Introducing Coldtest, the five-hour mat (long)

Introducing Coldtest, the five-hour mat (long)

Stats and goodies (I really like using pictures, saves typing.)

Last night after work, I spent 40 minutes taking this sorc from her beginning to clv 19 in act 2, and her Leaf staff. This afternoon, I took her to Hell Baal.

Gear is more or less the same as Layla, except I'm using my 26% Mara's (much better choice if you need res) intead of tals ammy. I'll be upgrading to Arachnid's at clvl 81, however, the belt is a random caster craft tha thas cold res on it. Charms are 2x cold skillers, 2x fire skillers, 6x mana/life sc's and one random sc.

However, stats are different. Always looking for room to optimize, I played around with how much Fball damage one really needs. Tweety had 3k /w 20/20/1 setup, and DC had 4.1-4.4k (again, 20/20/1). Which one is better? I'm going to argue that Tweety's damage is a better number to aim for, and thus one needs to vary skill points. Sadly, I realized this when I had 15 in F bot (and 20 in Fball). So I'm going to save those 5 points and dump them into Bliz synergies, because I know I can deal with the throne on /p1 /w my 4k max f-ball setup and you can never have too much bliz damage. I would imagine optimization like this is possible down to the skill point (probably 10/20/1 is an ideal setup).

20 Bliz
20 Glacial Spike
2+ Ice Blast
1+ CM (this will be 4, eventually)

20 FBall
15 FBolt
1 Mastery

1 Warmth/tele/static

Her first experience with running was FAST. Much faster than my Hammerdin (one minute), and much, much faster (two minutes) than the Orber. And she's only clvl 74 with plenty of time to grow.

Best finds? Tals Ammy from Hell Duriel, wizard (like I'll ever use it) spike from Hell Diablo. Hell hellforge got me a Lem.

You might be thinking, "Hey CRG, didn't you just build a Baal-running Cold sorc?" Yeah, I did, but curiousity got me. I wanted to see if a Blizballer, using the same gear, could speed up the runs without spending a large amount of time cubing grand charms and running LK for skillers (Running LK has been killing leveling time. And it has no cold skillers). Well, to answer my question, yes, she is much faster. Don't worry, when I get the appropriate amount of skillers, I return to the Orber and report my findings.

I won't say this is the end of the line in sorceress builds for me, as I've got at least one or two more that I want to try, but as far as raw efficiency, I've never seen one of my charcters mop up everything so well.

Coldtest (a play on coldest) has been a gradual evolution, a work in progress, one could say, of the various sorc builds I have gone through. (Hopefully) in order, here's my cold-based sorc builds:

Frozen Touch was one of my two original sp characters (that and Blessed_One, a hammerdin). Her stats were placed badly and her gear was a work in progress throughout PvM. Once she settled into mf’ing /w Tal's set, she was great.

A year or two later, I decided I needed a new Mf’er, and build Shardona She was excellent for running Pindle and much faster than FT. Like FT though, she used Tal's. However, without a second attack, I never really liked her. CI Pindle would take forever…However, she was my first sorc to teleport through most of hell (90 minutes).

Unhappy with Shardona, I built Oz last year. She was a Tal's blizzballer setup to run everything (Ancient tunnels, meph, Baal, WSK, Pindle). She is my current MF build, when I take her out. All of these builds I have investing on blocking, and always w a rhyme'd grim shield (60% blocking and goodies).

The others were Baal attempts. Speeder, a pure bliz /w 2xHel'd Bonehew on switch, failed because I invested in blocking. Layla hasn’t failed, but is on hold, and Coldtest is going to work like a dream.

A few comments. I have been generally unhappy making the decision to go with blocking on a sorceress, especially one that runs pindle (because his charge ignores blocking). I find that it lowers HP significantly (especially when you don’t have CtA) because of the stat points it requires. The only shield that is viable for sorceresses is Whitstans, and that’s only because of its insane block percentage.

Woot. That's all for now, until I get someother crazy idea.

crg

 

Congrats!

I wish had that kind of initiative to level my sorc. :tongue:

 

Wow man you've gone through a few sorks huh?
Congrat's on the new one, she looks mighty tasty.

 

And I'm not even counting my lightning-based ones (there's a few).

crg

 

Congrats- a viable character in two days is pretty sweet.

I have also dabbled in sorcs. My Meteorb, wearing Tals, is very fast and pretty durable. She is my primary MF char. My latest char is a Blizzball, also wearing the tals, and is slower and more fragile, struggling in Hell act 5.

I mention this because our points are almost identical in skills, but I see your Cold damage is 4220-4412, whereas mine is 2258-2393. Thats a huge difference, which I can't account for in stat points. Mine are:
Str 84
Dex 84
Vit 282
Eng 55

You have a bit more str than I do, but where does the 2k difference in damage come from?

