Tri-elemental questions

[jackthelad]

Doh missed the i! Tri-elemental I meant ofc lol!

Anyone have much experience? I read the couple of the guides, & decided to play around with a skill calc.

I was thinking 20 main skill, 10 synergy, 1 mastery which would make it done at 88 I believe. Looking at the calc, I was thinking:
10 icebolt, max FO, 1 CM. (Obv!)
10 lightning, 20 CL, 1 LM. (Dont know much about lightning skills- this looked good)
10 fire bolt, 20 FB, 1 FM. (Seemed the obv choice again! Maybe another option?)

I was thinking tals orb for the mastery boosts, + the amu for +2 skills & 1 set bonus. Any +2 helm, CoH or Viper armour, spirit, mages, (tough part: ) 2x SoJs & arachnid mesh, any boots to fill some res & 2 of each skiller GC, torch + anni. Whats that, about +16 all skills, +2 trees (+3 fire) & +2 masteries I believe? Apparently thats 650-ish FO dmg (about standard) with -120% from CM.
3-5k lightning or 3-3k CL & about 3,5k FB dmg. Thats a bit low in my experience I think.

How do those numbers sound/stack up? Is it basically gonna be a /players1 access all areas sorc, or does she actually have some multiplayer use? What about the skills, in particular lightning, any better choices? Do the dmg numbers add up, & is she worth wasting a few long hours putting together? About equipment, I thought as many +skills to up the dmg as poss, but would maybe a nightwings, decent eschutas, maras maybe, make more sense?
All thoughts welcome!

[Rawness]

Well... neither the lightning or fire will be too strong.

I feel that 1-17k lightning damage is quiet weak, then what's 3-5k lightning damage?

3.5 FB damage... is... not that impressive either.

A standard metaorb would crush tis build in any applicable sense.

I might find it time worthy to if you explain why you're make this build? (even though there are other people to post... I am just curious) You seem to have good gear, so why go for a tri-skill

I'f i'd go for ANYTHING tri-elemental it'd be FO/nova and fire wall or something like that, since they'll be ''maxed out''.

[jackthelad]

I dont have all the items, & even if I did I generally have only 1 of each thing, so the torch/anni/CoH would come from my other charas & if I didnt want the SoJs or whatever I would simply swap them to another chara. The rest of the stuff is cheap-ish anyway. I am not thinkin of making it, I am just curious if it would work. I read the guides but I fancied something a bit more 'direct/aimed' than nova/firewall, which is why I thought about what I did. Its just something I was curious about whether it would work, not something I have decided to do.

I have a decent meteorber with most of the items (orb/torch/anni/amu) & a cold sorc with a few cold skillers & a CoH, so not much 'buying' needed. Just another end-of-ladder project to contemplate really I guess!

[Rawness]

I dont have all the items, & even if I did I generally have only 1 of each thing, so the torch/anni/CoH would come from my other charas & if I didnt want the SoJs or whatever I would simply swap them to another chara. The rest of the stuff is cheap-ish anyway. I am not thinkin of making it, I am just curious if it would work. I read the guides but I fancied something a bit more 'direct/aimed' than nova/firewall, which is why I thought about what I did. Its just something I was curious about whether it would work, not something I have decided to do.

I have a decent meteorber with most of the items (orb/torch/anni/amu) & a cold sorc with a few cold skillers & a CoH, so not much 'buying' needed. Just another end-of-ladder project to contemplate really I guess!

I'd not do it.
But some people would, and you might. The thing is - it doesn't seem to have much going for it damage wise, and the really applicability would come when you'd meet super uniqes immune to both of a particular skill tree.
If it would work: Yes. But being functunal doesn't make it good, and for a SC character the goal isn't simply survival. And if you're doing it for the fun, there are funnier builds out there.. At least for me.
Excuse the answer; i am quiet tired...

[sirpoopsalot]

Fixed the title for you.

