Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by colony on Jan 17, 2007:

Matriarch Flame_Grilled the 200FCR sorc

What's this? A Mat I made that actually solo'ed all the way through the game before doing any MP at all and wasn't self-rushed? It's true:shocked:

This was a very fun character, though Act 4 and the WSK in Hell were frustrating to say the least, unsurprisingly. Having 200FCR was a nice change though, and the only major drawback to going that high was the lack of blocking.

Stats (before/after items):
Level 85
Strength: 156/156
Dex: 35/50
Vita: 178/200
Energy: 146/149

Life: 1462
Mana: 1486
(After CtA)

Skills:
20 Fire ball, Firebolt, Meteor, 10 FM
20 Telekinesis

Items:
Volcanic Coronet of the Magus socketed with 2 Ums
17FCR/2 Fire skills/46 fire res/6res all/18 mana crafted amulet
Heart of the Oak (38 res)
Up'd Vipermagi (35 res) socketed with a Shael
33 FCR Spirit
Arachnid's
Magefist
Silkweave
2 FCR rings with mana/other mods

Switch: Beta CtA/Spirit
Prebuffing gear: +9ES Memory staff, Shako, Mara's, 2x SoJ

Charms:
10 Fire skillers (21, 34, 37 life, 5 dex, 6 plain)
2 Serpent's SC of Balance, 1 SC of balance, 7 Res/mana/life SCs

Fireball Damage: 15021-16236
Firebolt Damage: 14412-15453
Meteor Damage: 30767-31915
Level 18 ES: 75%

This is the first sorc I've played without block for ages, and it took a lot of getting used to, as it's so different from my normal playstyle. Having about 200 unspent stat points that I only just allocated didn't help much either though with 7 frame casting it was very easy to get out of most dangerous situations (ie the ones I didn't get stuck in hit-recovery)👅

As you'd expect for a 1 tree sorc the going was easy until I started hitting immunes in late NM, especially in Act 4, which took a lot of patience even on p1, waiting for my merc to kill things, and in Hell all 3 seal bosses spawned FI, leading to much running away. Getting an ES Ormus would be useful, but any more prebuffing than that I just find too much effort. I wouldn't mind levelling up a bit more too, to get FM close to being max'ed, which would add about 1-2k to my fireball damage.

I went with HotO over Eschuter's for the resists, which without a high level ES are still very necessary, and didn't go for Wizzy because I wanted more damage. The rest of the item choices were mainly made for FCR. I'm still not sure about Slikweaves either, they add less to my mana than Waterwalks would add to my life, so I might give them a try. I also found FHR much more important than I normally do on sorcs, because as I said earlier I'm just not used to no-block characters at all. Hopefully I'll be able to do ok in PvP with her, but knowing me that might be too much to hope for:wink3:

I probably split the points between vita/energy wrong, but on my Orb sorc I always found poison, and especially OW to be crippling.

Special thanks to Nubikoen for the circlet, it's just what I needed:grin:
 
Originally posted by Colorless Green on Jul 4, 2007:

Matriarch Maab, Zeal Enchantress

Well, I started this char before my over-a-year vacation from D2, so she's been around a long time. The actual questing itself was fairly fast, though. Most of the guides I read said enchantresses have trouble in hell, I found this to be quite inaccurate. If anything, this is one of the easier chars I've played.


Matriarch Maab
Level 82 Sorceress

Stats (After eq on zeal switch):
Str: 154 (186)
Dex: 179 (199)
Vit: 132 (167)
Ene: 35 (37)
Life: 704
Mana: 364
Resists: 75/75/75/73

Zeal Damage: 7225-8707
Prebuff: sLvl 37 Enchant, sLvl 34 Fire Mastery

Skills (Skills after eq on appropriate switch):
Zeal (from RW): 1 (5)
Enchant: 20 (28)
Fire Mastery: 20 (28)
Warmth: 20 (28)
Teleport: 1 (5)
Static Field: 1 (5)
Frozen Orb: 20 (29)
Cold Mastery: 2 (11)

Equipment:
Harlequin Crest (PTopaz)
Highlord's Wrath
Skin of the Vipermagi (34 base res, Um)
Laying of Hands
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Natalya's Soul
Carrion Wind
Raven Frost
Passion Phase Blade
Stormshield (PDiamond)
Switch: Oculus/Spirit Monarch
Inventory: Gheeds, 4x Fire Skillers, res charms as needed, rest was vita SCs

Prebuff:
Leaf Staff (+3 Enchant)
Magefist
Volcanic Amulet

Merc:
Lvl 82 Might Merc
Crown of Thieves
Duriel's Shell
Eth Obedience Thresher


So, yeah. Max resists in hell (kept a TGods in stash if there were gloams around), reaches the highest IAS breakpoint for sorc zeal (only 10/7, but whatever), decent strength FO on switch for FI's, max block, max PDR. Suprisingly sturdy build for being a sorc and despite the low life for a melee char, and a lot of fun to play, and doing 8k damage at 7 frames per hit is a lot of fun.

If anyone's curious, using the most +skills I currently own, the highest I was able to get my zeal damage was 9462-11k. I never actually used this, because it requires an enormous amount of swapping to prebuff, but it's still pretty. If I wanted to put some effort into it (i.e. gamble a volcanic circlet, make the 1.11 sorc runeword armor/trade for an enchant ormus, run nm andy for a second SoJ, etc etc) I could get it significantly higher, but it isn't really worth it to me.

Sadly, I don't see much in her future. Anything she can run, a meteorb can run with more MF. If I ever felt like having low levels be even more of a cakewalk than they already are, I suppose I might use her to self-rush. Who knows?

Glad I got to finish her before the MFO.
-CG
 
Originally posted by Cormallon on Jan 3, 2005:

Matriarch Ro-Mura

After a short struggle Ro-Mura destroyed Baal and is now known as Matriarch Ro-Mura.

Character name : Ro-Mura
Character type : Sorceress
Character level : 83
Character exp : 946466137

Stats (Base/with items):
Strength : 94 / 120
Energy : 90 / 106
Dexterity : 190 / 192
Vitality : 121 / 131
Stat Points Rem : 10
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life : 541 / 404
Mana : 461 / 309
Stamina : 317 / 267

Resists: 75 / 21 / 29 / 10 in Hell

Skills (base / with items):

Fireball 20 / 25
Hydra 20 / 25
Fire mastery 20 / 25
Warmth 1 (prereq) / 6
Enchant 1 (prereq) / 6
Firebolt 1 (prereq) / 6

Chain lightning 20 / 26
Static field 1 / 7
Teleport 1 / 7
Thunderstorm 1 / 7
Lightning mastery 4 / 10
Telekinesis 1 (prereq) / 7
Nova 1 (prereq) / 7
Charged bolt 1 (prereq) / 7
Lightning 1 (prereq) / 8

Damages:

Hydra 864-1005 per shot
Chain lightning 2-1072
Thunderstorm 157-412

Equipment:

Helm: Tarnhelm
Body: Skin of the Vipermagi
Shield: The Ward / Superior Grim Rhyme Shield on switch
Belt: String of Ears
Boots: War Traveler
Gloves: Magefist
Ring: Manald Heal / Dwarf Star
Amulet: Charged Amulet of Regrowth (+2 lightning skills / +8 replenish life)
Weapon: Storm Whorl (Rare sparkling whorl +16 energy, +52 mana, MDR 2, Fire res 36%, +2 Sorceresss Skills, +1 Lightning, level 3 Glacial Spike (41 charges))
Blade of Ali Baba on switch
Charms: Gheeds Fortune and a lot of res charms


Mercenary: Act 2 normal defiance

Helm: Blackhorns face
Body: Eth Godly Diamond Mail of the Giant (1911 Def, +12 Strength)
Weapon: Eth Reaper's Toll

Damage 380 - 2349
Defense 11770


This sorceress went quite smoothly, with a few difficulties in special situations. She got twinked with some of the items my bowazon found earlier, but since I didn't have any of the elite stuff and only about 25% of the exceptional thingies, she had to find a lot on her own (the Reapers Toll for example, my first ever elite unique. Hell Baal dropped Razor Edge, that's my second elite). She started off with a complete angelic set and replaced parts later in act 2 and 3 normal. I played on P8 most of normal and nightmare and on P1 in hell.

She used fireball a lot until the hydras got a few points. After that, fireballs weren't used anymore, but of course synergized for the hydra. Once the fire tree was completed, I started to push up CL which got only a few points earlier. Lightning wasn't needed until hell difficulty. The merc had an eth Meat Scraper and worked fine. I decided to stay with defiance because I wanted as much defense on him as possible. And not using the cold tree as backup skill was the real challenge with this build. I decided to go this way because
fire/cold is known as a killing machine and I wanted something more unique.

Problems came with fire immunes in Hell, just as I expected. But only once I met something I couldn't handle: a FI extrafast spider in act 2 hell that had a really insane regeneration rate. I locked it up behind some doors and went on.

Hell ancients ... well that's quite another story. It took me several deaths and hours playing.
The problem here was that I couldn't manage to find out about their mods, and trying to do so either my merc or myself usually died. I finally gave up to find out and accepted to die... I rerolled when I spotted something obvious like a freeze aura or some of the more deadly curses (amp damage, decrep). It took me a while but I finally managed to kill them.
The first one was Madawc. My merc and a lot of hydras finished him rather quickly while the other two were somewhere else... I didn't see them anywhere and after the first was down, neither the merc nor the hydras found another target within their reach. Unfortunately, only a short while later, Korlic and Talic together killed the merc. I ran in circles around the
statues and casted hydras whenever possible. Patience got Korlic down. Talic is fire immune and hydras wouldn't harm him. It took about half an hour to kill him with the lightning, always watching for his whirl attacks.

Ro-Mura can surely be improved with better gear. +2 all skills amu (Mars's), Oculus or Eschutas Temper with good mods, better rings (SoJ, Bul Kathos), +skills charms, Arkaine valor, harlequin crest would all push her power. I have a Lidless Wall ready as soon as I find some res on the other items.

Overall, it was fun to play her this far, she's my first matriarch. She's not of the "rush in and everything's dead" type, you need tactics and strategy to play her, but as you see hydra/chain lightning is able to go through it (although I won't suggest to do it in HC ... I died a bit too often for that).

She'll go MFing for a while now.
 
Originally posted by @Cyrax on Oct 5, 2007:

Matriarch Enchanting the ranged enchantress

Presenting matriarch Enchanting. Not a very original name, i know, but i'm not good at naming my chars. And when you have as much as i do it's even more difficult.

As you've probably already guessed it's an enchantress. A ranged one. As an enchantress the main problem is that you only really have on source of damage. Thats why i thought of using sc's with lightning damage (combined with lightning mastery). Well, actually it's not really my idea. I got it from a thread on this forum. I think it was one of AJK's pat/mat threads, and if it's someone elses i apologise :hide:

Matriarch Enchanting lvl 81

stats:
str - 80 (81)
dex - 122 (140)
vit - 258 (258)

damage: 297-2388 (with enchant 3012-5773)
AR: 1320 (with enchant 4554)

resists:
90/31/61/35

gear:

Code:
Demon Machine
Chu-Ko-Nu
Two-Hand Damage: 31 to 137
Required Dexterity: 95
Required Strength: 80
Required Level: 49
Crossbow Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x43697be
+36 to Mana
+123% Enhanced Damage
+632 to Attack Rating
+66 to Maximum Damage
+321 Defense
Piercing Attack [66]
Fires Explosive Arrows

Brimstone Shell
Tiara
Defense: 101
Durability: 25 of 25
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 93
Fingerprint: 0xa3f61dff
+9 to Energy
+99% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +14
4% Mana stolen per hit
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
Level 4 Telekinesis (30/30 Charges)

Chromatic Amulet
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x89cd3337
All Resistances +24

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: 82
Fingerprint: 0xabef0250
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 12
All Resistances +33
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 83
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x35e07b10
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 107
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x32731c81
+15 to Dexterity
+150% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Maximum Damage
+15 Defense
Piercing Attack [33]
Attacker Takes Damage of 81 (Based on Character Level)

Viper Master
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0xdc5a116
+2 to Dexterity
+34 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +29%
Lightning Resist +28%
28% Extra Gold from Monsters

Plague Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0xbeba7312
Damage Reduced by 2
Lightning Resist +25%
Poison Resist +21%
33% Extra Gold from Monsters
+1 to Mana After Each Kill

Hotspur
Boots
Defense: 10
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 5
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0x93d3ab97
+15 to Life
+11% Enhanced Defense
+6 Defense
Fire Resist +45%
+15% to Maximum Fire Resist
Adds 3-6 fire damage

switch weapon for enchant:
Chromatic Ire
Cedar Staff
Two-Hand Damage: 11 to 32
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 35
Staff Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xf47cf699
All Resistances +28
Increase Maximum Life 23%
+3 to Sorceress Skill Levels
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Lightning Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Cold Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Fire Mastery (Sorceress Only)
150% Damage to Undead
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 20

Merc:
Decided i wanted a break from the mandatory act 2 merc. So i went with an act 5 barb. His gear: arreats, guardian angel, doombringer

The gameplay:
Went through the game fairly easy. Started out with a kuko, but parked her in act 3 or 4 in hell because i didn't really like that bow for this char. So i waited until i found the (x-)bow i was looking for. That really helped. Big fire damage combined with both piercing and splash damage made sure of that. From there on not to much trouble in general. Did have a few hard spots.
First one was the ancients. Merc died before i could do any real damage. So on to the second try. Seperated them, but even 2 was to much for the merc. Try three: see try 2. No 4. Killed the 2 that weren't FI. Only one left, FI though. Merc was doing good, i hardly did any damage to him. Merc did lose some health, but i had enough pots. Then all of a sudden, where's my merc??? Damn, he's dead again. Tried to finish it on my own, but soon realised that i'd run out of bolts before Mr. Whirly would be dead. And i was afraid whacking him with my xbow wouldn't be a very good idea. Luckily got them on the fifth try. I guess five times is a charm. On to the WSK!
Cleared the first floor without trouble. Then on to lvl 2. Got in some serious trouble with a pack of gloam minions. 3 or 4 NDE's there because of low hp's (~700) and being hit multiple times at once. Also my merc died numerous times here and on lvl 3. And well in the throne he continued his streak of dying. I guess he was so lazy that he'd rather be dead then help me fighting.
Except for that didn't have any real trouble getting through the rest of lvl 2 and onwards. No trouble at baal's minions (parked Lister and co).
On to the big man himself (not sure if "man" is the right word, but it'll do). Quickly used some static to get his life down. Then started fireing. He was not impressed, i guess he has a high fire resistance. He continued the killing-my-merc-streak his fellow monsters started earlier. It even came to the point where i went back a few acts to kill some stuff so i had something to sell for 30-35k. After a long fight with him and his dupe (i thought dupes were forbidden in this game:wink3: ) i finally wore him down. Finished the game with only enough money for 3 or maybe 4 more ressurections.

