Blizzard Sorc Guide

[Fatheed]

Blizzard Sorc Guide

Table of Contents
Section 1: Skills
Section 2: Stats
Section 3: Equipment
Section 4: MFing Equipment
Section 5: MFing Strategies
Section 6: Leveling Guide
Section 7: Mercenaries

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Section 1 - Skills

Fire Skills

Warmth - 1 - Passive mana regeneration acts as almost extra mana. Maxing it has ample returns, but it's better to spend those valuable skills points elsewhere and just let +skills do the work for you.

Lightning Skills

Charged Bolt - 1 - Prerequisite if you plan on getting energy shield, which I personally prefer to have.

Telekinesis - 1 - Prerequisite to Teleport.

Static Field - 1 - Static is one of the most useful spells in the game. Every cast instantly takes out 25% of a monster's current health. Handy for Baal or Diablo.

Lightning - 1 - Prerequisite to energy shield.

Chain Lightning - 1 - Prerequisite to energy shield.

Teleport - 1 - Invaluable for fast MF runs, avoiding the enemy in PvP. and getting to your target fast in PvM.

Energy Shield - 1 - Acts as extra life for you!

Cold Skills

Ice Bolt - 1 (After you're finished with everything else, put the rest of your points here) - Prerequisite to Blizzard and Shiver Armor, and synergy to Blizzard.

Frozen Armor - 1 - Prerequisite to Shiver Armor for most people, but some people will use it over Shiver Armor. It gives considerably less defense, but it will freeze melee attackers instead of merely slowing them down.

Frost Nova - 1 - Prerequisite to Blizzard.

Ice Blast - 1 (After you're finished with everything else, put the rest of your points here) - Prerequisite to Blizzard and Shiver Armor and synergy to Blizzard.

Shiver Armor - 1 - An excellent defensive skill. It provides a dramatic boost to your defense, and chills any melee attackers that attack you, helping you prevent a stunlock.

Glacial Spike - Max - Prerequisite and synergy to Blizzard. Also, because of its splash freezing effect and decent damage, it is the perfect spell to shoot during the cooldown time of blizzard.

Blizzard - Max - Your main attack spell. Why Blizzard? It does the highest damage per shard out of any of the cold skills, hits multiple enemies multiple times, and is versatile enough to take on both crowds and single enemies.

Cold Mastery - Max - Pierces enemy resistances to cold: actually adds more damage to blizzard than any of its synergies.

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 2 - Stats

Strength: Just enough for equipment
Dex: Base, unless you want to get up to max block.
Vitality: Rest of points.
Energy: Base for a No Energy Shield build, enough for 800-900 mana for MFing, and around 1.2k for PvM.

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 3 - Equipment

Top choices followed by decent to good choices.

Amulet

Mara's
------
+3 Cold Skills Ammy
Tals Ammy
Rare Ammy with +life, mana, +2 sorc skills, fcr, etc.
Telling of Beads
Highlord's Wrath

Armor

Chains of Honor
-----------------------
Skin of the Vipermagi
Enigma BP/Archon/Dusk (With Breast Plate, you can leave STR as base)
Ormus Robes (preferably +3 Blizzard)
Que-Hegan's Wisdom
Naj's Light Plate

Helm

Harlequin Crest
--------------------
Nightwing's Veil
Tarnhelm
Sazabi's Mental Sheath
Peasant Crown
Delirium
Tal's Mask

Weapon

Death's Fathom
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Rare Orb with +2 sorc skills, +2 cold skills, +3 blizzard, etc.
Eschuta's Temper
Mang Song's Lesson
Wizardspike
HOTO
Oculus
Tal's Orb

Weapon (Switch)

Only one choice....Call To Arms.

Rings

Stone of Jordan
-----------------
Wisp Projector
BK Ring
Manald Heal
Raven Frost
Nature's Peace

Belt

Arachnid Mesh
------------------
Snowclash
Trang-oul's Girth
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Gloom's Trap
Credendum

Shield

Your choice between Lidless, Sanctuary, and Stormshield.

It's a matter of personal opinion, really. Sanctuary gives a huge resist boost, Lidless gives +1 skills, mana, and FCR, and SS has DR.

