Ladder 1.11 Melee Sorc (Tyrannis)

[Tyrannis]

Ladder 1.11 Melee Sorc (Tyrannis)

Introduction
I've tried various builds of the melee sorceress, and many have left me with something to be desired. I built a Bodom Sorc and quickly found myself tweaking various aspects of that build until I ended up with something different, unworthy of the former title. This guide attempts to outline a build that finally satisfied me. I call her Tyrannis.

Skills
Tyrannis does not use any truly active skills. Instead, she relies on a dual mastery and aura setup. Built properly, she will have a level 30 Holy Fire and a level 30 Holy Shock aura, both accompanied by high levels of elemental mastery. She uses all 110 possible skill points to achieve her raw power.

Fire Tree
42 Skill Points as follows:
Fire Bolt - 1
Warmth - 1
Fire Ball - 1
Enchant - 19
Fire Mastery - 20

Cold Tree
1 Skill Point as follows:
Frozen Armor - 1

Lightning Tree
67 Skill Points as follows:
Charged Bolt - 1
Static Field - 1
Telekinesis - 20
Nova - 1
Lightning - 1
Chain Lightning - 1
Teleport - 1
Thunder Storm - 1
Energy Shield - 20
Lightning Mastery - 20

Maxing out her Fire/Lightning masteries and Energy Shield/Telekinesis skills is essential. The point into Static Field is very helpful for bosses. Thunder Storm will do reasonable damage for a 1 point investment as well, having 30+ Lightning Mastery and a base level of 10+. All remaining points go towards Enchant, which will come slowly after you reach level 90+. Energy Shield.

Equipment
The helm, weapon, armor and shield are the necessary pieces of equipment to make this build work. Using anything else will not give Tyrannis the dual level 30 aura setup.

Main Setup
Helm - Dream Bone Visage - Requires 106 Strength
Weapon - Hand of Justice Phase Blade - Requires 136 Dexterity
Armor - Dragon Archon Plate - Requires 103 Strength
Shield - Dream Troll Nest - Requires 106 Strength
Gloves - Upgraded Frostburn - Requires 110 Strength
Belt - Arachnid Mesh - Requires 50 Strength
Boots - Sandstorm Trek's - Requires 91 Strength
Ring 1 - Raven Frost
Ring 2 - Stone of Jordan
Amulet - Mara's Kaleidescope

Using frostburn gloves will give Tyrannis a lot of extra mana. Since her Energy Shield is absorbing most damage, this is a major boon. Also, higher mana levels make her mana regeneration rate go up, so she won't need to invest a lot into Warmth or an Insight mercenary weapon to keep mana flowing. The Arachnid Mesh and Stone of Jordan both give +1 skills and a mana increase. The Mara's Kaleidescope will give her much needed resists, skills, and attributes.

Weapon Switch
Weapon - Call to Arms Flail
Shield - Spirit Monarch - Requires 156 STR

Using these weapons gives you an extra +3 to skills for prebuffing. The Dragon armor gives you an added .375 STR per level, so the 156 STR requirement isn't hard to meet with minimal stat investment.

Attributes
Being a melee sorceress with a high level Energy Shield requires a lot of mana. Tyrannis already has items that gives her 75% more to mana, so make use of this. She will only need as much Strength and Dexterity to wear her equipment. Deficiencies in Strength and Dexterity can be made up for with large charms where necessary.

Tyrannis needs 136 Dexterity and 156 Strength minus the bonuses from items.

These pieces of equipment have attribute bonuses to Strength and Dexterity:
Dragon Armor - 3-5 All, .375 Strength per level
Ravenfrost - 15-20 Dexterity
Sandstorm Trek's - 10-15 Strength
Mara's Kaleidescope - 5 All
Annihilus Charm - 10-20 All
Hellfire Torch - 10-20 All

In a perfect world, this means that she receives 45 extra Strength and 65extra Dexterity from items without requirements to wear.

For the Phase Blade she would need 136-65 base Dexterity (71)
For Sandstorm Trek's she would need 91-45 base Strength (46)
She can now wear the Dragon Archon plate, which if level 99, bring hers to 148 Strength and 141 Dexterity. Since she only needs 136 Dexterity, this requirement can drop from 71 to 66. The weapon switch Spirit Monarch needs 8 more Strength still. This makes the bare minimums for Strength and Dexterity in a perfect world 54 and 66 respectively. Realistically, depending where you sacrifice attributes and probably not being level 99, you will need considerably more stats invested; however, before you do so, remember that stat large charms can be used while searching for that perfect world in the meantime.

