Looking for good Ladder Sorc build

[Sorceress Zahra]

Hi! Last night I did my homework and read the Sorc guides pinned at the top, looking for solid builds. I didn't exactly find what I was looking for, though.

I'm looking for something solid for a Ladder Sorc. I haven't started playing her, yet. I want her to hang back, take out monsters from a distance with magic only, back up the melee chars and knock down toughies' hps before the main melee fighters get close. I prefer cold attacks, followed by fire. I really loved the glacial spike/fire wall combo, but that was when I had 1.07. Now I've upgraded to 1.11 and weird synergies exist that I don't really understand. The Meteorb looks promising, but it seems that she won't come into her own and be an assest to a team until she's high level.

Whether I'm on Ladder or just Sorc-ing around a single player game, I like avoiding close combat. I prefer adhering to the Zan Esu ideal that Sorcs eschu melee combat as common and below them. I've always gone for strong def, though (I was always under the impression that stronger def was better than higher life until I found this D2 website). I like putting points into Enchant and Fire Mastery to give my Merc significan fire dmg (but I don't know much about 1.11 mercs and the Ultimate Merc Guide was... well, I couldn't understand it :confused: )

Okay, I'll duct-tape my mouth/fingers and let the experts fill my mind with possibilies!

[AnimeCraze]

Zealot enchantress!!!!! (just kidding, although it works)

Meteorb starts to be good at lvl 12, when you first get fireball. Before lvl 30, you use your fireball to kill, efficiently. At lvl 30 and up, use orb. Then add to fireball and meteor. Keep in mind that even though it is called a meteorb sorc, you should use both meteor and fireball, especially when you fireball damage gets very high at later lvls.

Sadly, defense doesn't work in the way that games like FF work. In FF games, monsters can do 0 damage if you have enough defense (defense actually reduces damage, not chance to hit, so very high defense = ultimate safety)

[Sorceress Zahra]

Zealot enchantress!!!!! (just kidding, although it works)

Meteorb starts to be good at lvl 12, when you first get fireball. Before lvl 30, you use your fireball to kill, efficiently. At lvl 30 and up, use orb. Then add to fireball and meteor. Keep in mind that even though it is called a meteorb sorc, you should use both meteor and fireball, especially when you fireball damage gets very high at later lvls.

Sadly, defense doesn't work in the way that games like FF work. In FF games, monsters can do 0 damage if you have enough defense (defense actually reduces damage, not chance to hit, so very high defense = ultimate safety)

What's a zealot enchantress?

And what does FF stand for?

[darzog]

It depends where you want to be powerful and where you plan to end up. My two personal preferences are pure cold Blizzard sorcs and Meteorb.

The pure cold Bliz sorc doesn't get truely devestating until Blizzard gets some synergies going but once you get to level 60+ it rules. With a good merc you can take any area/boss in the game, including cold immunes. This build is a little tricky to get through Hell without help, but if you get rushed or help from someone it can be deadly. My primary character was a bliz sorc in ladder 2.

The meteorb is a much more versatile character, is powerful earlier on but does not, in my opinion, top out as powerful as a bliz sorc. This sorc is a little tough to start (as all sorcs are) but if you don't worry about the absolute optimal skill placement you can build up fireball earlier than the guide says to have a decent spell to get you to level 30. Once you get Frozen Orb (FO) you can walk through Normal and Nightmare (I kid you not, FO makes Normal and NM almost too easy). Once you get into Hell the monsters are more powerful, and since none of your attacks are fully synergized you don't have the absolute magnitude of damage compared to a single-tree sorc. But since you have both fire and cold with decent damage you can hack your way through with little or no help. You do need to invest in a good merc though to keep mobs from swarming you.

My take is starting from complete scratch a Meteorb is one of the best builds you can go with (Sasja rocks). Once you use her to do Meph and Andy runs (they can be done in Hell but NM will be MUCH quicker) and build up some good gear I would go after a single-tree sorc for hell MF runs. At least that's what I will be doing, use a Meteorb to get equipment for my bliz sorc.

BTW, FF means Final Fantasy. I don't know how you would implement a Zealot Enchantress (Zeal is a Paladin skill, Enchantress is a particular sorceress build).

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Darzog

[AnimeCraze]

Dol Ort Eld Lem (Passion)

That's my answer to the zealot enchantress. It gives 1 to zeal, for ALL characters. (do people actually look at the lower oskill runewords? like passion and kingslayer, and not enigma and coh?) In a phase blade with twitchdore/treachery for extra speed effects. Enchant self, zeal away. I used FO to handle fire immunes, but I guess if I use a more damaging weapon and/or a might merc, I can use physical damage instead.

For starting meteorb, you just need some stuff like spirit, stealth, lore, +1 skill ammy and such to get +~6 skills, which is enough to handle hell, if you are careful about it. You might need to dance and dodge a bit due to low resist at the begining, though. I still use meteorb for runs. With Tal's orb (-15 resist with 3 items), FB is very damaging to meph now, and kills andy faster than pretty much anything (-50 resist is good). I still use her to do runs in hell, in particular key runs off countress and summoner.

Edit: How can I ever forget about insight?? The most overpowered runeword in the whole game. Slap this on a merc and it solves all problems with mana. And it's cheap too.

[darzog]

I knew there was a way to do it, but I haven't played since May so I don't remember anything anymore and didn't want to put in enough effort to look for it, thanks for providing the answer.

One reason I like the Meteorb is you can get through NM and do NM runs with minimal equipment. NM resists are much easier to hit and once you get 63% FCR you're set. You do need better gear for Hell, but to just get runs started from scratch it's rpetty easy.

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Darzog

[McCain123]

You say you like cold/fire sorcs? Well let´s see what options you have.

In the cold tree I only can think of two spells, that have enough fire ... errr ... icepower and mass control to get the job done; Frozen Orb and Blizzard. Frozen Orb has only one Synergie, Blizzard has three, so with Orb your main attack would be fire, with Blizzard it would be cold. Perhaps you like other spells in the cold tree as well, but these just won´t have the killing ability of the two menioned before. Now for the fire tree. If you are going the Blizzard way, you want some spells, that do some damage without much synergies and I again can only think of two. Firewall and meteor. Maybe you could get by with an enchant, leting your merc handle the cold immunes, but that is almost all I can think of. When you chose the Frozen Orb way, then Fireball becomes interesting, as it can deal quite some damage with enough fcr.
For your equipment, Tals Set is a good alround set for dual sorcs and would fit you fine. There are also some more defensive setups and of course some much more expensive setups, just check the guides about it, they most often refer to the same equipment.