Hardcore Fire Sorceress - need help!

[CelticValor]

I am making a Hardcore Fire Sorceress on USWest Ladder. I will be playing completely untwinked. Now, previous Sorceress' that I have made have used Energy Shield to much success. However, given the large number of synergies to maximize Fire damage, I find myself running low on points. I was looking for suggestions as to what to do. The way I see it, I could either cut back on ES/TK (or possibly not have it at all, though my VIT will be lower due to dex requirements for max block. Another option is to forgo blocking and just pump VIT), or to cut back on some of the fire synergies. Looking at them, I'm not sure if I would maximize damage using fire mastery or one of the synergies. I will be playing with a friend using a Lightning Fury Amazon, and one of us will have a Holy Freeze Mercenary, so there is no need to go dual element. Any opinions greatly appreciated.

[HeroXVII]

Cut back on TK.

[Ankeli]

Since it's HC I'd go with no block and max vita with ES/TK. Leave ES at 1 point and pop it up with memory or alike, max TK.

[brokensvt]

Cut back on TK.

Don't provide horrid advice if you aren't familiar with the subject matter. If he wants ES, he needs FULL ES. It's one thing to screw up skill placement on a regular realm character, but this guy is playing Hardcore. He needs sound advice from someone who knows Hardcore.

[squiggle]

I'd say for fire sorc, Non ES.

Go max block, Rest vita. Just make sure you have enough Fhr/fcr to tele safe. And decent res/life. Fire sorcs are awesome :D Have fun.

DON'T cut back on tk, As broken said. Either go ES or not, If your going with ES you need max tk. =]

[CelticValor]

Okay, so, my two options seem to be:

Full fire with all synergies, max blocking (because from my experience, max block > max vita on a sorc.), no ES.

or

Partial fire, lacking (at best) one synergy, but with ES/TK and max blocking.

The damage loss seems to be fairly substantial when dropping one of the synergies (just going by chippydip's skill calc.), so perhaps a non-ES build would be best. One other thing to keep in mind, though, is the huge amount of TPPKers lately. Literally 3/4 of all Baal runs are chalk full of them. Block will help with Amazons, but against another Sorceress ES could prove invaluable. Easiest solution is to avoid public games all together, but sometimes that's just not possible.

[Ankeli]

Or the way I'd do it:

Partial fire, max tk, 1 point es (cast with memory staff), full vita, no block.

[OsTo]

try this

20 firebolt
20 fireball
20 meteor
20 mastery
1 warmth
3 prereq
-------------
84 - points

20 telekinesis
1 teleport
1 static field
----------------
22
+84
-------
106 points needed

so at lvl 96
u would be max

static shield u get from +3 energi staff + memmory

which safe u 4 skill points

but dunno about this since u untwinked...

and if u aim for 200 FCR no block, otherwise full block

[AgentMarth]

I'd go with OsTo's skill placement.

If you want to, you could always just shoot for 16 in TK for the 1:1 ratio.

However, you are going HC, so block, always block. One really good reason is mana burners, if you get to dependent on ES, get mana burned and it breaks, you get screwed. Well, since only melee can do that really, a 3/4 chance to stop that mana burn is ever so nice. Don't forget blocking Dolls explosion /Frenzytaurs /Lister and hard hitting melee. The only elemental attack you need to be worried about it Souls.

Of course, you don't need to max damage on her, what would be the point if she turns out frail? This ain't SC with all there glass cannons, you need to make sacrifices or really enjoy rebuild characters alot. I would really only plan on ~85 too, anymore past that will start to take to long. So just subtract ~10 from most likely firebolt. With 20/20/20/10 setup and no plus skills, you are looking at a 2.8k-3k fireball if I did it right, with 20/20/20/20, its 3.5k-4k. But safety? Or damage?

Untwinked though is that hard part, just try to get a +3 ES orb, or hope from some Lum's

[xZerasx]

Only level 95, actually :smiley: .

But either way...
I wouldn't bother with full points in firebolt.

Without Firebolt Max:
Meteor@+10 Skills: 11.5k
Fireball@+10 Skills: 5k

Meteor@+20 Skills: 21k
Fireball@+20 Skills: 9k

With Firebolt Max:
Meteor@+10 Skills: 18k
Fireball@+10 Skills: 8.5k

Meteor@+20 Skills: 31k
Fireball@+20 Skills: 15.5k


So at +10 Skills, the difference between regular and max firebolt is 3.5k damage. Seems like a lot? On paper, sure. But not in reality. A 50% resist monster in Hell will cut that difference down to just 1.7k. And considering most monsters will take just 3-5 fireball anyway, a reduction of 1-2 isn't really an issue - most of your time spent will be running/teleporting anyway. Against bosses, It becomes a bit more of a difference. but again. Even at +20 skills, the difference with most bosses will be just over 3k damage per fireball. But then again - with a 9k fireball, meph will die in 3 statics and 15 fireballs. Cutting it down to ~7 fireballs doesnt make much of a difference in your run. In addition, the OP said he was playing untwinked. Thus, +20 skills is a far-off dream. By level 75 he may have +2 or +3 to skills, so the gap will be even smaller.

