- Feb 24, 2004
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Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Oct 16, 2009:
Champion Athena - reviewing Frost Nova in AT runs
Introduction:
Q: "What's the most efficient MF build?"
A: "When it comes to efficient MFing for high-end items in single player, nothing beats a pure-Blizzard sorceress in Ancient Tunnel (AT) runs. And she kicks Meph's butt too, which is the most efficient target for medium-high items."
That's pretty much the stock answer when this question comes up, and with good reason. Blizzsorcs are probably the queen of MFing, especially in AT and Meph runs. But every once in a while it's good to challenge conventional wisdom, so I've set out a few times to see if I could find a way to dethrone the queen. And it would be cool to do it with an unconventional solution too.
My first attempt was a pure-IceBlast sorc that could put out ridiculous damage (like 35000-per-second-ridiculous), but she lacked one thing: area of effect on her attack. After some trial runs, it became apparent that lack was a much bigger problem than I anticipated, and she was retired - unsuccessful in her attempt to usurp the throne. (by the way, I much prefer my Glacial Spike sorceress to the IceBlast one, despite only having ~1/3rd as much damage potential and a pretty small AoE of her own... that's how big having an area of effect attack can be for a sorceress).
Next up was a more conventional pure Frozen Orb sorc. Although perfectly adequate for the task, FO just couldn't keep pace with Blizzard either. I never bothered trying GS, simply because it was obvious the damage and area of effect couldn't match Blizzard. Sidenote: However, I'm 100% certain that GS would be the safest AT runner there is - and if I ever start playing HC seriously, I might build one for that very purpose.
That leaves Frost Nova. It's damage looks pitiful compared to Blizzard's, but it's guaranteed to hit everything that's in range, ~3 times per second, and who knows how many (or how often) Blizzard-shards hit, so it's not easy to make a straight damage comparison between the two. One of the reasons I'm not much of a Blizzard fan is precisely because it hits so inconsistently... if it would hit once per second, or once per ~half second, guaranteed, I'd like Blizzard a lot better.
Since I hadn't seriously run AT before, I didn't want to redo my build 4 different times trying to tweak efficiency because I'd had a silly oversight, and I knew that to beat a blizzsorc my build would have to be "100% right". So I enlisted maareek's advice about general thoughts on running AT and building a good non-blizzard sorc for AT runs. Factoring his advice, opinions, and experience, I came up with a plan, and made the build... but it didn't take me long to loose interest in AT runs, so she quested through to rescue Anya, returned to do a few token runs in AT (enough to learn that I needed a lot of practice), and settled into a long vacation.
Bassano's recent tournament was the perfect excuse to finally finish this experiment. She started out at level 82, did enough warmup runs (16 of 'em) to get to 83, then in the tournament I did enough runs to get to about level 91.2 on /players1. Considering I had a few deaths, I figure it's close(ish) to 1000 runs total, which is enough for me to now have a pretty good idea of how she can perform.
If you want to see the build details, it's all in this spoiler (i.e. it's all like my typical Matriarch writeups):
So... How'd she do in AT?
I had a few deaths up until about level 88. Much of that was my inexperience in running AT. But after the first ~500 runs or so when I'd learned my maps tendencies and had a better feel for the danger I could (and couldn't ) survive, I managed to get her speeds between 50 and 75 seconds per run, averaging probably ~6 boss packs per run (my map varies wildly between 2 and 9 boss packs encountered, though 5 or 6 was definitely most common).
That's close, but not quite as fast as the fastest AT runners. But many of them have done hundreds of hours of runs, and I've done about 25 total. That does make a difference, as near the end of the tournament I might've been pushing the occasional ~45 second run of my own (if I'd tracked it better I'd know). Also, it would've helped if I focused more on only fighting bosses, but FN obliterates large packs of normal monsters quite quickly, and there were a couple of areas on my map prone to spawning large clusters of normal monsters, so I hit those patches pretty regularly too.
So I think the overall difference in my efficiency and what other runners experience isn't very big.
But did she beat the Blizzsorc in performance?
