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Skill census/analysis of the SPF Mat/Pat/Guardian build compilation
- Thread starter Swamigoon
- Start date
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
Dec 2022 Update: the D2R 2.4 patch improved and balanced each of the cold armor buffs.
Frozen Armor
Frozen Armor turns out to be a very popular one-point-wonder defensive buff. At skill level one, it boosts a sorceress' defense by 30% for two minutes, and during that time, melee enemies that successfully hit the sorceress are frozen for 1.2 seconds, or thirty animation frames. (An enemy that swings and misses is unaffected, so Frozen Armor's defense bonus may actually reduce freeze occurrences.) Each additional skill level adds another 5% defense bonus, twelve seconds duration, and an eighth of a second (three more animation frames) to enemy freeze duration -- for example, a skill level 16 Frozen Armor adds 105% defense, lasts five full minutes, and freezes for three seconds. Each synergy point in the other two cold armors adds 10% buff duration and 5% to freeze length.
The only player to max Frozen Armor was domac, for melee enchantress zealot Lucrecia.
Cold Iron Wolf mercenaries cast FA to defend themselves, which gives them an additional way to freeze some enemies, and magnifies whatever high defense they already get from their equipped armor, helmet, shield, and sword.
Shiver Armor
Shiver Armor is a popular "two point wonder" (one point, plus the Frozen Armor prerequisite point) in the compilation. At skill level one, it boosts the sorceress' defense by 45% for two minutes, and any melee attacker that attempts to hurt the sorceress is chilled for 4 seconds with 6-8 cold damage. Melee monsters are always affected with every attack, whether their attacks strike or fail. Each additional skill level adds 6% defense bonus, twelve seconds buff duration, and increasing returns of additional cold damage -- for example, 23-29 cold damage and +87% defense for 204 seconds at skill level nine, or 48-58 cold damage, +147% defense, 312 seconds at level 17. Each synergy point in the other two cold armors adds 9% cold damage and 10% to the duration of the spell.
Personally, I like Shiver Armor's display; it's a bit more visually distinctive compared to the other two cold armors.
Three melee enchantresses chose to max Shiver Armor: Usurper's Desdemona ("fun build, and by fun I mean frustrating"), Nightfish's PatienceII ("Shiver armour provides good defence and the cold effect lasts for 5 seconds in hell which is really helpful"), and @DaveWThe2nd 's SpareRibs ("remember to keep [Energy Shield and Shiver Armor] replenished, otherwise it can get messy").
Dec 2022 Update: Shiver Armor was one of the core features of the defensive specialist CaseyJones' Elsa.
Chilling Armor
At skill level one, Chilling Armor boosts the sorceress' defense by 45% for 144 seconds (almost two and a quarter minutes). Each higher skill level adds 5% defense and six seconds buff duration.
While buffed, every missile attack that reaches the sorceress causes an ice bolt to be sprayed back in the missile's opposite direction, whether or not the missile hits, misses, or is shield-blocked. At skill level one, Chilling Armor's ice bolt chills for 5 seconds and 4-6 cold damage, and higher skill levels give increasing returns. (Examples: 13-19 cold damage and five second chills at skill level nine; 30-40 for thirteen seconds at level 17, or 45-57 for eighteen seconds at level 23.) Cold bolts are sent in response to typical physical-damage missiles (spears, arrows, blowdarts, etc.) and also in response to certain elemental spell missiles, such as charged bolts, lightning, and fireballs.
Each synergy point in Frozen Armor and Shiver armor add 7% to Chilling Armor's cold damage and 10% to its spell duration. Unless I overlooked one, I found that none of our matriarch or guardian players have been interested enough to bother to synergize any cold armor skills with each other. I believe most sorceress players that want more long-lasting defense can get it more conveniently with gear and dexterity rather than through cold armor skill synergies. The cold armors' cold-damage synergies are also made less effective by the chill effect, because chilling a monster also slows down the rate at which it may receive retributive cold damage. (I wonder whether any designer considered making Ice Bolt a more powerful damage synergy, or even co-synergy, for Chilling Armor?)
For a small number of players, Chilling Armor was either an experiment, or a one-point-plus-two-prerequisites-wonder. Colony's vengeance-enchantress Iazla invested six skill points here, and she had enough +skills on her gear to be able to cast her Chilling Armor at least at skill level nine.
There's also a popular (ladder/RWM) runeword, "Fortutude," which gives any character or mercenary a chance to get buffed with a level 15 Chilling Armor when struck.
-----
Except for the mastery, that's all of the cold spells. Coming up: M's and G's with lightning spells.
Frozen Armor
Frozen Armor turns out to be a very popular one-point-wonder defensive buff. At skill level one, it boosts a sorceress' defense by 30% for two minutes, and during that time, melee enemies that successfully hit the sorceress are frozen for 1.2 seconds, or thirty animation frames. (An enemy that swings and misses is unaffected, so Frozen Armor's defense bonus may actually reduce freeze occurrences.) Each additional skill level adds another 5% defense bonus, twelve seconds duration, and an eighth of a second (three more animation frames) to enemy freeze duration -- for example, a skill level 16 Frozen Armor adds 105% defense, lasts five full minutes, and freezes for three seconds. Each synergy point in the other two cold armors adds 10% buff duration and 5% to freeze length.
The only player to max Frozen Armor was domac, for melee enchantress zealot Lucrecia.
Cold Iron Wolf mercenaries cast FA to defend themselves, which gives them an additional way to freeze some enemies, and magnifies whatever high defense they already get from their equipped armor, helmet, shield, and sword.
Shiver Armor
Shiver Armor is a popular "two point wonder" (one point, plus the Frozen Armor prerequisite point) in the compilation. At skill level one, it boosts the sorceress' defense by 45% for two minutes, and any melee attacker that attempts to hurt the sorceress is chilled for 4 seconds with 6-8 cold damage. Melee monsters are always affected with every attack, whether their attacks strike or fail. Each additional skill level adds 6% defense bonus, twelve seconds buff duration, and increasing returns of additional cold damage -- for example, 23-29 cold damage and +87% defense for 204 seconds at skill level nine, or 48-58 cold damage, +147% defense, 312 seconds at level 17. Each synergy point in the other two cold armors adds 9% cold damage and 10% to the duration of the spell.
Personally, I like Shiver Armor's display; it's a bit more visually distinctive compared to the other two cold armors.
Three melee enchantresses chose to max Shiver Armor: Usurper's Desdemona ("fun build, and by fun I mean frustrating"), Nightfish's PatienceII ("Shiver armour provides good defence and the cold effect lasts for 5 seconds in hell which is really helpful"), and @DaveWThe2nd 's SpareRibs ("remember to keep [Energy Shield and Shiver Armor] replenished, otherwise it can get messy").
Dec 2022 Update: Shiver Armor was one of the core features of the defensive specialist CaseyJones' Elsa.
Chilling Armor
At skill level one, Chilling Armor boosts the sorceress' defense by 45% for 144 seconds (almost two and a quarter minutes). Each higher skill level adds 5% defense and six seconds buff duration.
While buffed, every missile attack that reaches the sorceress causes an ice bolt to be sprayed back in the missile's opposite direction, whether or not the missile hits, misses, or is shield-blocked. At skill level one, Chilling Armor's ice bolt chills for 5 seconds and 4-6 cold damage, and higher skill levels give increasing returns. (Examples: 13-19 cold damage and five second chills at skill level nine; 30-40 for thirteen seconds at level 17, or 45-57 for eighteen seconds at level 23.) Cold bolts are sent in response to typical physical-damage missiles (spears, arrows, blowdarts, etc.) and also in response to certain elemental spell missiles, such as charged bolts, lightning, and fireballs.
Each synergy point in Frozen Armor and Shiver armor add 7% to Chilling Armor's cold damage and 10% to its spell duration. Unless I overlooked one, I found that none of our matriarch or guardian players have been interested enough to bother to synergize any cold armor skills with each other. I believe most sorceress players that want more long-lasting defense can get it more conveniently with gear and dexterity rather than through cold armor skill synergies. The cold armors' cold-damage synergies are also made less effective by the chill effect, because chilling a monster also slows down the rate at which it may receive retributive cold damage. (I wonder whether any designer considered making Ice Bolt a more powerful damage synergy, or even co-synergy, for Chilling Armor?)
For a small number of players, Chilling Armor was either an experiment, or a one-point-plus-two-prerequisites-wonder. Colony's vengeance-enchantress Iazla invested six skill points here, and she had enough +skills on her gear to be able to cast her Chilling Armor at least at skill level nine.
There's also a popular (ladder/RWM) runeword, "Fortutude," which gives any character or mercenary a chance to get buffed with a level 15 Chilling Armor when struck.
-----
Except for the mastery, that's all of the cold spells. Coming up: M's and G's with lightning spells.
[Update: new histograms]
[Dec 2022 Update: new histograms, D2R note]
[Feb 2023 update: corrections]
[Dec 2022 Update: new histograms, D2R note]
[Feb 2023 update: corrections]
Last edited:
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
Dec 2022 Update: the D2R 2.4 patch improved Nova and Thunder Storm in various ways, including adding Static Field as a lightning damage synergy to each.
Static Field
At a fixed cost of nine mana, Static Field gives instant lightning damage to every enemy in its range. At skill level one, the range is ten terrain tiles (just over three yards); each additional skill level adds two terrain tiles (two-thirds of a yard) to the area-of-effect's radius, so at skill level eight it reaches the same range as the Nova or Frost Nova spells (eight yards), or at level 20, the range reaches almost everything visible on the screen (sixteen yards).
The actual lightning damage inflicted is a portion of the enemy's remaining life. An unharmed monster loses 25% of its full health; but a second Static Field only reduces 25% of its remaining health. (Some arithmetic: 75% health remaining, times 25%, equals 18.75%, so the second Static Field reduces less than 19% of whatever was the monster's original full health.) A monster with lightning resistance will lose less than 25% of its health per SF cast; but on the other hand, a Lower Resist curse or a Conviction Aura may make some monsters lose more than 25% health per cast.
