after BO, 689 before
mana 1732 after BO, 610 before

resists: -36 all in hell

Nova damage: 1652-2175

Gear:

hat: Griffon's Eye with 5/5 facet giving -20 ELR/+18 lightning damage
amulet: Powered amulet of Atlas, +3 lightning +26 STR
weapon: Cresent Moon phase blade
armor: 34% reists Skin of the Vipermagi, 1 OS
shield: Viscertuant, 1 OS
rings: rare FCR 1.07 huge mana per kill rings
Code:
Wraith Touch
Ring
Required Level: 3
Fingerprint: 0x4805235a
Item Level: 5
Version: Expansion
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Strength
+25 to Mana after each Kill
29% Extra Gold from Monsters

Doom Circle
Ring
Required Level: 3
Fingerprint: 0x38f52f02
Item Level: 5
Version: Expansion
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+33 to Attack Rating
+1 to Strength
+3 to Mana
+22 to Mana after each Kill
gloves: Magefist
belt: Archnid Mesh
boots: Waterwalk
switch: Memory in a +3 ES/+1 Glacial Spike/+3 Firewall staff
charms: 8 lightning skillers, some with good second mods, +mana, +life charms
lower resist wand in backpack

Merc:

L84 Holy Freeze
rare circlet, +25 str, life leech
Code:
Dread Circlet
Circlet
Defense: 109
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0xe55d56d1
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 1 - 83 Lightning Damage
8% Life stolen per hit
+138% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Strength
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Ethereal
eth Crescent Moon or Kelpie's
Treachery Great Hauberk

Gameplay

Norm/NM: pretty smooth, just tele and nova, building ES along the way. Wore the rings from the Blood Moor onward. Equipped CM as soon as possible which brought down the FCR, but I figured I'd optimize gear later.

NM: Static + Nova worked great, strong merc. Mana potions important against bosses, ES would occasionally go down. A fair number of deaths until I put more points into energy and life. I had thought about just putting hard points in TK and relying upon the skillers + Memory but I decided to go for the full ES build. I only needed one more point to get a decent Thunderstom, so I did that. That turned out to be quite useful with mana burn monsters and in NM Baal runs.

Hell: instead of using a CtA, I just used a flesh-and-blood barb BeauBeau. Wow, A1 was quick. Tele and nova. Repeat. LIs? Just tele by them. Once I got to 81: full gear ready, pretty much.

A2: A few deaths- mana burn FI, not a surprise with -46 resists at that point. But very quick through the act and Duriel was quick. I tried out the Lower Resist wand a few times and it was effective.

A3: again, pretty quick, ignoring LI monsters. LR charges broke the Trav council immunities. Flayer Dungeon was wonderful, dolls no problem, ghosts etc. Usuaully I find the Flayer Dungeon pretty creepy but it was enjoyable, for once. In the first effort at Meph, I got nasty Bremm mods and I created a huge bossppack tangle right there at the foyer. That meant an unpleasant corpse recovery and then a fresh start. The second time, I teled directly by them to Meph and had a quick battle there, didn't even bother with LR on him.

A4: also pretty quick. LI stranglers were an annoyance with their mana drain missles and meant there were clouds of them following me around the River. There were Damned in City of the Damned but I found the WP quickly and set right off into the River of Flame.

River of Flame: no problems- again accumulated strings of stanglers then LR'd them en masse. Fal from the forge, witnessed by a strangler entourage.

CS: careful progress, no merc deaths, the LR wand broke everyone. When under the LR curse from OK's, that pushed resists down to -100 for all of them! Heavy damage from Infector deflated the ES about 6 times but caused no deaths. For Diablo- LR this time, went quickly and he didn't get off a hose.

A5: Relatively quick progress but I did do some levelling when there were favorable monster rolls, to gain 84 before facing the Ancients and I also put some more points in energy after having saved 100+ or so. The charges from vipers and returned hurt, so I bumped up the mana bulb and that was helpful.

Ancients: One of the sloppiest efforts in a while! Static and Nova and two were dead quickly, and then I set to work on the third. Ooops! I forgot my LR wand- it was in my stash instead of the cube, from picking things up to sell. So I stood out of the way while the merc whittled away. I'd also forgotten to switch the merc weapon to Kelpie, so he was using CM himself, all of whose lightning damage was useless. But there was open wounds from the CM on the merc and it actually didn't take long.

WSK: actually, this took a couple of efforts and I had a few deaths trying to teleport through unfavorable monster packs (gloams+beetles, blegh.) Finally, got through and faced gloams in the Throne patiently.

Waves: no problem. Static+Nova. Repeat. Lister was unbreakable LI and LE, but the merc handled him nicely while Magella stood behind a pillar and sorted out potions for the Baal fight.

Baal: used the LR wand again and this time remembered to switch the merc's weapon to Kelpie, and Baal went pretty quickly.


Comments:

With a high ES and TK, having huge negative resists isn't really so bad. The ES takes the damage before resists are applied, so with a healthy ES eating most of the damage, she was fine.

I didn't go with the integer PDR options but I may experiment some with those, as those can be huge for an ES sorc.

I did try playing some without the effects of the BO. It was pretty much a disaster, with multiple deaths. I'll perhaps experiment more, but it was likely due to the fact that I'd gotten spoiled by her sturdiness under the effect of a level 50 or so BO. I did level BeauBeau up a little by having him stand around some, but he'll still need a bit more to get to 81 for another +1 skill from Arachnid Mesh.

ES collapse generally wasn't a disaster- I was worried using a mana pig skill and relying upon ES, but generally when it would go down, I had enough life to do fine for a while, even if I didn't realize right away that it had gone down. Then switch to Memory, ES back, and back in business. NM Baal battles, before I'd put more in energy, were the only time I really was feeling prolonged stretches of mana depletion.

I think the regeneration may be high enough, with the big bulb boosted by BO, that I may not really need the huge MPK rings anymore. But I never took them off after putting them on at level 3.

No problems with the blood mana curse, as life was generally safely above the mana.

I had thought about going more of a blocking route, since I was using the CM phase blade, but I ended up going low-strength and never switching to an upgraded Viscertuant as I didn't have the strength for it. Blocking was pretty bad by the end but it didn't seem to be much of a problem. FHR was pretty non-existent but again didn't seem to be a big concern.

Plans: she's totally dependent upon BeauBeau for efficiency, so Baal-running would have to be all MPing and she would be map-exploring. Which would probably mean dying from time to time, or sorting out more effective gear. I think she could use one more point in ES (to get to 95% from 94%), as I thought she might switch to some +2 skills armor at some point but her FCR is good with the current combo. I could lose a skill from the amulet and that would open up lots of gear options. It probably would be worth boosting Thunderstorm some if I play her much for Baal battles, but I'm not sure what's in store for her at this point.
 
Originally posted by Reborn2k on Dec 14, 2006:

Matriarch Hera

Hey!

I have a bit time on my hands although I'm rather busy, but I want to use this time to write a mat thread.

Since ~2 years I have wanted to make a strong char to run /p8 baal runs with and get lvl 99. The problem was that I didn't have good enough items at first. When I had better ones after endless hours of MFing, the next problem was that I couldn't decide on what build to use, by all means. It was so bad that I gave up on the quest in general. I could've made a hammerdin or a blizzard sorc or a javazon, but I didn't want to use this standard baal runners. They're powerful, but they're not what I like to play. I think it's important to have a build you like, if you want to level it that high. And of course it is also important that the build you choose is strong enough to do the runs quickly. Finding a build that includes both characteristics was kinda hard for me, but there are some builds that are also powerful, but not used by that many people, for example:

A lightning sorc. Yes, this isn't really innovative or anything, but it's something different from the chars everybody uses to run baal. It's also a quite underestimated build imho. At least I did underestimate it at first. My first 1.10 character was a pure lightning sorc which I enjoyed very much. The problem was the lack of damage because I had very bad equipment. I blamed the low minimum damage for my problems and ended up being frustrated and deleting her. Nevertheless I know that the lightning skill tree is my favourite one of the sorceress. Therefore I later made a FO/CL sorc which was quite cool, but not strong enough to run /p8 baal. With this sorc I made MANY LK runs in the last 2 months. I found a Sur and a Lo rune, but more important: I cubed many skillers. With this skillers I could finally make a pretty cool lightning sorc this thread is about. I chose the element lightning because there are no lightning immune monsters in baal's waves.

So, now to the more interesting stuff:

Hera, the lightning Sorc


That's her. I'm pretty satisfied with her. You can maybe guess most of her equipment, but here it is in detail:

Griffon's Eye w/ lightning facet
The Oculus w/ 15 allres jewel
Skin of the Vipermagi w/ lightning facet
Mosar's Blessed Circle w/ 2 x lightning facet
Mara's Caleidoscope
Frostburn
Arachnid Mesh
2 x SoJ

and these boots:

Spirit Stalker
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 10
Durability: 16 of 18
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xa0bca8c1
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +13%
11% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Faster Run/Walk
Half Freeze Duration

On switch she has:

+2 CtA
Lidless Wall w/ Ort Rune

The inventory holds:

7 x Sparking GC
40% MF Gheeds
Life/Mana SCs (17/14, 18/15, 20/16, 13/17, 14/15)
20 Life SCs
Horadrim Cube

Mercenary: Act 2 Defiance Aura:

Kira's Guardian
Guardian Angel
Kelpie-Snare

The equipment is rather standard I guess, except maybe The Oculus and Moser's Circle. I chose the Oculus over Eschuta's because the +light damage is very insignificant and Oculus has nice resistances/mf/life/mana... Moser's Circle was handy because I needed resistances and I could put facets in there for more dmg. I'm non-RWM, so 30k is pretty good imho. No spirit and so on...
Moser's also has a low strength requirement which was helpful when going vita only. It was a tough decision between this way and maxblock, but I thought that I just might not have enough life for all the elemental attacks. Maxblock makes you more durable, but if you have a CtA you lose a real chunk of life and that's not worth it imho. And it works. My merc can take most of the damage for me and the ctc teleport of the Oculus often saves me when Lister's pack or something hits me hard. In fact the ctc has been more helpful than annoying to me so far.

So... the Gheeds is used because I only had 7 and not 8 skillers. But I'm glad I did so, now she has at least 101 MF (thanks Corrupted!). She has already found a grailer, Ravenlore.

You see that she has the Horadrim Cube in her inventory. This is because she needs a means against gloams. Those are the only LIs that sometimes show up in the throne room. In the cube there's a rare sorc wand with +2 to firewall and +2 to fire mastery. With +all skills she gets a firewall dmg of ~1171 which is enough to kill gloams at /p1 because they have 0 fire resistance and only 2-5k life...
I've tried a wand with lvl 2 lower resist charges as well. It can break the immunity, but I couldn't do it fluently. Nevertheless, when there're many gloams it's most of the time quickest to abort the run anyway...

Apart from that the runs are very quick and easy. The average run time comes close to that of a blizzballer or hammerdin. I wouldn't have thought that it works so well. Depending on the number of monsters in the throne before the waves spawn I can sometimes do runs in ~3:00 minutes... o_O Pretty cool, I don't want to know how this owns with an infinity...

It doesn't happen really often that one of the uniques of the waves is LI. Colenzo was ONCE immune in all my runs from 83-93. Then Bartuc and Lister are sometimes LI, but not really often either. They're guided to the bottom of the throne room then, so that baal casts the next waves.

Baal himself is the easiest part of the run: Tele right on top of him, cast static, namelock him, kill him offscreen (so that his manaburn doesn't hit me). With the Kelpie Snare of the merc he rarely does anything (thanks grogs, even a non-eth, non-upped one works wonders).

Btw, what I like about her too is that thanks to static field and teleport being lightning skills they are of a pretty high level. My mana regenerates while teleporting and my static field reaches the whole screen... That's so cool!


Well well, in the end I have to say that this character is much fun for me. I must have forgotten something of what I wanted to say because I have so much to say about this char. I might add somethin later, but that's it for now.
She's lvl 93 for a few days now and has maxed all her important skills (standard lightning sorc skills). I plan to level her at least to lvl 95 because that would be my personal level record in 1.10+ (I have two lvl 94 chars who I don't want to level further because they're not too good and not enough fun for longtime play...). Maybe I'll get even further... The problem is that I'm rather short of time. Right now I'm in Christmas stress. I'll have holidays from next week on, but then there's also my girlfriend who means more to me than D2. And after the holidays the final exams of my Abitur are near (in 3 months).

However, thanks for listening (if you did :p). Feel free to ask questions or post suggestions on how to improve my character.

-Reborn
 
Originally posted by San on Mar 19, 2007:

Introducing: Matriarch SparkingNoodle

My second sorc of the Noodle series! This one was created quite long ago, but I only got the inspiration to continue from Normal act 2 when I got to MPing with Zarf and Ray the other week. After that, she was the quickest Mat I've made.

