Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels der=

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BooSqueaks

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Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

Hello all.

I have leveled a Sorceress to 85 and I am now kitted out in basic MF gear. To be specific that is Shako, Occy, Tal armor+Amulet+Belt, Spirit Monarch, NagelRings, Chance GUards and WT's. I have no Skillers nor a Torch, but I do have a 20/13/8 Annihilus.

What I'm looking to do is go with a split spec sorc of Cold/Lightning. Emphasis on the Cold. I definitely want to do Blizzard and Ice Blast as my primary killers, but I want something to attack things with when they're Cold Immune. I've heard Nova can make this happen? Something about Stunlocking etc. It was mentioned in a thread for a HC sorc. Now, I understand this might not be possible. If not, please tell me why. I thought about going a heavier Lightning Build with Frozen Orb and I may do that down the track, but I'd like to play around with Blizzard first as I've not used it before. So, if you can suggest a build, please don't be shy.

On top of that, I want to MF areas that I've never paid much attention to before. I heard Travincal is good. Is this correct? I'd also like to hit up Ancient Tunnels and Chaos Sanctuary as I've always avoided them for whatever reason.

I look forward to hearing from you and seeing what you think.
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

This is not possible. To stunlock on Nova you have to consistently hit for more than 1/12 (iirc, you may want to double check but the point here is that it's a fixed percentage) of your foes' hp, which is not going to consistently happen without top notch gear that is fully dedicated to maximizing Nova. Without the stunlock, Nova's short range means you're gonna tank the cold immune mobs. It can and will get very ugly.

Beside Nova, the Lightning tree is skill points hungry. The next least skill-hungry choice would be Charged Bolts. CB/Orb and CL/Orb are both viable builds. With Blizzard it's trickier as Blizz is quite the skill points hungry skill itself. I'd imagine that CB/Blizz is somewhat doable-ish, but it's much weaker than the 2 above builds and their Cold/Fire counterparts (I prefer the Orb-it-aller to the BlizzBaller).

I know some people that like the cold spells so much that they don't mind doing longer runs. If that's your case you may try for an almost-pure cold sorc, with a few extra points in Static Field and an A2 Might Merc with a big bad hurt stick. SF + extensive telestomping will be able to get you past any area; your CI killing speed will not match that of a hybrid sorc (and your overall speed will suffer), but it is an option.

Quite advice: ditch Occy/Shako for the rest of the Tal's Set. There is a thread in the stickies that explains why full Tal's rock on dual-tree sorcs. As a bonus those will sell for way more than what you'd need to spend on Tal's Orb/Mask :)

I usually end up MFing on a pure Lightning sorc (infy required). My runs include: Countess, the Pit, Andy, Summoner, Duriel, Trav, Meph, Chaos, Eldritch/Shenk, Nihlathak and Baal. AT is a tc85 area just like the Pit, but has less mobs and is harder to look for so I usually skip it. Its advantage is the absence of cold immune mobs, which is quite significant for pure cold sorcs.
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

This is excellent food for thought. Thank you!

On another note, I mentioned I might go Blizz/CL in the future. However, after viewing this thread I have to say I am very impressed. Being ABLE to run Baal (not to be confused with just running him) is an attractive feature.

What are everybody's thoughts on this path?
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

As people have commented in that thread, a BlizzBaller would be more fit for the job (it is in fact the reason why BlizzBaller was created), for a fraction of the price. Griffon's Eye and Death's Fathom are some of the most expensive items around (not counting crazy rares/crafted). If you threw that kind of money on the other, more 'mainstream' sorc builds out there, you'd get better results.

As for running Baal, the pure Lightning sorc is also quite good at it. I used to host Baal runs on my full Tal Light sorc (lol).

That said, this is a game. So build for the playstyle you like, and only abandon that path when it really doesn't do the job properly (ever tried Inferno sorcs or Arctic Blast Druids? >.>)
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

I see.

