all about damage

[CoRnJuLiOx]

all about damage

Ok, i've just rebulilt my FO/CL sorc, this time with a greater emphasis on vitality and less on strength and energy. But one thing i've noticed with this build and my last is that killing things (in hell difficulty) doesn't go as quickly as I thought it should.

How much damage should a properly built FO/CL sorc be doing when you start Hell? My CL does 2-1050 dmg while FO does 247-252 dmg, both of which feel kind of low to me.

 

[Xdeathfire]

Re: all about damage

Well, they do seem quite low. That is probably due to mediocre gear. It would help if you post your gear/skill setup

 

[CoRnJuLiOx]

Re: all about damage

Ok, my gear setup is as follows:

Weapon: Gull Dagger (+100% MF)
Armor: Splint Mail, 2 socket, "Stealth" Runeword
Helm: Charged Circlet of Memory (+2 to Lightning Skills, sorc only)
Amulet: Arcana's Sign (+15 to mana, 20% mana regen) I had this one coupled with Arcana's Head for the +50% MF bonus.
Shield: Kite Shield, 3 socket, "Ancient's Pledge" (for the resists)
Gauntlets:Garnet Light Gauntlets of Fortune (23% fire resist, 22% MF)
Boots: Shadow Tread Heavy Boots (only notable bonus is the +10% FHR)
Belt:Garnet Plated Belt of Wealth (21% fire resist, 71% extra gold)
Rings: Ring of the Apprentice (10% FCR), Skull Gyre Ring (+90 Mana, 12% fire resist, 10% poison resist, 10% MF)

Yeah, my gear sucks at the moment, but this is the strongest char i've got so far, and i'm playing in single player offline so I don't have the luxury of being able to trade. I've got the entire Arcana's set in my ATMA stash, but I don't use it because i'm currently using this sorc to run meph/andy in NM. It's been a while since I played in Hell (I used to play Bnet when the 1.08 patch was out), but from what I read chars should be doing damage in the 1000-2000+ range to be effective in Hell, am I right?

 

[redground]

Re: all about damage

my Light/Orb DMG

Orb = 500
lightnining = 14k
Charged Bolt =~500
CL =~4k

Full tals, torch, anni, 3 light skillers.

 

[dryzalizer]

Re: all about damage

that isn't very helpful redground, for someone who just wrote they play sp offline.

I would like to see your skill allocation as well, but running NM Andy/Meph should net you some useful gear. Keep an eye out for SoJ, visceratuant, skin of the vipermagi, lidless wall, a good rare orb or the oculus, etc. You could also join the SP trade forum and trade for some low-level sorc gear for pgems. Make sure to read the rules carefully first though.

 

[Beeds]

Re: all about damage

hi, yea gear is an issue here and I feel you on that. I would try to find frostburn guants or magefists, they should be easy to find after running NM meph. I am not sure what your level is, but I am now 96 and do about 800 damage with Frozen orb. It is the only thing I ever use since it is able to always kill Andy/Meph in hell. My gear is a lot better tho and its easier to trade. Try to get some good mana regen items and keep on doing Meph NM until you find some gear like magefists, treks boots, a couple nagel rings, maybe a tarnhelm, goldwrap belt, any of the tals sets items are nice, and some are very easy to find in NM mephy. Good luck.

 

[CoRnJuLiOx]

Re: all about damage

Here's my current skill point distrobution:

Charged Bolt: 7
Lightning: 9
Chain Lightning: 20
Lightning Mastery: 9

Cold Bolt: 3
Ice Blast: 1
Glacial Spike: 1
Frost Nova: 1
Blizzard: 1
Frozen Orb: 18
Cold Mastery: 4

I'm level 66 right now, and am working my way through act 1 Hell. Its pretty rough going, but I think I can do it. A quick question about MF though, is it easier to find higher level items/runes in Hell than it is in Nightmare? Thats the impression I get playing the game, but I may be wrong.

 

[Nullvoid]

Re: all about damage

Aha, it's your skill distribution that is the problem more than gear. With the focus on CL you should really aim for the following lightning skill layout to begin with:

20 Chain Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Lightning

Maxed in that order and with every other lightning skill you want left on 1 point. This is because once you've maxed chain lightning, lightning mastery gives the biggest bonus to its damage (12%) compared to all of the other named synergies which only give 4%.

