Quick gear guide for MF light sorc

[Kutsmuffin]

Let me start by saying I'm definitely no expert and I know this is nothing groundbreaking or new, but I've tried a whole bunch of the most popular and common gear builds and have finally landed on one that I am really happy with.

So far, it's the best combination of high MF and killing speed that I've used yet so hopefully my trial and error can be helpful to others looking to build an effective MF light sorc.

Weapon: Oculus + Ist
-Pretty obvious choice here. Hoto is very popular b/c of the 10% more FCR and higher resists, and I've tried several variations using it... but you just lose so much MF for virtually no gains

Shield: Spirit Monarch 35 FCR
-Explains itself, only real alternative is stormshield if you're going for a super safe DR build which isn't really needed

Armor: Chains of Honor
-skills, high resists, decent defense, and 25% MF. Beats enigma in this build b/c of the resists

Helm: Griff's + Ist
-A 5/5 Facet is ok here too, but with a ~38-40k lightning you'll still plow the broken LIs with 18-20ish -ELR and 30MF is 4 slots worth of inventory space in SCs

Amulet: Rare with 2 skill/7+ FCR/(useful mods FR/life/mana/str/MF)
-If you can't find a decent amulet, mara's + a FCR ring can hold you over

Belt: Arach
-Easy choice, skills and FCR breakpoint

Gloves: Chance Guards
-Easy choice again, huge gold boost and upwards of 40% MF

Rings: 2x SoJ or 2x Nagel
-Choice here depends on how much you like chugging mana pots and if you need more dmg for 3+ player games

Boots: War Travelers
-Easy choice again, upwards of 50% MF

Inventory: the obvious torch/ani/gheeds, then adjust MF SCs vs light GCs according to how much killing power you need (high player games, 8 player baal runs? add more light GCs). Use full MF SCs for solo games b/c you'll still have 30k+ light dmg and wreck everything without skillers. You may have to run 2-3 11FR SCs if your FCR amulet or ring doesn't have FR on it.

Merc: Infinity, treachery (or fort if you must), andy's
-Easy choices here...

So basically what this gets you is anywhere from 225-300+ MF from gear alone (upwards of 350-400ish with gheeds/SCs), some -ELR for broken immunes, 117 FCR breakpoint, solid life/mana, and high damage output.

Have tried full tal's, Hoto builds, shako builds... and they all have issues. Full tal's builds require 2x FCR rings to hit the 117 breakpoint and end up lacking in mana/killing speed vs others, Hoto builds have too little MF without any notable increase in killing power, shako builds lose -ELR and make killing broken immunes painfully slow (no-no doing pits/AT/chaos).

edit: quick disclaimer.. I know that you can MF with lesser gear, budget gear, and such. I am just posting the most "optimal" setup that I've come across yet which takes a couple weeks into the ladder to get into. For the record, I started the ladder with a blizz build using rand gear until I could afford to move into a light build (infinity).

[nycionx]

nice! i really needs a griffons!!
Wut about your skill/stats setup? did u use ES? max energy? pls more info on this. thanks!

[Kutsmuffin]

nice! i really needs a griffons!!
Wut about your skill/stats setup? did u use ES? max energy? pls more info on this. thanks!

IMO ES isn't worth it for PVM Mfing, as you lose dmg and can get in serious trouble vs manaburn. I went 100% light dmg/synergies (nova as last to max), 1 point in cold armor, 1 point in warmth. And of course 1 point TK/Tele/Tstorm. You finish by lvl 95, which is about where you will cap out realistically if just MFing as the very rare death will be enough to make 96 take forever.

[gakky]

Sounds pretty spot on. I played around with this too. But one thing I was able to because I had amulet +2 sorc 10FCR and huge resists, and boots with MF and resists, was ditch the CoH for Enigma and still have max resists. Enigma - huge MF, run speed, life per kill makes its much better for MF.

[rpress]

Does Infinity alone enough provide enough to break Light Immunes? I want to build a MF light sorc but haven't found anything on if just getting an Infinity will break the Chaos immunes.

[hubb]

From the sticky: The Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Broken Immunities and Lowered Resistances

TL;DR version: Conviction and Lower Resist are the only two things that can break immunes, once you've done that you need -Enemy Lightning Resists to reduce their resist further. You can find it on Griffon's, Crescent Moon, Tal's set and facets.

[Kutsmuffin]

As hubb said, you will really need a -ELR item once the immunity is broken by infinity if you want to kill them in reasonable time. Griffs does great for that since it's difficult to hit 117FCR breakpoint with full tal's and crescent moon takes away 3 skills, resists, MF, etc... while Griff only really loses you the MF from shako and gains you 25FCR to make your build easier.

[Kutsmuffin]

Sounds pretty spot on. I played around with this too. But one thing I was able to because I had amulet +2 sorc 10FCR and huge resists, and boots with MF and resists, was ditch the CoH for Enigma and still have max resists. Enigma - huge MF, run speed, life per kill makes its much better for MF.

Sounds like a good way to go, especially trires boots with MF. That amulet/boots will be pretty seriously expensive, though.

[Kutsmuffin]

So with this build I was getting a roughly 1% chicken rate, which was making 96-97 virtually impossible b/c of the 1 death every 300 runs or so. It gave me 2k life and 900 mana, but I believe the lord de seis pack occasionally ate her in a FHR lock.

Just swapped a few items around and went with a perf cold dmg fathom, nigma, high trires boots, an ammy with high mana/str/resists. (105fcr, 86fhr)

Swapped spec to:
20nova
20light mastery
20tk
1es
1warmth
20bliz
1CM
rest of points dumped into ice bolt/glacial spike.

Spent points in vit/energy enough to get 1500 life and 2500 mana under BO, capped resists except for 50% poison in hell. Merc is still holy freeze with a nearly perfect ED% eth GT infinity, using treachery/andy's (15/30 jewel).

Up to 400 runs now with 0 chickens, have never even seen her life below 80% yet. She kills faster when the packs are close (chaos) and slower when the packs are spread out a bit (pits) but overall it's about equal.

[Tbone]

Chicken rate?

enough to get 1500 life and 2500 mana under BO

Also that's some seriously high mana, way more than you should need. I'd think you'd want it to be about the opposite with BO. About 2500 life and mana over 1000 (more than enough to keep the pool flowing).