Sorceress in hell.. advice needed

[Kalimora]

IMHO, you should play an Orb-it-aller if you intent to MF at lvl60. Blizzballer's advantage is that it has a timered spell + a spammable spell in both elements. This cannot be achieved at lvl60, thus a lvl60 Blizzballer is simply worse than a lvl60 Orb-it-aller. That said, at this lvl it is not a good idea to MF in Hell. NM Andy/Meph/Trav/Baal/Chaos are all good for you.

Also, there are some fine gear advices already mentioned here. With RWM, your priorities should be:

- 'Spirit' sword
- 'Lore' helmet
- 'Rhyme' shield

- 'Insight' polearm: exceptional or elite base (merc)
- Life leech helmet (merc)
- 'Treachery' or 'Smoke' armor (merc)

I value FCR breakpoints very high for all sorcs, including starting ones. 63% FCR will mean you will be able to safely tele away from most mobs before their attack hits you. After FCR come the resists, with Light and Fire being the most critical ones (not only are they the deadliest, but also you get Thawing and Antidote potions for the 2 remaining elements). +skills is always nice to have and is the next priority, but do remember that a dead sorc will do 0 dmg.

Hey! Good morning all!

I am now 1 level from 70 atleast.. 69.. one baalrun from 70.. baal basicly give me nothing usefull at all. greedy sod.


Anyways, at 60, i couldnt even clear the den of evil in hell.
My damage with fireball is considerably higher now, so maybe its time to attempt it again.

Honestly though, Im not sure im finding blizzard to my liking.. Its damage is great! aoe is nice. but it hits monsters so seldom.. Especially knights.. Though it is awesome to kill baal and mephisto with blizzard..

How would a frozen orb/fireball build look compared to my current blizzard,glacial spike/fireball ?
Think I would get into problems killing things on hell difficulty?

Maybe i should reconsider putting in RWM? I got enough runes to make 2 spirit words already..
I got a 256def blackthorn face yesterday atleast.

I max out both cold and lightning resist in nightmare now, haven't checked Hell, as it resets the baal map in NM then..

I need more FCR, I sometimes get pinned down while teleporting the map, and recovering my body at those occations.. Is a tiresome business.. makes a baalrun take at least 2x as long.

How is a sorceress with FHR(faster hit recovery), i kept a few items on me, because they give this feature, and basicly only that + some small resistance is the reason i keep them.

Im at 500hp now, with 86 free points to spare, i think my energy is ok at present, i havent increased it further, i need to continously go for pots though..
Can't wait to get some real mana regen gear or mana+ items..
SOJ evades me.. as usual. Never got one the other times i played either, but then at least a friend gave me one..

I read the best droprate is andariel at NM, this is still correct in 1.3?
I read something about trying in normal too, but that seemed a little farfetched, is andariel capable of dropping it in Normal?

Thanks for your time and advices! They are much appreciated.

[magicrectangle]

Honestly though, Im not sure im finding blizzard to my liking.. Its damage is great! aoe is nice. but it hits monsters so seldom.. Especially knights.. Though it is awesome to kill baal and mephisto with blizzard..

This is the point of ice blast. Blizzard is amazing against groups and against bosses or other monsters with large size, but against single/little monsters it often doesn't hit right away. For these it is better to nuke them with ice blast. Ice blast does extremely good single-target damage.

How is a sorceress with FHR(faster hit recovery), i kept a few items on me, because they give this feature, and basicly only that + some small resistance is the reason i keep them.

If you install RWM and get a spirit CS, that gets you 55 FHR right off. 5 more will put you at the 60 FHR breakpoint, which is more than enough for teleporting.

Im at 500hp now, with 86 free points to spare, i think my energy is ok at present, i havent increased it further, i need to continously go for pots though..
Can't wait to get some real mana regen gear or mana+ items..
SOJ evades me.. as usual. Never got one the other times i played either, but then at least a friend gave me one..

If you install RWM and make an insight for your merc, all mana concerns will go away. You simply do not need any points in energy, or any other mana regen type items when you have an insight merc. Put all your points into vitality, save for just enough strength for your gear.