As rawness mentioned, there's really no compelling reason for going with a tri-elementalist over a dual-elementalist. However, sometimes it's nice to do something despite having no great reasons. So I approve of the concept.


- For gear, Tal's set is pretty much custom-made in this case. Nice resists & life & skills & mana, but most importantly it comes with moderate amounts of -enemy resists for fire and lightning, and some +damage% for cold. With you spreading skillpoints around between three trees, those are important for getting a decent amount of effective damage in each tree. I like my casting speeds to be fast, so I'd go with Full Tal's + 35 FCR Spirit + Magefists as my equipment foundation, with the rest gear towards boosting skills & damage (and covering remaining resists/FHR/etc).

- You've planned to have way too many skillpoints available. You'll have 100 available at level89, and I would plan to have the build completed by that point (usually I plan for about 92 skillpoints to spend). Getting beyond level85-90 without a reasonably completed build is tedious and boring (and possibly quite difficult). I think pulling the points out of IceBolt is the easiest way to adjust your plan.

- For skills, as Rawness mentioned you want to focus on low-synergy skills. Some skills are great without spending ~40+ skillpoints, while others are only mediocre, and others are crappy without a high-investment. For a tri-elementalist you'll definitely want to avoid the high-investment skills, and want at least one or two low-investment skills.

- Cold skills: FO is an obvious low-investment winner in that tree. Multiple points in IceBolt or ColdMastery will help, but aren't necessary. You can save points here to help your other trees.

- Fire skills: Firewall has possibly the best damage available for only 20 skillpoints (even better than FO) and is certainly a good choice here. But it's got issues with targeting that can make it tedious to use. Meteor is quite similar to Firewall in that it's got great power and bad targeting (even worse than Firewall), but it's capable if you want to try "something different". Fireball can be ok+ with about 40 points, especially in single-player games, but if you want to kill things with it then it's going to want higher investment if you play with more than 1 or 2 other people.

- Lightning skills: all of these are medium or high investment skills (requiring 40+ skillpoints). ChainLightning is a high-investment skill, and definitely the one from your plan that I'd ditch. It's damage with only ~30 points in your lightning tree will suck. Nova pretty much requires 40 full skillpoints, but it's the best of the bunch for getting decent lightning damage without spending 50+ skillpoints in your lightning tree. I know there've been a few builds in the SPF that went with low-level lightning or charged bolts, but I personally don't see how those would be very good choices.


Overall you'll do fine with a tri-elementalist build as long as you don't pursue the wrong skills or get your expectations for speed & power to be very high. Also you should recognize that you're going to slow down quite a bit (possibly to the point of uselessness) if you join full games.

Good Luck.

[jackthelad]

Thank you sir! :P

I have read all that, I think I might try this after reset so my ladder wealth becomes non-ladder & I can aford a few more items & see if it worth a run as a ladder chara. I realise I will be useless in full player games, but Im thinking single player MF runs where she can go anywhere & kill pretty much anything will be fun.

I thought I had planned my skills so I was done at lvl88, which is about as far as I can go (or maybe 89 if I am motivated lol), but looking at it maybe it took me to 93 or 94, bit far for most ppl. Anyway, re-calculating to finish at 88, I see 10 in ice bolt, 20 FO, 1 CM; 10 Fire bolt, 20 FB, 1 FM; 20 nova, 8 LM & 1 all pre-reqs, warmth & tele. Does make for a v weak nova (barely over 1k dmg with 12 +skills), but maybe getting a merc Infy & a few light RBFs, maybe a eschutas, etc, or maybe the help from the full Tals bonuses.

Still, something to try in a month or 6 lol, a fun project! Might even do it now on ladder, make a start!

Anyone have anymore input?

[Dogbert]

I'd use

Orb
Nova or Thunderstorm
Firewall

But like people have said there is no point making a tri elemental sorc anymore. You can kill everything in the game with a dual element sorc i know i have an orb/fireball tal rasha sorc.

