Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

[Niklet]

Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

I need some help, opinions, ideas, etc on the gear for a 105 ES Max Block FB Sorc.

1) What shield is best? Assuming I need no FCR (ruling out spirit), I see my choices as SS or Whitstan's. I intend to use GA as an armor, meaning that the extra dexterity needed for SS is around 25. That doesn't seem like very much considering the fact that I get 35 DR and some res from SS.

2) Amulet? Again, assuming no needed FCR, I see my choices as Mara's, Cat's Eye, and a crafted 2sorc/10 ICB ammy.

3) Boots. I think I'll need FHR (20 from shael in shako, 20 from shael in GA), but would it be smarter to go with Waterwalks and make up FHR in charms (Fire FHR over Fire Lifers), or go with treks to get strength for SS and some FHR?

I need 105 FCR, 86 FHR, max block, around 220 res all, and as much life/mana as I can get. Is 86 FHR worth it, or should I go with 60?

I know this is a lot of questions, so feel free to only answer one or two if you don't feel like going through the whole thing.

Thanks,

Niklet

 

[sweetalmonds]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Haha guardian angel ES sorberess?

storm shield- like you said
maras- better bo and easy to get, or purdy craft/rare if it beats maras.
treks- strength need for 156 with vita fhr and that PR for some reduction in damage vs psn necros.
86FHR- sorc are pretty fragile so when you start getting hit you'd want to gtfo of there

Your damage will suffer with no +skills on either armor or shield so keep +skill armor with spirit mon for 1v1 duels where block and DR are not needed. You might even want to break 142fhr with that spirit mon and shael'd vmagi/ormus.

 

[Niklet]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Haha guardian angel ES sorberess?

storm shield- like you said
maras- better bo and easy to get, or purdy craft/rare if it beats maras.
treks- strength need for 156 with vita fhr and that PR for some reduction in damage vs psn necros.
86FHR- sorc are pretty fragile so when you start getting hit you'd want to gtfo of there

Your damage will suffer with no +skills on either armor or shield so keep +skill armor with spirit mon for 1v1 duels where block and DR are not needed. You might even want to break 142fhr with that spirit mon and shael'd vmagi/ormus.

So, treks, SS, Mara's, and 86 FHR.


Thanks for the help =)

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

It's a little bit of an out-of-the-norm idea (I think... I have haven't seen it mentioned much), but I was thinking of this recently:

If you had something like Vipermagi and didn't need a bunch of FCR from gloves + belt, wouldn't Trang-Oul's Claws + Girth be a better combination than the more common Magefists + Arachnid's (or whatever belt)? The partial Trang's combo would give a sorc +3 Fireball, and the belt has some pretty decent mods.

This probably won't work when you're in MB/GuardianAngel/Stormshield mode, but if you do ever switch to Vipermagi/Spirit sometimes, you'd get more damage because of an extra +Fireball skill, as well as +66 life and 30% cold resistances boost (heck even the CBF on the belt isn't entirely useless sometimes), without sacrificing much beyond a little superfluous FCR and 10% mana regeneration (net), and maybe a some mana if you're using Arachnid's.



Another thought, since you'll have skillpoints in ES/TK, you obviously won't have completely maxed Fireball (I don't think). Although many people will blindly recommend spending points in Meteor before FireMastery, depending on your final character level and amount of +skills from equipment, it can sometimes be better to spend the points in FireMastery first.

For example, I'll pull a number out of a hat and say that after you spend the hard points you want/need in TK/ES, and have max'ed Fireball and Firebolt, with 1 in Firemastery and all the other one-point wonders, let's say you plan to have 15 skillpoints to spend after that towards either Meteor or FM...

... Meteor has 3 prerequisites that FM doesn't... so you could only put 12 into Meteor, but 15 into FM... much of the time, I believe plugging those points into FM will actually produce more damage. And even more often, there are balances where you might want to spend ~8 in Meteor and the rest in FM...

Of course, you need to do some detailed build planning to figure this out, and using a skills calc is a nice helper unless you're a calculus nut.

 

[Smackin]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Upped visceratuant(however u spell it)? Upped mosers? Personally I'd go vis for offensive and mosers for defensive.