I have found that adding 50 or so into Vitality is plenty when coupled with a good Call to Arms.

Everything else should go to Energy. Vitality can be raised more if you feel she needs more life.

Ideal Attributes
Strength - 54
Dexterity - 66
Vitality - 60-150
Energy - All else

Resists
One drawback to this build is lower resists, but this can be accounted for by realizing which element is causing the most problems. Wearing a Raven Frost absorbs 20% of cold damage, so having a lower cold resist won't hurt. Tyrannis is susceptible to Poison damage, but her Sandstorm Trek's help out here, having 40-70 Poison resist. Lightning resists will be needed to avoid being killed fast by Black Souls and Multiple Shots, Lightning Enchanted bosses.

To maximize Hell resists, she will need 175 to all resists.

How does she get there?

Mara's Kaleidescope - 20-30 All
Dream Helm - 5-20 All
Dream Shield - 5-20 All
Sandstorm Trek's - 40-70 Poison
Annihilus Charm - 10-20 All
Hellfire Torch - 10-20 All
Anya Quests - 30 All

80-140 All
110-210 Poison

Also, Dragon Armor gives a +5% max Lightning resist

Depending upon your luck and wealth, you may need a lot of resist all small charms (5% each) or just a few resist lightning small charms (11% each).

Charms
9 Sparking Grand Charms (+1 to Lightning Skills)
1 Hellfire Torch (+3 to all Sorceress skills, 10-20 Attributes, 10-20 Resists)
1 Annihilus Charm (+1 to all skills, 10-20 Attributes, 10-20 Resists, 5-10 Experience gained)

10 small charms of your choice, depending on what the Sorceress needs most after rolling her runewords and buying other items like her Annihilus and Hellfire torches.

The +1 Lightning skill charms will bring your damage to insanely high levels. Tyrannis does around 6k-52k damage right now, destroying most everything in her path.

Mercenary
The perfect companion for your melee sorceress is a Nightmare Act 2 Defensive mercenary. He will come with a Freezing Aura that is great for slowing down the enemy, helping her mitigate much potential damage.

Equip your mercenary with an ethereal elite Infinity weapon. This will break most lightning immunities, allowing speedy dispatch.

Also give him an ethereal Fortitude and Andarial's Visage. This will allow your buddy to deal out 1k-7k+ damage with ease. Andy's will improve your mercenary's aura and give him life leech, making him a force to be reckoned with.

Tactics

Prebuff
Switch to your Call to Arms/Spirit and buff you skills first with Battle Command. Then hit your Enegry Shield, Frozen Armor, Thunder Storm, Enchant, and Battle Orders. Switch back to your Hand of Justice/Dream.

Fighting
Have teleport in your right skill box. Teleport will save you from mana burners and allow you to catch up to minions who try to run away. It also helps you place your mercenary friend in superior position to harm those who oppose you. Teleport and swing your weapon, watching as the Hand of Justice slices through all in your path. It has Ignore Target's Defense, making quick work of any garden variety foe.

Bosses
Ignore Target's Defense will not help you here. Instead, you can switch to your Call to Arms/Spirit combination and hit the boss with a quick Battle Cry, then switch back. This will cripple his damage, and make him much more vulnerable to your attack. Your mercenaries conviction aura will help here as well.

For all situations, I usually keep a slot of Full Rejuvenations, incase I get mana burned, then 1 slot of Heal and 2 slots of Mana potions.

PvP
This character is really designed for PvM; however, if you want to PvP, get an angelic amulet and two angelic rings. This will add about 2250 to your base attack rating. Put on Enchant and watch it double. This should give you an okay chance to hit another player, but don't be afraid to teleport around with your dual auras/thunderstorm running trying to gain better position. Those auras will whittle down most players and if you see a chance, go in for a quick sword strike. If you hit, you may just kill your opponent instantly.

Conclusion

This is my first guide, so I'm open to criticisms and suggestions to make it more helpful. I appreciate your feedback, and hope you enjoy Tyrannis as much as I have.

 

[melianor]

Stickied. Please discuss. Would i have he wealth this Ladder, i would give it a try Nicely written and taken care of alot of questions that might arise. rop:

 

[kuafu]

There are two things that I disagree:
1) I think it's not worth investing stat points into strength just to use the Spirit shield, because it is only used to prebuff BO. Using a lidless will sacrifice only 1 level of BO, while the saved points can be put into Vitality/Energy for a (most likely) higher Life/Mana than using Spirit.
2) Since this is a max-ES sorc, I don't see the importance of maxing resistance. I'd replace the resistance charms with life/mana ones, or FHR ones.

