What kind of sorceress?

[Vigilante]

Well like many others I am playing D2. Right now I have a 28 zeal paladin and am enjoying him but wanting to also make a sorc. I didnt get my original sorc very high so thats why I want one now.

I have read the forums and cant quite get ahold of the different types of sorc there. Most people already know what they are so they use acronyms or shorten the names when I have no idea what they are. So if anyone can give me a few good ideas as a sorc that would be great or any other helpful tips.

[sirpoopsalot]

First of all, most of the common D2 acronyms can be found here: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=538888


Overview of good starter sorcs (there are detailed build-guides in the knowledge library where you can find more info):

Blizzsorc = pure Blizzard (20 points in Blizzard, ~10 in Cold mastery, the rest in Blizzard's synergies). The best pure-MF-sorc-for-"poor"-players, and one of the best MF sorcs period (MF = magic find, in case you didn't know). A little limited in the areas/monsters it can run, but there's just enough variety in that regard that this build can eventually find everything you'll ever need - with relative ease. This build has problems with cold immune monsters in hell difficulty, which requires a strong mercenary or the willingness to teleport past large groups of monsters while questing (or both).

Meteorb = FrozenOrb / Fireball / Meteor. Frozen Orb is used primarily for questing through normal and nightmare difficulties, although you don't need to spend many points to make it strong on its own (20 Frozen Orb, 1 Cold Mastery, 1 in prerequisites - the rest of your skillpoints should go into Fireball, Meteor, Firebolt, and FireMastery - in that order - well, 1 point in FireMastery before maxing Firebolt is a good idea). Despite the buildname, you'll use Fireball more often than Meteor (which is really only good for act bosses and a couple other situations). This build is a go-anywhere/kill-anything sorceress. It's not as powerful as a single-skill-tree build, but it's very solid, and if you play solo and like to go different places, this is possibly the best option.

CL/FO = Chain Lightning / Frozen Orb. Very similar to the Meteorb - even down to the fact that it uses Lightning as much as Chain Lightning. Progress is similar to the Meteorb, as is the ability to go anywhere and kill anything and do some MF runs along the way. This requires a little more mana than a Meteorb, but it has slightly better crowd control for facing swarms. Many folks will tell you that Meteorb is more capable of progressing without good items, but I think both of these are very similar in their capacities.

Blizzballer = Blizzard / Fireball. I haven't built one of these yet, but there are build guides around. Basically, this one differs from the other in that it uses Blizzard instead of FrozenOrb (obviously), and generally it's power is a little more balanced between the cold and fire trees (not as obvious). For example, in the case of a Meteorb, once you get to hell difficulty you're primarily a fire-based sorceress using a cold-based backup attack. Ditto for the lightning-based CL/FO sorc. Blizzballers are a little more balanced in having two attacks that can be relatively similar in strength (they can lack a little bit of power - not a lot - of one of the others with a more 'primary' focused attack, but their 'backup' is obviously stronger). This build is also capable of a go-anywhere/kill-anything mentality.


Those four are probably the most common starter sorcs, for good reasons. If you have good equipment to start with though, you can just about pick any two skills from two different trees and build a viable sorceress. For example, I built a FrostNova/Firewall sorceress once, and you won't see many of those around, despite the fact that she kicked butt fairly well. Thunderstorm and Inferno are basically the only two attack skills that are effectively useless, but otherwise you can almost mix and match as you please.


If you always play in a party or with other people, you can also focus a build entirely on the fire tree or lightning tree too, and let others tackle the monsters that are immune to you. This is a great option for getting a strong attack, but you're somewhat limited in where you can go if you're playing alone of if you want to try your hand at MF runs.

And if you're item-rich, getting an 'Infinity' polearm for your mercenary can make a pure-lightning sorc possibly the best build out there.