Matriarch Summertime - Passion Enchantress

[TopHatCat64]

Matriarch Summertime

"It was like nothing I'd ever seen," said the grizzled old soldier.

"Most of the mages on the march hate getting their hands dirty. They'd rather go hungry then pick up a sword and give the beasties a good honest strike. But the fire witch...she..she was something different," he mused between swallows of wine.

The Planning Stage

Summertime is my oldest and most finely-tuned active character. Her long and winding journey started sometime back in 2005. Even back then, I was searching for something different. The idea of getting a sorc to survive in melee seemed intriguing enough, and enchant seemed tailor-made for experiments in close combat.

I originally geared/skilled Summertime for being a hybrid melee enchantress/ES sorc. Once I maxed the holy trinity of Enchant, I noted that I had room for 2 more maxed skills. I wanted to stay in melee, so most of the other spells were out for me. Energy shield (and TK) seemed to be the only legitimate choice, defensively. I dismissed the cold armors as inadequate past Normal and a poor investment.

Gear-wise: I had popped Sol runes into my Gerke's, Twitch, and Kira's and my belt was originally a 15mdr String of Ears. The rest of my gear was as you currently see below. For you old-timers on the SPF, those blood glove were acquired from necrolemming. Twitchthroe, ah good ol' Twitch...anyone reading my mat/pat threads knows I am the unofficial champion of Twitchthroe as 'Most Underrated'. This character was the start of my appreciation for that simple green armor. Twitch helps me save about 60 dex for max block, let's me not sacrifice socket spaces for jewels of fervor, and gets me halfway to my current FHR breakpoint. For a character class so poorly designed for melee, Twitch gave my other gear choices a lot more flexibility.

Leveling and Observations

Fast forward to the point where I could actually use my Passion phase blade. I think it was act2 NM. Holy moly, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely was not seeing my sorc rip through crowds like an out-of-control wildfire. At the time, I don't think I had a single Burning charm, and I was still using a Leaf staff as my only piece of prebuff gear. I expected things to slow down in Hell but I was still able to rip through packs of non-immunes at players 8. As I added more and better gear over time, my killing rate just kept getting faster and faster.

Fire immunes obviously slowed things down a bit, but the combination of Static Field, my merc, and my small amount of crushing blow kept the steam-roller moving at reasonable pace.

Teleport is my favorite part of this particular character. Normally, teleport is a useful, but mundane part of every sorc's arsenal. Here, it was key to my enjoyment of this build. Being able to constantly jump from place to place on the battlefield was so fundamentally different from my previous melee builds (and future builds, as it turned out). It's the only advantage for a melee sorc and it works perfectly to overcome her many disadvantages in the trenches. Those negatives are mainly: poor FHR breakpoints, low life per vit point, slow blocking speed.

The more monsters attacking me, the greater the chance I have of dying. That's true of all builds, but much more so for enchantresses, I found. Teleport allows you to create a brief 2on1 situation when you zap next to stragglers on the edges of the pack. Lone monster gets hit with the double whammy of a full zeal cycle and the merc jabbing. The pack turns around and starts to advance and you teleport to the other side and pick off another straggler. "So thus it is that the Desert is crossed."

Defensively, Teleport also helps since the merc is always "on top" when you 'port. He take any intial hit and gives you a split second to start attacking unhindered.

After many hours of questing I realized ES just wasn't working for me. My gear wasn't focused enough on prebuffing it and I didn't have enough PDR/MDR. It was going down way too fast and leaving me stranded with no mana. When 1.13c came out, I now had a chance to rejigger my loadout.

Gear-wise, I settled on bumping up my frame rates in blocking, FHR, and casting rate by swapping in Shael's for Sol's and swapping Arachnid Mesh for SoE. Arach's +1 skill also gave me 1 extra hit with zeal. Skill-wise, I maxed Teleport so that I could 'port indefinitely. Mana-burn monsters were creating situations where I couldn't port, and that was very dangerous. Static Field got maxed as well. The range boost was helpful when I needed it.

