Making 1st MetOrb, input needed

[exedus]

This would be my very first Meteorb, she will be a full time MFer at the usual bosses, I will try to lvl her to the high 80s.... getting to lvl 90 takes a very long time...

The gear I will hopefully get are as listed
Occy
Shako
Tal's Arm, Ammy, Belt
War Travs
Chancies
2x Nagels or Raven/Dwarf
Sanctuary
Switch: Baba(hoping to get ISTed) and Rhyme

This MF% should be plenty since I want to have good killing speed
I will be going after the usual suspects, Meph, Pindle, Shenk....then Pit...
Where else would a Meteorb be a good MFer???
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The questions that I have are:
Do I have enough FCR? (30+10+10=50?)
What Damage should I look for in Meteor, Fireball, and Orb?
Would the first cold armor be effiecient on my MFin?
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I will be using a merc, hoping to level it from the beggining. He will be a Act2 Defiance....Im hoping to get him a gaze, shaft, and bonehew(sheal=eth?)

Please Inform Me of Any Changes I Will Need, and All Advice Would Be Needed, good or bad

[combatman]

WEll first of all u need 63 frc to reach 9frame rate tele,50 is the same as u have 37.

with maxed meteor + sinergies u shoould get around 15k meteor dmg, 7k fireball.That is a lot if u think u dont have much +skills gear on(sojs/spirit)

The first armor is just fine, the second is a litle bit better, but not realy needed for mf.

About the merc i suggest act2 offensive, socket the bonehew with 2* amn or shael amn, eth wont help u much since in 1.1 the eth bug is fixed.

[Wambat]

About the merc i suggest act2 offensive, socket the bonehew with 2* amn or shael amn, eth wont help u much since in 1.1 the eth bug is fixed.

I haven't played pre-1.10. What was the eth bug?

[aimson]

Hi, I've made a high level meteorb and mf blizz sorc and, first of all, I highly recommend making a blizz sorc over a meteorb for mf. If you are going to use meteorb you will do fine in 1 player games but will be almost unable to kill anything in 8 player games, which to me is where the mf really begins. Since you are making meteorb I suggest a couple things:

1.) replace chance guards with magefist (fire damage, mana regen, 20% fcr will trump the extra mf)
2.) get max block with um'd SS (with NO energy shield)
3.) use 20 dex raven+soj(or dwarf)
4.) either cold or fire facet for occy (i used cold facet because orb seems more useful than meteor)
5.) resist charms (to offset lack of sanctuary)
6.) consider putting wiz spike+lidless on 2nd switch for 8 frames casting (if you do a lot of boss hunting you'll want 8 frames)
7.) use amn'd reapers+15ias kiras+15 ias up'd shaft/GA for your merc (i actually found shaft and ga interchangeable considering that elemental dmg will kill your merc faster than physical damage for what you will be doing)
8.) holy freeze or might merc, NOT defiance (i always preferred holy freeze for sorc but might will do nicely as well)

I don't know what others think but I've found that having over 400 mf isn't really necessary unless you are using a pindlebot (cheater!). Faster cast will be very important because you are using fireball and because you will be teleporting to bosses a lot. I also highly recommend using ss+no es because you want to keep your mana and you will have enough life with 45% dr and full block (my sorcs both have 1k life with my setup). Just make sure you have full resists with charms and don't bother using mfsc. 400 is really enough. As far as damage, you will never have enough damage to mf in 8 player games properly but will almost always have enough to kill VERY fast in 1-player games. As far as using a cold armor, I highly recommend not really giving too much thought to this because you will benefit a lot more by using the 1-2 skills for damage. My meteorb sorc doesn't have any cold armor and does just fine with holy freeze merc (my lvl 94 blizz sorc has the second armor but didn't have any armor till lvl 90 or so). Here is what my meteorb looks like (roughly):

level 89
1k life
max block
45% dr
9 frames with occy, 8 frames on tele switch
400% mf
maxed resists
4.5k fireball/ 450 orb

Make a blizz sorc and mf in 8-player worldstone/ancient tunnels and you will find godly. My blizz sorc also does solo baal runs in 4-5 minutes so consider that as well (meteorb works great with solo baal too). Good luck.