By itself, Static Field won't actually defeat a monster. In normal difficulty, a sorceress may spam Static Field as fast as her faster-cast-rate gear allows, and eventually monsters will be reduced to approximately one or two hit point left. After that, SF has no further effect, and some other source of damage is necessary to actually finish off the monster. In nightmare difficulty, monsters become immune to SF after losing two-thirds of their maximum hit points, and in hell difficulty, SF has no effect on monsters after they have lost just half of their maximum life. Regardless of these nightmare/hell limitations, almost every sorceress allocates a point to this skill, because In just four or five fast casts, a sorceress in hell can usually cut in half the time needed to deplete the other half of a tough boss monster's life. With a mercenary that causes crushing blow damage, I have even witnessed a hell act boss lose half of its life after only one or two SF casts, thanks to the mercenary's simultaneous crushing blows. (Note: classic and earlier LoD patch versions didn't have the 33% in NM / 50% in Hell life limitations. At least three sorceresses that maxed Static Field were playing these, such as Queen Ceto by purplelocust, UltimateBadness by HoosierDaddy, or Joan by galtwish.)
Here are some quotes by other intrepid players that maxed (or nearly maxed) Static Field.
Dec 2022 Update: maxed Static Field is a core feature of teddeeboy's 1.07-patch 99er LeilaTheIceQueen.
Nova
Almost every skill and item with lightning damage exhibits a very big variance: maximum lightning damage grows relatively high, but minimum damage stays at just one hit point. Three sorceress' lightning skills buck this trend and feature higher minimum lightning damage values per cast. Nova seems the most popular of these three.
Nova costs 15 mana at skill level one, plus one more mana point for each higher skill level. It has no casting delay timer, so a sorceress can keep fast-casting Novas until her mana runs out. Nova's expanding ring discharges lightning damage at all enemies within about eight yards of the caster. Its minimum and maximum lightning damage both get increasing returns with skill levels: 1-20 at skill level one (15 mana), 50-85 at level 9 (23 mana), 107-158 at level 17 (31 mana), 156-219 at level 23 (37 mana), 211-286 at level 29 (43 mana). It gets no synergy benefits; Lightning Mastery is the only skill that boosts Nova's lightning damage.
On the other hand, each point in Nova gives a synergy boost to Lightning and Chain Lightning. We have lots of dedicated lightning 99ers that maxed Nova, in part for this synergy: Cyrax's Chainlightning, elevenlang's Lightning, ffs' HelpYourself, LD50's Helina, PhineasB's Hiatus, Yng's Sophie, Zaliquai's Nemesis, and ziambe's Allegro. I was surprised to see so many players invest in Nova without maxing it, also generally doing so to boost those other lightning skills and to finish off stragglers.
A few single-tree lightning mages combined Nova for offense with Energy Shield for defense: Elfie's Enlightening, purplelocust's Magella, sirpoopsalot's ES, and SunsetVIsta's Kira. Another electric single-tree build, Aythya_Collaris by bcoe, enjoyed pairing Nova with Charged Bolt.
Among the Cold/Lightning entries, I found at least a dozen Nova/Frozen Orb adventurers; Gahzban's FroNo capably represents these. Several more complemented Novas with Blizzards, such as Pb_pal's 99er Eleanor. Strix_Varia combined Glacial Spikes with Nova. Our Nova/Frost Nova builds were Bob by jdkerr, OOps by Jaedhann, Supernova by MukTuk, and SuperNova by Skinnyy, and Aix_Sponsa by bcoe.
Some dual-tree Fire/Lightning Nova examples are Naranjadita's Twilight Sparkle with Hydra, Arfurala's FollowMe with Firewall, and Pucho's Deanna and PhineasB's Sophie with Fireball. BaalBusterIII and RitaRepulsa by sirpoopsalot used Novas with Fireball and Firewall, respectively.
Lots of archmage tri-elementalists maxed Nova: ESSoul by Neksja, Gieb_Vex by RobbyD, and Aurora and Sheherazade by EnerSense.
It's pretty easy to find or shop "of Nova" and "of Nova Shield" magic items that have chances to cast Nova on striking or when struck, respectively. Some unique items also have this effect, such as Warshrike elite thrown knives or Tiamat's Rebuke shield.
Thunder Storm
A sorceress spends 19 mana to initiate a Thunder Storm. For the duration of this skill, the summoned overhead storm takes turns cracking each enemy it finds nearby the sorceress. I'm not completely sure, but I think the radius is somewhere around ten yards (30 terrain tiles) from the sorceress' current position. At skill level one, each strike does 1-100 lightning damage, and the strikes happen every 4.4 seconds (110 animation frames) for up to 32 seconds. Each additional skill level adds at least ten lightning damage, eight seconds duration, and reduces the time between strikes by a few frames. Examples: 121-200 lightning damage, 128 second duration, and a 2-second strike interval at skill level thirteen; or 239-338 lightning damage, 216 second duration, and 1.5 seconds between zaps at level 24.
No synergies. The principal tools for boosing Thunder Storm's damage are the Lightning Mastery skill, and if available, various ways to reduce enemy lightning resistance and/or increase lightning skill damage, such as items, a Conviction aura, or a Lower Resist curse.
Thunder Storm is most effective when the sorceress is fighting one-on-one with an enemy, so that each successive lightning bolt always targets that lone monster. It's less effective when she is mobbed, because the lightning claps are dispersed over the crowd, cycling through each remaining enemy in turn.
We have five weather-manipulating sorceresses that maxed her Thunder Storm skill: Toppo's Caillech, Colorless Green's Isoce, Vixen by Jaffa Tamarin, Amber by PhineasB, and Fate by NagisaFurukawa.
Static Field
At a fixed cost of nine mana, Static Field gives instant lightning damage to every enemy in its range. At skill level one, the range is ten terrain tiles (just over three yards); each additional skill level adds two terrain tiles (two-thirds of a yard) to the area-of-effect's radius, so at skill level eight it reaches the same range as the Nova or Frost Nova spells (eight yards), or at level 20, the range reaches almost everything visible on the screen (sixteen yards).
The actual lightning damage inflicted is a portion of the enemy's remaining life. An unharmed monster loses 25% of its full health; but a second Static Field only reduces 25% of its remaining health. (Some arithmetic: 75% health remaining, times 25%, equals 18.75%, so the second Static Field reduces less than 19% of whatever was the monster's original full health.) A monster with lightning resistance will lose less than 25% of its health per SF cast; but on the other hand, a Lower Resist curse or a Conviction Aura may make some monsters lose more than 25% health per cast.
By itself, Static Field won't actually defeat a monster. In normal difficulty, a sorceress may spam Static Field as fast as her faster-cast-rate gear allows, and eventually monsters will be reduced to approximately one or two hit point left. After that, SF has no further effect, and some other source of damage is necessary to actually finish off the monster. In nightmare difficulty, monsters become immune to SF after losing two-thirds of their maximum hit points, and in hell difficulty, SF has no effect on monsters after they have lost just half of their maximum life. Regardless of these nightmare/hell limitations, almost every sorceress allocates a point to this skill, because In just four or five fast casts, a sorceress in hell can usually cut in half the time needed to deplete the other half of a tough boss monster's life. With a mercenary that causes crushing blow damage, I have even witnessed a hell act boss lose half of its life after only one or two SF casts, thanks to the mercenary's simultaneous crushing blows. (Note: classic and earlier LoD patch versions didn't have the 33% in NM / 50% in Hell life limitations. At least three sorceresses that maxed Static Field were playing these, such as Queen Ceto by purplelocust, UltimateBadness by HoosierDaddy, or Joan by galtwish.)
Here are some quotes by other intrepid players that maxed (or nearly maxed) Static Field.
- NagisaFurukawa wrote about berserk melee fighter Shion: "With her high level Static Field, she could whittle entire screen fulls of monsters (provided they weren't LI) down to half, and then take them out in a single passing blow or two."
- Melee enchantress Summertime by TopHatCat64: "Fire immunes obviously slowed things down a bit, but the combination of Static Field, my merc, and my small amount of crushing blow kept the steam-roller moving at reasonable pace."
- Ranged enchantress MissTaken by Crawlingdeadman: "Static Field is great! I know, no one is surprised by this statement. As a one point wonder there are hardly any skills better in the game. As a 20 point wonder it's even better."
- The witty hyperbole in Nightfish's write-up of his Nova/Frozen Orb project Alustriel still makes me smile: "The main idea using nova is to spam static a little first. This highlights the opposition and hits basically everything that's in the same act as she was."
Dec 2022 Update: maxed Static Field is a core feature of teddeeboy's 1.07-patch 99er LeilaTheIceQueen.
Nova
Almost every skill and item with lightning damage exhibits a very big variance: maximum lightning damage grows relatively high, but minimum damage stays at just one hit point. Three sorceress' lightning skills buck this trend and feature higher minimum lightning damage values per cast. Nova seems the most popular of these three.
Nova costs 15 mana at skill level one, plus one more mana point for each higher skill level. It has no casting delay timer, so a sorceress can keep fast-casting Novas until her mana runs out. Nova's expanding ring discharges lightning damage at all enemies within about eight yards of the caster. Its minimum and maximum lightning damage both get increasing returns with skill levels: 1-20 at skill level one (15 mana), 50-85 at level 9 (23 mana), 107-158 at level 17 (31 mana), 156-219 at level 23 (37 mana), 211-286 at level 29 (43 mana). It gets no synergy benefits; Lightning Mastery is the only skill that boosts Nova's lightning damage.
On the other hand, each point in Nova gives a synergy boost to Lightning and Chain Lightning. We have lots of dedicated lightning 99ers that maxed Nova, in part for this synergy: Cyrax's Chainlightning, elevenlang's Lightning, ffs' HelpYourself, LD50's Helina, PhineasB's Hiatus, Yng's Sophie, Zaliquai's Nemesis, and ziambe's Allegro. I was surprised to see so many players invest in Nova without maxing it, also generally doing so to boost those other lightning skills and to finish off stragglers.
A few single-tree lightning mages combined Nova for offense with Energy Shield for defense: Elfie's Enlightening, purplelocust's Magella, sirpoopsalot's ES, and SunsetVIsta's Kira. Another electric single-tree build, Aythya_Collaris by bcoe, enjoyed pairing Nova with Charged Bolt.
Among the Cold/Lightning entries, I found at least a dozen Nova/Frozen Orb adventurers; Gahzban's FroNo capably represents these. Several more complemented Novas with Blizzards, such as Pb_pal's 99er Eleanor. Strix_Varia combined Glacial Spikes with Nova. Our Nova/Frost Nova builds were Bob by jdkerr, OOps by Jaedhann, Supernova by MukTuk, and SuperNova by Skinnyy, and Aix_Sponsa by bcoe.
