New on ladder, what sorc build?

[rCt Arbitur]

Hi, I've just started playing Ladder instead of Non-Ladder where i had a Hammerdin which could solo baal but hammerdins is really boring..I decided to start Ladder cause i hate the runeword prices in NL. Now im completely naked on my level 1 sorceress named ArBitur with only a Razorswitch staff that my friend gave me and i can't decide what sorc im gonna make.

I've been thinking about the following sorcs:

- Pure lightning (they are really fun but last time i built one i couldn't kill anything with CL cause of the horrible 1-xxxx dmg)
- Meteorb (I thought something like 20 Orb, 8 mastery, 20 fireball, 20 firebolt, 20 fire mastery and rest into meteor, i usually managed Andy and sometimes meph with bad gear)
- Pure orb (20 Orb, 20 Mastery, 20 Icebolt, 20 teleport and rest idk, guess i would have to rely heavily on merc with this.)
- Idk, suggestions? (something that works with pretty bad gear i guess)

Since im naked im aiming to get dual spirit, viper, peasants crown and war travs as my gear at my sorc, so i won't be able to make some super fancy light soso with infinity merc and perf griffons + gear smocked with facets. :whistling:

I hope someone can help me with how to begin playing ladder, im trying to get rid of ALL my items on all my NL chars on d2jsp so if i get lucky i can probably obtain a few fg's to buy ladder items, and if i'd get fg id most likely save for infinity cause i love light sosos :thumbsup:

[jeremyrx]

Honestly Meteorb is how I start ladders. You have the right idea with all the things you've said about skills and gear. I did Andy, Countess, Pits, Summoner, Meph for a long time until she got full Tal's and now she can pretty much run what she wants.

Alternatively lots of people start with Blizz sorcs and run Meph easily and a lot.

Good luck on ladder!

[SeCKSEgai]

I think it really depends on what you plan on doing. My first sorc was a dual tree in order to get everything I needed to make for my first main characters. I intended to use her primarily, but her findings allowed me to build more efficient and fun characters.

Pure light is a solid mfer - once geared, but before that may be a bit troublesome. She doesn't really shine till there's an infinity somewhere on her or merc.

Orb would really limit your mf choices as a lot of popular areas for mf would also be filled with a number of cold immunes that couldn't be broken.

MeteorOrb opens up options unavailable to a pure orb.

One thing you may want to consider is a trapsin, I prefer her to my light these days. You would lack teleport without an enigma, but she can kill even poorly geared.

[SumoSalad]

I also heard while meteorbs are good, they need at least a few + skills.

Just go make a blizz sorc for meph and other no CIs areas.

[Scudstorm]

- Meteorb (I thought something like 20 Orb, 8 mastery, 20 fireball, 20 firebolt, 20 fire mastery and rest into meteor, i usually managed Andy and sometimes meph with bad gear)

For fireball, synergies would actually help more than mastery in most cases (I also suggest you max meteor before firebolt, since it's at least a useful skill). Playing around with the skill calculator would be a good idea.

An unmentioned build here, Orb/cL is a very decent area clearer and key runner, but is somewhat inferior to the other builds when fighting bosses.

[rCt Arbitur]

For fireball, synergies would actually help more than mastery in most cases (I also suggest you max meteor before firebolt, since it's at least a useful skill). Playing around with the skill calculator would be a good idea.

An unmentioned build here, Orb/cL is a very decent area clearer and key runner, but is somewhat inferior to the other builds when fighting bosses.

I really don't like key running, keys are hard to sell and i need lots of em to ever get them sold. I preffer killing bosses like meph, andy, pindle, eldricht and shenk. Blizz sorcs is lame IMO, i've made several blizz sorcs and they failed me all the time, I want something to run meph, andy and frigid highlands with and when i aquire better gear i will hopefully get a light sorc :cloud9:

Thanks for the help all:thumbup:

[rCt Arbitur]

Im really sorry for spam but i just calculated and i found out my damage as a Meteorber will be quite weak:

20 Fireball
20 Meteor
20 Frozen Orb
15 Firebolt
8 Cold mastery
and +6 skills from gear (i hope i will have viper, spirit sword, lidless, peasant and so on..)

