Sorc is HARD! I think this is why

[onomastikon]

I know I'm a newbie, but I thought I would post here anyway.
I love playing my sorc, but I have to say that it is the hardest of the 4 chars I play. Not because I die a lot, but because it involves more SKILL than the others. I am trying to play a dual-tree (L/C) sorc, and it is simply SO much harder than, say, playing an amazon or a barb or a necro, at least so far.

For the first two, I think this is because while the others also need to take advantage of their skills, good gear plays such a major role. Now as low-level newb who doesnt have any twinked stuff at all, I STILL see how much a good weapon really propels my barb or zon forward; but stick a good orb and decent gear on my sorc, and she is only *that* much better. An upgrade to a better sword or bow for barb or zon means astronomically better performance, while an upgrade to a better orb means a nice addition for my sorc.

In general, I think that gear seems to matter for me much less as a sorc than in other classes. Do the pros and high-level folk agree?
I mean, great gear you guys talk about (and I've never seen) will certainly make my sorc shine, but for each godly item she can get, a godly item can be obtained for a zon or a barb, and that makes them even more godly. Right?

So: Sorc is skill-play, while zon and barbs can get away with less guile, intelligence and tactics? What do you think?

[Ed from Russia]

I think you are right in general; a Sorc requires more careful play because she's more vulnerable.

I'm not sure what level your chars are though. Even though Barbs and Zons can cruise through Normal and most part of Nightmare, they have serious problems dealing with Hell as well. In fact in Hell I think the Sorc may be more effective because she can do insane damage without even getting close to monsters.

[onomastikon]

Hmn ok. All chars in mid- or late 20s. I thought sorcs had it particularly difficult in Hell because of the elemental-immunes??

I just think that giving great gear to chars helps them, but it makes more of a diffence, at least to me so far, with zons and barbs, not nearly as much to sorcs.
Also, I seem to need a LOT more keys to work my sorc effectively; my zon basically sticks to 3 or so, ditto barb, and while my necro uses a couple more, these dont come frequently (I am not ALWAYS raising skeletons, for example).
With my sorc, I am constantly switching back and forth between keys, switching weapons (for +s to skills) and sometimes hitting the wrong ones.
My sorc hasnt died yet, but she ALWAYS runs out of mana, ALWAYS.

[stephan]

Personally I find the average casting sorc one of the easier builds to play. Perhaps she is a little fragile but with teleport and quite a few very good range attacks that is not really a problem.

[Sephowa]

I must agree with the above post.

Elemental immunities aside (there are physical ones too ;)) the sorc is very easy to play. You just sit behind your Melee Hireling and throw spells at enemies whilst staying out of danger.... OMG, is that a crowd trapping me? Oh well.... Tele out of danger :)

[onomastikon]

Well then it looks like I need practice! I often run out of mana for teleport, and I have been using static and nova a lot, which puts me in the fray. But that may all be because I am a newbie, nontwinked low-leveled fool. Ah yes that's probably it.

Still, my necro never has these problems, and that's still me (nontwinked low level fool); there, I sit behind my minions at toss a curse or a CE or two. My zon sits behind the merc etc. and sends out hails of pain, and never gets trapped. Perhaps it's my willingness or even love of novas and static that get me into trouble....

[PailAil]

@onomastikon - dunno how "low level" your sorc is, or what your wealth level is, but here's a few suggestions to help the mana problem:

#1 - Insight RW pole for your merc (you can find the pole & the runes, or else they're still very cheap)
#2 - Call to Arms RW (yes it's expensive, but the BO will give you tons more mana)
#3 - Magefist (25% mana regen) or Frostburns (40%max mana increase)
#4 - Silkweave (+5mana after each kil + 10%max mana increase)

And of course there's lots more ideas, including +skills gear that will boost your Warmth lvl as well as your BO lvl if you have a CTA.