Some dual-tree Fire/Lightning Nova examples are Naranjadita's Twilight Sparkle with Hydra, Arfurala's FollowMe with Firewall, and Pucho's Deanna and PhineasB's Sophie with Fireball. BaalBusterIII and RitaRepulsa by sirpoopsalot used Novas with Fireball and Firewall, respectively.
Lots of archmage tri-elementalists maxed Nova: ESSoul by Neksja, Gieb_Vex by RobbyD, and Aurora and Sheherazade by EnerSense.
It's pretty easy to find or shop "of Nova" and "of Nova Shield" magic items that have chances to cast Nova on striking or when struck, respectively. Some unique items also have this effect, such as Warshrike elite thrown knives or Tiamat's Rebuke shield.
Thunder Storm
A sorceress spends 19 mana to initiate a Thunder Storm. For the duration of this skill, the summoned overhead storm takes turns cracking each enemy it finds nearby the sorceress. I'm not completely sure, but I think the radius is somewhere around ten yards (30 terrain tiles) from the sorceress' current position. At skill level one, each strike does 1-100 lightning damage, and the strikes happen every 4.4 seconds (110 animation frames) for up to 32 seconds. Each additional skill level adds at least ten lightning damage, eight seconds duration, and reduces the time between strikes by a few frames. Examples: 121-200 lightning damage, 128 second duration, and a 2-second strike interval at skill level thirteen; or 239-338 lightning damage, 216 second duration, and 1.5 seconds between zaps at level 24.
No synergies. The principal tools for boosing Thunder Storm's damage are the Lightning Mastery skill, and if available, various ways to reduce enemy lightning resistance and/or increase lightning skill damage, such as items, a Conviction aura, or a Lower Resist curse.
Thunder Storm is most effective when the sorceress is fighting one-on-one with an enemy, so that each successive lightning bolt always targets that lone monster. It's less effective when she is mobbed, because the lightning claps are dispersed over the crowd, cycling through each remaining enemy in turn.
We have five weather-manipulating sorceresses that maxed her Thunder Storm skill: Toppo's Caillech, Colorless Green's Isoce, Vixen by Jaffa Tamarin, Amber by PhineasB, and Fate by NagisaFurukawa.
[Update: corrections, new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]
Last edited:
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
Charged Bolt
At skill level one, Charged Bolt costs 3 mana, for which three buzzing missiles float away from the caster. Each one that collides with an enemy causes 2-4 lightning damage. Each higher skill level costs additional 0.5 mana, releases another floating bolt (up to a maximum of 24 bolts), and each bolt hurts harder. For example at skill level 16 (18 bolts, 9.5-11.5 lightning damage per bolt, 10.5 mana), or at level 22 (24 bolts, 15.5-17.5, 13.5 mana), or level 28 (24 bolts, 24.5-26.5, 17 mana). When repeatedy fast-cast at a target, the floating bits of electricity effectively blanket a wedge-shaped area of effect, from 45 degrees to the left of the target through 45 degrees to its right. The greatest lightning damage per cast tends to happen at close range (within a yard or two of a target), because the missiles grow more and more dispersed the farther away they travel.
Each point in Charged Bolt gives a lightning damage synergy to Lightning (8%) and Chain Lightning (4%). Most of our matriarchs and guardians that maxed CB did so to boost one or both of those skills. However, Charged Bolt itself also gets a 6% lightning damage synergy boost for each point spent in Lightning, and there were quite a few sorceresses that maxed both Lightning and Lightning Mastery in order to give Charged Bolt its strongest possible damage.
Lightning
At skill level 1, Lightning costs 8 mana and delivers 1-40 lightning damage, not just to the target, but also to every other enemy in the path of the piercing lightning missile. Each additional skill level costs 0.5 more mana, and the maximum lightning damage gets impressive increasing returns. Examples: skill level 9 (1-88, 11 mana), level 17 (1-212, 16 mana), level 23 (1-340, 19 mana). Each point in Charged Bolt, Nova, and Chain Lightning add 8% lightning damage, so it's not uncommon to find sorceresses with maximum Lightning damage in the thousands due to synergies and Lightning Mastery.
The casting animation for Lightning (also Chain Lightning) is slightly longer than for the other sorceress spells, so although these skills have no casting delay, they still feel slightly slower when a player "spams" these two skills. One of our fastest Lightning casters was Jannu by sevenOfDiamonds.
We have more than twenty Single-tree Lightning sorceresses. A few fine examples are Persephone by maxicek, Zapdos by Pyrotechnician, SparkingNoodle by San, Kataegis by Kitteh, and 99er Cindy by Callador.
I found plenty of dual-element sorceresses with a Lightning specialty. Here's a sampler:
Each skill point spent in Lightning itself adds 6% synergy damage to Charged Bolt and 4% to Chain Lightning.
Dec 2022 Update: Alice, by SirName.
Chain Lightning
Unlike Lightning's piercing missile spell, Chain Lightning behaves slightly differently. After its missile collides with a target, it finds another nearby (within 13 yards) enemy, and changes direction toward that new target. At skill level one, it costs 9 mana, and chain-hits up to five enemies, delivering 1-40 lightning damage to each. Each higher skill level costs one additional mana, and every five skill levels adds one more target to the chain. It also gets increasing returns with higher skill levels. Examples: skill level nine (17 mana, 1-130 lightning damage, six chain-hits), level 17 (25 mana, 1-236, eight chain-hits), level 23 (31 mana, 1-326, nine chain-hits). Each point in Nova, Charged Bolt, and Lightning adds 4% synergy to Chain Lightning's maximum lightning damage.
Dual-element Chain Lightning/Frozen Orb sorceresses are quiet popular; I noticed more than ten of them. A few nice examples include Linnaea by Artifical Dream, Leisha by Jason Maher, Calibora by maxicek, and Merelira by TedDeeBoy.
There were also a couple of Chain Lightning/Blizzard heroines, chrischar's Diablo_Runner and xxnothing's Sparkles. I found two archmagi that used Chain Lightning, Kara by Enersense and Becca by Helix.
Dec 2022 Update: Sunny, by Crudesash.
At skill level one, Charged Bolt costs 3 mana, for which three buzzing missiles float away from the caster. Each one that collides with an enemy causes 2-4 lightning damage. Each higher skill level costs additional 0.5 mana, releases another floating bolt (up to a maximum of 24 bolts), and each bolt hurts harder. For example at skill level 16 (18 bolts, 9.5-11.5 lightning damage per bolt, 10.5 mana), or at level 22 (24 bolts, 15.5-17.5, 13.5 mana), or level 28 (24 bolts, 24.5-26.5, 17 mana). When repeatedy fast-cast at a target, the floating bits of electricity effectively blanket a wedge-shaped area of effect, from 45 degrees to the left of the target through 45 degrees to its right. The greatest lightning damage per cast tends to happen at close range (within a yard or two of a target), because the missiles grow more and more dispersed the farther away they travel.
Each point in Charged Bolt gives a lightning damage synergy to Lightning (8%) and Chain Lightning (4%). Most of our matriarchs and guardians that maxed CB did so to boost one or both of those skills. However, Charged Bolt itself also gets a 6% lightning damage synergy boost for each point spent in Lightning, and there were quite a few sorceresses that maxed both Lightning and Lightning Mastery in order to give Charged Bolt its strongest possible damage.
- Amber by PhineasB was a pure-Lightning skilled charged boltress.
- Nanoha by NagisaFurukawa and Kiran by PhineasB combined Charged Bolt and Fireball attacks.
- felixbavaria's Sophie used Charged Bolts and Firewalls.
- BoltsUpYours by Arkardo cast Charged Bolts and Hydras.
- Shermila by Asomedous combined Charged Bolts and Blizzards.
- KyrasLight by SimontheBulletFreak, Zapmebaby by sirpoopsalot, and Eliza by Holysinner were Charged bolt/Frozen Orb fighters.
Lightning
At skill level 1, Lightning costs 8 mana and delivers 1-40 lightning damage, not just to the target, but also to every other enemy in the path of the piercing lightning missile. Each additional skill level costs 0.5 more mana, and the maximum lightning damage gets impressive increasing returns. Examples: skill level 9 (1-88, 11 mana), level 17 (1-212, 16 mana), level 23 (1-340, 19 mana). Each point in Charged Bolt, Nova, and Chain Lightning add 8% lightning damage, so it's not uncommon to find sorceresses with maximum Lightning damage in the thousands due to synergies and Lightning Mastery.
The casting animation for Lightning (also Chain Lightning) is slightly longer than for the other sorceress spells, so although these skills have no casting delay, they still feel slightly slower when a player "spams" these two skills. One of our fastest Lightning casters was Jannu by sevenOfDiamonds.
We have more than twenty Single-tree Lightning sorceresses. A few fine examples are Persephone by maxicek, Zapdos by Pyrotechnician, SparkingNoodle by San, Kataegis by Kitteh, and 99er Cindy by Callador.
I found plenty of dual-element sorceresses with a Lightning specialty. Here's a sampler:
- nubikoen's marge and Pijus' Mhysteria (Lightning/Blizzard),
- HolyPade's TeslaSorc, Cyrax's Energetic, Solar's Swizel, PhineasB's Josie, and zaphodbrx's Nynaeve (Lightning/Frozen Orb),
- CrazyRunnerGuy's 99er Coldtest and zaphodbrx's Moiriane (Lightning/Firewall),
- maareek's Fire_Sparker and Kstil3227's Sydney (Lightning/Fireball)
Each skill point spent in Lightning itself adds 6% synergy damage to Charged Bolt and 4% to Chain Lightning.
Dec 2022 Update: Alice, by SirName.
Chain Lightning
Unlike Lightning's piercing missile spell, Chain Lightning behaves slightly differently. After its missile collides with a target, it finds another nearby (within 13 yards) enemy, and changes direction toward that new target. At skill level one, it costs 9 mana, and chain-hits up to five enemies, delivering 1-40 lightning damage to each. Each higher skill level costs one additional mana, and every five skill levels adds one more target to the chain. It also gets increasing returns with higher skill levels. Examples: skill level nine (17 mana, 1-130 lightning damage, six chain-hits), level 17 (25 mana, 1-236, eight chain-hits), level 23 (31 mana, 1-326, nine chain-hits). Each point in Nova, Charged Bolt, and Lightning adds 4% synergy to Chain Lightning's maximum lightning damage.