Thoughts:
- Fun to play against non FI monsters, a bit less against things that are. Maybe i should try to do some cows.
- The idea of using lightning sc's didn't work as well as i hoped. Partly because i actually had to hit stuff to do damage, which is why i started pumping dex later on. Should have done that a bit earlier. And partly because the charms i used weren't that great (most between 20-40 max Ldam)
- This was the last time i used an act 5 barb. Whenever i could kill it wasn't to bad because things were usually dead before they could really hurt him. But whenever my killingspeed dropped a bit, his getting-killed-speed skyrocketed. Next time i play this char i'll mule on some gold and hire a decent merc. Either holy freeze or blessed aim to try to get the sc idea to work better.
- Although not a real cookie cutter it's pretty powerfull when it's not facing FI's. When it is taking on FI's then speed goes down, but it's still doable against most enemies.
- I'm continueing my search for a better switch weapon to cast enchant. That combined with a few skillers (also yet to find/cube) should get her damage up quite a bit.
- Now on to the next project. Not sure which that'll be, but there will be one. That's for sure.
 
Originally posted by domac on Feb 7, 2007:

Matriarch Lucrecia

Until now only melee fighters able to challenge the three prime evils were Barbarians and Paladins. Then Lucrecia came, enchanted herself and defeated the three.

Lucrecia is a melee enchantress using Passion weapon to obtain zeal.


Character screen without prebuff
Character screen with prebuff

Character name : Lucrecia
Character type : Sorceress
Character level : 80
Character exp : 683619291

STATS
Strength : 137
Energy : 35
Dexterity : 183
Vitality : 135
Stat Points Rem : 0
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life : 728 / 429
Mana : 390 / 193
Stamina : 300 / 278



SKILLS
20 Enchant
20 Warmth
20 Fire Mastery
20 Frozen Armor
6 Static Fiels -> more points will go here
1 Frost Nova
1 TP



ITEMS
Passion
Phase Blade
'DolOrtEldLem'
One-Hand Damage: 87 to 98
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 54
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x573f8ea
+182% 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
59% 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)



Harlequin Crest
Shako
'Ral'
Defense: 127
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x59f88cab
+2 to Strength
+2 to Energy
+2 to Dexterity
+2 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 10%
Fire Resist +30%
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to All Skill Levels
+120 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+120 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)


Stormshield
Monarch
Defense: 437
Chance to Block: 67%
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 73
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xcaea3ede
+30 to Strength
+25% Increased Chance of Blocking
Damage Reduced by 35%
Fire Resist +19%
Lightning Resist +44%
Cold Resist +79%
Poison Resist +19%
35% Faster Block Rate
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
Indestructible
+300 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)



Duriel's Shell
Great Hauberk
'Ort'
Defense: 1507
Durability: 148 of 150
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x7d0f3d9c
+15 to Strength
+181% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +50%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Required Level +7
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+80 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)


OTHER ITEMS:
SOJ (for +1 skill to obtain lvl 4 zeal. can't find that damn Bul-Katho's)
String of ears
Angelic ammy + ring
Gore Rider
Laying of Hands
Leaf staff +3 enchant on switch


Charms:
Burning Grand Charm of Inertia
Burning Grand Charm of Craftmanship
Burning Grand Charm
Cobalt Grand Charm of Winter
Coral Grand Charm of Greed
Garnet Grand Charm
Amber Grand Charm of Pestilence
+ various scs in attempt to obtain max resists :)


MERCENARY
Prayer merc
Tal's helm
Insight eth giant tresher
Shaftstop



She was very fun to play in normal and NM and until act 4 hell. As you know act 4 contains large numbers of fire immunes and her life wasn't easy. She died once thanks to Venom lords. But she managed to kill big D and came to ACT 5. 2 of ancients were FI but they weren't much of a problem. Static, CB, merc and physical damage took care of them.

Once she entered WSK she died maybe 5-6 times, from witches, from horadrim+souls and once from lister's pack. Boy they were hard, she had to isolate them and fight maybe one, two of a time. teleport was used a lot :)

Baal was piece of cake, static + cb + fire damage were too much for him and he died. Of course he didn't give me anything. The trend continues.

Her best find was Raven frost from andy runs.
 
Originally posted by galtwish on Feb 26, 2009:

Matirach Dextress--1.12 Ranged Enchantress

Stats with gear:
Str: 80
Dex: 70
Vit: 132
Eng: 305

Skills:
20 Telekinesis
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
1 in Static Field, Teleport, the rest in Energy Shield

FR: 35
CR: 43
LR: 45
PR: -15

LCS damage w/Venom: 6122-7787
AR: 2557
Life: 534
Mana: 1064

After prebuff:
Energy Shield--23
Enchant--36

Gear:
Tal Rasha's Crest
"Treachery" Dusk Shroud
Kuko Shakaku w/Shael
297% ED Bonesnap on switch
Laying of Hands
Ravenfrost +20 Dex/+ 247 AR
Nightsmoke (upped)
Natalya's Soul 22%CR 25%LR
Saracen's Chance +24% resist all

Storm Bond rare ring
+1 max damage
+2 min damage
+41 AR
+11 Energy
+77 mana
+6% resist all

2 Burning skillers (+20 max damage on one from 1.07)
2 Sparkling skillers
3 Serpents GCs with secondary mods and +158 mana

Prebuff:
Volcanic clasped orb +2 Enchant
Magefist
Volcanic Coronet
Volcanic Amulet
Lidless Wall
Spirit Shroud
"Memory" Gothic Staff +7 ES
Powered Amulet
Powered Coronet

Holy Freeze merc
Hone Sundan 180% ED Shael/Shael/Amn
Tal Rasha's Crest
"Duress" Dusk Shroud


After finding a Volcanic orb with +2 Enchant in 1.07, I decided to make an Enchantress in 1.12. I didn't know what I would use for a back-up skill against FIs, but figured my questing with multiple characters and limited Hell Meph running would provide an answer. Additionally, I wanted to find a better weapon than Kuko Shakaku as well. So I got started.

6os Great Maul socketed with -15% req jewels got me to L16 where I equipped 1.07 Ravenclaw and Twitchthroe, Iratha's set, Angelic jewelry, and Cow King's Hooves. At L18 I was able to equip Viper Heart, a +1 Fire Skills/+3 Enchant rare orb. This utterly dominated Normal until I equipped Kuko Shakaku at L33. I socketd a Shael into the Kuko in A5 and the Ancients required no potions. Baal was silly easy at P8, and I got to 43k AR on a combat shrine in the Moo Moo Farm.

Nightmare required just a couple of charms to get my resists to 85/xx/85/xx, and I max'ed out at 81k AR in Act 2 off of a combat shrine. I also switched to a Holy Freeze merc here, equipping him with a Lionheart Wyrmhide and a rare 299% ED/10% IAS Hyperion Spear that I just had to save. Once Ravenfrost became available, I switched over to Saracen's Chance. The NM Ancients were funny, and a harbinger of the irony that would haunt this character for the rest of her quest. I took out the first two in less than 30 seconds, and Korlic was left. FI/MI Korlic. So I switched to my Volcanic orb + Sigon's shield and tanked while my merc worked him down. A couple of deaths as I teleported too aggressively and kept it at P8 for the entire time except for The Ancients.

Hell presented some challenges. I switched to Credendum, Laying of Hands, Tal's Mask, Smoke, and Natalya's Soul, and a dual resist rare to go with the 20/247 Ravenfrost and the 24% resist all Saracen's Chance. I had almost 200 unspent stat points and about 15 skill points that I would be able to use before I finished. Should I go with Frozen Orb, synergize Crescent Moon in a Phase Blade, or Ribcracker and Energy Shield? I'd tried Ribcracker in A4 and A5 of Nightmare, but it isn't impressive at P8. I settled for Energy Shield; with the prebuff as it would last for almost 20 minutes. I dumped my remaining points in Energy Shield, and strapped on Whitsan's Guard and a Fleshrender to deal with FIs. I'd switch from the standard P1 to P3 or even P8 if there were few FIs around.

By Act 3, I'd dropped all pretense of melee, and just used Telekinesis and terrain to channel FIs as the merc was capable of dealing with them. I had one death in the Durance of Hate, teleporting into a pack of dolls whose explosions probably killed me 3 times over when I hit them with an arrow from the Kuko. I thought I'd be fine from there, and just grit it out. That is, until the Chaos Sanctuary.

At least 600k was spent in the Chaos Sanctuary in 2+ hours, but I didn't die. Plenty of NDEs, as I had to telebomb OKs and herd packs on relatively open ground with TK. But in the end Diablo was overcome by getting the merc to stay under the lightning hose and running around as Diablo focused on me.

A5 was quick, with a welcome yet ironic gift from a champion Dark Archer in the Crystalline Passage--a 220% ED/111% AR Hellrack, and me with no way to get the stat requirements to meet it as I'd been pumping ENG since A1. Ah well, time to make a Conviction/Vengeance ranger. The Hell Ancients had to be rerolled as my merc died in less than 5 seconds to FI/CI Cursed Korlic. The next roll spawned a CI/FI/EF whirler who apparently did no damage to my merc and a Madwac that was just as easily dispatched. Korlic presented no difficulties...until I ran out of arrows. So I switched to my prebuff and lobbed L7 Fireballs at him while my merc ground him down. Several NDEs in the WSK from manaburn, and I had to make 4 or 5 tries to get to the Throne Room. Once there, I probably took 20 trips to town for curse removal, merc resurrection, poison removal, etc. Lister's pack was tough, but TK and teleporting allowed us to kill them all--no monsters parked from the waves. Baal was pretty tough but didn't even kill the merc. His final strike at me was dropping Demon Machine--the one piece of equipment I truly wanted for the character the whole time!

Finds:
Rusthandle, Magefist x2, Stormguild, Riphook, Kelpie Snare, Tancred's Hobnails, Deathbit, Skystrike, Hellrack, Goldwrap, Demon Machine

Runes:
Ko, Sol, Hell, Lum, Io, all between the Arcane Sanctuary and Mephisto, an Amn in Hell WSK2. Hellforge was El/Lum/Lem.

Overall a very fun character and I really enjoyed Energy Shield with upped Nightsmoke, and once Fade was active I was safe from everything but manaburn. Thanks again to the SP members who gave me advice on what to do once I got to Hell.
 
Originally posted by Ipsilantee on Feb 10, 2009:

Matriarch Heartburn, Lvl 84 ball buster

This is the first char i've Matted/Patted since I joined these forums. It is a pure fire sorc that will hopefully make it to the blood moor eventually.

This is her current LCS.

Skill setup:

1 into all pre-req's
Maxed Firebolt
Maxed Fireball
Maxed Meteor
Maxed Fire Mastery
8 points into Hydra (all future points will go here)
1 in TK
1 in Teleport
1 in Static Field

Gear:

Code:
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 125
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x7c7c6e6c
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit
24% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Tal Rasha's Adjudication
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x2b0d6d25
+50 to Life
+42 to Mana
Lightning Resist +33%
Adds 3-32 lightning damage
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
10% Faster Cast Rate
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Tal Rasha's Guardianship
Lacquered Plate
Defense: 912
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Strength: 83
Required Level: 71
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x4293eedd
+400 Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
Fire Resist +40%
Lightning Resist +40%
Cold Resist +40%
112% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -60%

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
10% Faster Cast Rate
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)

Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye
Swirling Crystal
One-Hand Damage: 18 to 42
Durability: 50 of 50
(Sorceress Only)
Required Level: 65
Orb Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x35b17f98
+10 to Energy
+57 to Life
+77 to Mana
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Fire Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Lightning Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Cold Mastery (Sorceress Only)

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+1 to Sorceress Skill Levels
-15% to Enemy Fire Resistance
-15% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
+15% to Cold Skill Damage
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth
Mesh Belt
Defense: 98
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 46
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xe28b94a5
+20 to Dexterity
+30 to Mana
15% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -20%
37% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+60 Defense
10% Faster Cast Rate
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 138
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x3848a08a
+22 to Vitality
+99 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+8 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 25
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa83713c5
+26% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%
+10 Defense
Adds 1-6 fire damage
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Fire Skills

Sandstorm Trek
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 168
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 91
Required Level: 64
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x22eeda96
+14 to Strength
+14 to Vitality
+156% Enhanced Defense
Poison Resist +62%
20% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Hit Recovery
50% Slower Stamina Drain
+85 to Maximum Stamina (Based on Character Level)
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds

Havoc Band
Ring
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 97
Fingerprint: 0x3a5e1e30
+18 to Strength
+11 to Life
Fire Resist +5%
Lightning Resist +11%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Dread Turn
Ring
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xef6095dc
+20 to Strength
+2 to Life
+102 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
Fire Resist +10%
Lightning Resist +10%
Cold Resist +37%
Poison Resist +10%

Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 18 to 56
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xc0c58058
+275% 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
+5 to Battle Orders
+3 to Battle Cry
+5 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Inventory:

Code:
Burning Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xb233186
+36 to Life
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

Burning Grand Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xaba476eb
+6 to Strength
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

Burning Grand Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x35649e0e
+5 to Strength
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

Burning Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x68216cc
+1 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

Serpent's Grand Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xf15e8f3a
+53 to Mana
12% Faster Hit Recovery

Serpent's Grand Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x628e9da9
+59 to Mana
12% Faster Hit Recovery

Serpent's Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x4346b99
+28 to Life
+59 to Mana

Shimmering Small Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x89d71b77
All Resistances +3
5% Faster Hit Recovery

Shimmering Small Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xb35e190f
All Resistances +5
5% Extra Gold from Monsters

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x50b2d3aa
All Resistances +4

Serpent's Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xf6ba4a29
+17 to Life
+15 to Mana

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xec311508
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xf17d6d42
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xe08fc793
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Large Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x2636ed52
+29 to Life
All Resistances +7

Merc Gear:
Code:
Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xb6b753dd
+15 to Life
+100% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 12
Damage Reduced by 17%
All Resistances +11
Adds 6-22 cold damage over 4 seconds
8% Life stolen per hit
8% Mana stolen per hit
15% Slower Stamina Drain
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Duress
Archon Plate
'ShaelUmThul'
Defense: 3463
Durability: 31 of 31
Required Strength: 93
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x26f07a36
+196% Enhanced Defense
+12% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +15%
Lightning Resist +15%
Cold Resist +45%
Poison Resist +15%
Adds 37-133 cold damage over 2 seconds
40% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (3: 3 used)

Insight
Cryptic Axe
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 173 to 753
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Dexterity: 93
Required Strength: 155
Required Level: 59
Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x496cce4b
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+235% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
242% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 17 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

Infinity
Thresher
'BerMalBerIst'
Two-Hand Damage: 70 to 829
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Dexterity: 108
Required Strength: 142
Required Level: 63
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x71b12d5a
+293% 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)
+42 to Vitality (Based on Character Level)
-52% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)



Gameplay:

Leveled up to 29 using sigon's and a jewel of envy crystal sword. Everything beyond that was smooth sailing. Merc used Insight, Duress, and Vamp Gaze until Hell Baal (I switched Insight out for Infinity). Killing speed was very fast in normal and nightmare once fireball got maxed. In hindsight, I should have given the merc infinity when I started hell to speed things up but o well.

