Litghtning sorc a good key hunter?

[tutata]

I always though light sorcys sucked until i heard that alot of people use them for key hunting, can some one post a good key hunter sorcy build? maxed skills and stats, ive looked at the sorc builds but did not find a lighting key hunting build.

[terrymanning]

This is what I did with mine..

1 in pre-reqs.
1 in tele
1 static field
1 E-Shield
1 warmth
At least 16 hard points in Telekinesis (probably max)
Max Lightning
Max Chain Lightning
Max Lightning Mastery
then work on maxing Charged bolt

Str for gear, dex for 75% block rest in Vit.

Gear...

Shako
+2 lit skills rare ammy
Viper Magi (SOL)
Eschuta's temper
Up-ed Moser's (2 P-Dia)
Frostburns
Tal's Belt
Nature's Peace (10 damage red)
Dwarfstar
Nat's boots

I would tele to Nith and then stand just at the corner leading in to the area with his platform and shoot CL in to the room. The only thing that spawns Lit. immune are the snakes and Nith. My merc used a low damage Insight wep so he wouldnt kill but would keep the mana up. He also used 3 SOL-ed Gris armor and a SOL-ed Tal's mask. This seemed to help with the bugged snake damage. Countess and Summoner are VERY easy. Just tele onto them and use Lighting to kill.

[chaca]

normally I'd say use the search function, but since I can't get it to work lemme see if this helps.

Light sorcs are one of the best key hunters since none of the key bosses ever spawn as LI (save for lister about 1/10 of the time). Furthermore, a majority of the minions and surrounding monsters are not LI so its rather easy for a light sorc to clear the area out.

My recommendation would be a Chain Lightning/Lightning /TK build. Mousy has the thing saved so hopefully he can come in and just paste the whole thing.

Basics

main skills are chain lightning and lightning. you max TK because it synergizes energy shield. Essentially you can make one heck of a tank.

20 lightning
20 Chain lightning
20 Telekinesis
20 light mastery
1-? Energy shield (i normally only put 1-2 points here and let my +skills do the rest, depends on your gear though)
1 warmth
1 in prerequists
1-? Teleport (depends on your gear and if you want a cheap teleport, however points spent here means your damage will be lower)

You need to concentrate on getting your resists and blocking up to the max. Going after nihithak is dangerous on any day. I've always gone for the max block route.

Example gear

wizzy
shako/p crown
viper magi
arach/tals/upped nightsmoke
Tals ammy/maras/ +3 light ammy with other mods (imho a +3 light ammy is better bang for your buck since all your main skills are light skills)
Treks/Waterwalks
2x FCR rings (preferrably with +mana mods), swap out 1x FCR ring for Natures Peace when going for D keys.
Magefist
Pdiamond Whistan/Mosers

With that gear you should have maxed to nearly maxed res, and max block.

You shouldn't think about running for D keys unless you can sport a natures peace, or some other weapon that has the "lay in peace" mod. Otherwise nilis CE will GG you in 1-2 runs.

For a merc I'd suggest an Act 2 Defensive merc (nightmare). Since you will be doing mostly key runs, you can either take the mercs weapon off when you go after nihlithak or you can give him a low damage weapon. I've always liked the insight partizan, which I believe is the lowest damage insight you can make.

in any case, hope that helps.

[Nilaripper]

This is what I did with mine..


Str for gear, dex for 75% block rest in Vit.



Shako
+2 lit skills rare ammy
Viper Magi (SOL)
Eschuta's temper
Up-ed Moser's (2 P-Dia)
Frostburns
Tal's Belt
Nature's Peace (10 damage red)
Dwarfstar
Nat's boots

My merc used a low damage Insight wep so he wouldnt kill but would keep the mana up. He also used 3 SOL-ed Gris armor and a SOL-ed Tal's mask. This seemed to help with the bugged snake damage. Countess and Summoner are VERY easy. Just tele onto them and use Lighting to kill.

I would recommend using GERKES Sanctuary as shield for a key runner because of the straightDR(16max) and MDR(18max).Together with the NP ring(11maxDR) you can fight the vipers,actually your merc kills them(LI).I never use frosties i always use 20fcr gloves(magefist or Trangs) to tele faster.The high str req(133) can be "hel" socketed.

[StraightRyda]

none of the key bosses ever spawn as LI (save for lister about 1/10 of the time).

Lister, keyboss? say what?

[chaca]

Lister, keyboss? say what?

meh, Nihli, not lister. was distracted

[Treflipin]

uhh heres an honest question why telekenesis?

[LuckyDwarf]

uhh heres an honest question why telekenesis?

Telekinesis is a synergy for energy shield. Trust me, it's worth it.

Lucky

[chaca]

Telekinesis is a synergy for energy shield. Trust me, it's worth it.

Lucky

I can't remember the exact figures, but its something like this.

with only 1 pt into TK, energy shield uses something like 1.25 or 1.5 mana per damage point. with a maxed tk its something like .2 mana per damage point. Big difference between an empty mana bulb and one half full.

*edit: Thanks Phat for helping out my apparently pathetic memory

[PhatTrumpet]

No Telekenesis = 2.0000 mana taken for every point of damage absorbed (before resists).

16 Telekenesis = 1.0000 mana taken for every point of damage absorbed (before resists).

20 Telekenesis = 0.7500 mana taken for every point of damage absorbed (before resists).


It's linear, so as you can see it's 0.0625 less for each additional hard point placed into Telekenesis. There's also not much sense in only going to 16 instead of going all the way to 20 since there are no diminishing returns.