Level: 82 (78 when Mat'ed)

Strength: 75 (82)
Dexterity: 165 (186)
Vitality: 225 (230)
Energy: 35 (40)

Life: 637
Mana: 395

Resists:
Fire: 69
Cold: 75
Lightning: 75
Poison: 62

Skills:
20 Lightning
20 Chain Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Charged Bolt
8 Nova
1 Warmth, Teleport, Telekinesis, Static, Thunderstorm

Lightning damage: 5-14,4 K
Chain Lightning: 5-6,8K

Equipment:

HotO Flail (40%!)
Mara's (24%)
Griffon's Eye (+12%/-17%)
Vipermagi (35%) [To be socketed with a Lightning Facet, once I find one]
Visceratuant (upped, Pdiamond)
Arachnid's Mesh
Wisp Projetcor (19%/20%)
SoJ
Natalya's Soul
Magefist

Charms: 1 skiller, two Mana/FRW GC's, LC with 8% all resists, SC's with resists/life.

Edit: Oh yeah, the moron. Well, my merc was quite useful this time, due to the Insight he beared.

Merc equipment:
Insight (eth Partizan)
Duriel's Shell
Vampire's Gaze
 
Originally posted by Serdash on Oct 12, 2005:

Matriarch Jade(1.10)

Matriarch Jade
Level 78 Sorceress
Build - Lightning

Stats:
Str - 72
Dex - 150
Vit - 256
Nrg - 67

Life - 1034
Mana - 613

Resistances:
Fire - 32
Cold - 62
Lightning - 45
Poison - 32

Skills:
Cold Spells
Nothing

Lightning Spells
Charged Bolt - 20(30)
Static Field - 1(11)
Telekenesis - 1(11)
Nova - 5(15)
Lightning - 20(30)
Chain Lightning - 20(30)
Teleport - 1(11)
Lightning Mastery - 20(30)

Fire Spells
Warmth - 1(10)

Gear:
Helm - Harlequin Crest(PTopaz)
Amulet - Mara's Kaleidoscope(24%)
Weapon - Escuta's Temper(+3 Sorc/+25 Energy/+15% Lightning Skill Damage)
Armor - Skin of the Vipermagi(Um, 49%)
Shield - Whitstan's Guard(PDiamond)
Gloves - Trang O'ul's Claws
Belt - Nightsmoke
Boots - Silkweaves
Ring 1 - Stone of Jordan
Ring 2 - Ravenfrost(+17 Dex)
Charms Giving A Total Of:
+1 To Lightning Skills(Sorceress Only), 248 Life, 51 Mana, 10 to Maximum Stamina(omgz!1), 1-19 Lightning Damage(omfgzzz!!11), 13% Lightning Resist

Lightning Damage: 5 - 13,026
Chain Lightning Damage: 5 - 6,190 (11 Hits)

Mercenary:
Pratham - Act 2 Holy Freeze Mercenary
Level 77
Reaper's Toll
Ethereal Shaftstop/Upgrade Duriel's Shell
Vampire Gaze/Guillaumes Face

Overall this character was pretty fun through normal and nightmare. Once I got to hell, it was crap. I ended up teleporting through most of hell, hence the very low level for matriarch. While I don't know what I'll retire her to doing(since I don't really know what she's good at) I can't say it was really a bad character. But it was most certainly somewhat fun.

Not really many noted drops along the way except hell hellforge, which dropped me a Gul rune. Awesome stuff, there. So yes.

Eh... that's all I can think of. Any questions?
 
Originally posted by sevenOfDiamonds on Dec 4, 2011:

Matriarch Jannu - 200 FCR light sorc

Introduction


I have for a long time wanted to make a 200 FCR sorc. Previously I had my eyes locked in on the fire variety. The only issue is that I am a couple of high quality items short of making that build. When the MFL moved to cows I remembered my old lite sorc (117+ES variety) ripping cows apart. I then came to realise: Why not make a 200 FCR lite sorc.
This project is now concluded.

As most of my sorcs I rush them to NM Larzuk. I find this a fun challenge rather than just plow through normal+NM without a sense of purpose.
I tried a new tactic this, namely pure fire. I.e. I pumped Fball and later meteor combined with a +3 Fball Leaf staff and a +3 Meteor Leaf on switch.
I did not beat my previous rush times, but it primarily is related to two things: too many hangover-induced deaths and playing at a too high players setting in NM. But I think this setup is superior to the melee -> fire -> blizzard approach.

Skills+Gear

LCS
Code:
Name:       Jannu
Class:      Sorceress
Experience: 1381299103
Level:      88

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   149/156
Dexterity:  35/45
Vitality:   261/283
Energy:     35/45
HP:         689/854
Mana:       209/489
Stamina:    412/412
Defense:    8/1769
AR:         125/196

Fire:       147/107/47
Cold:       148/108/48
Lightning:  155/115/55
Poison:     165/125/65

MF:         0       Block:      7
GF:         0
FR/W:       30
FHR:        60
IAS:        0
FCR:        200

Fire Bolt: 0/0
Warmth: 1/10
Inferno: 0/0
Blaze: 0/0
Fire Ball: 0/0
Fire Wall: 0/0
Enchant: 0/0
Meteor: 0/0
Fire Mastery: 0/0
Hydra: 0/0

Charged Bolt: 20/35
Static Field: 1/16
Telekinesis: 1/16
Nova: 15/30
Lightning: 20/35
Chain Lightning: 20/35
Teleport: 1/16
Thunder Storm: 0/0
Energy Shield: 0/0
Lightning Mastery: 20/35

Ice Bolt: 0/0
Frozen Armor: 0/0
Frost Nova: 0/0
Ice Blast: 0/0
Shiver Armor: 0/0
Glacial Spike: 0/0
Blizzard: 0/0
Chilling Armor: 0/0
Frozen Orb: 0/0
Cold Mastery: 0/0

She wears
Griffon's (-22/+18 facet'd)
Hoto (38@)
Vipermagi (13/50 Um'd)
Spirit
Magefist
Arach
Silkweave
3L/10FCR ammy
106 mana/10 FCR ring
5@ + 10LR + 10 Ene + FCR ring

Switch Cta (4BO/5BC) + Spirit

Freezer merc wears:
Andys (Vex or Fervor depending on situation)
ebugged Fortitude
eGPA Infinity

Progress
Completing NM was uneventful. Champed her at 68. Spend time until 76 in WSK.

Hell (/p8 all the way) started very easy. Act 1 does not provide many challenges, maybe except an unbreakable Griswold. When I reached 80 I put on Arachs and the FCR rings and from then on I held RMB down and watched the minimap. Whenever a champ/boss or quest item popped up I stopped tp'ing but did little else.
All this blind tp'ing did get her into some trouble, eg. in one of the temples I blindly teleported into a room full of Wailng Deaths boosted by fanatism. OHK before she even got her feet on the ground.
Best thing about 200 FCR is that you can just avoid ANYTHING. I don't think I killed a single monster in Dur1+Dur2. What a relief not to worry about killing some pita dolls.
With near max resist gloams in Act 4 did not provide any significant problems either. Big D was more dangerous than I remember (probably because my last visits to CS was with a LFzon - who pokes the poor guy to death within seconds). After some circling around him, he could not take beeing hosed no more and he dropped. Of course he did drop no items of real value. Best thing was a perfect Butcher's. Well well Jannu is running with 0% MF so I wasn't expecting the world anyway.
Act 5 was just more teleporting. Gloams and succubi down by the river slowed the game down quite a bit, but no NDEs.
Died @ Nihl2 because I insisted on standing a fighting 25+ flayers instead of tp'ing to a better position. Got a lucky spawn in Nhl3 so that presented no problems.
The ancients also spawned with no LI. It was all over before my 120 seconds BO expired. Waves were as easy as ever. Baal at /p8 is so frigging boring but he bowed in the end and another matriarch has rising to throne.

Finds
Gul from HF
Plain 7% MF charm
Plain dSummon skiller
26AR/19 Life small charm
And for once a semi-decent gift from Ormus
Code:
Beast Coil
Ring
Required Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0x407d04f0
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Minimum Damage
+114 to Attack Rating
4% Life stolen per hit
+7 to Strength
+62 to Mana
Lightning Resist +30%

Future
With zero MF she is bound to wreck havoc in the moo moo farm. But first she will go play with her good friends Colenzo, Achmel, Bartuc, Ventar and Lister.


Thanks for reading!
 
Originally posted by SimontheBulletFreak on Dec 28, 2005:

Matriarch KyrasLight:the Charged Boltress

It's been awhile since I posted a mat/pat even though I've had several. Here is the latest.

KyrasLight lvl 80 sorc

Stats with gear
str:169
dex: 135
vit: 263
ene: 57
resists in hell: 23/56/70/40
life:973 mana 930

skill allocation:
maxed charged bolt, lightning, lightning mastery, frozen orb
frozen orb dam: 419-440
charged bolt dam: 476-500 (24 bolts)

gear:
Harley w/cold facet
upped Skin of Vipermagi w/Um
Oculus w/lightning facet
"Spirit" monarch
Frostburn/War Travs/Gloom'sTrap
Ravenfrost/SoJ/Powered Amulet of the Whale(+3 Lightning Skills w/+92 life)

x1 Gheeds
x3 skillers wit some +str mods
rest were resists and +mana/life

Holy Freeze merc with Tal's Helm/Reaper's Toll/Duriel's

I LOVED this character. Sorry guys but why is everyone making meteorb sorcs? This was much easier and just plain more fun. Crowd control was such a breeze. I threw a Cathan's Set on her at ealier levels which made getting started easier. I've always hated starting casters since your mana dries up so much. I've gambled a lot of +mana rings which I use until I can pull out the soj and ravenfrost.

This is the first character I've played in a long time that I can say I never died fighting a boss on any difficulty. God bless static field is all I can say. Of course, I also put a point in warmth and frozen armor. If I continue to play her, I'll max cold mastery.

And as for drops...OMG! I couldn't believe my luck! She had 166 magic find by the end. My NM hell forge was an Um, which went in my Skin. The Hell hellforge was a Hel (dung). But the real shockers came in A3 Hell in the Disused Fane where Ondal's Wisdom Elder Staff dropped from a Yeti-like monster. Then a Griswold's Caduceus dropped in Durance level 2. This is the only piece of the set I have ever dropped save the armor. But the bosses, true to form, gave me the green breast plate and not much else.

All in all, my favorite sorc build from all patches. Next up will either be a windydruid or a light trapper.
 
Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Sep 23, 2006:

Matriarch Zapmebaby - 200 FCR Charged Boltress (RWM)

It's been a while since I actually wrote up a mat/pat thread, so here's a basic writeup:


****
Why?
There are a couple of great guides in the stickies for a Charged Boltress (CRG's and Lira Lindriel's), but neither of those really takes RWM into account.

Looking through CRG's equipment, I realized that with my Griffon's, 20% FCR Ammy, and a perfect Spirit shield, I could use a different weapon than Wizardspike and also drop a FCR ring for my SoJ (in addition to the upgraded shield). So, I'd gain +5 skills overall, 25% Mana pool, and ~20% Lightning damage, +22 Vitality, etc. but I'd loose out on resists. The results:


Matriarch Zapmebaby
Level: 80
Life: 870 /1481
Mana: 632 / 930
Resists: 60/61/72/61

Str: 156
Dex: 25
Vit: 301
Ene: 70

Skills:
20 Charged Bolt (465 - 492 damage, 24 bolts)
20 Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Frozen Orb (445 - 466 damage)
2+ Cold Mastery
1 Warmth, Teleport, Static Field, and Prereq's

Items:
W1: Eschuta's (perfect except 15% fire, socketed with 3/-4 Lightning Levelup facet)
S1: Spirit Shield (35% FCR)
W2: CtA (+6 BO, +5 BC)
S2: Spirit Shield (35%)
Helm: Griffon's Eye (11/-17, socketed with 5/-3 Lightning Die facet)
Armor: Vipermagi (35% resist, socketed with 7%resist/+5 Energy jewel - thanks lemming)
Gloves: Magefist
Belt: Arachnids (used T'Gods while leveling)
Boots: Silkweave
Ammy: Crafted Caster Ammy (+1 Sorc Skills, 20% FCR, 10% Mana Regen., etc.)
Ring: SoJ
Ring: Rare (FCR, 11% Resists, 22 Life, 25 Mana, etc.)
Charms: 1xChilling, 3xSparking, resists/life

Notes:
- I died twice (Ancients & somewhere I was too lazy to drink a potion - don't remember where)
- Merc was a A2 Holy Freeze meat shield (Reapers, Shaft, Vamp)
- Fun to play, 200 FCR is sweet
- The Viper Temple is really the only dangerous area (those snakes are fast)
- A wall of Charged Bolts is a pretty cool thing to watch
- Hellforge was Io/Lum. Meh.
- Hell Baal sux. I think I had better drops in Normal Difficulty.
- I think Hotspurs was the most notable item I found. Thul was the highest rune.
- I actually had to reroll the Ancients a few times, and eventually I had to separate them (usually I just 'muddle' through), they were hard this time (although it's probably because I didn't have any Crushing Blow on the merc, and I forgot to use Static Field 👅)


Questions/Comments are welcome
 
Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Feb 27, 2009:

Matriarch Revolt!!!