Orb + Cold mastery is enough to kill stuff. Ice bolt is a luxury and should be focused on last as orb has always been strong ever since 1.00.
Every sorc should have 1 point in static to help out the party vs strong monsters.

[Are]

Blaze might also be an option.

[Rawness]

Thank you sir! :P

I have read all that, I think I might try this after reset so my ladder wealth becomes non-ladder & I can aford a few more items & see if it worth a run as a ladder chara. I realise I will be useless in full player games, but Im thinking single player MF runs where she can go anywhere & kill pretty much anything will be fun.

I thought I had planned my skills so I was done at lvl88, which is about as far as I can go (or maybe 89 if I am motivated lol), but looking at it maybe it took me to 93 or 94, bit far for most ppl. Anyway, re-calculating to finish at 88, I see 10 in ice bolt, 20 FO, 1 CM; 10 Fire bolt, 20 FB, 1 FM; 20 nova, 8 LM & 1 all pre-reqs, warmth & tele. Does make for a v weak nova (barely over 1k dmg with 12 +skills), but maybe getting a merc Infy & a few light RBFs, maybe a eschutas, etc, or maybe the help from the full Tals bonuses.

Still, something to try in a month or 6 lol, a fun project! Might even do it now on ladder, make a start!

Anyone have anymore input?

I wouldn't invest in Ice bolt, cold mastery, up to the lvl 27(IIRC) will give you more a damage in return than the ice bolts. Invest those in lightning mastery, or if you feel like you need a better FO, cold mastery.

[DH Amazon]

Doh missed the i! Tri-elemental I meant ofc lol!

All thoughts welcome!

Just started mine after reading your topic. She is doing great, only act1 done in hell, but so far killed all lightning immunes.
Aiming to do full games at least in certain tc85 areas, chaos and throne only for 1-4 players, I don't want to use infy-merc, ruins whole concept of Tri-elemental.

I took little different approach, building mine around CL and using rogue merc.
CL nicely kill all non-immunes leaving immune monsters left. Then those remaining monsters are easy to kill with fireball or orb.

My rogue is build around slow items (upped riphook, eth blackhorn's and threachery), so she can give open wounds 30%, knockback, good poison damage and top of that slow all monsters 50%.

So far 20 CL, 20L 5LM, 1 static, 1tele, 1charged bolt and 1 telekinenis
1 frozen orb, 1 cold mastery and 1 in pre skills
1 fire bolt, 1 fireball, 1 warmth and 1FM
18 unused skill points (waiting for torch, fathom, arach effect for damage until using those skill points)

That 49 points is more than enough in Lightning tree, kills nicely at the moment. Both orb and fireball are weak, but so far no problems killing all monsters.

After items, CL 3-3647 (-40% lightning resist)
Lightning 3-7474 (-40%)
End game gear gives 9.7k Lightning -63% and 4.3k CL (-63%)

These are weak, as only one point so far
FireBall now 343-400 (25 points in fire tree gives ~2.5k fireball)
Orb now 148-159 (20 points in cold tree gives ~500 orb)

Anni+Torch+5Lightining skillers, tal-amu,upped vipermagi (lighting jool), griffon(lightning jool)or shako, arach, 2xsoj, rare boots, magefist, CM+35spirit as main weapon, fathom+35spirit as 2nd weapon.

I have used similair CL and Lightning damage earlier and its full game viable in pits and arcane. So solo games are very fast. 3 players chaos/throne should be quite fast too.

49+20+25, my char is done around lvl83. I usually play chars around lvl91, so couple extra points somewhere are possible.

edit:
After torch, damages looks little better, I changed plan of bit, ended these damages (lvl75 sorc)
588-614 orb (lvl 17 mastery)
9657 lightning (-40%) 4349 CL
606-686 fireball (using only against double immunes, so can be weaker)
156-207 enchant (mainly to boost rogues ar)
1105 life, 862 mana, cost 3 mana per tele