Dual-element Chain Lightning/Frozen Orb sorceresses are quiet popular; I noticed more than ten of them. A few nice examples include Linnaea by Artifical Dream, Leisha by Jason Maher, Calibora by maxicek, and Merelira by TedDeeBoy.
There were also a couple of Chain Lightning/Blizzard heroines, chrischar's Diablo_Runner and xxnothing's Sparkles. I found two archmagi that used Chain Lightning, Kara by Enersense and Becca by Helix.
Dec 2022 Update: Sunny, by Crudesash.
[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
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- Feb 24, 2006
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Telekinesis
Telekinesis costs 7 mana, and lets the caster pick up miscellaneous items (such as potions, keys, or money) from a distance, without having to walk or run over to them. It also works for opening chests, breaking barrels and other "poppables," or using shrines or waypoints from a distance. TK can reach to almost 17 yards away, which covers just about every location on the screen except for the farthest corners.
Telekinesis can also push against an enemy, with a 35% chance to knock it back and put it into its hit recovery animation, and with a small amount of lightning damage (1-2 at skill level one, 20-21 at skill level 20). But the real reason players invest more than a single point in Telekinesis is for its defensive synergy effect to the Energy Shield skill. Energy Shield reduces most types of enemy damage, by making some of the damage deplete mana instead of life. Whenever mana is damaged in this way, each point spent in Telekinesis shrinks the amount of mana lost by a small amount (see the arithmetic in the Energy Shield discussion below for details).
Although most defensive Energy Shield/Telekinesis sorceresses maxed both skills, there were several that prioritized TK investment instead.
Teleport
Almost every sorceress puts a point into Teleport and its prerequisite (Telekinesis). A bigger challenge might have been to find a player that did not put any points in this skill, but even TP-free builds are well represented, such as guardians jiansonz's Jill, scrcrw's shortcircuit, and Grisu's No_Sushi.
Teleport instantly relocates the caster, mercenary, and other minions (if any) to the target location. Line-of-sight is not necessary, and it can be an adrenaline rush to blindly blink beyond walls and other barriers, not knowing whether or not your character will arrive in the middle of a nasty pack of monsters. At skill level one, each cast of Teleport costs 24 mana, and each additional skill level reduces the mana cost by one. At skill level 24 it only costs 1 mana, and if +skills bring the Teleport skill to level 25 or higher, the skill costs no mana to cast, even though the displayed skill description claims otherwise. The highest Teleport investments in the collection are enchantresses Pheonix by Cattleya and Summertime by TopHatCat64 (maxed), and FO/FW 1.12 classic queen Ceto by purplelocust (18 points).
Heroes of any class can cast Teleport using charges from these items: Spellsteel unique bearded axe, Naj's Puzzler set elder staff, and various rare or magic staves, amulets, and circlets. But the favorite way to get Teleport without charges as a "0skill" is from the highly coveted "Enigma" runeword in body armor.
Energy Shield
As noted above, Energy Shield reduces most types of enemy damage, by making a portion of the damage deplete mana instead of life. It mitigates physical, elemental (cold/fire/lightning), and magic damage, but does nothing for poison damage.
Let's first consider an unsynergized Energy Shield skill. At skill level one, Energy Shield lasts for up to 144 seconds (just shy of two-and-a-half minutes), or until an enemy strike uses up all of the sorceress' mana. While the level one Energy Shield is active, only 80% of enemy damage applies to life, and the other 20% is transferred twofold to mana (so 40% of the damage applies to mana).
Each additional skill level adds sixty seconds duration, and improves damage transfer with decreasing returns. Examples:
Next, consider Energy Shield synergized by Telekinesis. Each synergy point reduces mana-damage by 1/32 (3.125%). For example, by investing eight points in TK, the redirected damage is only applied one-and-a-half times to mana, rather than twice:
At least two dozen Energy Shield users also maxed Telekinesis. A few examples:
Before I move on to the Fire spells (the final skill tab of this study), I think it would be good to review the mastery skills at this point, so please expect some observations about those coming up in my next post.
Telekinesis costs 7 mana, and lets the caster pick up miscellaneous items (such as potions, keys, or money) from a distance, without having to walk or run over to them. It also works for opening chests, breaking barrels and other "poppables," or using shrines or waypoints from a distance. TK can reach to almost 17 yards away, which covers just about every location on the screen except for the farthest corners.
Telekinesis can also push against an enemy, with a 35% chance to knock it back and put it into its hit recovery animation, and with a small amount of lightning damage (1-2 at skill level one, 20-21 at skill level 20). But the real reason players invest more than a single point in Telekinesis is for its defensive synergy effect to the Energy Shield skill. Energy Shield reduces most types of enemy damage, by making some of the damage deplete mana instead of life. Whenever mana is damaged in this way, each point spent in Telekinesis shrinks the amount of mana lost by a small amount (see the arithmetic in the Energy Shield discussion below for details).
Although most defensive Energy Shield/Telekinesis sorceresses maxed both skills, there were several that prioritized TK investment instead.
- PandadudeSP's pure lightning sorceress Five maxed Telekinesis for a one-point-wonder Energy Shield.
- Enchantress builds with maxed TK include: Arkardo's HotStuff and Nightfish's PatienceII (1-point ES), sirpoopsalot's Dorkana (3-point ES), DaveWThe2nd's SpareRibs (10 ES), and NagisaFurukawa's Sakura (13 ES).
- Skaman's Blizzard sorceress Obfuscated_C spent seventeen TK points.
- sabotawj's Frozen Orber Mabombe maxed TK with a five point ES.
Teleport
Almost every sorceress puts a point into Teleport and its prerequisite (Telekinesis). A bigger challenge might have been to find a player that did not put any points in this skill, but even TP-free builds are well represented, such as guardians jiansonz's Jill, scrcrw's shortcircuit, and Grisu's No_Sushi.
Teleport instantly relocates the caster, mercenary, and other minions (if any) to the target location. Line-of-sight is not necessary, and it can be an adrenaline rush to blindly blink beyond walls and other barriers, not knowing whether or not your character will arrive in the middle of a nasty pack of monsters. At skill level one, each cast of Teleport costs 24 mana, and each additional skill level reduces the mana cost by one. At skill level 24 it only costs 1 mana, and if +skills bring the Teleport skill to level 25 or higher, the skill costs no mana to cast, even though the displayed skill description claims otherwise. The highest Teleport investments in the collection are enchantresses Pheonix by Cattleya and Summertime by TopHatCat64 (maxed), and FO/FW 1.12 classic queen Ceto by purplelocust (18 points).
Heroes of any class can cast Teleport using charges from these items: Spellsteel unique bearded axe, Naj's Puzzler set elder staff, and various rare or magic staves, amulets, and circlets. But the favorite way to get Teleport without charges as a "0skill" is from the highly coveted "Enigma" runeword in body armor.
Energy Shield
As noted above, Energy Shield reduces most types of enemy damage, by making a portion of the damage deplete mana instead of life. It mitigates physical, elemental (cold/fire/lightning), and magic damage, but does nothing for poison damage.
Let's first consider an unsynergized Energy Shield skill. At skill level one, Energy Shield lasts for up to 144 seconds (just shy of two-and-a-half minutes), or until an enemy strike uses up all of the sorceress' mana. While the level one Energy Shield is active, only 80% of enemy damage applies to life, and the other 20% is transferred twofold to mana (so 40% of the damage applies to mana).
Each additional skill level adds sixty seconds duration, and improves damage transfer with decreasing returns. Examples:
- at skill level 7, only 50% of enemy damage applies to life (so 100% damage applies to mana);
- 43% at level 9 (so 114% damage applies to mana);
- 33% at level 14 (so 134% damage goes to mana);
- 28% at level 17 (144% to mana);
- 25% at level 20 (150% to mana);
- 20% at level 25 (160% to mana).
Next, consider Energy Shield synergized by Telekinesis. Each synergy point reduces mana-damage by 1/32 (3.125%). For example, by investing eight points in TK, the redirected damage is only applied one-and-a-half times to mana, rather than twice:
- at ES skill level 7, only 50% of enemy damage applies to life (so 75% damage applies to mana);
- 43% at ES level 9 (so 85.5% damage applies to mana);
- 33% at ES level 14 (so 100.5% damage goes to mana);
- 28% at ES level 17 (108% to mana);
- 25% at ES level 20 (112.5% to mana);
- 20% at ES level 25 (120% to mana).
- at ES skill level 7, only 50% of enemy damage applies to life (so 50% damage applies to mana);
- 43% at ES level 9 (so 57% damage applies to mana);
- 33% at ES level 14 (so 67% damage goes to mana);
- 28% at ES level 17 (72% to mana);
- 25% at ES level 20 (75% to mana);
- 20% at ES level 25 (80% to mana).
- at ES skill level 7, only 50% of enemy damage applies to life (so 37.5% damage applies to mana);
- 43% at ES level 9 (so 42.75% damage applies to mana);
- 33% at ES level 14 (so 50.25% damage goes to mana);
- 28% at ES level 17 (54% to mana);
- 25% at ES level 20 (56.25% to mana);
- 20% at ES level 25 (60% to mana).
At least two dozen Energy Shield users also maxed Telekinesis. A few examples:
- Enchantresses Hathor by VoX Dei, Dextress by galtwish, Mus by Pucho, Xanthippe by Stony, Melina by EasyG, and Hinagiku by NagisaFurukawa;
- Lightning sprayer Emily by Grape;
- Nova splashers ES by sirpoopsalot, Magella by purplelocust, and Kira by SunsetVista;
- Meteor droppers Flame_Grilled by Colony and Aurora by maxicek;
- Fireball flingers Sapphire by Pyrohemia and Burner by sirpoopsalot;
- Frozen orbers LuKara by Ohomemgrande and Energetic by Cyrax, as well as an FO/Nova build EtaCarinae by Kyrandia and an FO/FW build Mona by Neksja.
Before I move on to the Fire spells (the final skill tab of this study), I think it would be good to review the mastery skills at this point, so please expect some observations about those coming up in my next post.