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Wall of the Eyeless (FCR and triumphant)
Viscertaunt (+1 sorc skills)

Boots

Sandstorm Trek
----------------
Silkweave
Waterwalk
War Traveler

Gloves

Frostburn
----------------
Magefist
Bloodfist
Trang-oul's Claws

Charms

Annihilus, cold charms, vita charms, resist charms, etc.

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 4 - MF Equipment

Amulet

50 MF Ammy (magic amulet with both MF suffix and prefix)
+cold skills, 35 mf ammy
resists, 35 mf ammy

Helm

Shako
Griz Helm (Two Ptopaz'd)

Weapon

Occy
HOTO
Death's Fathom

Weapon Switch

Ali Baba
Gull
6-Ist Weapon

Shield

Lidless
Stormshield
Sanctuary

Shield Switch

Rhyme
4-Ist Monarch

Armor

Skullders

Rings

30% Nagels
35 MF rings (magic rings with both MF suffix and prefix)

Belt

Goldwrap (preferably upgraded, you want those 16 potion slots)

Boots

War Traveler

Gloves

Chance Guards

Charms:

Gheeds
7 smfcs
Cold Charms
Annis

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 5 - MF Strategies

There's a whole lot more to MFing than most people know, and maximizing your MF runs takes more than just average knowledge of the game. Here are some tips on various places where I MF:

The Pit

New in 1.10, the Pit has been quite popular for finding elite socketed items such as 3 sock archons and eth zerkers. A Blizzard Sorc will encounter some trouble in the Pit, but will be able to do Pit runs decently nonetheless. You're going to have to skip past all the cold immunes if you want to do these runs in a decent time. Find the packs of Dark Archers and Devilkins, Blizzard those to death, and then move on.

The Countess

The Countess has the highest chance to drop the majority of the runes in the game. She is guaranteed to drop at least one rune each run. However, she can only drop up to Vex. This is still high enough to get nice runes such as Um, Mal, Ist, and Vex. There's only one big problem with Countess runs: the Countess and all her minions are immune to cold. If you want to do the countess, you MUST HAVE A GOOD MERCENARY. Another problem, though much more minor, is finding all 5 levels of stairs can be a pain.

Andariel

Andariel runs can give decent drops, but my main purpose for them is to kill the tons of unique monsters running around lvl 2 and 4, easily filling up my belt with Rejuvenation Potions, which are infinitely helpful against the tougher parts of the game. Andariel herself has piddly hp and should be a piece of cake. Just keep Blizzard on her, though you may have to play bullfighter if your merc can't tank her.

Mephisto

Ah, Mephisto, maybe the most MFed enemy in the game. Probably 80% of my worthwhile finds have come from Mephisto, and for good reason. He drops a good amount of items (from 3-5) and has a decent TC. Also, there are no other enemies that will intervene in a fight with him, he?s easy enough to get to and decently easy to kill.

Pindleskin

Pindleskin is nearly the easiest enemy in the game for a Blizzard Sorc, even in 8 player Hell games. Pindle is located in the red portal next to Anya (after you've rescued her). An average Pindle run should go like this: Run down to the red portal, go through, teleport up so that you just barely make it through the entrance (you don't want to go right up to pindle), cast glacial spike once to freeze the people in front, cast Blizzard once or twice (If Pindleskin is Cold Immune, restart or Static then let merc kill), get drops, quit.

Baal

Baal is time-consuming and difficult, but the payoff can easily be worth it. Solo Baal runs require a good mercenary to defeat Cold Immune enemies, which are quite common.

 

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Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 6 - Levelling Guide

Level 1-5: Blood Moor
Level 6-10: Tristram
Level 11-12: Andariel
Level 13-17: Arcane
Level 18-23: Lam Esen Temples
Level 24: Ancients
Level 25-45: Normal Baal
Level 46-75: NM Baal
Level 76-80: Hell Baal
Level 80+: 8 Player Hell Pindle

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Section 7 - Mercenaries

Mercenaries are an incredibly useful companion to any Sorceress. They are able to withstand many times the number of blows a Sorc could take, they tank enemies to allow Sorcs to freely attack, and they can compensate for the lack of multiple elements to deal with immunities.

Act 1

The Act I mercenaries are Rogues, ranged attackers who use a bow (however, Rogues cannot use Amazon-only bows). The Rogue comes in two flavors: fire arrow and cold arrow. While you may think Cold Arrow is obviously better, it is not. Fire Arrow has twice the range of Cold Arrow, and Fire Arrow rogues level up noticeably faster.

