single element sorceress w/ no good merc pvm

[Luckymofo]

In pvm, is there any viable way to kill elemental immune monsters with no decent merc or with lower resist in a solo game?

Those fire/cold immune monsters keep me from making a good blizz sorceress.

By the way, sure I can party up, but I love having the ability to kill more than 1 kind of monster more than 10k of 1 kind of elemental damage.

[darzog]

If I understand your requirements:
1. You will only have a single tree of spells (sounds like Cold)
2. Solo play only
3. No merc
4. Need to kill CI monsters

Well, other than getting an orb with +Firewall/Fireball/Meteor or some other non-cold spell you won't have anyway to kill anything. Let's say you find an orb with +3 Firewall and have +7 skills from items. Now you have a lvl 10 Firewall which, in theory, could work for you. But at such a low level and with no synergy it won't do much damage at all.

As I see it the two best options for you would be:
1. Get a merc. I have a level 85 Bliz sorc and my HF merc can kill CI Pindle, all CI in the Pits, Lister pack, Shenk + pack, Eldritch + pack. He really doesn't die all that often (sell 1 round of Meph drops to ressurect him).
2. Build a dual-tree like FO/CL or Meteorb.

___________________
Darzog

[Uzziah]

If I understand your requirements:
1. You will only have a single tree of spells (sounds like Cold)
2. Solo play only
3. No merc
4. Need to kill CI monsters

Well, other than getting an orb with +Firewall/Fireball/Meteor or some other non-cold spell you won't have anyway to kill anything. Let's say you find an orb with +3 Firewall and have +7 skills from items. Now you have a lvl 10 Firewall which, in theory, could work for you. But at such a low level and with no synergy it won't do much damage at all.


If you keep an eye out for +3 firewall +3 fire mastery staves you can make a staff that gives a firewall with 1000 damage per second by itself. With other +skills you can get this up to 1500 or so damage which is enough to slowly kill in hell.

CI/FI monsters well your left with 3 choices poison (which you won't be able to get enough of) physical (which is hard for a sorc) and lightning (which is doable but hard). I would look for some type of lightning most likely chain lightning will be your best bet. CI/FI usually have other FI or CI's near them change to your chainlightning staff modded skills and hope for the best. Applying open wounds with a bow is a good way to stop monster regen, also a good way to use posion on a monster it keeps distance.

I am running into the same problem with my fire tree only build (ranged enchantress). It seems act 1 hell has tons of FI and I don't have a merc for fighting against FI. I plan to load up on cold charms and hope to shatter enemies with my bolts. Though that won't work on bosses.

[Luckymofo]

Thanks for the nice responses. Guess i;ll have to party up until I can find good merc items.

[darzog]

Good merc gear isn't all that expensive. The top choices are Reaper's (about 15 PGems), Bonehew (about a Pul). There are lots of armours to choose from, Shaft and Duriel's being the most common and also lots of helms. You don't need godly gear for a good merc.

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Darzog