Help for a newb's sorceress?

[saikeimei]

I don't know a whole lot about diablo 2, but can anyone suggest me a decent build for a frozen orb sorc? I made one but I got some wrong skills, and have trouble with cold immunes. I tried boosting fireball, but haven't gotten it up to the point where it helps much in hell. I have a pretty awesome merc, but he still has trouble when the going gets rough. I don't know if i should use energy shield, thunderstorm, or whatever. I know there are plenty of guides, but they are often made by more experienced people that use acronyms for items that i don't know, or are making builds just not suitable for a good, balanced character (some people talk about making enchantresses, etc).

I also don't know if I should be trying to boost dex for shields or not, how much energy i'll need with what items, etc. I'll definitely have to remake and fix all of that. I intend to do mf, but I also want the character to be halfway enjoyable and able to just annihilate everything, so I prefer a fair mix between mf and killability.

Assuming I can trade with friends, mf what i can to trade up, find runes, etc -- can anyone suggest a fairly powerful item and stat build for my purposes? I found a post that looks great, but the items are just a bit beyond what I'll probably be able to get -- http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=582680
I can probably get some really good stuff - please post me some great items so that I have something to work toward - but it'll probably have to be just a little below the items in that link. I don't think I'll ever find those. Somewhere between Tal Rasha's and those godlike items in that link, because I have been able to find Tal's set items, and I need better stuff.

I know faster cast rate matters, hit recovery matters.... there's a lot that matters, and certain limits to consider, and the stats, skill points, and basically everything I do revolve around a certain set of equipment. I don't want to try to get gear for my sorceress, then find out that I can't use that because I ended up needing to use that item's slot for, say, a faster cast rate item.

I know what i'm doing.... but I don't know. Y'know?

[Gleric]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=671691

That's the build I followed and it has worked out perfectly for me. Find the excell sheet posted at page 2 for proper fire mastery / fire bolt balancing.

The build is has Fire Ball as main attack with frozen orb and meteor as back up. Since the build is created around usage of the Tal Rasha set it isn't that expensive al though it will get a lot more powerful once you can pimp it out with skillers and good merc gear.

For good basic merc gear I suggest a Reapers Toll, Crown of Thieves and some random but good armor. Non eth pieces of those can go fairly cheap.

For you I'd suggest geting Tal Rasha Set, a 35FCR spirit shield. Mix it up with Magefist, low War Travellers and perhaps a Nagelring and you got a very versitable sorceress. Geting 4/4 facets for your gear is fairly cheap aswell, nobody hardly bothers with fire / cold facets unless they are 5/5.

[saikeimei]

Well I guess that really would suit me well. Frozen Orb is maxed and all, and I have the fire abilities to kill cold immune. I still intensely love Frozen Orb though, and am debating whether I should follow this guide or not because he emphasizes fire damage and fire charms, etc. That would put my FO at the background, and make it my less-damaging backup skill. I could probably rework some stuff, trade out fire charms for cold charms, etc... but I really don't have the knowledge of gear that I need for doing that yet.

Apparently there's a certain level of FCR you guys try to hit.... why? Does it matter if I don't hit exactly 105%? It's that kind of EXACTNESS that leaves me clueless about proceeding here. Also, I can get my hands on a heart of the oak and maybe a good shield, which kinda breaks the guy's full Tal's set theory.

I dunno. At this point, I'm almost ready to accept a few wasted skill points or wasted stats. I'll keep looking it over. Thanks for the link.

[Scudstorm]

Exactly 105% fcr is because if you have 104% fcr, you'd cast 1 frame slower.

The game is divided by frames, 1 second being 25 frames. You cannot perform actions by fractions of frames. Think of it as a movie (it's actually pretty similar). You will be casting at 8 frames per spell with 105% fcr, and the lower breakpoint is at 63% fcr for 9 frames per cast. Anything in between would not help at all.

Tal set shines very much on dual tree sorcs. Much more so than any Hoto you can ever make. Trade the Hoto for pieces of tal's (depending on its stats, you can prob get a full set with it). The only "good" substitutes to tal's are Death's Fathom and Nightwing's Veil.

I recommend Firewall instead of Fireball for a cold-oriented sorc. It requires much less skill points to attain a high potential (20 in Firewall and 1 in fire mastery) and makes for a solid cheap back-up attack.

Welcome to the forums :)

[Bladewind]

Tal is good for Fire + Cold but not lightning skill trees. :)

[SeCKSEgai]

Tal is good for Fire + Cold but not lightning skill trees. :)

Actually had a discussion over this - without using crescent moon or griffons (or a specially built infinity sorc) the -15 light res from tals will compensate for missing plus skills, so it indeed is very useful for a light sorc.

[SeCKSEgai]

Frozen Orb is great in NM and as a backup attack - but it's not reliable as a main attack in Hell (and I had a orb/chain light sorc).

In order to really maximize frozen orb's potential, you'll need to be out of Tal's and have some expensive gear. If you're just starting out, it just won't be attainable for some time.

While I'm not saying that its useless in Tals, the fact of the matter is there are very few ways to boost cold skill damage and that it primarily comes out of gear selection. However, with that said, one must understand you won't be breaking cold immunes, not without some very specific help at least - even then can't break the majority.

The popularity for the meteororb build is that you cover most of your bases by having cold and fire damage. There will be cold/fire immunes, but there are light/fire immunes and cold/light immunes just the same.

As for FCR, I've learned just how important it is. I didn't care about it much on my orber because of the cast delay, however, it affects your teleport speed - something that can mean the difference between life or death. It's not hard to pull 105 fcr in tals, it just limits your glove, ring and shield selection. Tal's gives 50fcr by itself, magefists or trangs' gives 20fcr rings can give 10 each and a spirit shield can give up to 35.