[Kaptain_Insano]

I really like what Aimson wrote. I have a meteorb which i matted in SP and am working on a blizzsorc after just having finished patting my skellimancer. I am at level 60 and am doing NM at p8. I would be very interested to hear what u or anyone else have to say about blizzsorcs. (equip, skills, etc) And how to best suit them up for MF as well as my might merc.
Cheers
K

Oh and by the way i had no probs with my meterob. She runs pindle and andariel nowadays when i pull her out. I have meteor at around 11 or 12k with plenty of MF.

[exedus]

The MFers that I have had are a Orber (2) Blizz and a hammer....when I use the Blizz sorc for MFin it seems to take longer to kill meph..when i brought her to a baal game there was only 3 people in there (4 includin me) and she causes little dmg to baal..... and that was with 6k blizz and a decent ammount of MF..... Since Meteorb has two types of attack I can kill more enemies.... especially the ones that are cold IMM which i could never kill before with orber and blizz

[aimson]

I really like what Aimson wrote. I have a meteorb which i matted in SP and am working on a blizzsorc after just having finished patting my skellimancer. I am at level 60 and am doing NM at p8. I would be very interested to hear what u or anyone else have to say about blizzsorcs. (equip, skills, etc) And how to best suit them up for MF as well as my might merc.
Cheers
K

Oh and by the way i had no probs with my meterob. She runs pindle and andariel nowadays when i pull her out. I have meteor at around 11 or 12k with plenty of MF.

Well, my blizzsorc does extremely well at mfing in solo 8-player hell but only in a few places. I was doing very well in the worldstones (not throne), the cow level, trav, and ancient tunnels and pretty well in chaos sanctuary. I, of course, could do all the act bosses in SOLO games easily (andy, meph, pindle, baal usually) but I found those very boring and not quite as profitable, which is why I recommend 8-player running in those areas. Places like shenk, eldritch, and pits were pretty worthless in solo or 8 player games. I recommend doing the 2 worldstones, cow level, trav, and ancient tunnels in 8 player games solo because its fun, challenging, and profitable.

Here is what my blizz sorc looks like:

level 94
933 life/542 mana
max block
45% dr
max resists in hell
186/223/266/70 stats with equip
9 frames main switch/ 8 frames casting switch

equip:
tal ammy+armor (ptopaz)+belt
ptopaz shako
4/-5 cold faceted occy
um'd ss
20 dex raven+dwarf (soj before i gave it away)
war travs
magefist
wiz spike+eld'd lidless on tele switch
13/14/9 annihilus
39/15 gheeds

Charms are very very important in this build because of your low resists and fhr so I used a few 30 res poison and fire gcs as well as enough fhr charms to get me to 42% (9 frames). I had 400 mf without any mf charms so dedicate whatever you can to increase your fhr and resists.

As far as skills:

maxed blizz+synergies
1 in shiver armor
level 17 cold mastery (this is very important to talk about because you do NOT need to max cold mastery. The only monster in the game with more than 50% cold resists is mephisto (he has 75%) so any more than -150 enemy cold resists is really worthless (-5 from facet and 8 to cold skills does the trick at level 25 cold mastery).
1 static, telekenesis, teleport (no es!)
1 warmth

This to me is the perfect build, especially if you switch the tele switch to a cta. Additional cold mastery charms would be nice but not really necessary. You can also substitute the 2 ptopazes for 2* 15 all res charms in helm and armor to relieve your need for res charms. I think this build will suit anybody really well. Let me know what you think.