Short Answer: No, she didn't "beat" the blizzsorc. She's got a few disadvantages that she couldn't overcome. But she also has a few advantages too - perhaps enough that it makes her a better choice for people looking to avoid making a Blizzsorc for AT runs.
For the long answer I'll attempt to break it down:
Area of Effect
I'd say the radius of both is close enough that there's no serious advantage for either build. The main difference is that the FN sorc's attack will always hit everything that's in range. Always. Blizzard probably hits close to 85% of targets reliably, and has IceBlast/GlacialSpike to quickly finish off the other ~15%. But the Blizz/IB/GS combination doesn't necessarily match the "always hits" nature of Frost Nova.
Power:
Frost Nova simply can't match Blizzard in power. The typical AT running blizzsorc probably has 3-5k Blizzard damage during AT runs. Well-outfitted Frost Nova sorcs are around 1k, which means they need to hit 3-5 times as often just to keep pace. It's this advantage in pure-damage that more than counterbalances most of the FN sorc's advantages, and FN does have one advantage:
FN doesn't 'require' as many skillpoints, so you can get a backup attack. Although backups are unnecessary for AT, I can tell you for certain they're not a bad thing to have. During the MF tournament I had one run where I encountered four Cold Immune bosses in a row (there might've been a fifth somewhere in the run - I wasn't counting closely). I'm certain my piddly, little Fireball would've been appreciated by a few Blizzsorcs that came across such a spawn.
Sidenote: I do wish I had a 30%-base DFathom and 15%-base Nightwings to compare - I think that extra ~10% damage over what I have now would bring my effective damage closer to what a nice blizzsorc has.
Speed:
This is an advantage for the FN sorc. Although Blizzsorcs can push their FCR reasonably high, there's not as much reason to do so because the main attack is on a timer anyways. FN, on the other hand, does well at a rapid speed - it almost requires it. If you teleport 1 frame faster, and teleport 50-75 times per run, that's 2-3 seconds of a head-start right there.
Safety:
The Blizzsorc wins here. She can keep her distance much better, and can also use GS/IB to freeze enemies solid. The FN sorc has to be up close, so she's more likely to get whacked by a bad guy. FN does have advantage here though - she can usually force monsters into hit recovery, 3 times per second (and chilled), it's a stunlock. As long as you're not getting hit by invisible Lightning bolts or tanking a nasty death explosion, it's a perfectly safe tactic to be right in the middle of a large pack of monsters while spamming FN. Occasionally a low roll on FN damage wouldn't be enough to force hit recovery on Assailants though, but that was only a problem if they were manaburn and I was too slow/lazy to drink a potion.
Equipment & MF:
This, to me, is the biggest difference between the two builds. The Blizzsorc has enough power to have a lot more flexibility to pursue good MF in her equipment. The Frost Nova sorc is so stretched that it pretty much requires Tal Rasha's set as a bare minimum, and even that probably wouldn't be very competitive with high-end blizzsorcs. It probably takes Nightwings and DFathom to be competitive to that point, so I think 'the curve' is much, much steeper for the FN sorc. But if you've got the gear to climb the curve, I don't think the overall difference is going to be noticeable.
Fun & Originality:
Originality is no competition - just look at bassano's tournament with it's ~60% population of Blizzsorcs. For fun, part of it is that I like using an original approach more than taking the same approach that everybody else does. So I'm already biased. But aside from that you generally have a faster pace, and you don't have to be annoyed when you cast a Blizzard and it falls around a monster for 5 seconds without hitting, so I think FN stands up fairly well objectively too.
Overall:
If you're looking at anything even remotely resembling a budget, then the Blizzsorc is still the queen. But if you've got the gear...
FN is definitely competitive - if you've got the equipment. If you've got perfect gear (and I mean perfect), I think you might have a chance to come out slightly ahead of even the best blizzsorcs (that's the combo of extra speed and guaranteed-hits).
With a more modest budget (something like Full Tals and ~3-5 skill charms) you can still build an FN sorceress that would be very adequate for AT runs. That FN sorc wouldn't be as efficient as a similarly-equipped blizzsorc, but it can definitely be done.
