FO sorc dilemma

[Dimoak]

Alright...I've got a build worked out and it could be fairly good (500 per shard against a no resist opponent) but I've got a problem with the skills working together.

FO/ES. I played es fireball sorc, and ES really isn't very good unless you can stay away and use it as a replenishing buffer. FO's range doesn't really allow for staying away and regening mana while spamming at them.

Now...if you go Fathom/Arach/Mage/Vipermagi/Lidless you're at a nice 110, with a good amount of +skill. It's also a nice set-up for ES, because of superiour mana to say, SS/FCR rings. But, you need SS for staying alive close range vs. say chargers or ww barbs, barbs needing twice as much orb to kill, especially one using ravens..which most do. If you go SS/Eshield you lose quite a bit of life and mana...and need fcr rings.

HALP what do you guys think.

[AndyChrono]

FO/ES. I played es fireball sorc, and ES really isn't very good unless you can stay away and use it as a replenishing buffer. FO's range doesn't really allow for staying away and regening mana while spamming at them.

FB/ES has different mechanics than FO/ES. Due to fireballs range, you can stay away and use a lower level ES as an extension of your life. As you say, FO has a much shorter range so its probably better to be able to take some punishment. I'd highly recommend going all out on ES for an FO build.

Now...if you go Fathom/Arach/Mage/Vipermagi/Lidless you're at a nice 110, with a good amount of +skill. It's also a nice set-up for ES, because of superiour mana to say, SS/FCR rings. But, you need SS for staying alive close range vs. say chargers or ww barbs, barbs needing twice as much orb to kill, especially one using ravens..which most do. If you go SS/Eshield you lose quite a bit of life and mana...and need fcr rings.

Fast cast is overrated for an FO sorc. FB and Lightning need insane amounts of FCR for spammability. With the exception of 1 particular matchup (7-frame FB sorc), I've never found the need to get more than a 9 frame cast rate. But I suppose if you absolutely must have 8-frame, then go with magefists and lidless against casters and switch to frosties and whitstans against other people.

Blocking is vital for all physical damage dealers will pretty much **** you otherwise. Stormshield is not a very good PvP shield due to the massive stat points you must invest to use it and get blocking. Whitstans is a far better choice as it getting max block with it still leaves plenty of points to go into energy.

Chargers aren't really a problem. In the rare event they do hit you, you'll more than likely block them and give them a facial with your FO. Even if they do hit you, with high ES you'll survive at least 1 and often 2 chargers, even from a 2-H weapon. The chances of them getting 3 consecutive charges on you without getting blocked is pretty low. 1-H chargers you can just tank most of the time...

Barb's are an interesting dilemma. With lower ES ~70%, you're still going to be taking massive physical damage from a 2-handed WW along with PD/OW afterwards. With ES at 95% you'll take almost no physical damage along with the PD/OW afterwards. Although the high ES sorc has far less life, after 1 WW from a 2-hander, more often than not, the high ES sorc will have more life left in the end. Basically I've found from experience that there are 3 types of barbs:

1. Those you can tank. (Noobs)
2. Those you can't tank, but can kill easily because they try and directly catch sorcs with teleport... (Average)
3. Those you can't tank, and will have a difficult time killing because they play defense and force you to attack them while using tele/WW judiciously. (Skilled)

P.S: I don't see how you can only have 500 orb damage if you have a fathom...unless its like a 15 fathom or something....even then....

[Dimoak]

FB/ES has different mechanics than FO/ES. Due to fireballs range, you can stay away and use a lower level ES as an extension of your life. As you say, FO has a much shorter range so its probably better to be able to take some punishment. I'd highly recommend going all out on ES for an FO build.



Fast cast is overrated for an FO sorc. FB and Lightning need insane amounts of FCR for spammability. With the exception of 1 particular matchup (7-frame FB sorc), I've never found the need to get more than a 9 frame cast rate. But I suppose if you absolutely must have 8-frame, then go with magefists and lidless against casters and switch to frosties and whitstans against other people.