[edit 15 Jul 2021: corrections, grammar]
[Update Aug 2021: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
[Update Aug 2021: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
Last edited:
- Feb 24, 2006
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Cold Mastery
Whenever a sorceress attacks an enemy, her passive Cold Mastery skill reduces that enemy's cold resistance to her attack. (In other words, it only applies to the sorceress' attacks; the resistance penalty doesn't apply to her mercenary's attacks.) Skill level one reduces cold resistance by 20%, and each higher skill level reduces cold resitance by an additional 5%. The resistance penalty also applies to chill or freeze duration.
This skill only applies to attacks against monsters that aren't cold immune; those enemies remain immune.
Many players choose to invest just enough in Cold Mastery for +skills equipment to lift it to about level 17, at which they consider the skill "effectively" maxed. This is because the game never reduces any resistance below -100%, so skill levels 18 and higher have no further effect on monsters with no cold resistance. There are players that choose to invest more, but skill levels higher than 17 only improve damage against monsters that have at least some cold resistance. In the following examples of "cold-damage arithmetic," suppose an attack delivers 100 cold damage, and chills (or freezes) the target for 5 seconds.
Lightning and Fire Masteries
These passive masteries are pretty straightforward: both simply magnify their respective elemental damages. The biggest boost comes from the first skill point (+50% lightning damage, +30% fire damage), and each higher skill level adds significantly more (+12% lightning per level lightning, +7% fire per level).
Lightning sorceress players usually max Lightning Mastery before any of the lightning synergy skills, because the mastery bonus per skill point is more than any synergy bonus.
On the other hand, most fire sorceress players compare synergy bonuses of their favorite skills, then decide whether to pump up synergy skills before or after Fire Mastery. Synergies for Blaze, Fire Wall, Meteor, and Hydra are lower than the 7% bonus per level provided by Fire Mastery, so those players usually prioritize maxing Fire Mastery first. Synergies for Inferno, Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, and Enchant are higher than 7%, so those players usually wait until synergies are maxed before they put more than a point in Fire Mastery.
Even though the game lists these passive bonuses as "+% Lightning/Fire Skill Damage," it turns out that the bonus also applies to lightning/fire damage from melee weapons. (I'm pretty sure their bonuses apply to missile weapon attacks too, even though I have read some guides that claim otherwise.)
Each of our sorceresses put at least one point in at least one passive mastery. Most of the interesting or unexpected maxed mastery builds are weapon-based attackers with elemental damage:
Thanks again for reading, everyone! My next post will explore the "barbeque-roast" spells in the left column of the sorceress' fire tree.
Whenever a sorceress attacks an enemy, her passive Cold Mastery skill reduces that enemy's cold resistance to her attack. (In other words, it only applies to the sorceress' attacks; the resistance penalty doesn't apply to her mercenary's attacks.) Skill level one reduces cold resistance by 20%, and each higher skill level reduces cold resitance by an additional 5%. The resistance penalty also applies to chill or freeze duration.
This skill only applies to attacks against monsters that aren't cold immune; those enemies remain immune.
Many players choose to invest just enough in Cold Mastery for +skills equipment to lift it to about level 17, at which they consider the skill "effectively" maxed. This is because the game never reduces any resistance below -100%, so skill levels 18 and higher have no further effect on monsters with no cold resistance. There are players that choose to invest more, but skill levels higher than 17 only improve damage against monsters that have at least some cold resistance. In the following examples of "cold-damage arithmetic," suppose an attack delivers 100 cold damage, and chills (or freezes) the target for 5 seconds.
- With no points in cold mastery:
- If a monster has no cold resistance, then just as you would expect, it takes 100 cold damage, and the chill (or freeze) lasts 5 seconds.
- For a monster with 50% cold resistance, it takes 50 cold damage, and chill has a 2.5 second duration.
- A monster with 90% cold resistance takes 10 damage, and chill lasts just half of a second.
- At skill level one, cold resistance is reduced by 20%.
- A monster with no cold resistance actually suffer 120 cold damage, with 6 seconds of chill.
- For a monster with 50% cold resistance, it actually suffers 70 cold damage, with 3.5 seconds chill.
- If a monster has 90% cold resistance, it takes 30 cold damage and 1.5 seconds chill time.
- At skill level seven, cold resistance is reduced by 50%.
- A monster with no cold resistance takes 150 cold damage and is chilled 7.5 seconds.
- A monster with 50% cold resistance takes 100 cold damage, with a 5 second chill length.
- A monster with 90% cold resistance takes 60 cold damage, with 3 seconds of chill.
- At skill level seventeen, cold resistance is reduced by 100%.
- A monster with no cold resistance takes 200 cold damage (10 seconds chill).
- A monster with 50% cold resistance takes 150 cold damage (7.5 seconds chill).
- A monster with 90% cold resistance takes 110 cold damage (5.5 seconds chill).
- At skill level 27, cold resistance is reduced by 150%.
- A monster with no cold resistance takes 200 cold damage, and gets chilled for ten seconds.
- (This is because the game never reduces any resistance below -100%.)
- A monster with 50% cold resistance takes 200 cold damage (chilled ten seconds).
- A monster with 90% cold resistance takes 160 cold damage (chilled eight seconds).
- A monster with no cold resistance takes 200 cold damage, and gets chilled for ten seconds.
Lightning and Fire Masteries
These passive masteries are pretty straightforward: both simply magnify their respective elemental damages. The biggest boost comes from the first skill point (+50% lightning damage, +30% fire damage), and each higher skill level adds significantly more (+12% lightning per level lightning, +7% fire per level).
Lightning sorceress players usually max Lightning Mastery before any of the lightning synergy skills, because the mastery bonus per skill point is more than any synergy bonus.
On the other hand, most fire sorceress players compare synergy bonuses of their favorite skills, then decide whether to pump up synergy skills before or after Fire Mastery. Synergies for Blaze, Fire Wall, Meteor, and Hydra are lower than the 7% bonus per level provided by Fire Mastery, so those players usually prioritize maxing Fire Mastery first. Synergies for Inferno, Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, and Enchant are higher than 7%, so those players usually wait until synergies are maxed before they put more than a point in Fire Mastery.
Even though the game lists these passive bonuses as "+% Lightning/Fire Skill Damage," it turns out that the bonus also applies to lightning/fire damage from melee weapons. (I'm pretty sure their bonuses apply to missile weapon attacks too, even though I have read some guides that claim otherwise.)
Each of our sorceresses put at least one point in at least one passive mastery. Most of the interesting or unexpected maxed mastery builds are weapon-based attackers with elemental damage:
- Immortal King's Stone Crusher enchantresses Athena by Vulpine and IMQueen by aitrus (Immortal King's Stone Crusher);
- Kingslayer runeword enchantresses Tritoch by MukTuk, Morgana by sirpoopsalot, and Colony's Iazla;
- Baranar's Star enchantress Vlammetje by AJK;
- Hellrack enchantress SheBangs by Arfurala;
- Dream runeword (Holy Shock aura) fighters Ladyshave by scrcrw, Arien by Pb_pal, ChoOyu by sevenOfDiamonds, Naab's Manbearpig, TeddyBear by Pyrohemia, Mrs_Grylls by Cyrax, Stardust by Albatross, and Dacey by zaphodbrx;
- Mastery tournament sorceress (and attentive mercenary caretaker) Jill by jiansonz
Thanks again for reading, everyone! My next post will explore the "barbeque-roast" spells in the left column of the sorceress' fire tree.
[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
Last edited:
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
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Dec 2022 Update: the D2R 2.4 patch included various improvements to Inferno and Blaze.
Inferno
A sorceress must remain immobile while streaming an Inferno spell, but by moving her aiming target, she can rotate in place to change the flames' direction. After getting into her streaming stance (about 0.4 seconds of casting animation), two gouts of flame proceed toward and through the target. As they travel, the gouts separate at a very narrow angle away from each other. Every monster within the spray takes fire damage over time.
(It turns out that Inferno's damage only happens every two animation frames, but regrettably, the "Lying Character Screen" displays fire damage as if it were delivered during every frame. Players that use Inferno just need to be resigned to their disappointment that the spell is only causing half of the fire damage than is advertised in the LCS.)
At skill level one, Inferno drains just over 7 mana per second, delivers 6-12 fire damage per second (averaging .25-.5 fire per animation frame), and the stream continues up to ten terrain tiles (3 1/3 yards) away. Each higher skill level adds almost 0.2 mana cost per second, a little more stream distance, and increasing returns on damage. Examples: at skill level nine, 44-50 fire per second (averaging 1.75-2 fire per frame) up to seven yards away; at level seventeen, 85-93 fire per second (averaging 3.3-3.7 fire per frame) up to 11 yards; at level 23, 118-127 fire per second (averaging 4.7-5 fire per frame) up to 14 yards.
Each point in the Warmth synergy adds 13% fire damage to Inferno, which is much more than Fire Mastery's bonus, with the exception of the very first spent mastery point.
Two of our sorceresses, Dany by scrcrw and Dendroica_Fusca by bcoe, maxed and used the Inferno skill.
Inferno provides a fire-damage-per-second synergy to Fire Wall (1%) and Meteor (3%). While achieving character level 99, IceTea by Grape spent 16 leftover points in Inferno as a damage synergy to Meteor. Because of the Inferno synergy, the aftermath of each of IceTea's meteor impacts continued to burn for nearly a thousand fire damage per second (almost 40 fire per frame) for more than fourteen seconds.
A "fire spells" Iron Wolf from act 3 sometimes casts Inferno, but he tends to flame out within less than a second, so most enemies only get damaged during a handful of animation frames when he uses this attack.
Blaze
When a sorceress casts Blaze, each terrain tile over which the sorceress travels ignites into flames. At skill level one, Blaze costs 11 mana, spreads its fire for about three and a half seconds of walking or running, and each affected tile burns for about four and a half seconds, inflicting 18-37 fire damage per second (around 1 fire per animation frame). Each higher skill level adds one mana cost, one second flame duration, decreasing returns to travel duration, and increasing returns on fire damage. Examples:
The compilation includes three Blaze sorceresses, each of whom also cast frozen orbs: Joan by galtwish (1.07 patch), Nur by Miron, and Robin by HappeningKT. All three are enjoyable and educational reads. Common strategies appear to be luring monsters to chase the sorceress into the blazing trails behind her, or carefully running around or back-and-forth, in order to try to stack multiple blazes on tiles over which an enemy would later move.
