Crazy Runner Guy
Diabloii.Net Member
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
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
I stick to the non-blocking shields (spirit is my friend, lidless if I must) and keep my FCR over 105%.