As a rough guide, this is a nice setup to aim for (I'll assume you don't want the cold armours):

Cold
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery
1 in all pre-requisites

Fire
1 in Warmth

Lightning
20 Chain Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
20 Lightning
1 in Static, Charged bolt, Telekinesis and Teleport

That should take you up to somewhere about level 83 or so and from there you can decide to further boost your lightning skills by raising charged bolt, or to increase how effective your frozen orb is by raising cold mastery (unless you have loads of +skills items it is more effective than raising ice bolt).

 

[kanonfutter]

Re: all about damage

I think I would fall back to nm Meph for gear and nm Baal for xp until 70'ies. My fully twinked sorc has troubles in Hell at ~65. Look for anything with +skills, you are really low on that. You are on SP, do you know about /players 8 (simulates 8 players in game) to increase xp? BTW drop by the SP forum and say hi, we're a friendly bunch over there.

 

[CoRnJuLiOx]

Re: all about damage

... do you know about /players 8 (simulates 8 players in game) to increase xp? ...

HOLY CRAP. I just remembered that. >_< I'm going back to NM and running this again...do drop rates increase with /players 8? I just found first piece of Tal Rashas set in NM meph and am running again for the rest of it . BTW, what does 'twinked' mean? Doesn't that have something to do with MF? And just exactly how high does +skills need to go? I've never gotten past +5 before, and from what read, people are getting upwards of like +20 in some places, which is just insane to me

 

[redground]

Re: all about damage

By telling my skills dmg i was trying to set some standards or something to look for.

I want to have 50k lightning dmg, but not with my build, my next one maybe.

 

[Youlan]

Re: all about damage

i think a pure light can only do that

 

[redground]

Re: all about damage

that isn't very helpful redground, for someone who just wrote they play sp offline.

I would like to see your skill allocation as well, but running NM Andy/Meph should net you some useful gear. Keep an eye out for SoJ, visceratuant, skin of the vipermagi, lidless wall, a good rare orb or the oculus, etc. You could also join the SP trade forum and trade for some low-level sorc gear for pgems. Make sure to read the rules carefully first though.

i think a pure light can only do that

that is right... and it is really really hard and demands really awesome gear.

 

[Youlan]

Re: all about damage

just trade hehe

 

[lumpor]

Re: all about damage

Remember that chain lightning shouldn't be spammed, due to nextdelay. It should only be used with monsters who aren't tightly together. Use lightning against tight packs instead.

Also remember that the listed orb damage doesn't consider cold mastery etc.

Too many people rely on the character screen, but it lies alot and there are lots of things it doesn't take into consideration

 

[kanonfutter]

Re: all about damage

HOLY CRAP. I just remembered that. >_< I'm going back to NM and running this again...do drop rates increase with /players 8? I just found first piece of Tal Rashas set in NM meph and am running again for the rest of it . BTW, what does 'twinked' mean? Doesn't that have something to do with MF? And just exactly how high does +skills need to go? I've never gotten past +5 before, and from what read, people are getting upwards of like +20 in some places, which is just insane to me

You cannot get the full Tal Rasha set from NM Meph, in fact the armor is only available from Hell Pindle, Hell Ball, and champion/boss monsters in level 85 areas. If you have the patience, Skin of the Vipermagi can drop. Then, sew it to the torso of your sorceress, it is definitely endgame stuff.

Cheap skill boni (what I use):
Vipermagi: +1
Visceratuant: +1
Occulus: +3
Amulet: +2
Good circlet: +2

For a total of +9 skills. Though my sorc have found a lot of this herself, other pieces where found by other chars (in fact was I given the Occy and Tals ammy as a prize in a guessing competition). The process of equipping a character with the best gear available to you is called 'twinking', as opposed to 'self-found'. I consider this a very decent amount of +skills, +5 should be able to get you going for a long run.

Again, I would advise you to look at the guides in the single player forum, as everything is written in great detail there.

 

[Davio]

Re: all about damage

Twinked means you have a bunch of good gear already avaible for a character and you just need to lvl to meet their requirements.

Untwinked means you just use whatever you can find and take it slowly.

 

[Scianthe]

Re: all about damage

The luxury of sp, /players 8.

Just run Meph/baal etc till you go nuts, shouldn't take long if you got a nice map and will get you gear upgrades.

 

[guface]

Re: all about damage

the other problem with hell of course, is light resistance. A lot of creatures have a decent natural resistance to lightening and having -ve to light resist is very important. Take for example, the pit lords in hell - very high light resists. Although some of the items are out of reach for SP players, ie infinity, griffin - there are alternatives - the runeword cresent moon (shael um tir) and tal set with 4 items. The runeword is probably your best bet as um is the only hard thing you have to find and gives the most -ve to resistnace.