Fire Wall
When a Fire Wall is cast, two "firewall spreaders" start at the target and move in opposite directions, each at a 90-degree angle away from the caster's direction. Every tile under the spreaders ignites into flames for about three and a half seconds, and any enemy standing in or moving through the firewall takes some fire damage during every animation frame that they stand in or move through the firewall.
At skill level one, the "spreaders" each travel a distance of ten terrain tiles (just over three yards), making the firewall a little over six yards long, and the firewall causes 86-115 fire damage per second (about 3.5-4.6 fire damage per animation frame). The caster spends 22 mana to create a level 1 firewall. Each higher skill level adds one to mana cost, adds two or three additional terrain tiles to spreader-distance (this varies), and adds increasing returns on fire damage. Examples:
Fire Wall itself provides a small fire damage synergy to Blaze (1%), but no sorceress in the collection bothered with this synergy.
Maltatai's Marlotta invested heavily in both Meteor and Firewall.
You will find a wide variety of two- or three-element sorceresses featuring maxed firewalls:
Inferno
A sorceress must remain immobile while streaming an Inferno spell, but by moving her aiming target, she can rotate in place to change the flames' direction. After getting into her streaming stance (about 0.4 seconds of casting animation), two gouts of flame proceed toward and through the target. As they travel, the gouts separate at a very narrow angle away from each other. Every monster within the spray takes fire damage over time.
(It turns out that Inferno's damage only happens every two animation frames, but regrettably, the "Lying Character Screen" displays fire damage as if it were delivered during every frame. Players that use Inferno just need to be resigned to their disappointment that the spell is only causing half of the fire damage than is advertised in the LCS.)
At skill level one, Inferno drains just over 7 mana per second, delivers 6-12 fire damage per second (averaging .25-.5 fire per animation frame), and the stream continues up to ten terrain tiles (3 1/3 yards) away. Each higher skill level adds almost 0.2 mana cost per second, a little more stream distance, and increasing returns on damage. Examples: at skill level nine, 44-50 fire per second (averaging 1.75-2 fire per frame) up to seven yards away; at level seventeen, 85-93 fire per second (averaging 3.3-3.7 fire per frame) up to 11 yards; at level 23, 118-127 fire per second (averaging 4.7-5 fire per frame) up to 14 yards.
Each point in the Warmth synergy adds 13% fire damage to Inferno, which is much more than Fire Mastery's bonus, with the exception of the very first spent mastery point.
Two of our sorceresses, Dany by scrcrw and Dendroica_Fusca by bcoe, maxed and used the Inferno skill.
Inferno provides a fire-damage-per-second synergy to Fire Wall (1%) and Meteor (3%). While achieving character level 99, IceTea by Grape spent 16 leftover points in Inferno as a damage synergy to Meteor. Because of the Inferno synergy, the aftermath of each of IceTea's meteor impacts continued to burn for nearly a thousand fire damage per second (almost 40 fire per frame) for more than fourteen seconds.
A "fire spells" Iron Wolf from act 3 sometimes casts Inferno, but he tends to flame out within less than a second, so most enemies only get damaged during a handful of animation frames when he uses this attack.
Blaze
When a sorceress casts Blaze, each terrain tile over which the sorceress travels ignites into flames. At skill level one, Blaze costs 11 mana, spreads its fire for about three and a half seconds of walking or running, and each affected tile burns for about four and a half seconds, inflicting 18-37 fire damage per second (around 1 fire per animation frame). Each higher skill level adds one mana cost, one second flame duration, decreasing returns to travel duration, and increasing returns on fire damage. Examples:
- At skill level nine: 19 mana, about 11.5 seconds travel time, about 13.8 seconds flame duration, and 98-117 fire damage per second (around 4 fire per frame);
- Level 17: 27 mana, about 16.5 seconds travel duration, about 19.5 seconds flame duration, and 215-234 fire damage per second (around 9 fire per frame);
- Level 23: 33 mana, about 17.6 seconds travel duration, about 25.5 seconds flame duration, and 365-384 fire damage per second (around 15 fire per frame).
The compilation includes three Blaze sorceresses, each of whom also cast frozen orbs: Joan by galtwish (1.07 patch), Nur by Miron, and Robin by HappeningKT. All three are enjoyable and educational reads. Common strategies appear to be luring monsters to chase the sorceress into the blazing trails behind her, or carefully running around or back-and-forth, in order to try to stack multiple blazes on tiles over which an enemy would later move.
Fire Wall
When a Fire Wall is cast, two "firewall spreaders" start at the target and move in opposite directions, each at a 90-degree angle away from the caster's direction. Every tile under the spreaders ignites into flames for about three and a half seconds, and any enemy standing in or moving through the firewall takes some fire damage during every animation frame that they stand in or move through the firewall.
At skill level one, the "spreaders" each travel a distance of ten terrain tiles (just over three yards), making the firewall a little over six yards long, and the firewall causes 86-115 fire damage per second (about 3.5-4.6 fire damage per animation frame). The caster spends 22 mana to create a level 1 firewall. Each higher skill level adds one to mana cost, adds two or three additional terrain tiles to spreader-distance (this varies), and adds increasing returns on fire damage. Examples:
- skill level nine (30 mana, fifteen yards across, 530-558 fire per second or about 22 fire per frame);
- skill level 17 (38 mana, 26 yards, 1216-1245 fire per second or about 49 fire per frame);
- skill level 23 (44 mana, 34 yards, 1942-1971 fire per second or about 78 fire per frame).
Fire Wall itself provides a small fire damage synergy to Blaze (1%), but no sorceress in the collection bothered with this synergy.
Maltatai's Marlotta invested heavily in both Meteor and Firewall.
You will find a wide variety of two- or three-element sorceresses featuring maxed firewalls:
- Blizzard sorceresses Sway by srrw, Snowy_Ploppy by DX_Crawler, CharleneMcGee by crawlingdeadman, SugarCookie by FoghornLeghorn, Findmesomething by mwints, Snowstorm by Sir Lister of Smeg, Piff by Tanksaabas, and untwinked Frosty by steelsixtyIV;
- Frozen orbers Mona by Neksja and No_Sushi by Grisu;
- Nova zappers FollowMe by Arfurala and RitaRepulsa by sirpoopsalot;
- Lightning or Chain Lightning channelers Moiriane by zaphodbrx, untwinked Sophie by felixbavaria, and 99ers Coldtest by Crazy Runner Guy and Diiieeeee by zgpmf.
- Archmagi JungleJulia by crawlingdeadman, Becca by Helx, and six of Enersense's archmage sept entries: Aurora, Joy, Venus, Aphrodite, Sheherazade, and Kara.
[edit Jul 2021: major correcitons of a couple of embarrassing goofs]
[Update Aug 2021: new histograms]
[Update Oct 2021: fixed typos]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]
[Update Aug 2021: new histograms]
[Update Oct 2021: fixed typos]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]
Last edited:
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
Fire Bolt
A Fire Bolt missile is "spammable" and always costs just 2.5 mana regardless of skill level. At skill level one, it causes 3-6 fire damage, and it gets increasing returns with higher skill levels: 15.5-19.5 at level nine, 33.5-45.5 at level 17, 62.5-80.5 at level 23. Each synergy point invested in Fire Ball and Meteor add 16% fire damage. Maxed, fully synergized, maxed Fire Mastery, and with just three +skills, your sorceress could shoot Fire Bolts with 600 or more fire damage on average. In the write-up for Flame_Grilled, Colony reported that she managed to aggregate +23 skills among her gear and charms, and calculated that Flame_Grilled's Fire Bolts seared enemies for over 14,000 fire damage each. (That was in early 2007, and Colony may have been playing an older patch level. I calculate that Flame_Grilled's Fire Bolt would probably cause about 5,600 fire damage in the current patch. Or maybe I completely misunderstand, or Colony typed Fire Bolt but meant Fire Ball or Meteor...)
Each point in this skill provides a damage synergy to three other fire skills: 14% to Fire Ball, 5% to Meteor, and 3% to Hydra. Most players that maxed Fire Bolt did so as a synergy. One of the most interesting examples is Tulukset by Kimppi, an Energy Shield melee enchantress with a "Passion" runeword (for zealing) and a couple of "Dragon" runewords (for 24% chance to cast level 15 Hydra on striking). She maxed Fire Bolt to boost the proc'd hydras.
Fire Ball
Fire Ball is second only to Frozen Orb as the most popular sorceress skill in our compilation. Just like Fire Bolt, Fire Ball is a "spammable" missile spell, but with area-of-effect impact damage and a higher mana cost (5 at skill level one, 0.5 more mana per higher skill level). On impact, a Fire Ball delivers fire damage to all enemies within eight terrain tiles (almost three yards) of the target, with increasing returns: 6-14 (skill level one), 63-79 (level nine), 157-181 (level 17), 244-274 (level 23). Each synergy skill point spent in Fire Bolt and Meteor adds 14% fire damage, so Fire Ball caster players usually focus on synergies, leaving Fire Mastery as a one-point-wonder. By maxing Fire Ball and one synergy, a sorceress can easily get about 820 fire damage at least, every time her fireball hits and explodes -- with two maxed synergies, at least 1375 fire damage, then with maxed Fire Mastery, at least 1641 and up to 1864 fire damage, and then +skills equipment turn up the heat even higher. Points in Fire Ball synergize Fire Bolt (16%), Meteor (5%), and Hydra (3%).
There are way too many excellent Fire Ball exhibits to link them all here. To find a good one, I recommend you make your own list of a few dozen of them, and then while dressed up in a Charmander costume, bring your list and a "Leaf" runeworded staff to the primate enclosure of your local zoo, blindfold one of the monkeys, give the list and staff to it, and tickle the monkey's ribs until ... never mind, I already tried that lame joke almost a year ago in this thread, and it's even less funny now. Instead, here's a way-too-small selection of favorite Fire Ball mats & guards:
Meteor
At skill level one, a Meteor costs 17 mana. A warning ring billows around the target location. Sixty animation frames (2.4 seconds) later, the giant fireball strikes, instantly causing 80-100 fire damage to enemies within twelve terrain tiles (four yards), and leaving behind a pattern of eighteen burning tiles that cause additional fire damage over time, 35-58 for 29 animation frames (a little over 1 second). Each higher skill level adds 0.5 to mana cost, 0.6 seconds (15 frames) post-impact burn duration, and increasing returns to impact and aftermath damage. Examples:
A contender for "most popular build" in the compliation is the dual-element Meteor and Frozen Orb caster, "meteorb." I counted at least four dozen meteorbers. Here are few nice posts, with apologies to others that deserve mention but aren't getting it here: Starlane by Karmeus, Alpha by tweety, ColdieLocks by mattinm, Sidewinder by Steerpike, Nutella by b1ur, and Transposition by Kitteh.
