Orb sorc: ES? block? vit?

[FattyMcGee]

Hello all :wave:

I've played SC since classic, yet have rarely dabbled in HC. I'm going to take another stab at it now, and was planning my first HC char to be an orb sorc built specifically to mf (first norm shenk, then norm baal, and finally NM meph). Note: she won't go past NM difficulty, so i'll have few/no cold immunes to worry about.

So basically my build is going to be:

20 F orb
1 in 1pt wonder skills like warmth, tele, etc
10-20 Cold Mastery
and possibly maxing ES/TK


Since I've played virtually no HC before I was wondering if you could all give your opinions on the best way to increase the survivability of this orb sorc. Should I put all my extra stat points in vit, put a bunch in dex for max block, or put them all in energy for an ES/TK sorc?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!



-f

[Omikron8]

unless you want to crawl in hell max out ice bolt

[FattyMcGee]

unless you want to crawl in hell max out ice bolt

Note: she won't go past NM difficulty, so i'll have few/no cold immunes to worry about.

That's a good idea if I don't end up with ES/TK, but if i do i probably won't have enough skill points to go around, being anchored in NM difficulty like i want to do. If I go with block or vit though, I'll definitely do Ice Bolt :thumbsup:


-f

[reyla]

Omikron8, with 6,000 + posts, you have gone blind. :wink3:

Note: she won't go past NM difficulty

I have the exact same character. An Orb sorc that MFs NM Meph exclusively.
The key is FCR for teleport. MF gear. Insight on merc.
I have

Max orb
Max Mastery
Max Telekenisis
Maybe 5-7 in ES (Forget)
warmth, teleport, static, etc. 1 point

I have Fast Cast Rate on weapon switch to teleport fast then switch to Rhyme and Ali Baba for a cool 500% MF or so. I went with max block but it was a mistake. Just go with max Vit instead. Block is only necessary for Hell.

If I were to reroll, I would put 43 into STR for my Vipermagi with a P Topaz 50 or so into Energy. Yes Energy. With ES/TK, Insight runeword on your merc and alot of mana, you can laugh as dolls explode around you. The rest Vit.

I did take her to Hell Act 1 though to level her to 80 for the skill points and stat points but that was her only visit.

[PhatTrumpet]

/join op xbananax
.pt

[Rekoc]

Ok, I suggest you go
Max orb
Max TK
max mastery
Max Icebolt
1 point where needed (warmth,ect,)
rest of the points go in tele.

Look for pgems and save up and get whitstans sheild for max block and then Wiz...they all go for pgems...and you can get a pretty good sorc up and just run nm meph or hell andy. No points in energy. I would go 90 str. 100 dex till whistans(try and get early...nm cows = good for pgems and stuff and if on east ill just give you one)after whitstans max block rest in vita.

PM me if you have any more q's.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

If it's purely meph anything past lvl 22 CM becomes a waste, if it's for baal as well then 27 (I don't recall what the various minions' resists are, but it's baal that tends to take up the largest part of a NM baal run I find).

If you won't go past NM, then build for 75. You can go higher than 75 in NM baals of course, but 75's a nice round number. By my count this is 82 points... I'd probably spread them out like this:
20 orb
15 CM
1 Frozen Armour
1 Static
1 Warmth
20 Telekinisis
10 Teleport
6 ES
1 prereqs
From there if you happen to go past 75, or try the den in hell, or whatever, I'd dump points into port, cm, or icebolt dependant on the what I had in my gear... icebolt is only if CM >= 27 (or 22 if you're mainly sticking to meph and not tempted to move to hell). CM vs Port depends on on the +skills I've got, as well as the +mana, if I've got a lot of mana gear and not a lot of +skills I'd probably go with CM, other way around would be port.

I've got 6 in ES because I like having:
A) a hard point in ES for when it needs recasting, if you're comfortable switching when your ES is down you can save a bunch of prereq points and just use a staff... my opinion is that when ES is down there's probably a bunch of monsters around that I don't want to be pressing W near, so I don't like this option
B) Since I'm not saving the prereq points I like to have MF on switch. You could put a bunch of +skills on switch to cast your ES with (generally a Memory with +3 es), but I prefer MF. If I was saving the prereq points as well then I might be fine ditching the MF switch, but as stated I don't like that option.
C) Having 20 points in telekinisis and having a 30% absorb ES to go with it is pointless... if you're going to spend points in TK you need your ES in a 50-60% range minimum or else they're really just wasted points.

As for block vs vita, that's a tough one. If this was for hell I say block all the way, however, hands down the most dangerous thing in NM is FE boss explosions. On top of that since monsters can only get 2 mods you're going to see nasty packs of frenzytaurs a bunch less frequently. I still lean towards block, but I wouldn't look down on a vita choice.

unless you want to crawl in hell max out ice bolt
No. Just no. Not that IB doesn't speed you up, but it's definitely not crawling if you don't have it, and in the mean time your sorc is much safer without it (godly gear excluded... the orber I made after I was rich and knew end game gear for this season definitely did have max IB).