Once you level up more and get some good gear, you won't have as bad a problem. The lvl 80 light sorc I'm still working on can tele all day long, or just blast straight lighting for 5 minutes continuous and the mana pool doesn't even dip. :D

Just some food for thought, maybe some things to work towards.

[onomastikon]

thank you!
(dont have any of that other nice stuff you mentioned yet.... but looking forward to it!)

[Ed from Russia]

Another thing - try to join a couple of games with melee players to get to about lvl 30-35. When your mana is still low and your skills are not maxed yet it's hard to play a Sorc.

[tangled]

onomastikon:
My sorc hasnt died yet, but she ALWAYS runs out of mana, ALWAYS.


My Sorceress is a level 77 and I rarely have trouble with mana unless I run across a monster that burns my mana --the bastards!

Here's some of the equipment I use and their mana properties:

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask:
10% Mana Stolen Per Hit
+30 To Mana
Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet:
+42 To Mana
Lidless Wall Grim Shield:
+3-5 To Mana After Each Kill (varies)[I'm at work and I can't remember the exact number mine gives]
+10 To Energy
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
Manald Heal Ring:
4-7% Mana Stolen Per Hit (varies)[again, I can't remember the exact number for mine]
Regenerate Mana 20%
A 3-socketed armor with a Perfect Skull (+19% regenerate mana) and 2 Perfect Sapphires (each adds +38 Max Mana)

I can't remember what the other Ring is (possibly Nagelring, which doesn't add anything to mana properties), Boots or Clasped Orb. It's possible they might have +mana properties too but I just can't remember. I use Chance Guard gloves but they don't add to mana either.
My Warmth skill is only a level 1 or 2, but I have items that add +skills so it's increased to about 6 or 7, which boosts the rate at which mana is regenerated.
And I really need to find better armor with more sockets because what I've got just isn't enough, now that I'm ready to start Hell.

I found the Chance Guard gloves and Tal Rasha's amulet in Normal, and most of the rest of the stuff in Nightmare. For me, the key is using the best mana-giving equipment I can possibly find.

Good luck!

edit: I just remembered something. The "+ mana stolen per hit" only applies if you physically hit a monster with a weapon. It doesn't work if you're using spells, which is my case.

[AgentMarth]

I find Sorc's to be one of the more easy characters to play. It's spam spam tele spam tele tele spam spam dead. If you make like an Orber, its really just Teleport and Orb that you are using, with static/armor/ES occasionally.

I find one of the most hot key troublesome characters to be a Sin. More specifically, a MA Sin. D Talon, D flight, DS, CoS, MB, Venom, SM, BoS/Fade, BF with options like Tele, WW, BC, and BO. Add even more if you are not just a kicker and actually use the elemental claw skills. It can be come such a pain to get them all down.

But yet, a kicker is still one of my favorite builds.

[onomastikon]

OK I stand corrected.
I finally made it to level 30 and now things are a real breeze. I'm MUCH faster than my necro, who has similar gear, and now she seems easier to handle than my barb too.
I think what did it was 1) a simply point in both masteries, that helps much more than a point in sword mastery or the like, with a single point in lightning mastery I rock, and 2) getting a lot more mana. I also spent some of the stat points I was saving up, and dumped some into life and energy, now I have enough to teleport around quite a bit. I no longer am constantly sucking mana potions.
Thanks much anyhow for listening

[jesterlolz]

In pvm, it may be difficult at the start to get a sorc working, but eventually, once you know the ins and outs of your hotkeys, it doesn't require that much skill.

However, there are exceptions; with frozen orb, its very difficult to often find the sweet spot against a boss. In dueling, blizzard is a hard skill to master, and takes practice learning how to play well.

I think they made each class require about the same amount of skill overall, but the learning curve is sometimes in different places (however, in dueling, the learning curves are definately different depending on your character).

[phatphoeater]

OK I stand corrected.
I finally made it to level 30

here was the source of your mana problem. unfortunately this will continue to be a problem until a) you get a merc with insight or b) level more. Since it sounds like youre interested in questing at lower levels, i'd say insight is the way to go. the runes and 4s polearm are not hard to get. it can be equipped by your merc BEFORE lvl30. This should really be your priority.

