My sorc sucks....HELP!

[sjquakes]

Just started playing this game again after a break (last played back in the 1.09 patch, needless to say my account got deleted). I decided to try make a sorc to mf and try build up some wealth, ended up meeting some generous people and got some decent gear, but my guy still gets mauled and is really fragile in hell mode. Let me know what I did wrong

stat points:
str=97 to wear skullders
dex= base
energy= 125 base
vit= everything else

gear:
helm= shako
wep = occy w/ p topaz
armor= skullders/ que hegans
shield= viscerescant defender (spelling?)
gloves = frostburn
belt = tal rashas
boots= aldurs
ammy = +3 cold skills ammy
rings= 1 is a nagelring, 1 is a ****ty +17 mf 25 light resist i found
don't have any charms worth mentioning at this point, I'm pretty poor

skills:
20 chain lightning
20 lightning
working on maxing lightning mastery
20 orb
1 cold mastery
1 chilling armor
1 teleport
1 static field
1 energy shield
1 warmth
1 in all prereqs

my guy does alright damage in single player games it seems, but he just gets mauled as soon as he gets hit (maybe I need a merc?) Let me know what you think. I really want to stick with it and make this guy good, sorcs have always been my fav class, but at this point its looking to me as if hammerdins are the only viable class (they are so boring though!). This game is much harder than I remember it, any and all help/advice is appreciated. I'll be on for a while if anyone wants to help me out online or just post your message here. USWest ladder *Irnbru

[Scudstorm]

Chain/Orb is a nice build, but it needs better gear for "enough" firepower. I suggest you trade for full Tal's from your current setup.

It's hard on untwinked, but you shouldn't put points into Energy unless you go for Energy Shield (which you shouldn't use in your build, it's really an all-or-nothing skill).

A sorc benefits greatly from a tanking merc. Get one of those act2 guys (Nightmare defensive for Holy Freeze is what I would use) and put an Insight polearm on him. Some leech and res will keep him alive, but expect him to die often enough before clvl85+.

[VeeSe]

First off, I hope you're not meleeing with the occulus and looking to add some extra lightning damage by socketing it with that ptopaz (because that's what it does in weapons). For MF, you need to socket weapons with Ist runes, but since you just started you probably don't have access to that (same goes for enigma body armor for MFing, but skullder's is just fine since you're a sorc and have teleport).

Also, almost everybody uses a merc nowadays, since mercs are absolutely essential to almost all PvM builds. A2 mercs are usually the way to go. Make an insight weapon ('RalTirTalSol' in polearms) for essentially infinite mana and nice damage if you make it in an elite polearm. Give him some life leech on his helm, and slap on a huge defense armor to keep him alive. Holy freeze mercs or defiance mercs work best at tanking and keeping you alive. Again, life leech is a must if you want your merc to stay alive for more than 3 seconds. Be prepared to shell out money to revive him as you quest, and always make sure he levels up with you and stays right near your level. I would strongly advise against just leaving him dead for long periods of time while you gain many levels.

I just wanted to add that if you think that hammerdins are the only viable class, you might be looking/playing D2 the wrong way. There are hundreds of viable builds, and even more weird hybrids that people take through hell. Then again, you last played in 1.09, where the game was ridiculously easy and hell was a joke compared to now, so you might just be frustrated. Untwinked play is meant to be hard, not easy, and the patches 1.10+ made it that way. Just Mat your character and then work from there. Good luck!

[sirpoopsalot]

One issue I can see is you're sitting at 30 Faster Cast Rate (or 50 with Que Hagans)... yikes. That's a problem, because (as you've learned), sorcs are fragile. They're not meant to get hit often. With a faster casting speed you can use teleport more to avoid getting attacked in the first place. Not getting hit at all is priority #1 for 99% of sorcs that are just starting out, and Teleport is your best defensive skill to help with that task. So, obviously, it makes sense to boost your teleporting speed.


So I'd start by dropping one of your rings and getting one with 10% Faster Cast Rate. That alone will push you up a breakpoint, and make a difference in your survivability.