 

[Tyrannis]

My reasoning was that 8 Str is not much of an investment for +1 to all skills. Remember that +1 helps with enchant, thunder storm, battle command, battle orders, frozen armor, and energy shield, all of which are passively used.

I agree with your point about resists, the only ones I recommend keeping high are lightning and poison. The ravenfrost will make cold resist mostly unecessary, and fire isn't much of a hassle. It's the souls and lightning enchants to look out for, and with low resists in lightning, they will eat 1500 mana in seconds, especially with maxed ES.

FHR is something that this build has lots of. 40-60 from dreams, 20 more from sandstorm trek's. I wouldn't recommend FHR unless you plan to hit the 142 breakpoint.

 

[kuafu]

8 str is when using perfect gear at lvl99, isn't it?
I don't get the argument on resist. ES is applied before resist, so you will lose 1500 mana in a second regardless of lightning resist.

 

[Tyrannis]

It doesn't matter whether you are in perfect gear or not, the opportunity cost is 8 strength for 1 skill. That 8 strength can come from charms too, while you seek out better gear. So long as you have Trek's with 12+ Str at least. If not, you need to add 1-2 more str yes, so worst case you may need to find an additional 10 Str to get +1 to all skills, be it in charms or in spent points. Edit: I forgot to account for dragon attributes and level. If your Dragon rolls 3 and you are only say level 90, then you need an additional 5 or so Strength, so 15 for +1 to all skills. In my opinion, still worth it, but each player can decide that for themselves. By losing 15 energy to strength, you actually lose about 50 mana, not 30, due to the 75% increase to mana bonuses. So, 50 mana for +1 skills or 30 life for +1 skills depending where you siphon from.

As to resists, I'm unsure of this mechanic. I seem to survive much better on souls when my lightning resist is high as opposed to low, with max ES. It's possible that they kill my life pool so quick that I die before being able to see a decrease in mana pool. I'll test this some over the weekend, as I currently use a couple of high lightning resist charms.

 

[kuafu]

The 30mana (before 75% increase due to how BO works) or 30life will be further amplified by BO. I agree the difference won't be big though, especially since this is used for PvM.
ES works before resist for sure, so the resist only matters for the remaining damage that passes ES. Assuming lvl40 ES, that'll be 5% of the total damage. If several souls hit you at once with 1000 lightning damage, only 50 damage will pass through ES (assuming big enough mana pool), so you shouldn't take more than 100 damage (100 damage at -100 lightning resist). Not sure why your sorc will die so fast against souls. I'd be happy to see your test results.

 

[tSDt]

Well if it does work with 156 str, it might help to also see what happens just with a lidless

 

[melianor]

On ES, i can also say that ES is applied before resistances for sure. If you want confirmation, ask RTB in the statistice forum.

About surviveability. Wheter you have ES or not, when you land in a pack of Black Souls, your chances of survival are very low, unless you have Ligthning Absorb gear, or 95% ligthning resistance.

Also i agree its better to invest in str, since investing in vitality is even less profitable and can be countered easily by some small life charms.

 

[Epheira]

Ok

HoJ = Super Slow and you have NOOOOOOOOOOOO ias anywhere on your gear.

So, normal attack, no zeal ? no shifting ?

Your point of view on this is ?

Nothing personal, just giving useful criticism.

 

[Ava]

Why would you invest so much in getting such a high Holy Fire? Maxing Enchant and all its synergies will give you a considerable amount of fire damage already. Warmth also helps your Mana Pool regenerate more quickly when you've been hit.

The points in warmth can come from Energy Shield. With enough +skills, one point should suffice. Just put some more points in vit and get some items with +life. (I would take a 100life belt over arach any day with a build like this, especially when you have cta). The trick is to tele away when it gets too dangerous. My sorc uses a simple lightsaber (shael) and a bloodfist which gives her a good attack speed, as well as itd. And with CoH as an armor, she has good resists too. I decided to sacrifice a killing speed for safety and use Stormshield and a Wisp Projector.

I haven't died so far and I kill fast. A good merc is madatory though; a holy freeze merc, like you said, is the one I like most.

 

[Tyrannis]

Ok

HoJ = Super Slow and you have NOOOOOOOOOOOO ias anywhere on your gear.

So, normal attack, no zeal ? no shifting ?

Your point of view on this is ?

Nothing personal, just giving useful criticism.

HoJ has it's own 33% IAS, and it's a phase blade, so it's still fast.

