Senshiki
11-05-2007, 00:33
Hey what's up? My name is Senshiki, I play East ladder and non-ladder. I'm a huge fan of casters, paladins, and assasins. At one point, I wanted a tri-elemental sorceress. However since 1.09 and the birth of synergies, Blizzard put quite a tight grip on how points are spread for a sorceress. To combat Blizzards represiveness of this already-weaker-than most character, I came up with:
The Hellslinger, my take on the ultimate bowasorc.
This is a very short guide, because quite frankly it is a simple build. A bit expensive, but it only requires a few high runes to really work. The skill allocation is simple and straightforward. The stats are minimal. depending on your playing style, you could pretty much rule with near-base stats as far as strength and dexterity go. The skill of use? Attack. Left or right click, thats all.
Given the new runewords as of 1.11, I decided to look past everything that other people used. Oh! The zeal pally with dream! The dual-dreamers Passion zeal sorc! I said nay to both of those and instead I decided to unite the holy trinity of ice, fire, and lightning into one single, devastating unit... an arrow.
Stats:
Everything depends on your bow, since your armor can just be a breast plate. Find out how much you will need and dump the rest into life. No mana is needed for this build whatsoever as you won't have enough after your gear to make use of energy shield.
Skills:
Easy peasy, max all three elemental masteries. For the rest of your skill points, you could max out Enchant, but the bow has ITD, so it isn't required. However it helps in pvp. Also, since it has no synergies, is extra damage, and is also good in pvp, Thunderstorm is another possibilty. Other than that, maybe invest a point or so in a cold armor. Hell, you could max teleport just to make it cheap and still complete this build by level 80, its all you buddy.
Gear:
Here's where the power comes from. The three main items that will make your Hellslinger are your Dragon Armor, Ice Bow, and Dream Helm.
Dragon (Runeword, Armor)
20% Chance to Cast Slvl 18 Venom when Struck
12% Chance to Cast Slvl 15 Hydra on Striking
Slvl 14 Holy Fire Aura when Equipped
+360 Defense
+230 Defense Vs. Missile
+3-5 to All Attributes
+0.375 to Strength Per Clvl
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Damage Reduced by 7%
Dream (Runeword, Helm)
10% Chance to Cast Slvl 15 Confuse when Struck
Slvl 15 Holy Shock Aura when Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense
+10 to Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+0.625 Mana Per Clvl
All Resistances +5-20
15-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Ice (Runeword, Bow)
100% Chance to Cast Slvl 40 Blizzard when You Slvl-up
25% Chance to Cast Slvl 22 Frost Nova on Striking
Slvl 18 Holy Freeze Aura when Equipped
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+140-210% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
+25-30% to Cold Skill Damage
-20% to Enemy Cold Resistance
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
20% Deadly Strike
3.125% Extra Gold from Monsters Per Clvl
Three masteries, coupled with three big auras. A high level Holy Shock, Fire, and Freeze will make you a walking tower of doom. Aside from dealing damage to anything nearby (you can pretty much walk through normal) you already have Holy Freeze, which frees up a space for a better merc. Get a good act 2 merc with an Infinity, and that conviction will make you kill anything short of something immune to fire, ice, and lightning.
There is one main problem with this build (I, and some of you, will call it a challenge though.) Resist is LOW, and with your armor, helm, and shiled taken up, you have to rely on your lesser items. Some good ideas are as follows:
Gloves:
Laying of Hands - 50% fire resist, IAS <--- Gloves need this!
Magnus's Skin - 15% fire resist, attack rating.
Lavagout - 24% fire resist, fire damage, chance to cast enchant (quite sexy)
Boots:
Sandstorm Treks - 40-70% Poison resist, other great bonuses.
Infernostride - 30% fire resist.
Tearhaunches - 10% all
Natalya's Soul - 15-25% cold and lightning, great choice!
Belts:
Nightsmoke - 10% all
Credendum - 15% all, strength and dex, probably your best choice.
Immortal King's Detail - 28% fire, 38% lightning resist
The rest can be taken care of with charms. Mara's Kaleidescope is almost a must have because of it's resist. If you can get anni and torch you should be alright.
So that is the basic build. If you can spare the resists with other items, this is quite a great character. Use Highlord's, Razortail, and a +20% IAS gloves and you have a fairly-fast-firing pierceing arrow with massive tri-elemental damage, as well as damage done just by coming near you. As stated before, this build has enough wiggle room to max a backup skill or two, so you can either switch to Spirit/Occy and throw something a bit bigger then go back to arrow spamming.