So if the Blizzsorc remains queen of AT, I think I've at least found the princess. And yes, I'll stop this annoying analogy now.
Thanks to:
- maareek for the advice, opinions, and answers
- bassano for the fun tournament, as well as a few AT-helping answers too
- anyone willing to try to unseat a conventional solution with an original idea, even if they don't always succeed
- you, for reading.
Champion Athena - reviewing Frost Nova in AT runs
Introduction:
Q: "What's the most efficient MF build?"
A: "When it comes to efficient MFing for high-end items in single player, nothing beats a pure-Blizzard sorceress in Ancient Tunnel (AT) runs. And she kicks Meph's butt too, which is the most efficient target for medium-high items."
That's pretty much the stock answer when this question comes up, and with good reason. Blizzsorcs are probably the queen of MFing, especially in AT and Meph runs. But every once in a while it's good to challenge conventional wisdom, so I've set out a few times to see if I could find a way to dethrone the queen. And it would be cool to do it with an unconventional solution too.
My first attempt was a pure-IceBlast sorc that could put out ridiculous damage (like 35000-per-second-ridiculous), but she lacked one thing: area of effect on her attack. After some trial runs, it became apparent that lack was a much bigger problem than I anticipated, and she was retired - unsuccessful in her attempt to usurp the throne. (by the way, I much prefer my Glacial Spike sorceress to the IceBlast one, despite only having ~1/3rd as much damage potential and a pretty small AoE of her own... that's how big having an area of effect attack can be for a sorceress).
Next up was a more conventional pure Frozen Orb sorc. Although perfectly adequate for the task, FO just couldn't keep pace with Blizzard either. I never bothered trying GS, simply because it was obvious the damage and area of effect couldn't match Blizzard. Sidenote: However, I'm 100% certain that GS would be the safest AT runner there is - and if I ever start playing HC seriously, I might build one for that very purpose.
That leaves Frost Nova. It's damage looks pitiful compared to Blizzard's, but it's guaranteed to hit everything that's in range, ~3 times per second, and who knows how many (or how often) Blizzard-shards hit, so it's not easy to make a straight damage comparison between the two. One of the reasons I'm not much of a Blizzard fan is precisely because it hits so inconsistently... if it would hit once per second, or once per ~half second, guaranteed, I'd like Blizzard a lot better.
Since I hadn't seriously run AT before, I didn't want to redo my build 4 different times trying to tweak efficiency because I'd had a silly oversight, and I knew that to beat a blizzsorc my build would have to be "100% right". So I enlisted maareek's advice about general thoughts on running AT and building a good non-blizzard sorc for AT runs. Factoring his advice, opinions, and experience, I came up with a plan, and made the build... but it didn't take me long to loose interest in AT runs, so she quested through to rescue Anya, returned to do a few token runs in AT (enough to learn that I needed a lot of practice), and settled into a long vacation.
Bassano's recent tournament was the perfect excuse to finally finish this experiment. She started out at level 82, did enough warmup runs (16 of 'em) to get to 83, then in the tournament I did enough runs to get to about level 91.2 on /players1. Considering I had a few deaths, I figure it's close(ish) to 1000 runs total, which is enough for me to now have a pretty good idea of how she can perform.
If you want to see the build details, it's all in this spoiler (i.e. it's all like my typical Matriarch writeups):
LCS (her lightning resists are 75+ without the shrine)
FCR: 105
MF: 275
FHR: 60+
Skills:
20 (37) Frost Nova
20 Blizzard
20 Frozen Orb
8 (25) Cold Mastery
20 (31) Fireball
6+ Firebolt
1 prereq's, Fire Mastery, Teleport, Static Field, Warmth
Gear:
Death's Fathom (28/-5 with facet)
Nightwing's Veil (15/-4 with facet)
35 FCR Spirit monarch
Tal's Armour (PTopaz)
Tal's Amulet
Tal's Belt
Trang's Gloves
Aldur's Boots
SoJ
Ring2:
<--- nice collection of mods, eh? Too bad a few of the rolls weren't a little higher.