Hellforge Drops:

NM - Shael
Hell - Um

Goals for character:

This is my 1st attempt at a SP PvP char. I went pure Vitality with no Es. I might regret that decision but o well, I am planning on getting 200fcr and hopefully somewhere around 16k fireball damage with a decent hydra. I've actually never used Es on a sorc before now that I think about it. I think it might be possible to change gear to achieve max block with Stormshield and 105fcr as well. I plan on leveling her up to 90+, 94 at the max. I think I might multiplayer with this char as Baal runs (even with infinity) are annoying as I have to skip Lister and co to save time.

I will need a few items including a +skills 20fcr circlet (either a magic or rare), some burning skillers of balance to hit 142 fhr, and a Gul to cube for Hoto (although I will just use suicide branch until then). This is where trading will come in... I do have a dilemma though as the trading system here is fully based on trust. I already had a decent stock of items before joining here so I will only be looking for high profile type items, which is a bad thing because I am new here and have not earned anyone's trust and trading expensive items with someone who is NTPP (ME) without a trading history/background is not the greatest idea.

Notable Finds:

Death Cleaver while questing through the Maggot Lair.

The golden legendary mallet Baal's quest drop gave me turned out to be this:

Schaefer's Hammer
Legendary Mallet
One-Hand Damage: 109 to 133
Required Strength: 189
Required Level: 79
Mace Class - Normal Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x3ce37d0f
+50 to Life
+119% Enhanced Damage
Lightning Resist +75%
Adds 50-200 lightning damage
+1 to Light Radius
20% Increased Attack Speed
150% Damage to Undead
Indestructible
20% Chance to cast Level 10 Static Field on striking
+2 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+8 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)

Conclusion:

Overall, a very fun build to play. Kills very fast. Some rough spots in hell with fire immunes but it wasn't too big of a problem. I hope to learn to self meteor, set a decent hydra trap, and learn good dueling tactics with this char and will have fun learning/correcting my mistakes as I go.

Thanks for reading 👋
 
Originally posted by Jabari on Oct 11, 2009:

Mat Hanhebi - Hydress

Hanhebi Intro:


Hydra has always been one of my favorite skills. It's deceptively powerful but is quite good, especially once you get a huge pile of +skills and a little bit of -Enemy Fire Resist (EFR). It's also a very nice tactical weapon - there probably isn't a better Gloam-killer in the game.

Repeat after me: "Damage per Cast Time", "Damage per Cast Time", "Damage per Cast Time". Hydra excels at DpCT. :)

I didn't want her to be just single-tree, but I waffled for quite a long time deciding on what her backup skill should be. I was originally going to go with Nova (to be different, as I haven't seen anyone do that before), but eventually just went with the standard Frozen Orb instead. The main reason for doing that was to keep all of the Facets of the same time. Well, that, and I don't have a Griffion's Eye - if I did I might have gone with Nova after all.

One other difference was that I didn't max out Fire Mastery as most Hydra builds do. I opted to shift those points over to Fireball instead - it gimps the Hydras a little bit (but not as badly as you'd think), but in return I get a FAR more powerful Fireball which I can fire off 5 times between Hydra casts.

The other decision was whether to go with a pile of uniques (Shako/Viper/Occy/Arachs) or to go with Full Tal's. I ended up deciding on the set, as I exchange +3 all skills (but only +1 on the Masteries) for not having to worry about resistances or MF at all. Doing that allows ALL my charm space to go toward skillers (and a Gheeds). Also frees up the sockets for Facets (which would have to go toward MF or resists with the uniques). Oh, that pretty -15%EFR/+15% Cold is kinda nice too. :)

She uses a Holy Freeze merc with a Reaper's Toll, as the cold aura and Decrep both slow stuff down so the Hydras don't miss as much. :) Insight is totally unnecessary - a 1-pt (well, 15-point) Warmth is plenty good enough to keep her mana up - even while spamming Fireballs.

One thing I did differently with her than any of my other characters is her charm arrangement. I wanted a lot of skillers (and a Gheeds), but the TP book gets in the way of a skiller in one of the columns. I just got rid of the book totally and used a belt slot for TPs instead. It's not like she needs a ton of mana or healing pots - one column for each potion type and one for the scrolls. I just have to remember to keep refilling them! *chuckle*

She went through Normal and Nightmare at /p5, Hell at /p3. Easily. No deaths (until I MPed later, and found out I totally suck at teleporting the WSK).

The Build:

20 Hydra
5 FM
20 Fireball/Firebolt
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery
1 Static
1 Teleport

Further points will go to Fire Mastery, of course.


Levelling/Twinking:
Gull, Full Hsaru's, 3-piece Angelic, Tarn, Chancies. Magefist at 23.
Changed to Spirit/War Travs/Nightsmoke when I put enough in STR to use the Spirit.
Full Tals and SoJs at 71 (when I could use the full set).

For skills, put a few in Fireball/Firebolt early (about 6 in each), then 5 in FM and max Hydra. After that, max Orb, then finish out Fireball/Bolt.


Equipment:
- Full Tal's (3 Fire Facets totaling +10/-15)
- 2 * SoJ
- War Travs (41 MF)
- Magefist
- Spirit (35 FCR, which gets me to 105 with the set and Fists)

- Holy Freeze merc: G-Face, Duress, Reaper's

Equipment is good. I can get slightly better charms (FR/MF and PR/MF SCs, and skillers with suffixes), but that's really about it.


Damage Report:

- Hydra: 1758-1993, -30% EFR
- Fireball: 4703-5141, 8 FPC, -30% EFR
- Frozen Orb: 477-500, -80% ECR


Item Finds:

Hellforges: Amn / Lum / Pul (pretty good)

Questing Finds (single pass):

- Hel, Lum, Um (NM Frozen Tundra)
- Death's Sash (TC3 Normal Andi)
- Arctic Furs (TC3 Normal Shenk)
- Ethereal Goreshovel and Venom Ward
- Whitstan's Guard
- Aldur's Rhythm
- Stormrider
- Occulus
- Skull Collector
- Guardian Angel
- Vidala's Ambush (TC3 from Hell Stony Field)
- Plague Bearer
- Natalya's Boots
- Gloom's Trap
- 2 * Eye of Etlitch
- Hwanin's Splendor
- IK Maul

- Not a single Isenhart's Case or Cathan's Seal. That's amazing!

Acknowledgements:
- The SPF, for the Xmas Giveaway (as before!)
- Thomh, for trading me the Tal's Armor - thanks! :)
- Cygnus, for the giveaway with a SoJ and the Facets. Too generous!
- smokeeblade, Abelard, and CorruptedMollusk for various trades (skillers and facets)


Pictures:
- Bosspack Crows Nests *laugh*
- The "Hydra Advantage" through doors
- Nasty Stairtrap!
- Hephasto the merc-killer (Might/Cursed/FE/Spectral) - one-shotted the merc like 3 times so I just gave up rezzing him.
- Nasty Fanat/Cursed Urdars
- Fun monsters on the Frozen River
- The "Hydra Advantage" vs Souls. Best soul-killer in the game, I say! :)

GoMule Dump:

Charms:
+3 Fire Skills
64 MF, 91 GF
9 FR
6 Life

Code:
Name:       Hanhebi
Class:      Sorceress
Experience: 1137679953
Level:      85

                 Naked/Gear
Strength:   146/156
Dexterity:  25/45
Vitality:     309/341
Energy:     35/45
HP:         782/1105
Mana:       203/524

(Hell values accurate, as I added the +50 all not shown yet in GoMule)
Fire:       94/54/44
Cold:       120/80/70
Lightning:  153/113/103
Poison:     80/40/30

MF:         206       Block:      7
GF:         91
FR/W:       25
FHR:        55
IAS:        0
FCR:        105

Fire Bolt: 20/34
Warmth: 1/15
Inferno: 0/0
Blaze: 0/0
Fire Ball: 20/34
Fire Wall: 0/0
Enchant: 1/15
Meteor: 0/0
Fire Mastery: 5/21
Hydra: 20/34

Charged Bolt: 0/0
Static Field: 1/11
Telekinesis: 1/11
Nova: 0/0
Lightning: 0/0
Chain Lightning: 0/0
Teleport: 1/11
Thunder Storm: 0/0
Energy Shield: 0/0
Lightning Mastery: 0/11

Ice Bolt: 1/11
Frozen Armor: 0/0
Frost Nova: 1/11
Ice Blast: 1/11
Shiver Armor: 0/0
Glacial Spike: 1/11
Blizzard: 1/11
Chilling Armor: 0/0
Frozen Orb: 20/30
Cold Mastery: 1/13


(Full Tal's Bonuses listed only once here):

(2 items): Replenish Life +10
(3 items): 65% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
(4 items): +25% Faster Hit Recovery
+3 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+150 Defense
+50 Defense vs. Missile
+150 to Life
Cold Resist +50%
Lightning Resist +50%
Fire Resist +50%
Poison Resist +50%


Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye
Swirling Crystal
One Hand Damage: 18 - 42
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x852fcc7d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 31 Meteor when you Die
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+3% to Fire Skill Damage
+2 to Fire Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Lightning Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Cold Mastery (Sorceress Only)
+10 to Energy
+57 to Life
+77 to Mana
Set (2 items): +1 to Sorceress Skill Levels
Set (3 items): -15% to Enemy Fire Resistance
Set (4 items): -15% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Set (5 items): +15% to Cold Skill Damage
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rainbow Facet
Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xc3e2a034
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 31 Meteor when you Die
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+3% to Fire Skill Damage


Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 147
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0xf5a01d58
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+100 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+3 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 131
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0xb8ad35c
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 29 Blaze when you Level-Up
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
10% Mana stolen per hit
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+3% to Fire Skill Damage
10% Life stolen per hit
+45 Defense
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
All Resistances +15
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rainbow Facet

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x468c7246
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 29 Blaze when you Level-Up
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+3% to Fire Skill Damage

Tal Rasha's Adjudication
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0xc37375cf
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
Adds 3 - 32 Lightning Damage
+50 to Life
+42 to Mana
Lightning Resist +33%
Set (4 items): +10% Faster Cast Rate

Tal Rasha's Guardianship
Lacquered Plate
Defense: 867
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 71
Required Strength: 2
Fingerprint: 0x4d5772c3
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 29 Blaze when you Level-Up
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+4% to Fire Skill Damage
+400 Defense
Cold Resist +40%
Lightning Resist +40%
Fire Resist +40%
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
**% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -60%
Set (2 items): +10% Faster Cast Rate
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rainbow Facet

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x96d337a0
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 29 Blaze when you Level-Up
Adds 17 - 45 Fire Damage
-5% to Enemy Fire Resistance
+4% to Fire Skill Damage

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth
Mesh Belt
Defense: 98
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 16
Fingerprint: 0xb571911b
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Dexterity
+30 to Mana
37% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
13% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -20%
Set (2 items): +60 Defense
Set (3 items): +10% Faster Cast Rate


The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xdc64ff73
Item Level: 54
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: 0xc84f980a
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 136
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0xb87eb7c3
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 15 - 25 Damage
+185% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
40% Slower Stamina Drain
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
41% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+30 Maximum Durability

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 25
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 45
Fingerprint: 0xce4c3d35
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Adds 1 - 6 Fire Damage
+25% Enhanced Defense
+10 Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%


Mercenary:

Name:       Waheed
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Def-Nightmare
Experience: 74562124
Level:      85
Dead?:      false

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   186/201
Dexterity:  150/150
HP:         1767/1767
Defense:    1302/2716
AR:         1913/1913

Fire:       164/124/64
Cold:       194/154/94
Lightning:  164/124/64
Poison:    164/124/64

The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 35 - 414
Durability: 45 of 65
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 114
Required Dexterity: 89
Fingerprint: 0xfedda2d7
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking
194% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
Adds 4 - 44 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (31 Frames)
15% Life stolen per hit
33% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%

Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 32 of 40
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 115
Fingerprint: 0xaf61b60a
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength

Duress
Cuirass
ShaelUmThul
Defense: 1197
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0x2572b675
Item Level: 48
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
12% Enhanced Damage
Adds 37 - 133 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Chance of Open Wounds
+183% Enhanced Defense
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +15
Ethereal
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Um Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune


Postscript:
Hydra sorceresses are so much fun! :)

She's MP-ed a little bit, and I think she's contributing ok. Except for teleporting to the Throne in the WSK - I suck at that, bad. :( Is there a guide someplace?

She'll also probably be my main MFer as well - she carries more MF than my Necro does and kills at about the same rate (without having the Necro's "spin-up" time he needs to make skeletons). She can do Pindle + Baal in about 8 minutes right now (unless the Throne gets OKs, which take a little longer.)

