Matriarch Surnia_Ulula (lightning sorceress)

[bcoe]

Matriarch Surnia_Ulula

This is a fairly standard cookie-cutter lightning (+infinity) sorceress. I remember when Denton first posted his sub 2:30 baal run with a lite/infinity sorceress. Ever since then (2007), I’ve wanted to build one. I finally built my infinity a few days ago (thanks 1.13b!), and immediately started this gal. She is remarkably fast at baal-runs, and is a lot of fun to play.

Her name is the latin name for the Northern Hawk Owl. It’s a nice, fairly handsome small owl of the boreal forests of north America, occasionally showing up in the US during particularly cold winters up north. No real relevance to this build, but I have always thought it was a cool name for a sorceress.

STATS:
Name: Surnia_Ulula
Level: 87 (matted at 82)
Strength: 130 (156)
Dexterity: 29 (35)
Vitality: 331 (353)
Energy: 35 (35)

Life (after BO): 1734
Mana (after BO): 860


Skills (after + skills):
Lightning Tree:
Charged Bolt: 20 (39)
Lightning: 20 (39)
Chain Lighning: 20 (39)
Lightning Mastery: 20 (39)
Nova: 14 (33)
Static Field: 1 (20)
Telekinesis: 1 (20)
Teleport: 1 (20)


Fire tree:
Warmth: 1 (11)

LCS:
Lightning damage: 6-28986
Chain Lightning damage: 6-11124
Charged Bolt damage: 636-663 (24 bolts)
Nova damage: 1561-2077
Static Field radius: 16 yards

How I got there:

Levelled up as a complete lite sorc. Used 1.07 MPK (“Gods gift to leveling) rings early on. Initially statted to strength of 156, respecced once I settled on current equipment.

On to equipment….

Equipment:
Head: Griffon’s eye (+16/-21, with facet)
Amulet: Stone Talisman (crafted, +2lite skills, +20 FCR, other unexciting mods)
Armor: Chains of Honor dusk shroud
Weapon: Crescent Moon crystal sword
Shield: Spirit (35 FCR, 104 mana)
Switch: CtA/Spirit
Belt: Arachnid’s mesh
Gloves: Magefists
Rings: 2x SoJ
Boots: Loath Greaves (tri-resists rares)

Charms:
8x Sparking grand charms (most with nice suffixes)
A mix of shimmering and serpents SCs

Resists: 68/75/75/66

Merc: Holy freeze with Infinity ethereal thresher, fortitude archon plate, Vampire gaze (ummed)

Finds:
Hellforge: Io/Gul
Has been lucky finding skillers (chilling, fletchers, preservers, all with suffixes). Baal dropped an ethereal occulus.

Thoughts:

A warning to anyone thinking of building one of these: they are really as fast as advertised, and will make all other baal-runners feel slow. I did tons of baal runs with my Blova (Sturnella_Magna) and was feeling pretty zippy with ~4:00-4:20 runs. This gal is routinely well under 3:00 (players 1/8/3), with a fastest so far of 2:38, and with practice and some levels (and maybe a more ideal map), she’ll even get faster. Nothing slows her down. The biggest risk is unseen dolls when clearing the throne, but nova works well for them.

I tried multiple gear rigs with her, including Denton’s 200FCR (Hoto, SotVM, FCR ring, rest the same), a 117FCR rig with more + skills (Hoto, powered ammy, frostburns for more mana), and a MF rig (occulus, Shako, wartravs, etc).

I am definitely happiest with this set of gear. I didn’t notice much difference, to be honest, with the 200FCR rig. The difference that the -56% ELR (crescent moon + griffons) makes for lite immunes once they are broken by infinity is amazing. With just griffons (hoto or occulus build), lite immunes are still pretty darn slow, and potentially dangerous. With crescent moon, they die nearly as fast as those that aren’t immune. There is not a lot of value (my opinion), in pushing the + skills much higher. There is no appreciable difference between a 28k lightning and a 34k lightning against non-immune monsters. They melt instantly either way. The difference between 28k (-56%ELR) and 34k (-21%ELR) is dramatically in favor of the former. I think it is faster against all monsters, but especially against lite immunes that are left with high resistance still after infinity breaks them.