Then, is Blizzard only worthwhile when you opt for a full Cold build? =/
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

Just do full Tals.
Blizzballer and blizznova is just fine. Blizznova requires a little better gear though, such as lightning skillers, CTA.
L and CL aren't very good if you have only 40 points to spend there.
Drop nagelrings for SOJs if you have them.

Note: You will need magefist and perfect spirit to reach 105 fcr with full Tals.
Aim to have around 250-300 mf. Any more and its probably not doing much good.
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

Very well.

One final question: How much FHR% do I need? Like, if the common breakpoint for FCR is 105, what is it for FHR?
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

60 FHR. Tals+spirit will get you to 80, so you can try for 86 FHR, but I don't bother.
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

^It's really not worth the extra cost in PvM. Just get a plain Large Charm with 8% FHR if you really want that bp, and stick it under your Cube with your Torch (you do carry your cube, right? ^^)
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

If you go blizzballer there's no need to worry about FHR. If you go blova then getting the 86 FHR breakpoint is helpful, and quite easy.

I count +10 skills on your setup, which is borderline for nova. I'd go full tal's (-15% LR, plus lots of life and resists), swap your nagels for SoJs, and grab a few skillers and a torch if you can. You'll need a CtA too, if you want to use nova, teleporting into big groups requires a good sized health pool.

I don't know what kind of wealth you have, but worst case, you could turn your 20/13/8 anni into a middling sorc torch and a CtA. I'm not sure what realm you're on, but on east a 20/13/8 anni might even net you an infinity. Obviously you want an anni in your build eventually, but any of torch/cta/infinity are much more important.

I made a video of my blova sorc doing travi/chaos/wsk, if you want to see what it plays like before you commit to the respec and obtain the gear.

Assuming no gear changes from what you listed in the OP, I'd do blizzballer. The only trouble with that is one of the members of the travi council is cold+fire immune, so you'd have to sit around waiting for your merc to kill him every time. Not a total deal-breaker, but particularly annoying in travi since you have hydras to worry about. In chaos you'll do just great blizzarding everything, and fireballing the oblivion knights. Sometimes Infector of Souls is cold+fire immune, but blizzard will still take out all his friends, and your merc shouldn't have too much trouble with just him.

I'm not a big fan of ancient tunnels just because the monster density is not that high. Yes, it is a level 85 zone, but for the time it takes to find AT and clear it, you could kill twice as much level 85 stuff in chaos. The main draw for AT is the lack of cold immunes for a pure blizzard sorc. For a dual-tree sorc I see no reason to go there.
 
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Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

Blizz/CL/L is not any worse than Blizz/Nova with Full Tals. Especially when Nova doesn't stun lock, Lightning is also a lot more comfortable.
 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

stephan said:
Blizz/CL/L is not any worse than Blizz/Nova with Full Tals.
Click to expand...
If you 1pt lightning mastery CL/L is definitely weaker than Nova. If you 20pt lightning mastery, your blizzard is much weaker, so yes, I'd say Blizz/CL/L is worse than Blizz/Nova in terms of killing speed. It is certainly safer though.


 
Re: Trying to Change it up. Chaos Sanct+Travincal+Ancient Tunnels

magicrectangle said:
If you 1pt lightning mastery CL/L is definitely weaker than Nova.
Click to expand...
Definitely not. If you correct for FCR, in single target damage Nova and Lightning are about the same even when Light is only at the 78% breakpoint, but Lightning is so much easier applicable that in terms of real time play it is much faster. CL is perhaps less damaging on paper than Nova, but this is difficult to calculate because the amount of targets you hit with CL is much more predictable.

Basically everytime you don't stunlock with Nova its damage goes down so fast because either you have to move out of the way, or (many CIs are like that) the target is moving out of range. Too often too much is lost time with repositioning to make it an effective skill when you don't stunluck. And with just Tal's set that is going to happen quite often.



 
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