[Kaptain_Insano]

I have the exact same skill distribution as you but some diferent equipment because I play SP and use only what I find. I m at lvl62 at the moment and have one main concern/question: My damage hardly goes up when investing into the synergies. Now I know CM is hidden and mathematically if u max the other 3 synergies I believe u get 300% more damage approx. It just doesn't seem that those points spent make a big diff and wonder if 40 points elsewhere are better spent. Anyway I m going fully synergized route to give it a try.
Cheers K

[combatman]

I haven't played pre-1.10. What was the eth bug?

In old good times (1.09) socketing a weappon with an eth rune was bugged.
The bug consisted of reduceing enemy defense not by 0.25 but converting it in to -0.25, that is obviously less then 0 ,so u were always able to hit the target.It was very handy for bvb, asa vs asa,zeaa vs zeal,,,,,duels.With this trick u didnt need to use angelics or huge attack rating to hit the opponent.

[combatman]

I have the exact same skill distribution as you but some diferent equipment because I play SP and use only what I find. I m at lvl62 at the moment and have one main concern/question: My damage hardly goes up when investing into the synergies. Now I know CM is hidden and mathematically if u max the other 3 synergies I believe u get 300% more damage approx. It just doesn't seem that those points spent make a big diff and wonder if 40 points elsewhere are better spent. Anyway I m going fully synergized route to give it a try.
Cheers K

For single player i suggest u to use frozen orb not blizzard, u need much less skills to max and the dmg is enough high to kill monsters quickly. With the remaining 40 skill points u can maks fire wall + mastery so u will be able to solo through hell difficulty.

[Kaptain_Insano]

I already have a meteorb sorc so i'm not too concerned. I wanted to try a pure blizz sorc and use her for specific runs. I have hit NM meph and am a little dissapointed. I thought meph would drop much faster than he does. It is still quick enuff but ppl make it out as though he would drop in 1 cast. I have 2800 ish blizz damage at the moment. Anyway I am trying her for fun and may not even try and mat her. I needed someone to run NM Meph and NM andy for me. I didn't want to lose my maps with my meteorb and I don't like doing the map seed thing. Anyway I am having fun but I thought the build might have been a little more powerful. Maybe I'm just not quite there.
Equip I use:
Harlequin with UM
Maras when I get to 67 (telling of beads at the moment)
Chains of Honor
Chance guards
Goldbelt
Natalias boots
occulus and upped UMed Heater
switch wizzy and lidless
15 all resist and 10 % cast
ravenfrost

Still looking for a SOJ or +skill ring.

Anyway, any comments or advice?.
Cheers K

[aimson]

I already have a meteorb sorc so i'm not too concerned. I wanted to try a pure blizz sorc and use her for specific runs. I have hit NM meph and am a little dissapointed. I thought meph would drop much faster than he does. It is still quick enuff but ppl make it out as though he would drop in 1 cast. I have 2800 ish blizz damage at the moment. Anyway I am trying her for fun and may not even try and mat her. I needed someone to run NM Meph and NM andy for me. I didn't want to lose my maps with my meteorb and I don't like doing the map seed thing. Anyway I am having fun but I thought the build might have been a little more powerful. Maybe I'm just not quite there.
Equip I use:
Harlequin with UM
Maras when I get to 67 (telling of beads at the moment)
Chains of Honor
Chance guards
Goldbelt
Natalias boots
occulus and upped UMed Heater
switch wizzy and lidless
15 all resist and 10 % cast
ravenfrost

Still looking for a SOJ or +skill ring.

Anyway, any comments or advice?.
Cheers K

I don't know how you are doing such low blizzard damage but I'm guessing you are too low of a level. You should be hitting 4k blizz damage by the mid 80's which is quite enough. You would also do a lot more damage with skill gcs if you ever find them. For nm mfing I'd use meteorb all the way, but in hell, blizzard is way better. The only catch for blizzard is level, which is absolutely necessary to be doing any decent damage. My advice is to use meteorb for nm mfing and blizz sorc for soloing in 8-player ancient tunnels, travincal, worldstone, and cows. I guarantee you that for those 4 areas in 8-player hell, blizz sorc is by far the best.