Blizz/fire sorc

[tydon]

Hey, recently made a thread about coming back to HC, I am actually doing it now :)

I decided on a blizz sorc of some kind.

So, I read through some of the guides, and came up with a few ideas/questions.

1. Planned Skills:
I was thinking
20 Blizz
10 CM
20 Senergy (which one is best?)
Pump another senergy (which is second choice?)

20 Firebolt
1 Firemastery
OR
20 firewall
1 firemastery

1 tele
1 shiver armor
1 static

I want to make this charachter assuming I will get good gear by the time I am done, that is why I am going with 10 CM, I think I can easily get 7 skill points.

Any ideas / input on that side of it?

2. Stats
80ish Str
No Dex
All Vita
No Energy

Sound good? Never made a blizz, but I assume they dont need more energy, if they do, no more than 10 I would assume.

3. Gear

Untwinked as of now, I will find better stuff in NM andy/meph and should be able to gear up for hell.

I know what to look for in this aspect.

4.

Resistances, assume 75%, no more as of now.
FHR (how much do I need?)
FCR (do I need some for teleing?)




I will use an act 2 holy freeze most likely.

I will run meph/andy for the most part in nm/hell, and possibly if I gear up by the time I get leveled, solo baals...(not sure if I will ever get that good of gear though)

Overall, any nitpicks and comments are welcome here.

Thanks

Tydon

[Frostburns]

I don't think either of your skills will get enough damage with the lack of synergys especially no twinked. Orb/fireball is supposed to be good but I never tried.

[stevethatsmyname]

untwinked, eh...?

I think mana will be more of a problem than you thik if you are going to be teleporting around. Generally untwinked sorcs need some points in energy, or so i have noticed. Even if you dont teleport at all you will experience that you have to drink a buttload of mana potions to keep that bulb full....

Anyways, here is my build and i'm lovin it!
At level 81:
Cold:
20 Blizzard
5 points cold mastery
working on maxing glacial spike (around level 16 iirc)
1 in all preqs

Fire:
20 fireball
20 meteor
1 fire mastery
1 warmth
1 preqs

Lightning:
1 pt: static, tK, teleport.

Final damage:
Blizzard (level 26): 1872-1989
Meteor (level 27): 5665-5950
Fireball (level 27): 2357-2615

Personally i dont think this build would work too well untwinked, since in my experience you will need decent gear to get good damage on both trees at the same time (mine uses full tals set). But once you get the good damage you can annihilate anything in your path. I recommend getting one strong tree early on, rather than splitting your attention. Sinc you are making primarily blizzard sorc, better to ignore fire until level 50+ when you start seeing a few immunes.

[tydon]

untwinked, eh...?

I think mana will be more of a problem than you thik if you are going to be teleporting around. Generally untwinked sorcs need some points in energy, or so i have noticed. Even if you dont teleport at all you will experience that you have to drink a buttload of mana potions to keep that bulb full....

Anyways, here is my build and i'm lovin it!
At level 81:
Cold:
20 Blizzard
5 points cold mastery
working on maxing glacial spike (around level 16 iirc)
1 in all preqs

Fire:
20 fireball
20 meteor
1 fire mastery
1 warmth
1 preqs

Lightning:
1 pt: static, tK, teleport.

Final damage:
Blizzard (level 26): 1872-1989
Meteor (level 27): 5665-5950
Fireball (level 27): 2357-2615

Personally i dont think this build would work too well untwinked, since in my experience you will need decent gear to get good damage on both trees at the same time (mine uses full tals set). But once you get the good damage you can annihilate anything in your path. I recommend getting one strong tree early on, rather than splitting your attention. Sinc you are making primarily blizzard sorc, better to ignore fire until level 50+ when you start seeing a few immunes.


Untwinked at first I should have said, as I dont have any chars on HCL, nor friends at this time, they are all on sc or normal hc.

Eventually I will tweak her, once I start mfing and get things to trade to twink her.

[stevethatsmyname]

ok.. well i hope i have been helpful :)

[tydon]

ok.. well i hope i have been helpful :)

You have been, just correcting my error :)

Edit:

Do you think 20 fireball will be enough to deal with immunes if I have a decent merc?

[weedkilz]

I think in general, an orb/fire sorc handles duel immunes better because of the lack of synergy for orb allows points in a fire skill. meteorb is the most common I htink, but I would suugest orb over blizz if you want to go duel tree

[tydon]

I hate orb sorcs, I have made way too many...

Probably had atleast a dozen orb sorcs over hc/sc mix...5-6 on HC.

Never have made a blizz sorc though.