FB Damage: 2978-3313
Meteor Damage: 6390-6721
Orb Damage: 354-372

What?! i don't remember doing this low damage when i had a Meteorber last time, and i didn't have super much skill+ (i had torch and anni, shako, tal amu, spirit shield and spirit sword) and i did almost 4-5k fireball damage and 400-500 frozen orb damage. Im confused :S

EDIT: i tried building a light sorc with the same amount of +skills and i came to this:
Lightning dmg: 23-9845
Chain Lightning dmg: 13-5142
Charged bolt: 212-232

Would this be better than a meteorber with the damage above?

[jeremyrx]

The Meteorb damage is rather low, but you will still be killing things with a couple of casts, it will just take a few seconds longer to do the job.

Keep in mind you are adding +8 skills when you throw torch, anni, tal amulet, spirit shield and shako on top of what you are using. Another thing to keep in mind is when you get full tals you get -15% to enemy fire res which increases your real damage output considerably.

A light sorc without Infinity is going to be no fun in my opinion as I like to kill things not teleport past them...

[madrettorrR]

...
Just go make a blizz sorc for meph and other no CIs areas.

I usually also start with a Blizzard Sorceress. Very Easy to do Hell Mephisto (thanks to the moat trick) and there's always the very nice Hell Ancient Tunnels located in act 2. This is a lvl 85 area and -Except maybe for one or two bosses, there are totally no Cold Immunes!

[Scudstorm]

I really don't like key running, keys are hard to sell and i need lots of em to ever get them sold.

Hmm... what realm do you play on? On East Ladder and N-L, it's my primary source of income even though I can do all areas with ease...

Btw, I do agree on Tal Set. It's just that much better for a meteorb. Keep making spirit shields, it depends on your realm, but I think 3 of them will be more than enough to trade for the entire set. Or 3 keysets :)

[rCt Arbitur]

I play on Europe Non-Ladder, and i did not use full Tal last ladder, but i've heard its good if u don't afford good gear, so if i go for full tal should i get light? cause tal gives + light dmg and - enemy light res then it would work nicely right? and why shouldn't i make a orber with maxed tele instead of Blizzard if im gonna do Ancient tunnels, meph and a little andy? Btw if i make a light soso i would be able to do Shenk and eldricht too which is nice but with orber i could do the council at meph too which i've gotten quite some nice drops from before (rare jewellry and charms).
Once again, i've calced my damage with full tal and heres my conclusion:
Orb damage: 583-615 (and i will have -160% on enemy cold res)

Lightning Damage: 26,6-12630
Chain Lightning Damage: 16-6471
Charged Bolt Damage: 281-307 (i will have -15% enemy light res)

I think both sounds nice, orb should be awesome for meph and Ancient tunnels but light soso could clear shenk and eldricht rather fast, any ideas? (i calced without torch, skillers and anni)

[SeCKSEgai]

Scud and I had a nice discussion on light sorcs in tals, and I believe we both would agree that light sorcs can still make solid use of a full tal set.

As for mfing, I think what you should consider is whether or not you plan on keeping it as your main or are willing to build another sorc later.

Meteororb should be able to pull shenk and eldritch with meteor/fire most of the time (assuming no fire immune mods) and able to alternate damage for most immunes.

Pure light won't be as effective till a merc has infinity, but even without it meph, andy, shenk and eldritch would still be viable targets.

My orb/cl paved the way for the rest of my characters, and I was even able to do baal solo (altho a tad bit slow). She was shelved for my pure light, which actually took a backdoor to my trapper.

You mentioned tele, and I'm assuming you mean tk as opposed to teleport since that would make more sense. I personally have never been a fan of ES because I'm in regular contact with mana burning or blood mana cursing monsters. However, if your mf runs don't have that worry its something to be seriously considered. Since a stat point means either 2 life or 2 mana, I really prefer having more red to work with when that blue bubble disappears.

[rCt Arbitur]

Scud and I had a nice discussion on light sorcs in tals, and I believe we both would agree that light sorcs can still make solid use of a full tal set.

As for mfing, I think what you should consider is whether or not you plan on keeping it as your main or are willing to build another sorc later.

Meteororb should be able to pull shenk and eldritch with meteor/fire most of the time (assuming no fire immune mods) and able to alternate damage for most immunes.

Pure light won't be as effective till a merc has infinity, but even without it meph, andy, shenk and eldritch would still be viable targets.

My orb/cl paved the way for the rest of my characters, and I was even able to do baal solo (altho a tad bit slow). She was shelved for my pure light, which actually took a backdoor to my trapper.