Also, since Holy Freeze is usually bad mannered in duels, just switch it ouw for Buriza, Hellrack, or another good bow. To be good in pvp however, it is recommended that enchant be maxed unless you use Widowmaker (which is another great arrow choice if you would rather stray from the tri-elemental build.) In fact, a great pvp build for her is max the elemental masteries, enchant, and thunderstorm. Your enemies will be hurting the second they step out.
And of course you could easily do what Avenger paladins do and just choose two out of three, like maxing lightning and fire mastery, then using a bigger, badder bow, or doing fire and cold to free up your armor and use a Chain of Honors to solve your resist problems. Whatever tickles you fancy really. My build was as so:
Dream - Crown
Dragon - Breast Plate
Ice - Cedar Bow (low dex/str, I went for very little physical dmg)
Mara's Kaleidescope
Laying of Hand's
Immortal King's Detail
Natalya's Soul
Raven Frost
Rare Ring with resist and life
Fire, lightning, cold mastery - 20 (60)
Thunderstorm - 20
Frozen Orb - 16 (Used to help out in hell as a backup skill)
Level - 84
I built her over a year ago, and since then I have quit and lost her, but she was fierce. I never did get my hands on an Infinity though : [ But I still did well in most parts of hell without it. I can't imagine how good it would be with Conviction XD I did use a lower resist wand on big guys and groups though.
And trust me, until you get used to evasion and good bow skills, you will die... alot... great thing about this is that unless you use a non-prebuff backup skill, you can keep your attack on your left click and teleport on your right, so once you get the hang of teleporting away while sending arrows out, you'll be golden. I must say this is one of the most fun builds I've ever done. The leveling does suck since you don't start killing well until you have a few masteries and at least one of the Holy Aura items on. Keep on keepin' on, it is worth it!
Thank's so much for reading, hope your inspired to revive the bowsorc builds. There are so many great unique and runeword bows out there! Put some of your sorceresses power into an arrow once in a while and watch the minions fall.
EDIT: Oh yeah, another cool thing aobut the elemental auras setup is that they can all be put on a rogue, which, plainly put, is just freaking awesome. I let a rogue hireling SOLO normal and part of nightmare before she died, it was amazing.
The Hellslinger, my take on the ultimate bowasorc.
This is a very short guide, because quite frankly it is a simple build. A bit expensive, but it only requires a few high runes to really work. The skill allocation is simple and straightforward. The stats are minimal. depending on your playing style, you could pretty much rule with near-base stats as far as strength and dexterity go. The skill of use? Attack. Left or right click, thats all.
Given the new runewords as of 1.11, I decided to look past everything that other people used. Oh! The zeal pally with dream! The dual-dreamers Passion zeal sorc! I said nay to both of those and instead I decided to unite the holy trinity of ice, fire, and lightning into one single, devastating unit... an arrow.
Stats:
Everything depends on your bow, since your armor can just be a breast plate. Find out how much you will need and dump the rest into life. No mana is needed for this build whatsoever as you won't have enough after your gear to make use of energy shield.
Skills:
Easy peasy, max all three elemental masteries. For the rest of your skill points, you could max out Enchant, but the bow has ITD, so it isn't required. However it helps in pvp. Also, since it has no synergies, is extra damage, and is also good in pvp, Thunderstorm is another possibilty. Other than that, maybe invest a point or so in a cold armor. Hell, you could max teleport just to make it cheap and still complete this build by level 80, its all you buddy.
Gear:
Here's where the power comes from. The three main items that will make your Hellslinger are your Dragon Armor, Ice Bow, and Dream Helm.