[weedkilz]

well, most people around here seem to make pure cold sorcs now because of the synergies and massive dmg that can be had with uber gear. Then outfitting your merc to kill any ci's that get in your way. There arent many ci's in nm at all and in hell if you are mostly going to be running nm andy and meph, you wont need to worry about ci's either. That would be my reccomendation , but just my opinion. Blizz sorcs without maxing the synergies just arent that effiecient, especially doing mf runs, but for a non cookie cutter build, go for the blizz/fire sorc, whatever floats your boat :thumbsup:

[Miladys-Knight]

My blizzballer works fine untwinked in hell diff act 3

http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=214093

[MoUsE_WiZ]

1) Consider 20 CM/10 in the other synergy rather than the other way around. CM continues to be more effective on meph right up until you have it at -175% (factoring in any other -res gear you've got as well of course). Level 17 is NOT the level to shoot for. Period. It's a crazy rumor that 17 is the appropriate target. It will still give full effectiveness on virtually every monster in hell at level 27, on meph at 32, and if you end up going for Dclone at 36. Subtract 1 level for every X/-5 facet you plan on finding and that's the number to shoot for, depending on which monsters you want to kill.
As for which synergies, personally I prefer GS over Ice blast, but it's a matter of personal preference.

2) If you're dead set on going dual elemental I can't help you on which fireskill to pick, but I can second the opinion that you can tear up NM all the way through baal with a weakish merc for the very rare cold immune, and hell andy with pure cold. Also, if you CAN teleport, skipping ahead to hell meph with a pure cold sorc works fine too, the council is a bit tricky but it's doable with some patience and those are the only potential CIs that you must *absolutely* kill on the way there. Also, the ancient tunnels in the Lost City in A2 are a great place to MF with a pure cold sorc, no ranged monsters and no naturally CI monsters, and any item in the game can drop there.
If you want to go farther than that in hell, well you should be able to put together a pretty decent merc with all the MF spots available to you, and static+pretty decent merc>every single CI monster in hell.

Um...other comments
-vita sorc eh? Up to you, both have their pros/cons, but for meph the only dangerous part that I'm aware of is accidentally getting caught by some fanta/strong/curse monster pack where blocking > vita all the way...but that's personal preference.
-IF you decide to go pure cold, consider pumping teleport to around 15 or so, it doesn't hit 1 mana casting until 24 iirc, so that leaves you +9 skills before it starts being wasted, and in the mean time WILL make your porting around that much easier and safer. That's another personal preference thing though. Even with good gear mana isn't quite as plentiful as it was in 1.09 as the +%mana doesn't apply to +mana/char lvl any more so shako+wizzy doesn't work out to +23579 mana...you might be aware of that, but I don't know so I'll point it out.
-FCR = 63%, more or less period.
-FHR, go look the table up, I think if you throw on either bloodfist or rockstopper or some other combination that brings your total around 30ish you drop your recovery rate by 4 frames, but go look the table up for exactly what it is, and that should be enough. I generally aim for 86% because I'm odd ^^

[tydon]

1) Consider 20 CM/10 in the other synergy rather than the other way around. CM continues to be more effective on meph right up until you have it at -175% (factoring in any other -res gear you've got as well of course). Level 17 is NOT the level to shoot for. Period. It's a crazy rumor that 17 is the appropriate target. It will still give full effectiveness on virtually every monster in hell at level 27, on meph at 32, and if you end up going for Dclone at 36. Subtract 1 level for every X/-5 facet you plan on finding and that's the number to shoot for, depending on which monsters you want to kill.
As for which synergies, personally I prefer GS over Ice blast, but it's a matter of personal preference.

2) If you're dead set on going dual elemental I can't help you on which fireskill to pick, but I can second the opinion that you can tear up NM all the way through baal with a weakish merc for the very rare cold immune, and hell andy with pure cold. Also, if you CAN teleport, skipping ahead to hell meph with a pure cold sorc works fine too, the council is a bit tricky but it's doable with some patience and those are the only potential CIs that you must *absolutely* kill on the way there. Also, the ancient tunnels in the Lost City in A2 are a great place to MF with a pure cold sorc, no ranged monsters and no naturally CI monsters, and any item in the game can drop there.
If you want to go farther than that in hell, well you should be able to put together a pretty decent merc with all the MF spots available to you, and static+pretty decent merc>every single CI monster in hell.

Um...other comments
-vita sorc eh? Up to you, both have their pros/cons, but for meph the only dangerous part that I'm aware of is accidentally getting caught by some fanta/strong/curse monster pack where blocking > vita all the way...but that's personal preference.
-IF you decide to go pure cold, consider pumping teleport to around 15 or so, it doesn't hit 1 mana casting until 24 iirc, so that leaves you +9 skills before it starts being wasted, and in the mean time WILL make your porting around that much easier and safer. That's another personal preference thing though. Even with good gear mana isn't quite as plentiful as it was in 1.09 as the +%mana doesn't apply to +mana/char lvl any more so shako+wizzy doesn't work out to +23579 mana...you might be aware of that, but I don't know so I'll point it out.
-FCR = 63%, more or less period.
-FHR, go look the table up, I think if you throw on either bloodfist or rockstopper or some other combination that brings your total around 30ish you drop your recovery rate by 4 frames, but go look the table up for exactly what it is, and that should be enough. I generally aim for 86% because I'm odd ^^


So everyone here thinks I would get my *** handed to me if I was 20 senergy points off because I put 20 into fireball? Would 15 work for fireball to help deal with immunes and lessen the blow? ( I hate not being able to help my merc, esp if he isnt the strongest. )

I know mana is hard to come by, I played a month or 2 in the first ladder. I always have made vita sorcs, the one blocking sorc I made died at level 85 (pre 1.10), and after that I just stuck with my vitas, they worked fine for me before 1.10, and the ones I made after 1.10 did decent (until they expired :( ) I missed logging in by like 2 days for all 5 of my accounts, HC and SC.