Nightmare Andariel is technically the best place for SoJs, but hell Andariel is almost as good, and also drops a lot of other useful stuff you can't get from nightmare andy. Blizzard makes very short work of her, you should be able to farm hell andy even in pretty poor gear - but you need to get your HP up by dumping your stat points into vit, so you don't die.

[crawlingdeadman]

Dead stuff is more awesome than frozen stuff. The DPS output from iceblast is quite good.

coming from HC, i'd rather monsters were frozen than my character dead. perhaps that colors my liking of GS a bit, but i liked it before going to HC.

[Kalimora]

coming from HC, i'd rather monsters were frozen than my character dead. perhaps that colors my liking of GS a bit, but i liked it before going to HC.

It is annoying to die, and GS can save your life as a sorceress.

Especially boring on HC, only played barbarian on HC, and he was around level 85 when I stopped playing him.. but he got kinda outfitted by the generosity of some guys I played with
So he had it easy.

I just installed RWM i think.. cant see any indication that it is actually working yet..
I will know when i try a runeword i guess?

Anyways, question: Can i socket and "insight" any polearm?
I can't socket and runeword a kelpie for instance? I got 2 of those..

I got a rare with decent damage too.
I read the best type would be an elite polearm with some nice +stats on it..
I don't think i found any of those yet..
Cryptic axe looks to be the best, but no sure my merc can wear it.

havent changed away from my barbarian merc yet..

[zaphodbrx]

You can only make a runeword in a normal weapon ( ie, not unique, set, rares ).
And it has to have the right number of sockets too. Insight requires a 4 socket polearm.

[magicrectangle]

Any elite pole with 4 sockets that he can equip is good. Threshers have relatively low requirements and are fast, so they're a good choice, but really the answer is any 4os pole you can get your hands on. Then make another insight later to upgrade. Don't wait for a good elite pole to come along. The worst possible insight is still better than anything else for your merc at this stage.

[Kalimora]

Ofcrouse, only normal weapons..

It seems i lack the SOL rune.. I have 3x amn though, dunno if i should upgrade them into a SOL..

That means i need to wait to build Spirit though.
not that I have any good candidates for that runeword either..
On a sidenote, i think i have 4 thul, so i can actually pull this off, for now..

Another joyous event has occured, i manged to clear the den of evil on hell.. haha
Im level 70 now..

I still stink, if anything cold resistant comes up(countess is right?) i basicly strike out...

This is the set up so far

http://www.diablofans.com/page/tools...0l111110110l00
Plans is to keep building up firebolt. So i get some decent firedamage comming in..

Thanks again for your time and advices!
Im glad so many still play this game!

[Kalimora]

well, i reached mephisto!

Took a lot of deaths. a lot of gold resurrecting my merc..
im level 74, and 88mf, basicly the same gear!

lets get some real gear now! hopefully he is kind and drop some nice gear fast.

if ound a 826def bramble suit with sockets.. should put some topazes into it maybe?

[zaphodbrx]

Run nightmare countess for runes like Amn, Sol, etc.

[Kalimora]

Got runes, lack bases for runewords.

Im still running mephisto.. probably killed him a few hundred times now..
Lack most the gear you want for a a sorc.. my MF is 256 atm. I run him with /p1 on hell difficulty, i tried 20kills on /players3.

All the testing brought some questions forth.. As how hard monsters will be, aswell as how many drops etc are decided when you enter a level. Is also what drops decided upon entering the level?
Or when you kill the monster?

What i do at the moment, is use a rare orb with +2skills +3 blizzard to take down mephistos hp, then swap to alibaba right before he dies.
This should give me the extra MF on alibaba for the drops, or am i mistaken there?

I was wondering if i should wear alibaba when i enter durance of hate level 3 aswell, if that will affect what i get in drops.

I got 3 parts of immortal king, hades armor.. mage fists, a few other nice items.. but basicly, im not getting much this round.
Wondering if i should try to clear baal instead of spending so much time on meph.

Atleast i got eschuta's temper, so no more dieing as i teleport around hopefully.