Other two-element Meteor droppers included Blizzard sorceresses zaphodbrx's Zarine, Harrid's FrostyMelons, and Shannon's Shae; also dutes' Nova caster Fiendfyre.
Dec 2022 Update: Serdash's 2005 (1.10 patch) Amelia was restored to the compilation.
-----
Just one post remains to complete this odd little project: the last three sorceress fire skills. What I originally thought might take me a few weeks has consumed more than thirteen months, but my fellow SPFers and their mat/pat/guardian write-ups are worth the effort. All of you. You're worth it.
Before the last post, I'm going back to make just a few edits, and to update the CSV spreadsheets with all of the corrections I've collected. I would also like to add to the spreadsheets at least once, just to include the new posts that have been submitted to the compilation during the past year.
A Fire Bolt missile is "spammable" and always costs just 2.5 mana regardless of skill level. At skill level one, it causes 3-6 fire damage, and it gets increasing returns with higher skill levels: 15.5-19.5 at level nine, 33.5-45.5 at level 17, 62.5-80.5 at level 23. Each synergy point invested in Fire Ball and Meteor add 16% fire damage. Maxed, fully synergized, maxed Fire Mastery, and with just three +skills, your sorceress could shoot Fire Bolts with 600 or more fire damage on average. In the write-up for Flame_Grilled, Colony reported that she managed to aggregate +23 skills among her gear and charms, and calculated that Flame_Grilled's Fire Bolts seared enemies for over 14,000 fire damage each. (That was in early 2007, and Colony may have been playing an older patch level. I calculate that Flame_Grilled's Fire Bolt would probably cause about 5,600 fire damage in the current patch. Or maybe I completely misunderstand, or Colony typed Fire Bolt but meant Fire Ball or Meteor...)
Each point in this skill provides a damage synergy to three other fire skills: 14% to Fire Ball, 5% to Meteor, and 3% to Hydra. Most players that maxed Fire Bolt did so as a synergy. One of the most interesting examples is Tulukset by Kimppi, an Energy Shield melee enchantress with a "Passion" runeword (for zealing) and a couple of "Dragon" runewords (for 24% chance to cast level 15 Hydra on striking). She maxed Fire Bolt to boost the proc'd hydras.
Fire Ball
Fire Ball is second only to Frozen Orb as the most popular sorceress skill in our compilation. Just like Fire Bolt, Fire Ball is a "spammable" missile spell, but with area-of-effect impact damage and a higher mana cost (5 at skill level one, 0.5 more mana per higher skill level). On impact, a Fire Ball delivers fire damage to all enemies within eight terrain tiles (almost three yards) of the target, with increasing returns: 6-14 (skill level one), 63-79 (level nine), 157-181 (level 17), 244-274 (level 23). Each synergy skill point spent in Fire Bolt and Meteor adds 14% fire damage, so Fire Ball caster players usually focus on synergies, leaving Fire Mastery as a one-point-wonder. By maxing Fire Ball and one synergy, a sorceress can easily get about 820 fire damage at least, every time her fireball hits and explodes -- with two maxed synergies, at least 1375 fire damage, then with maxed Fire Mastery, at least 1641 and up to 1864 fire damage, and then +skills equipment turn up the heat even higher. Points in Fire Ball synergize Fire Bolt (16%), Meteor (5%), and Hydra (3%).
There are way too many excellent Fire Ball exhibits to link them all here. To find a good one, I recommend you make your own list of a few dozen of them, and then while dressed up in a Charmander costume, bring your list and a "Leaf" runeworded staff to the primate enclosure of your local zoo, blindfold one of the monkeys, give the list and staff to it, and tickle the monkey's ribs until ... never mind, I already tried that lame joke almost a year ago in this thread, and it's even less funny now. Instead, here's a way-too-small selection of favorite Fire Ball mats & guards:
- Pure fire sorceresses: Pyrotechnician's PewPewPewPew, Bewitch's itssoftcore, Babyhell's Tournamenteress, maxgerin's Pyronia, and Drystan's Ariana
- with Frozen Orb: Cattleya's Anala, ioupain's Selene_I, Slartibartfast's My-Sweetflame, MukTuk's Flammie, and Butzull's Helene-Marie
- with Blizzard: Neksja's Fair, Caralis' Juliana, Milb's Felicia, and D2DC's Arcanna
- with Lightning: maareek's Fire_Sparker
- with Nova: sirpoopsalot's BaalBusterIII
- with Energy Shield: sirpoopsalot's Burner and Pyrohemia's Sapphire
- archmagi: Kdawg's Okashyra and Colorless Green's Isoce.
Meteor
At skill level one, a Meteor costs 17 mana. A warning ring billows around the target location. Sixty animation frames (2.4 seconds) later, the giant fireball strikes, instantly causing 80-100 fire damage to enemies within twelve terrain tiles (four yards), and leaving behind a pattern of eighteen burning tiles that cause additional fire damage over time, 35-58 for 29 animation frames (a little over 1 second). Each higher skill level adds 0.5 to mana cost, 0.6 seconds (15 frames) post-impact burn duration, and increasing returns to impact and aftermath damage. Examples:
- (skill level 9) 21 mana, 280-316 fire damage, 112-135 per second for 5.3 seconds;
- (level 17) 25 mana, 632-684/208-232 per sec for 10.7 seconds;
- (level 23) 28 mana, 1108-1172/292-316 per sec for nearly fifteen seconds.
A contender for "most popular build" in the compliation is the dual-element Meteor and Frozen Orb caster, "meteorb." I counted at least four dozen meteorbers. Here are few nice posts, with apologies to others that deserve mention but aren't getting it here: Starlane by Karmeus, Alpha by tweety, ColdieLocks by mattinm, Sidewinder by Steerpike, Nutella by b1ur, and Transposition by Kitteh.
Other two-element Meteor droppers included Blizzard sorceresses zaphodbrx's Zarine, Harrid's FrostyMelons, and Shannon's Shae; also dutes' Nova caster Fiendfyre.
Dec 2022 Update: Serdash's 2005 (1.10 patch) Amelia was restored to the compilation.
-----
Just one post remains to complete this odd little project: the last three sorceress fire skills. What I originally thought might take me a few weeks has consumed more than thirteen months, but my fellow SPFers and their mat/pat/guardian write-ups are worth the effort. All of you. You're worth it.
Before the last post, I'm going back to make just a few edits, and to update the CSV spreadsheets with all of the corrections I've collected. I would also like to add to the spreadsheets at least once, just to include the new posts that have been submitted to the compilation during the past year.
[Update: new histograms]
[Dec 2022 Update: new histograms]
[Dec 2022 Update: new histograms]
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- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
Warmth
Warmth improves mana regeneration rate. Skill level one: +30%; each higher skill level adds +12%. Lightning sorceress Aythya_Collaris by bcoe put fifteen skill points into Warmth, so that her blue bulb would reliably have enough juice to fast-cast mana hungry novas and charged bolts.
It's also a synergy to Enchant (+9% fire damage per point), Inferno (13%), Blaze (4%), and Fire Wall (4%). Sorceresses that maxed Warmth as a synergy include bcoe's inferno breather Dendroica_Fusca, Mir's blaze hotfooter Nur, and NagisaFurukawa's enchantress Hinagiku.
We have a few "enchantless" sorceresses that maxed Fire Mastery and Enchant's Warmth synergy, but put no points into Enchant. Instead, they use Enchant spell charges - in particular, the skill level 23 charges on a Demon Limb unique tyrant club. Good examples include PatienceII by Nightfish, and Mus by Pucho.
For Energy Shield sorceresses that frequently put themselves in harm's way, Warmth might also serve as an indirect "ES healing" synergy. Enchantless Energy Shield examples are scrcrw's Destiny, Sharadim by maxicek, VoX Dei's Hathor, and Sakura by NagisaFurukawa.
Enchant
If you target a minion, hireling, or ally, and cast Enchant, the target's melee or missile attacks (not spells) will have an improved attack rating and will inflict additional fire damage for a time. Skill level one: 25 mana, +20% AR, 8-10 additional fire damage per hit, for 144 seconds (more than two minutes). Skill level 21: 45 mana, +200% AR, 74-96 fire per hit, for 624 seconds (more than ten minutes). Warmth and Fire Mastery both increase Enchant's fire damage. If no ally is targeted and your sorceress casts Enchant, then the sorceress herself gets the AR and fire damage bonuses.
Many great enchantresses grace our compilation:
Dec 2022 Update: several new enchantresses, including Pb_pal's OrangeThunder, snicerksnack's Clytemnestra, ffs' Fluffy and ZodSorc, and TheNix's Bowdicca.
Hydra
Hydra reminds me of the Diablo I "guardian" spell. It calls up three stationary fiery serpent heads, each of which spits a fire bolt every 27 animation frames (just over one second between each shot) for up to ten seconds. Skill level one: 20 mana per hydra trio, 8-10 fire damage per fire bolt. Level 21: 30 mana per hydra trio, 160-185 fire per bolt. Each synergy point in Fire Bolt and Fire Ball adds 3% fire damage to each Hydra bolt. After summoning a hydra, there's a 1.6 second casting delay before another Hydra (or some other timered spell) may be cast. (If there are already five hydras deployed, casting the spell again will prematurely expire the oldest hydra, so that there are never more then five of them summoned at once. Unlike assassin sentry traps, it's possible to deploy more than five hydras. With enough fast-cast-rate, I have successfully deployed six hydras at once; in my experiment, the first hydra expired a fraction of a second before I could cast a seventh.)
A few Hydra friends:
Dec 2022 Update: Luhkoh matted hydra/orb sorceress Amaresu. -- The D2R 2.4 patch made a strong change to Hydra: it no longer has a delay timer between casts, and can pull up no more than six hydra triplets at a time.
Warmth improves mana regeneration rate. Skill level one: +30%; each higher skill level adds +12%. Lightning sorceress Aythya_Collaris by bcoe put fifteen skill points into Warmth, so that her blue bulb would reliably have enough juice to fast-cast mana hungry novas and charged bolts.