The Future
Summertime currently encompasses one of my long term D2 goals: get Enchant as high as possible. There's only 3 places where I can improve:

1. Get a beta BKWB - gonna take awhile
2. Get another beta BKWB - gonna take awhile longer
3. Find the perfect magical orb: +3 fire skills, +3 enchant, +3 fire mastery - nearly impossible, but I still pick up every magical orb I find. It's how I found my current orb


Questing Gear Stats - Screenshot (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/TopHatCat64/Screenshot003.jpg)

Lvl 94

Zeal damage w/ full Lvl 50 Enchant: 14K-16K

Life: 1114 | Mana: 374
Resists: 75/75/75/75
Str: 95 | Dex: 132 | Vit: 298
6 frame Zeal

20 Enchant
20 Warmth
20 Fire Mastery
20 Static Field
20 Teleport

Questing Gear

70res Kira's 'Shael'
Viper Torc Amulet*
'Passion' Phase Blade
Twitchthroe 'Shael'
30res Gerke's 'Shael'
Havoc Hand Gloves*
Arachnid Mesh
Goblin Toe
Rune Master Ring*
Corruption Gyre Ring*

6 Burning GC's with +29/+29/+30/+30/+33/+34 life
1 15res Shimmering GC with +30 life
5 Mana/life SC's
2 FHR SC's

Merc: Guillame's / Reaper's / Duriel's

Viper Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xdede4c7a
+19 to Strength
+17 to Dexterity
+54 to Life
+16 to Mana
Fire Resist +27%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +20%
Poison Resist +20%

Havoc Hand
Heavy Gloves
Defense: 10
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 92
Fingerprint: 0x5d9c3b90
+15 to Strength
+19 to Life
+55% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +12%
2% Life stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
7% Chance of Crushing Blow

Rune Master
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xc3516bfb
+40 to Life
+39 to Mana
Poison Resist +10%
8% Life stolen per hit
10% Faster Cast Rate

Corruption Gyre
Ring
Required Level: 48
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0x50db2789
+4 to Energy
+20 to Life
+81 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +10%
Lightning Resist +18%
Cold Resist +10%
Poison Resist +10%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Prebuff Gear - Screenshot (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y103/TopHatCat64/Screenshot002.jpg)

Volcanic Coronet of Atlas 'Two 5% dmg fire facets'
Volcanic Amulet of the Giant
Volcanic Sacred Globe w/ +2 Enchant 'Two 5% dmg fire facets'
Ormus Robes w/ +3 Enchant and 15% fire dmg '5% dmg fire facet'
'Spirit' Eth Monarch
Magefist
Arachnid Mesh
SoJ
SoJ

10 Burning GC's

[LeWoVoc]

Awesome. Gotta love these things.

[Morathi]

Nice Mat!

Quick question: why the 20 in teleport? Surely you could have placed the points into something more useful?

[sorcererbob]

I'm building a similar character in hardcore. Currently level 60, went down the MDR/PDR/ES/TK route. Could you have not respec'ed your gear for PDR/MDR instead of ditching ES? Do you think it would have been as effective?

Did you die? If so, what was the main cause of death?

1100 life seems terribly low for a melee character. I know that any of my casters with ~800 health *really* don't like taking hits, and I'm sure it's the same for this character.

@Morathi: to reduce to mana cost to essentially zero (where your mana will regen enough to cast it in the time it takes to cast it).

Any tips that will help me survive? (other than teleport like my life depends on it, which it does, and "use static frequently", which I do).

edit: How did you sort out your ES prebuff and your Enchant prebuff? I'm struggling with it. Thinking I'll just carry an ES stick and use the switch for buffing (lower ES, but it means that it's active ALL THE TIME). Tips?

[Arkardo]

Grats! I like this character. A lot. Too bad I don't have more time right now, but I'll check her out completely tonight, or maybe tomorrow.

Cheers!

[purplelocust]

Nicely done! That is quite a nice Enchant prebuff setup there. For my enchantresses, I'm often doing some shrine surfing to find a Skill Shrine somewhere near a WP for the added benefit, or MPing with a barb for the Battle Command. The duration on Enchant is long enough that it is no problem really committing to a big prebuff setup. As opposed to the trouble of prebuffing ES, where the duration isn't as long and there is the possibility of losing it in battle.

