New Light Sorc in desperate need of advice

[ShazamLies]

Hi all :girly:

I'm returning to D2 for the 4th time and my light sorc is currently lvl 40 on USWEST ladder.

Now I'm very familiar with this game, I know most of it backwards and forwards, but one thing that I am very rusty with, is playing from scratch.
My friend and I have both made single element sorcs (he is blizz) and we're trying to level up, hopefully be able to play through hell and be strong enough to MF something :cloud9:

I have several questions if anybody could be so kind as to answer them for me

1) What items should I try to aim for? I have literally nothing and what I think I'm going to try to aim for is:

Weapon: Crescent Moon or Wizardspike
Shield: Spirit or Lidless or Whistan (block perhaps?)
Belt: Going to try to craft a caster belt, i need that fcr
Rings: 10fcr rings x2
Gloves: Trangs or Magefist
Helm: Don't know, whats a good homeless man helm?
Amulet: Whatever I can find
Armor: Maybe the 1.11 sorceress armor, if not maybe a skin of vipermagi or treachery? (I need resists)
boots: whatever I can find

2) Should I go for block?

3) What should I equip my merc with? Probably going to need a Holy Freeze A2 merc >.<

4) Is it possible for me to go all lightning with little gear and survive hell, or will I need to level ES/TK?

5) Where is the best place to MF when starting from scratch (aka something easy and non-light immune), maybe Andy or Meph?

Thanks for your time :thumbup:

[madrettorrR]

1) What items should I try to aim for? I have literally nothing and what I think I'm going to try to aim for is:

There are multiple options and everybody will probably say something different. I'll give a few options, high end and low end:

Weapon
high end:+3 skills Eschuta's with as high as possible lightning skill damage. You can also socket this one with an additional Lightning Facet.
mid end wizardspike, Crescent moon
low-end Spirit runeword in a one hand weapon. I prefer this one over a lot of mid-end weapons

Shield
Spirit, there are some alternative's but nothing comes close to this one. The runes are quite cheap, so just go for it in a Monarch.

Belt
high-end:Arachnids
mid-end: crafted casterbelt.
low-end: credendum (for res), glooms trap or Thundergods

Rings
10fcr rings x2, totally agree with you on those. If you have enough FCR, you might want to replace one with a SoJ

Gloves
Trangs or Magefist - no question about that. If you have more than enough FCR you might consider crafting crafter gloves for the additional mods.

Helm
high-end: Griffon's is -by far- the best option, especially if it's socketed with a lightning facet.
mid-end: A Kira's (with a lightning facet), Shako (with the facet)
low-end: 'Lore' runeword, tarnhelm, etc

Amulet
+skills amulet, rare, magic or crafted

Armor:
high-end: Ormus' Robes with max lighting dam. and lightning as skill (socketed with lightning facet)
mid-end: upped Viperskin with lightning facet
low-end: Que Hegan's, Stealth runeword

Boots:
high-end: Ethereal 'Treks
mid-end: 'normal Treks', rare res boots
low-end: Natalya's soul (for res)

*tip: sorch torches are expensive, If you can't afford one, try getting a assasin torch. These come quite cheap and will grand you additional resistance and attributes untill you're able to replace it with a sorch one.
You can also socket some um-runes in your gear to add resistance (instead of the mentioned lightning facet's).


2) Should I go for block?
No, go for FCR and FHR


3) What should I equip my merc with?
Off-course, lvl 17 insight runeword. Personally I have a eth upped shaft (socketed with um) and a Vampire Gaze on it.


4) Is it possible for me to go all lightning with little gear and survive hell, or will I need to level ES/TK?
Hardly, a lightning sorc is best for 'some' arrea's. But you're still going to have problems with lightning immunes. Giving your merc an insight in a eth 'high' polearm can do wonders (let him take out some immunes).


5) Where is the best place to MF when starting from scratch (aka something easy and non-light immune), maybe Andy or Meph?
Meph, but mind the coucil members! They might be lightning resistant.