The only downside to her is that she doesn’t have much MF (49% currently). I feel sure that I could switch out some charms to add some MF (gheeds, SCs) without any issues. I also have another griffons (+10/-20) that I may socket with a PT to add a bit too. Overall, though, I couldn’t be happier with her.

She’s going to rest for a while, though. There are other builds waiting for that infinity!

Thanks for reading.

[VoX Dei]

Let me be the first to congratulate you, bcoe. This is how I would build a Lightning Sorceress if I had Infinity. She's lovely! Great job

PS: Love those shoes and ammy

[bcoe]

Thanks VoX. It is amazing how fast and powerful she is. Even against LIs. The power of -ELR cannot be overestimated. I have another build in progress now that has lite damage and infinity, but no other source of -ELR and the difference is striking.

[BetaBlocker]

The lightning sorc is one of my favourites and infinity is really my favourite RW. Oh, and Griffons is probably my favourite Unique. Back in the B.net days I built many of these and my rune finding quest was initially set on acquiring Infinity but the damn Coucil droped me a Jah so when the second Sur droped I couldn't resist Enigma - But now, my quest is for Infinity... and Griffons.

So with all those favourites of mine you understand that I'm quite jealous, right? Curse you, may all your baal runs just give you green military picks and breast plates and may you die many many times by the hands of Lister the Tormentor... Sorry, just kidding, congratulations on an awesome char - hope you enjoy her and get lots of fun runs with golden drops!

[VoX Dei]

Agreed, the 12fpc high -eLR% setup overall is the best one. Especially with Infinity to break LIs.

Btw, you could increase your -eLR% a little while keeping same fcr bp and +skills by using a 3/10 ammy, vipermagi (facet), and whatever gloves you fancy (maybe frostburns, or rare tri-res to offset the loss of resists from CoH). I'm guessing you just don't have a 3/10 ammy though.

[BetaBlocker]

I figured I could add some more constructive things to my ranting post above. A nice setup that I like - since I build all my chars (almost) with the aim of some MFing - is 4 part Tals set. This gives you 192 MF, 50 FCR, some resists and -15% eLR. Coupled with Griffons, a spirit monarch and trangs/magefists gives the 117 BP. It also gives two sockets in which you can put facets. However I am realizing that loosing 2 skills, -10% eLR and a but-load of resist for some MF might not be something that interrests you

[bcoe]

@Betablocker: I have a very similar D2 history as you, it seems. For ages, i wanted to build an infinity. I found a Ber back in late 2007 and it sat in my stash waiting for another to make it. The next HR to drop (13 months later) was a Jah. I was torn on whether to spend my Ber on Enigma or save it for Infinity. I eventually built an Enigma, and have enjoyed it tremendously. It wasn't til the rune-fest of 1.13b that I was able to make the original goal of Infinity. I'm sure you'll get yours soon.

I think once my current character is finished, I'll go back to her. I estimate I can get her MF up to nearly 200 by using a different Griffons with a ptopaz and switching around her charms (Gheeds for 1 skiller, SC's of good luck instead of Vita) without slowing down any...

[DZJB]

Nice build bcoe!

Yeah, Denton's vid made me drool about this char too.. I'll make one of these as well as soon as I have the infinity.

I'd really like to hear how the testing with MF gear goes. Like BetaBlocker, I like to focus most of my chars around MF, and with this kind of killing speed, this char must be really sweet to MF with.

Sweet boots too btw.

[cujomonster]

hey man not to sound like anoob bro but y dont u put anything into Energy dont u need mana to cast spells? im kinda confused help plz

[bcoe]

cujomonster: It would be pretty unusual for a decently-built and geared sorceress to need any investment in energy. With a few reasonably easy-to-obtain pieces of gear (Spirit runeword, Stones of Jordan rings, +mana charms) you won't have any major issues. Anyways, mana pots drop all the time. The exception would be any sorceress with a heavy investment in Energy Shield, but those are generally more of a novelty build...