Diablo 2 Guide: Sorceress v1.10

Introduction:

The pure Blizzard Sorceress.

PROS:

• It can put out a ton of damage.
• It can take down anything in merely seconds.
• Isn’t very item-dependent.
• Doesn’t take too much skill to use.
• Owns for MFing.

CONS:

• Doesn’t leave much room for any other skills due to synergies.
• Nearly impossible to solo hell without a decent merc.
• Lots of cold immunes.

Skill Points/Leveling Guide:

Character level with recommended skill investment.

2-Icebolt
3-Warmth
4-Frozen Armor
5-Save!
Den-Save!
6-Frost Nova, Ice Blast, Static Field
7-Telekinesis
8-17-Save!
Sewers-Save!
18-Teleport!, Glacial Spike
19-23-Save!
24-29-Blizzard
30+-Every level add one to blizzard, and one into cold mastery. By the time blizzard is maxed, start adding all of them to cold mastery until it’s maxed.

Once CM is Level 20, Max glacial spike or ice blast first, then the other, and then ice bolt, last.

I chose not to get Energy shield, because I see it as a waste. I got it on my blizzard sorc, and it was a waste. I never use it, I would much rather have an almost maxed ice bolt than a non-used skill.

Note: Since 1.13 Akara grants an option to reset stats and skills (you can reinvest all of your points). This leaves more freedom to use the skill points instead of saving them on Blizzard and CM. The general tip is to use the points as you wish until you reach Level 30. Then you can go to Akara, reset your stats/skills and reinvest them as mentioned above.

Stat Points

These are all changable, so there isn’t too much guiding here.

My stats:

Parisin_Flames Level 93

• Str- 140.
• Dex- 150.
• Vit- 185.
• Nrg- 75.

My strength is pretty high, because this character was one of my first ladder characters, and I needed the strength to use my new-found Stormshield. I didn’t have an Anni. either, they were expensive at the time.

My Dex. SHOULD be higher for max block, but I do get a good amount of block w/ a good amount of life.

My vita is fine, I have between 750-850 life, depending on what I decide to put on.

My NRG is great. I almost never run out of mana, even w/ only 1 in warmth.

Vitality vs. Blocking

Now there’s two different ways you could take your sorc, the pure vita or the pure blocking routes. I kind of diverged into both, and it wasn’t too wise, but it works. If you’re going for max block, you’ll have to find the blocking calculator and find out what your dex will have to be around to have max block at level 99, and aim for that. You won’t want to run short.

If you’re going for pure life, you’ll probably end up with only 5% chance to block, but you’ll have a ton of life. If you go through this path, I suggest you don’t go for Stormshield, because there’s a ton of different paths you could take that aren’t just like the “cookie-cutter equipment” routes. Look down at my equipment section below to find out what other shields I suggest. You could, however, still use the Stormshield, for the alright resists, other mods, and especially: the 35% PDR% (physical damage reduction %) Paired up w/ a Shako, you’ll almost have max PDR%.

Equipment:

Weapon

Best:

• The Oculus is probobly the easiest to obtain and most effective weapon for the sorceress. It has all you need, with only one negative feature: teleport. It will randomly teleport you when get hit 25% of the time. It’s never killed me, but I’ve heard stories. Anyway, it’s easy to get, and one of the best weapons.
• Death’s Fathom is the best possible weapon, though, for a blizzard sorc. It’s just amazing. +15-30% to cold skill DAMAGE. Adds a ton, especially with a cold facet, could get up to 35% cold damage. Just amazing, hard to find though!
• Others: Heart of the Oak flail, Eschuta’s Temper.

Middle:

• Wizardspike is great, gives awesome resists and FCR along with other things.
• The oculus is in this category too. Not very hard to obtain, and still one of the best weapons for a sorceress!
• Memory Staff with +blizzard/CM is pretty nice if you have the runes.
• Others: Rare +2 orbs with +to blizzard/CM.

Beginners:

• Suicide Branch, Spectral Shard,

Shields

Best:

• Stormshield! So good, 35% Damage Reduction, nice resists, great block, great defense, other awesome mods, what more could you want? I’d suggest you either socket it w/ a HEL rune or a UM rune, depends on what you want.
• A 3 socket Head Hunter’s Glory w/ 3x UM runes, cold facets, or ISTS is great too. It has great resists on it already, so 3x UM would be almost all the resists you need.
• Upgraded Visceratuant is quite nice, a great mix of nice block and +1 Sorc Skills.
• Others: Sanctuary Runeword.

Middle:

• Moser’s, if you need resists, with 2x PDiamond’s in it. That’ll give you over +60 to your resists!
• Lidless is just AWESOME for casters, with the cost of block. Adds 1 skill, tons of mana, FCR, and decent defense.
• Whitstan’s Guard is great for blocking. It has low strength, and AWESOME block %, if you went the DEX route.

Beginners:

• Whitstan’s, again. Ancient’s Pledge, Visceratuant (also good for later in the game, great block).

Armor

Best:

• Enigma, Chain’s or Honor, +3 Blizzard ormus’ Robes, High Res. Vipermagi. All great armors, look at the stats and choose what you like the best, though Enigma and CoH are rather expensive.

Middle:

• Vipermagi is the ultimate of cheap armors. It’s got great resists (+20-35), +1 skill, and FCR. Great armor, even for end game.
• Skullder’s Ire is great for MFing, with awesome MF mods and +1 skill, along with pretty nice defense.
• Other: Que-Hegan’s Wisdom, Guardian Angel.