At the moment, she's running AT for the lvl85 tourney - I managed to put together a MF/Tal's set (Ist/PTopaz/PTopaz) for it and got her MF up to about 350. Hydra isn't an ideal AT runner, but she's not awful either - got my runs down to about 2 minutes now. She's also up to level 90! :)
 
Originally posted by jdkerr on Dec 18, 2009:

Matriarch Erazim_Kohak, PvP Firesorc

(She's technically a Champion, but I killed Hell Baal quite a few times today, so I am counting it. ;) )

A while ago I decided to venture into the PvP scene, so I built "Spitfire," a 200FCR, ES-using fireball sorceress. She sat around for quite a while, but about two weeks ago I was able to use her in my first ever PvP experience. I had a blast, but discovered that I was more effective with a 105FCR setup. Accordingly, I decided to make a new fire sorceress:

105% FCR
75% blocking with Stormshield
No energy shield

I self-rushed her through as quickly as possible. Most of the late leveling occurred with /p7 Pindle runs (I found a few decent items, but nothing spectacular). I saved both the NM and Hell Den of Evil quests in order to get my respecs in 1.13 for tweaking the stat distribution later on.

Without further ado:

Erazim_Kohak
PvP Fireball Sorceress
Level 88

Stats:
Strength - 188 (136)
Dexterity - 213 (206)
Vitality - 195 (153)
Energy - 42 (35)

Life : 888
Mana : 578

Skills: (7 in prereqs)
1 (10) in Warmth, Teleport, Telekenesis, Chilling Armor
20 (39) in Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Meteor, Fire Mastery

6 remaining skill points (plus Den of Evil x2).

Gear:

Helm: Shako (socketed 'Um')
Body: Vipermagi (upped, perfect resists, socketed 'Shael')
Weapon: 'Spirit' Crystal Sword (perfect FCR)
Shield: Stormshield (socketed PDiamond)
Gloves: Magefist (upped once)
Belt: Arachnid's
Boots: Sandstorm (+15 str)
Amulet: Mara's (+22 res all)
Ring1: Stone of Jordan
Ring2: Rare 39life/13coldres/25lightres
Inventory: 9 skillers (+32 life), some resists and life

Resists: 75% all
Blocking: 75%
Damage Reduction: 45%
FHR: 86% BP
Defense: 3480

Thoughts:

I am not sure how she will play, but I am hoping she will be better than my last attempt. I am eager to see what difference the blocking makes. Her fireball is about 15k, so that will make a big difference, too (Spitfire's fireball hadn't broken 10k yet, if I am not mistaken).

I would like to replace 'Spirit' with 'Heart of the Oak', which will free up some points in dexterity but will require shuffling my gear about a bit (FHR in the charms, most notably). I am also not sure that a PDiamond is the best way to socket my Stormshield (perhaps a faster block rate or a lower dexterity investment would be better).

Thanks to everyone I traded with and who gave me advice. And a particular thanks to Colony for being marvelously patient with my constant questions and kooky ideas.

(This is my first mat/pat thread, so let me know if I missed something.)
 
Originally posted by @maxicek on Sep 2, 2009:

Matriarch Aurora - PvP Fire Sorceress

Aurora - Fire Sorceress
Aurora is my PvP fire sorceress / Full Tal's PvM Fire Sorceress. Kind of a build one, get one free deal. Not wanting to risk a death from Fire Immune Lister, for quite a while she was my highest level champion but, after I finally hit level 94, I decided it was time to kill Baal.


Stats
Name: Aurora
Class: Sorceress
Experience: 2287063600
Level: 94

Strength: 135
Dexterity: 195
Vitality: 105
Energy: 125
Looking at this I think that I have under statted in strength. :banghead: 135 + 15 from Sandstorm Trek = 150, leaving me 6 short for a Monarch. Mara's and a charm will sort that, but it does leave me with less flexibility in the amulet slot. I think when I put the points in I was planning on Treks + Mara's + Harlequin Crest. I'm also a bit short on dexterity without the Harly.

I'm not sure my vitality/energy balance is very good. Corrupted didn't give anything away in his Mat thread, so I was guessing a bit. I think I put too many points into vitality, but against poison characters that isn't necessarily a bad thing. :\

Fire: 100/60/0
Cold: 160/120/60
Lightning: 125/85/25
Poison: 154/114/54

Block: 74%
FHR: 90
FCR: 110

Skills
20 Firebolt
20 Fireball
20 Meteor
20 Fire Mastery
1 Warmth
1 Inferno
1 Blaze
1 Fire Wall

20 Telekinesis
1 Teleport

No points in static was a bit of a pain whilst questing, but I used Spire of Lazarus on switch when I needed it. Energy Shield is cast from a +3 Energy Shield 'Memory' Staff.


Equipment - PvM
This is the set up I used in the MFO. There were a few differences for questing, but nothing significant. I went for 105 FCR for faster fireball spamming, giving me about 420% MF. IIRC she was packing about 12K Fireball Damage.

Weapon: Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye
Shield: 'Spirit' Monarch 35%

Switch Weapon: 'Harmony' Hunter's Bow

Helm: Tal Rasha's Horardric Crest
Armour: Tal Rasha's Guardianship
Belt: Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth (15% MF)
Boots: War Travellers (49% MF)
Gloves: Magefist

Amulet: Tal Rasha's Adjudication
Ring1: Nagelring (30% MF)
Ring2: Rare with some MF and strength. (Without Sandstorm Trek I don't have enough strength for 'Spirit' otherwise.)

Inventory: Gheed's Fortune (39% MF), 4x Burning GCs, Tome of Identify, 2x4 slots spare, 7% MF small charms.


Equipment - PvP
I have a bit of flexibility in my PvP gear to play with FCR gear in the Helm/Glove/Belt/Amulet slots. These items aren't really fixed, a nice 15FCR amulet or 20FCR circlet would make all the difference. This is my current setup, giving me a bigger mana pool. I have also used a Magefist / Harlequin Crest setup too. An uber 15FCR Amulet would fit in nicely... PvP gear gives me about 17K Fireball damage. I also have a +15% Fire Damage Fireball Ormus I could use but, given I don't have a full strength Energy Shield, the resists from Vipermagi are useful. I have even considered a Trangs Claws and Belt setup for +3 to Fireball. Lots of room for fiddling with gear.

Weapon: 'Heart of the Oak' Flail
Shield: Stormshield 'Eld' / 'Sanctuary' Tower Shield / 4PSapphire Monarch

Switch Weapon: Beta 'Call to Arms'
Switch Shield: Spirit

Helm: +2/20 FCR Circlet
Armour: Skin of the Vipermagi 34% 'Shael'
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Boots: Sandstorm Trek
Gloves: Frostburn

Amulet: Mara's / Tal Rasha's Adjudication
Ring1: Stone of Jordan
Ring2: (Stone of Jordan but I traded my second so need another)

Inventory: 10 Burning GCs (four "of sustenance"), 6 SCs of Balance, 4 SCs with Mana & Life. I really need to trade for two Burning GCs of Balance so I can ditch some of the SCs.

Pre-Buff: +3 Energy Shield 'Memory' Staff as a minimum, I can add in a +3ES Ormus and Powered Circlet and Amulet if I feel the need, but for most casual PvP week type duels I haven't bothered.

Code:
Skull Circlet
Circlet
Defense: 28
Durability: 105 of 105
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0x888fd65c
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+77 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +6
Half Freeze Duration
Level 3 Confuse (27/27 Charges)
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

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: 0xbbb06399
Item Level: 61
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 +30
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

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0x2a39a87c
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Cast Rate
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+120% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +34
Magic Damage Reduced by 12
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Frostburn
Gauntlets
Defense: 48
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 60
Fingerprint: 0x7317c986
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 6 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
+17% Enhanced Defense
+30 Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 40%

Sandstorm Trek
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 171
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 91
Fingerprint: 0xac5c2fab
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+160% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength
+14 to Vitality
+94 Maximum Stamina (Based on Character Level)
50% Slower Stamina Drain
Poison Resist +54%
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 125
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xf3b67cce
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Slows Target by 10%
+99% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xbf3ae4e
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

Stormshield
Monarch
Defense: 495
Chance to Block: 29
Durability: 59 of 86
Required Level: 73
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0xac045ec9
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+35% Faster Block Rate
32% Increased Chance of Blocking
+352 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+30 to Strength
Cold Resist +60%
Lightning Resist +25%
Damage Reduced by 35%
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Eld Rune


Mercenary Equipment
A2 Holy Freeze merc:
Helm: Andariel's Visage
Armour: 'Fortitude' Archon Plate
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll


Finds
Hellforge: Pul NM, Gul Hell. Nice HF drops for a change.
My MFO finds are here. As I said in the post, not a bad collection given the number of runs, but the lack of a stand out item disappointed me. I also found a Stormspire doing practice runs prior to the MFO and an IKSC levelling after the MFO.


Random Thoughts
When I built a meteorb, I was very disappointed by her performance. Two not very powerful attacks. I built a CLOrb sorc to run the countess. She is great at that, but again I was disappointed by her performance when questing. I have two pure Blizz sorcs and they are by far my favourite characters. After playing this character, I'm of the opinion that single tree sorcs are much better than dual tree. On the average sorc, the amount of time spent questing compared to MF runs is so small that it isn't worth the reduced damage in your main attack to have a backup. A decent merc will solve any immunity problems that you can't teleport past.

The biggest challenge for the pure Fire sorc is the Chaos Sanctuary. FI Doom Knights and Venom Lords, as well as a very quick FI seal boss. I dealt with it by teleing to each seal and popping it, killing the boss quickly and teleing to the next one. The Infector of Souls was a tough match. First clearing some space around the seal, then very patiently luring the minions away to be dealt with by the merc, one by one. The first time I did this, my merc wasn't able to kill him - he regenerated quicker than he took damage. Lister wasn't nearly as much of a problem, probably because my merc was level 93 by that point.

She is a reasonable Pindle runner, and it was here that I did most of my levelling. I ran at about 32 seconds when he wasn't FI, 38 seconds if the merc had to do the work at /players8. Despite a few deaths causes by carelessness when tired, it took me about 2000 runs to level from 92 to 94.

She hasn't seen much PvP action. She was built so that I had a teleporting character prior to getting Enigma. I did use her a bit during PvP week 3, but she was only 92 at the time and was missing the last two points in telekinesis to make ES work at full effectiveness. Still she fried a few people, but aiming fireballs isn't that easy - I'm hitting by luck at the moment. I ran a long series of 1vs1 with col's Im_ABarb and won nothing. But, even with only 75% resist, I would need 10 hits to kill him with his huge life pool.

Aurora is now my highest level character, so she will also be used for Amulet crafting and claw shopping when she isn't PvPing. Despite the dubious stat point allocation, I don't think I will be re-building her or levelling her further. Solo Baal runs are not possible / worth it with a FI Lister, I don't think I can stomach progressing to 95 with Pindle. Plus, now I have enigma, there are other builds I would rather concentrate on. Still, she is good fun to play both PvP and PvM.

Thanks for reading.
 
Originally posted by MukTuk on May 19, 2008:

Matriach Flammie, pure fire Sorc

Amazingly enough, I *do* play classes other than shapeshifting Druids. This is one of them.

I didn't create Flammie with any intention of beating the game, I just wanted a quick D2 fix and started a sorc, and kicked *** and just placed points to boost early game power, as I didn't intend on saving any. I decided to just go full fire, I wasn't going to take her to Hell anyway so FI's weren't a concern. The early game was fun, and a Leaf in a +2 fireball staff really racked up the damage quickly. Fireball was quickly becomming a favourite spell.

But as I went on, she got more and more fun to play, and so mid-nightmare I decided I would beat the game with her, FI's be damned. If I had to let my merc kill every one, or just skip half an area, so be it. And with that, I decided to twink on some gear (Magefist, Vipermagi, Insight, etc) and go for it.

And it was a blast (pun not intended). After swapping to dual spirits and hitting the 105% FCR break-point and with an Insight to back it up, there was no end to the fireballs I threw around. It was great fun blasting entire packs of monsters to death at once. (Not fun when they're dolls though x_x). With fast casting, I could not help but teleport everywhere like a madman. Safety be damned, I was teleporting into areas blindly and if I landed into the middle of a pack, I'd let loose a point-blank range fireball and waste the whole lot. I was playing much more aggresively too, I dealt with ranged packs and gloams in much the same way - teleport into their face and wipe the lot out with a fireball or three. I zipped through areas in a flash, leaving most things charred and burning in my wake.

FI's weren't too much of a problem either, luckily most of the monsters I met were perfectly flammable enough. I used a +3 FO staff on switch to help out the merc, eventually spending the hard points sometime mid-Hell to avoid the hassle of swapping and allowing the dual spirit bonus to apply to CM too. My Merc handled most things, and spamming Glacial Spike meant he could fight them safely too.

Blah blah blah. Players 1 whole way, took Ancients first try, Lister sucked as always, and Baal's drops resembled Normal Rakanishu's. The end.