OK, the thread title's a little misleading, since none of my matriarchs have started a revolution.

Yet.

However, my new Lightning sorc, Revolt, has made matriarch so...

LCS

Gear:

Crescent Moon Crystal Sword
Spirit (35)
Vipermagi (50 resists with jewel)
Arachnid's Mesh
Griffon's Eye
crafted amulet (+2 Lightning skills, 10 FCR, 15 resists, 31 life, 19 mana) <-- nice, eh?
2x SoJ
Dracul's Grasp
Wartrav's

Switch: beta-CtA Caduceus + Spirit
Charms:
- 5x Sparking (+22 life, stuff)
- various 'Shimmering' charms (+44 resist all)
- assorted +Resistance charms with 2nd mods (FHR, Life, & MF)

Merc: Might aura + Infinity Thresher + Fortitude AP + VampGaze (IAS)


Skills:
20 Lightning
20 CL
20 CB
20 LM
11+ Nova
1 Warmth, teleport, prereq's

+15 lightning skills
+8 fire skills


Notes:
1. I had to cube ~15 Ko's and ~10 Fal's to be able to make the Um for the Crescent Moon. I think my supply of medium-high & high runes could officially use a boost. :p

2. Of course that meant my hellforge was "perfect": El/Sol/Hel. :banghead:

3. Lister dropped Halaberd's Reign, and other than a couple of decent SC's (29/12 Steel of Sustenance being the best) there weren't any other notable finds.

4. She didn't have any problems killing broken immunities. At all. She did encounter 2-3 unbreakable LI's, but Pratham didn't have any real problems with those.

5. 0 Deaths, ~5 NDE's. She's a little fragile around the wrong swarm, but she's not the first sorc to experience that. Hell was done on /players5 until the RoF waypoint in Act4, then it was /players1 just to finish her off.

6a. If she had one issue that I'd like to improve, it would be her mana supply. A different weapon (or Frostburns for gloves) would've helped there, but potions were able to do the trick well enough. Still, I used Lightning ~80% of the time because the cost of CL was just too much mana (and the damage was noticeably lower on higher settings).
6b. A little more MF would be nice too.
6c. So some minor gear-tweaking isn't a bad idea, but I was lazy and just focused on her casting speed (117+ FCR), power against broken immunities (-57 ELR), and having high resistances. After those were ok, I just went for as many +skills as I could get.

7a. As I mentioned in the other thread, she's ridiculously powerful. 1-2 hit kills with Lightning were the norm, even on /players5.
7b. Also as I mentioned in the other thread, she wasn't especially fun. Teleport a bit, then spam Lightning a bit... then teleport some more and spam some more lightning. The strategy was powerful and effective, but also uninteresting and fairly monotonous.

8. Up next. She'll probably get a few Cow runs to see how she compares to Hamburgler, but I'll probably stick with Hamburgler just because she's a little more fun to play (and I don't have to worry about the merc mucking up my herding). I might swing by the Countess a few times, but I suspect I'd still prefer one of my nova sorcs for that.

Otherwise I suspect she'll end up in the retirement bin - this simply wasn't the build for me, despite her awesome power.
 
Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Sep 14, 2008:

Matriarch ES: Energy Shield/Nova Sorceress

Another sorc, trying a few ideas:

1. I've tried Energy Shield a few times and was always very underwhelmed with the results. On paper it looks like such an awesome skill - lots of damage reduction against physical and (most) elemental attacks and it almost negates the need for resists... but in reality, it never seemed to add any survivability, and in some cases (manaburn) it seemed to actually make the sorc significantly more fragile.

So, this was my attempt to finally get an Energy Shield that I found tolerable. The previous (~five) attempts were single-point or medium-investment attempts, and had pretty poor results, so I decided to go all-out with ES this time, as well as try to squeeze some PDR & MDR on there to negate a lot of the damage would've made it to my lifebulb.

2. As for Nova, I've done it before (several times), but always on /players1. I like it a lot, but I figured with all of the +skills I need/want for EnergyShield, I should just go all-out and see how a (mostly) /players8 Novasorc can do. Also, at some point I decided to complete every quest in Hell, just because. Since I don't have Infinity, that means Lightning Immunes are an issue, but teleport can be such a nice thing. :whistling:

3. The Occulus. A lot of people complain about the random teleport, but I don't mind it so much. I decided to use it to try to objectively observe if it really made me more or less safe... I was mostly hoping it would be a life-saver around manaburners.

Anyways, on to the details:


Matriarch ES (not my most original name, to be sure)
Level85
Str: 166
Dex: 73
Vit: 50 (107 with gear)
Ene: 285

Life: 757
Mana: 2219
Resists: 15f/29/29/75p


Skills:
Nova: 39
LM: 39
TK: 39
ES: 39 (94% absorb, 14 PDR, 15 MDR, +8 magic absorb, 12% Damage to Mana)
GS: 16+, I think
1-pointers: CM, Warmth, Teleport, Static

Nova Damage: 1918 - 2505 (before -17% on the Griffon's)
GS Damage: 185 - 202 :p


Gear:
Armour: Fortitude
Belt: String of Ears
Gloves: Dracul's Grasp <--- at this point you'd think this was a melee sorc. :crazyeyes:

W1: Occulus (+15% resist jewel)
S1: Spirit
Helm: Griffon's (Sol)
Boots: Sandstorm Trek's
Rings: 2x SoJ
Ammy: Powered of Perfection (+3/18 Dex)

W2: beta-CtA Caddy
S2: Spirit
7x Sparking Skillers
+mana/fire-resist charms of balance/life/FRW/plainness (86+ FHR breakpoint reached)

Stash: +3 Firewall 'Leaf' staff (used for immunes before points were spent in GS)


Merc: level85, Defiance
Insight CA
eStone (not ebugged)
VampGaze


Notable Finds:
Shael/Lem Hellforge
Emerald Jewel of Prosperity (+14% MF... woot ;-)
eth 4-socket Thresher
rare circlet (+1 sorc skills, 20 FCR, +9 resists, stuff)
rare light belt (+30 str, 10 FHR, 18 Fresist, 21 Lresist)
Taebaek's Glory
Lacerator
Lum rune
Artisan's Light Plate of the Squid (shopped from Larzuk)



Review:
1. Equipment & Other Decisions:
- Skin of Vipermagi vs Fortitude. In this case, I really liked the Fortitude. 29 resists, +127 life, 7 PDR, 12% DTM, and 25% FCR are actually pretty decent mods for this sorc, and I felt the were worth the lost +skill and a few resists from Vipermagi.

- Drac's vs. Frostburns. I used Frosties for a long time, but the extra ~400 mana was pretty insignificant. The +10 life per kill on Drac's was not, especially once...

- Prayer vs. Defiance merc. After a couple quick-fire resurrections at one point in Hell, I decided to go with the Defiance merc so he could tank a little better. I used Prayer for quite a while, but mostly found the regeneration to be unneeded.

- Sol vs. Facet. ... yes, I removed the old (5/3) facet to put in a Sol in my Griffon's. I've been thinking about resocketing a better facet anyways, and I wanted the extra PDR in this case.

- String of Ears vs. Arachnid's Mesh. I wanted the +15 MDR, and thought it would be worth the +1 skill. I think it was.


2. Energy Shield worked quite well this time - I actually liked it. My mana supply and regeneration was high enough that mana burners were seldom a problem - usually ES stayed active even after a hit or two. In fact, the only time manaburners were real problem was if they also spawned Extra-fast... my regeneration was enough to teleport away from most of them, but the extra-fast packs could sometimes get in 2-4 hits in rapid succession. In fact, the only three times I died were to this combination of mods:

First Death: a Skeleton double-boss pack in the Inner Cloister, with 1 boss being 'harmless', and I simply didn't notice the 2nd one until I'd teleported into their midst and my mana pool disappeared. If I'd paid better attention I would've lived easily.

Second Death: right in the 'orifice room' in Act2. 3-4 Champion Horadrim Ancients, a manaburn/conviction beetle pack, and an extra-fast beetlepack. I managed to clear many of the undead, but the ancients kept resurrecting them, and I couldn't get to the Ancients for the beetles. I tried to lure some beetles out, but got swarmed too quickly, and that was that. Not sure what I could've done differently there.

Third Death: Blind teleport into the midst of an Extra-fast/manaburn Infidel pack in WSK1 or 2, and Occulus didn't trigger to bail me out in time. Cautious teleporting would've been enough of a difference.


3. Surprisingly, level39 Nova is almost tolerable on /players8 - except against Act bosses (as expected). I stayed /p8 all the way to the RoF waypoint, but it got soooooooo slow against Pit/Venom Lords that I decided to just go to /players1, since it was literally ~3-5 minutes of boredom per pack. However, I did revert to /p8 before opening the seals, fighting Diablo, Ancients, Baal's minions, and Baal, so I don't feel like I really skipped anything significant. The Baal battle was pure misery, as he kept casting that blood-mana curse (or whatever it is) and Nova takes forever to wear him down. The LI/manaburn/thrower Ancient took a while to take down too, but the others went quite well.

I did park a few, but by no means all, lightning immunes. I fought every boss-pack I found, but avoided some large packs of beetles and flayers in Act2 & 3 because they were more tedious than dangerous.

This was also the first time that I killed Nihlathak in Hell, probably since my very first patriarch once upon a time. Serpent's didn't spawn though, so it only half-counts. However, there were no difficulties at all - if I wanted to run him for keys, I now have the sorc to do it. :p


4. I mostly didn't notice about the Occulus. Around Gloams it seemed to trigger continuously, which quickly became frustrating, but otherwise I don't remember it bailing me out of a mana-burn pack to save my life, and I'm positive it didn't once put me in more danger than I had already put myself. Overall, it was a wash... worth using because of the other skills, but not spectacular.


Final Thoughts:
I was much more satisfied with Energy Shield this time. It was previously the one sorceress skill that I simply couldn't stomach. This time I actually found it to be quite useful & beneficial... it's too bad that I had to invest so much to get to that point though; loading up on +mana, +skills, and some PDR/MDR, along with spending 40 skillpoints for a defensive skill simply isn't a viable option for many builds.

So I'm no longer of the opinion that ES sucks for PvM, I just think it's underpowered in reality (... in concept, ES always looks like a great idea).


Up next: no idea
 
Originally posted by Smips on Feb 10, 2010:

Matriarch Living_Spark: The Pure Lightning Sorceress

Matriarch Living_Spark

LCS

Stats and Skills:
Code:
Name:       Living_Spark
Class:      Sorceress
Level:      83

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   144/156
Dexterity:  34/50
Vitality:   277/304
Energy:     35/40
HP:         696/696
Mana:       199/341

Fire:       74
Cold:       75
Lightning:  75
Poison:     75

MF:         0
FR/W:       30
FHR:        55
FCR:        149

Charged Bolt: 20/39
Static Field: 1/20
Telekinesis: 1/20
Nova: 11/30
Lightning: 20/39
Chain Lightning: 20/39
Teleport: 1/20
Lightning Mastery: 20/39

Gear:
Code:
Griffon's Eye
Diadem
Defense: 230
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0x1801fc66
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 47 Chain Lightning when you Die
+1 to All Skills
+25% Faster Cast Rate
Adds 1 - 74 Lightning Damage
-23% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+15% to Lightning Skill Damage
+175 Defense
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rainbow Facet

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xa2209bed
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 47 Chain Lightning when you Die
Adds 1 - 74 Lightning Damage
-4% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+4% to Lightning Skill Damage

Heart of the Oak
Flail
KoVexPulThul
One Hand Damage: 1 - 24
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 55
Required Strength: 41
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0xdbd79977
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to All Skills
+40% Faster Cast Rate
+75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
7% Mana stolen per hit
+10 to Dexterity
Replenish Life +20
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
All Resistances +38
Level 14 Raven (60/60 Charges)
Level 4 Oak Sage (25/25 Charges)
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ko Rune
Socketed: Vex Rune
Socketed: Pul Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune

Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 134
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 81 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0x4af89367
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+34% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+102 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+6 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Mara's Kaleidoscope
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0x93f820aa
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +5
All Resistances +28

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 19 of 24
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0x4e1b892
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Cast Rate
+120% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +49
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Um Rune

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0x1cbf165d
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xf551b663
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 124
Durability: 9 of 12
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xbf840a40
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Slows Target by 10%
+98% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Silkweave
Mesh Boots
Defense: 129
Durability: 15 of 16
Required Level: 36
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x81dba0ae
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Run/Walk
+188% Enhanced Defense
+200 Defense vs. Missile
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
+5 to Mana after each Kill

Frostburn
Gauntlets
Defense: 47
Durability: 22 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 60
Fingerprint: 0xb7142b25
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 6 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+10% Enhanced Defense
+30 Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 40%

Switch:
Code:
Call to Arms
Superior Flail
AmnRalMalIstOhm
One Hand Damage: 3 - 88
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 41
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0x8cd98e82
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
268% Enhanced Damage
+3 to Attack Rating
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to Battle Cry
+4 to Battle Orders
+3 to Battle Command
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Ist Rune
Socketed: Ohm Rune


Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 140
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 85 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0x50c238f5
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+29% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+109 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+6 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Merc:
Code:
Name:       Gulzar
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Comb-Normal
Experience: 63663948
Level:      83
Dead?:      false

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   187/192
Dexterity:  151/156
HP:         1750/1874
Defense:    1288/3058
AR:         1952/448960

Fire:       179/139/79
Cold:       179/139/79
Lightning:  179/139/79
Poison:    179/139/79

Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 29 of 40
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x9909fa03
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 6 - 22 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
8% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+100% Enhanced Defense
15% Slower Stamina Drain
Damage Reduced by 17%
Magic Damage Reduced by 10


Fortitude
Archon Plate
ElSolDolLo
Defense: 1518
Durability: 47 of 60
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0x8746bc1f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Chance to cast level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
300% Enhanced Damage
+200% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+124 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +29
Damage Reduced by 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 to Light Radius
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Lo Rune

Insight
Thresher
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 71 - 736
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 142
Required Dexterity: 108
Fingerprint: 0xf41cdcdc
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 14 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
249% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
229% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+5 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Thoughts:
After making my pure Fire Sorceress, I decided it would be a nice idea to build a 'powerhouse' sorceress of each skill tree. Living_Spark is part two of this and she's a pure lightning Sorceress. With the nerfing of Lightning Mastery in 1.13, I figured this would be a bit interesting.

