Building the perfect light key runner

[fahartle]

Hello all,
I found a nature's peace, so I'm going to build a lightning sorc to be my ideal key runner. I know that Countess/Summoner are a walk in the park, but I struggled last season with Nihlathak. I read here that a nova sorc had an easy time of him because of damage lock and I had a few tweaking questions.

Gear for my sorc
Tal's ammy
Tal's armor
Tal's belt
Spirit sword (or +2 light mastery Tal orb), also have wizzy
Silkweave boots
Bloodfist (also have magefists)
Pcrown - have a rockstopper if the damage reduction is better
Whistan's shield (for easy max block)
Nature's peace
10 FCR ring

*I've been playing a while so I have pretty good mid level gear I can swap out like Viper's, credendum, SoE if it'd be more effective. Feel free to make suggestions!

1) Would you go with nova or the more traditional pure lightning sorc? Again, this will strictly be a key runner so I don't think I need godly damage on a single spell.
2) Either way, would you max your damage skills or invest some in Telekinesis, Teleport, Energy Shield?
3) Merc or no merc? I like my mercs normally and am concerned about this build without infinity. But I know they're a pain with his Corpse Explosion. But at 34+ per cast for Nova maxed out plus the energy shield, I'm awfully tempted to keep my insight.
4) If you did take a merc, what would you equip him with? Sure, infinity would be ideal, but beyond my means right now. I was thinking a holy freeze (to possibly crumble frozen enemies that he kills and cut down on the CE problem) with Ral'ed Andy's, Insight CV, and a Sol'ed Arcane armor (21 damage reduction?). Any changes you'd make?

Thanks guys!

[deslok]

Doesn't nature's peace prevent corpse explosion? So that shouldn't be a problem for your merc, should it? From Arreat Summit:

"Nature's Peace: "Slain Monsters Rest in Peace" means that the bodies can't be resurrected or they can't be used to raise skeletons (Necromancer). They can't be used for Corpse Explosion either. It will work only if you kill the enemy with a physical damage or elemental (Blizzard or Fireball) and not magical damage. The ring will work for the Paladin's Blessed Hammer skill."

[fahartle]

IIRC, nature's only RIPs the enemies you yourself kill. Any enemy that the merc kills can be exploded/raised (unless he is wearing RIP himself - who's got a spare Tyrael's Might, I can use?).

[mztan]

Hey fahartle.
Just my two cents here. I think your damage spell of choice is relatively irrelevant in running keys (although nova is a fine choice). With that in mind, IMO survivability is much more important. This is why I prefer Insight over Infinity. I had previously never used a holy freeze merc, but so far this season it's all I've used, and I'm really liking it. It really is much more effective than I thought it would be.

For your merc armor, I've never tried 21DR arcane armor... but isn't that approximately a cheap Glad Bane? IMO Glad Bane is excellent, but you can't go wrong with a Shaft, etc.

Also, if your resists are good, I'd recommend Infernostrides over the Silks. The Silks don't very much for you, and I think the extra max fire resist is pretty useful, especially against CE. I'd also use the wizspike to help max out resists (unless you think that's sacrificing too much damage). Err actually, you'd hit the breakpoint too (simply invaluable for efficient running).

Etc, etc. Just my thoughts :)

[fahartle]

Hmmm, that's a good thought. What about going all out on your resists and getting a guardian angel armor? Would you sacrifice too much in the way of actual resists (i.e. rather than the increase max resists) and faster cast rate? Or perhaps physical damage reduction is more important as you're already taking off 75% of fire (assuming maxed resists) but none of the physical component of the corpose explosion?

[mztan]

Haha, funny you mention Gangel, as my other thread is all about a 95 res sorc build.
Well, I assumed that you're wearing the Tal armor for the MF and partial set bonus (and decent resists). IMO if you're interested solely in running keys, I think the MF is superfluous. In light of that, I'd probably go for up'd Vmagi for FCR, +1 to all, and resists (and ptopaz if you so desire). You'd easily reach the breakpoint that way (with wizzy), and you might not even need the FCR ring in that case.

Not too sure about the damage reduction though. I think you'd be sacrificing too much damage by trying to get good PDR/MDR (e.g. Gerkes, Glad Bane, String, VampGaze). With ES and max res, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, I'd imagine.

Not to mention that hopefully you'd be doing most of the killing so CE won't be as big of a problem.

EDIT: Oh! Also, my personal favorite is Dwarf Star for 15MDR, 15%fire sorb, 40 life, AND 100% goldfind! You could swap that for your FCR if you already have enough to hit the breakpoint.

[mztan]

Also, out of curiosity, how fast are you running Nith right now?

[AgentMarth]

IMO, the thing to worry about most when running Nihlathak, is those damn Vipers. Just make sure you have enough PDR to counter them.