STATS
Matriach Flammie
Level 82

STR: 156 (112)
DEX: 25
VIT: 362 (318)
NRG: 35

Life: 1,024
Mana: 501

Fireball Damage: 5,841 - 6,482
Meteor Damage: 12,509 - 13,138 | 1118 - 1191 per sec (I mostly used meteor to heat up areas where monsters are going to spawn, like Diablo, Gidbinn, Evil urns etc)

Resists: 72/75/75/75

SKILLS
27 (20) in Fireball, Meteor and Fire Mastery
21 (16) in Firebolt
1 in Enchant, Hydra, TK, Teleport, Static and Frozen orb
rest in pre-reqs for the above

GEAR
Code:
Spirit
Crystal Sword
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 5 to 15
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xc993d765
+22 to Vitality
+112 to Mana
+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
25% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+4 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)
 
Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 146
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0xb357d527
+22 to Vitality
+112 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
+6 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)
 
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: 88
Fingerprint: 0xf4b82d57
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
All Resistances +26
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
 
Kira's Guardian
Tiara
Defense: 129
Durability: 25 of 25
Required Level: 77
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x7b64407
+89 Defense
All Resistances +60
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cannot Be Frozen
 
Loath Buckle
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 31
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 56
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 77
Fingerprint: 0x83b4ba8a
+14 to Strength
+33 to Life
+16 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 4%
Fire Resist +8%
9% Faster Cast Rate
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Nova when struck
 
Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 24
Durability: 17 of 18
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x988920c4
+22% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%
+10 Defense
Adds 1-6 fire damage
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Fire Skills
 
Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 156
Durability: 65 of 66
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x19c1e8db
+117 Defense
Lightning Resist +23%
Cold Resist +17%
+50 Maximum Durability
40% Faster Run/Walk
Heal Stamina Plus 20% (Based on Character Level)
 
Doom Touch
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x56c62d9c
+9 to Life
Fire Resist +9%
Lightning Resist +26%
Poison Resist +17%
3% Life stolen per hit
10% Faster Cast Rate
 
Beast Master
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 30
Fingerprint: 0xbca7b667
+14 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +29%
Lightning Resist +29%
10% Faster Cast Rate
 
Raven Beads
Amulet
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x8ab1b5bd
+18 to Strength
+12 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 10%
All Resistances +10
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
10% Faster Cast Rate
 
(How I wish this was +1 Sorc >.<)

Charms
I'm lazy. A bunch of charms that added up to about 100 life, 50 mana, +1 Fire skills, +12% FHR, about +25% Poison res and a little cold res and +2str

Mercenary
Zanarhi - Level 82, Holy Freeze Merc
Damage about 600-3,000, Life about 1,200, Resists 75/75/75/61
Code:
Insight
Colossus Voulge
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 90 to 805
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Dexterity: 45
Required Strength: 200
Required Level: 48
Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x78b9ccb2
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+226% 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
183% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 14 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)
 
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 109
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x3bf09f28
+10 to Strength
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit
Socketed (1: 1 used)
 
Griswold's Heart
Ornate Plate
'RalOrtThul'
Defense: 930
Durability: 58 of 60
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x439451c4
+20 to Strength
+500 Defense
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +30%
Cold Resist +30%
Requirements -40%
+2 to Defensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Other
Hellforge: Lum/Lum (I really wanted a Lem =/)
No interesting drops to note of.
 
Originally posted by Neksja on Feb 5, 2008:

Matriarch Kara, Ranged Enchantress

Kara was supposed to wield a sword, but she decided not to, as she is a little rebel girl. Just to show everyone, she mastered for bow and she wanted to be fast and accurate. One of her fellows manufactured some time ago the well-known 'Faith', the ultimate bow for her. So she asked the bow for loan and she got it.

Character name : Kara
Character type : Sorceress
Character level : 79

Strength : 72
Energy : 35
Dexterity : 146
Vitality : 232

Life : 826 / 622
Mana : 231 / 191
Stamina : 374 / 374

Resists: -1/-21/-36/-45 (this is with Blackhorn's Face setup)

Skills:
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Warmth
20 Lightning Mastery
5 Nova (maxing next)
1 in prereqs and wonders

Gear:

Helm: Rockstopper (Blackhorn's Face for Gloam areas)
Armor: Treachery
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: String of Ears
Boots: Sander's Riprap
Ring: Ravenfrost
Ring: Angelic Halo
Amulet: Angelic Wing
Weapon: Faith

Switch: Hexfire and Splendor

Prebuff gear:

Enchant Ormus' 14% fire damage
+3fire skills/30frw circlet
+3fire skills/18life amulet
2x Soj
Magefist

Gear readouts:
Code:
Rockstopper
Sallet
Defense: 178
Durability: 17 of 18
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa6ac99fc
+15 to Vitality
+183% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 10%
Fire Resist +44%
Lightning Resist +24%
Cold Resist +31%
30% Faster Hit Recovery

Blackhorn's Face
Death Mask
Defense: 244
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x42d9bf82
+181% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +15%
Prevent Monster Heal
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 25
+20 Lightning Absorb
Slows Target by 20%

Treachery
Wyrmhide
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 413
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 84
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x40725b2d
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)

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 81
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x6137e92e
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 102
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3120827d
+151% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 11
Damage Reduced by 13%
6% Life stolen per hit
+10 Maximum Durability

Sander's Riprap
Heavy Boots
Defense: 5
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 18
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0xed3a7355
+5 to Strength
+10 to Dexterity
+100 to Attack Rating
40% Faster Run/Walk

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x76d09207
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+230 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Angelic Halo
Ring
Required Level: 12
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x96606ef0
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +6

Angelic Wings
Amulet
Required Level: 12
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x98f81f06
+3 to Light Radius
20% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

Faith
Ward Bow
'OhmJahLemEld'
Two-Hand Damage: 86 to 227
Required Dexterity: 146
Required Strength: 72
Required Level: 65
Bow Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7a73f069
+330% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +15
+120 fire damage
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Ignore Target Defense
300% Bonus to Attack Rating
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
Level 14 Fanaticism Aura When Equipped
10% Reanimate As: Returned
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Switch:

Hexfire
Shamshir
One-Hand Damage: 60 to 100
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Dexterity: 58
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 33
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xf5862b8a
+153% Enhanced Damage
+35 to Minimum Damage
+40 to Maximum Damage
Fire Resist +25%
+10% to Maximum Fire Resist
Ignore Target Defense
+3 to Fire Skills
Level 6 Hydra (36/36 Charges)

Splendor
Grim Shield
'EthLum'
Defense: 229
Chance to Block:  40%
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0xed1c4266
+10 to Energy
+66% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 15%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
20% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+3 to Light Radius
20% Faster Block Rate
10% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (2: 2 used)


Prebuff readouts:
Code:
Ormus' Robes
Dusk Shroud
Defense: 395
Durability: 19 of 20
Required Strength: 77
Required Level: 75
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x4f708a97
Regenerate Mana 11%
+10 Defense
20% Faster Cast Rate
+3 to Enchant (Sorceress Only)
+14% to Fire Skill Damage
+11% to Lightning Skill Damage
+15% to Cold Skill Damage

Volcanic Coronet of Speed
Defense: 38
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 89
Fingerprint: 0x44627242
30% Faster Run/Walk
+3 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

Volcanic Amulet of the Wolf
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x7b8508be
+18 to Life
+3 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x22ea833d
+20 to Mana
Adds 1-12 lightning damage
Increase Maximum Mana 25%
+1 to All Skill Levels

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x79dc8647
+20 to Mana
Adds 1-12 lightning damage
Increase Maximum Mana 25%
+1 to All Skill Levels

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 25
Durability: 15 of 18
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x1ef9fe2d
+27% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%
+10 Defense
Adds 1-6 fire damage
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Fire Skills


Mercenary Items :
Code:
Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 964
Durability: 126 of 126
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x643b1775
+15 to Strength
+185% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+98 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+79 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)

Rockstopper
Sallet
Defense: 245
Durability: 10 of 10
Required Strength: 33
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xd742e25a
+15 to Vitality
+161% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 10%
Fire Resist +40%
Lightning Resist +37%
Cold Resist +40%
30% Faster Hit Recovery
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)

The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two-Hand Damage: 40 to 475
Durability: 50 of 65
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x2b862018
+237% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 1 seconds
11% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking

Charms:
Code:
Steel Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x8b69c318
+120 to Attack Rating

Shimmering Small Charm of Thunder
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x5fc7f763
All Resistances +4
Adds 1-17 lightning damage

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 57
Fingerprint: 0x1a402208
+1 to Strength
+19 to Attack Rating
+1 to Maximum Damage

Arcing Large Charm of Balance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x80ab8899
Adds 1-57 lightning damage
8% Faster Hit Recovery

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x3fbdd2a7
+28 to Life
+61 to Attack Rating
+8 to Maximum Damage

Shocking Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 60
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x409c129a
Adds 1-74 lightning damage

Glowing Small Charm of Storms
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x8f899d41
Adds 2-47 lightning damage

Arcing Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xcf28e859
Adds 1-35 lightning damage

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xb537d017
+39 to Life
+130 to Attack Rating

Arcing Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xd619d64c
Adds 1-43 lightning damage

Viridian Small Charm of Storms
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7051f525
Poison Resist +6%
Adds 1-21 lightning damage

Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0xdf0226a6
+19 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 23
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xb56a16a7
+23 to Life
+61 to Attack Rating
+8 to Maximum Damage

Iron Grand Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xf0d32920
+6 to Strength
+71 to Attack Rating

Gameplay:

Well, one minute of switching gear and prebuffing the Enchant and then like a normal ranged character, but with teleport. As my last mat'd character was strafer, Kara was slight different. Not so powerful and fast, but teleport helped me a lot controlling my Merc. Stay behind and shoot, while Merc tanks monster.

One nice notice:

Faith has an attribute "10% Reanimate As: Returned". Fairly often I got those Returned skeleton to my party, they are quite nice tanks! I was amazed that while my merc was dead in wsk1 and there was a ugly boss pack of those Frenzydudes, those little skellies tanked that pack while I killed 2-3 of them (note, they are fire immunes, so not very quick killing). I was about to take screenshot of them, but I was too excited of fighting with them. I'll try to catch one ss on that. I have no idea what stats/hp/damage those skellies have, but they survived surprisingly long, but they don't do any damage 😁

Tough Spots:

As you can see above, all my resists are negative before Fade to trigger. After Fade, my res are still very low, especially poison and lightning. So Gloams pretty much killed me every time I encountered them. I survived better when I had Blackhorn's Face than Rockstopper. Even though Rockstopper has bigger light res, Blackhorns' Light absorb worked better. Then I just tried to ambush those gloams 😃

Hell Ancients I took from 2nd set. First set had 2 Fire immunes and I actually died in there. 2nd roll had only one Fire immune (that WW-dude, forgot his name) so I took the other two first and the WW-dude last. I just teleported to range and shoot as long as I had to teleport again (they completely ignored my Merc's existence.

Oh, about Gloams, I wanted to try out one crazy thing in WSK2. I saw Champion Gloam back behind the corner, so I wanted to try, if telebombing merc in the middle of them would work. Guess what? Worked perfectly! Though, next time I tried it for normal pack and died in a second 😁

Notable finds:

Pul from NM forge, Ko from Hell forge. Still have that curse, that I get the better drop from NM. Others would be Hotspur in Durance of Hate lvl2 from basket and Telling of Beads from a skeleton in Ancients Way, both hell.

Other thoughts:

Once again, I'd like to know, who is responsible for the idea of Guest monsters in act5? That has to be the most annoying thing they have invented to D2. I was so angry seeing Fallens in Ancients way. FALLENS! For God's sake, it is supposed to be 2nd last place you are questing, before WSK. It is not right to see there monsters you had seen when you started the game. Aargh, not feeling better about that yet :sad:

Screenshots:

I took only two screenshots.

You feel ready for battle.
That one shows, that Kara's AR rocketed to outer space, when I got Combat Shrine. That amount looked so big I wanted to show it you. I know, Dexazon prolly gets way much bigger, but I liked that amount.

Baal has been defeated.
Here's a shot of Baal's crappy drop and last stats of Kara.

Future plans:

I don't know. At first, I thought she would be fun enough to run NM Andariel to hunt my first Tal Amulet, but I'd had to get some more strength on her, to get some WT's and other mf gear on, so it would be wise. We'll see what I'll do with her.

Next Faith character:

Not sure yet, but most-likely it will be Summon Necro or Shadow 'Sin.

Thanks for reading,
Neksja
 
Originally posted by pancakeman on Jun 5, 2007:

Matriarch Aruru

Aruru, goddess of creation, is said to have created man from clay.

Aruru, my newest Matriarch, makes Urdars from corpses. It all started with an idea while I was reading the Epic of Gilgamesh. I saw the name and the occupation, and I thought that it would be cool to build an enchantress around Clay Golem. From there, the idea evolved to Revives, since I had seem them owning Uber Trist. The runeword "Hamony" looked appealing, and from there a month or so of Countess running yielded me the correct runes.
After a trade for the bow (Thanks Zali!, she finally began to take form.

So, here are some stats!

LCS
(http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/9648/screenshot003rb5.jpg)

Level 83

Strength: 149

Dexterity:147

Vitality: 243

Energy: 37

Resists:
-1/-37/37/30

Skills:

20 Enchant
20 Warmth
20 Frozen Orb
10 Fire Mastery
Rest into prereqs, one point wonders.

Well, fighting is hard. That is the only thing I can say.

Ok, it is actually nearly impossible. Were it not for FO, originally for backing up my minions, I would have been dead a long time ago. I lack the AR to hit anything, and IAS is a serious problem. Oh, wait, equipment:

Shako
Sander's Taboo
Treks (Thanks to Thy and her baal running crew)
Mavina's Belt
Vipermagi (30/30)
Manald
Rare ring with AR
Rare amulet with +2 cold skills

And these:
Plague Gyre
Smoked Sphere
One-Hand Damage: 4 to 10
Durability: 35 of 35
(Sorceress Only)
Required Level: 30
Orb Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 43
Fingerprint: 0x86eb43d8
+17 to Energy
+10 to Life
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Lightning Resist +14%
Cold Resist +19%
+2 to Meteor (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Enchant (Sorceress Only)
+2 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only) <<<Thank you to whoever gave this to me!
Level 1 Blizzard (33/33 Charges)

Harmony
Diamond Bow
'TirIthSolKo'
Two-Hand Damage: 118 to 141
Required Dexterity: 132
Required Strength: 89
Required Level: 54
Bow Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0x85fc6d5a
+10 to Dexterity
+231% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Regenerate Mana 20%
Adds 55-160 fire damage
Adds 55-160 lightning damage
Adds 55-160 cold damage over 5 seconds
+2 to Light Radius
+4 to Valkyrie
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
Level 20 Revive (12/25 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)


Well, the drops for her were really bad, nothing worth mentioning.

I think that is about it, so thank you to all who helped me in the endeavor, and you can finally stop hearing about "My secret character".


(Oh, and maybe one day I'll write a guide for Arurur, but until then I have trademarked this build! Ha! :laugh: )
 
Originally posted by Puchoon Jan 17, 2006:

Mat Mus (RWM), berserk sorcy aka "the selfish enchantress" with screenies!

clicky!

