Running some pros and cons.

[Phyrexial]

I was just looking into possibly making a new high level dueler for the first time in almost a year and a half and was looking for something that would compliment my existing dueler (bone necro).

Specifically, my necro has trouble with good sorcs and other necros, occassionally FoHers. 99% of Hammerdins are generally no trouble, but that 1% of really good hammerdins can be trouble. So, to cover what my necro is not at the moment which of these would you suggest?

High ES Light sorc:
Pros:
- Generally hard to negate consistently when the max hits come along.
- Easy to get a high level ES with.
- Supposedly does very well against opposing necros and can practically tank them with sufficient mana and MDR.
Cons:
- Can be negated if I can't get the very best gear.
- I'd imagine would have trouble with trappers and windies as well as other sorcs.

High ES Orb sorc:
Pros:
- Very easy to kill with considering the large area of effect and fire and forget attack style.
- Again, is a very effective necro killer.
Cons:
- Can be negated very very easily. 2 Ravens is bad, add Blackoak and its over.
- Wind druids would stomp them easily.

Wind Druid:
Pros:
- Can take just about anything as far as I know except trappers and good barbs. However optimal gear is needed for that, specifically fhr.
- Can make short work of Blizz sorcs and FoHers with much less gear swapping and sacrifice than most chars.
Cons:
- Expensive to build.
- Trappers would wreck them if they are equally played and geared.

Any other suggestions or corrections on my assumptions would be appreciated. Or perhaps I should just invest in finishing up my necro since I've never really totally finished a high level dueler.

Lastly, I'd like to make a single high level dueler on Ladder to protect my soon to be made low level duelers. Price constraints are a big problem here as I don't trust trading for high runes anymore with all the dupes that made it onto Ladder. I don't care how BM it is, it just needs to be a cheap but effective enforcer that cannot be effectively/cheaply BM'ed back. I was thinking a trapper, but Tgods+GA makes it too easily negated for example. I was thinking a Blizz or Lightning sorc.

[ReVolution]

Try an e/s fire sorc, i made one with almost no previous caster experience and it kills about anything without massive absorb. My gear is as follows:

+3 fire skills/10 cast ammy
Dusk COH
Sur SS or Lidless
+2 sorc/20 cast/88 mana circlet (shaeled)
SOJ's
HOTO
Imps
Magefist
Arach
6 bo cta/splendor on switch
10 fire gcs, all but one with life/fhr
10 life/mana or fhr/mana sc's

+9 e/s Memory staff and +3 light skills ammy to prebuff e/s (gets to 77% absorb)

I hit 110 cast and 86 fhr, fb dmg is at 18k at lvl 90, and i got 1.5k life and 2.3k mana.

[mcm]

Those numbers look pretty good -- what are your skill points in? Max TK I assume? just a few in ES it looks like? Max warmth?

[Mehatesmaphack]

Try an e/s fire sorc, i made one with almost no previous caster experience and it kills about anything without massive absorb. My gear is as follows:

+3 fire skills/10 cast ammy
Dusk COH
Sur SS or Lidless
+2 sorc/20 cast/88 mana circlet (shaeled)
SOJ's
HOTO
Imps
Magefist
Arach
6 bo cta/splendor on switch
10 fire gcs, all but one with life/fhr
10 life/mana or fhr/mana sc's

+9 e/s Memory staff and +3 light skills ammy to prebuff e/s (gets to 77% absorb)

I hit 110 cast and 86 fhr, fb dmg is at 18k at lvl 90, and i got 1.5k life and 2.3k mana.

:lol: cough~ another copy cat with slightly different gear choices. Did you make that sorc cuz you thought mine wasn't too bad against barbs?

can't beat those 39+ life fire gcs of james' and his lame noob boots.

[Rauth]

Fb sorc is damn good if 75 res and no absorb. 90 res nerfs them pretty bad, but they still do nice damage. They have huge multi-screen range, practically unlimited mana, super speed, and massive area of effect damage.

[Phyrexial]

An FB sorc eh? I thought an FB sorc would have problems with Blizz and FoH as well as potentially trappers, windies, and hammerdins. I guess you could simply try to keep your distance and snipe... however, my necro can do that already. Unless you were all making this recomendation for my Ladder dueler, I think my necro can handle the same things as the FB sorc except perhaps it would do slightly better against other necros due to a high ES.

[Rauth]

Fb sorc is > other sorcs in my experience. The range/attack speed is key. ES allows you to survive 2-3 hits from blizz and lightning at least too.
Trappers you outrange, windys will be somewhat hard, hammerdins shouldn't be too bad since ES should tank a hammer hit or two(remember, your mana regen will be crazy with 10 fire gcs). Foh will take a few hits to kill you since ES ignores resistances and again, your mana will regen quickly.

Fb sorc is basically as effective as a light sorc, but with advantages in range, which really helps out vs other sorcs and trapsins. Not to mention its a hell of a lot cheaper to make since you don't have to buy griffons.

[RainofChaos220]

I wouldn't recommend fire sorc.. with 95% res (no absorb), you will reduce 18k fireball to 150 damage and 24K fireball (the strongest I've seen) to only 200 damage. Add a little absorb and they do about 50 damage per hit.

And 95% resists in fire are VERY easy to reach even for poor players (infernstrides+nokozian, hotspurs+Vex item if you're a little richer).

Best sorc is always cold.

[Rauth]

All sorcs are easily negateable, including cold ones. If someone absorbs/overly max reses, he can just get his necro.