[weedkilz]

well, most people around here seem to recommend blocking sorcs. I have two blocking orbers right now, and they are awsome. Even something cheap and easy to find such as a whitstans will get y ou into hell easily. It does stink sometimes watching your merc do the work, but as was mentioned earlier, there really are very few places with ci's that you have to deal with. And you always have static, which helps cut down the merc killing time, so you are helping, you are killing half and merc kills half:)

[stevethatsmyname]

there really are very few places with ci's that you have to deal with.

Depending on if you like do do ALL QUESTS or if you only do the ones that give you stats/skills, here are the places that you will be worried about:

den of evil (more than half monsters are cold immune)
cold plains
stony field
dark wood
the pit
tamoe highland
All the countess's pack
etc etc.

Must i continue? If you only want the essential quests, you can definately get by with pure blizzard. but if you like being able to do all quests solo and not have to spend 10 rejuvs on your merc so he can kill all the monsters in the den, you will need a backup skill.

[weedkilz]

I will run meph/andy for the most part in nm/hell, and possibly if I gear up by the time I get leveled, solo baals...(not sure if I will ever get that good of gear though)

Overall, any nitpicks and comments are welcome here.

Thanks

Tydon

I was referring to this when I made that statement. Obviously there is a huge difference between playing through and mf'n. However, if the point of the sorc is to mf, it is silly to put like 40+skill points in a backup skill to kill cis to get to your mf where you will spend the majority of your time. Better off making the strongest mf'r possible I would think and take a bit more time killin things because it will pay off in the end. A pure cold sorc with some into tele beats the snot of any 2 skill tree sorc (especially with blizz over orb) for mf'n. If th epurpose is to play through, a 2 tree sorc definately is the better way to go. I wa sjust under the impression, you were building this to be a mf'r.

[tydon]

I was referring to this when I made that statement. Obviously there is a huge difference between playing through and mf'n. However, if the point of the sorc is to mf, it is silly to put like 40+skill points in a backup skill to kill cis to get to your mf where you will spend the majority of your time. Better off making the strongest mf'r possible I would think and take a bit more time killin things because it will pay off in the end. A pure cold sorc with some into tele beats the snot of any 2 skill tree sorc (especially with blizz over orb) for mf'n. If th epurpose is to play through, a 2 tree sorc definately is the better way to go. I wa sjust under the impression, you were building this to be a mf'r.

Well, considering my position I will probably have to play through mostly.

I like being able to do all the skill/stat quests on my own time, but if isnt worth it, then I will considerr just going Blizz. But, I guess if I get annoyed in NM by not having fire, I could always do it then. Atleast then I still have a option if I find I hate having a one elementalist.

So, going pure cold, what would the consensus among you guys be on pumping some into teleport? The most I would do is 5 points.

*btw, thanks for all this input so far, it has been great*

[weedkilz]

well, as far as tele, it reaches a cost of 1 mana at around 24 I think, so a lot of people that put points in that, use that as an end game # with skills. YOu basically want it low enough so when (not if) you get hit by a mana burned, you can still tele out with no problems. I have 23 tele with skills, and it is great. I am orb however and I can understand not wanting to miss out on some valuable synergy skills by putting too many into tele, but 5 with a good amount of plus skills would be a good place to start. And since you wont do a great deal of tele'n I would think until you find some better gear, you can work on t hat l ater and add more if you think you need to or not, but it is definately worth investing some.

[tydon]

Oh, one more question, which realm is most active to play on? I normally play on west, but if east is more active, I might play there.

Thanks

[ElPatron]

A lot more dii netters play east.

[tydon]

All righty then, I think I shall create an account on East and make a sorc, (after midterms of course :( ).

[tydon]

One more thing:

I should put the 5 into tele as soon as possible, correct?

[tydon]

OHH and one more question:

What channels do you guys go to on east?

Is there a gat that is active, or is there some channel to find runs in that are safer than pubbies?

[weedkilz]

One more thing:

I should put the 5 into tele as soon as possible, correct?

I would do it later on because you said you didnt have any gear and you really shouldnt be tele'n without decent gear. so I would work on your other skills first and then work on tele skills when you feel comfortable doing it more often

[tydon]

I would do it later on because you said you didnt have any gear and you really shouldnt be tele'n without decent gear. so I would work on your other skills first and then work on tele skills when you feel comfortable doing it more often

Okay, thanks :)