[guface]

Ive done a lot of debating in the sorc light equitpment forums and one thing that always gets me is how little people value cresent moon. It is by far one of the most effective runwords for a light sorc. However, my advice to you is forget what everyone says about whether a certain item is good or not, its the WHOLE SETUP you need to consider:

Remember, your set up should focus on the following points imo:

125 FCR at least
as much + skills as possible
-ve light resists (at least 30%, more is better)
resists
life/mana
DR if possible


I personally value survivability in hell and so I use the following setup:
shako, +3 amulet, um'd perfect upped viper, CM, stormshield, 2x FCR rings, arachnid. This gives me 45% DR and -35 light resist. However, it only puts me in the lower FCR.

I have in my backpack shuta's and spirit but I find I use it a lot less often.

PS: merc : ALWAYS aim for infinity. Nothing else comes even close.

pps: quick rule of thumb,
1. if enemy has 0 light resist, -35% = +35% damage
2. If enemy has 50 light resist -35% = +70% damage
3. If enemy has 99 resists -35 = +3500% damage
therefore the higher the enemy resists, the better CM adds.

+x% lightening damage, eg eschutas, facets, only ADD to lightening mastery.
1. light mastery = 0, +25% = +25% total damage
2. light mastery = 10, +25 = +16% total damage
3. light mastery = 42, +25 = +4.6% total damage.
therefore, +light damage items are less useful than -ve light resist items.

[madrettorrR]

Always like your adds Guface, you always have some usuable information. :)

just one thing, why go for 125 FCR? isn't 105 good enough? And besides that I think you should aim at 80+ FHR (I'm not aware of the exact framerate). To my opinion survivalibility > killpower

[guface]

lightning and chain lightning have different FCR breakpoints compared to other sorc skills (eg teleport etc). Its 117 or 125 (cant remember which one).

Incidentally, I do prefer survivability in pvm (thats why i have shako/SS for 45% DR).

Also consider what things charms can get you. Stats are hard - 5 for each 2 spaces, but resists can get you 5 all each slot. Therefore you have to be stingy with stats but more liberal with resists. FHR falls into that category too (5% in a single SC, or 12 in a light skills GC).. FHR also can feature in other items such as belt (if not using arach), amulets and boots. I use eth treks which gives me a nice boost. Try and find a % reduction charm, however, and you'll need to hack bnet a few times over.

Conclusion:
stat torch/anni >> resist torch anni
FHR is good, but if you take half damage, is better
although survival > killing power, killing power improves survival.

[elradi]

Hail. I recently made a lite sorc and love her. The best items I have so far, are fairly easy to get by, and I prefer this char and this item setup to anything I have experienced at all.

The biggest "bump" in the road, is building up your first bit of wealth to get the most expensive basic item that you will need. a tal armor. One way to do this is, join baal bot games.. and while you level, get real close to baal when he is about to die and grab loot as fast as you can. This worked wonders for me. I very quickly had a good stash of set items and a few uniques that I then sold here on the forums, and I leveled while doing it. Let the botter person do all the work, and you just collect the exp. points and the good loot.

Another alternative that will get you there quick is.. key run. This gives you practice in learning to teleport well, and a few keys quickly add up your wealth to affording the setup below. I average about 1 key every 10 games. This is the average I get. Sometimes it is a lot worse, or so it seems.. but if you keep an excell chart, you will see your average.

You can aim for my item setup pretty easy.. do this.
tal helm (super cheap)
tal armor (worth 2 Puls/Um-- this might be hardest item to come across right away.. if you get lucky you can loot it from a baal bot game)
tal amulet (worth about a Pul)
tal belt (super cheap)
Find a 10FCR ring (mine also has some resists)

Do the rune quests, and go find yourself a monarch shield (found mine in a baal bot game in the throne room i think).. and make yourself the rune-cheap Spirit runeword.
Boots-well boots can be whatever you want after you have the above.. I went with the best MF boots I could find.
After time I got a torch (still dont have an anni).. but my char does just fine without it.

Probably the single best item for my pure lite char, and one not too hard to get, is a merc with an insight. Again I found the weapon in a baal bot or a chaos sanctuary game, then add the runes which are easy. I cannot begin to tell you enough What an amazing difference this merc and insight make on my survivability and killing speed. This insight is a MUST. This allows your merc to stay alive, which keeps mobs from attacking you, and the merc does WONDERFUL killing lighting immunes we come across. I gave him a self-fround crown of thieves (for life leech) and a self-found naj armor for +1 skills, and max resists. With the insight aura.. I can teleport around and not even see my mana bulb drop at all!.. it is amazing to have permanent free teleporting.