Normal was typical. Twinked on some Envy gear to get me to level 15. After that, I threw on the Ravenclaw and started laying waste to everything. Oh, and my Enchantress helped. Elderitch got me up to level 42, so I threw on The Oculus and my 7 Sparkling skillers and continued on. Normal was wrapped up quickly and with no problems.

Again, Nightmare was pathetic. I quickly began equipping my end game gear like HotO and Spirit. Harlequin Crest was used at 62 until I was able to equip Griffon's. Everything was a breeze and I leveled against Baal until I was level 76. I did see my first lightning immunity in Act 4 though. I just ported past them or let my mercenary take them out.

I decided to play Hell at players 8 as much as I could since that's what I did with my pure Fire sorceress. Act 1 went rather smoothly. Anything not lightning immune ws mowed down in a second, including Andariel. Act 2 was much of the same and it lacks a lot of lightning immunes as it is. However, Tal Rasha's Tomb was a bit difficult. It spawned with tons of lightning immune beetles, so I basically had to port through it. I probably could have thrown on my Lower Resist wand that was in my cube, but I opted not to. Duriel went down and it was off to Act 3. I rush through Act 3 with the modified DLL, so I can't really say much here. I tuned it down to players 1 for the council and even then they were a bit of a pain. The fire immune one's went down fast, but my mercenary had to poke all the lightning immunes to death. Mephisto went down like the past two Bosses. Act 4 brought me back up to players 8 for most of it. I didn't run into too many lightning immunes, but they did make my battle with Izual a bit interesting. I made my way down through the River of Flame and opted to turn the players setting down to 1 so my merc could poke the lightning immunes. Players 1 basically means that she obliterated everything that wasn't lightning immune, so there were no problems there. After popping the seals, it only took a few Statics and Lightnings to take out Big D. Act 5 again brought my to players 8. After setting out, I thought about dropping the players setting however. It wasn't because of my kill speed, it was because the first 4 packs of monsters I ran into were skeleton archer boss packs. I fought through it though and kept on my way. I didn't have too many lightning immunes to deal with throughout Act 5 luckily and when they were around I could Teleport around them. I did turn down the players setting to 1 for the Ancient's Way though. It was all ranged attackers and lightning immunes. The Ancient's themselves were ver easy on players 1 and they brought me my final level up. I went back to players 8 for the World Stone Keep. Unfortunately, two levels had quite a few lightning immunes, so I had to Teleport a lot. I cleared the Throne room with little trouble and dropped down to players 3 for Baal's minions and Baal himself. Everything went down quick and without any trouble.

After playing through with her, I can't say I have too many complaints. The big one would probably be that I did with with no MF. I don't feel like Lightning sorceresses are ruined now with Lightning Mastery being nerfed, but without Infinity it would be difficult to keep you damage up high enough to do players 8 MF runs with her. I am going to see how she does against Hell Cows for some rune hunting however. I don't think she was inferior to the pure Fire sorceress I made earlier, but she may be more restricted in terms of MFing.
 
Originally posted by SunsetVista on Aug 20, 2012:

Matriarch Kira
ES/Nova Base Vita Sorceress
Untwinked, Single Pass, Softcore 1.13 RWM GoMule

Name: Kira
Class: Sorceress
Experience: 979047257
Level: 84

Stats: Naked/Gear
Strength: 130/156
Dexterity: 25/28
Vitality: 10/59
Energy: 345/357
HP: 183/477
Mana: 821/1238
Stamina: 157/212
Defense: 6/563
AR: 75/196

Resists:
Fire: 65/25/-35
Cold: 90/50/-10
Lightning: 82/42/-18
Poison: 176/136/76

Skills: Naked/Gear
Nova 20/30
Telekinesis 20/30
Energy Shield 20/30 (34 with Memory switch)
Lightning Mastery 20/30
Static Field 4/14
Warmth 7/14
Charged Bolt 1/11
Lightning 1/11
Chain Lightning 1/11
Teleport 1/11

GEAR:
Code:
Head:
-----
Kira's Gale Visage
Circlet
'Sol'
Defense: 24
Durability: 33 of 35
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x13eddaf2
+21 to Strength
+106 to Attack Rating
Damage Reduced by 7
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
30% Faster Run/Walk
16% Damage to Demons
+29 to Attack Rating against Demons
+1 to Lightning Skills (Sorceress Only)
Socketed (1: 1 used)
-----
Amulet:
-----
Powered Amulet of Dexterity
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x86118a3a
+2 to Dexterity
+3 to Lightning Skills (Sorceress Only)
-----
Body:
-----
Enlightenment
Cuirass
'PulRalSol'
Defense: 260
Durability: 36 of 50
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0xace805ce
+30% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 7
Fire Resist +30%
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+1 to Warmth
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fire Ball on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Blaze when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)
-----
Belt:
-----
Plague Buckle
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 42
Durability: 8 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 70
Fingerprint: 0x4f6675f4
+38 to Life
+20 to Mana
+15% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 4%
17% Faster Hit Recovery
6% Faster Cast Rate
-----
Ring 1:
-----
Raven Eye
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 72
Fingerprint: 0x381871aa
+12 to Energy
+5 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 3
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Lightning Resist +10%
Poison Resist +25%
5% Chance to cast Level 3 Chain Lightning on attack
-----
Ring 2:
-----
Manald Heal
Ring
Required Level: 15
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xdd64010e
+20 to Life
Regenerate Mana 20%
5% Mana stolen per hit
Replenish Life +7
-----
Gloves:
-----
Glyph Finger
Leather Gloves
Defense: 3
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0x3e96f0
+17 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 7%
Fire Resist +5%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
+3 to Mana After Each Kill
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds
-----
Boots:
-----
Corpse Blazer
Boots
Defense: 8
Durability: 5 of 12
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x5f1b2a36
+14 to Mana
+123% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 10%
Cold Resist +19%
Increase Maximum Mana 2%
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Weapon:
-----
Spirit
Superior Crystal Sword
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 7 to 25
Durability: 11 of 11
Required Strength: 33
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 38
Fingerprint: 0x7770382b
+22 to Vitality
+89 to Mana
+14% Enhanced Damage
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
55% Faster Hit Recovery
32% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+6 Magic Absorb
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)
-----
Shield:
-----
Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 219
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 34 of 44
Required Strength: 146
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7be2e37e
+22 to Vitality
+111 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
26% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+6 Magic Absorb
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)
-----
Weapon Switch:
-----
Memory
Gnarled Staff
'LumIoSolEth'
Two-Hand Damage: 13 to 14
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 37
Staff Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0x4c126e6d
+10 to Energy
+10 to Vitality
+50% Enhanced Defense
+9 to Minimum Damage
Magic Damage Reduced by 7
Increase Maximum Mana 20%
+3 to Sorceress Skill Levels
33% Faster Cast Rate
+3 to Energy Shield (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Energy Shield (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Thunder Storm (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Meteor (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Static Field (Sorceress Only)
-25% Target Defense
150% Damage to Undead
Socketed (4: 4 used)
-----

Charms:
Code:
Charms:
-----
Lizard's Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb52a7d16
+12 to Life
+5 to Mana
-----
Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x4b6344d6
+12 to Life
-----
Beryl Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 17
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 52
Fingerprint: 0x59c7b23
+15 to Life
Poison Resist +4%
-----
Emerald Large Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x4ec7369f
+8 to Life
Poison Resist +14%
-----
Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x292c35e3
82% Extra Gold from Monsters
34% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Reduces All Vendor Prices 12%
-----
Viridian Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 10
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x9faeb811
+1 to Dexterity
Poison Resist +7%
-----
Lapis Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 68
Fingerprint: 0xecd12efd
+17 to Life
Cold Resist +6%
-----
Beryl Large Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 9
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 57
Fingerprint: 0x7fe245a0
+15 to Life
Poison Resist +5%
-----
Lizard's Large Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xbcd79b89
+19 to Life
+7 to Mana
-----
Snake's Grand Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0x93aa637b
+5 to Strength
+39 to Mana
-----
Snake's Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xe5ff3dc4
+24 to Life
+33 to Mana
-----
Rugged Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 14
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 7
Fingerprint: 0xc368b796
+10 to Life
+7 to Maximum Stamina
-----
Snake's Grand Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 73
Fingerprint: 0xcc4e1c8c
+35 to Mana
12% Faster Hit Recovery
-----
Emerald Grand Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 22
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x8abd36f3
Poison Resist +27%
12% Faster Hit Recovery
-----
Ocher Small Charm of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 14
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 16
Fingerprint: 0x4f41b391
+6 to Life
Lightning Resist +7%
-----
Emerald Grand Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 22
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0xafc44811
Poison Resist +29%
35% Extra Gold from Monsters
-----

Mercenary:
Name: Ilzan
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Comb-Normal
Experience: 65979776
Level: 84
Dead?: false

Naked/Gear
Strength: 188/193
Dexterity: 152/157
HP: 1790/1850
Defense: 1317/1925
AR: 1961/451030

Fire: 166/126/66
Cold: 196/156/96
Lightning: 166/126/66
Poison: 166/126/66

Merc Gear:
Code:
Head:
-----
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 100
Durability: 18 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 57
Fingerprint: 0x53c70edc
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit
-----
Body:
-----
Treachery
Kraken Shell
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 508
Durability: 39 of 48
Required Strength: 174
Required Level: 61
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0xd9f18b01
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fade when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)
-----
Weapon:
-----
Insight
Thresher
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 47 to 448
Durability: 46 of 65
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 152
Required Level: 53
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xb8072324
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+218% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+5 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
229% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 15 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)
-----

Notes About the Character:
The name comes from the Magic card, Kira, the Great Glass-Spinner. Kira is a legendary spirit that creates a shield of force around creatures that counters spells targeted at those creatures. Thus, Energy Shield. I hadn't made a Nova sorc before and since Nova wouldn't need many skill points, I thought I'd have plenty for ES. I knew I'd need a lot of mana, both to cast Nova and for ES, so I went base vita and put all the points in energy after str enough to wear gear.
I read jiasonz guide to untwinked, single pass magic finding, and thought I would try it out, doing full clears whenever possible. Turns out, it was a blast, even with this underpowered build.

Gameplay Notes Specific to ES/Nova:
This build took some time to get started. I started using Nova and ES somewhat effectively in the Normal Flayer Jungle as soon as I could start putting points in Lightning Mastery. Early on, the short duration of ES was dangerous and I had to be careful to refresh it often. Nova took a lot of mana and Kira definitely had a blue potion addiction. I found an ethereal poleaxe in Act 5 and had Larzuk punch 4 holes in it to make Insight. Insight made a huge difference. For the rest of Normal Act 5, it was fun to teleport into packs and Nova everything.

I had to carefully balance mana costs, so skill point allocation was important. I got the prerequisite skills as they became available. I put 10 points into Nova, and then put the rest into Telekinesis until lvl 30 when I could start pumping Lightning Mastery. Then I maxed Lightning Mastery, then brought Telekinesis to 16, then brought Energy Shield to 8, then maxed Nova, then maxed Energy Shield, then finally finished off Telekinesis. Skillpoints gained after that went into static field until I was happy with its range, and then warmth to help with mana regen.

I had my first experience with the blood mana curse in the Crystalline Passage. In Normal I just let the merc kill things while I was cursed, but in later difficulties I would try to get cursed with the Lower Defense Curse by letting the merc approach first and standing right behind him, so that I could kill things too. Against Baal, I would portal back to town to get healed to remove the curse.

The first significant monster I successfully tanked using ES was Nightmare Andariel. I tried to use antidote potions to increase my poison resist, but that ended up not helping much. The merc, even with antidote potions, died so fast. I got sick of ressing him, so I decided to tank/kite/nova Andariel for short bursts until the poison would bring my hp close to 1. Then I would portal out, get healed, and repeat. The same strategy worked for Hell Andariel, although it was tough.