[FattyMcGee]

Poor Omnikron, got two blasts in a row :embarassed: I've misread posts tons before tho, so no worries


Thanks for all the replies guys!!


Since i'm starting completely fresh and I hear most of the forum guys here are on East (do most of you play ladder or nonladder btw?) I'm going to make an East account for this most likely. So hopefully once i get going i'll see you all online!

The whistan's block route sounds nice, especially if i end up mfing hell Andy. The ES/Insight merc idea also sounds great... and a Sol rune would probably be easy to find, norm or nm countess would do the trick. Hmmm, i'm going to have to think about this... :scratch:


Q to Rekoc: it's still worth it to max TK even if i'm doing a MB build and no ES? or are you suggesting i put 1 point in ES? sry i'm just a bit confused

-f



::EDIT:: looks like most of you guys are suggesting max TK and a low level ES, and max block to boot. sounds like a killer plan to me. Once I get my Device Driver to recognize Directdraw so i can install Diablo II again *sigh* I'm going to start on this sorc immediately!

[Rekoc]

Yes 1 point ES 5 if you have low amount of + skills then max tk and max block.

[Omikron8]

once he does well in nightmare (if he doesn't die) he will be tempted to take her to hell meph, and then she will need ice bolt

[MoUsE_WiZ]

once he does well in nightmare (if he doesn't die) he will be tempted to take her to hell meph, and then she will need ice bolt
No he won't.
This season alone I leveled two Ice Boltless orb sorks (well, one was orb/fb, but she didn't use the fb on meph) from 75 to 90 on meph.

[Tai.]

or a lower resist wand...

I'll take the added safety on a firts char, but maybe that's just me.
-Tai

[CoriolisEffect]

this kind of sorc was my first character choice upon returning to the game and to the east banana channel, since then i've acieved 117 FCR, and max resists in hell. although, i only have 2 + skills, lol.


im right about to the point of deciding where my last pts are gonna go and so far it looks like this

20 orb/20 cm / 20 tK
8 warmth / 2 ES
rest preq's + 1 static

after reading this thread it made me think, hell yes ima max ice bolt, and put 3 more in ES for a nice 5, and put 2 more in warmth for the sake of round numbers.

this still allows me 6 unspent points assuming i ever make it to 99 before death, or whatever, but im not going to worry about that because all of this stuff is on paper basicly, and its still rather easy to kill things with my skillpoints the way they are... just gives you a place to put endgame points... cuz no one ever actually has all synergies maxed along with the main skill(except for certain builds, like hammerdins and stuff ofcourse.)(edit: or perfectly built level 99 chars ^_^)so you dont really need maxed icebolt persay, just put pts there if you dont know where else to put them, or dont need pts elsewhere.

[xeyloderixed]

unless you want to crawl in hell max out ice bolt

i'd add my bashing to this foolish sentence.

i've made infinite orbsorks in the span of 2 patches, and none of em maxed icebolt. the damage increase is not only pathetic, it is useless 99% of the time. maxed orb/mastery does enough damage in 1p games, which is where most of your mfing should be done anyway.

on the build itself, what mousey said. with just a few more notes:
(1) if you plan on using insight, you won't need as much in teleport/warmth, so a few in es is fine. do not max es though, because energy builds just do not work for hc purposes.
(2) if you don't plan on using insight, then you need around 10/10 in teleport/warmth at mid 70s-80, given 700ish mana. that will give you infinite teleport mana without the need for insight. if you go this route, then you have a slightly better meffer, because you can actually use poles with good mods (reapers and kelpie come to mind).

btw, orb sorks are one of the harder chars to lvl from 1-30. get help if you really want to do this fast.

[STINGER]

You can MF all of NM with a Shard, Rhyme and Topaz armor.....I would go all vita early except for getting the dex for a wizzy then if you want you can start adding more dex after 70 or so and be closer to max block and then if you want to take her to hell you are only a few levels of all dex and increasing block chance with every %.

YOu cna build her for NM only, but you dont need to it isnt hard to MF NM as a lvl 50-55 with decent stuff. I suppose it is all in how you play also, being a SC lifer til now may mean you need a tank for repeated NM running but if you dial it down a notch you might be suprised what you can do.

Just remember 5000000 MF isnt all its cracked up to be, a solid 150-200 with 75 all rez, 63+ FCR and some FHR with as much life as possible with reasonable block will live in NM forever, hell you might just kill her because you are tierd of the name! Grow your MF as your findings allow, use the weapon switch for MF and switch just before the kill, not before you start killing.

Hell my season 2 Blizz Sorc hit 75 using that damn lvl 29 staff that I still cant ever remember the name off, with a bazillion stat points saved up for dex and gear......Ran Baal and Meph, just took it slower. At 75 all in one day she got a Viper/Wizzy/Whitstans and BAM, she was max block max rez and rockin!


BTW.....Blizz is much better IMO.....:)

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Razorswitch?

[STINGER]

Razorswitch?

That will be it......not a better item for lvl 29 up until you get some better things and can be easy to store up stat points with. Style points for smacking Baal in the head with it for next to no damage!