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This is a guide to building a classic blizzard sorc which is the most common, and in my opinion all around best, type of sorc in 1.10. This guide is primarily geared towards HC because thats what I have more experience with. This is not a guide to "the best sorc you can make", it just reflects my experience with the game so take what you like from it and change what you dont like.
About this build: Sorcs are one of the most fun chars to play and also the most fragile. Thus they are the most challenging and fun char to play in hardcore. They are hands down the char I played the most in my years of D2 classic.
Goal of this build: To make a sorc that is tough as nails and does good damage in hell. With this build you will be able to kill in hell 8 player games and teleport through the thickest packs of the toughest monsters in the game without fear. You will be able to make hot, open seals and kill vizir solo in an 8 player game in CS runs.
Why use Blizzard: Most sorcs are cold sorcs because A) it slows down enemies and B) most monsters in Chaos Sanctuary (end game xp zone) and Catacombs lvl 4 (best place to hunt for SOJ) are not cold immune. Blizzard is simply better than Orb IMO.
*From my experience I think 500, or a bit less, mana is the number you should aim for. More than that is nice but it's not really needed. Lets brake it down:
The sorc starts with 35 mana and gets +2 mana per lvl. At lvl86 this totals: 85 x 2 = 170 + 35 = 205. This guide calls for the use of Shard and Nightsmoke so thats + 70 = 275. With frostburns 275 + 40% = 385.
At lvl86 (where it starts getting tough), with base energy you have 385 mana. With another 80 you get 80 + 40% = 112 + 385 = 497.
IN CONCLUSION: you need +80 max mana from your items and/or stats.
Skills:
Warmth: 1
Static: 1
Frozen Armor: 1
Energy Shield and pre-reqs: 1*
Telekinesis: 20
Cold Mastery: 20
Blizzard and synergies: the rest
*Only 1 point in ES because this sorc has high life and low mana. With a +2 amulet and barbarian battle command you already have 35% dmg to mana, if you put more than 1-2 points here your mana will not be able to handle the dmg.
Equipment:
Shard
Nightsmoke (I like it for the 50% dmg to mana combined with energy shield. If you know how dmg to mana works you will see why this belt is great for this build.)
Frostburns
Rare Mage Plate: 350+ def, resists, life, mana, socket (using a soj) with Pruby
Rare Grim Helm or other: def, resists, life, mana, socket with Pruby / Pruby helmet
Rare Boots: 2 (fire/light) or 3 (fire/any 2) resists 35%+
Rare Amulet: +skills prismatic w/ or w/o Faster Cast Rate (FCR)
Rare Rings: FCR, resists, life, mana (rings+amulet must give 20% FCR to reach 70% overall)
Shield: Low budget: 45%+ Ward (has more def/block than a 3d shield if you dont need the extra res), high budget: rare Grim Shield 200+ def, 30% faster block rate/20% increased block, prismatic, socket with Pdiamond.
How much Resistence you want: You should not seek simply to max all resists in hell. In CS runs you get the lower resists curse cast on you all the time, that knocks 65% off all your resists. If Infector spawns with conviction or if another boss around him has conviction thats another 75%+ off. If this happens YOU WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO REACT. It is simply too much damage for the sorc to handle. Fire res in particular you should have at least 120-130 stacked over max. Lightning you should also stack as much as possible, though fire comes first (fire and physical dmg are the main threats inisde CS). Cold you should simply max and poison not even that.
Ok, that about does her. Wraps her all up. With this build you will have everything you need: life, defense, resists, block, dmg and FCR. Great for lvling this the toughest areas of the game.
For example, Lord De Seis (Oblivion Knight) in act 4 CS, most of the time, he is fire immune and cold immune, which leave us no choice but to use physical/lighning attack. If it is expansion, sure we can leave the job to our mecenary. But in classic....
For example, Lord De Seis (Oblivion Knight) in act 4 CS, most of the time, he is fire immune and cold immune, which leave us no choice but to use physical/lighning attack. If it is expansion, sure we can leave the job to our mecenary. But in classic....
Kill everyone around Seis, use static to get him down to 1 life and finish with telekinesis.
Nope. He will reheal and always seem to have more than just a hairline of life left. I have used and seen used static then thunderstorm. But this doesnt always work. If u have max orb/blizzard and cold mastery, and a backup kill skill in fire such as meteor/firewall/fireball and good fire mastery plus perhaps a good bit into static, mana shield and warmth: u dont have alot of skills left over to dump in t-storm.
I would carry some + sorc skill items in stash to boost damage, maybe a sig shield, crappy +2 ammy, +1 set sword or bong.
Thanks for the guide, Palm.
Was wondering about why u would only put 1-2 pts in ES (the mana ball). All the best classic sorcies have one, and any good ones that dont usually dont know what its for. I have found that the mana shield is very irritating early on in Nm and early hell, with sudden empty mana ball. This is cured with the usual +mana items u talk about, and leveling mana add ons, and greater likelihood of getting BO by the time u get to late hell. I would also push life to close to 900+ (pre-BO), without a pruby helm, and instead use a pskull'd or psapphire helm for MANA. I'm not an expert with ES and damage calc's, but half a dozen pts are good and I think some ppl max it.
Location: Atop the mountain breathing fire upon all that dare approach me.
Posts: 175
why is it that every time i see someone putting up a classic sorc guide everyone of them says 1 point in warmth?
this isnt LOD where you can put 1 point in warmth and have +27 points from gear.... If you dont want to be using mana pots every few seconds then you need to invest in warmth.
Was wondering about why u would only put 1-2 pts in ES
The problem with ES is that it redirects dmg to mana but without applying resists. % dmg to mana only applies to the dmg taken on life. The more dmg you redirect via ES to mana the less effective % dmg to mana is at nullifying some of the dmg. And at pretty much any ES lvl nullifying elemental dmg doesnt work. You need to find a balance of high life and some ES that greatly reduces physical dmg, nullifying some of it, and is able to take elemental dmg in a balanced way, i.e more or less equally in life and mana, though your mana should run out first. This is a high life sorc build thought out for HC, you can go with a high mana low life ES sorc but thats something else.
Quote:
If you dont want to be using mana pots every few seconds then you need to invest in warmth.
You can go with warmth but its not needed with 500 mana + BO. I'd rather invest in dmg
Location: Atop the mountain breathing fire upon all that dare approach me.
Posts: 175
Quote:
Originally Posted by Palm
You can go with warmth but its not needed with 500 mana + BO. I'd rather invest in dmg
no guarantees that you will get to play with a barb 100% of the time, granted most CS runs do have atleast 1 barb in them but there are times that i find i get into runs where there is no barb.
no guarantees that you will get to play with a barb 100% of the time, granted most CS runs do have atleast 1 barb in them but there are times that i find i get into runs where there is no barb.
Mana pot. Lvl 20 Warmth regens faster than lvl 1 Meditation.
Location: Atop the mountain breathing fire upon all that dare approach me.
Posts: 175
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCerberus
Mana pot. Lvl 20 Warmth regens faster than lvl 1 Meditation.
pretty sure you meant that the other way lvl 1 meditation rengens faster than lvl 20 warmth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Palm
I'd rather invest in dmg
If your going for a low mana build investing points for dmg, can you explain the choice of
20 Telekinesis
1 Energy Sheild
If you have a low mana build your not relying to heavily on ES to keep you alive. So why invest in Telekinesis? You could for example get 10 warmth and 10 telekinesis.
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