Charms:
- 40% Gheeds
- 6x Chilling GCs (12 FHR, 8 life, 5 str, 3x plain)
- 7x Resists SCs, 6 of them have MF
Switch: beta-CtA Caduceus + Spirit Monarch
Merc: Might aura
Insight eth Cryptic Axe
Fortitude Archon Plate
eth Andy's Visage (29 Fire Resist / IAS jewel)
Notes:
1. She could easily make Matriarch if I wanted, but I was only interested in MFing AT with her, so she got far enough to rescue Anya in Act5 and that was it. I may get the Ancients quest at some point to push for one more level, though it seems unlikely and unnecessary.
2. I don't remember what her item/rune finds when questing were. Nothing spectacular, you can be sure.
3. With research into AT monster resists and life, and including a discussion with maareek, it was decided to get my final -enemy cold resistance to -150% (-149% actually). But that still left ~25 skillpoints for a backup attack after I'd pre-planned my cold tree.
I debated between trying to make ES work, or getting something for a backup attack. I wasn't confident in ES working well with all of my other needs (+damage, +skills, FCR, MF, safety, etc.), so ES was eventually ruled out. For a backup attack it was easy to eliminate the Lightning tree... the damage you can get for ~25 points just didn't seem impressive enough, and iirc, the most common cold-immune AT monster (Enbalmed) have higher lightning resists than fire. Firewall (or maybe Meteor) would be more natural choices for damage reasons, but Firewall isn't good for targeting and it has a timer. Meteor's no better in that regard.
Instead I went with a low-powered Fireball. My research into the monster life was that I could get enough FB damage to force hit recovery for AT's three non-fire-immunes. The forced hit-recovery is fantastic for Nova, so I reasoned it could work well enough for Fireball too. And it does work - it allows me to stun-lock the Cold Immunes that spawn so my merc can easily go pure-offense and get the kill very quickly.
IMO, this decision couldn't have worked out better - my ~25 point fireball (and my merc) kicks CI butt.
4. CtA is great for AT runs with Frost Nova, since you will take damage quite regularly, and you definitely won't mind the extra mana either. Fortunately the extra 50-100% life you get with Battle Orders means you can loose 25-50% of your life and still have a full life bulb at the start of the next run. I'd almost say this is an essential item. If I didn't have CtA I'd definitely choose a Prayer + Insight merc to help replenish my life, but that would mean my merc had less power.
5. I wouldn't change anything on this build if I could, with the possible exception of actually spending the bulk of my fire-tree skillpoints into Firebolt - investing first into the synergy can actually add more to Fireball's damage than those points into Fireball itself. I didn't know this when I made her.
6. Probably a few other things I'm forgetting. I'll edit them in if I think of them.
FCR: 105
MF: 275
FHR: 60+
Skills:
20 (37) Frost Nova
20 Blizzard
20 Frozen Orb
8 (25) Cold Mastery
20 (31) Fireball
6+ Firebolt
1 prereq's, Fire Mastery, Teleport, Static Field, Warmth
Gear:
Death's Fathom (28/-5 with facet)
Nightwing's Veil (15/-4 with facet)
35 FCR Spirit monarch
Tal's Armour (PTopaz)
Tal's Amulet
Tal's Belt
Trang's Gloves
Aldur's Boots
SoJ
Ring2:
Corruption Grasp
Ring
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 97
Fingerprint: 0x144c8cb9
+6 to Life
+82 to Mana
Fire Resist +7%
Lightning Resist +7%
Cold Resist +7%
Poison Resist +21%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Cast Rate
Ring
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 97
Fingerprint: 0x144c8cb9
+6 to Life
+82 to Mana
Fire Resist +7%
Lightning Resist +7%
Cold Resist +7%
Poison Resist +21%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Cast Rate
Charms:
- 40% Gheeds
- 6x Chilling GCs (12 FHR, 8 life, 5 str, 3x plain)
- 7x Resists SCs, 6 of them have MF
Switch: beta-CtA Caduceus + Spirit Monarch
Merc: Might aura
Insight eth Cryptic Axe
Fortitude Archon Plate
eth Andy's Visage (29 Fire Resist / IAS jewel)
Notes:
1. She could easily make Matriarch if I wanted, but I was only interested in MFing AT with her, so she got far enough to rescue Anya in Act5 and that was it. I may get the Ancients quest at some point to push for one more level, though it seems unlikely and unnecessary.
