Essentially, several people answered your question and then went further as to suggest gear changes that would make your build stronger in hardcore play.
Hi Mouse,
Hi Mike,
Hi Dan,
Jason
Guardian Angel is a great armor, but with no base resistances and no faster cast rate it is generally subpar.Originally Posted by dirtycash
If you are set on GA, you need to establish the rest of your build around this. Wizardspike is a correct call, nothing else would be viable. In hell in order to make full use of Guardian angel you need to hit 190 resist all and 250+ lightning resistances. 30 from Anya, 75 from Wizardspike leaves you with 85 resist all missing. If you decide to use Stormshield you'll be alright on cold resist (not particularly important) which means there is no benefit to Trang's. Thus, you'll end up using Mages. With Wizardspike this gives you 70 FCR, so you'll get to 9 FPC.
In short you'll end up forced to use:
Wizardspike (Res all jewel)
Guardian Angel (Um)
Shako (Ort)
Stormshield (Um)
Magefists
TGod's
Aldur's Boots
to cover your resistances and hit 63 FCR. The gear becomes more flexible if you have Torch/Anni at your disposal, but based on your gear choices I assumed a middling level of wealth.
This gear setup gives you +2 skills (Ring and Amulet are free still) so dual-element is out of the question. With 63 FCR you can't realy use any of the lightning skills effectively so you'll basically be looking at Orb or Blizzard. With a low number of +skills and your apparent interest in safety I'd suggest Orb. You'll be able to tank gloams reasonably well, but will not be at the 105 FCR breakpoint preferred for teleporting.
It is certainly doable and with Guardian Angel you'll save some points in dexterity on max block with Stormshield, but I don't think it offsets the gear sacrifices necessary to cover the lost FCR/Resistances.
That is not to say that the gear choices themselves are bad, they are not far from the norm, but rather that instead of serving their usual purpose of stacking resistances to cover conviction while allowing an amount of + skills to sped killing you are limited to covering your resistances alone and will on average wind up 30 resist all behind the Vipermagi setup.
Cheers
-Tai
you aren't looking at the right thread
I'm relatively certain he is. You said you wanted a throwback to a previous build designed around safety - they gave you the safest build that fit your criteria. The only difference is that their builds did not utilize Guardian Angel as it lacks FCR/FHR/MDR/Resistances/Skills.
The response you got was in keeping with your comment about being flexible on gear. You were presented with a unified response with unified reasons why Vipermagi is better than Guardian Angel for the build you inquired about.
Once it became clear that you were determined to use Guardian Angel as the keystone of your build the majority of your question was invalidated. You asked for a safe build that would specialize in rushing but hampered us with a gear choice that would yield subpar results. It is hardly surprising that people were not amenable to suggesting an inferior build when you asked for a throwback to the safety of a former build. This is when Jason stepped in and explained that the build you sought and your gear choice were contradictory and that people had previously explained said contradiction. For all intents and purposes your question was answered.
The reason that I gave you a more in depth breakdown was because it did not appear that you respected the previous opinions that had been given.
In short, if you wish to build a sorceress around Guardian Angel you will be required to make sacrifices in your other gear that will weaken your character overall to match the utility of a build designed around a different armor. While having 90% resist all (95 Light if you use Tgod's) and absorb is great, it loses much of its value when you lack the FCR and FHR to be able to teleport safely.
In addition, while 95% Lightning resistance and absorb will make you immune to gloams so will 85% and absorb combined with the MDR from Viper etc. The 95% solution will give you additional safety against elements you don't have absorb in, but they are not particularly dangerous with the exception of FE explosions and there is no way you'll be killing any FE's with a decent amount of life with the low amount of + skills your build will have.
Thus, you are preparing for an eventuality that will in all likelihood never come - that of a deadly Cold/Fire/Poison attack - at the cost of having the necessary FCR/FHR for safe teleporting and an additional 25-35 resist all to protect against conviction gloams, which you WILL encounter if you play often enough.
As I said in my previous post, I LOVE Guardian Angel. One of my favorite characters ever wore it, but for the purposes you stated it is not feasible. You could never be successful with Nova if you require a build centered around GA and it would be quite a stretch to reach an adequate killing speed with Orb/CL both of which you expressed interest in. The posters here placed your interest in skills above your interest in items as you stated you were flexible on gear. I'm sorry if that did not meet the requirements you had for the character but it is in no way an incorrect response.
Best of luck with your Guardian Angel nova sorc. I bet with your +2 skills and 63 FCR you will destroy all in your path. It should be easy with all the stat points you save on blocking...
-Tai
Thank you for your sarcasm. It is both useful and productive, especially when someone is asking a serious question. Kudos to you.I'm relatively certain he is. You said you wanted a throwback to a previous build designed around safety - they gave you the safest build that fit your criteria. The only difference is that their builds did not utilize Guardian Angel as it lacks FCR/FHR/MDR/Resistances/Skills.
The response you got was in keeping with your comment about being flexible on gear. You were presented with a unified response with unified reasons why Vipermagi is better than Guardian Angel for the build you inquired about.
Once it became clear that you were determined to use Guardian Angel as the keystone of your build the majority of your question was invalidated. You asked for a safe build that would specialize in rushing but hampered us with a gear choice that would yield subpar results. It is hardly surprising that people were not amenable to suggesting an inferior build when you asked for a throwback to the safety of a former build. This is when Jason stepped in and explained that the build you sought and your gear choice were contradictory and that people had previously explained said contradiction. For all intents and purposes your question was answered.
The reason that I gave you a more in depth breakdown was because it did not appear that you respected the previous opinions that had been given.