No cats eye, u aint zon. Any gg crafted ammy would do

Treks are hard to beat for the +str, vit and psn res(nothing kills ES like psn)

 

[Niklet]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Wow, sirpoopsalot, a very detailed and well-informed answer. I appreciate it.

I like the trang idea, especially because, as you mention later, the damage and skills will be hard to come by. However, the problem I see with that is that I intend to go with Frosties for gloves (not magefists as is conventional), relying on the other pieces for FCR (Circlet, 2/20 amulet, wizzy), etc, for FCR in order to maximize my mana and therefore EHP. Do you think that the CBF/Life/Mana and +3 FB from the belt is worth the 45% Max Mana (Frosties + Arach) and the +1 All Skills from the belt that I retain with my current setup?

Also, you raise a very interesting point about synergies. To be honest, I was planning to go with standard skills, but I'll definitely play around with a skill calculator before investing hard points. Extra damage never hurts.

Smackin, I think that Upped Vis is a good idea, but it detracts from the defensive capability of this build. I intend to run Max Block, 90 all res, 40+ DR, and high mana/life at the cost of damage. While upped Vis is a fantastic shield, I think SS benefits me more in terms of DR, which is amazingly hard to make up anywhere else. Thanks very much for the answer.

One more question. I was informed that DR and ES are not great together because the DR only kicks after ES does, meaning that it applies to the 5-15% of damage that actually affects your life. Can anyone confirm this for me?

 

[Smackin]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Yes, ES reduces dmg first. Dmg reduction order:
1. ES
2. Armor skill(bone armor)
3. Integer DR(or integer MDR for magical)
4. Resistance(%DR for physical, res for elemental/magical)
5. % absorb
6. Integer absorb

Lets say some barb comes along and ww u for 6k, which gets down to 1k after pvp penalty. U have 80% ES so only 200 goes to ur life. with 45 iDR, u take 155 dmg. Then SS comes along and takes off 35% of that, or about 53-54 dmg, so u take ~100 dmg. Without ss u lose ~50 more life.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Wow, sirpoopsalot, a very detailed and well-informed answer. I appreciate it.

I like the trang idea, especially because, as you mention later, the damage and skills will be hard to come by. However, the problem I see with that is that I intend to go with Frosties for gloves (not magefists as is conventional), relying on the other pieces for FCR (Circlet, 2/20 amulet, wizzy), etc, for FCR in order to maximize my mana and therefore EHP. Do you think that the CBF/Life/Mana and +3 FB from the belt is worth the 45% Max Mana (Frosties + Arach) and the +1 All Skills from the belt that I retain with my current setup?

Actually, I forgot about Frosties (since I never use them). Having ES like you've planned, I suspect I'd probably go with Frosties + Arachnids, because I doubt Trang's improvements are worth that +45% mana.


<-- sidenote, I don't actually play PvP, so I make no promises that any of my ideas are worth a damn in that environment. :crazyeyes:

 

[Smackin]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Well I dont pvp much so I cant give advice on tactics, but equips n those I got the stuff down.

 

[Niklet]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Smackin: So would you consider SS worth it? 35% AFTER Energy Shield doesn't seem like a very large difference.

Poopsie: 45% is a lot to give up. Can I call you Poopsie?

 

[Smackin]

Re: Help Needed - Gear for a 105 ES MB FB Sorc

Well, if u got +146 str to wear ss, by all means go for it, otherwise I'd save the str and put it elsewhere. Going max block with 156 str, 200+dex, and maintaining a balanced life/mana pool is VERY tight on the stats. IF I can recommend a substitute for SS, maybe I recommend Gerke's Sanctuary? I mean, if u look at the shield, u'd realize its MADE for this type of sorc. Massive base block(74% for sorc, tops everything except whistans), 20-30 res makes a huge difference, especially since its pvp and u wont have 95% ES(unless u prebuff like mad), 10-15 rep life definately helps in surviving, 11-16 iDR, 14-18 MDR is godly. Stick a Sol in there and it becomes even more godly. Personally I wouldnt really bother with the GA cuz max res isnt really useful, unless u stack 100+ ALL the time. Instead, I'd go vipermagi, seeing as it can give u very good benefits(not to mention another 13 MDR to go along with gerke's.

If u can give us the ur gear setup, I'll be able to provide further recommendations.