It's also a synergy to Enchant (+9% fire damage per point), Inferno (13%), Blaze (4%), and Fire Wall (4%). Sorceresses that maxed Warmth as a synergy include bcoe's inferno breather Dendroica_Fusca, Mir's blaze hotfooter Nur, and NagisaFurukawa's enchantress Hinagiku.
We have a few "enchantless" sorceresses that maxed Fire Mastery and Enchant's Warmth synergy, but put no points into Enchant. Instead, they use Enchant spell charges - in particular, the skill level 23 charges on a Demon Limb unique tyrant club. Good examples include PatienceII by Nightfish, and Mus by Pucho.
For Energy Shield sorceresses that frequently put themselves in harm's way, Warmth might also serve as an indirect "ES healing" synergy. Enchantless Energy Shield examples are scrcrw's Destiny, Sharadim by maxicek, VoX Dei's Hathor, and Sakura by NagisaFurukawa.
Enchant
If you target a minion, hireling, or ally, and cast Enchant, the target's melee or missile attacks (not spells) will have an improved attack rating and will inflict additional fire damage for a time. Skill level one: 25 mana, +20% AR, 8-10 additional fire damage per hit, for 144 seconds (more than two minutes). Skill level 21: 45 mana, +200% AR, 74-96 fire per hit, for 624 seconds (more than ten minutes). Warmth and Fire Mastery both increase Enchant's fire damage. If no ally is targeted and your sorceress casts Enchant, then the sorceress herself gets the AR and fire damage bonuses.
Many great enchantresses grace our compilation:
- Werebears Athena by Vulpine, Ladyshave by scrcrw, Dacey by zaphodbrx, TeddyBear by Pyrohemia, and Mrs_Grylls by Cyrax;
- Rangers HotStuff by Arkardo, MissTaken by Crawlingdeadman, zumzumIII by FredOfErik, Arien by Pb_pal, Traxex by zaphodbrx, and Azula by Crawlingdeadman;
- Two-hand-weapon melee attackers Melody by Cattleya and IMQueen by aitrus;
- Zealots Freya by VoX Dei, Lucrecia by domac, and Maab by Colorless Green;
- Berzerker Shion by NagisaFurukawa;
- Vengeance enchantresses Tritoch by MukTuk and Iazla by Colony;
- Revived minion army leaders Ardala by maxicek and Amy by scrcrw;
- Frozen Orbers Angelic by D2DC and Life by drmalawi; and
- Archmagi SheBangs by Arfurala and Vlammetje by AJK.
Dec 2022 Update: several new enchantresses, including Pb_pal's OrangeThunder, snicerksnack's Clytemnestra, ffs' Fluffy and ZodSorc, and TheNix's Bowdicca.
Hydra
Hydra reminds me of the Diablo I "guardian" spell. It calls up three stationary fiery serpent heads, each of which spits a fire bolt every 27 animation frames (just over one second between each shot) for up to ten seconds. Skill level one: 20 mana per hydra trio, 8-10 fire damage per fire bolt. Level 21: 30 mana per hydra trio, 160-185 fire per bolt. Each synergy point in Fire Bolt and Fire Ball adds 3% fire damage to each Hydra bolt. After summoning a hydra, there's a 1.6 second casting delay before another Hydra (or some other timered spell) may be cast. (
A few Hydra friends:
- Frozen Orbers Hanhebi by Jabari, subtwo_vii by Nano, Orbydra by Ohomemgrande, La_Bruja by JoeBruce, Habacalva by Kitteh, Charmer by Shagsbeard, and Firaga by Milb;
- Charged Boltresses Volatility by jdkerr and BoltsUpYours by Arkardo;
- Chain Lightning caster FireInTheDisco by crazymatt1;
- Thunder Stormer Vixen by Jaffa Tamarin;
- Ranged Enchantress Kara by Neksja; and
- Bone Prisoner Bruja by D2DC.
Dec 2022 Update: Luhkoh matted hydra/orb sorceress Amaresu. -- The D2R 2.4 patch made a strong change to Hydra: it no longer has a delay timer between casts, and can pull up no more than six hydra triplets at a time.
[edit: corrected Demon Limb's Enchant level and Hydra observation]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]
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No other compiling of statistics is even remotely interesting compared to this thread, of any scientific area. It is quite perplexing how many holes are left to be filled despite decades of guardianing (only two barbarians with even one point in grim ward??? seriously???).
Never knew casting a sixth casting of the hydras would remove the first, I always figured the timer of the first ran out just as the casting delay permitted a sixth cast. If Blizzard ever makes a movie version of Diablo 2 there has to be a scene with hydra eyes appearing in the dark around a sorceress. I think it would be more clear to simply write that one hydra costs 20 mana at level 1, and so on, as it is one many-headed creature rather than three one-headed ones.
Never knew casting a sixth casting of the hydras would remove the first, I always figured the timer of the first ran out just as the casting delay permitted a sixth cast. If Blizzard ever makes a movie version of Diablo 2 there has to be a scene with hydra eyes appearing in the dark around a sorceress. I think it would be more clear to simply write that one hydra costs 20 mana at level 1, and so on, as it is one many-headed creature rather than three one-headed ones.
ioupain
Well-known member
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
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- 113
Thanks, @ioupain; I corrected the Demon Limb info.
@Maltatai, you are accurate that a hydra is one three-headed summon. Each of the three serpent heads actually behaves independently. In fact, with a carefully located hydra, different snakes will spit fire bolts at different targets (whichever is nearest a snake). I guess that independent targeting is why I have always considered the Hydra spell as summoning three snake heads, rather than summoning one hydra with three heads. You are also accurate that a hydra remains for the full ten seconds. I just tested it with an online clock. With enough fast-cast-rate, I was able to cast six times and have six hydras active at once for about one second, before the first one reached its ten-second timeout and sunk back from whence it came. I suppose I might have been conflating hydras with assassin sentry traps, which are limited to five.
@Maltatai, you are accurate that a hydra is one three-headed summon. Each of the three serpent heads actually behaves independently. In fact, with a carefully located hydra, different snakes will spit fire bolts at different targets (whichever is nearest a snake). I guess that independent targeting is why I have always considered the Hydra spell as summoning three snake heads, rather than summoning one hydra with three heads. You are also accurate that a hydra remains for the full ten seconds. I just tested it with an online clock. With enough fast-cast-rate, I was able to cast six times and have six hydras active at once for about one second, before the first one reached its ten-second timeout and sunk back from whence it came. I suppose I might have been conflating hydras with assassin sentry traps, which are limited to five.
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ioupain
Well-known member
- Feb 24, 2006
- 1,057
- 1,972
- 113
I spent a few days updating the spreadsheets and the posts in this thread, to account for the approximately 120 new M/P/Gs added to the compilation since my last update in 2021. I also included a few notes and links regarding the skill changes in this year's Diablo 2: Resurrected patch 2.4. I'm still playing legacy, so I probably have no business writing about the changes in the new version of the game, but I figured I should at least acknowledge them and even try to analyze some of them a bit.
I'm embarrassed at my typos, misspellings, bad grammar, and even some falsehoods that persisted for so many months and years since I started this thread. I was relieved to make a few more corrections. More important, if you notice something missing, wrong, or plainly daft in my posts, please let me know so I can fix it.
Additional musings:
(p.s. I'm also going to crush you all in this month's balance tournament, and if you haven't joined us yet, you need to do so soon, so that you can enjoy getting crushed by me.)
I'm embarrassed at my typos, misspellings, bad grammar, and even some falsehoods that persisted for so many months and years since I started this thread. I was relieved to make a few more corrections. More important, if you notice something missing, wrong, or plainly daft in my posts, please let me know so I can fix it.
Additional musings:
- Not every new Mat/Pat/Guardian gets posted in the M/P/G sticky. That's okay. Some of us don't care to have our accomplishments recorded there. I presume that if someone wants to be included in the compilation, she or he will post a reply as instructed in that sticky thread. In fact, I'm currently working on my own collections of mats and pats, and for now I'd rather wait and contribute them as a showcase when I'm done and ready, rather than have each one added the moment they defeat hell Baal.
- Skills aren't the only game mechanics that are completely under the player's control. Another notable choice lies with every character's mercenary selection. That would be a fun data set to investigate. Regrettably, I'm not as motivated to undertake a hireling census.
- An M/P/G compilation item census (perhaps organized by item mods, like fabd's bonus taxonomy) would also be a very fun data set to analyze, but with my current skills it would probably take me years to create such a data set, and I'm not keen to start that either.
- I wonder if I should relocate these skills data and thread posts into a shared resource like a wiki, so that others could contribute to and maintain it if they wish?
- I posted the spreadsheets as individual "comma-separated-value" text files on purpose; it was easier for me to write code to parse CSV files to generate the histogram charts, and I didn't want extra metadata cluttering things up.
(p.s. I'm also going to crush you all in this month's balance tournament, and if you haven't joined us yet, you need to do so soon, so that you can enjoy getting crushed by me.)
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- Jan 1, 2011
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@Swamigoon This is an incredible piece of work that we should all appreciate. I think that many of the build guides tend towards pushing a build in one direction, while what you have done shows just how much diferentiation exists.
A task that would complicate things would be to do a skills distribution for each type of build, for example frenzy barbs. While I think that there will be much less variability in skill selections, there will also be some very interesting differences in part based on equipment, but especially in individual preferences.
I noticed this when I was desiging my Wolfbarb and did include a rough skills selection in my write up of ARGH. Given that War Cries and Combat Skills don't work in Wolf form I had assumed that there would not be much variability in skill selection, but that wasn't the case.
I'd love to see a merc distribution, especially of the non Act 2 mercs. One problem that I found just looking at the Wolfbarb builds was that not everyone provided details on the Merc that they used.
A task that would complicate things would be to do a skills distribution for each type of build, for example frenzy barbs. While I think that there will be much less variability in skill selections, there will also be some very interesting differences in part based on equipment, but especially in individual preferences.
I noticed this when I was desiging my Wolfbarb and did include a rough skills selection in my write up of ARGH. Given that War Cries and Combat Skills don't work in Wolf form I had assumed that there would not be much variability in skill selection, but that wasn't the case.
I'd love to see a merc distribution, especially of the non Act 2 mercs. One problem that I found just looking at the Wolfbarb builds was that not everyone provided details on the Merc that they used.
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