In short, if you wish to build a sorceress around Guardian Angel you will be required to make sacrifices in your other gear that will weaken your character overall to match the utility of a build designed around a different armor. While having 90% resist all (95 Light if you use Tgod's) and absorb is great, it loses much of its value when you lack the FCR and FHR to be able to teleport safely.
In addition, while 95% Lightning resistance and absorb will make you immune to gloams so will 85% and absorb combined with the MDR from Viper etc. The 95% solution will give you additional safety against elements you don't have absorb in, but they are not particularly dangerous with the exception of FE explosions and there is no way you'll be killing any FE's with a decent amount of life with the low amount of + skills your build will have.
Thus, you are preparing for an eventuality that will in all likelihood never come - that of a deadly Cold/Fire/Poison attack - at the cost of having the necessary FCR/FHR for safe teleporting and an additional 25-35 resist all to protect against conviction gloams, which you WILL encounter if you play often enough.
As I said in my previous post, I LOVE Guardian Angel. One of my favorite characters ever wore it, but for the purposes you stated it is not feasible. You could never be successful with Nova if you require a build centered around GA and it would be quite a stretch to reach an adequate killing speed with Orb/CL both of which you expressed interest in. The posters here placed your interest in skills above your interest in items as you stated you were flexible on gear. I'm sorry if that did not meet the requirements you had for the character but it is in no way an incorrect response.
Best of luck with your Guardian Angel nova sorc. I bet with your +2 skills and 63 FCR you will destroy all in your path. It should be easy with all the stat points you save on blocking...
-Tai
Go back and read the thread in the Sorceress forum. The first two responses are what were there before I responded and reposted it here. Neither one of them mentions a build at all. If that is difficult to understand I'll point you to the thread title. A BUILD around purpose and GEAR. A Build.
Now let's look at content. The first post goes between Pally and Sorceress in regards to breakpoints and other stats.
I believe the second doesn't see there is a shield posted. Again, no mention of a build.
Do you think I do not know the gear isn't optimum? I think that is self explanatory. Do you go into a daggerzon thread and say, "Ya know if you just used Windforce instead you'd kill a lot faster"?
I recognize nova won't kill everything in hell. I even said it likely wouldn't with lack of skills and equipment. However in Normal and maybe NM it might do ok . So what is left to use etc.
At any rate Ill figure it out. Thanks for all the help with a build given the gear chosen.
So let me get this straight.
You posted a thread in the Hardcore forum and are making an argument about us being unhelpful based on responses given in the Sorceress forum? Ballsy.
I do find it amusing that the first reply thinks you're building a Paladin - as I found myself basing your build around Paladin breakpoints on my first pass. Perhaps it has something to do with your gear choices....
Back on the subject of this forum however. Outside of the last couple of lines in my most recent post there was not a shred of sarcasm.
You expressed interest in Lightning skills, particularly nova. You combined this with an armor requirement on which you are unflinching and ask us for advice. Our advice is to compromise on the armor. You ignore said advice and proceed to whine. I come in and reiterate that you won't have any teleport speed/safety for your rushing and no kill speed if you go dual-element.
In closing, I argue that if you keep GA as your armor you are best suited by going Orb and even give you some ways to make up for the fact that your armor provides no useful mods except blocking and +max res.
If you truly need a build around Guardian Angel on a Sorceress here you go:
20 Frozen Orb
20 Ice Bolt
20 Cold Mastery
20 Teleport (You'll be slow to cast and slow to recover so you will basically need infinicast and with so few +skills why not - also you won't be able to effectively dual-tree so you might as well)
1 Frozen Armor
1 Shiver Armor
1 Warmth
1 TK
5 Static (not much for + skills and again you got some points to burn)
1 Ice Blast
1 Frost Nova
1 Blizzard
1 Glacial Spike
93 points, done at lvl 82. This will give you the ability to cast out of tough spots while teleporting and cold armors to boost your defense rating (with Storm/Guardian Angel it shouldn't be too bad). With Stormshield and Gurdian Angel you hit 5 Frame Blocking (The Same as Shaeled Stormshield) so your alright there. You cannot possibly hit 86, which is the next breakpoint with the gear you have outlined so we won't worry about that.
At level 82, you will need 157 Dexterity with Guardian Angel and Stormshield to attain max blocking, I'm assuming you won't be crafting a safety amulet for skills but if you do this amount decreases.
You have no faster hit recovery from Shield/Armor/Boots/Belt/Helm/Gloves based on your requirements and the gear setup I specified earlier as perhas the best option. This is 15 frame recovery, nowhere near acceptable with 63 FCR (can't teleport through crowds before reaction reliably at this speed) so we'll need to get that down to at least 10 frame, 9 would be better.
10 frame requires 30 FHR so I guess we're using 6 small charms or 3 skillers with FHR if you feel like dishing out the cash. 9 frame requires 42, so that's another skiller or three more small charms.
Since I don't know what charms you'll have and what rings you're planning on using, I have to estimate with + stats from only the listed gear at this point:
+2 all from Shako
+20 Strength from TGod's
+20 Vitality from TGod's
+30 Strength from Stormshield to glitch itself
This leaves you with:
155 base Dexterity at level 82
104 base Strength (might need to glitch some gear with this until Stormshield comes online)
Thus you need to invest:
94 points in strength
130 points in dexterity
Which leaves you 196 points to invest in vitality, +22 from gear at a rate of 2 hitpoints per point = 436 + 40 from the start, 50 from Aldur's Boots and 123 life from your shako at level 82 = 649 life.
I seriously hope you didn't expect us to do more work than that for you.
-Tai
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