Help a noob sorc out

[Yasashi]

So I've built a meteorb and I dunno wtf is wrong with it (probably the gear) but I'm constantly getting my butt handed to me in hell. I'm at lvl 84 with max fb,fo and meteor. FM at 14 and i've got +6 skills due to gear.

I'm using ocy, socketed tarnhelm, goldskin upgraded to chaos armor and an ancient shield socketed to rhyme. Rest of gear is all MF stuff. My merc is utterly useless and I just spend a crapload rezing him all the time. I'm just using rare armor and a socketed amn spike of honor. Where do I begin making my sorc not suck?

[GodslayerX]

what kind of merc do you have and what lvl is it? my HF merc from A2 NM owns most of the regular monsters at lvl75.

[Yasashi]

he's a lvl 84 HF merc, holy freeze never seems to go off in time. He suffers like mad from stun lock.

what kind of merc do you have and what lvl is it? my HF merc from A2 NM owns most of the regular monsters at lvl75.

[[D]Rui[D]]

no offense but the stuff you're wearing isn't gonna to help you at all in hell.

dump the tarnhelm for at least a peasant crown, the armour for a vipermagi or any other armour dat suits a caster fine, the shield should be ok since you using it as a rythum.

your merc should be fine since his almost the same lvl as you, guess its another gear problem.

get your merc a decent rare or unique armour with high defence, shafts is nice to start with. any helm with LL and for weapon, blackleach blade is nice to begin with. weapon should be high damage with as much LL possible.

[shock128]

What kind of skills did you invest in?

Did you try

20 fireball
20 meteor
20 frozen orb
20 fire mastery
1 cold mastery
rest into essentials then firebolt

Fireball should take care of most hell guys up until maybe act 4. Then you'll have to get creative with teleport, static and rely on gear.

The ideal config gear wise would be prolly Tal armor, Occy, Shako, Lidless, Tal Belt and Ammy, War Travs, and Change guards...if you want to stay strong and mfind.

If you just want to survive and aren't wealthy, druid had good advice with Vipermagi, occy, peasent crown, also go with magefist, waterwalk, string of ears (maybe), ravenfrost, and any skill ammy.

As for your merc, it's hard to say, my 85 act 2 prayer merc doesn't last all that long with Skullder's Ire, shako and eth bonehew...but he does fairly decent damage and i need high mfind with him....I don't rely on mercs to save me or get me out of sticky situations

Hope my opinions help