Any guide for FO/Firewall ?

[chien]

Hi,all:

I've read through ideas of Blizzard/fireball or Blizzard/firewall. I am thinking, why not FO/Firewall. Both skills don't need synergy (or no synergy) to work well. Basically, 20 FO, 20 CM, 20 Firewall and 20 FM. With pre-reqs (ice bolt, ice blast, frost nova, glacial spike, blizzard, telekinesis, inferno, and blaze) and utility skills (warm, static and teleport), it takes 91 skill points to finish @ lvl80 (79 level up points + 12 bonus skill points). After everything is done, you can put points to tele or orb synergy or shield trees) It should be a good starter char.

Suggestion?

Chien

[stephan]

You need to figure out for yourself what you are going to do with her. If you want to run meph with her (which she can do pretty well), you should expect to use FO more than FW and therefor you might want to take some points out of FM to put into Ice Bolt.

I have made a untwinked FO/FW sorc not so long ago and she is perfectly viable.

[bubux]

Don't MAX Cold Mastery! It is not worht going bellow -100% cold resistance wich is just about lvl 17 Cold Mastery. If you know you will get a +5 all skills gear soon don't put more than 12 points into Cold Mastery.

This way you can save some points for whatever you find useful. If you don't find where to put em, place them into Ice Bolt, which will give more average damage than puting those in Cold Mastery.

[bubux]

I am also thinking about making an Frozen Orb/Firewall sorc. But i'm still haven't decided between that and a Frozen Orb/Melee(Enchant) sorc.
Sure Melee sorc is way more fun but it needs ALOT of gear. So I guess I will stick to the FO/Firewall sorc for MF.

[chien]

Don't MAX Cold Mastery! It is not worht going bellow -100% cold resistance wich is just about lvl 17 Cold Mastery. If you know you will get a +5 all skills gear soon don't put more than 12 points into Cold Mastery.

This way you can save some points for whatever you find useful. If you don't find where to put em, place them into Ice Bolt, which will give more average damage than puting those in Cold Mastery.

Check the discussion about blizzard/fw build about CM here :http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=217480

You will need lvl32 CM to make -100 CR out of Meph in Hell mode. But, for most monsters, you don't need that high CM. I choose to max it since this will be untwinked for me for now :grin:

It might be useful to put the resting pts in teleport. See the interesting Hardcore Orb/TK Blind-Teleporting Budget MF Sorceress :wink3: Except, I don't feel the need to use ES in softcore.

Chien

[melianor]

Don't MAX Cold Mastery! It is not worht going bellow -100% cold resistance wich is just about lvl 17 Cold Mastery.

This only counts if you are heading to use 2 trees. Single element sorceresses should always use max CM. Dual tree builds have enough with CM lvl 17 +skill included.

There is no specific guide for FO/FW, since its pretty straight forward.
20 FW
20 FM
20 FO
20 Icebolt (FO synergy)
1-xx Cold Mastery :)
Don't forget the 1pt wonders: Warmth, Static Field, Telekinesis, Shiver Armor.

You might consider one thing though. FO is a semi-spam spell, but FW is not. Also the timers from FW and FO will interfere sometimes. Having no spamming spell you will have to use some different tactics and play maybe a bit slower when encountering cold immune monsters, but otherwise you should be fine.

[Nephos]

I haven't gotten around to playing since the reset, but I plan to start an Orb/FW sorceress when I do. I have only used an unsynergized Orb in the past (1 in Ice Bolt), and I noticed that Orb's killing power really drops when I move to Hell. Will maxing Ice Bolt make a noticeable difference in Hell? I used the skill clalc at one point to determine it would add around 200 points per shard with +10 skills or so, but its hard for me to say if that 200 points will really make an impact.

[chien]

This only counts if you are heading to use 2 trees. Single element sorceresses should always use max CM. Dual tree builds have enough with CM lvl 17 +skill included.

There is no specific guide for FO/FW, since its pretty straight forward.
20 FW
20 FM
20 FO
20 Icebolt (FO synergy)
1-xx Cold Mastery :)
Don't forget the 1pt wonders: Warmth, Static Field, Telekinesis, Shiver Armor.

You might consider one thing though. FO is a semi-spam spell, but FW is not. Also the timers from FW and FO will interfere sometimes. Having no spamming spell you will have to use some different tactics and play maybe a bit slower when encountering cold immune monsters, but otherwise you should be fine.

Oh, I thought that the general idea is not to max the FO synergy since it only add 2% per level. Is it better to have 20 to CM and 1-xx Icebolt instead? Since this will be a starter sorc, I don't expect to have too many +skill gears.

Chien

[stephan]

It's a bit difficult to factor in CM versus Ice Bolt since monster resistances vary.

With a level 17 CM FO would do 5 times as much damage against Mephisto, but against a monster with 0% cold res it would only double it. With few +skills pumping CM is generally better, but I recommend taking some points out of FM as well.

[melianor]

I would not recommend to take points out of FM. Apart from facets and items, there is no way to reduce elemental resistances like with Cold Mastery.