 

The damage difference comes not from stat points but skill points. Remember, I've also got a Death's Fathom (26%) and Nightwing's Veil (13%) adding to my damage. In other words, I have an slvl 35 Blizzard /w 24 points in synergies and + 39% cold damage. That's why I've got more damage than you.

crg
crg

 

Unless you're playing Hardcore, blocking on a Sorc is practically useless. To paraphrase another member here:

"If your Sorc is getting hit, you're doing something wrong"

Other than that, a fabulous job with the Mat. and looking forward to reading some more :thumbsup:

 

Edit: pwned...

 

A little NF theory
And that's where I'd look at it from. However, one must remember that NF plays exclusively HC, and is one of the best HC players out there. Although logic would say that blocking is effective at saving your butt, it all depends on where you run. In WSK, we're setup to have lots of life and rely on FHR to cover us (and well-timed teleports). For general PvM, that argument is more valid. PvP is a different case where blocking is almost always mandatory.

My opinion, at looking at my sorceress history: I can't generalize my thoughts about blocking (yes, that's really my opinion. I've built too many characters with varying builds to judge). I will say this though. Leave dex at base or get 75% block. Don't go in the middle.

crg

 

It's somewhat more complicated with the cold tree. The listed damage does not convey the real damage that your sorc is doing. One has to account for the amount of cold resistance a particular monster has vs your level of Cold Mastery, as well as any +% cold damage and - enemy cold resistance from your gear.

A unique setup can easily attain higher listed damage, but if the CM is not up to scratch, then the actual damage done to cold resistant monsters will be less. There is also the question of 'how much cold damage is too much', and 'how much is enough for you'.

Tal's set offers +15% cold damage which will boost the damage of cold spells, and more importantly for a dual element sorc like the Blizzball, -15% enemy light/fire resistance, which greatly aids a weaker secondary attack, like Fireball and Meteor.

In short, don't rely on the listed damage as an indicator of the actual damage your sorc is doing. Take into account your CM slvl and enemy resistances, as well as +% cold damage and - enemy resistance.

So says the defensive sorc player. Aggressive sorc players will chant a different mantra.

Exactly.

 

GLACIAL SPIKE! (or tele on self)

What cannot move cannot attack. And for the cold immunes out there, I say holy freeze. And for the Frenzy taurs, I say blizzard.

crg

 

Gotta love that spell.

But when I say aggressive, I'm talking viking berserk style aggressive.

 

And those sorceresses are?

See also: Whomhead's Titan zerker build

I've also made titan-like characters, but they always have some crowd-control skill (or lifetap) that gets them through rough spots.

crg

 

Any and all the sorceresses that I have played or that I am currently playing.

It's as simple as 'some people play sorcs defensively, while others play sorcs offensively/aggressively'.

Now if you actually wanted me to list you all the builds that I have tried, then we better take this into PM.

 

Uh oh, FrostBurn and I totally agree (ref Tal Set). I think we normally agree, but end up arguing about the placement of 1 stat point or someting similar.

@ CRG Have you ever compared your orber to the standard meteorb build (20 FO, svlv 17 CM)? I have to wonder why your orber was so slow. Would you say it was just inherant weakness in FO or did it have to do more with limited Fire Damage?

for what it's worth, I've never cared for blocking on a sorc. I prefer to not get hit in the first place.:grin: I stick to the non-blocking shields (spirit is my friend, lidless if I must) and keep my FCR over 105%.

Did I mention that Full Tal + Spirit + Magefists = 105% FCR?

 

I'd say that it's the design of FO. It's not a great group spell, but its a damn good Baal killer (bliz, on the other hand, is the other way around). FO just spreads the damage out so much.

The fire damage is not the problem. It's that I need to push CM to get -150 res (at -125 now, and the two minions who are giving me trouble have 50 CR) and get skill charms. I expect a 50% increase in damage/shard once I get those skillers.

crg

 

Just don't push your CM up to 150, then get the skillers later. I made that mistake once. I made a similar mistake by adding facets after I placed my skill points. Can you say wasted skill points? I probably had hell meph/durial at over -100%

 

Belated congratz, crg. I've been playing for years have haven't yet P/Mat'd. You did it in two days.

I am officially pwned. :shocked:

 

clvl 86 stats

So I leveled a little bit more last night, and I was amazed at how smoothly it was going. I was doing just minions (baal isn't worth the time, atm) and each run was under 3 minutes from teleport to lister's pack's death. Just fast. And it will get faster once I get some skillers. As you'll notice, I've pumped up life (and mana) quite a bit since clvl 74. That came with finishing off the other eight inventory slots. I also added an FHR GC /w +mana. It seems to be working out OK. Damage has increased significantly three points in CM. That leaves me room to add five skillers and a Gheed's to hit -150% ecr.

I'm going to change the gear around, me thinks, meaning I'm going to swap out the Nightwing's and drop in a Harle. I think the damage loss will be insignificant. I'll also work to throw an Ist (or some uber MF jewel) into my weapon switch lidless. That will give me 213 MF on /w switch, and 153 without it. That should be enough to keep the itamz rolling in.

Best find from last night? 265% eth Tomby /w 35% res all. Sadly, it only had two sockets.

crg

 

Five hours? Slacker; you should do it in two in SC. :grin: Congrats. :thumbsup: