Which Build for solo baal runs?

[NukeYourFace]

I'm level 86, Meteor / blizzard build. I got all my 20 bolt / ball / meteor. Few in ES, the rest in blizzard.

Merc has a bonehew, and I have Full Tal's set, magefist, lindless, and 2 fast cast rings.

I can't solo baal on hell. Well I prolly could, but his minions destroy me and my merc. I can normally beat the first 3 packs, but the balrogs and the lizard dudes, forget about it. THey waste me.

What's a good build for doing baal runs?

Finally i have 804 unbuffed life, 905 unbuffed mana

[Darkflight]

With that skill setup you will have a hard time since you blizzard will be to weak unless you have very good equipment.

For builds:
Hammerdin, Blizzard sorc with Bonehew (for CE charges), Meteorb, Lightning sorc with Infinitymerc for the rich...

Probably more that i can't think of right now.

[Immortal_King]

Killing baal/minions really isnt that tough. If you have a holy freeze merc w/ decent FHR just pump him potns while you blizzard Lidstrom and his minions. Just rebuild your sorc with either: FO instead of blizzard, or else skip meteor and max blizzard and a synergy. Your blizzard just isnt strong enough to kill fire immunes if you dont have full points into it and a synergy. FO is good even w/o the ice bolt maxed.

The toughest thing about baaling as a sorc I've always found are the stupid souls. No idea on how to work around that one ><;

[AnimeCraze]

I really have to laugh on this one. Unless they are extra fast + extra strong or something like that, they are less annoying than the councils (which kills your merc fast). Does anyone use glacial spike and static at all? Non moving venomlords and minions of destructions can't hurt you now, can they? As long as you don't screw up, you can even do it in 8 players.

[Bjorgin]

Killing baal/minions really isnt that tough. If you have a holy freeze merc w/ decent FHR just pump him potns while you blizzard Lidstrom and his minions. Just rebuild your sorc with either: FO instead of blizzard, or else skip meteor and max blizzard and a synergy. Your blizzard just isnt strong enough to kill fire immunes if you dont have full points into it and a synergy. FO is good even w/o the ice bolt maxed.

The toughest thing about baaling as a sorc I've always found are the stupid souls. No idea on how to work around that one ><;
Tele on top+Fireball/Glacialspike= Eaten souls.
This works with me, they have a terrible time recovering from spammy spells, so they just sit there being all wispy

[TheBe]

I think it's EASY to run baals with my meteorb sorc. I have holy freeze merc and I don't have any problems killing them. Councils are hardest since they kill my merc pretty fast, but others are just easy. I wouldn't bother bumping your blizz, since it won't have good damage if it isn't maxed. Go with frozen orb instead (which pretty much means you have to re-build).

[KingOfBloodBath]

depend on what you mean of solo baal run?

are you mean you solo baal run with 1 player (yourself)?
are you mean you solo baal run in public game with 8 players?

I would say the only sorc build could solo a 8 players baal run efficiently is infinity ligthing sorc.

and pretty much every other sorc build could solo a 1 player baal run without much trouble

[Vegetall]

well if your going for just the quest then mertorber will do the trick, i soloed baal in a pw game so bymeslf, but when i got to the baals minions the last group a easy EASY way to deal with them without haveing to kill them...

is you kite (have them follow you) all the way out of the throne so ur past the arch that leads in there then tele ASAP right to baal and he should act like they were defeted and go in the portal.... and as for baal with ur build depending on ur damg, i would i belive static works on him then just try to tele a circle around him so he doesnt move or tele away and if hes focusing attacking he also wont make a clone, which sucks b/c the clone hits just as hard. and just keep up the metors in a certin spot so u get max burn damg...

[Eilo Rytyj]

My vote is for remaking your sorc with your current gear, to a Meteorb. You've got pretty much all you need to make one: Full Tal's, Magefists, Lidless can (and should) be upgraded to Spirit ASAP, and a FCR ring if Spirit<35%, to maintain 105% FCR. Any old ring will suffice in the other slot, such as Dwarf Star for fire safety, Wisp for a handy little Oak and an easier time vs Souls, or of course the good ol' SoJ for jacking up your damage.

I noticed that you put a "few in ES". Don't. A dual-element sorc has no room for ES, and a full Vita or Vita/Block can survive just as well, and wont suffer the reduced damage from placing points into ES. An ES build requires, as a minimum, 20 in Telekinesis as a base, and 21+ skill points is too much to sacrifice.

Your mana is a little too high, and your life is a little too low. Am I correct to assume you threw some points into Energy at lower levels, thinking that's what a sorc should do? Well, thanks to Warmth, sorcs are one of the easiest characters to manage mana with. Before level 27, there are mana potions. Easy enough to carry 8-12 spare mana pots in your inventory as well as your belt to keep yourself sustained. At level 27, there's the Insight RW for a merc. Ladder only, mind you. But if you play Ladder, then it's there, and it should be used. Mana problems are essentially solved as long as your merc is standing. +Mana charms and/or +Mana on Rings/Ammys will help greatly too at the lower levels.

A well built Meteorb can keep up with a Lightning sorc in terms of killing speed in multiplayer games. I've got a "perfect" Meteorb in the making, with a 10k Fire Ball, 20k+ Meteor, and a 600 damage/bolt Orb, without skillers. I'm definitely sure that it'll give any Lightning sorc a run for their money, even if the Lightning sorc has Infinity and the Meteorb doesn't.

BTW Souls are easy Fire Ball fodder. They're usually 1 hit KO in anything up to 4-5 player games, and after that, they're still only 2 hit KO. They also go down pretty easy with a few hit-and-run Orbs if you're being on the safe side.

[zebulin]

I find that baal runs are cake with my blizzwall build and I don't think it's the added strength of my characters blizz (due to more synergies) or the choice of firewall for fire tree that makes the difference.

The difference is probably that I went glacial spike for my first cold tree blizzard synergy and that I continue to use it as the spam spell when baal running.

Glacial spike keeps your merc alive in baal runs because everything that isn't cold immune just waits in line to die.

It *does* require another cast of blizz or even two to kill off the waves this way due to more "misses" from the monsters being stationary under the blizz but it's well worth it for the superior crowd control

I get through the runs in about 7-8 minutes everytime (single player so it's always the same map).

If you make a build for baal running though I might not recommend a blizzwall build on account of the frustration I sometimes have pinning down those cold immune skellie mages and getting them to stay put on my firewalls.

A blizzball build with bare minimum support for fireball and no points meteor (maybe 20 fireball and 20 firebolt) is probably the optimal for baal running of the hybrid builds.

[AnimeCraze]

I wouldn't disagree. Points in meteor or not is debatable, though. Cold damage is more important than fire when doing Baal runs. Regardless, having the right build or not won't save you from poor playing skills.

As for souls, it's 1 fireball, 1 kill for me in 1 player games (minus the convict ones which kills you before you can fire your fireballs).

[PhatTrumpet]

I'm level 86, Meteor / blizzard build. I got all my 20 bolt / ball / meteor. Few in ES, the rest in blizzard.

Merc has a bonehew, and I have Full Tal's set, magefist, lindless, and 2 fast cast rings.

I can't solo baal on hell. Well I prolly could, but his minions destroy me and my merc. I can normally beat the first 3 packs, but the balrogs and the lizard dudes, forget about it. THey waste me.

What's a good build for doing baal runs?

Finally i have 804 unbuffed life, 905 unbuffed mana
Just to reiterate what others have said and/or alluded to, a Blizzballer (or Blizzmeteor, whatever you want to call it) should really look more like:

20 Fire Ball
20 Meteor
1 Fire Mastery and Warmth
20 Blizzard
Cold Mastery as needed
1 Static and Teleport (NO EShield)
rest in Blizzard synergies or Fire Bolt or a mix

Your life stat is downright pathetic for a full Tal's Sorc; mine is approaching 1.4k unbuffed (not all that many life charms, either). Your mana stat is also a problem because it's higher than your life stat, which should only ever happen if your build focuses on EShield (i.e. very high lvl ES with maxed TK).

Your Merc would tank much better if he had Reaper's rather than Bonehew. I also like to give mine Guillaume's Face for the added Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike (Lister is very often cold+fire immune, so this helps my Merc take him out quicker). For the armor slot you have many options. I prefer an e-bugged 'Treachery' for the IAS and CtC Fade (godly), but even something like Duriel's Shell would work just fine.

[zebulin]

Just to reiterate what others have said and/or alluded to, a Blizzballer (or Blizzmeteor, whatever you want to call it) should really look more like:

20 Fire Ball
20 Meteor
1 Fire Mastery and Warmth
20 Blizzard
Cold Mastery as needed
1 Static and Teleport (NO EShield)
rest in Blizzard synergies or Fire Bolt or a mix

Your life stat is downright pathetic for a full Tal's Sorc; mine is approaching 1.4k unbuffed (not all that many life charms, either). Your mana stat is also a problem because it's higher than your life stat, which should only ever happen if your build focuses on EShield (i.e. very high lvl ES with maxed TK).

Your Merc would tank much better if he had Reaper's rather than Bonehew. I also like to give mine Guillaume's Face for the added Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike (Lister is very often cold+fire immune, so this helps my Merc take him out quicker). For the armor slot you have many options. I prefer an e-bugged 'Treachery' for the IAS and CtC Fade (godly), but even something like Duriel's Shell would work just fine.


why do you need two timered spells?

Meteor has a lot of pre-reqs just ditch it and synergize with fire bolt.

[NukeYourFace]

My vote is for remaking your sorc with your current gear, to a Meteorb. You've got pretty much all you need to make one: Full Tal's, Magefists, Lidless can (and should) be upgraded to Spirit ASAP, and a FCR ring if Spirit<35%, to maintain 105% FCR. Any old ring will suffice in the other slot, such as Dwarf Star for fire safety, Wisp for a handy little Oak and an easier time vs Souls, or of course the good ol' SoJ for jacking up your damage.

I noticed that you put a "few in ES". Don't. A dual-element sorc has no room for ES, and a full Vita or Vita/Block can survive just as well, and wont suffer the reduced damage from placing points into ES. An ES build requires, as a minimum, 20 in Telekinesis as a base, and 21+ skill points is too much to sacrifice.

Your mana is a little too high, and your life is a little too low. Am I correct to assume you threw some points into Energy at lower levels, thinking that's what a sorc should do? Well, thanks to Warmth, sorcs are one of the easiest characters to manage mana with. Before level 27, there are mana potions. Easy enough to carry 8-12 spare mana pots in your inventory as well as your belt to keep yourself sustained. At level 27, there's the Insight RW for a merc. Ladder only, mind you. But if you play Ladder, then it's there, and it should be used. Mana problems are essentially solved as long as your merc is standing. +Mana charms and/or +Mana on Rings/Ammys will help greatly too at the lower levels.

A well built Meteorb can keep up with a Lightning sorc in terms of killing speed in multiplayer games. I've got a "perfect" Meteorb in the making, with a 10k Fire Ball, 20k+ Meteor, and a 600 damage/bolt Orb, without skillers. I'm definitely sure that it'll give any Lightning sorc a run for their money, even if the Lightning sorc has Infinity and the Meteorb doesn't.

BTW Souls are easy Fire Ball fodder. They're usually 1 hit KO in anything up to 4-5 player games, and after that, they're still only 2 hit KO. They also go down pretty easy with a few hit-and-run Orbs if you're being on the safe side.

Nice reply bro, good info.

