Questions Regarding Hybrid Sorc Builds in Patch 2.6

[gtpoestorage1]

Greetings Ladies/Gents,

I had to take a bit of break from the game because of RL stuff so I'm working to catch up to all of the changes. My questions are centered on hybrid Sorc builds with respect to off-line Sorcs in patch 2.6:
* Chain Lightning/Frozen Orb (CL/FO)
* Hydra/Frozen Orb (H/FO)
* Meteor/Frozen Orb (MeteOrb)

Assume the following about the Sorcs... She will be magic finding because she will have to farm up her own gear. She is a fresh off-line Sorc that has access to:
* GoMule for storage obviously (yay!)
* 1 million gold
* some low runes and a few mid runes (not enough to cube up to high runes)
* zero high runes
* a small but decent cache of gems with some p-gems
* open socket equipment (I may or may not have 5 or 6 socket weapons)
* many, if not all, of the new runewords added to D2R are out of reach (I still have some reading to do in this area)
* items make an Insight weapon for the Merc

She does NOT have access to:
* other chars to depend on for gear farming
* Infinity, or other specialty gear, or end game gear
* runes to make stuff like Call To Arms, Chains of Honor, or Smoke
* plus to skill charms

Given the nerf to Cold Mastery and the minus % enemy resistance bug effecting hydras...

* Is CL/FO worth doing as a starter char?
* Will CL/FO slow down severely on /players 5/6/7 in Nightmare and Hell difficulties?
* Is the old CL/FO guide leveling progression section still applicable given the changes in D2R?
* Is Hydra/Frozen Orb worth doing as a starter char?
* Anyone have a guide to leveling up with a Hydra/Frozen Orb build so as conserve respecs? I'm OK with burning the 1 respec from Normal mode.
* Will the H/FO build be hobbled/crippled/gimped in Nightmare and Hell given the double nerf hit in patch 2.6?
* Are we close to the pre-D2R non-viable status with respect to Hydras?
* Should I limit my player settings to /p4 and below with a H/FO build given the double nerf hit in patch 2.6?
* Will MeteOrb be severly slower, in Nightmare and Hell, given the cold mastery nerf?
* Should I limit my player settings, with MeteOrb, to /p5 or /p4 and below because of the cold mastery hit?

 

[coju]

What hydra nerf?

Are you wanting to farm LK for runes or Countess and Arcane for the Ghosty Bois?

Do you want something a little different than you normally do?

—————

Could level up with fire bolt into fire ball until you’re comfortable enough to start going frozen orb. Then decide if you want to go meteor or hydra at a later point. (@Socialism Orb-it-aller)

I had fun going lighting bolt into chain lightning but deeded it. Had to turn down player settings from 8 to make it more enjoyable.

Remember you can fly through normal at lower player settings then farm the terrorized zones at higher to mix things up also.

 

[Cattleya]

The cold mastery nerf only affects broken cold immunes, it still works normally otherwise. So, until you have a cold Sunder Charm or Infinity for the rare cases where that breaks cold immunes, it doesn't make any difference at all. (And cold immunes are why you have a second element.)

I haven't heard anything about the hydra -fire resist bug. As far as I'm aware, hydras always worked with it. There's currently a bug in SP where assassin traps aren't working with -resist, but that's a bug to a 2.6 change, so it's not actually different from before when it didn't work intentionally.

 

[snickersnack]

* Is CL/FO worth doing as a starter char?
* Will CL/FO slow down severely on /players 5/6/7 in Nightmare and Hell difficulties?

I think CL/FO was my first bnet sorc and also how I started in D2R (sort of a restart; only a few items forwarded from 1.14d). I respecced to pure lightning once I farmed up runes for Infinity.

I think the build should be able to handle /p8 NM just fine. It'll slow down a bit in Hell, though, unless you keep a lower resist wand on switch, which I'd recommend.

 

[gtpoestorage1]

What hydra nerf?

Are you wanting to farm LK for runes or Countess and Arcane for the Ghosty Bois?