[CoyoteKid]

Do you max Tk for all your sorc. builds?

[PhatTrumpet]

It's really all or nothing, so if you can spare a minimum of 20 points and get your mana up to a respectable amount you should definitely go for it (I say a minimum because in some situations it may also be worth it to pump EShield some).

Single-element Sorcs can generally afford to dump 20 points in TK. I've never built pure lightning or pure fire, but all my pure cold Sorcs (both Orbers and Blizzers) have had 20 in TK.

Dual-element Sorcs can go either way. I personally never seem to have enough mana or spare skill points to really justify maxing TK or even using EShield period. I've heard of Meteorb Sorcs getting away with max TK since all they really need to max is Orb, Fire Ball, and Meteor with 1 point in Fire Mastery and a few in Cold Mastery to get it to slvl 17, but just about any other dual-element build is going to need all the damage they can get, and 20 skill points can amount to quite a bit of damage.

There are other issues to weigh also. Since EShield is taken into account before resists, running areas with a lot of elemental damage dealers, especially Gloams, can be extremely draining. Having no mana after just a couple Gloam bolts is extremely annoying to me, and I enjoy being able to do solo Hell Baal runs. Also if you have very high resists and DR, like Shako + Stormshield, they almost goes to waste when using high EShield. Untwinked or poor is a different story: as inconvenient as it may be to run out of mana frequently, EShield will ultimately save your life and/or give you extra time to save/exit. With relatively low mana/life, 20 TK is essential.

[chaca]

in my opinion, if you plan on using energy shield with any amount of frequency then you need to pump the points into tk. without TK maxed (or at least substantial points invested) your mana is going to be slaughtered buy just about anything. That drove me nuts, if you can live with it then more power to ya.

[stevethatsmyname]

it really depends on gear....

for a crappy geared sorc, i can't see you having a big enough mana pool to warrant ES/TK, and with these points spent your damage will most likely suck

for a well-geared sorc, you will have a good mana pool and lots of +skills, so damage and mana wont be as much of a problem, so tk/es will be better spent.

[Cleglaw_Himself]

Just to refresh my memory, is it only hard points that count for telekinesis, or any +skill pts.
I thought there was some bug at some stage.

[Full_Circle]

Just to refresh my memory, is it only hard points that count for telekinesis, or any +skill pts.
I thought there was some bug at some stage.

Yes, it's only hard points. The thing that people called a "bug" was the fact that mana is lost before resists with energy shield.

my west Nihl Runner...

Wizzy (5/-4 facet)
Shako (3/-5 facet)
Viper (Sol)
Whitstan's (Perfect Diamond)
Magefists
String of Ears
Waterwalks
+3 Lightning +6 Dex Amulet // -24 Damage, 17% Fire Resist Ammy (Nihl runs)
2x FCR Rings

Switch = Lower Resist Wand & Ward

Bought both of the facets with DKeys.

I do run him with outside BO, though.

[PhatTrumpet]

it really depends on gear....

for a crappy geared sorc, i can't see you having a big enough mana pool to warrant ES/TK, and with these points spent your damage will most likely suck

for a well-geared sorc, you will have a good mana pool and lots of +skills, so damage and mana wont be as much of a problem, so tk/es will be better spent.
?

Crappy gear = fragile Sorc, so why would you even attempt to run around without TK/ES? We're not talking about dumping a million points in ES here, just maxing TK and having ES on at all times (prebuffed if possible). Not to mention that an untwinked Sorc's best, and in most cases most easily attainable, option for a Merc weapon is 'Insight'. Those untwinked Cold Sorcs at the beginning of the ladder season everyone and their brother makes for Meph running: no one's going to build one without TK/ES just because they have crappy gear.

Good gear = versatility. You can either go the uber safe route and get decent TK/ES with decent killing power or you can go without TK/ES and get even more damage. The point to remember here is that, once you have really good gear, survivability really becomes a non-issue, so there's really no need for that ES buffer. Once you've got max block, 45%DR, max resists, absorb from TGod's and/or Dwarf and/or Raven, and a little bit of MDR you're essentially not taking any damage anyway (before ES), even on Hell Baals. At this point what purpose does ES serve other than to inconveniently drain your mana pool?

I still contend that it's all about the build. Skill points are ridiculously tight on any build focusing in more than one element (with the possible exception of Meteorb as I said... Static not being counted as a second element to fire or cold of course). With a single element build you simply don't need to spend all 100+ points on damage to kill well. You can divert 20 points to TK and not miss the damage much at all.

[rolling stoned]

so how should your stats be distributed? do you pump mana for the e-sheild or vita? or is it a happy medium between the two?

[chaca]

so how should your stats be distributed? do you pump mana for the e-sheild or vita? or is it a happy medium between the two?

personally this is the way I've always statted my sorcs in HC. mind you that I have always gone with max block.

Str for gear
Dex for Max block
Life - the rest
mana - none.

With a few choice pieces of gear...or even saphired helm if untwinked, I've never seen a need to put points into mana. To me it seems that +mana gear is much more available and in higher bonuses than +life gear. my 2 cents anyway.

[PhatTrumpet]

The only reason to ever put a single point into energy is if you're doing a max ES Sorc, which requires extremely specialized gear.

[tutata]

Hey thank you for the builds i rilly apriciate it