Concerning CM: You can count about 102 skillpoints for lvl90. So with 7 prereqs and 3 1pt wonders (Shiver armor comes from staff) you still have 10pts to put in CM. With some few more +skills you can easily reach CM lvl 17. Maybe getting CM to lvl32 with +skills would be worth it and then just dump the rest in Icebolt, but considering you have 2 trees to cast spells from you should be covered fine with maxed synergy and some really nice addition damage to your Orb.

[dymi]

Hello

I played FW/FO sorc till the end of last ladder.

"+"

quite unique build - you have to be patient and carefull to play her
two elements
No need to stack FCR (less item dependant)

"-"
No spamable spell
FW is not so good as it looks like. (You have to pin monsters in it)
It takes surprisingly long to kill Meph with her
Meteorb is better (FB>FW, and Ice bolt does not help orb to much)

I realy was disapointed with her. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[stephan]

I could kill meph in roughly 10 seconds, and that's completely untwinked. Yes, it is not a Blizzard sorc, but I wouldn't call this long either considering the time needed to create games and actually get too him.

[bubux]

Hello

I played FW/FO sorc till the end of last ladder.

"+"

quite unique build - you have to be patient and carefull to play her
two elements
No need to stack FCR (less item dependant)

"-"
No spamable spell
FW is not so good as it looks like. (You have to pin monsters in it)
It takes surprisingly long to kill Meph with her
Meteorb is better (FB>FW, and Ice bolt does not help orb to much)

I realy was disapointed with her. Sorry to burst your bubble.


I never played a Firewall sorc. But I can tell you why you wasn't so successful with her. For your Firewall to do some damage monsters need to walk slowly over it and better yet, when possible, stand still over it. For that a Nightmare Act2 Merc with Holy Freeze aura is needed. Did you used one?

Also, to kill Mephisto with firewall you need to do the moat trick so you can keep him burning =p. Also try to cast alternately firewall/frozen orb to do more damage per second.

[Heskla]

I would recommend:

20 FO
~15 Synergy
~15 CM
20 FW
20 FM

Rest into Teleport, Telekinesis and dump the rest into SF. Having SF a few levels up is a very nice thing. Mana Shield/ColdArmor on switch stave...

[melianor]

I would recommend:

20 FO
~15 Synergy
~15 CM
20 FW
20 FM

Rest into Teleport, Telekinesis and dump the rest into SF. Having SF a few levels up is a very nice thing. Mana Shield/ColdArmor on switch stave...
Sounds like a nice suggestion :) Surely handling firewall takes some skill and training. Orb is a no brainer to cast and use.

[Uzziah]

I am actually in the process of building one of these in Single player.

The FO works really well on most monsters. It's really not hard to get a +2-3 firewall for a leaf staff which really boosts your firewall skill, I think my firewall is putting out 5500-6000 fire damage and I am only in act 5 Nightmare untwinked.

But the FO seems to be the real killer. Even though mine is only putting out 340-360 per bolt before mastery.

I am going with

20 firewall
20 FM
20 FO
10 CM
1 warmth
1 prereq

After which I am not sure whether I will go with ice bolt or go some other route (maybe thunderstorm for S&G's)

[chien]

I would recommend:

20 FO
~15 Synergy
~15 CM
20 FW
20 FM

Rest into Teleport, Telekinesis and dump the rest into SF. Having SF a few levels up is a very nice thing. Mana Shield/ColdArmor on switch stave...

Good suggestion, however, you will use ~101 points (5 pre-reqs for FO, 2 pre-reqs for FW and 4 utility skill pt (SF, telekin, teleport and warm)). You will need ~lvl90 to have all these points. I would suggest (for untwinked, as of right now :P): Put 1 pt each in warm, inferno, blaze, ice bolt, ice blast, f. nova, blizzard, SF, telek and teleport) and start to put point to FW until FO is available. Max FO and CM (or 10-15 first), then finish FW and FM. You will only need 91 pts for this (between lvl 80-84). Then, the rest can be in FO synergy or SF (good suggestion) or teleport (less mana).

I don't really think I want to level this char >lvl 90 :grin: I also realize that this build is not super powerful. If I need one, I would build an infinity light sorc or enigma hammerdin or others later this season :wink3:

Chien

[Uzziah]

Surely handling firewall takes some skill and training

quite true the best ways to use firewall are:

1. keep it close to you and your merc, you can use it like a spoke on a bike, if you cast it close to you the monsters running at you will run the length of the wall. likewise when monsters are in melee with you or your merc they are stationary and easily targeted.

2. the door trick, stand slightly off center of the doorways and you can place a FW like a spoke through the doorway, This works really well when you can attract a group through a doorway as you retrace your steps. Also you can place firewalls as a T through a doorway to kill off monsters on the side of a door.

3. And of course the corner trick find a corner any corner and place the FW along the opposing wall edge monsters tend to stay against the walls and sometimes get stuck around corners which really works well for a FW placement.