Having a full ES setup does require a lot of PDR and that uses up gear slots or leads to a fair amount of compromise, so I like your Teleport investment instead. A point or a few in CM and LM is another possibility for a non-ES melee Enchantress, with some damage from cold or lightning charms perhaps.

Twitch is indeed a great armor- when I've found it questing for untwinked characters I'm very happy. And that is some nice jewelry there!



1. Get a beta BKWB - gonna take awhile


To boost your Enchant with +2 BKWBs: after a project last December, I started writing a miniguide for running for beta +2 BKWB rings but I never posted that. I should finish that guide off and post it.

[Arkardo]

I don't really get the max'd Teleport either; with max'd Warmth and Static Field being the only other skill requiring mana, do you still need that?

Also, did you upgrade your Twichtroe? You might be able to get a decent defense when you use a cold armor as well.

[VoX Dei]

What a coincidence! I'm playing a zeal enchantress, except mine will be using the traditional Frozen orb FI-solution.

I agree 100% with everything you said about teleport+melee combo! The ability to teleport adds a whole new level of pleasure, safety, and tactical depth to melee.

Awesome Mat, especially since she's a clvl 94 'off the beaten path' build which is something you won't see everyday. Congratulations :thumbup:

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

I like the look of this one. Gives me ideas for a melee sorc I will have to do one day.

Gratz on the Mat! :thumbup:

[MYK]

As both a fan of the caster variant of the Static Enchantress and builds featuring maxed or infinicastable Teleport, this looks really cool and impressive.
I've also tried the Ench+ES build without being very happy with the results. Ench+FO seems way too close to being the standard maxed fire Sorceress with Frozen Orb taped on, which does awesome, but it never seems to be quite right.

What did you use for a mercenary? Did you consider using one with an "Obedience" Polearm?
A friend of mine had an Enchant sorceress that user her mercenary as her weapon, armed with an Obedience and Duress, it simply tore things apart with huge damage, both fire and physical and Crushing Blow. I liked it quite a bit.

Good job! :)

[Kitriara]

What did you use for a mercenary? Did you consider using one with an "Obedience" Polearm?
A friend of mine had an Enchant sorceress that user her mercenary as her weapon, armed with an Obedience and Duress, it simply tore things apart with huge damage, both fire and physical and Crushing Blow. I liked it quite a bit.

The procing of what is probably a lower-level Enchant off of Obedience wouldnt constantly overwrite the Sorc's own spell?

[NagisaFurukawa]

The lower level Enchant won't override a higher one that's already been applied. The opposite does hold though, ie. that a higher level one will apply over a lower one.

Back on topic, an excellent character THC. :) Perhaps I missed it, but where did you do your leveling?

[TopHatCat64]

Thanks folks!

@Morathi: In the beginning, I considered going with Frozen Orb/Cold Mastery as my immune solution. But, I realized early on in my D2 experience that I really don't like playing casters. I decided to stick with skills that would help in melee or near-melee (static field).

1. I reasoned that I use Teleport more then any other skill.
2. A lvl 2 teleport costs 23 mana, and I found it takes a noticeable chunk out of my bulb.
3. Being the case that I'm almost always in melee range, I was more vulnerable to mana-burn monsters then most sorcs. If I got burned and couldn't afford a teleport, death was likely imminent.

@sorcererbob:

I could have, but it would have definitely taken away from my offensive capabilities and I would have likely been forced to abandon any hopes of achieving max block. I'd also most likely be dealing with slower frame rates for FHR and Block speed. I'd probably swap in Sol'd Gladiator's Bane for my armor, swap out a fast cast ring for Nature's Peace, and swap out my amulet for a Volcanic amulet of Life Everlasting. That would give me a lot more PDR.

Yep, I definitely have died with this character. Being the case that this was one of my first SP characters, and my first melee sorc, it took some trial and error before I got my play-style down pat. Nowadays, I tend to die to one thing: aura-enchanted beetles with conviction. You see, I level in the Maggot Lair (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3339984&postcount=2) and I don't always see what I hit since I teleport on top of it. Since I have justtt enough resists to hit max, conviction kills my resists, my zeal sets off a bunch of bolts and I die pretty much instantly.

