Fireball/Frozen Orb

[Furrywan]

I'm building a Tals set sorc for MF and I want to go with the meteorb build except more focused on fireball than meteor. I was thinking of maxing these skills

Frozen Orb
Fireball
Meteor

Then 10 points in Firebolt, Fire Mastery, and Cold Mastery. I want to invest more in Firebolt because it gives a better % for the synergy than Fire Mastery. Or should I go 1 in Fire Mastery and do 20 in Firebolt?

Also, is 10 in Cold Mastery too much? I know it has diminishing returns or something, I'm not exactly sure what the cap is. Ill only be having around +6 skills or so that you get from the Tal's set (no torch/anni/sojs etc.) so hopefully that will help you be able to get a better answer for my situation.

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

[konfeta]

1 mastery 20 firebolt.

Meteor loses only 2% per point, when you go firebolt, fireball gets double of firemastery for every firebolt point.

[AnimeCraze]

1 mastery 20 firebolt. No. 10 fire bolt 10 mastery sounds like a good start. If you have more +skills, put a few more into bolt. Rule of thumb is to keep your displayed FM level 10~11 above your firebolt level.

The reason is that total damage = base * (1 + synergy) * (1 + mastery). Because this is not a linear function, one cannot simply pick the higher % and hope to maximize the damage.

[konfeta]

According to a skill calculator...

20 Firebolt/1Mastery +8 to skills yields (full tals + spirit) -
4008-4437 Fireball
8442-8855 Meteor

10 Firebolt/10Mastery +8 to skills yields -
4227-4680
9418-9879

Well balls, you are right. Oh well, the loss of damage isn't that much noticed unless you really are maximizing your damage. God bless the MF property of my first sorc, even with the screw ups she still performs her purpose very well.

Sorry for the mislead furry :/

*Interesting enough, once you add 5 points to either mastery or firebolt, Fireball damage is almost the same.

[AnimeCraze]

That is because the curve is parabolic, and there is little difference when you are near the maximum on the curve.

[PhatTrumpet]

Rule of thumb is to keep your displayed FM level 10~11 above your firebolt level.
Just to clarify, it's the number of points invested in Fire Ball synergies that should be 10-11 more than your displayed slvl Fire Mastery. Assuming you've already maxed Meteor, this means that your displayed slvl Fire Mastery after +skills should be 9-10 higher than your Fire Bolt level before +skills.

To the OP: If you're half as dorky as I am, this (http://forums.diabloii.net/showpost.php?p=5391611&postcount=27) might be worth reading.

Also, Orb/FireBall generally means you don't invest in Meteor at all. Even though you're choosing to maximize your Fire Ball damage, the build is still generally referred to as Meteorb.

[Azuremen]

This is the exact same build I have, just I'm not using Tal's. Invest some points early on in firebolt to make life easier I would say ;) Unless you are getting crazy rushed.

Meteor is very handy for the Moat trick and anything else you can get to stay in place, but generally it will come down to Orb and spam fireball. Tis great fun :) I would consider fewer points into cold mastery, due to the diminishing returns, but I am no cold expert...

[Furrywan]

This is the exact same build I have, just I'm not using Tal's. Invest some points early on in firebolt to make life easier I would say ;) Unless you are getting crazy rushed.

Meteor is very handy for the Moat trick and anything else you can get to stay in place, but generally it will come down to Orb and spam fireball. Tis great fun :) I would consider fewer points into cold mastery, due to the diminishing returns, but I am no cold expert...

Glad to hear the build is solid :grin:

My last question is about how much Cold Mastery is enough to be effective in Hell. Maybe around 5 hard points so I get around 11-12 after items?

[PhatTrumpet]

The magic number is 17 after +skills.

[AnimeCraze]

27 if you kill Lister all the time.