Don't go for block.. not with the spirit shield. Go with max life. Enough str for your gear (spirit shield requires 156 str i think, or is it 165).. With a pure lite sorc, I just put 1 point in energy shield, and it is a godsend. Whenever I do take damage, most of the time it drains my mana bulb instead of health bulb, and the insight aura from my merc refills my mana bulb very quickly.. at least quick enough to cast lighting and kill the target, or teleport a lot.


If you follow my proposed setup above, you can survive and thrive in hell, and get rich if you can tolerate how easy MF becomes. Your worst enemy will be boredom when you realize how easy it is just to teleport without thinking, and kill without thinking. Teleporting is difficult at first, but you will get the hang of it, and the 105 FCR helps A LOT.

I would consider this gear pretty easy, and works great in hell. Sure go with vipermagi until you get a tal armor.. work your way up to my setup and you will be awesome. Don't put more than 1 point in ES. the + skills you will get from full tal armor, and eventually a torch/anni are all you need.

I find meph about 2x easier than andy. Andy frequently has a bunch of light immunes that spawn in the room (my merc can handle them, but sometimes if they are bunched and champions.. then my merc will die)... and even when I have taken care of the light immunes.. then andy's poison will have me running into town at least once to save my merc... So 99% of the time, andy is only harder due to me walking into town to heal/cure my merc before finishing andy off.. only a minor issue but I am lazy.

With meph, I get great drops, only have to deal with him, and I can kill him before he kills me or my merc. (teleport up to him, cast static until it stops taking down his health-- then teleport up to him again *so you start taking damage instead of your merc* and then finish him off with lightning.. super easy. I recommend you do this.. Meph/summoner for key/countess for key.
Countess has some light immune archers that can be a small pain.. just learn to teleport away from them, kill countess, loot, and log out to make new game.

With full tal setup I described above. You have max resists, somewhere around 14k max damage with lightning/ a good amount of MF/ you break the 105 FCR mark/ and your merc can handle light immunes pretty damn fast... I can do with this setup Andy/Meph/Baal/Pindle/Nihlatak/Summoner/Countess/Pits/hell forge/ and I could do Diablo-- the only problem there is IM being cast on my merc and my merc dying.. I can't imagine not having my wonderful insight aura at all times.
The only trouble I run into is like I said above with andy's poison on my merc, the light immune snakes around nihlatak, Iron madien curse in chaos, and any tightly packed groups of champion-light immunes.

Hope this helps.

[Robobaby]

Always like your adds Guface, you always have some usuable information. :)

just one thing, why go for 125 FCR? isn't 105 good enough? And besides that I think you should aim at 80+ FHR (I'm not aware of the exact framerate). To my opinion survivalibility > killpower

Its 117% FCR and as Guface said Lightning/Chain Lightning cast speed loses a frame here instead of at 105%.

86% FHR is the breakpoint you are thinking of and this is fairly easy to achieve with charms though it will be expensive. 12fhr light skillers don't come cheap. The next breakpoint is 142% and shooting for that narrows down your gear selection if even if you have d2 monies to blow on filling your inventory with expensive charms.

[Dirkw]

With the insight aura.. I can teleport around and not even see my mana bulb drop at all!.. it is amazing to have permanent free teleporting.


I guess you're still busy working on your sorc then.

[guface]

with end game items, teleporting only takes 4 mana. That means even with a modest mana pool WITHOUT CTA, you regenerate enough to teleport endlesslessly.

Inifinity >>>> insight for a light sorc

Also I would not consider Tal armor to be end game material for a light sorc unless you are going for full tal's set. Even then, I would not recommend tal set for a light sorc due to horrendous lack of FCR.

Tal's set advantages:
good resists, FHR bonus and mf
disadvantages
only 50% FCR
cant wear griffons
have to wear spirit monarch to gain 117 breakpoint; no %DR possible
reduced +skills compared to say shako, +3 amu, eschutas
only -15% enemy light resists