[PhatTrumpet]

why do you need two timered spells?

Meteor has a lot of pre-reqs just ditch it and synergize with fire bolt.
You don't need two, in fact my Blizzballer is built just as you described, but I regret it at times. The fact is for the three extra skill points spent in prereqs to get Meteor you do gain a little more versatility.

I would agree that having two timered spells in the same element is pretty much useless, but when they're in different elements it's completely different. Having a strong timered and untimered skill on each tree can be very useful because even when a monster is immune to one of your elements you can always cast a timered spell and spam an untimered spell in between. On minion wave two, for instance, casting Blizzard and spamming Fire Ball will not get rid of everything very quickly due to the cold immune skellies and the relatively small radius of Fire Ball. The skellies will then start to wander around, forcing you to pick them off one by one. Meteor, on the other hand, can take care of the skellies just by stacking the burn damage before the wave spawns. Meteor is also useful for clipping things around corners and behind doorways.

Those four extra skill points in the fire tree only amount to 20% less in Blizzard synergies, which, assuming you've already maxed one Blizzard synergy, equates to only about 10% less Blizzard damage. My guess is that 10% less Blizzard damage won't make a noticeable difference in your overall kill speed whereas having both a timered and untimered skill in each tree may.


EDIT: Meteorb has two timered spells... I don't see anyone knockin' that build.

[zebulin]

EDIT: Meteorb has two timered spells... I don't see anyone knockin' that build.

Orb seems to be timered in a different manner from the other timered spells. It's almost spammable iirc.

[cascius]

I still like the lighting sorc with infinity merc best.
As mentioned before, adding 1 point in glacial spike would help.
You can also consider using chilling armor as it will freeze souls that shoot at you.
I usually baal run in 5+ players games. Static is a must, especially in 8 players games.
VS:
1st round of minions: just stand there and shoot at them, no biggy.

2nd round: I find the poison damage is quite annoying for my merc. One technique is to place yourself so that those minions are barely visible in the top right corner of your screen. Then just chain lighting in that direction. When most are dead, just tele there and finish the job. I find this more practical than having to go back to town to un-poison my merc.

3rd round: As soon as they appear, they will all cast hydra in the spot you're standing. Tele to a different spot and: static + chain light them. Tele to yet another spot and finish them with lighting. If you use glacial spike, you won't have to do all this teleing. Just freeze them before they can cast hydras. Piece of cake.

4th/5th rounds: Stand on the throne so that your merc blocks the steps to you. Static/ Glacial Spike(if needed), and light them up. ;-) This should be a piece of cake.

Baal: let merc conviction him, static + lighting takes care of him. I do have to say though that fireball is the fastest at killing him.

PS: i usually don't use energy shield as I have good resists, rarely get mele hit, and hate losing all my mana pool... ;-)

[mephiztophelez]

Does anyone use glacial spike and static at all?
surprisingly few people use either of these. i was in a baal run the other day with FIVE sorc's in the group. not one of them had a point in Static :shocked:

i have a point in both glacial and static on mah fire sorcy, it means she can run around playing PvM machine quite comfortably as well as being a 200fcr loon on the blood moor.

[Immortal_King]

Tele on top+Fireball/Glacialspike= Eaten souls.
This works with me, they have a terrible time recovering from spammy spells, so they just sit there being all wispy

They kill me from offscreen ><;

[AnimeCraze]

Get better resist, then. My Tal's sorc has 75 all resist. If you have better gear than that, it should be even easier to achieve.Baal: let merc conviction him, static + lighting takes care of him. I do have to say though that fireball is the fastest at killing him.Doesn't charge bolt down right murder bosses like a CS zon?surprisingly few people use either of these. i was in a baal run the other day with FIVE sorc's in the group. not one of them had a point in Static :shocked: That is sad. They should force you to complete the game from norm to hell solo before they let you on bnet. It seems like too many people don't have the playing skills given the godly gear that they traded/ebayed.