Having the benefit of energy shield is greater than this. At most you will only have around +10 Lightning skills, because you are focusing on your fire tree. So without pumping energy shield, you'll get 67% damage reduced. If you pump it, this goes to 85%. While 18% might not seem like much, in HC it can be a lot. Especially considering you can take upwards of 5k damage from many enemies, an extra 15% is lifesaving - especially if you dont have amazing gear. It could mean the difference between another successful run and the dreaded "Your Deeds Will Be Forgotten". And with the lack of gear, the 15% difference spreads to a possible 40% between max ES and 1 ES. Basically, the difference between an empty blue orb or an empty red one.

Thus, Id go with OsTo's same build, but pull the points from firebolt to energy shield. ES is invaluable, just like Max Block. You don't see many players settling for 60% block, do you?

Remember, survival is the name of the game.

[PhatTrumpet]

Yes but that 18% only applies while your ES is up. There are far too many mana burn threats in the game to be relying so heavily on ES. It should be looked at more as a buffer than as a substitute to your life bulb.

It looks like the Hardcore players who have commented in this thread are generally in agreement: max TK, 1 ES (or prebuff), rest in the fire tree.

The max block / max vita issue is more a matter of preference. I like max block, but depending on your play style you may be able to get away without it, in which case a 'Spirit' Monarch has some really tasty mods on it.

[AgentMarth]

There are far too many mana burn threats in the game to be relying so heavily on ES. It should be looked at more as a buffer than as a substitute to your life bulb.

There is alot of truth in that statement. You shouldn't ever depend fully on ES in HC, there will come a time it breaks, and when it does, you don't want to be screwed.

That and it uses mana, and can use alot of it. Untwinked, unless you puts point in mana, which I never have on ANY of my HC characters, mana will be hard to come by, and a few hard hitting attacks will drain it fast, max TK or not, then you will rely on your life.

Still, even so, its still means that more hits will be needed to take you out, which means more time to juv or save and exit.

Oh and for block, I use a up'd Eld'd Visce.

[xZerasx]

I can see the truth in that. But a few things:

Are Manaburns really that common? And even against a manaburn, wouldn't taking an extra hit from it be more useful than taking it down in 1-5 less hits?
After having read the Blind-Teleporting Orb Guide I've even been wondering whether or not it is worth it to pump points into Teleport or even Warmth just as an extra defense (so you can teleport even if you get drained).

Also, while I can see that manaburns may be the real bane of experienced players, I find that less-experienced players (ie : me) often get killed by packs or the occasional Extra Strong/Extra Fast. I was thinking by pumping ES, you could take another hit or so from these types of monsters, and still have some left in your orb to teleport away. As a side note, assuming untwinked, for the large part of the sorceresses life the difference between a maxed or even 10 point ES is much greater than the 18% I cited.

But again, I am not that experienced with the HC scene (only one character to 75, and that was 1.10) so I am probably wrong about these issues. Either way, I hope your responses can enlighten me :smiley:

[CelticValor]

Quite a bit of great information here, thanks everybody. Looks like I'll be maxing Fireball, Meteor, Fire Mastery, TK, and putting one point in the pre-reqs and cold armor. One more question - If I use a staff with +ES on it and I have +skills coming from other gear, will those +skills apply to the gain from the staff? For example, +3 ES from a staff (without a "real" skill point in ES) and +1 sorceress skills from an amulet.

Extra points could go into either firebolt, teleport or ES. All 3 options seem viable, depending on my stat point allocation. More in firebolt would get me higher damage, which, theoretically would help keep me alive longer by causing enemies to die faster. Teleport could be useful, but with only a few extra points to spare, might not be significant. ES is always doable too.

[PhatTrumpet]

Are Manaburns really that common?
Well yes, but it's not really a matter of how common they are. They're there, and eventually you'll run into a nasty one, and in Hardcore you have to build your character to survive every foreseeable obstacle you can.

When you pump EShield to any significant extent you're inevitably going to have to do a balancing act between your energy and vitality, which means you're going to be sacrificing points in vitality, which just makes you more vulnerable to mana burn.

Note also that mana burn in melee drains 256 times as much mana as it should (due to a typo in the game code).