The next breakpoint is 63 FCR, and that's the one I'd recommend as the "minimum" (with 105+ FCR recommended). One of the most commonly used items for boosting FCR (because it's also one of the best) is a Spirit shield. The problem in this case is that it requires more strength than you have - quite a bit more strength (156 required). It's worth it if you want to plan where to spend your stat points for the next ~8 levels, but otherwise there's already a tolerable alternative. Have a look at a Lidless Wall instead. They're cheap to trade for (probably a couple PGems), you still get the +1 skills you already have, but you get 20 FCR too. And since you didn't invest in dexterity, you don't really loose anything by ditching the Visceratuant (Visc. is a good blocking shield, while Lidless is not - but without points in dexterity, they're both going to suck at blocking).

That'll boost you to 60 FCR with the skullders, which is almost there. If you don't have problems with your mana supply (and, if you get the Insight mercenary that's been recommended by the previous posters, you won't), you can get another easy 20 FCR from Magefists or Trang's gloves. Again, these are pretty cheap to trade for (a few PGems). Those push you up to 80 FCR, which is a tad slow, but really not too bad.

Now for the armor you can stick with Skullders and stay at 80 FCR. That's not bad for MFing. But for getting through the game I'd really leave the Skullders in your stash (then return to it when it's time to MF). You can use Que Hagans and create a crafted 'caster' belt and get over 105% FCR, but there's a better alternative: Skin of the Vipermagi - one of the best sorceress armors in the game - is also quite cheap to trade for, and it comes with +1 skill, 30 FCR and some decent resists.

Now, if you want even more speed, you could pair the Vipermagi with a crafted caster belt that has 7% FCR (or more) and get over 117 total FCR. That's the 2nd fastest breakpoint for your lightning skills, and compared to the 30/50 FCR you're currently experiencing, it'll feel like a world of difference.

However 105 FCR is really the biggest breakpoint, in my opinion, since that makes your casting speed for teleport faster than almost any monster who attacks you. And when you're faster than them, simply teleport away as soon as you see them start their attack animation (remember: not getting hit is priority #1).

[droid]

As others have said, and adding a few ideas of my own

-You need an A2 merc to tank, thats just all there is to say about it :) Insight in a polearm, and usually life leech from a helm (Vamp Gaze or Stealskull are best at lower levels, but any helm with LL will do....Undead Crown, crafted Blood Helmet, whatever). Duriel's Shell is a good, really cheap armor for mercs, as is Shaftstop, but a little pricier

-FCR is more important than mana....you can always down a potion if you need to. I'd trade the Frostburns for a Magefist, you get 20 FCR, and +1 Fire means your Warmth gets an extra level :)

-A Spirit shield should be obtainable by you right now. Hopefully you have enough stat points to get to 156 str to wield it. It gives you a whole host of good mods - resists, FCR, huge FHR, and the all-important +2 skills. CL/FO sorcs pretty much all use Spirit as their endgame shield, so you should really count on sinking in the STR to wear a Monarch, the lightest shield that can have 4 sockets

-I'd ditch the MF gear till you were ~L80, untwinked, and just focus on grinding up levels for the meantime. MFing with a half-*** set of MF gear on a lower level character is inefficient....you dont have enough MF to make a big difference, so all it does it make your character weaker - so you kill slowly and for no appreciable benefit.

[Shanksie1337]

^ all good advise

However i'm going to be abit negative here, but i'd suggest restarting your sorc, putting 125 into energy was a mistake (tho i fully appreciate why you did it, low level badly geared sorc's suck for mana bigtime). Whilst restarting i'd also suggest a different build, as Scud mentions CL/FO isn't the most starter friendly build (neither for that matter is hdin).

Sorcs are extremely viable, however as is the case with other classes, certain builds are much easier on a budget than others. Rerolling and going Blizz, FO/Fireball (orbitaller) or plain Meteorb will perform better on a budget.

Ofc if you want to stick with this girl then ignore me, and go with the above posters excellent suggestions.

[AnimeCraze]

Who says hammerdin isn't starter friendly. Except for the first 18 levels (and there you still can melee with might), and maggot's lair, hammerdin is simply overpowered. That is even if you are using 2x spirit and lore.

[Galtrovan]

Who says hammerdin isn't starter friendly. Except for the first 18 levels (and there you still can melee with might), and maggot's lair, hammerdin is simply overpowered. That is even if you are using 2x spirit and lore.