1. I'd just max lighting, teleport into a corner thats the safest, then name-lock Nihlathak, and then fire till he is dead. It worked well enough for me in full Baal run games in my SC days. I only see Nova good when you are self wielding an Infinity.

2. ES is a personal choice, I like it, but you have to use it properly.

3/4. Use a Holy Freeze merc with something like Shaft and a decent LL helm. Insight would be fine. If you merc does get a kill, Nihlathak should be stuck in FHR from the lighting so as to not CE, so you just need to worry about those damn Vipers.

Oh, and I would use Waterwalks for the boots, Dex, Life, and +5 max FR. I love those boots.

[Azuremen]

Cast rate is critical if you are running. I will settle for nothing but the 105% break point when doing runs. Why? Because you can tele into and out of pack before than can react in most cases. Since I am using lightning, I actually went for the 117% break point, makes a world of difference.

The Countess is actually my least fav with my Light sorc, mostly because of the light immune archers that are a super headache to kill. Insight is certainly handy when running, more so when using light skills. Trick to avoiding the death explosion is to keep your merc in line with teleporting, along with killing a few enemies, teleporting away from the pack, and constantly moving. Saves you from the strays your merc kills more often.

[mztan]

Countess isn't even that bad, as she is what I normally run. I generally just ignore LI archers by teleing around them... though they do manage to snipe me every once in a while :(

[Noite Escura]

An option is an Act 5 merc with Lawbringer sword(Act 3 also wrosk but are not preferred). It does have the SMRIP mod and is usually cheaper then Tyraels Might. The Sanctuary aura also repels undead.

[fahartle]

Yeah, I've been trying to run all three with my first character, an mf sorc. It's not the ideal build as I didn't have any stat boosting gear and should've gone more energy with my Energy Shield. Here's what I've got now:

lvl 92
maxed lightning, charged bolt, chain, mastery, and 17 I think in nova. 1 pt in tele, frozen armor, etc...

Stats
str - 166, dex - 90, vit - 313, ene - 138

Gear
Wizzy
Frostburns
Rockstopper
Tal's armor, ammy, belt
raven frost
nature's peace
spirit monarch
Sandstorm trek

Holy Freeze merc with
Ral'd Andy's
Sol'd Arcaine's Valor
CV insight

I like to play with two mules in the game with my other CD keys so that makes things a bit tougher. I can do it, it's just real dicey at times. Those freakin vipers are rough, but I find my merc can survive long enough for me to lightning them down.

What nails me more often than not is his CE. I tried teleing right on him and using nova and that was a disaster all three times. I take too long to kill him and he'll eventually get off a CE or two. With my ES on (which just about splits the damage between my life and mana pools) one CE will cut both pots down to about 20%. Two is instant death. I can do it okay, but I wouldn't mind a gear or stat change that would let me survive two or three CEs. That's what I was envisioning for a new build (I like making them anywho). What do you think about Guardian Angel armor, Infernostrides, and a few charms to hit 95% fire res? Think that would help significantly?

Starting off from scratch with a new build, I was thinking that I could save the points in nova and put them toward ES and Telekenisis for extra damage control. I'd use less str, get a blocking shield and go for max block (does that help with the vipers and/or CE?), and put about 2/3rds in energy and only 1/3rd in vitality. I'd still be up close to 10K for my max light damage, I think. I'm essentially wondering if changing a few things around could make things tremendously safer and faster. Maybe not, though.

Of course, I could just wait until my second enigma and make a hammerdin as my key runner ^_^.

[Azuremen]

Far, I think keeping your killing speed up would be far more beneficial than increasing the chance of items (not necessarily keys) dropping a small %

Personally, I feel ES is a waste. Why? Because it does not benefit from resistances or reduce damage. High resistances and life are much better than high res and ES I feel, and I think math agrees. I think 30 pts could always be spent to increase your killing rate, which means less chances to be attacked over time.

My pure light sorc, with maxxed CB, Light, CL and Mastery drops him in 5 to 9 lightning hits. He doesn't get a chance to cast anything. Best defense is a good offense. Teleport in, Lightning Nih, then CL for clean up. Works wonderfully unless he is light immune.

[mztan]

Hmm... how much lightning damage are you doing?

You could do Guardian + Waterwalks, but that seems like overkill. Or you could make a Phoenix and not worry about CE :).

As it stands, with your current build (aka standard pure damage) you might as well just run Meph as God intended the litesorc to do.

Since you have the patience and resources, you should build my teletank and tell me how that works out for you :). Tweaked with some offensive spells to boot.

[mztan]

Because it does not benefit from resistances or reduce damage.

But resistances and DR (%DR, PDR, MDR) all benefit from ES. I don't encourage maxing energy over vitality, but ES is indispensable considering that you have 300+% mana regen. at your disposal.