Dragon (Runeword, Armor)
20% Chance to Cast Slvl 18 Venom when Struck
12% Chance to Cast Slvl 15 Hydra on Striking
Slvl 14 Holy Fire Aura when Equipped
+360 Defense
+230 Defense Vs. Missile
+3-5 to All Attributes
+0.375 to Strength Per Clvl
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Damage Reduced by 7%
Dream (Runeword, Helm)
10% Chance to Cast Slvl 15 Confuse when Struck
Slvl 15 Holy Shock Aura when Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense
+10 to Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+0.625 Mana Per Clvl
All Resistances +5-20
15-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Ice (Runeword, Bow)
100% Chance to Cast Slvl 40 Blizzard when You Slvl-up
25% Chance to Cast Slvl 22 Frost Nova on Striking
Slvl 18 Holy Freeze Aura when Equipped
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+140-210% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
+25-30% to Cold Skill Damage
-20% to Enemy Cold Resistance
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
20% Deadly Strike
3.125% Extra Gold from Monsters Per Clvl
Three masteries, coupled with three big auras. A high level Holy Shock, Fire, and Freeze will make you a walking tower of doom. Aside from dealing damage to anything nearby (you can pretty much walk through normal) you already have Holy Freeze, which frees up a space for a better merc. Get a good act 2 merc with an Infinity, and that conviction will make you kill anything short of something immune to fire, ice, and lightning.
There is one main problem with this build (I, and some of you, will call it a challenge though.) Resist is LOW, and with your armor, helm, and shiled taken up, you have to rely on your lesser items. Some good ideas are as follows:
Gloves:
Laying of Hands - 50% fire resist, IAS <--- Gloves need this!
Magnus's Skin - 15% fire resist, attack rating.
Lavagout - 24% fire resist, fire damage, chance to cast enchant (quite sexy)
Boots:
Sandstorm Treks - 40-70% Poison resist, other great bonuses.
Infernostride - 30% fire resist.
Tearhaunches - 10% all
Natalya's Soul - 15-25% cold and lightning, great choice!
Belts:
Nightsmoke - 10% all
Credendum - 15% all, strength and dex, probably your best choice.
Immortal King's Detail - 28% fire, 38% lightning resist
The rest can be taken care of with charms. Mara's Kaleidescope is almost a must have because of it's resist. If you can get anni and torch you should be alright.
So that is the basic build. If you can spare the resists with other items, this is quite a great character. Use Highlord's, Razortail, and a +20% IAS gloves and you have a fairly-fast-firing pierceing arrow with massive tri-elemental damage, as well as damage done just by coming near you. As stated before, this build has enough wiggle room to max a backup skill or two, so you can either switch to Spirit/Occy and throw something a bit bigger then go back to arrow spamming.
Also, since Holy Freeze is usually bad mannered in duels, just switch it ouw for Buriza, Hellrack, or another good bow. To be good in pvp however, it is recommended that enchant be maxed unless you use Widowmaker (which is another great arrow choice if you would rather stray from the tri-elemental build.) In fact, a great pvp build for her is max the elemental masteries, enchant, and thunderstorm. Your enemies will be hurting the second they step out.
And of course you could easily do what Avenger paladins do and just choose two out of three, like maxing lightning and fire mastery, then using a bigger, badder bow, or doing fire and cold to free up your armor and use a Chain of Honors to solve your resist problems. Whatever tickles you fancy really. My build was as so:
Dream - Crown
Dragon - Breast Plate
Ice - Cedar Bow (low dex/str, I went for very little physical dmg)
Mara's Kaleidescope
Laying of Hand's
Immortal King's Detail
Natalya's Soul
Raven Frost
Rare Ring with resist and life
Fire, lightning, cold mastery - 20 (60)
Thunderstorm - 20
Frozen Orb - 16 (Used to help out in hell as a backup skill)
Level - 84
I built her over a year ago, and since then I have quit and lost her, but she was fierce. I never did get my hands on an Infinity though : [ But I still did well in most parts of hell without it. I can't imagine how good it would be with Conviction XD I did use a lower resist wand on big guys and groups though.
And trust me, until you get used to evasion and good bow skills, you will die... alot... great thing about this is that unless you use a non-prebuff backup skill, you can keep your attack on your left click and teleport on your right, so once you get the hang of teleporting away while sending arrows out, you'll be golden. I must say this is one of the most fun builds I've ever done. The leveling does suck since you don't start killing well until you have a few masteries and at least one of the Holy Aura items on. Keep on keepin' on, it is worth it!
Thank's so much for reading, hope your inspired to revive the bowsorc builds. There are so many great unique and runeword bows out there! Put some of your sorceresses power into an arrow once in a while and watch the minions fall.
EDIT: Oh yeah, another cool thing aobut the elemental auras setup is that they can all be put on a rogue, which, plainly put, is just freaking awesome. I let a rogue hireling SOLO normal and part of nightmare before she died, it was amazing.