1100 life might seem low, but it's doable if you play smart and avoid getting surrounded. Like I said above, teleport is the key to this build. With it, you fight on your terms and can hit monsters before they can even react. If you don't use it, you're fighting like a barb...but without their massive lifepool or like a paladin...but without their super-fast blocking.

Looking at my stash, I could fit a Memory staff (a max of +9 ES), a Powered amulet, a Powered circlet, and 4 Sparking skillers. Add my current 2 SoJ's and my Arachnid Mesh and I'd be able to pull off a lvl 42 ES with 20 hard points in the skill. Hmm...actually, according to that guide you referenced in your previous post, lvl 40 is as high as you want to go for maximum effectiveness. Perhaps it can be done...

@Arkado: Yep, I doubled upped the Twitch to a wire fleece. Still, I only have 1030 defense - effectively nothing.

@MYK: Thanks man. I used the standard A2 might merc. The might doesn't do much for me, obviously, but it helps a lot when he's killing fire immunes. He's using Reaper's, Duriel's, and Guillame's. He also gets 'chanted up when I go questing and he's a pretty formidable weapon when I drop him on top of monsters.

@NF: After I mat'ed Summertime, I leveled in the Maggot Lair exclusively. No fire immunes and the tight confines meant that I had little chance of being overwhelmed by packs. Of the 3 monster types, the gnat swarms get vaporized in one hit and the maggots are not a threat at all. The lightning beetles pose the most threat both in their melee attack and all the bolts they spew out. Occasionally, one of the beetles will be a unique with conviction. As I said above, therein lies the one major drawback with the maggot lair.

[JihadJesus]

My zealchantress is still one of my favorite characters. I've actually been debating going back and remaking her using an e-bugged 'Passion' 1.07 cryptic sword and Fortitude, trying to get some leechable damage. Also, dual Dream.

If I can ever actually MAKE dual dreams, I'll probably make an effort to 99 a zealsorc.

[sorcererbob]

Isn't dual dream + maxed lightning mastery one of those "walk around and things get too scared to continue living in your presence" kind of setups?

And if you can afford that you can probably afford infinity. Yowch.

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

Congrats on the mat THC! How much of that 14k-16k comes from Enchant? :o

[Kitriara]

TopHat, did I miss you mentioning what kind of merc you had? I can only assume you went Holy Freeze? If not, would you think that some points in Frozen Armor or Shiver Armor would be worth it to slow things that manage to hit you?

I was also curious about your thought on her ability to take hits. Would you say that Twitch would be core over Iron Pelt for necessary blocking, etc? And that Gerke's would be more worth it than maybe Sanctuary, allowing you to perhaps swap out some other res gear for something more combat related?

[TopHatCat64]

@omg: I just checked.

My damage without enchant or might: 273-353
My damage without enchant and might: 477-586

So, damn near all of it!

@kitriara: I used a might merc. As you can see, the aura didn't do a whole lot for me but it helped make my merc a better fire-immune killer - which was his main purpose. I may have I tried a Holy Freeze merc at point and switched back to might for some reason, but it might be worth considering for defensive purposes.

I don't really think the cold armors are worth it. Chill/Freeze time is cut so much in Hell Diff.

For my purposes, yes I really felt like Twitch was necessary since it let me hit faster, recover quicker, and gain lots of life through less points needed for max block. Your playing style and goals might vary from mine, but it's a very solid armor option in my eye.

Now that you mention it, I'm not entirely sure if another shield might be better then Gerke's. Without Gerke's 30res all, my resists are around 35 resist all. An UM'd Whitsan's might actually work a little better. I'll run some numbers. EDIT: Well, I guess I have to get some essences since the UM'd Whitsan's is slightly better.

Pros:
1. One frame faster blocking
2. Need 16 less dex for max block, and hence gain 32 life

Cons:
1. Lose 8 resist all
2. Need to swap my 15 life / 16 mana small charm for a 5res all shimmering small charm.