Level 82

Base stats:
str: 82
dex: 25
vit: 250
NRG: 143

Skills:
20 (25)warmth
20 (27)Fire mastery
20 (24)Telekinesis
20 (24)Energy Shield
7 (11)static field
1 (5)frozen armor
1 (5)Lightning mastery
4 pre-reqs (Charged Bolt, Lightning, Chain L & Teleport)

Equipment:

"passion" shillelagh w/+2 fire mastery/+2 frozen orb (expensive as hell to repair)
"treachery" dusk shroud
Harlequin Crest w/15 IAS/7 light res jewel
Highlords Wrath
Laying of hands
Dual ravenfrost (20dex/191 AR-20dex/207 AR)
Arachnid Mesh
Silkweave

Enough IAS to reach the max attack speed (9 frames)

Switch:
Demon limb(hel)/23 str gemmed kite shield

Berserk damage: clicky! resistances without fade too
full damage (berserk + enchant + venom): clicky! you can see how good were my resistances...with fade active
There were times when I couldn't afford the repair costs, so only berserk + venom were applied
Charms:

Sharp Grand Charm of Greed
Snake's Small Charm of Balance
Small Charm of Balance
Tangerine Small Charm of Vita
Steel Grand Charm
Burning Grand Charm of Balance
Steel Large Charm of Lightning
Steel Grand Charm of Storms
Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Sharp Large Charm of Sustenance
Snake's Large Charm of Vita
Small Charm of Storms
Small Charm of Vita

Mercenary: Mizan (Holy freeze)

.07 eth "insight"
tal's crest
"lionheart" dusk shroud
clicky! No, I didn't enchant him. Ever. Enough troubles trying to get the gold to repair/recharge my items.

Funny pic: Actually, I was a bit late, but you'll see clicky!

Hell Act 4. the hardest char I've played so far. River of Flame was a pain, at least it was worth the effort with a mal rune from HF. When ithought it was over...clicky! Am I in troubles?
Well, after some deaths, respawns and the usual merc revival, i've managed to kill Diablo, only that this time, it was not worth the effort. clicky! Ok, into act 5 now. The pain continues. Well, I've managed to reach the caves and a nice monster was holding this clicky! After rescuing anya, I almost get a nice present from "that guy" Clicky!
the caves weren't much a challenge, it was my merc who constanly died if I didn't teleport around enough (and feed him reds/purples)The thing is, once Mizad was dead, I was next! the meditation from insight was my life saver.
Ancients: What can I say? Hard? yes, sir! the first time there was a cursed one, I tried to see which one, but they mysteriously disappeared. Then I had to press esc and respawn, only to find out that I forgot to make a TP before entering mount arreat...oh well, the pain continues. the second time, they were kind enough to separate themselves, so I could take them one on one, well two on one, because i kept mizan alive all the fight (after 1532 teleports) Clicky!
The way to the throne was easy, just run around, avoid souls, teleport, avoid OK's, run again, etc.
The minions were pretty tough, the second wave was the worst of all. Poison kills. And fast. i've parked lister and a minion or two, killed the rest and went to kill baal. As always. Easy. but this time I used a couple reds, for mizan, and a purple on me. Baal drop was amazing Clicky! I didn't know he could drop so much money.

Ok, it was a fun build. it's a remake of another (pre-RWM) I tried to make, didn't work at the time, Insight was the key.
With better equipment, and better strategies, it could work much better, for now, I'll stick with classic melee builds. I need to rest a little. Mus is now retired.
 
Originally posted by scrcrw on Jun 11, 2011:

Inferno - best skill ever?

To answer my own question: No, it probably isn't. Let's see if it can be made viable by putting a bit of effort into it though.

Meet Matriarch Dany. She is named after Daenerys Targaryen. Given that she's a pure Inferno sorc, think Dany from early AGoT, not so much later in the series...
Inferno only takes 60 points to max out. That leaves a few to spread around at higher levels. I chose Energy Shield. Warmth is at level 40+ anyway and the planned equipment has precisely 0 resists on it. :smug: Not a bad fit.

Stats & Skills:
Rich (BB code):
Matriarch Dany
House:      Targaryen
Class:      Dragon
Level:      80

Strength:   enough
Dexterity:  0
Vitality:   0
Energy:     the rest

HP:         727
Mana:       2416

Resists (F/C/L/P): -70/-70/-70/0
Fire cannot kill a dragon. Neither can cold or lightning. Poison is a bit scary though.

FHR:        30
FCR:        120 (hits the 117fcr bp for Inferno)

Skills:
45 Inferno
42 Warmth, Fire Mastery
28 Energy Shield (83%, cast on CtA switch)
6  Telekinesis (hard points)
1  Teleport, Static Field

23 Battle Orders (? beta CtA)

Gear:
Volcanic Tiara of the Magus (+10/-10)
Ormus' Robus (+3 Inferno) (+19/-5)
'Phoenix' Monarch (-28)
Eschuta's Temper (+3 Skills) (+25/-5)
Magefist
Arachnid Mesh
Sandstorm Trek (13/13/70)
Volcanic Amulet of Strength
2x Stone of Jordan

Total: +54% fire skill damage and -48% enemy fire resistance

Switch: Beta CtA + Spirit

Charms: 8x Burning GC (one with 31 life :)) and SCs with Mana, Life and 10 fhr

Merc (Holy Freeze): Infinity/Enigma/Tal's Crest

Thoughts:
First things first: Yes, you can kill stuff in Hell with Inferno. Pretty well even. Better than in Normal or NM. Infinity and -efr on gear help a lot. Anything not fire immune melts pretty fast in the first few acts (/p3). Inferno can be spread somewhat efficiently to deal with crowds. Considering what Fireball does with much of the same gear, Inferno is still ridiculously terrible.
Energy Shield was a good fit. It worked much better than on a melee sorc and enabled a fast and reckless playstyle. Not something you'd expect of an Inferno sorc. Mana drained fast in dangerous situations due to the low investment in Telekinesis (caused by my dislike for prebuffing). Usually Warmth and Redemption (from Phoenix) kept Mana (and Life) nicely topped up. I'm positely impressed.

To summarize: Inferno is not the best skill ever. However Inferno/ES can cruise through Hell easily with decent gear. I did it. Don't.
 
Originally posted by sevenOfDiamonds on Jan 17, 2011:

Matriarch Annapurna - A little girl with a big gun

Annapurna the "Dreamon Machine Enchantress"

Introduction
Back in the 1.11 days my MF sorc found a Demon Machine and thus the idea of trying out the vanilla Demon Machine Enchantress was born. She was moderately successful and did quite well in early hell. But as other has mentioned a Demon Machine enchantress often become much of a Frozen Orb slave due to the sheer amount of FIs in hell. This happened to Annapurna as well. That was not to my liking and I ended up parking her in the Frigid Highlands.

When a Jah dropped early December I immediately decided to make a Dream helm. I wasn't ready to be an Enigma slave nor was I prepared to spend the Ber in my stash, which I had saved for Infinity. Ironically the first I did when I got a Ber in early 1.13 was to create a CoH thinking that I'll never get a second Ber anyway and thus an Infinity.

With Dream she could now be freed from the dreaded orb-addiction. Rehab at Akara's and she was set to go.
She would re-quest all the quests in hell A1-A4 and then take on A5 as a new challenge.

She masters the following skills
Max Warmth
Max Enchant (cast at lvl 33)
Max FM
Max LM
Rest Static+Tele

She has the following stats:
Level: 86
Strength: 141 (I upgraded the Demon Machine in 1.11 which was very stupid - but adds to the theme I guess)
Dex: 130 (To compensate for a low level enchant)
Vita: Rest
Energy: Base

She is wearing
Dream Diadem
Up'd Demon Machine (socketed: 19% LR/15 IAS)
CoH Archon Plate
Up'd Mage Fists
Razortail
Infernostride
BKWB (4%)
Raven
Mara's (29)

Switch: +3 Enchant Leaf staff
Inv: 1 Fire skiller, rest life and res:
HF Merc with eth CA Obedience, Ral'd Andys and Duress.

LCS dmg is pretty but off with a factor of 2.7ish.

Act 1 (/p3)
Starting at lvl 83, this was quite easy. Monsters vunerable to both light and fire were 1-2 hit kills and the splash effect made easy way of packs. FIs or LIs took more punch to kill but still was disposed fast enough so that tele-flight wasn't necessary very often. The 12% LL actually gives a little bit of safety and a lot of convinience as potting was almost never necessary. LI+FI bosses got beaten pretty bad by my merc. CB and huge dmg ftw.
Andy was a push over: Huge fire dmg and CB from the merc owned her faster and way safer than teleing in and static her.

Act 2 (/p3)
Sewers was the first challenge for her. Unleechable FI skeletons did take a lot of tele-fleeing to deal with. Rest of the act was easy enough. FIs getting harder to kill involving more hitting/running.
Duriel was a not too hard. Had to feed the merc quite a bit of purples though. As this is the second time this character kills him I guess it counts as my first ever Duriel run ;)

Act 3 (/p3)
Not much to note. She was still safe enough, but the merc bit the dust quite a few times. I actually ran out of gold so I had to find some items to sell to revive the merc. After that I made sure I at least picked up some gold and elite armors... I feared the Council as I know how easily they can rip a merc apart and with Geleb's FI+LI I'd need him to finish the job. It was not too bad, no conviction/fana/might and taking them on a couple at a time made it easier. Moron died only once (to Geleb). Off to Durance which can by quite nightmarish as well (dolls!!) The moron did well to tank these small beasts and thus no NDEs here. Meph was easier than Duriel but dropped equally bad.

Act 4 (/p1)
Loads of FI but at /p1 progress was okay. Nothing really dangerous. Got a great surprise in CS. The merc tanked every pack of Venom Lords without breaking a sweat. FI + 95LR would otherwise have made this very difficult, to say the least. Even infector became merc fodder and before I knew it Big D was slain and the portal to Harrogath was opened.

Act 5 (/p1)
Foothills is always a challenge for a fire based build. But a combination of tele-stomping and hit/run did the job fine. From there it just got easier and easier. Especially the caves were great fun to play. No FI and few LIs = total mayhem. And no gloams either! I actually cleared the Drifter Cavern and Icy Cellar which I normally dread to do.
The wake-up call came on the Arreat Summit. The Ancients decided to spawn with all kind of nastiness: Fanatism, Cursed, Extra Fast. After a couple of 1 hit KOs from Talic I decided to respawn them until the nastiness-factor was low enough for my liking. After a few more spawns with fana and stuff I finally got an easy one. With some careful play the merc dropped Talic and the rest was just hit/run.
WSK was eventless, no gloams here either! Luckily for me there were gloams in the throne room (she wouldn't have been a real mat if she didn't fight any gloams at all, would she?). The waves went down smoothly. Only Lister posed a slight obstacle, but tele'ing to keep the merc safe and it was done. Baal was as boring as ever. Now one should think it was over right? Not so. Playing with the -ns switch crashed the ending video leaving me to do Baal all over again. This took a couple of "baal-runs" to figure out. But finally she became matriarch. End of story.

Drops
-Ravenlore
-+4/-3 Poison facet (lvl up)
-White berserker Axe
-2os Sacred Armor
-and this almost useful from Anya, if only it had +(cold) skills:
Dire Gyre
Eldritch Orb
One Hand Damage: 18 - 50
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 52
Fingerprint: 0xab83b912
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+3 to Blizzard (Sorceress Only)
+6 to Life
Replenish Life +3
Cold Resist +39%
Fire Resist +20%
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Future
-Try her out with an Infinity merc (when that Sur or Ber finally drops *fingers crossed*). She would probably be extremely powerful then.
-Early retirement.

Conclusions
-A very fun alternative to the more vanilla DM/FO-build.
-At /p1 she has all the killing power she need. At /p3 more patience is needed but she is still plenty safe.
-Power/value is obviously very low, but fun/value is quite high.


my apologies for this lenghty post - hope you enjoy reading it.


//D7
 
Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Dec 6, 2007:

Alice the Enchantress, Matriarch

I finally got around to building an enchantress, and she killed Baal a few minutes ago, so here's another write-up.

The Plan:
The first dilema, as always, was in choosing a name. After much diliberation and internal debate (well, ok, I spent about 2 minutes thinking about it), I eventually remembered the name of a certain Hooters waitress from days passed, and the term 'enchantress' seemed somewhat fitting to her personality, so that was decided (plus, Alice is easy to spell 👅).

The next dilema was ranged vs. melee. This one took me quite a bit longer to decide; I was half-way through Act1 Nightmare before I finally made up my mind to stick with ranged. The biggest factor in that decision was how I was going to approach Fire-Immunes. Since I'd decided on Frozen Orb, it seemed like balancing caster + enchant + melee equipment would spread things a little too thin.

The only other noteworthy plan was my desire to see exactly how much Enchant damage I could reasonably attain. So, that meant I always intended to have a strong prebuff, and therefore I always intended to have my stash quite full of prebuff equipment, despite the fact that it's a pain in the arse to have to mule-off finds every ~30 minutes.


The Results:
Stat Screen... I have no idea how accurate that LCS damage is.

This is my Enchant with all of my normal prebuff equipment (and BattleCommand active).

and this was what I could boost my Enchant upto by borrowing 3 more Burning skillers from Darkoooo (thanks), throwing an Arachnid's Mesh into my Prebuff equipment, and tracking down a skill shrine. I could always throw a facet (or two) into the volcanic circlet and shop a Volcanic orb with +3 Enchant and push that further, but that seemed a little overboard - even for me. :rolleyes:

Skills:
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery
1 Teleport
1 Static Field
1 Frozen Armor
1 prereqs
1 Charged Bolt (1-point Energy Shield is the next investment)

+5 Lightning skills
+6 Cold Skills
+8 Fire Skills (questing)
Prebuff: +20 FM, +26 Enchant (total)


Questing Equipment:

Demon Machine (Dun Jewel of Fervor)
Harlequin Crest (13 Resist all / +8 dex jewel)
Vipermagi (50 Resist all / +7 life with jewel)
Mara's (25)
Magefist
Razortail
Ravenfrost (19/244)
Rare Ring: (29% fResist, 25% pResist, 5% LifeLeech, 4% ManaLeech, +20 Mana)
Rare Boots: (30 FRW, 40% lResist, 37% fResist, +4 Dex)

Switch: CtA + Lidless Wall

Charms:
2x Burning (+33 life, +10 life)
1x Chilling (+31 life)
the rest are: Sharp / Fine / Steel / <Resistance> Charms of Balance / <Life> / Stuff


Prebuff Equipment:
Enchant Ormus (11% Fire Damage, -4/+5 Facet)
Volcanic Circlet
Volcanic Amulet
2x SoJ
5x Burning Skillers
Leaf staff (with inherent +3 Enchant)
Battle Command from CtA


Merc:
level82, Normal Prayer merc
'Insight' eth Cryptic Axe
'Duress' Archon Plate
Vampire Gaze (+10 res all jewel)


Notes:
1. Progress through normal was the usual: Envy Jewels, 1.09 Ravenclaw, Kuko + Enchant. Cakewalk. Except for the fact that I was too lazy to twink on FHR equipment (which was a mistake).