Yep, full 8-player game, starting at level 1, playing thru all of act 1 (i.e. no skipping/no rushing) you'll be level 16.5 by the time you kill Andy. Soon after hitting act 2 you'll hit 18 and from there the game is a joke.

[Millard]

I'd really recommend going pure one element on a starting sorceress... splitting between two elements is just going to hurt your damage and your defense. You don't need to kill immune mobs just skip them. lol

If you're worried about dying you should stack points into telekinesis (preferably 20) for the bonus efficiency to energy shield. that will really help your survivability. That's worth way more than a second element IMO.

I'd recommend a fireball sorc for MFing. I have three sorcs one of each element and fire just works better for MFing. its really hard to kill Nihlakthat (sp?) as frost, and mephisto and andy are both a real pain as lightning. The only thing you really have problems with as fire is the last two waves of a baal run.

Build is: Max firebolt, fireball, meteor and telekinesis, 1 point in ES and all the regular stuff, remaining points into fire mastery. Stats: Enough str for spirit shield, about 100 energy base, rest in vita.

Once you get enough +skill points (IE, a torch) you'll actually be able to kill fire immunes with level 1 chain lightning and one point in lightning mastery (which you get free if you use tal's orb...). on my fireball sorc, my chain light does about 3-550 damage (thats with only one hard point in CL and +2 LM from my tal's eye). that's more than enough to kill countess for keyruns, even when my merc is dead.

I'd recommend the following gear:

Tal's Eye, Armor and Belt (for 3 piece set bonus that gives -15% fire res and 65% MF)
Shako with ptopaz
Good rare or crafted amulet (with MF and possibly sorc or fire skills and maybe fcr too ).
spirit shield
CTA on switch (really helps your survivability get one asap)
Chancies or magefist
good fcr ring (try to hit 105 breakpoint if you can. You should be close, you'd just need either a 35 spirit or an amulet with a small amount of fcr (possibly crafted?)). If you can't hit 105 fcr breakpoint just use a nagelring.
nature's peace ring (you need this to not die to corpse explosion when farming nihl)
war travs or rare MF boots.

for MFing i do a lot of keyruns and i also kill andy, mephisto + the council members near him, and random mobs in act 5 (i usually kill shenk then eldrich then sharptooth slayer then eyeback then thresh socket, all of which are easy to find and in set locations)

[SnickerSnack]

always make sure he levels up with you and stays right near your level. I would strongly advise against just leaving him dead for long periods of time while you gain many levels.

That's not necessary. You can always just rehire a new merc with a level at or near your own. (You do need to take the items off of the old merc before you rehire though.)

[Shanksie1337]

I'd agree with Millard, either pure fire or pure frost is good, as static gives you some help for immunes if you have to kill them.

[Scudstorm]

Meh. Fire is plenty powerful with ~60 points. No reason not to get that backup Orb.

[Millard]

Meh. Fire is plenty powerful with ~60 points. No reason not to get that backup Orb.

i'd rather have max telekinesis so i don't die than "backup orb" that i'll hardly ever use. why waste time killing fire immunes on an MF sorc anyway?

[AnimeCraze]

Because you want to run Baal? Besides, no reason to use energy shield. It only increases the risk. Whenever you hit a mana burn, you need to make an instant judgement, which failing can lead to dire consequences. I rather that I lose health at the same rate for all monsters, as opposed to suddenly very near death for 5% of them.

[Millard]

Because you want to run Baal? Besides, no reason to use energy shield. It only increases the risk. Whenever you hit a mana burn, you need to make an instant judgement, which failing can lead to dire consequences. I rather that I lose health at the same rate for all monsters, as opposed to suddenly very near death for 5% of them.

have you ever played an ES sorc? because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. having energy shield doesn't make you insta-die vs any mana burn mob, they're actually easier with energy shield than without (since your mana's going to get burned anyway it might as well absorb some damage before it goes...), and putting points into energy shield does not suddenly make you have zero hit points.

in any case, there are zero (0) kinds of mobs, mana burn or otherwise that will kill you easier on an ES sorc than on a non-ES sorc.