2. I don't remember what her item/rune finds when questing were. Nothing spectacular, you can be sure.
3. With research into AT monster resists and life, and including a discussion with maareek, it was decided to get my final -enemy cold resistance to -150% (-149% actually). But that still left ~25 skillpoints for a backup attack after I'd pre-planned my cold tree.
I debated between trying to make ES work, or getting something for a backup attack. I wasn't confident in ES working well with all of my other needs (+damage, +skills, FCR, MF, safety, etc.), so ES was eventually ruled out. For a backup attack it was easy to eliminate the Lightning tree... the damage you can get for ~25 points just didn't seem impressive enough, and iirc, the most common cold-immune AT monster (Enbalmed) have higher lightning resists than fire. Firewall (or maybe Meteor) would be more natural choices for damage reasons, but Firewall isn't good for targeting and it has a timer. Meteor's no better in that regard.
Instead I went with a low-powered Fireball. My research into the monster life was that I could get enough FB damage to force hit recovery for AT's three non-fire-immunes. The forced hit-recovery is fantastic for Nova, so I reasoned it could work well enough for Fireball too. And it does work - it allows me to stun-lock the Cold Immunes that spawn so my merc can easily go pure-offense and get the kill very quickly.
IMO, this decision couldn't have worked out better - my ~25 point fireball (and my merc) kicks CI butt.
4. CtA is great for AT runs with Frost Nova, since you will take damage quite regularly, and you definitely won't mind the extra mana either. Fortunately the extra 50-100% life you get with Battle Orders means you can loose 25-50% of your life and still have a full life bulb at the start of the next run. I'd almost say this is an essential item. If I didn't have CtA I'd definitely choose a Prayer + Insight merc to help replenish my life, but that would mean my merc had less power.
5. I wouldn't change anything on this build if I could, with the possible exception of actually spending the bulk of my fire-tree skillpoints into Firebolt - investing first into the synergy can actually add more to Fireball's damage than those points into Fireball itself. I didn't know this when I made her.
6. Probably a few other things I'm forgetting. I'll edit them in if I think of them.
So... How'd she do in AT?
I had a few deaths up until about level 88. Much of that was my inexperience in running AT. But after the first ~500 runs or so when I'd learned my maps tendencies and had a better feel for the danger I could (and couldn't ) survive, I managed to get her speeds between 50 and 75 seconds per run, averaging probably ~6 boss packs per run (my map varies wildly between 2 and 9 boss packs encountered, though 5 or 6 was definitely most common).
That's close, but not quite as fast as the fastest AT runners. But many of them have done hundreds of hours of runs, and I've done about 25 total. That does make a difference, as near the end of the tournament I might've been pushing the occasional ~45 second run of my own (if I'd tracked it better I'd know). Also, it would've helped if I focused more on only fighting bosses, but FN obliterates large packs of normal monsters quite quickly, and there were a couple of areas on my map prone to spawning large clusters of normal monsters, so I hit those patches pretty regularly too.
So I think the overall difference in my efficiency and what other runners experience isn't very big.
But did she beat the Blizzsorc in performance?
Short Answer: No, she didn't "beat" the blizzsorc. She's got a few disadvantages that she couldn't overcome. But she also has a few advantages too - perhaps enough that it makes her a better choice for people looking to avoid making a Blizzsorc for AT runs.