Beginner:

• Spirit Shroud is great for Cannot be Frozen and +1 skills, but other than that, the mods aren’t that great.
• Goldskin, Stealth runeword in light armor.

Helms

Best:

• Harlequin Crest is one of the best overall helms for the sorc. +2 skills, massive life/mana, massive MF, 10% Damage Reduction, and +2 all stats! What else would you want?
• Nightwing’s Veil is also the best, but harder to find than Harlequin Crest. It’s +8-15% To Cold Skill Damage and +2 skills make it hard to pick between this and the harlequin.
• Others: Crown of Ages, Delerium Runeword.

Middle:

• Peasant Crown, LORE runeword.

Beginner:

• Tarnhelm, Lore in a normal helm, Sigon’s w/ the rest of the set is nice.

Gloves

These are about the same for rich people and beginners alike:

• Frostburns if you need mana.
• Magefist if you need FCR
• Chanceguards if you need MF
• Trang’s Gloves have FCR, cold resist, and other useful mods.

Amulets

• Amulets: Any +2 sorc or +3 cold skills is great. For uniques, Mara’s is probobly the overall best. Tal’s is great too, even without any of the rest of the set.
• Eye of Etlich is great for in the beginning, +1 skills is great.

Rings

• 2x SOJS are great, if you’re on non-ladder. On ladder, SOJS are much harder to get, but it’s possible. 3% BK Rings are good, also, and cheaper than sojs.
• My top choice, if you can’t afford either of those, is to get a Raven + ring of your choice. Any ring w/ +mana/life, +resists, Faster Cast Rate, or +skills is useful. Whatever you feel you need, use it.

Boots

• War Travelers are great for MF and whatever else you do. It’s got +10 Vita and +10 str, and that’ll help bring your str up for stormsheild if you aspire to use it.
• Silkweave is great if you need mana, and waterwalks are awesome if you need life and dex/block.
• Treads of Cthon are great if you don’t run fast enough and run out of stamina.

Belts

• Arachnid’s Mesh is the best belt in the game, you should REALLY try to get one if you don’t have one. The only bad thing is, it’s required to be level 80 to use it.
• Verdungo’s is great if you need PDR% and Vitality.
• Snowclash is AWESOME until you get Arachnid’s Mesh, it’s got +2 blizzard, and you could even chose it OVER arachnid’s mesh for the extra skill.
• Gloom’s Trap, Lenymo, Nightsmoke, and Goldwrap are also AWESOME.

Merc

For a merc, I suggest using an act 2 defiance merc over the rest. He’ll have awesome defense, and do great damage.

• Weapon: Doom Eth. cryptic axe, Tomb reaver, reaper’s toll, bonehew, Blackleach Blade, Hone Sundan, Spire of Honor, ANY BOTD elite spear/polearm

• Armor: Elite ethereal STONE runeword, leviathan, Shaftstop, durial’s shell, guardian angel, goldskin, rattlecage, Chain’s of Honor, Enigma (seems like a waste of an Enigma, imo)

• Helm: Harlequin Crest, Andariel’s Visage, Crown of Ages, Giant Skull (w/ 2x ED jewels, UMs, 10-15 Res. All Jewel), Vampire Gaze, Crown of Thieves, The Face of Horror, Duskdeep, Delirium.

MFing

There are a few great spots to hit if you want to MF with your Blizzard sorc.

• Pindleskin:

Pindle’s located in the red portal next to Anya in act5. His drop rate isn’t very high, but when he does drop; he drops good. He can drop every item in the game except Arachnid’s Mesh, Azurewrath, and Tyrael’s Might (that’s it, right?)

To kill him, teleport into the Nith’s temple (act 5) and shoot a couple glacial spikes at his group to freeze the zombies that’ll be coming after you right away. After than, cast blizzard a couple times until they’re dead. They should drop pretty fast unless pindle is cold immune, in which, if you have one, your merc should take care of him.

• Mephisto:

Mephisto’s the “boss” of act 3 located on level 3 of the Durance of Hate. He’s harder to get to than pindle, but his drop rate’s a lot higher. He can’t drop the best items in the game, but he can drop very good, and very often. He’s pretty easy to run, just teleport around him while casting blizzard and ice blast at him. Make sure to have max cold and lightning resist, as he’ll hurt a lot more w/out them. A merc w/ max resist helps a lot, because he’ll be able to tank well w/ the resists. You can just let the merc tank, and drop blizzards on him.

• Andarial:

Andy is very useful to run. If you don’t know, she’s the boss of act one. She has the highest chance to drop SoJ’s, which is especially useful on ladder, where SoJ’s are still of quite a value. Just teleport down to level 4, then teleport into her chamber, avoiding that other room w/ a bunch of enemies. Once you get into her chamber, ignore all of her minions, they’re just a waste of time. Teleport close enough to her, and lay a blizzard and cast glacial or IB at her, and she’ll be dead in no time. I suggest that you have decent to max poison resist, though.

Strategy

I’m going to stay away from PVP, because I don’t want to write something that I know nothing about. I’ll talk about general PVM strategy here.

In most cases you’ll let your merc tank while you throw blizzards and ice blasts at the guys. Hopefully your merc is good enough to handle some guys, but you can survive on your own. I survived until I got all my merc gear onto my sorc, so I think you can too.

Teleport is a sorcs best friend, even though Enigma stole it! If your merc is in trouble, TELEPORT AWAY! He’ll teleport along with you. Teleporting around while guys are under a teleport is a good thing, they’ll try to follow you, but stay under the area of the blizzard, and they’ll get the most damage.

Everyone’s strategies are different, so you should practice with your sorc until you find out what works best for YOUR setup!