Also, you will kill almost anything in 1-3 hits. You will kill hell baal in under a minute no problem. 48% IAS is the next cut off, and this can be achieved by sacrificing other items, but believe me, you won't miss the speed.

Your normal attack couple with ignore target's defense, and 33% IAS on a phase blade make this weapon a machine. It also freezes and blinds those you don't 1 hit.

 

[Tyrannis]

Why would you invest so much in getting such a high Holy Fire? Maxing Enchant and all its synergies will give you a considerable amount of fire damage already. Warmth also helps your Mana Pool regenerate more quickly when you've been hit.

The points in warmth can come from Energy Shield. With enough +skills, one point should suffice. Just put some more points in vit and get some items with +life. (I would take a 100life belt over arach any day with a build like this, especially when you have cta). The trick is to tele away when it gets too dangerous. My sorc uses a simple lightsaber (shael) and a bloodfist which gives her a good attack speed, as well as itd. And with CoH as an armor, she has good resists too. I decided to sacrifice a killing speed for safety and use Stormshield and a Wisp Projector.

I haven't died so far and I kill fast. A good merc is madatory though; a holy freeze merc, like you said, is the one I like most.

The reason for lvl 30 holy fire is twofold. One, the HoJ weapon has -20% to fire resistance, so that boosts damage. One of the next best alternatives to Dragon I have found and used was a 915 defense CoH. CoH is great for resists, and 2 skills, but everything else can be accounted for by wearing HoJ/Dragon, and as discussed earlier, only lightning resist needs to be raised, as ES will absorb most damages, and lightning is the only elemental that will kill you. Dragon armor gives you an almost constant lvl 18 venom as well. Using Dragon/Hoj and only 50 lightning resist, I can tank hell level black souls with relative ease.

Second, Holy Fire makes your minimum damage come up by about 4k. Lightning alone hits with terrible minimum damage, at maybe 1k. Also, there are some lightning immunes you can't break with the mercs infinity. This will help make short work of them.

Not sure what you mean with your warmth comment. The build gets 1 point to warmth, and it's all she needs. I would not recommend trading points from ES to Warmth, because you want to achieve lvl 35 warmth or so when you prebuff, so mana absorbs 95%. Maxing telekinesis makes your mana take .75 points for every point of damage, so it is better to have damage hitting your mana pool than life pool.

I can say that my first build, before I had the runes to make everything, used a lightsabre and coh etc. This build blows it away, because you don't need the coh resists. Also, HoJ has -20% to fire resist, it spawns high level hydras, and freezes your targets.

I would recommend building this build and seeing how its insane damage knocks most things off the map before you even need to worry. You are right on with teleport though, it is great for escape, and that's why I always have it up for fighting. As soon as you get mana burned, you can tele right out, regroup, and probably kill the offending monsters one at a time by teleing in and out.

Mana is more important than life, except when you get mana burned, so all you need for vitality is enough to keep you comfortable. The arachnid mesh gives you +1 skills, slows your target, and gives 5% mana. I wouldn't trade that for 100hp.

 

[Xenon[XoA]]

Even with passion phase, the melee attack is not very fast at all, and troll nest dragon/dream offers very little in terms of block =/

It may be fine for pvm, but i would avoid building one for the sole purpose of pvp. There's a lack of attack speed, DR, block, and your eshield will crash very quickly. The aura pulses are easily negated with sorb. While this is true of all sorcs, the less damage you do at once, the more easily it is sorbed. It may do fine picking off the misc tal sorcs and otherwise poor duelers, but vs any solidly built character it won't last very long.

 

[MageChick]

Can you list what all you passive damage numbers are like? Yeah, I could probably dig up the damage calculator myself, but if you have the char already built it should be much quicker for you.

 

[Tyrannis]

Even with passion phase, the melee attack is not very fast at all, and troll nest dragon/dream offers very little in terms of block =/

It may be fine for pvm, but i would avoid building one for the sole purpose of pvp. There's a lack of attack speed, DR, block, and your eshield will crash very quickly. The aura pulses are easily negated with sorb. While this is true of all sorcs, the less damage you do at once, the more easily it is sorbed. It may do fine picking off the misc tal sorcs and otherwise poor duelers, but vs any solidly built character it won't last very long.

This is a good point, I agree that this build is not made for pvp. The auras aren't all that readily absorbed unless the other dueler is wearing wisps or tgods type gear, but remember the weapon on pvm relies on ignore target defense, which has no pvp effect. If you have angelic rings and an ammy, you can gain approximatley 2200 attack rating, and enchant will double that, but you really have to get the first hit or you will probably die in pvp. You can one round many players however, but to restate: this is not meant to be a pvp build.