[Jaquiezz]

Um, how do you have any idea how hard a sorc is if you are still in the 20's? Your probably in act 3 normal, so you have no idea how any character fairs in hell.

In fact, the average MFer takes little to no skill, simply spam a spell. I would argue that a melee char or a zon has it much harder and has to play much more heads up. Casters can get away with mediocre gear, but a melee char won't go any where without at least a good weapon. A sorc might not have massive mana to spam early on, but in hell this is hardly a problem.

[rietori]

This is an interesting thread I think. I'm also not much experienced in D2 and I was wondering about classes a lot.

What I think is special about the sorceress is that she is so diverse. With attacks like Meteor or Blizzard that hit a spot or area, and projectiles and the static field and also teleport, there's a lot of things you can do. Whereas with the barbarian or paladin it seems to be more or less running in and mashing monsters with leftclick, which gets repetitive faster.
Necromancer seems even more boring, as most of the times just standing there does it, while the summons do all the work.

Something I thought would be interesesting was the Assassin, but I don't know much about those (mine is level 11), I mean just from looking at the skills. Like laying traps seems to be similar to casting, but there's still a better option to melee than with the sorceress. However I don't know if that will even work later in the game. The assassin can run quickly and teleport too, though only towards monsters... still it seems like there's a lot to do.
But Martial Arts seems tedious, switching through the charge up skills aaall the time...

[Pukankite]

Cookie cutter sorc builds are EXTREMELY easy to create and play.
Bowazons are still easier ,though.
Hybrids , melee builds and bow/crossbow builds (this addresses sorcs!)though are insane to play with.

I'd say a necromancer is harder to play with.He's fragile , has no teleport or ES , and has to count on bone armor to survive.And a summoner necro without support or the right gear takes hours to play alone through nm/hell.

[rietori]

Hybrids , melee builds and bow/crossbow builds (this addresses sorcs!)though are insane to play with.


Insane in what respect? A sorceress using a bow, I can only imagine that as boring as you don't have any special bow attacks that to make things interesting. Like the amazon has multi arrows and guided arrows and whatnot, but a sorceress can only shoot... arrows.
Same with melee... why would someone play a sorceress for melee, as there are much more options (= more fun) with melee centered characters?

[MassiveSin]

Insane in what respect? A sorceress using a bow, I can only imagine that as boring as you don't have any special bow attacks that to make things interesting. Like the amazon has multi arrows and guided arrows and whatnot, but a sorceress can only shoot... arrows.
Same with melee... why would someone play a sorceress for melee, as there are much more options (= more fun) with melee centered characters?

You are mistaken; melee sorcs are fun to play (and duel with). Try making one before you knock it down.
As for sorc only able to attack without using skills; Have you heard of rune words: Harmony, Passion or Unquies like Widowmaker

Make yourself an enchanter: max enchant, fire mastery, es and TK. Pick your choice of weapon I recommend IK set (short of the helm). Get your str to wield what you want (screw blocking, you smash) or if you want that bow up your dex instead and screw str (since bow damage improves on dex increase) Shove rest of the stats on a 4 to energy and 1 to vit and never have to worry about a monster casting Iron Maiden on you because your mana total is higher than your life. And go to town. Use the remaining points where you like. Get yourself as much FHC as you can with DR...
And I'll guarantee you will have fun crushing those Bone Fetishes and dance with Nat not flinching from the CE.

[Pukankite]

Widowmaker , Harmony and Demon machine are great weapons for a ranged sorc.And the dualdream sorc is my favourite char in the game.But she's tough to play with , compared to a bowazon,and requires a level of character mastery only hammerdins and necros can reach.

[lendial]

ive always found sorc to be the easiest to play in terms of clicking and gear, as long as you have mana and enough +skills you wont die. weapon classes are too depedent on a strong beat stick to cause dmg.