2. I can't stress enough how important FHR is for this build, as well as how fragile this build really is. This sorc is simply not designed to be smacked around. No shield = no block and it's a stretch to get decent resistances. On top of that, sorcs have horrible hit recovery, and low life. The 32 FHR I had in Hell was really what I'd consider a minimum (more = a lot better).

I'd estimate that 95+% of the hits I received were worrisome, since I was effectively stuck in hit recovery for almost 1/2 a second. Any group of monsters that can force you into hit recovery and maintain an attack has a chance to kill you. The only recourse is to drink potions, switch to teleport and hope the monsters will leave you alone long enough so you teleport out of there somehow.

3. That said, I only died a couple of times. Mostly because I was forced to play her very defensively, and when you've got all kinds of time in hit recovery it's easy to drink potions :p. Teleport was a crucial component of the build, so I was glad to have the FCR from Magefists & Vipermagi. I wanted another 13+ to get the next breakpoint, but that would've meant sacraficing resistances, pierce, or the Shako.

4. Choosing a prayer merc probably wasn't the best choice either, but I was so vulnerable to damage that I wanted the regen to compensate for that and save me drinking a few million potions.

5. Ancients were a serious challenge. The merc isn't sturdy enough to tank for any noticable length of time, so it's a matter of spawning two that aren't FI, then: teleport + arrow + teleport +arrow + teleport + arrow, etc. until 2 are dead, then using Frozen Orb or TK+merc to finish the last. Even on /p1 with all of my damage it was ~5 frantic minutes and it was tough as hell to keep the merc alive.

6. Mana? who needs mana? With max'ed Warmth + an Insight merc, mana was a complete non-issue. I'm tempted to do a level-up few runs to see how she does with 1-point ES, since I think this is one of those few builds that you don't need to invest in TK at all and it really doesn't matter.

7. To give an idea of her power to anyone familiar with Frozen Orb, but not familiar with Enchant: I'd estimate that I can kill non-FI monsters about 4 times faster with my xbow than I can kill FI monsters with my Frozen Orb (~375 Damage, slvl7 CM - hardly a powerhouse skill, but still efficient enough). Yes, high-level Enchant kicks butt.

8. Alice was a lucky gal, except at the Hellforge (Dol/Io). I kept track of her drops again, and she had quite a few noteworthies:

- Gull Dagger
- Infernal Cranium
- Lidless Wall
- Skin of the Flayed One
- Trang's Claws
- WarTrav's (44)
- IK Gauntlets
- FireLizard's Talons
- Shimmering GC (13)
- Ko rune
- eth, 4os Cryptic Axe


There's probably stuff I'm forgetting, but it's getting late here... :yawn:
👋
 
Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Nov 4, 2009:

Matriarch Burner - Fireballer, revisiting Energy Shield

Once upon a time not long ago, I gambled a very nice circlet for a fire sorceress:

Spirit Veil
Coronet
Defense: 40
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 97
Fingerprint: 0xeee567ef
+17 to Strength
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +20%
Poison Resist +45%
Adds 17-45 fire damage
30% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Fire Skills (Sorceress Only)
100% Chance to cast Level 31 Meteor When You Die
+4% to Fire Skill Damage
-4% to Enemy Fire Resistance
Socketed (1: 1 used)
That was a transparent enough excuse to revisit Fireball. But it took me a while to decide whether to go for full-fireball damage, 105 or 200 FCR, or whether to sneak Energy Shield into the mix too. And whether to make her PvP capable.

Eventually I decided that I wanted to experiment more with Energy Shield and some MDR/PDR items and would re-do if I ever got interested in PvP (which, when the time comes, I'll probably go 200 FCR and full Fireball). Adding PDR/MDR made 105 a more sensible casting breakpoint this time.


The Usual:
LCS (Fireball)
LCS (Energy Shield)

Skills:
20 (39) Fireball
20 Meteor
20 Firebolt
20 Telekinesis
11 (30) Fire Mastery
1 teleport, static, warmth, prereq's
Energy Shield was granted by a +9 'Memory' staff

Gear:
Heart of the Oak (33)
Spirit Monarch
Magefists
Spirit Veil coronet
2x SoJ
String of Ears (15 MDR)
Gladiator's Bane (25 PDR, 20 MDR including Sol rune)
Sandstorm Trek
Arch-Angels amulet of Life Everlasting (11) /w Style Points :nod:

Switch: Memory Elder Staff
Charms
- 7x Burning GC's, various 2nd mods
- 8x +mana SC's (5 with +life)

Merc: Prayer
Insight + Duress + VampGaze

Additional Gear - used to test Energy Shield's performance in different situations:
Skin of the Vipermagi (Sol)
Obedience polearm for the merc


Finds:
- Hellforge: Io / Hel *sigh*
- The Gnasher
- Cinnabar Jewel of Freedom
- a +2 ES/+1 Shiver Armor BattleStaff
- a +3 ES, 4-socket Gothic Staff
<--- kindof funny to find two decent 'Memory' staves while playing an ES sorc. :p


Notes:

- The trip through normal & nightmare was in an MP session with Joosh. He was playing a sorc, which is why I started this instead of another build (so we could both teleport). I think we knocked out both difficulties in ~2 hours, though I did bring my Enchantress in to help with the rush for a bit in Normal & Act3 NM. I died a lot, but I'm blaming trans-pacific lag for much of it. ;)

- Fireball isn't a bad spell. In fact with the nice gear I have, it's fast & pretty fun in a 'mindless' kindof way. "Teleport, spam, teleport spam... oh a fire immune..." that's about it. The biggest problem is there isn't a lot of variety on where a fire-based build can do runs well.

- In hell I leveled up to 85 in the Masoleum on /players8. That's the one area where this build can kick butt, however I found the boss density is pretty small for the size of the map and the distance from the waypoint too far to make it a very efficient MF run.

- Fire Immunes weren't a big problem, but there were a couple of areas that were a pain in the backside because there were so many (Chaos Sanctuary & Baal's minions). A lot of teleport + static + telekinesis in those areas to separate the packs to Haseen-manageable size.

- I have a Call to Arms runeword, and it would be a natural choice to add with an Energy Shield build. The problem is that I relied on my Memory staff to provide Energy Shield, and I didn't want to bother swapping items every time I had to recast ES or Battle Orders/Command. Also, it's nice to prove ES is perfectly viable without a huge mana/life pool.


Notes on Energy Shield:
1. As far as overall survivability, I would say as long as ES stayed active this sorceress was pretty close in safety to what I normally have with my usual no-block/1500-2000 life with CtA sorceress. I.e. not invulnerable, but usually having plenty of time to escape danger.

2. I could tank about 70% of the monsters in the game indefinitely, which was a nice help for when the merc was fighting fire immunes. But if something could hit hard enough to bring down my mana pool, I had to make certain not to tank for long.

3. Once ES collapsed, this build was (obviously) very, very fragile and unsafe. Low life and no-block will do that to you. Potions would've helped, but I wanted to see how ES would do on its own, so most times I didn't drink them when I should've.

4. Manaburn monsters weren't instant-death. They were troublesome, and caused a lot of NDE's, but I wouldn't say they were more than ~20% worse than for many non-ES sorc's (very subjective opinion, of course). As always when I get in trouble with a sorc, it's often because I don't pay enough attention to where to teleport, and I get myself in trouble. In this case I was looking to test ES so I was looking for trouble a lot (and died quite a bit) - but a reasonably sensible playstyle makes this a reasonably safe build.

5. I've mentioned this in the past, but it's important to note again. If you have enough mana and mana regeneration, even manaburn packs are not guaranteed to bring down your energy shield. I encountered one pack of manaburn leapers early in Act2 and I was able to tank ~5 consecutive hits in about 2 seconds from them and my ES stayed active the whole time (and I didn't really take any damage either). That was with level 20 Warmth, and Insight+Prayer mercenary, and 'only' about 1200 mana. With CtA and good gear, it's possible to have 4000+ mana - which means that with Insight (and maybe even without it) a lot of manaburn packs simply won't have the speed & damage to bring down your Energy Shield. I honestly think that a full-out investment in Mana/Regeneration/ES would be about as close to invincible as you could get in D2 - even around manaburners.

6. I experimented quite a bit with different scenarios trying to see how ES would hold up. The 2 constants in my tests were having ~65% absorb and a corresponding 2-to-1 mana:life ratio (I think pre-planning this ratio is a very important aspect of using Energy Shield effectively). Relating to that:

a) I noticed that with my usual setup of 36 PDR & 35 MDR, with the Insight+Prayer merc active, my mana would usually drain at 1-2 times as fast as my life pool, which I found was a pretty decent balance.

b) If the merc died or I stuck him with the Obedience and lost that regeneration, both mana and life drained much faster, but the loss of life was generally quicker than the mana drain. So I guess the merc's Prayer aura had a bigger effect on my life pool than the Meditation aura had on my mana pool. I was a little surprised by this, but I take it as a strong implication that ES is a viable skill even without an active Meditation aura.

7. In case it's not obvious, MDR and PDR are (to me) essential to making Energy Shield a good defensive choice. Most of you are familiar with the concept of getting solid resists for your build. For Energy Shield, I would say MDR and PDR are about equivalent to what resists provide for most builds - don't neglect them, and it'll make you safer.

In my case it would take about 100 damage per attack for a monster to overcome my MDR/PDR and have me take even one single point of damage. That doesn't sound like much, but the majority of monsters in Hell don't do that much damage. And also, I had a nice amount of regeneration from Insight & Prayer, so it would take even higher damage to cause me harm for any length of time.

A few monsters like Archers and Hell Witches were easy to fight because they actually do relatively small amounts of damage rapidly - but the small amounts couldn't overcome my MDR/PDR/regeneration. Keep that in mind if you're getting frustrated by archers with your sorceress sometime.

When I swapped the Gladiator's Bane for Skin of the Vipermagi, it generally had a quite small effect. Because it had lower MDR/PDR, I took a little bit of damage throughout hell much more often with Vipermagi... but the regeneration of the merc would usually overcome that anyways.


ES in Summary:
Overall, like I said previously, I did quite a few tests trying to see what I could and couldn't survive well. Here's how I'd probably break it down:

~70% of the monsters I fought, I could tank indefinitely (at least as long as the merc could survive them too).
- Another ~25% of monsters I could tank safely for ~5 seconds. These had a higher risk of bringing down the merc, which in turn would make things dangerous for me quickly.
- The remaining ~5% of monsters were either manaburn or hard-hitters. And like any good sorceress, it was wise to not tank these for very long.
- The only 1-hit-KO's I remember encountering were when I teleported into a pack of ~8 Burning Souls and they all roasted me with their lightning at the same time... but if I didn't have CtA on a sorceress, I think even a full-vita sorc with 75% resists would've been 1-hit-killed in that scenario too. And it was obviously a careless playstyle that led to that test.


To me, the biggest issue is single-player. There's a reason most sorceress builds you'll see in SP are dual-tree. It's just less frustrating in the long run if you can kill almost everything on your own. And getting two different attack-spells AND investing (even modestly) into Energy Shield can be a real stretch on skillpoints. And then you can throw on the fact that if you imbalance your mana/life ratio for your level of ES, you're going to hamper your build significantly. So it's simply easier to go with a non-ES sorceress in SP.

But I no longer think it's 'better' to not have ES. I think ES just requires a different strategy (both in planning, and in playing). In some regards, I think your budget will have an effect too - but not as much effect as you might expect.
 
Originally posted by Smips on Jan 18, 2010:

Matriarch Living_Flame: The Pure Fire Sorceress

Matriarch Living_Flame

LCS

LCS with Skill Shrine

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

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   146/163
Dexterity:  34/52
Vitality:   275/314
Energy:     35/42
HP:         712/877
Mana:       199/445

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

MF:         118       
FR/W:       25
FHR:        55
FCR:        144

Fire Bolt: 20/41
Inferno: 9/30
Blaze: 1/22
Fire Ball: 20/41
Fire Wall: 1/22
Meteor: 20/41
Fire Mastery: 20/41

Static Field: 1/14
Telekinesis: 1/14
Teleport: 1/14

Gear:
Code:
Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 110
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Level: 62
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x60c6404e
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +2
+124 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+124 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Damage Reduced by 10%
74% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz

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: 22 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

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band
Ring
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0xa962e35e
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
3% Life stolen per hit
+41 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+50 Maximum Stamina

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: 12 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)

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 120
Durability: 46 of 48
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0xfc9b62ec
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Faster Run/Walk
Adds 15 - 25 Damage
+152% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
40% Slower Stamina Drain
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
44% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+30 Maximum Durability

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 24
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 45
Fingerprint: 0x39a1fae0
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Adds 1 - 6 Fire Damage
+23% Enhanced Defense
+10 Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%

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: 86 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

Switch:
Code:
Bone Wand of Lower Resistance
Bone Wand
One Hand Damage: 3 - 7
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0x7f23ea02
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Bone Spirit (Necromancer Only)
Level 2 Lower Resist (48/75 Charges)

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:       Alhizeer
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Def-Normal
Experience: 63662508
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: 60 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:
This build was inspired by the "Removing IM was Wrong" thread. Eventually the argument turned into how resistances play such a big roll in the game and whether they were 'fair' or not. Someone commented say that Cold sorceresses have such an advantage because Cold Mastery cuts down enemy resistances; making it easier to kill anything not immune to Cold. So, I decided to make a pure Fire sorceress to see just how true that would be.

Normal was pretty standard, but with a slight twist to make it even easier. I have an Enchantress parked in Act 3 Hell right now, so I brought her in to Enchant my 1.09 Ravenclaw. Normal is easy enough with the Ravenclaw alone, but this allows you to stay on /p8 the whole time. It only results in a few extra levels when you get to Elderitch, but I think it was worth it. At 30 I threw on some low level casting gear, grabbed an Act 2 merc, and started running Elderitch. At 42, I equipped The Oculus and wrapped up Normal.

Nightmare was a joke, allowing me to equip HotO, Spirit, Harlequin Crest, Mara's, and a better Insight and Fortitude for my mercenary. When I reached Act 4, I stopped to shop a Lower Resist wand so I could break the Fire Immunity on the Knights in the Chaos Sanctuary. I quickly ripped through the rest of Nightmare and killed Baal. Even Lister and company went down in 2 or 3 Meteors after I cast Lower Resist on them.