Blocking is vital for all physical damage dealers will pretty much **** you otherwise. Stormshield is not a very good PvP shield due to the massive stat points you must invest to use it and get blocking. Whitstans is a far better choice as it getting max block with it still leaves plenty of points to go into energy.

Chargers aren't really a problem. In the rare event they do hit you, you'll more than likely block them and give them a facial with your FO. Even if they do hit you, with high ES you'll survive at least 1 and often 2 chargers, even from a 2-H weapon. The chances of them getting 3 consecutive charges on you without getting blocked is pretty low. 1-H chargers you can just tank most of the time...

Barb's are an interesting dilemma. With lower ES ~70%, you're still going to be taking massive physical damage from a 2-handed WW along with PD/OW afterwards. With ES at 95% you'll take almost no physical damage along with the PD/OW afterwards. Although the high ES sorc has far less life, after 1 WW from a 2-hander, more often than not, the high ES sorc will have more life left in the end. Basically I've found from experience that there are 3 types of barbs:

1. Those you can tank. (Noobs)
2. Those you can't tank, but can kill easily because they try and directly catch sorcs with teleport... (Average)
3. Those you can't tank, and will have a difficult time killing because they play defense and force you to attack them while using tele/WW judiciously. (Skilled)

P.S: I don't see how you can only have 500 orb damage if you have a fathom...unless its like a 15 fathom or something....even then....

500 pvp I mean. 1.4k listed.

[xxtyrsxx]

im in the process of making a full out FO / ES pvp sorc .. and do u put no points in life ?? and everything in energy .. with just enough str for gear ..

now i know some godly es / fo sorcs have like 3700 mana after cta .. and never die .. but if u go that route how much life could u possibly have ?? like 200 at the most ??

[PsychoticEwok1]

depends on your items... dont forget shako gives about 130-150 life (level dependant), and you can get small charms of vita (5=100 life, about)

so with like 20 shimmerings of vita, you can get decent resists, and 400 extra life (about, im just using 20 as a round number for vita's.

that still leaves room for skillers and anni, along with some other charms of preference (more shimmering vitas )

lets assume you have no points in vitality. thats what, 50 life?
20 vita from occy, like 10-15 vita from anni (i think), 2 vita from shako, etc. 400 life from charms if your rich...

so you can get a good amount of life (5-600 maybe, theoretically) and still have nice mana.

... hmm for charms can u get serpent's sc of vita? (mana/life)?? 10 of those and 10 shimmerings would be awesome...

[xxtyrsxx]

hmm well so far my gear is gonna be ..

shako
perfect deaths fanthom
Ormus robes +3 to es
lidless i guess
arachnids
2xsojs
and a crafted ammy

resists i could see being a problem .. but im not sure

well i guess 10x cold skill charms with life
anni
and i guess 9x small 20 life charms

[PsychoticEwok1]

try to get the GCs with life, FHR, or a resist of your choice (can you do that? or are resists all prefixes?)

DOH!

RESISTS DONT MATTER!!! i just remembered!

the damage penalty on your mana comes BEFORE RESISTS ARE APPLIED so you neednt worry about it too much.

poison resist max would be good. the elementals... disregard them, as long as you have cannot be frozen.

can you get a "jewel of amelioration"? you know, 75% poison length reduce? if so, grab one of those with some other usefil mod (mana or life... i dunno)

wow, ES grants you alot of socketing freedom, because resists dont matter.

aight, have at ye! what should go in the sockets?

[xxtyrsxx]

all perfect cold facets lol

[xxtyrsxx]

and is it worth having max block with a 95% es

[Summoned]

Edit: Disregard this. Next time I'll read all the posts before saying anything. :uhhuh:

Edit 2: Instead of all skillers with +life, get enough FHR so spammers/trappers don't waste you.