Do you want something a little different than you normally do?

—————

Could level up with fire bolt into fire ball until you’re comfortable enough to start going frozen orb. Then decide if you want to go meteor or hydra at a later point. (@Socialism Orb-it-aller)

I had fun going lighting bolt into chain lightning but deeded it. Had to turn down player settings from 8 to make it more enjoyable.

Remember you can fly through normal at lower player settings then farm the terrorized zones at higher to mix things up also.

Here is link to the a thread in the D2R bug report forum:

-Enemy Resistance is Not Applying to Traps Or Hydras

edit: hotfixed online, update for singleplayer coming later, see red text: I gave Zombies in the Moor 99 Lightning Resistance. I have 16k Lightning Sentry. No -res equipped, I tickle him and he can outregen me. I put on a charm with -255 enemy light res. I still tickle them and they can...

us.forums.blizzard.com

Basically the minus % enemy resistance items like sunder charms isn't apply to the damage coming from traps and hydras. However, spells cast directly from the character do get the benefit. MacroBioboi has a video demonstrating the issue with traps. Supposedly, the issue was fixed for the online version of the game and we have dev radio silence about fixing off-line. This issue goes back to Feb 2023 in patch 2.6 so if the devs fixed it for online, then we can count it as a nerf since off-line was supposedly broken. I haven't tested it myself.

Here is a link to a player explaining the status in the official general forum:

What is the status of minus enemy resistance bug in 2.6?

Does this affect online and off-line modes? Has the issue been fixed/patched? I would like to know because I was going to switch to a hybrid hydra build. I haven’t played a trap assassin in like forever so any ideas of playing that build are rather contingent on minus enemy resistance working...

us.forums.blizzard.com

As far as what I'm looking to do goes, I'm looking to just change things up from Blizz and MeteOrb Sorc. Maybe farm some different areas where other builds would do well in. Change things up a bit.

 

[gtpoestorage1]

The cold mastery nerf only affects broken cold immunes, it still works normally otherwise. So, until you have a cold Sunder Charm or Infinity for the rare cases where that breaks cold immunes, it doesn't make any difference at all. (And cold immunes are why you have a second element.)

I haven't heard anything about the hydra -fire resist bug. As far as I'm aware, hydras always worked with it. There's currently a bug in SP where assassin traps aren't working with -resist, but that's a bug to a 2.6 change, so it's not actually different from before when it didn't work intentionally.

Its a 2.6 thing because many are saying it was working properly in 2.5.

 

[gtpoestorage1]

I think CL/FO was my first bnet sorc and also how I started in D2R (sort of a restart; only a few items forwarded from 1.14d). I respecced to pure lightning once I farmed up runes for Infinity.

I think the build should be able to handle /p8 NM just fine. It'll slow down a bit in Hell, though, unless you keep a lower resist wand on switch, which I'd recommend.

Thanks for the info.

 

[ffs]

As for playthough, I'd usually go with Blizzard + Fire Ball for untwinked Sorcs or those without access to good twinking gear. The build can easily handle the game with whatever items you may find, certainly when farming some basic stuff along the way (e.g. Stealth, Spirit, Lore...). It can also farm NM or Hell Mephisto to grab those bread and butter S&Us without having to waste respecs.

Now with sundered charms, I'd say all elements can be strong without being very gear dependent, so you can make a "budget" Sorc with any single element (which will always be stronger than dual element). Personally I'd go Nova or good old pure Blizzy.

For lightning-based, cheapo Crescent Moon coupled with sunder charms lets you kill everything easily. Lighting/CL is often recommended but really Nova all the way IMO, especially after it was buffed.

Blizzard also still good ofc, high lvl CM with sunder charms also lets you kill everything without much trouble. Yes it was nerfed but gameplay impact is very limited.

As for Fire: Also very strong, but more gear dependent because there's no easy/cheap way to lower FR of broken/sundered immunes. Phoenix and Flickering Flame are the end game options and work nicely, but having to use them makes the build less suitable when starting out.