[RainofChaos220]

That's why you keep sanctuary in stash and SM necro.

[Rauth]

If you are just going to make chars to respond to people being bm, make a BvC barb and a windy(for those IM+bonewalls necs). No one build will be able to stop you then, no matter how bm they get(aside from 7v1).

Not to mention, necs can just outwait the slow missles while sending waves of teeth at you.

[Mehatesmaphack]

Fb sorc is > other sorcs in my experience. The range/attack speed is key. ES allows you to survive 2-3 hits from blizz and lightning at least too.
Trappers you outrange, windys will be somewhat hard, hammerdins shouldn't be too bad since ES should tank a hammer hit or two(remember, your mana regen will be crazy with 10 fire gcs). Foh will take a few hits to kill you since ES ignores resistances and again, your mana will regen quickly.

Fb sorc is basically as effective as a light sorc, but with advantages in range, which really helps out vs other sorcs and trapsins. Not to mention its a hell of a lot cheaper to make since you don't have to buy griffons.

You are quite wrong. Eshield sorcs are good agaisnt blizz but not lightning my friend's light sorc almost always killed me in 1 hit. A trapper hiding in their trap field running around can be hard to kill by playing agressivly since 1 burst from their traps your mana will be gone otherwise The trapper will have a slight advantage with no absorb max res.. Windies are hard if they put mass res and absorb on which i dont' see why they feel the need to since I beat the best eshield sorcs with my windy 40% with only 20 ish fire res and below average gear.

[Rauth]

Yes chris, but you are just too godly. We can't all own everyone using below average gear and 20 res. ;) I have noticed lately that I haven't needed any max res to beat fire sorcs since I got stacked fire res though(die anya bug!).

I have seen my friends' sorcs duel(40k light vs 22k fb). They both used ES and they both died in two hits or more(low light hits sometimes) Every single duel. They dueled at least 20 times, probably a lot more. Either way, fbs have about a screen more range than lightning, so use it. Maybe your sorc just needs a different life:mana ratio, or better stacked res or something. Remember, 10-20 res can mean thousands of lightning dmg.

I realize traps waste ES but the key is to never get hit by them. Use fbs range to your advantage. I don't go teleporting into a pile of traps with my windy, and you shouldn't do it with a sorc either. Make trappers come to you. You're just an aggressive dueler, which works great for barb, but not always with sorc :)

[Mehatesmaphack]

Yes chris, but you are just too godly. We can't all own everyone using below average gear and 20 res. ;) I have noticed lately that I haven't needed any max res to beat fire sorcs since I got stacked fire res though(die anya bug!).

I have seen my friends' sorcs duel(40k light vs 22k fb). They both used ES and they both died in two hits or more(low light hits sometimes) Every single duel. They dueled at least 20 times, probably a lot more. Either way, fbs have about a screen more range than lightning, so use it. Maybe your sorc just needs a different life:mana ratio, or better stacked res or something. Remember, 10-20 res can mean thousands of lightning dmg.

I realize traps waste ES but the key is to never get hit by them. Use fbs range to your advantage. I don't go teleporting into a pile of traps with my windy, and you shouldn't do it with a sorc either. Make trappers come to you. You're just an aggressive dueler, which works great for barb, but not always with sorc :)

I was just pointing out that if it's doable even with crappy res and average gear so there's no need for cable druids with good gear to use max res/absorb If they know how to play at all.

My sorc actually has pretty good gear and is reasonably well built, I got my charms from my friend. Also my other friend has one of the godliest sorcs on bnet that sorc has max block 1.8k+ life and 2kish mana and a ton of stacked res. Still he dies in 1-2 hit to my other friend's light sorc with almost 50k damage. That light sorc is pure vita non-eshield build and has over 3k life. Basically there's no way for an eshield fb sorc to out tank a vita light sorc unless the light sorc is cursed and only does minimum damage every time.
Resistances don't affect the damage taken by your eshield;therefore, it's best against magical damage, then physical and gets ****ed up in 1 shot by high damage elemental attacks.

Actually, the fb sorc used to be and probably still is my favorite char, and i'm a lot better at playing super aggressively with fb sorc than barb.(which I really suck at sometimes espeically with lag.) She was the char that got me to start my style of playing. Playing defensively won't help much against a decent or defensive trapper espeically if they have weapon block and just run around in trap fields all day and never get hit. And if the trapper is playing agressivly and you run away too much it's like saying,"absorb me plz!" The best way is to mix offense with defense try and force the trapper to run into your fbs(hopefully ifbs) and tele on top or right next to them and fb lock them when they don't have too many traps around.

[Rauth]

I agree on the windy thing after fixing my own res issues.

Invis fbs are mean :(. Fortunately, they don't happen too often, and I'm usually desynched anyways, so they miss alot.

Lets assume that a light sorc hits avg dmg every time(~24k), he will still die to fbs sometimes because they outrange him badly, and fire faster if I remember right. At the least, they are equal, with the fb sorc outranging the light sorc, and the light sorc outdamaging the fire. This also assumes equal hand-eye coordination between the two players of course ;)

[godisalone]

:lol: cough~ another copy cat with slightly different gear choices. Did you make that sorc cuz you thought mine wasn't too bad against barbs?

can't beat those 39+ life fire gcs of james' and his lame noob boots.

Don't flatter yourself, this is the setup for every goddamn fb sorc out there. Dumb bastid