That leaves me with an small net gain of +17 life and I have 72res in Cold instead of 75. The faster blocking is real benefit, however.

[Kitriara]

That leaves me with an small net gain of +17 life and I have 72res in Cold instead of 75. The faster blocking is real benefit, however.
Is that worth giving up the PDR and MDR?

[TopHatCat64]

Is that worth giving up the PDR and MDR?

If I went with my original ES/TK plan, I'd definitely keep using Gerke's but that little PDR/MDR is largely cosmetic. The main reason I kept using Gerke's after I respec'ed was its high block and good res all.

[Greebo]

Congratulations THC! An impressive investment of time and resources went into this character and I see she's very much optimized.

Why didn't you use beta-CtA on the switch? I figure it might be because of the space constraints, but from what I see, basically you'd only need to take off the volcanic orb. And you know, one more level for enchant...

I understand why you invested in TP and Static, I'm just surprised you didn't invest anything in any form of freezing. My pure fireball sorceress got 1-pt Glacial Spike to freeze the FI packs. It made my moron's life much easier. I'm pretty sure that would be a decent investment and you could do with lvl 15 static.

I think the point of a frozen armor on such a build, apart from chilling, is the defense bonus. Defense works almost perfectly on a melee Sorceress: usually she is either casting, attacking or blocking. Neither of those interferes with defense in any way. A level 2 Shiver armor provides 51% bonus to defense (you were wearing Archanid Mesh anyway).

A chance that a lvl 94 sorceress gets hit by a beetle in the maggot lair with the 1st type of attack (4089 AR):
(1) With 1030 defense: 75.8%
(2) With 1555 defense: 68.8% (i.e. 1-pt in Shiver Armor)

Is the minor delay from monsters being chilled and 7% lower chance to be hit worth the investment of two skillpoints? I think it is. See, that 7% is "free", unlike blocking which takes time to happen. It would be forth it for me. But I can see how you wanted to have maxed Static and TP. It is pretty cool.

Again, grats!
--Greebo

[TopHatCat64]

Why didn't you use beta-CtA on the switch? I figure it might be because of the space constraints, but from what I see, basically you'd only need to take off the volcanic orb. And you know, one more level for enchant...


Hah, that's probably because I don't have a 1.13c CtA, let alone a beta-CtA. My priority list has always been 1. Fortitude (got it now) 2. Grief. Compared to those two runewords, CtA seemed like a bit of a luxury. Having a significant amount boost in life would certainly help my survivability and reduce my chances of getting put into hit recovery - no about that. I'll spend some time in 1.10a at some point.

I forgot about Battle Command, so that would let me boost my Enchant/FM up one more skill level.



I understand why you invested in TP and Static, I'm just surprised you didn't invest anything in any form of freezing. My pure fireball sorceress got 1-pt Glacial Spike to freeze the FI packs. It made my moron's life much easier. I'm pretty sure that would be a decent investment and you could do with lvl 15 static.


Were I still actively questing through the game, I'd definitely do this. But, 99% of the time, I'm either leveling in the Maggot Lair or running Baal with other folks, so there's not much of a need for immune help.



I think the point of a frozen armor on such a build, apart from chilling, is the defense bonus. Defense works almost perfectly on a melee Sorceress: usually she is either casting, attacking or blocking. Neither of those interferes with defense in any way. A level 2 Shiver armor provides 51% bonus to defense (you were wearing Archanid Mesh anyway).

A chance that a lvl 94 sorceress gets hit by a beetle in the maggot lair with the 1st type of attack (4089 AR):
(1) With 1030 defense: 75.8%
(2) With 1555 defense: 68.8% (i.e. 1-pt in Shiver Armor)

Is the minor delay from monsters being chilled and 7% lower chance to be hit worth the investment of two skillpoints? I think it is. See, that 7% is "free", unlike blocking which takes time to happen. It would be forth it for me. But I can see how you wanted to have maxed Static and TP. It is pretty cool.


I'm definitely considering this now. I actually have 3 unused skill points since I respec'ed. So this is looking like a good option. Thanks for running the numbers.