I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor?

[TheMightyGoat]

I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor?

Frozen Orb and Ice Bolt are maxed, Cold Mastery is at 17 with +skills, Nova and Lightning Mastery are maxed, and I have one in Static, Teleport and Warmth with prerequisites. I'm not going to level any more and all the skill quests are done. I have three points left over.

My Sorceress seems to die most often to physical damage. She's a key runner, primarily. Seems like a cold armor spell is the only logical choice for my remaining skills. The question is which one? Should I put three points into Frozen Armor, two into Shiver Armor, or one into Chilling Armor?

 

[EnerSense]

Re: I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor

Not sure how you have your equipment set up. If you don't have anything on switch, I'd get a shiver staff from Drognan. That still leaves 3 points left. Maybe put it in CM? Otherwise you might as well put one in each cold armor. Shiver armor is actually the most useful out of all of them. It slows melee monsters as soon as they start swinging. This gives you enough time to teleport to safety.

 

[TheMightyGoat]

Re: I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor

Hmm. Really should've thought of that prebuff staff earlier. Maybe I was distracted by notions of one day having a CtA...

I thought Cold Mastery didn't do anything over level 17 because of the way the enemies' resistances work? Or does it just fall into diminishing returns at 17?

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor

Cold Mastery's top-end is dictated by a monster's base cold resistance. For example,

- Mephisto (in Hell) has 75% natural cold resistance. So you can push your mastery all the way up to level32 (-175%) before additional points in the mastery are ineffective.

- a monster that starts with a natural 0% cold resistance only requires a level 17 mastery (-100%) to maximize your mastery-helped damage.

... so, as these examples imply, the lowest that a monster's resistance can be is a final result of -100%. Also, my examples ignore things like Rainbow Facets or a merc's Infinity polearm/Conviction aura (those add together with the mastery for a combined total). The reason that folks say level 17 is "best" is because it's the highest level that's guaranteed to be effective against all monsters. However, if the monsters you most-often face have a higher-than-zero natural resistance, additional points are still effective.


If you're having problems with physical attackers, then it does seem to me that one of the cold armours seems like the most natural choice (although, if you have mana problems, you could spend them in teleport ).

Even if you prebuff with a weapon-switch, the extra defense from those spend skillpoints won't hurt. Shiver Armour is probably the "best" option, for the reason EnerSense explained.

 

[Soulburner]

Re: I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor

As long as you know the defense does not help whatsoever, unless you walk instead of run around.

 

[TheMightyGoat]

Re: I have 3 skills left over on my Nova/FO Sorc. How should I use them? Shiver armor

Yeah, I'm not counting on the defense. But it seems better than nothing.

For anyone interested, this build works beautifully for key running. I can take all three keyholders consistently without (much) expensive gear. I just need to make myself realize that I can not tank Tomb Vipers.