Based on the insane amount of damage I was doing, I decided to stay on /p8. Act 1 was a breeze. There's quite a few Fire Immunes there because all Fallen types are Fire Immune, but my mercenary was more than capable at this point. Plus, if there were too many I just ported past them. The only issue in Act 1 was one death. I wasn't paying attention and a hard hitting archer pack got me. Guess that's why I don't play hardcore. Act 2 was more or less just as easy. I dropped to /p1 to do the sewers, which wasn't a bad idea. I ramped it back up after that and cruised through most of the Act. I ran into some issues in Tal Rasha's tomb however and experienced my second death. Eventually, I made it to Duriel, dropped to /p1, and took him out in about 6 seconds. I stayed on /p1 for Act 3 since I only do the Council and Mephisto. Since I wouldn't be able to hurt most of the Council, I decided /p1 was best for my mercenary. My only two notable find happened in level 3 of the Durance; Trang's belt and Telling of Beads. I stayed on /p1 for Act 4, but I definitely could have done it on /p8 before the River of Flame. I was expecting a lot more Fire Immunes through the entire Act than there were. The Chaos Sanctuary and Diablo weren't a problem. The removal of Iron Maiden made it a little easier. In Act 5, I did the large open areas and the World Stone Keep on /p1(and mainly Teleported through the open areas) and all of the underground areas on /p8. The Ancient's were a breeze after rerolling them twice. Baal's minions were a cake walk on /p1 except for Lister and company. I couldn't break their Fire Immunity with my Lower Resist wand and Lister spawned Physical Immune as well. So, I just lead them out of the Throne Room and carried on to Baal. I decided to do him on /p8 for a little extra challenge. Not surprisingly, he went down pretty easily.

All in all, this build was incredibly powerful. I don't think it in any way was inferior to a pure Cold build(and possibly a pure Lightning build, I haven't made on of those yet). The only monsters that didn't go down immediately on /p8 were one's that I needed to use the Lower Resist wand on to break their Immunity. It's a shame that there isn't an alvl 85 area where they would thrive and be able to do MF runs.
 
Originally posted by Stony on Mar 12, 2008:

Matriarch #2: Xanthippe

Xanthippe swore again and again, watching the glow of the things around the corner dancing on the far wall. Gloams. Why did it have to be Gloams? Gloams and Greater Mummies? Gloams and a pack of Greater Mummies, one with the goddamned Conviction aura? She'd tried everything-- luring the Gloams away, teleporting in behind them, teleporting into the middle of the pack (that sure worked)-- nothing could peel them away to where she could deal with them permanently. Maybe they were best friends in a former life or something.

Then Xanthippe fell silent. Kasim, who'd stood at her side through Hell and back, sighed. He knew what a long silence meant: she was thinking. And every time she started thinking, he'd have to do something that hurt. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but it always hurt. This time, it would probably hurt a lot.

"Ok," Xanthippe whispered, "I've got a plan."
"Charge straight up the middle, hit 'em where they're strongest, keep hitting until somebody dies?"
"We already tried that," she snapped, noticing the sarcasm. "Teleport into the pack again, but this time we split up. You keep the Mummies busy, I'll whack the Gloams."
Kasim was getting to hate being right. "You know... those mummy bolts do a lot of damage."
"Stay in close so they'll just hit you and breathe on you."
Kasim winced. "That's not an improvement."
"Yes it is and you know it. We need that motherfu**ing Mummy dead. Get on top of him and keep hitting until he goes down. I'll draw their fire. Got it?"
Still feeling a tad reluctant, Kasim muttered, "What if they start shooting at me?"
"Then hit the big guy harder. You'll leech more." Xanthippe grinned. "C'mon! This'll be cake next to that Minotaur in the other hall."
"The extra strong one, immune to fire and physical damage?" Kasim laughed. "It'll be over with faster, anyway. Let's go."

Raising her poleaxe, Xanthippe murmured the spell of displacement, and in an instant they were directly behind a huge Mummy, surrounded by its sickly green aura. They were lucky: their enemies apparently hadn't expected them to repeat their least-successful gambit, and Xanthippe killed two of the flittering Gloams before the rest started materializing. Lightning crackled around the hall, sizzling sharp through the air right behind Xanthippe as she ran from Gloam to Gloam. Most of the Mummies threw their bolts of death after her as well, and most of them missed; another bit of luck. Crouching at the back of the Mummy pack, Kasim tried to look inconspicuous as he hacked their leader to death.

The greatest Mummy fell silently, almost unnoticed by its brethren. Xanthippe hacked down a Gloam that must have been on its fourth or fifth trip back from the abyss and whooped, "We got 'em!" Once the center of the pack was broken, mopping up the survivors was almost easy. The Gloams, terribly vulnerable to fire, could be dissipated with a single enchanted blow. The remaining Mummies lasted longer, but the blinding power in Xanthippe's weapon left them nearly helpless after a few hits. Soon, all that remained of the deadly knot of undead was a scattering of dust and desiccated bones.

"Awesome," Kasim grinned. "So, what'd the big guy have?"
"Uh..." Xanthippe made a face. "A green breastplate. Why do we keep seeing that thing?"
"What, again? Damn."
"Again," she sighed. "F**k it. Let's find Baal. I still need to kick his ***."


This is to announce that my polearm-wielding enchantress Xanthippe is now Matriarch. It was a long, hard fight with another underpowered build, but a very satisfying victory. I'd already Mat'd her back in v. 1.09, but back then I wimped out in Hell difficulty and opted for a shield and dagger instead of a polearm like I'd started her with. For my second attempt, I wanted to do it right and go shieldless all the way. To do so, of course, meant making a very tough Sorceress, but I thought I could have a go at it by using Mana Shield.

Mana Shield, synergized by Telekinesis, provides protection by shunting some damage to the Sorceress' mana pool, instead of taking it all from health. Since an enchantress has little use for mana once combat has started, this should allow her to make use of one of the Sorceress' greatest resources. Typically, Mana Shield is paired with a lot of Magic Damage Reduction (MDR) and as much Physical Damage Reduction (PDR) as can be managed; the Shield should divide incoming damage between the health and mana pools, mostly mana, and the Reduction should eliminate most or all of it, making your Sorceress an effective tank-- in theory.

In practice, there are problems. Elemental damage is subtracted from mana before resistances are applied, so strong magical attacks will drain the mana pool and possibly knock Mana Shield out in one hit. Because MDR and PDR subtract a set amount instead of a percentage of damage, minor hits may not do any damage at all, but strong hits of any kind can drain the mana pool very quickly. Without the Shield, my enchantress would be very vulnerable, unless I had full 75% resistances and a little %PDR to fall back on when the Shield failed. Plenty of mana leech could help make this mad plan work: a polearm does more physical damage than enchantresses usually get, so it might be possible to leech back mana as the monsters drain it. Leeching enough to matter would almost require a Might mercenary. Yes... this build will take a lot of very specific equipment, but it might actually work.

Now, for equipment. My armor of choice will be Iron Pelt, and later The Gladiator's Bane. For jewelry, Crescent Moon and Dwarf Star are the natural choices. String of Ears is the only choice for a belt. None of the unique or set helms, boots, or gloves have big MDR or PDR, and I don't have a circlet of Life Everlasting lying around, so those would be good places to build up resistances. But what could I use as a weapon?

None of the elite polearms have mana leech, a key requirement of this build. Among the exceptionals, the Pierre Tombale Couant has mana leech and deadly strike, but is otherwise unexciting. What about runewords? "Breath of the Dying" has mana leech, ha ha. "Heart of the Oak" does too, but does crap damage and can't be used in polearms. So does... "Silence"? That old chestnut? What does it do?

200% Enhanced Damage (On the light side, but Enchant and Might will help.)
+75% Damage To Undead (Meh.)
Requirements -20% (This will make using a fast polearm a lot easier.)
20% Increased Attack Speed (Could be better, but I probably won't get any IAS anywhere else.)
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead (Couldn't hurt.)
+2 To All Skills (Not to be sneezed at.)
All Resistances +75 (This would be a huge help.)
20% Faster Hit Recovery (Another thing I'll desperately need.)
11% Mana Stolen Per Hit (Sweet!)
Hit Causes Monster To Flee 25% (I hate this on a melee weapon... but it might help with crowd control.)
Hit Blinds Target +33 (More potential crowd control, which I'll get nowhere else.)
+2 To Mana After Each Kill (Every little bit helps.)
30% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items (Who can object to that?)

A few calculations, and I had my answer. "Silence" would do everything I needed my enchantress' weapon to do, I had the runes, and besides, I've wanted a weapon with "Silence" in it since I first saw it. Back then, "Silence" was the top-of-the-line runeword everyone wanted, but if I was right, it could still be great in the hands of the right Sorceress.


Mini-capsule review: Iratha's Finery
A defensive set not specifically aimed at any character type, Iratha's avoids most of the problems other normal sets have by leaving your weapon, shield, and armor slots open. Usable at level 15 and requiring no more than strength 55, Iratha's provides extra Defense Rating, +25 to dexterity, decent IAS, faster movement, 65% Resist All and the potential for 85% Resist All, this set could carry a character through Normal and into Nightmare, a rarity among the normal sets. I suspect the set was meant for a ranged attacker, as it lacks Faster Hit Recovery and Cannot Be Frozen, which melee builds will want.

Mini-capsule review: Hwanin's Majesty
One of the less-demanding elite sets (more of an exceptional set, I guess) Hwanin's requires strength 103 and level 45 to complete. The weapon, a Bill, can be used at level 28, and is quite a nice weapon at that level, with lots of IAS, AR, and very good damage for a character still in normal difficulty. The armor provides +100 life and some Static Field at level 30. The belt has Prevent Monster Heal as its only redeeming feature. The helm completes the set, which gives +2 to skills and 20% life leech, which any melee build can appreciate. Unfortunately, the set provides little by way of fire or lightning resistance and no FHR or CBF, greatly limiting its use. In terms of general usefulness, Iratha's is better.


Matriarch Xanthippe: Level 87 Sorceress
STR 145
DEX 90 (93)
VIT 200
ENG 90 (101)

Enchant 20 (38 with prebuffs)
Fire Mastery 20 (38 with prebuffs)
Warmth 20 (23 in the field)
Telekinesis 20
Mana Shield 1 (12 with prebuffs, enough for 63% absorption)
Frozen Armor 10 (18 with prebuffs)

Life: 641
Mana: 383
AR: 4140
DR: 3885
Damage (base): 363-1112
Damage (with Might aura): 670-1939
Damage (with Might and Enchant): 7092-9502
Resists: 75/75/75/75
PDR: -27, and -13%
MDR: -56

Itamz:
Thwacking implement: Xanthippe's Great Poleaxe, set with "Silence" (75% Resist All, 20% FHR)
Head: Kira's Guardian, set with an "Um" rune (65% Resist All, 20% FHR)
Body: The Gladiator's Bane, set with a "Sol" rune (PDR -27, MDR -17, 30% FHR)
Guts: String of Ears (MDR -14, %PDR -13%, 7% Life Leech)
Hands: Magefist (+1 to fire skills and mana regeneration. It added decent damage.)
Feet: Gore Rider (Open Wounds, Crushing Blow, and Deadly Strike)
Neck: Crescent Moon (MDR -10, 6% Life Leech, 12% Mana Leech)
Finger: Dwarf Star (MDR -15, +40 life)
Other Finger: Raven Circle (Rare ring. 11% Resist All, +87 AR, +8 minimum damage, other stuff.)
Charms: Mostly AR and FHR, with some lightning damage

Mercenary: Kasim the Might merc
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Shaftstop
Tomb Reaver (212% damage, 3 unused sockets)

Strategy:
I have never felt so confident taking a character with only 500 life into melee combat. With a Great Poleaxe and a Might merc, Xanthippe did enough physical damage I could take a level full of Fire Immune monsters at /players 3. If nothing was Fire Immune, I set things up to /players 5 or /players 8 for most of Hell, depending on how annoying the monsters were. Since Xanthippe had a single target attack, spawning monsters or big crowds rated highest on the "annoying" scale, but were rarely a threat thanks to the Mana Shield.

Against normal monsters, Xanthippe could handle herself with ease. The Mana Shield eliminated almost all damage, and what damage she did take she leeched right back, just like I'd planned. Unfortunately, as we all know, Hell difficulty is full of champions, bosses, and unleechable monsters, all of whom gave Xanthippe serious problems. Anything with a powerful elemental attack could blast her Mana Shield to bits in one or two hits, and she quickly came to hate Skeleton Archers with a white-hot burning passion. She handled most bosses and champions by casting the "Wall of Meat" spell: hide behind the merc and use the poleaxe's long reach to keep attacking. Skeletons could be dealt with by quaffing potions. The biggest problem was bosses with Spectral Hit or an elemental enchantment. Kasim had to handle a lot of those guys on his own.

All of that changed in Hell Act V. All the guest monsters did enough damage to knock the Shield down faster than Xanthippe could leech it back up, and the abundance of ranged attackers made the slopes of Mount Arreat very difficult. Fortunately, with all the defensive mods she had on her equipment, Xany could survive by drinking potions, but the feeling of near-invulnerability Acts I-IV gave me was gone. The only blessing was that Fire Immunes were rare. Where there were few ranged attackers and no Fire Immunes, I set things to /players 5, but most of the Act was completed at /players 1. Xanthippe just couldn't afford to leave enemies alive that long.

The Ancients, of course, were challenged at /players 1, but I think everyone does that. After a few false starts, I managed to separate them so I could attack them one at a time. Korlic the Leaper got taken down first (Madawc stood there throwing axes into a pillar!), then Madawc the Annoyer, and finally Talic the Whirler. The Worldstone Keep wasn't a problem until I got to the lowest level: Frenzytaurs, Gloams, and Horadrim Ancients. Yeek. Baal's minions went down to my usual Divide and Conquer tactic, but Baal himself took forever. Xanthippe's chance to hit was a measly 55%, and I had no Slow Target items on her or the merc. My other characters should have a better time with him.

Well, that's it. The Mana Shield Enchantress is definitely possible to do, but you need to be relatively wealthy and very patient. Perhaps ye olde "Passion" phase blade would have been a better option (it would certainly have helped my AR) but I kind of like taking the road less traveled. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
 
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