For the long answer I'll attempt to break it down:
Area of Effect
I'd say the radius of both is close enough that there's no serious advantage for either build. The main difference is that the FN sorc's attack will always hit everything that's in range. Always. Blizzard probably hits close to 85% of targets reliably, and has IceBlast/GlacialSpike to quickly finish off the other ~15%. But the Blizz/IB/GS combination doesn't necessarily match the "always hits" nature of Frost Nova.
Power:
Frost Nova simply can't match Blizzard in power. The typical AT running blizzsorc probably has 3-5k Blizzard damage during AT runs. Well-outfitted Frost Nova sorcs are around 1k, which means they need to hit 3-5 times as often just to keep pace. It's this advantage in pure-damage that more than counterbalances most of the FN sorc's advantages, and FN does have one advantage:
FN doesn't 'require' as many skillpoints, so you can get a backup attack. Although backups are unnecessary for AT, I can tell you for certain they're not a bad thing to have. During the MF tournament I had one run where I encountered four Cold Immune bosses in a row (there might've been a fifth somewhere in the run - I wasn't counting closely). I'm certain my piddly, little Fireball would've been appreciated by a few Blizzsorcs that came across such a spawn.
Sidenote: I do wish I had a 30%-base DFathom and 15%-base Nightwings to compare - I think that extra ~10% damage over what I have now would bring my effective damage closer to what a nice blizzsorc has.
Speed:
This is an advantage for the FN sorc. Although Blizzsorcs can push their FCR reasonably high, there's not as much reason to do so because the main attack is on a timer anyways. FN, on the other hand, does well at a rapid speed - it almost requires it. If you teleport 1 frame faster, and teleport 50-75 times per run, that's 2-3 seconds of a head-start right there.
Safety:
The Blizzsorc wins here. She can keep her distance much better, and can also use GS/IB to freeze enemies solid. The FN sorc has to be up close, so she's more likely to get whacked by a bad guy. FN does have advantage here though - she can usually force monsters into hit recovery, 3 times per second (and chilled), it's a stunlock. As long as you're not getting hit by invisible Lightning bolts or tanking a nasty death explosion, it's a perfectly safe tactic to be right in the middle of a large pack of monsters while spamming FN. Occasionally a low roll on FN damage wouldn't be enough to force hit recovery on Assailants though, but that was only a problem if they were manaburn and I was too slow/lazy to drink a potion.
Equipment & MF:
This, to me, is the biggest difference between the two builds. The Blizzsorc has enough power to have a lot more flexibility to pursue good MF in her equipment. The Frost Nova sorc is so stretched that it pretty much requires Tal Rasha's set as a bare minimum, and even that probably wouldn't be very competitive with high-end blizzsorcs. It probably takes Nightwings and DFathom to be competitive to that point, so I think 'the curve' is much, much steeper for the FN sorc. But if you've got the gear to climb the curve, I don't think the overall difference is going to be noticeable.
Fun & Originality:
Originality is no competition - just look at bassano's tournament with it's ~60% population of Blizzsorcs. For fun, part of it is that I like using an original approach more than taking the same approach that everybody else does. So I'm already biased. But aside from that you generally have a faster pace, and you don't have to be annoyed when you cast a Blizzard and it falls around a monster for 5 seconds without hitting, so I think FN stands up fairly well objectively too.
Overall:
If you're looking at anything even remotely resembling a budget, then the Blizzsorc is still the queen. But if you've got the gear...
FN is definitely competitive - if you've got the equipment. If you've got perfect gear (and I mean perfect), I think you might have a chance to come out slightly ahead of even the best blizzsorcs (that's the combo of extra speed and guaranteed-hits).
With a more modest budget (something like Full Tals and ~3-5 skill charms) you can still build an FN sorceress that would be very adequate for AT runs. That FN sorc wouldn't be as efficient as a similarly-equipped blizzsorc, but it can definitely be done.
So if the Blizzsorc remains queen of AT, I think I've at least found the princess. And yes, I'll stop this annoying analogy now.
Thanks to:
- maareek for the advice, opinions, and answers
- bassano for the fun tournament, as well as a few AT-helping answers too
- anyone willing to try to unseat a conventional solution with an original idea, even if they don't always succeed
- you, for reading.