[Azuremen]

But resistances and DR (%DR, PDR, MDR) all benefit from ES. I don't encourage maxing energy over vitality, but ES is indispensable considering that you have 300+% mana regen. at your disposal.

Which, with a level 15 meditation, I still find barely adequate for just spamming light spells, let alone if I get mana burned.

Lets see... 1000 fire dmg attack. 75% fire res.

With Max ES and level 20 Telekinesis.
You'll lose 712.5 mana, and 12.5 life

With just pure Res and no ES.
250 Life.

Basically, in order to keep your ES up after that hit, you would need over 300 pts in energy. I would rather keep my mana bulb up so I can kill or teleport away, rather than seeing my skill turn red as I realize I have no mana left to cast with. Of course, you can boost your mana bulb with gear, but then you start to lose cast rate, damage, etc.

And I just remember ES absorbs all magic damages, so its 750 mana lost and 0 life... I would still rather keep my mana and be able to escape then stand there and take one more hit before I die.

[mztan]

It's true that the mana burn is horrible, but that one hit would otherwise R.I.P. you right there.

I'd rather have life and no mana and suck down a rejuv and teleport away rather than being dead :(

Assuming we're being hit by CE, if it is 1000 fire damage, there's another 1000 physical damage to go along with it. Without ES (and let's assume for now we don't have %DR equipment), 1000 final damage usually translates to instant death. With ES, you might survive long enough to get away.

Of course, depending on the build we might be dead either way. But I think your chances are better with ES.

Generally speaking, it is much easier to boost mana for cheap than boost hp. Hence, we see items like Frosties with +40% max mana and not +40% max hp. Fah's build already has Wizspike + Frosties + Spirit Monarch, which amounts to a good amount of mana.

Ultimately, I do like ES and it has saved me in situations where I otherwise would not even have had time to react. However, whether or not it is pertinent in running Nith... well, I guess its usefulness must be weighed with the gain in damage output from not using it.

[SoCal44]

I know this was geared to light, but would a Meteorb sorc work? My MFer with full Tals hits fairly decently 12k Meteorb and still has points to grow and I have a Natures Peace to help with CE.

I have only run Countess (for runes, keys were just a side benefit) but want to start collecting keys for runs with my up and comming pally.

[fahartle]

Hmmm, this is a very interesting discussion here about life versus ES mana shielding. As a way of immediate example, I have a life bulb of 906 and a mana bulb with 1149 (with charms and extras - no Call to Arms). With a single point in telekenisis and ES, a single Corpse Explosion will suck down both bulbs to approximately 25-33% (just eyeballing it). My ES skill appears to shift about 50% of the damage to mana, perhaps a bit more but it hits the mana bulb harder because resists don't come into play. At any rate, a single CE hit is taking off about 675-600 life and 760-850 mana. Gotta say that's a whopping powerful hit you got that Nithy...

Figuring out the damage on that gets awfully complicated . . . A net loss of about 1450 mana/life points. But it's 50/50 fire and physical. 75% fire resist, but I don't know if it applies to the mana hit. There's three people in my games and there's also 10% damage reduction on the rockstopper. Jeez, my brain hurts already...

Obviously, I could improve my gear a bit (shako, a +3 lightning ammy, HotO, String of Ears) would help things dramatically. I would love to know, though, what the same CE hit would do if, say, I only maxed, CB, Lightning, and mastery, then 15 to chain lightning, 14 to telekinesis, and 10 to ES. That would lower my lightning damage from the current 4-11,610 (5800 mid point) to 4-7935 (3967 mid point, about a third lower or 1800 lower per cast). But Energy shield would also soak up 72% of the damage rather than 55% of the damage. Also, with the synergies with telekinesis, the high damage route applies damage to mana at a 1:1.93 ratio (so one damage to the life is almost two to mana - this makes me question that resists must apply or I would think the mana hit would be far greater than it is in my current setup...). But with 14 points in telekinesis, the ratio would be 1:1.12, or almost one to one. About an 80% or so reduction in the mana hit.

Freakin-a, really need a stats guy now. I'm intrigued enough now, though, that I might just build a complementary sorc and make twenty runs or so with the same gear to see how it turns out. If you all could help me get an ideal gear setup (without being godly), that'd be great. This also makes me see the appeal of Hammerdins. With no merc messing things up and causing CEs, a mongo life bulb, and great resists, he is nice and safe . . . and boring ^_^.

[brokensvt]

I'm curious how we got this far into the discussion, despite it being quite interesting.

Let's think this through logically. You have Nature's Peace. A "standard" Light sorc with Chain and Light at her disposal can stand back and spam to kill, and nothing ever CE's at all. As long as you do the killing, nothing goes boom.

[mztan]

That sure is logical. I guess that's the end of this thread :(

No, but seriously. 8000k max for lightning is meek. It seems damn near impossible to reduce CE damage to something you might call "negligible", but it seems to me that the whole point is to live for an extra few seconds to inhale one of those juvies in your belt. That is to say, it doesn't really matter how much damage it does, as long as it doesn't kill.