At lvl 52 I began to craft some caster boots for later. I ended up doing a lot of crafting (mostly at slightly higher lvl, to get ilvl71 for 4 affixes), so much so that perfect amethysts became more valuable to me than topazes after a while. I made caster boots, belts, gloves, and amulets, and a few safety rings. Many of these items turned out to be endgame gear for Kira. Untwinked is fun like that.

Gameplay Progression:
Normal was done at /players 8, except for act bosses. Early on, I played as melee with some static field to help the merc kill things. I focused on getting as much mf as possible in the early game (had about 300 mf with the merc in Act 3 Normal, then about 600 with the merc right before Hell Duriel, when the treasure hunt ended). I was lucky with drops: Gull in Canyon of the Magi really helped. I rerolled scepters and orbs with chipped gems to get skill mods so that those items would sell for more. That really helped out with some early gambling for mf gear.

Things got a bit tougher in Nightmare, still on /players 8. Monsters were starting to hit harder, so I swapped some gear around to get to 55fhr. The mercenary died a few times. I gambled a circlet with life leech for him, and then he survived a bit better, although it could also have been due to gaining some levels and more careful positioning around archer packs. The first monster I didn't kill was a fire tower in Nightmare Lost City; it just had too many hps. I made lvl 60 after clearing the false tombs. My Nova damage at that point was over 500, which was slow, but it was what I had. I dropped to /players 3 for Nightmare Frigid Highlands. The guest monsters were doing too much damage at /players 8. Nightmare Cows was tough on /players 3, so I dropped it to /players 1.

The magic finding stage continued throughout Nightmare as I found a 4 socket gothic plate in the Pit and started filling it up with perfect topazes. I found an ethereal goldwrap in Act 2 and upped it for the extra potion slots. Coldworm the Burrower dropped a Lem rune, changing my plans for the merc's armor. Treachery, anyone? I just had to wait for a good base to drop, and then he'd be set after the treasure hunt. Tal-Rasha's Horadric Crest dropped in River of Flame, and that was great for the merc. Nightmare hellforge drop was Lum, so I kept an eye out for a base for Memory. Nightmare Baal dropped Gheed's Fortune, probably the best Baal drop I've ever had.

Hell is where the real game began, of course. All my resists were negative going in, except poison, but refreshingly this didn't matter at all because of ES. I was still wearing mf gear, and without +skills my attacks were weak. I couldn't kill blood raven at 73; I did too little damage and my merc could definitely not kill her lightning immune army of the dead. Some areas were completely full of LI monsters and so I avoided those: the cave, the crypt, the mausoleum. I found a pul rune in a barrel in the Countess' Tower. That was fantastic luck as it would allow for Enlightenment armor for Kira. I maxed ES at lvl 75.

At lvl 78 and with the skill point from Radament, my build was complete.

My first attempt at Duriel went poorly. One of my teleports got me stuck in the wall such that Duriel could hit me but I couldn't move or attack. So I saved and exited there, after wasting many full rejuvs and having ressed the merc many times. After that pathetic attempt, I declared the treasure hunt over. I made Enlightenment, Treachery, and Memory and equipped most of my good crafted gear and a Spirit sword. This gave me a lvl 33 ES prebuff and tons more mana and life, not to mention an 800-1000 damage nova at decent casting speed. I returned to the true tomb and cleared the parts of it I hadn't cleared before, practicing my new gear setup. Kira was way more fun to play now. I found a Mal rune in an urn and made lvl 79. This time, I positioned Duriel so that the merc and I were in a corner of the room. We took turns tanking Duriel, one of us drinking health pots and the other drinking mana pots. I only needed to use 1 full rejuv this attempt; it went much better, Duriel was defeated.

I found an ethereal 4 socket monarch in one of the false tombs and made Spirit in it. I thought that the durability would last a long time since I couldn't block very well, but it turned out that even an unblocked hit sometimes took shield durability. With Spirit shield I had Nova damage 1000-1200, so it was tough to put it away for later, but I knew I would need it for Baal.

After that initial gear switch, Kira made her way smoothly through Hell. As the merc gained levels, he was able to take out most lightning immune monsters as long as I was careful about positioning. Non-lightning immune things just died to a few blasts of Nova. What the merc couldn't tank, Kira could. What neither one could tank, telekinesis would stunlock. I had to be careful about teleporting into packs because of mana burn, so mostly I would stay on the outside and let the arc of Nova hit the closest monsters while the merc tanked them. If I did get mana burned, I'd drink a rejuv/mana pot, switch to Memory and recast ES before getting back into the fight. My mana regen was so high that I'd be back in action almost immediately, and sometimes the ES wouldn't even go down. I made good use of static field to soften up tough enemies like urdars or frenzytaurs or stoneskin boss packs.

I was dreading the fight with the Ancients, knowing that my damage was low and that I was depending heavily on the merc. I rerolled the Ancients' mods a few times, avoiding things like cursed, might, holy freeze, lightning immune, and mana burn. The roll I was victorious against had all 3 Ancients being fire enchanted. Hurray for bug fixes.

The final battle against Baal was pretty epic. I put on my best gear and had all the full rejuvs I had saved in the stash. Baal cloned himself a lot. Hit me with big blasts of fire a lot. Summoned a lot of tentacles, a lot. Cast blood mana on me a lot. Consequently, I portaled back to town a lot to get decursed and to refill my potions... also a lot. It was a LONG fight. But in the end, I was victorious. Baal dropped Brainhew.
I watched the end scene with satisfaction.
Matriarch Kira!

Finds: 2xPul, 2xMal, Seraph's Hymn (in Countess' Tower), Leviathan (in Flayer Dungeon, grailer), Natalya's Totem (grailer), Civerb's Icon (from gambling, I was surprised), Mentalist's Grand Charm, Captain's Grand Charm of Strength(+3)

Total Uniques Found: 48
Total Set Items Found: 65

Hellforge: Tir/Lum/Pul

Imbues: 3 circlets, all trash

Sockets: eth poleaxe for Insight/white staff for Memory/Gale Visage Circlet

Personalized: Gull/Rhyme/Gale Visage

NDE's: Too many. Sometimes I couldn't see any red or blue in the bubbles. Massive mana regen must have saved me. Hurray.

Deaths: Too many. Usually stupid things from overconfidence, like teleporting into packs of mana burn fallen or beetles and getting stunlocked, or standing too close to a fire/cold enchanted death explosion. I did learn that while one can avoid Hell Diablo's lightning hose by standing near him, one must also be cautious of his firestorm. That really hurt. Also, I thought I had enough mana for gloam boss packs. It turns out that I did not have enough mana for gloam boss pack stair traps in the Throne of Destruction. Zap.

Future for Kira: Possibly clearing the areas I skipped or only partially cleared in Hell: the cave, crypt, mausoleum, stony tomb, halls of the dead, infernal pit (half), ancient's way (about a fourth), wsk 1 (half), wsk 2 (half), wsk 3 (half), hell cows. Otherwise, retirement. In the far future, I might see how Kira does with the best gear she could possibly get, when I find that gear, anyway.

Final Thoughts: ES is pretty nice untwinked. It allowed me to not worry about resists in Hell at all. Nova is pretty bad untwinked, requiring a lot of +skills to really be effective. I had incredible rune luck with Kira, but still, my mercenary and the power of Insight did most of the work. I'm glad I tried this, but I'm doing something else next time.
 
Originally posted by Tasdaz on Dec 10, 2005:

Matriarch #4 - Meg The Lightning Sorc

Well I have got my 4th sorc through the game, 2 Meteorbs, 1 Blizz & now a lightning one.

This was by far the hardest to play with so many lightning immune monsters. Having said that, I was pleased with her killing power for Baal's minions & Baal himself. The ancient's were downright painful and took many deaths & rerolls before I got them. Some stats:

Level 83

STR: 60 (65)
DEX: 45 (81)
VIT: 220 (260)
ENG: 100 (145)

Remaining: 80 points

Skills

Warmth 1 (8)
Static Field 1 (8)
Telekenisis 1 (8)
Teleport 1 (8)
Charged Bolt 20 (27)
Lightning 20 (27)
Chain Lightning 20 (30)
Nova 10 (17) (to be maxed)

Chain Lightning Damage: 4 - 5973
Lightning Damage: 4-10441

Health: 602/829
Mana: 329/1045

Items:

Peasant Crown
Mara's Kaleidoscope
Lidless Wall (Contemplating switching to a different shield)
Skin Of The Vipermagi + PTopaz
Frostburn
Gloom's Trap
Waterwalk
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with good +energy & + resists

And my prized orb which I built this character around:

Rune Heart
Clasped Orb
One-Hand Damage: 7 to 18
Durability: 21 of 21
(Sorceress Only)
Required Level: 52
Orb Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xb9dae661
+111 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Lightning Resist +40%
Replenish Life +5
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Chilling Armor (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Cold Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Chain Lightning (Sorceress Only)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)

Holy Freeze Merc Items:

Wormskull
Duriel's Shell
Kelpie Snare

Items could probably be different and much better, but I didn't play too much with them yet. I might refine them a bit, especially when I get my stuff from Masas (Griffon's Eye, Eschuta's Temper, some lighting facets maybe), I might try my 1.10 Mag Song's Lesson too. I will see how she goes doing more Baal runs though and level her up to about 90.

Thanks for reading 👍
 
Originally posted by @Thyiad on Feb 16, 2008:

Matriarch Atil

You shouldn't have taken those sleeping tablets, Atil. :evil:

Matriarch Atil

The Pics

Well this is the lady who is part of "The Plan". She is designed to be my Baal-runner 99er. She *may* get re-built with the moron holding the stick but we'll see how the Baalathon goes as she gains levels.

She's a full on light-sorceress with just Nova to max. You'll see I have a few saved points, I may shove them in warmth or static to get the range.

STATS

Atil, level 82 Sorceress.
Str 156 | Dex 118 | Eng 35 | Vit 186
Skill Points Rem: 7
Life : 628 / 533 | Mana : 268 / 197 | Stamina : 377 / 331
Resists: Fire: 64 | Lightning: 52 | Cold: 15 | Poison: 54

Obviously the major part of her ensemble is "The Stick". She gets a little confused with it sometimes and whacks a monster with it, but in the main, she's got the gist of it.

The downside of holding it is resists. That's to be looked at during/after the Baalathon.

GEAR
Rich (BB code):
CHARMS

Resistances: this was always going to be an issue
FHR so she hits the 48 FHR breakpoint

GEAR

Infinity
Thresher
'BerMalBerIst'
Two-Hand Damage: 50 to 589
Durability: 65 of 65
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 152
Required Level: 63
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xbb95ffb2
+318% Enhanced Damage
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
35% Faster Run/Walk
Prevent Monster Heal
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Level 12 Conviction Aura When Equipped
50% Chance to cast Level 20 Chain Lightning When You Kill an Enemy
Level 21 Cyclone Armor (30/30 Charges)
+41 to Vitality (Based on Character Level)
-54% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Griffon's Eye
Diadem
Defense: 181
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 76
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x66cfcbc1
+121 Defense
25% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
+12% to Lightning Skill Damage
-16% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (1: 0 used)

Beast Wing
Amulet (Crafted by Pushkin)
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0xde3e9124
+18 to Energy
+24 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 4%
Fire Resist +16%
Lightning Resist +16%
Cold Resist +16%
Poison Resist +30%
9% Faster Cast Rate

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf0387fac
+4 to Strength
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 13
All Resistances +48
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Scintillating Jewel of Virility
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x571b00f9
+4 to Strength
All Resistances +14

Ghoul Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xfe47e655
+7 to Minimum Damage
Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +5%
Cold Resist +14%
Poison Resist +13%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Rune Grip
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x46c4b6a0
+5 to Maximum Stamina
+35 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +25%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 127
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 80
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe5642382
+102% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Slows Target by 10%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Doom Blazer
Demonhide Boots
Defense: 35
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 28
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc3d767db
+2 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +28%
Lightning Resist +19%
Poison Resist +25%
60% Extra Gold from Monsters
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Nova when struck

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 25
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x39f6c00
+29% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%
+10 Defense
Adds 1-6 fire damage
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Fire Skills

SWITCH

Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 135
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xed9ff221
+22 to Vitality
+94 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
27% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+7 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 19 to 57
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x5b16a4f6
+281% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+6 to Battle Orders
+4 to Battle Cry
+5 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

IN RESERVE
Code:
Storm Mark
Amulet (Crafted by Pushkin)
Required Level: 89
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 91
Fingerprint: 0xdaf5db74
+3 to Energy
+17 to Mana
+18 to Attack Rating
Regenerate Mana 9%
Fire Resist +29%
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
6% Faster Cast Rate

Order Clasp
Amulet (crafted by Pushkin)
Required Level: 89
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 93
Fingerprint: 0xb0d85a32
+2 to Strength
+13 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 6%
Fire Resist +39%
Poison Resist +22%
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
5% Faster Cast Rate

THE MERC

Normal Prayer Merc
Code:
1: Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 666
Durability: 47 of 150
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x47e4a0db
+15 to Strength
78% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+102 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+82 to Life (Based on Character Level)

2: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 102
Durability: 11 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4dc0ecef
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit

3: Insight
Thresher
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 49 to 473
Durability: 61 of 65
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 152
Required Level: 53
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x5fafcc67
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+236% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+3 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
224% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 15 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

THE JOURNEY

She MPd pretty much all the way with Ashmer's windy druid. She did have and unfortunate habit of .. gaining a few levels between sessions. *cough*. He soon caught up though.