Good Equipment

Weapon
Windforce
BOTD Hydra Bow
Eaglehorn

Armor
Shaft
Dury's Shell
Leviathan
Chains of Honor

Helm
Stone
Delirium
Gaze
Tals Mask
Andariel's Visage

Act 2

My favorite mercenaries, they come with one of six auras.

Norm+Hell:
Offensive: Blessed Aim
Defensive: Defiance
Combat: Prayer

NM:
Offensive: Might
Defensive: Holy Freeze
Combat: Thorns

These are melee mercenaries that use spears and polearms. They can do good amounts of damage in addition to having a useful aura. For a Sorc, the most useful auras are the defensive ones.

Good Equipment

Weapon
BOTD War Pike
Doom War Pike
Bonehew
Reaper's Toll (DECREPIFY ROCKS)
Tomb Reaver

Armor
Shaft
Dury's Shell
Leviathan
Chains of Honor

Helm
Stone
Delirium
Gaze
Tals Mask
Andariel's Visage

Act 3

My least favorite mercenaries: they can?t tank and don?t do as much damage as others.

These mercenaries use a sword and a shield, but are primarily casters. They come in 3 types: lightning, fire, and cold. While the Cold one is useful in the early stages of the game, these mercenaries are essentially useless. Get a different one.

Act 5

These Barbarians are powerful, attack really fast, and stun+knockback the enemy. These are probably the second best mercenary and make excellent tanks.

Good Equipment

Weapon
BOTD CB
GF
CCB
Doombringer

Armor
Shaft
Dury's Shell
Leviathan
Chains of Honor

Helm
Stone
Delirium
Gaze
Tals Mask
Arreats
Andariel's Visage

 

[Fatheed]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Any Thoughts/Comments appreciated

 

[rickster]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

I don't like running the pit, because there are cold immunes. I run the ancient tunnels instead. No cold immunes except for unique bosses that happen to spawn that immunity. I also discovered Lower Kurast (the place with the special chests), has no cold immunes either. So I pop all the chests there and kill all the monsters there as it's decent exp at lvls 80-85.

I also found out max block beats max vita. I built a max vita blizz sorc a month earlier in the ladder. I've cut my deaths by 90% compared to my max vita blizz sorc. I decided the best shield would be an upped um'ed visceratuant. I have about 950 life (and 30 unused stat points), which is fine for the area's the i'm running. I figure once I get cta or some better charms, I can try a max block spirit monarch build. The mods on spirit are unbeatable (for any sorc) and max block is also awesome. If you have enough life it's worth the heavy dex investment.

I get most of my mf from my weapon switch. I have dual isted eth ali baba (+14 dex couldn't find a +15 dex one), rhyme, and 47% travs. I also have these solid gloves with tri-resists +11 strength and 17%mf. And I have a handful of mf resist charms. I recently acquired a above average head hunter's troll nest, and am wondering if I should triple ist it. Or I should save them till my next build so I can wear a monarch and have 100% mf in that slot instead of 75%.

Anyways, good guide, I have a couple of nit picks besides you running cold immune areas. You really only need to get level 37 cold mastery (especially if you run meph). If you have a lot of +skills and -5 cold facets, I don't think there are too many monsters you'll want to encounter with over 75% cold resist. As an example, With my primary weapon i have +18 skills and three 5/5 facets, so I'd only need level 16 cold mastery to give meph -100% cold resist. Lastly, I think your stat points into energy shield are wasted, especially if you really want to max out blizzard's damage. Just use a memory staff if you want energy shield so much.

 

[lumpor]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

I think you should have an introduction, as well as explaining more on your choices and really talking. For me this wasn't so fun reading. Looked more like an information source of some sort.

Also, are you playing hardcore? Cause in SC I'd choose Ormus robes and nightwings over shako and CoH in a heartbeat. Shak and CoH have some good mods here and there, but the +%skill damage in so hard to beat.

Also, shouldn't you max ice blast and rest into ice bolt? Most people like ice blast more cause of the much higher damage. Anyway, they are all synergies to blizzard

Anyway, bggest improvement to me would be to make this more reader friendly

 

[Ksnake]

Re: Blizzard Sorc Guide

Good stuff appreciate the tips and tricks!