And the math isn't that bad, I don't think. However, based on the assumptions that we make (i.e. that ES damage to mana is not affected by resists, etc), the numbers do come out strange. Using your estimate for HP damage taken (~650), it appears to be 1.1k phys/fire damage = 2.2k damage total.

ES %DR ES Fire Res
(x * 0.5) * 0.9 + (x * 0.5) * 0.25 = 650

The first half of the equation represents physical CE damage and the 2nd half represents fire CE damage. This is of course a rough estimate, but it's not like we're measuring with sig figs here anyways :).

Something along those lines.

[Azuremen]

OMG, what have I done!! xD

Honestly, the best solution is to just wear a Nature's Peace.

My sorc is geared up like so... at level 82

Rare Circ with +2 light, 10% FCR, and 30% Res all (base 18, 12% jewel) other mods as well
Rare ammy with +2 light, 9% all res, some other mods
32% Vipermagi

Set one - 2/19/20 Eschutas and 25% FCR Spirit Mon
Set Two - Crescent Moon Crystal Sword and 35% FCR Spirit Mon

Bloodfist gloves (FHR and 40 life, its nice)
Crafted Caster belt with 6% FCR, 39 life, and res
Sanders' boots (got lazy, should probably put on something else, even tearhaunch)
Nature's Peace
Rare ring with +40 life and prismatic res
STorch
Anni
Lite GC

Damage with set 1 is 18k light damage with over 117% FCR
Damage with set 2 is 15k light damage, but one BP lower
Though it should be noted the effective damage on Set 2 is 20k.

I only have 900 life though, because I invested 156 HARD points in STR and 60 into Dex for Wiz Spike and Spirit (did not have anni or storch at the time). Basically I tele to Nih, then cast light before things notice me, then spam CL to clean up. Half the time I kill Nih with stray lightning before I bother with the CL... my runs take maybe 2 minutes. Only times I really die is if I bother to bring my merc and he kills something (I am sorely tempted to give him an Insight Voulge, but I think pots are cheaper :p ) Only things that cause trouble are the Poison Snakes of Doom, and massive packs of archers/succubi mostly cause of stun lock.

It works quite well though, so figured I would just share :p

[fahartle]

You stirred up a hornet's nest!!

Yeah, I'm thinking that my merc might cause more trouble than he's worth. I'm tempted to slap a normal insight weap on him, but I know he'll die just about every run not being able to leech. I really need a sorc torch to really put things over the top, but my gear is pretty decent (tweaked it last night):

Pcrown
Vmagi (poor resists, but have maxed resists anyway)
Treks (will try infernostrides as that seems a decent idea)
Tal's ammy (a +3 light ammy would prob be better)
Magefist
Wizzy
SoE - but will put on arachs soon, I think
Nature's Peace ring
Ravenfrost - need the dex for my wizzy
Anni

My damage is 1-12000ish I think. I'm at the 117 br mark too, and I'm beginning to think the problem it . . . ME! Ha, I'm probably not the fastest reaction teleporter. I can kill him pretty well I I stop before getting into that final room and just spam a bunch of bolts into the room just before meeting him. That way I can cut down some of the riff-raff and inch forward. I seem to always die if I try to be too quick about it and teleport to the back wall or one of those back corners. Then half the time my merc kills something, or the snakes/succubi nail me. I should probably just take a extra couple of minutes per run a play it a bit safer - that's not going to hurt anything really.

In the end, Dkey running is just a risky endeavor, I think. Earlier today I had the unfortunate luck of teleporting right in front of three snakes lined up in a line. Whammo, they volleyed in tandem and instant death. I got caught yesterday by a quick stun lock from archers, my merc killed two dudes, kablam ^_^. There's just a lot of things that can go wrong down there - kinda fun actually when we get so used to stomping everything else.

Sorcs are my favority characters, but I can really see the appeal of an uber hammerdin - just pop right on top of him and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. I'll try it without a merc and see how that works too - mana pots are definitely cheaper than the res costs. I'm sure if I can ever score a sorc torch that will help tremendously! Anywho, thanks for all the feedback guys!!

[Azuremen]

Well, I just did enough runs to get realm down xD

He was light immune half of them, and 1/4th the times he wasn't there were tons of Snakes.

Of course, I tele straight to his area and ignore everything in between... Just kill him with lightning (oh how I love it cutting straight through the mob) and get out. One shot from my lightning with the crescent moon will instantly drop anything (unless its a bad hit) which means I clear most of the area while killing him.

Hdins are solid... but so boring and you need an Enigma to run effectively.

[Socialism]

Search for "Nihlathak" in the hardcore forum; plenty of info on survivability there.