You mentioned tele, and I'm assuming you mean tk as opposed to teleport since that would make more sense. I personally have never been a fan of ES because I'm in regular contact with mana burning or blood mana cursing monsters. However, if your mf runs don't have that worry its something to be seriously considered. Since a stat point means either 2 life or 2 mana, I really prefer having more red to work with when that blue bubble disappears.

I mean't teleport when i said tele and i really don't like ES, so would a light soso work in full tals? i mean Meteorb seems a bit boring cause ive had em before but light sosos wierd 1-xxxxx dmg is a bit annoying without any source of -enemy res which tal got (15)... Btw i've managed to get all tal pieces except armr + lidless wall + magefist so far :D leveling atm but aren't wasting skill points until i've decided..i really want a light soso but i dont want to lvl it to 90 then when i mf with it it can't even kill andy :/

Another question, should i go for max block?

EDIT: got magefist and lidless now, and gull + rhyme on switch :)

[SeCKSEgai]

I can think of no reason to max teleport, as all extra points do is reduce teleport cost. My sorcs teleport cost is next to nothing, but her +skills are also quite high - either way, points should not be wasted in tele period.

If you really enjoy light sosos, then why not make it? In full tals you'll be well covered and as you are NL, you'd be hard-pressed to improve your average damage using alternative setups.

Don't bother with max block - sorc shields are terrible for blocking and require far too many points that are much more useful elsewhere. Think of it this way, Having a high chance to block means little if not blocking the hit means instant death. Having a high chance to block means little if you can't survive long enough to get away, or the attacks aren't blockable (ie elemental, magical). However, having enough hp to take a huge hit and realize you need to get out of dodge and heal will keep you from death more often than not.

If you can't kill andy with a light sorc you're doing something wrong - she should go down quickly with your arsenal.

Light damage is more avg damage because of the low min and high max - -res speeds up the process but isn't necessary. Especially since an infinity would probably be far more difficult to come by on NL, I wouldn't focus too much on that.

[Scudstorm]

You seem to be unsure about the builds' performance in specific areas. So I'll make an easy list here :)

All assuming in full tals without too many other fancy things, without Infinity merc, but merc has big damage stick and can tank/kill well (Countess, Lord de Seis...)


Light Meteorb Orb or Blizzard Chain/Orb

Countess Very Easy Easy Immunes, Easy Easy
The Pit Immunes, Medium Easy Immunes, Medium Easy
Andariel Easy Very Easy Easy Medium
Ancient Tunnels Immunes, Medium Easy Very Easy Medium
Summoner Very Easy Easy Immunes, Easy Easy
Duriel Easy Easy Easy Easy
Travincal Immunes, Hard Hard Medium Hard
Mephisto Very Easy Very Easy Very Easy Medium
Chaos Sanctuary Immunes, Hard Medium Immunes, Hard Medium
Eldritch Easy Easy Immunes, Medium Easy
Shenk Easy Easy Immunes, Medium Easy
Pindleskin Easy Easy Easy Easy
Nihlathak Immunes, Tricky Tricky Immunes, Tricky Tricky
World Stone Keep Immunes, Hard Hard Immunes, Hard Hard
Baal's waves Immunes, Hard Hard Immunes, Hard Very Hard
Baal Easy Easy Easy Hard


All these are based on personal experience. Note that I don't recommend running chaos on a sorc since Waheed's suicides can get quite frustrating :P

A note on Nihl: lure & kill (if not pure cold) his minions in one of the corridors leading to him. If you lured them far enough into the corridor, Nihl would be too far to explode them. Then, tele in from the other corridor for a fast kill. If pure cold, just attack him until he dies... Make sure you are not too close to your merc since Nihl will use CE on stuff he kills.

[sethyboy]

I would suggest not making a blizzard sorc, as they are extremely flawed.

If you somehow manage to get a couple + skills and an insight, you won't do good anyway:

Those little skeleton guys that explode when killed can take you out in about 3 hits which a merc can easily trigger.

The council members are extremely hard to fight without getting you or your merc killed.

The blood lords are immune to cold

You aren't going to do things easily unless you have good gear, but if you have that good of gear, you don't need a blizz sorc to mf (which never gets me good gear anyway).

[jamex]

Just go make a blizz sorc for meph and other no CIs areas.

Where can I find a relatively new blizz sorc build guide? I looked and can just find outdated ones (2003, etc.).