Enchantress Weapon Options

[furousuti]

Hi all,

I consider myself a fairly (or maybe not) experienced DII:LoD player and I've recently (after five years) decided to (finally) start the niche character build of the Sorceress which focuses on the skill Enchant. I've read through the many wonderful guides posted on the Sorceress forum's first page.

So far, the only options I've seen (for ranged) are the bows or crossbows. I think there was a mention about throwing weapons (like javelins) in one guide but I felt that it was not discussed adequately. I understand that there are many good unique bows/crossbows out there which are suitable for this character build. I was beginning to think that this would not be the case for javelins - perhaps I'm right about this? For instance, I don't know of any unique javelins that would provide a bonus to Fire Skills or have the Pierce mod. Maybe it's just that my knowlege of the DII:LoD item library is very, very limited. :wink3:

Anyway, will someone please enlighten me? Thanks.
Oh, and the reason why I was deciding for the javelins is because I can carry a shield and I sort of liked the prospect of being able to both melee and range.

P.S.
This is my first post - I think. I haven't been very active since my sign up (which is a while back) due to things happening in real life. Y'know... real life. :laugh:

edit: Oh, and I thought my would-be repliers should know that this is my first ever hardcore character... and I'm on Single Player. I believe I'll be able to obtain any Realm Ladder-only items... despite the crazy drop chance - I won't go any further than that because I wouldn't want to get myself in strife by discussing something that shouldn't(?) be discussed.

[The Cow King]

Throwing weapons are just too slow, I dont think any of them are gona work. 11fpa in HC is != healthy.

[stephan]

The main feature a bow/xbow can give is exploding arrow. Your enchant damage is carried over by it, and thus, when fired at a pack of monsters, gives much more damage than a single hit normally would.

[furousuti]

Thank you The Cow King and you too, stephan.
I'll be giving this a bow/crossbow build a shot now. :) A pun! :D

[Summerfun]

Thank you The Cow King and you too, stephan.
I'll be giving this a bow/crossbow build a shot now. :) A pun! :D

I love pun`s

Remember to get some pierce (razortail) for even more splash dmg

[sirpoopsalot]

It's too bad throwing weapons are soo slow. Demon's Arch or Gimmershreds would kick butt with an Enchant/masteries sorc. But yeah, stick with bows/crossbows if you want to be ranged.

[stephan]

It's too bad throwing weapons are soo slow. Demon's Arch or Gimmershreds would kick butt with an Enchant/masteries sorc. But yeah, stick with bows/crossbows if you want to be ranged.
I still am not completely clear on this, but AFAICT the mastery bonus does not apply on the elemental damage from gear with a ranged attack. You would have to make a melee hit for the bonus to count.

[furousuti]

Thank you once again to all who responded.
You all seem to really know what you're talking about, what, with those massive post counts. So I guess I'll follow your advices. :D
I do have the Gimmershreds on mule somewhere, so I'll try that one out, too.
Seems like this build is going to be rather dependant on the items.

Also, does my Sorceress' Dexterity and Strength affect my bows'/crossbows' damage? Will it affect my balrog spear's damage? I'm asking because I think those stats affect the damage on an Amazon... but I'm just not too sure with a Sorceress - this being my first non-staff Sorceress. :P

[sirpoopsalot]

I still am not completely clear on this, but AFAICT the mastery bonus does not apply on the elemental damage from gear with a ranged attack. You would have to make a melee hit for the bonus to count.

IIRC, fire damage does benefit, but it doesn't get the double-bonus that melee gets.

I remember reading the threads saying that lightning didn't, but I haven't seen any testing that would actually prove or disprove this. I'm half tempted to download an editor just so I can test this easily, but it sounds like more trouble than it's worth considering I have no real desire to build one of these.

I completely forget about cold damage/cold mastery at range.


@furousuti, adding points into dexterity will boost the physical damage that you do (which will help your life and mana leech), but it won't help the elemental damage. I forget if strength boost thrown weapon damage or not, but even if it does, it will also only affect the physical damage you do.

As for Gimmershreds and Demon's Arch, you will need a lot of Increase Attack Speed from your equipment just to scrounge up 2 attacks per second. In my opinion, this makes your attacks just too slow to make these viable weapons. Of course, you can always try, but you'll need to be patient as hell to get anywhere.

[furousuti]

Though it is highly unlike me to double post, I must say I have no choice - I just cannot seem to locate the edit button, even after many refreshes. Maybe I'm missing a part of the picture here.

Anyways.

Thanks sirpoopsalot on the explanation of stats affecting damage. Does that mean that Strength and Dexterity will affect the physical damage regardless of which character class you are? That was slightly off topic but I think it will save me from creating another thread. :)

Oh, and back on topic. As for weapon choices... if I chose a melee weapon like a Mace, Polearm or even a Dagger, then that means the physical damage will also be determined by my Strength/Dexterity? I'm asking this because I happen to have a rare dagger which gives a load of fire damage.

P.S.
I'll be off to read the forum rules or FAQ or whatever to determine the solution to my cannot-find-edit-button problem.

[sirpoopsalot]

P.S.
I'll be off to read the forum rules or FAQ or whatever to determine the solution to my cannot-find-edit-button problem.

You only have an hour to edit your posts. After that you have to make a new one. :grin:


Melee attack damage is only increased by strength; dexterity has no affect here. But yes, your physical damage is affected by this attribute.

I think that basically every point into strength increases your damage by 1%. So, if you have a weapon that does 100 physical damage average (when unequiped and you're staring at it in your stash) and you have 50 points into strength, the physical damage for your attack with that weapon will be 150 points average... I think.

[furousuti]

May I ask if the one-point-into-Strength-gives-one-percent-of-Enhanced-Damage rule applies to all characters universally?
I'm asking this because I had thought that it only applied to Barbarians - hence the Strength craze during the older patch versions of Diablo II: LoD.

Thanks in advance.

[stephan]

May I ask if the one-point-into-Strength-gives-one-percent-of-Enhanced-Damage rule applies to all characters universally?
Yes it does, although for some weapons the bonus is different. I was going to link to a site for the exact numbers, but unfortunately it is gone. :sad2:

EDIT: waybackmachine to the rescue


Weapon Str Multiplier Dex Multiplier
Melee weapons (except as below) 1.00 0
- Daggers 0.75 0.75
- Hammers 1.10 0
- Assassin claws 0.75 0.75
- Amazon spears 0.80 0.50
Bows and crossbows 0 1.00
Throwing weapons (except as below) 0.75 0.75
- Amazon javelins 0.80 0.50

Hammers are War Hammer, Maul and Great Maul and their exceptional and elite versions.




IIRC, fire damage does benefit, but it doesn't get the double-bonus that melee gets.

I remember reading the threads saying that lightning didn't, but I haven't seen any testing that would actually prove or disprove this. I'm half tempted to download an editor just so I can test this easily, but it sounds like more trouble than it's worth considering I have no real desire to build one of these.

I completely forget about cold damage/cold mastery at range.
AFAICT from testing it really doesn't work. Cold mastery does work, but that it is because it works differently (it lowers resists) and is never applied twice.

[furousuti]

Ooh, neat!
Thanks for that table. I've kept it in a Notepad document so I can refer to it later.