NORMAL

She began twinked, although not heavily and normal was relatively simple. Because I was going pure light, it was a pretty simple task to keep shoving points in Lightening, Chain Lightening, Light Mastery and Charged Bolt. Stats were a bit more tricky but I guessed I'd need 100 of each and with the boost from Angelics Ring and Ammy she was pretty much set.

We played through with the exception of Act 3 which I always rush because I get lost in the jungle. 😁

It was pretty easy, although got a little tougher around level 28/29. Then I got light mastery and it go easier again.

I actually had some decent map spawns in Normal and Nightmare. So good in fact, we wondered if I was actually hosting. There were even ... swear words. :shocked:

NIGHTMARE

She didn't die until mid Nightmare and I thought that was a great beginning. The biggest problem when she did die was almost always my dodgy teleporting. I'm determined to play more HC and improve my skils because it was down right embaressing in Hell.

There was a lot of solo play here by me. I got "The Stick" on at 63 but I really wanted to get my Griffons on at 76. I'd solo Baal a bit and it was fine even on p8. But I wasn't happy with the experience I was getting. Onto Hell.

HELL

It was. I had a shed load of saved stat points and my resists were in the toilet. A got them to 0/0/0/34 (I was wearing Treks). Bear in mind I wasn't hitting the 117% FCR breakpoint yet; no Arachs until 80.

I really wanted my end game gear on because although I could work stats out on paper I find it easier to see on screen and feel how the character plays. Plus half my inventory were strenth and dex charms. So I conned Mungo to use his other IK barb to help out a bit. And so I wandered around Act 1 and a bit of Act 2 with a level 91 beefcake. Outstanding dedication by Mungo; he was tired but still got me to level 80 and Act 3 before retiring. Many thanks.

So that go the gear on. Rejig time *again*. My lousy resists weren't cutting it. So a decision had to be made. I compromised on FHR. I had hit 86, now I was going for 48 FHR and better resists. Triple resist boots and ring/ammy change got me to low 20s across the board.

Ashmer and I finally got together for a continuation at that point. He's left the windy and we continued with his Blizzballer who I'd MPd with my Avenger (who I hate by the way). So we were tri-polar and expected major destruction.

Of me, mainly. This is the embarressing part. I said to Ashmer I was like a bnet kid with the gear and no skills. Tired, dodgy resists, bad day, multi-tasking, whatever I was sucking badly. That isn't like me, ask Mungo. Anyway ... rejig again.

AA loaned me his perfect viper witha +15 resist jewel and that did help. So during my "can I have 15 mins or I'll throw the computer through the window" break, I actually went through my stashes. Found a couple of +34 Vipers (I know I have a +35 but can't find it) and a coulple of +14 jewels. One socket quest later and I return AA's gear and start .. using my own. Yes, folks I do actually use my own gear sometimes. It isn't all cribbed off you.

Loaded her up in Hell and still wasn't enthused. Even with charms, it wasn't looking good so an absolutely sort through all my rings/ammys and charms and I had a few candidates.

My biggest problem is hitting that 117% FCR breakpoint. Blizzard: I hate you for that. Really.

Then I had a thought. Crafting. I don't roll much or craft but I thought it was worth a shot. So shoved two columns of junk jewels, ammy and rals into Pushkin (level 93) and sent her off to Anya with a load of gold to buy amulets. I haven't sorted through them but the one listed above in GEAR is one she made. So are the two "in reserve".

So with that and a rejig of the rings and charms again - I hate you Blizzard - the resists are half decent.

THE END OF ONE JOURNEY, THE START OF ANOTHER

THE ANCIENTS AND THE WORLD STONE KEEP


The Ancients were pretty .. easy. The WSK was the WSK hosted by me; IE we wandered all over the map and discovered nasty spwans. In fact I believe the actual Mat run was: Gloams (WSK 1 including the might enchanted one); Oblivion knights (WSK 2) and Dolls (WSK 3; including a boss one).

BAAL RUNS

Did a couple with AA and Muktuk last night. Seemed ok even on P8. But I have to confess Muktuks tank was welcome. I'm hoping my moron might live as it gets older. Because of my mana issues, I'm using a Prayer Merc. That might have to change.

THE FUTURE

The Baalathon. That will be a testing ground. If she does well there - as in good run times and doesn't die, then she will be my level 99 candidate. If there's a problem, then I will remake with the moron holding "The Stick" and shove a shed load of skillers in her inventory. Playing it by ear really.

THE CREDITS

Atil.
Ashmer
Mungo
You guys for reading.

I promise I'll update "The Plan" shortly.
 
Originally posted by @Thyiad on Feb 19, 2008:

Matriarch Tvashtar

Remember I said I might re-build Atil? Well it isn't a rebuild so much as a compare and contrast.

STATS

Tvashtar, level 83
Str 156 | Eng 35 | Dex 35 | Vit 269
Life 722 | Mana 428 | Stamina 442


GEAR

Rich (BB code):
Sparking Grand Charm x5

Doom Blazer
Demonhide Boots
Defense: 35
Durability: 10 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 28
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc3d767db
+2 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +28%
Lightning Resist +19%
Poison Resist +25%
60% Extra Gold from Monsters
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Nova when struck

Griffon's Eye << gift from cloudy and I shoved a 5/-4 in it.
Diadem
Defense: 193
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 76
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x50a5e15a
+142 Defense
Adds 1-74 lightning damage
25% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
100% Chance to cast Level 47 Chain Lightning When You Die
+19% to Lightning Skill Damage
-20% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4306e347
Adds 1-74 lightning damage
100% Chance to cast Level 47 Chain Lightning When You Die
+5% to Lightning Skill Damage
-4% to Enemy Lightning Resistance

Beast Wing
Amulet
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0xde3e9124
+18 to Energy
+24 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 4%
Fire Resist +16%
Lightning Resist +16%
Cold Resist +16%
Poison Resist +30%
9% Faster Cast Rate

Skin of the Vipermagi << found the perfect one I knew was somewhere!
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x3c34635
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 11
All Resistances +35
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (1: 0 used)

Ghoul Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xfe47e655
+7 to Minimum Damage
Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +5%
Cold Resist +14%
Poison Resist +13%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Rune Grip
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x46c4b6a0
+5 to Maximum Stamina
+35 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +25%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 127
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 80
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xc612b98
+102% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Slows Target by 10%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 24
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x621eb122
+24% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%
+10 Defense
Adds 1-6 fire damage
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Fire Skills

Heart of the Oak
Flail
'KoVexPulThul'
One-Hand Damage: 1 to 24
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Dexterity: 35
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 55
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xd5859f5
+10 to Dexterity
All Resistances +34
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
7% Mana stolen per hit
Replenish Life +20
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
40% Faster Cast Rate
75% Damage to Demons
150% Damage to Undead
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
+3 to All Skill Levels
Level 4 Oak Sage (25/25 Charges)
Level 14 Raven (60/60 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 144
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x8bcaa5ca
+22 to Vitality
+104 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+8 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)


SWITCH

Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 19 to 57
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x5b16a4f6
+281% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+6 to Battle Orders
+4 to Battle Cry
+5 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 135
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xed9ff221
+22 to Vitality
+94 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
27% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+7 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

THE MORON

Code:
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 102
Durability: 11 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4dc0ecef
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 667
Durability: 47 of 150
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x47e4a0db
+15 to Strength
+178% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+103 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+83 to Life (Based on Character Level)

Infinity
Thresher
'BerMalBerIst'
Two-Hand Damage: 50 to 589
Durability: 65 of 65
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 152
Required Level: 63
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xbb95ffb2
+318% Enhanced Damage
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
35% Faster Run/Walk
Prevent Monster Heal
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Level 12 Conviction Aura When Equipped
50% Chance to cast Level 20 Chain Lightning When You Kill an Enemy
Level 21 Cyclone Armor (30/30 Charges)
+41 to Vitality (Based on Character Level)
-54% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (4: 4 used)

PROGRESS

NORMAL


Tvashtar is an oddball. She had always felt the need for fire but there was something stopping her. So she snuck into my stashes, grabbed some goodies and ran off onto the Moor. She beat her way through the first two Acts but a long party after killing Duriel left her resting in Act 3 normal for some time. She wandered into the jungle with her bonesnap - but despite being able to kill everything on p8, she just couldn't be bothered. She longed to use her unassigned stat and skill points but apart from a little experiment with teleport, she refrained.

It was here at level 26 or so that we found her, awaiting her destiny. Her plan was to melee as far as possible with base stats and then go for fire. Pure fire. But there were other plans afoot.

I wanted to make a second sorc to compare holding the stick v not holding the stick. The Baalthon was/is a perfect opportunity for that, so the time was now. I'd scrounged the offer of a rush from Ashmer and while the rush is easy, the Ancients' level requirement is always a pain. So my cunning plan was move Tvashtar from fire to light and cut short her melee work. I'd proven her capabilities and trogging through Act 3 wouldn't really make much difference.

So the rest of Normal was pretty uneventful with Ashmer throwing up TPs here and there and me zinging through, grabbing the WP/Quest and going back to town.

Baaling was a bit dull because of the xp penalty; Ashmer's sorc was a lot more advanced but eventually I hit 39 and lunch was in order.

While Ashmer sloped off for food, I Pindled. When he got back I was 42 or so and we hit Nightmare.

NIGHTMARE

After a considerable amount of delay due to my "I can't find my HotO" hunt, play resumed.

A redux of Normal with Ashmer rushing and me basically lurking in town, hoping my usual monster-spawns are on holiday somewhere and not waiting to ambush poor Ashmers' sorceress. They were for the most part, although I do believe there was one tiny hiccup. Sorry, Ashmer.

Ashmer got me to the start of Hell and level 65 or so when he slacked of for some pathetic reason. I believe "sleep" was the excuse he used. :rolleyes: No stamina. :laugh:

HELL

I regeared. IE I stole Atil's stuff because it was quickest. I was lucky enought to have a gift from cloudy of a Griffons. So I shoved the facet I'd been keeping (5/-4) into it and stuck my next best into the Griffons I was wearing. I put enough decent stuff on me and the moron so we could kill if necessary. Annoyingly the moron was one - count it - ONE - strength point short of holding the the stick. Luckily a generous SPFer made me an offer I'd be an idiot to refuse.

After some negotiation, both Tvashtar and myself got a fantastic rush from Silospen's Sexual Favours.





*waits for people to cease choking on their drink*

Anyway ... after amazingly not dying ... I was hosting ... Silo got my charactr to Mat after swapping to what seemed like a totally indestructable zon. ThePerfectJava indeed. A cow run left me tele'ing like mad and we all know how dangerous that is, while his zon zipped in between various herds and chucking bolts around. Quite amazing.

By the end of that and the Baals, Tvashtar was 75ish and was close to Griffons and Arachs. Hello Eldritch, die Eldritch, Hello Pindle, die Pindle. She hit 80 and I'm close to the 200 fcr breakpoint.

She's 82 thanks to some Baal runs with Fast Eddie and Justa. Usual problem; my teleporting ability and collapsable merc.


THE FUTURE

The biggest problem is the moron. If he goes down and there's LI around, I'm toast. My resistances are better but I have yet to do a proper compare and contrast between damage of Atil and Tvashtar. It involves maths and I can't be bothered to factor in the -LR of the Conviction aura.

In the Baalathon I'll be doing a mix of her, Atil and Freezyaballs. Should be an interesting comparison of times v MF. Especially when I get Tvashtar to 87. A direct comparison.

If she stays lucky, I'll be delighted; she got an Ist from the Hellforge.


THE CREDITS

Atil
Ashmer
Silospen
Cloudy
You for reading
 
Originally posted by Ugla on Dec 1, 2007:

Matriarch Storm

Matriarch Storm, 1.11 vanilla

This is not one of those cheesy PvPers with tricky names, but a regular PvM vanilla lightsorc. She was twinked from the very start unlike the majority of my characters, mainly because I already played almost exact build before.

Progress
Storm used Bane Ash during normal, relying on granted Firebolt early on, switching to Lightning from clvl12 onward. Fb was still useful against occasional LE bosses. Though a bit slower compared to fire/cold builds, she advanced at decent pace at /p5.

I opted for parallel skill-point allocation that grants better damage/mana ratio rather than maximum damage. Thanks to 60 hard-points in energy (yes, I do IT and I'm not ashamed to admit that), she didn't become a potion addict before beating Normal like most of the base-energy vanilla sorcies.

