Advice on HC MF sorc

[SummerLiving]

hey guys,

I just started playing HC today and in my first game somebody gave me a wizspike for free so I promtly deleted my necro and immediately made a sorc, hoping to make her into a MF sorc that can hopefully do hell meph, etc. My question now is, what kind of sorc should I build? I've been reading a lot of posts and a lot of the guides but none of them are really directed towards Hardcore, so I'm still left guessing. It seems a 1 tree sorc is best for magicfind since thats all I'll be doing, but does this mean a blizz sorc with max synergies? or a FO/TK build? (which seems popular but a friend of mine who plays SC says they suck because of poor damage output). or a fireball/meteor build? note, the ONLY thing I ahve right now is a wizspike and nothing else.

advice/comments would be greatly appreciated.

[FrostBurn]

If all you are ever going to do is MF, then a pure Blizzard sorc. But you will have problems with CIs. Get a good merc to help out.

If you want more versatility, then a dual tree sorc is ideal. Blizzballer, Meteorb, Lightning/FO are all viable. Guides are in the stickies.

A FO/TK/ES build will struggle against CIs, and is more of a PvP build.

Likewise, a FB/Meteor sorc will especially struggle against the horde of FIs.

So, pure Blizz for MF'ing only, dual tree sorc for versatility and adaptability.

Max vita in HC. Max resists in HC. Merc in HC. Play defensively. Drink potions like a fat kid in a candy store.

[SummerLiving]

If all you are ever going to do is MF, then a pure Blizzard sorc. But you will have problems with CIs. Get a good merc to help out.

If you want more versatility, then a dual tree sorc is ideal. Blizzballer, Meteorb, Lightning/FO are all viable. Guides are in the stickies.

A FO/TK/ES build will struggle against CIs, and is more of a PvP build.

Likewise, a FB/Meteor sorc will especially struggle against the horde of FIs.

So, pure Blizz for MF'ing only, dual tree sorc for versatility and adaptability.

Max vita in HC. Max resists in HC. Merc in HC. Play defensively. Drink potions like a fat kid in a candy store.

so you advocate the low blocking/vitabuild instead of the max block build? did you build your sorcs like this?

[FrostBurn]

You're playing HC. Your sorc should not be within melee range. Unless you like to play offensively even in HC, in which case you max block. Otherwise, a defensive playstyle should mean blocking is not required and vitality is pumped to cope with elemental attacks.

HC is about not dying. Not dying is better achieved by a defensive playstyle.

[enchils]

IMO a pure fire sorc is not the way to go for a first time MF sorc starting off untwinked, esp. in hardcore b/c i think its more item dependent than a cold sorc esp. a blizzard one. fireball consumes lots of mana and blizzard>meteor damage wise. plus, for the fire skills to really shine you need lots of +skills, whereas with a skill like blizzard, you have so many synergies that youll be doing a ton of damage even with 0 +skills on your EQ. lastly, i think its either 1/4 or 1/3 of all the monsters in hell are fire immune meaning youre gonna have a huge pain in certain areas of the game esp. since your merc wont have the gear necessary to take them out.

just my $0.02