 

[Tyrannis]

Can you list what all you passive damage numbers are like? Yeah, I could probably dig up the damage calculator myself, but if you have the char already built it should be much quicker for you.

I don't know off the top of my head. I do know that the auras of holy shock/flame and freezing aura from merc are enough to basically run over anything in NM and early hell, especially in range of the mercs conviction aura.

I'm not sure if lightning skills charms add to holy shock, but I'm assuming no.

That said, for my character, I typically roll with about lvl 35 to lightning skills. This means an added 458% damage to the aura. This should put the holy shcok aura up to about 715 per hit, average, 1-1400ish.

Fire only gets about level 25 since the gcs are lightning. That's 198% to the fire aura. The fire aura passively only will do about 90 damage per hit, at level 30. The min and max values on fire are only 2 apart, so this damage is pretty consistant.

The melee damage is where the returns come from. Lightning does about 1-1536*5.58*5.58 (yes, it calculates twice for melee), which is 48,000 roughly max, and a low min value.

The melee from fire does about 2000 in a similar fashion, and then you also can take into account level 18 venom stacking, plus the occasional high level hydra, and the sorc torch fire. Combined with -20% to fire resist, it's quite a killer when hydras start popping up and then you hit the pack with the diablo-like flame. This fire damage forms the basis of your minimum damage, I think right now mine's hovering near 5k-6k. Fire small charms can boost your min damage too.

Not exact, but the rough numbers are all that you need to know really. Tstorm also packs quite a hit for a minimal 2 point investment (one for nova) because of the 5.58 factor+the added level bonus of level 15ish tstorm.

The merc will do an easy 7k by himself using eth cv infinity and fortitude as his main fashion.

Hope this helps, I'm enjoying your guys' input and criticisms, so keep them coming.

edit: the armor you wear gives a combat constant level 18 venom as well, so you'll be slinging with quite a bit of magical chutzpah behind that silly Eshield.

 

[Chewbacca]

Tyrannis... a question for you....

I understand that you said that this is a PvM build, and I fully understand that. However, with the list of charms that you give (torch, anni, 9 lightning GCs and 10 various sc's to fill in the gaps) you make it sound more like a dueler. You have no room in inventory to pick up anything that may happen to drop from the monsters that you're mowing down.

Do you have stats for damage etc. with a more "reasonable" backpack? Most players I know have a tome for tps, the cube, (generally one bundle of keys) -- leaving 6-8 spaces to pick up something before transfering it into the cube. With this sort of set-up, does Tyrannis suffer terribly from lower resistances, slower killing power, etc....?

I'm currently working on this build, and have mine up to 73, ready to start hell baal runs.... but still waiting a few levels to put on the last equipment before I can really see how well she does.

 

[Eilo Rytyj]

Might I suggest using Demon Limb as your enchant source? You could then put the points saved from investing in Enchant into Warmth instead, which would result in not only higher damage, but of course the mana regen, making ES more effective. The level 23 enchant lasts for over 11 minutes, and would only be a couple of levels less than if you invested in enchant itself. Demon Limb is expensive to repair, but an Ort rune and chipped gem solves this.

I personally think it's a far better way to do things, at the small cost of visiting your stash every 10 minutes.

Also, perhaps keeping a +3 <cold armor> staff/orb to pre-buff would be wise, and you could save those points for elsewhere.

 

[Tyrannis]

If you want to carry around a demon limb, that's a great idea to save points from enchant. I would say that the build before this one, I tried maxing warmth over enchant, and it really wasn't necessary. This build does fine with 1 point in warmth. I would recommend using the points you free up with demon limb for something else other than warmth. Personally, I don't want to carry around a demon limb, and already have CtA and Spirit in my weapon switch.

For the person asking about carrying fewer charms, you could carry around your horadric cube. Using only 4 lightning gcs, I do about 4500-51000 damage. You won't see a loss in resistances or anything else except for raw damage. Doing such a high amount even without utilizing 9 gcs won't slow your killing speed down much, but it will lower your energy shield absorb rate. I like my ES to absorb as high a % as possible, since it takes damage more efficiently than my hp orb due to max telekinesis; however, you will do quite alright if you want to keep 6-8 slots open. I would carry the cube, leave 8 slots open for quick pickup of a good item. Put your tome of tp in the cube, along with keys, demon limb as suggested above, etc.