With the first point in Lightning Mastery, her damage jumped by ~90% and continued to rise until LM was maxed. Then, she put on Skin, gripped Razorswitch, and shot her way through the rest of act5. A few Baal-runs later, she was already clvl42, switched to Oculus/Visceratuant and "stuffed" her inventory with (two :rolleyes: ) skillers. Kyoko received her Kuko which guaranteed sufficient firepower until act4 NM.

Everything was fine until I decided to blast off NM Lister within melee range asking the eternal question, how much harm it will do. Well, enough (240 vita, full health with Waterwalk and a few life-charms). Since I'm sort of notorious with these experiments, I wonder when I learn to cast TP in advance.. As I've already mentioned in the IFT, I received a golden Battle Axe from both normal and NM Baals (with slightly increasing tendency in resistance percentage).

Having earned a few more levels Baal-running to equip the Griffon's, we set off for Hell. I actually bothered to kill mobs to reach clvl80 before the game was over. As a proof of this statement, I depleted all 82 Lower Resistance charges in act3 before engaging Durance councils (long way to go for repairs, you know :wink3: ).

Storm scored a few deaths throughout Hell, mostly due to negative cold resistance - lazy to twink, lazy to socket the Viscy, lazy to search through the charm stash.. Shame on me, but honestly, I always get terribly demotivated after the first death in SC.

I shamelessly teleported through areas with unbreakable LI spawns including places like Maggot's Lair, City of the Damned, and a good part of act5 (no unbreakables, just too tired me). Tried to keep Kyoko safe from extra fast Talic so desperately, that she died along with Storm 👎 Two more deaths to WSK Souls. It might have helped to take some shield on the switch - seriously, Storm doesn't meet the Str requirements for most. Baal dropped some blue crap.

Current stats
clvl 82
Str: 50/50
Dext: 125/125
Vita: 240/260
Enrg: 60/80
free: 25

Life: 799
Mana: 409
block: 40%
resists: 75,22,66,9 (found nice boots in my Rare stash, after all)

Skill-points:
20 L,CL,ChB,LM
1 Warmth,FA,SF,Thunderstorm,Teleport and all prereqs
6 unspent

slvl33 Chain Lightning: 5-6911
slvl33 Lightning: 5-15536
slvl33 Charged Bolt: 417-441 *24

Gear
Griffon's Eye (-20/+11, socketed with -4/+5 facet)
Powered Amulet of the Centaur
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xfbb83000
+3 to Lightning Skills (Sorceress Only)
+61 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Oculus+Visceratuant (no sockets)
Grim Wand of Lower Resistance (slvl3)
SoJ
Doom Finger Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x630460c9
Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +26%
Lightning Resist +27%
Replenish Life +4
10% Faster Cast Rate
Magefist
Arachnid Mesh
Dread Shank Chain Boots
Defense: 9
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 30
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x14b9f4ed
+9 to Maximum Stamina
Fire Resist +38%
Cold Resist +24%
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Faster Run/Walk
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
2 Sparking GCs, resists/life/MF SCs
Merc
act1 - fire
Rockstopper (unsocketed)
Eaglehorn (Shael)
Treachery Wire Fleece
will switch for act2 Defiance/HF against Baal

Notable finds
Vidala's Ambush (grailer), Trap skiller, few rares, superior Grim Shield (15%). Hellforge dropped Io and Gul 👍

Future Plans
I suppose I'll park this character before maxing Nova, but just out of curiosity, what all you high lvl lightsorcs do with those few "free" points? I made a good experience with ES (combined with MDR), but most of you seem to avoid it.

Due to the absence of 'Spirit' in vanilla, getting 200% FCR is most likely not worth the loss of +skills from weapon (50% FCR needed, IIRC). Thus, I'm inclined to switch Magefist for Frostburn and maybe socket Moser's with Lightning Facets some day (would be nice for my javazons as well). This means adding 10 more points into Str (more if I decide to seriously MF with her). The remaining points will go to dexterity/vita depending on shield choice and desired block.

Skipped both NM and Hell cows for now. I'd like to get the damn Hat to complete the set, and this might be a good char to use. Besides, the Cow King is always complaining around these forums if someone tries to kill him. Any advice on which cows to run?

The rest will be Baal-runs, as usual. I made great experience with my previous lightsorc taking waves at /p3, and now have the fabled Diadem for even higher values.
 
Originally posted by bcoe on Feb 19, 2010:

Matriarch Otus_Flammeolus (Full Tals Fire sorc)

Matriarch Otus_Flammeolus


This is my first full fire sorc, and I love her. I made her planning for the next round of Bassen's MF league (Mausoleum/maggot lair), but have used her in lots of areas. She's my current favorite /players8 cow runner.

She is named after the flammulated owl. It's a tiny, hard to find owl found in the mountainous areas of western North America. I've heard one, but never saw it... More info available at: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Flammulated_Owl/id

STATS:
Name: Otus_Flammeolus
Level: 90 (matted at 81)
Strength: 156 (166)
Dexterity: 25 (45)
Vitality: 324 (356)
Energy: 35 (45)

Life: 1969 (after BO)
Mana: 1259 (after BO)


Skills (after + skills and BO):
Fire tree:
Warmth: 1 (18)
Inferno: 1 (18)
Fire Wall: 1 (18)
Fire Bolt: 20 (37)
Fire Ball: 20 (37)
Meteor: 20 (37)
Fire Mastery: 20 (37)

Lightning Tree:
Lite Mastery: 0 (13)
Telekinesis: 1 (12)
Teleport: 1 (12)
Static Field 14 (25)

Cold Tree:
None

Damage:
Fire Ball: 13k-15k
Meteor: 28k-29k
(those are with -29% to enemy fire resists!)
Static Field: Radius 19.3 yards (!)

How I got there:

Maxed the fire skills first. I basically teleported through hell on players 1 and matted her pretty quick. I then levelled her at the Mausoleum/ML and Pindle,and started running cows at level 89. I was trying to decide what to do with extra skills after FB/FB/Meteor/FM were at 20. I thought about adding to inferno to increase the meteor's burn damage, but it seemed pretty puny and unnecessary. I'm very pleased about adding to the SF -- a level 25 SF on the cows level is spectacular. They comes streaming in from well off screen with ½ life and ready for a FB/Meteor pounding

On to equipment....

Equipment:
Head: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (fire facet 5/4 level up)
Amulet: Tal Rasha's Adjudication
Armor: Tal Rasha's Guardianship (fire facet 5/5 die)
Weapon: Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye (2/2/2, fire facet 4/5 die)
Belt: Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth
Shield: Spirit Monarch (+104 mana, 35 FCR)
Gloves: Magefists
Rings: 2x SOJ
Feet: War Trav (50% MF)

Weapon Switch: CtA/Spirit

Charms:
5 fire skillers
Gheeds
Various small charms
Tomes/Cube
4x2 free space
Resists: 50/74/75/41

Merc: Holy Freeze with Eth Reapers Toll (JoF)/Fortitude/Andarial's Visage (RJoF -- 28% FR)

Finds:
Hellforge: Hel/Lem
Lots of goodies: Mang's, Earth Shifter (thanks Pindle), Cham (!)

Thoughts:

She is so over-powered its silly. With a few more skillers I can get well up over 30k meteor, but its totally not necessary. She absolutely dominates non-FIs. The best places for her to run are the Mausoleum, the Maggot Lair, Pindle, Andarial, and the Cows. I've been doing combined runs (everything but Andy), and she's totally safe and ridiculously effective.

I'm overall not a big fan of the Mausoleum. Too many doors and small rooms, and its HUGE. It seems that the placement of bosspacks is pretty variable, so it can take some hunting. I don't think it will take the place of AT or the Pits, but it's a fun change of pace. Maggot Lair (with a good map), is VERY fun with her. The long straight halls make FB very effective. If it pierced, it would be even better, but a 14k FB one- or two- hit kills everything even on high player settings.

As good as those two places are, she is REALLY fun with the Cows. The damage is huge enough to stun-lock cows, even on players 8. She is nearly (but not quite) as fast as my decked-out LF-zon with enigma, but she is much easier and safer (and packs more MF). She's also much faster at retrieving Wirt's leg. The strategy for her with the cows is much different. She uses her merc a lot for bunching up a mass of beef (HF/decrep from Reapers FTW) and dropping a meteor or two on them. I like cows for her, because she really uses both SF/FB/meteor there about equally. Everywhere else, she's basically a FB-sorc.

I'd strongly recommend a Tal's fire-sorc for anyone looking to run the cows on high player settings. Not nearly as expensive as a super-twinked LF-zon, and very similar in effectiveness.

I'm going to keep running cows with her on /p8. I'm hoping the Cham is a sign of more HRs to come....
 
Originally posted by bcoe on Nov 10, 2009:

Matriarch Dendroica_Fusca (Full Tal's FO/Inferno sorceress)

Matriarch Dendroica_Fusca


Not all dual-element Tal’s sorcs are over-powered. This was my attempt to prove that Inferno can work. BS. It stinks worse than Deckard Cain’s cage after a crazy all-night stag party…

This one is named after the blackburnian warbler. A spectacularly beautiful song bird with a flame-orange head and neck during breeding season. Pictures available at: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blackburnian_Warbler/id

This is a FO/Inferno sorc. Yes, I know inferno is bugged. Believe me. I really, really know.

STATS:
Name: Dendroica_Fusca
Level: 81
Strength: 156 (156)
Dexterity: 25 (45)
Vitality: 279 (301)
Energy: 35 (45)

Life: 2004 (after BO)
Mana: 1223 (after BO)


Skills (after + skills and BO):
Fire tree:
Warmth: 20 (36)
Inferno: 20 (36)
Fire Mastery: 4 (22)

Lightning Tree:
Lite Mastery: 0 (13)
Telekinesis: 1 (12)
Teleport: 1 (12)
Static Field 1 (12)

Cold Tree:
Frozen Orb: 20 (35)
Ice Bolt: (35)
Cold Mastery: 1 (18)
1 point in pre-reqs

Damage:
Frozen Orb: 809-846
Inferno: 4261-4503 (HAH!)


How I got there:

Skillwise, I max’d FO and Ice Bolt first, and played her as a straight FO sorc. Then leveled her to 80 in the pits to max Inferno and Warmth. Then quested through on /p1. I expected to use inferno on CIs, but in the end just teleported past most of them.

On to equipment….

Equipment:
Head: Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest (fire facet 5/4 level up)
Amulet: Tal Rasha’s Adjudication
Armor: Tal Rasha’s Guardianship (fire facet 5/5 die)
Weapon: Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye (2/2/2, cold facet 5/5 die)
Belt: Tal Rasha’s Fine-Spun Cloth
Shield: Spirit Monarch (+104 mana, 35 FCR)
Gloves: Magefists
Rings: 2x SOJ
Feet: Aldurs

Weapon Switch: CtA/Spirit

Charms:
4 cold skillers
4 fire skillers
Various small charms with total of +10 FHR, a bit of resists and mana

Resists: 75/75/75/57

Merc: Holy Freeze with Eth Reapers Toll (JoF)/Fortitude/Eth Blackhorn’s Face (Um)

Finds:
Hellforge: Pul/Gul (cool)
A gull, a minotaur, stormraven, hexing of balance,

Thoughts:

So they say that inferno is bugged. Well, I played with a skill calculator, and it looked like I could get 4k damage on the LCS. Even if it only does half that, that’s not too bad on /p1. It doesn’t even do that much. The monster’s life bar ticks down by about 2-3 pixels every half second or so.

A maxed out inferno does about as much damage in reality as a 1-point firewall. It’s a heck of a lot of fun, since you can aim it and wave it around, but the damage is just negligible.

I will say, a lvl 36 warmth is fun. It seemed even more effective than an insight merc. My mana bulb just never budged. Mana burn didn’t bother me at all, it just jumped back up. Nice, because that freed me up to use a HF/reapers/blackhorn’s merc. It was necessary for him to be able to hold any CIs still so the inferno could eventually whittle them down. In practice, probably 95% of the CIs that died were killed by Gulzar, and 5% were eventually slowly roasted by Inferno. Most of the time, I just teleported right past them.

It was incredibly striking how awesome my 40-point FO was compared to my 45-point inferno.

I deeply wish Blizzard would fix inferno in 1.13. It is a VERY fun skill to play with, but the damage is just silly. I think my 1-point telekinesis was as effective against CIs.

Overall, I had fun with her. She played pretty much as a single-tree sorc, which is fine when FO is as strong as it is. Inferno was just something to wave around at slow times.

Thanks for reading...
 
Originally posted by Cattleya on Apr 15, 2005:

Finally! Matriarch Pheonix

Er, just a quick warning. This got really long. Indulge me, it's my first Mat/Pat. :)

When Maeko woke up, Pheonix was already pacing impatiently. Maeko rolled her eyes, after all, it was Pheonix's idea to to rest up before taking on the Lord of Destruction himself. She just hoped they didn't run into an OKs. They always made Pheonix really cranky. She waited patiently for Pheonix to finish her enchant ritual, and when it was finished they went to the WP.

When they returned to the WSK 2, the monsters had re-populated the area. They were immediately met by Greater Hell Spawn. Okay, easy. Then Soul Killers. :grrr: FI and annoying as hell, but not dangerous, this could be just fine. Aaaa! Black Souls! Pheonix started teleporting madly, and Maeko got in as many shots as she could. Pheonix's ES was giving her good protection from the Souls, so she eventually calmed down and started to teleport on top of them to kill them. Most went down in one shot, so the threat tuned out to be minimal. The next level wasn't bad either. They had to contend with blow dart Soul Killers, but once Pheonix had determined there were no OKs around, she switched to Zeal which could blind a whole slew of them quickly.

They finally made it to the Throne. They were met immediately by a pack of Serpent Magnus. They also found Dark Lords and Burning Souls, but nothing FI, so everything was quickly cleared. Baal Laughed, and summoned his first wave. Colenzo was FECE Spectral Hit, so Pheonix wouldn't go near him. Well, at least she took care of him minions while leaving Maeko to take on the shaman. Achmel was going just fine, until suddenly, Pheonix started swearing at her. "What did I say about letting me kill undead?" She screamed while dodging Burning Soul lightning. Yeah, like it was her fault Achmel was raising them up. Besides, Pheonix was quickly able to put them to rest for good.

Bartuc was dead before they even had a chance to figure out his mods. Maeko started to relax, this wasn't too bad at all. Then she heard Pheonix scream. Fanatasism! They were chased around by the pack for a while. (Maeko was suddenly very glad Pheonix had teleport; there was no way they could have kept ahead of the pack on foot.) They managed to get Ventar alone. Maeko looked over at Pheonix and saw her smiling widely. "He's not FI." Whee!

Baal decided to up the stakes and summoned the final wave while Pheonix was still hacking away at the last of Ventar's minions. :eek: Lister was going to be a tough one. FE Stone Skin. Oh joy! Pheonix switched back to 'Zerk, and started teleporting to break up the pack. It quickly became a game of smacking one of them, then teleporting to safety. When they managed to get one alone, Pheonix would tank making Maeko's life a lot easier. Eventually, they got Lister alone. Maeko was prepared for a game of teleport pickle, but Pheonix got bold and decided to tank Lister. Once he was almost dead, Pheonix started teleporting and let Maeko get the final shot. Now, they were ready for Baal.

Maeko made her way to the portal, but was stopped by Pheonix. "Nope, first we have an equipment change." They went back to town, and Pheonix handed Maeko a new bow. "Um, this does less damage than what I have now, no deadly strike, no amp..." Pheonix pulled a Thresher out of her stash, smiling. "You wouldn't want to overwrite my decrep with your amp, would you? Besides, Riphook has lots of monster slow on it." Maeko reluctantly took the bow. In the end, Pheonix's plan was solid. (Not that Maeko would every admit that to Pheonix.) Man! This is the Lord of Destruction?

"Gee, thanks Baal." Pheonix muttered under her breath.

Stats and Equipment
Level:
83

Resistances in Hell: 44/31/64/61

Damage
Lightning Damage: 5-263
Cold Damage: 15-45
Fire Damage: 5660-6716

Zeal (10/7 frame attack)
Physical Damage: 353-992 Total Damage: 6033-8016

Berserk
Magic Damage: 575-1616 Total Damage: 6255-8640

Skill Point Allocation *hard points (with + skills) [prebuff]*
Cold Tree
Frost Nova: 1 (4)
Frozen Armor: 1 (4) [10]

Lightning Tree:
Telekinesis: 9
Teleport: 20 (24)
Energy Shield 0 (0) [10]
Lightning Mastery: 1 (5)

Fire Tree:
Fire Bolt, Fire Ball: 1
Warmth: 20 (23)
Enchant 20 (23) [36]
Fire Mastery: 20 (23) [33]

Oskill:
Zeal 1 (4)
Berserk 1 (4)

Stat points
Strength: 165 (210)
Dexterity: 115 (161)
Vitality: 190 (215) Life: 898 [1322 with oak sage]
Energy: 35 (40) Mana: 342

Equipment
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask (socketed with +2 min/15% IAS jewel)
Skin of the Vipermagi Sepentskin Armor [35 %RA, 11 MDR] (socketed with 15% IAS jewel)
Thundergod's Vigor War Belt
Immortal King's Forge War Gauntlets
Immortal King's Pillar War Boots
Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet [20% RA]
Raven Frost Ring [Perfect! And people say Duriel never drops anything nice...]
Nature's Peace Ring [PR 26%, DR 7]
(The Reaper's Toll Thresher for Hell Baal)
Various Charms (One lightning skiller, a Serpent's G.C. of balance, and a bunch of resistance and + life charms. By the end, she had 1 inventory spot left.)

And, of course the star of the show:

Passion
Pheonix' Giant Thresher
'DolOrtEldLem'
Two-Hand Damage: 112 to 320
Durability: 14 of 55
Required Dexterity: 140
Required Strength: 188
Required Level: 66
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xbb8d5e96
+181% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
25% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to Berserk
+1 to Zeal
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
Hit Blinds Target +10
54% Bonus to Attack Rating
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12/12 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Equipment - Prebuff
In the stash
+3 Enchant Leaf staff
Volcanic Diadem
Volcanic Amulet
2x Burning Skillers
Magefist Gloves
On weapon switch
+3 Frozen Armor Memory Staff

Equipment - Mercenary
Shaftstop
Blackhorn's Face
Witchwild String Bow (2 x Shael)
(Riphook for Hell Baal)

Build/Play Comments

Pheonix did /p8 full clears of Normal and Nightmare. I started Hell at /p3, and planned to do full clears, but eventually decided that was just taking too long. So, the players setting went to 1 and she only killed the monsters that she found along the way. All quests were completed and all WPs (except Halls of Pain) were collected.

Working with the different CtC curses took some getting used to. Her merc had the amp from the WWS and Pheonix has the blind and monster flee from her Passion weapon. For non-FI monsters it wasn't an issue, as they were dead before it mattered. For nasty FI monsters I found it was best to smack the monster with 'Zerk until blinded and then TP away and let the merc shoot at them. If she amped them, I would continue to TP backwards as they approached. Otherwise, I would repeat the procedure. For easier FI monsters, Pheonix would just corner them and Zeal them to death. I got pretty good at using TP to herd single monsters into corners with the monster flee. Then I could zeal away while they tried to figure out which curse they were under.

So, what was my final assessment of the teleport experiment? For the most part, I am happy with the results. Her mana ball was almost always empty due to ES, and it was nice to know that she would still be able to teleport. I think this would have worked better with more +skills, so a bigger investment in TK could have been made.

Pheonix got the Ancients on her second try. On her first try, I had just fought my way though most of Act 5, and was really ready for bed. However, she leveled clearing the Ancient's Way, so with no XP to lose, I decided to see what these Hell Ancients were about. I learned two things in her very brief encounter. 1)Cursed and Extra Strong mods should be rerolled. 2)Zeal lock = death. He second time (the next day) I was more careful about re-rolling the Ancients. Korlic was cursed, but nothing else seemed too nasty. I was also more careful about breaking them up. Talic was extra fast, which actually worked to my advantage. He was the only one that could keep up with Pheonix's teleporting. So, she would 'port around, letting the merc get in her shots, with Pheonix herself giving him a good whack (with 'Zerk this time) whenever it looked safe. She then went an got the attention of the other two. There was a lot of teleporting and Rogue fire, with Pheonix helping out whenever she got one of them alone. Madwac was the next to fall. Talic was FI, so he took a little longer to kill. Pheonix could take two normal hits while cursed (Yeah ES!) but she started having fun just tormenting the poor barb:

*Wait for him to start leap.*
*Teleport*
"Missed me! :p"

Maeko got in the final shot to take him down.

I want to thank everyone on this forum for all of the help. I've learned an insane amount about the game here, and always got great advice when I had a question. I'm not a big MF'er, so having the ability to trade what I had for what I needed was vital for her success. I also got several item donations which were very helpful in getting her through the game.

I want to give a special thanks to jiansonz for talking me into going Passion (I now can't imagine using any other weapon) and Stony's Xanthippe for showing me that sorceresses should be wielding big 'ol polearms.

Pheonix was a blast to play, and I can now say that my first mat/pat was a 2-H melee character. It wasn't always pretty, but it was fun. Now, to focus on my HC adventures...
 
Originally posted by Cattleya on Nov 25, 2006:

Matriarch Melody

In my continuing effort to find ways to keep Insight out of the hands of Act 2 mercs, I present Matriarch Melody. She is my 3rd 2-handed enchantress, and I'm still having fun with the variations. This time around I went for Energy shield to put Insight's meditation aura to use. It worked quite well overall. As expected, mana burners made her really hate life. It was a bit strange playing a character who could ignore most of the classic "nasty" mods as long as mana burn wasn't in the pack.

She didn't run into many problems going through the game. When areas spawned with large numbers of fire immunes, it was a real pain, especially when they weren't demons. Her biggest enemy was Gloams, which really isn't all that much of a surprise. 😁 The Chaos Sanctuary was also a big pain with lots of fire immunes and the constant danger of IM. In NM I used the Kuko in the Chaos Sanctuary, but with FI Doom nights, it really wasn't very effective. Since she had an interruptible singe attack, I decided to just be careful. She could survive at least one hit while IMed, so it worked out okay.

The Ancients were a long fight, but never very dangerous. The first roll didn't pop up any nasty looking auras, so I went for it. Korlic (LE, extra strong) was the only of the three who wasn't fire immune, so he went down first. Madwac was FE CE, and he managed to get some good hits in on the merc, but he wasn't a problem. Talic was the issue. He was Stone Skin Mana Burn (and Fire Immune.) His whirls immediately dropped Energy Shield, and I wasn't doing any real damage to him either. I finally decided to let the merc handle him with Venom and Open Wounds. It took forever (I had to recast Enchant during the fight) but there was never any real danger. I tried to lead Korlic around in such a way to write something out with the OW blood, but I discovered it disappeared as soon as it went off screen, killing that idea to make the fight more interesting. 😁

The first 3 levels of the WSK all had pretty easy spawns. I got to the throne room, prepared for a door trap. I wasn't disappointed. As soon as she entered the level she was IMed by a champion pack of OKs and charged by Vipers. A couple of fire immune Frenzytaurs came around the corner to join the party. I would lead a few monsters around the corner away from the OKs, and then (carefully) teleport around the edge of the pack taking swings and eventually clearing the first area out. After that things went a lot better, and the strategy was generally to teleport on top of OKs and then clean up the others without the fear of getting IMed.

Baal's minions went pretty smoothly. Ventar was the most annoying, spawning Conviction Mana Burn. Baal himself was easy once the merc got a hit in triggering the slow.

She didn't have any MF, so she didn't have that many notable finds. She picked up Tal's Ammy doing pit runs to level, and a 25 life Javelin skiller in the Bloody Foothills. Her NM/Hell hellforges were Dol/Mal.

Normal/NM were done on /p8, Hell on /p1.

Stats and Equipment

Level:
85
Resistances in Hell: 69/18/44/35
Total FHR: 10% (13 Frames)
IAS: 55% (11 Frame Attack)
FCR: 65% (9 Frame B.P.)

Stats (With Equipment)
Strength: 75 (97)
Dexterity: 25 (53)
Vitality: 195 (200) [Life: 749]
Energy: 220 (225) [Mana: 713]

Damage
Total: 7874-9859 (AR 4864)
Fire: 7303-8664
Physical: 470-752 (With 38% CS / 31% DS)
Lightning: 10-321

Skill Point Allocation (with + skills) [Prebuff]

Lightning Skills
Charged Bolt: 1 (6)
Lighting: 1 (6)
Chain Lightning: 1 (6)
Telekenesis: 20 (25)
Teleport: 1 (6)
Energy Shiled: 9 (14) [20]
Lightning Mastery: 1 (6)

Fire Skills:
Fire Bolt: 1 (8)
Fire Ball: 1 (8)
Warmth: 20 (27)
Enchant: 20 (27) [39]
Fire Mastery: 20 (27) [33]


Equipment
Rare Coronet (+2 Sorceress skills, +17 Strength, + 90 mana, All Resistances +19, MDR 2) socketed with a PRuby
Upgraded Skin of the Vipermagi with IAS Jewel
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
Goblin Toe Boots
Nature's Peace Ring
Raven Frost
Highlord's Wrath
Insight Shillelagh

Weapon Switch: +3 Enchant Memory Gnarled Staff

Prebuff:
+3 Enchant Ormus (10% Fire Damage)
Magefist
Volcanic diadem
Volcanic amulet
Ring with +strength to help equip the prebuff gear

Charms: 3 Burning Skillers, 1 Sparking Skiller, 2 Steel GCs of Substanance, several Resist and Vita SCs, 4 Arcing Small Charms (one with 5% FHR) and a SC of Balance. (Yes, her inventory was completely full.)

Equipment - Mercenary
Riphook Razor Bow
Treachery Dusk Shroud
Blackhorn's Face
 
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