Making a Sorceress after long break.

[XCodes]

Making a Sorceress after long break.

It's been a while since I played, but I'm back on USWest again and decided to give Sorceress a run. I like the Phoenix runeword strictly for the passive Redemption aura effect, which I remember switching to often on my old paladin to heal up after a wave. One important question, though, is if Firestorm benefits from Fire Mastery. If so, then I imagine I'll be aiming to use Phoenix in Sword form because of the absurdly high Strength requirement for making it in shield form.

Anyway, here's what I'm going for in terms of skills:
Cold: 1 Frozen Armor, 20 Blizzard, 20 Glacial Spike, 1 Cold Mastery (45)
Lighting: 1 Energy Shield (6)
Fire: 20 Enchant, 16 Hydra, 20 Fire Mastery (59)

Will likely use an Act 2 Merc with Holy Freeze and Infinity, which brings me to another question. Do Fire Immune bosses affected by Conviction also get affected by other -Resist stuff (like Phoenix)?

If I'm nuts, please say so. If Firestorm from Phoenix doesn't get boosted by Fire Mastery, then I'll probably have to come up with another idea seeing as the item is fairly irredeemable if Firestorm can't be made to do damage.

 

[Soulburner]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

Fire Mastery benefits your Fire spells, not Firestorm which is not a Sorceress skill.

Also don't waste anything in Energy Shield unless you plan to max it out.

 

[XCodes]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

Fire Mastery benefits your Fire spells, not Firestorm which is not a Sorceress skill.

Also don't waste anything in Energy Shield unless you plan to max it out.

In that case, even with Redemption aura it seems that the Phoenix runeword just isn't that great barring me missing something.

As for Energy Shield, pardon me for disagreeing, but with 1 point and the standard +skills fare it cuts damage in half. For 4 skill points (you're going to get Teleport anyway) that strikes me as pretty good.

Anyway, I'm off to contemplate again.

 

[melianor]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

In that case, even with Redemption aura it seems that the Phoenix runeword just isn't that great barring me missing something.

As for Energy Shield, pardon me for disagreeing, but with 1 point and the standard +skills fare it cuts damage in half. For 4 skill points (you're going to get Teleport anyway) that strikes me as pretty good.

Anyway, I'm off to contemplate again.

I don't know since when you played Diablo 2, but with the current and the last patch you either need a high level energy shield and points into telekinesis for energy shield to be effective. Otherwise your mana pool will be constantly and instantly at zero points.

I think your build would actually do quite nicely. Maybe you should replace Hydra with Warmth to boost your Enchant damage.

 

[PlasmaTorture]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

In that case, even with Redemption aura it seems that the Phoenix runeword just isn't that great barring me missing something.

I'd say it's only a mediocre runeword in weapons. In shields, though, it is pretty awesome for melee characters. Specifically, the +350-400% Enhanced Damage mod is in the shield form as well as the sword form, making it an incredible source of extra damage for a non-caster character. On top of that, you get a sick -28% to enemy fire resistance which would really help your enchant damage out.
If/when I'm wealthy enough to make an Enchantress, I definitley think a Phoenix-based one could work out really well if it doesn't have survivability issues for not using something like a Stormshield. I would say that the 156 str required is not that absurd... with the right equipment it's not too bad and it feels like most sorcs these days go for Spirit monarchs anyways.
If you use both a Phoenix Sword and Shield, that would give -56% enemy fire resistance. With the right amount of ingame wealth to purchase such a build, that could be very interesting... :scratchchin:

 

[XCodes]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

I have to bring this back up again because something odd seems to be happening over at the Necro forums. People have been testing to see whether Fire Mastery boosts Corpse Explosion damage and it in fact does appear to help. They used it against Hell Zombies which have 50% Physical and 0% Fire Res to make the difference more noticable.

Of course, the very nature of Corpse Explosion and Monsters in general makes it extremely difficult to really test this idea, so I have to ask again whether or not Fire Mastery + Firestorm works or not in the current version and where the testing data is.

 

[lumpor]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

Argh! Fire mastery affects all fire damage! Soulburner, how can you be so sure it only affects sorc spells with no information source?

Fire mastery is basically +% fire skill damage. people always think it as something different but they're exactly the same. A lvl 1 fire mastery does the same as 6 fire facets in terms of +% skill damage. They stack on top of each other, so that would bring you to a total of 60% +fire skill damage.

So yes, +% skill damage affects all damage made by YOU (not a minion or merc), including ctc and fire damage on a weapon etc.

xcodes, you've spread out your points a bit too much. That hydra won't do much without synergies. That blizzard will be so strong compared to your other attacks you will become addicted to it and ignore melee. Your enchant won't be so strong without warmth, and a dream-less sorc needs firepower (pun not intended). Also, those firestorms will do nothing unsynergized. The -resistance will help the enchant damage, but I don't recommend phoenix in a sword.

 

[XCodes]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

Alright, thanks for all the info Lumpor.

So, reading all the critiques of my build, it would seem that I would be best off changing it to something like this:

1 Frozen Armor, 20 Glacial Spike, 20 Blizzard, 4 Cold Mastery
20 Warmth, 20 Enchant, 20 Fire Mastery

Or, if I wanted to play up the Phoenix angle of recovering both HP and Mana:

1 Frozen Armor
20 Nova, 20 Telekinesis, 1 Energy Shield, 3 Lightning Mastery
20 Warmth, 20 Enchant, 20 Fire Mastery

At low levels I'll use Passion with some +all skills items (Vipermagi, Etlich, Peasant Crown). Whether or not I continue that shtick depends on how effective it turns out to be early on.

In the meantime, I'm going to be putting my efforts into making the money for this build with my Trang Summoner. =P

 

[redground]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

sorc´s vitality sucks... 2 to life isnt that great... a phoenix monarch will be a lot better.. the downpart of it is that it is freaking expansive...

 

[lumpor]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

I would recommend being a pure enchantress. Those spells will only help against immunes, and the greatest immune-killer for few points is the lvl 1 cold mastery maxed frozen orb. 26 points to be able to kill all non-cold immunes in the game. if you wanna kill immunes, use that. I prefer pure builds but that's just me. I also recommend trying to load up on pdr whenever possible, to fortify the healing from phoenix.

Or actually, you could make a phoenix phase blade, and gain a higher level redemption and -56% enemy fire resistance, but a 10/7/7/7/7 zeal is 32% faster than a 10 frame attack, so you'll lose quite much on that. You'll also need 48% ias to reach a 10 frame attack. I don't know the breakpoints for a zeal sorc though. If you want to you can also use es. Max telekenisis, dump a few points in es (be sure to prebuff it), then get some pdr. the mana from phoenix and the maxed warmth will both help. That allows you to go with more offensive options.

Maybe even be a bearsorc. they attack much fastr and have more life, but can't tele, or static etc.

 

[XCodes]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

According to the german calc, 10/7 is as fast as it gets for sorceresses, and with a Faith-carrying mercenary that's really easy to reach. If I use a Caduceus I barely need any IAS at all after the 25% bonus from the weapon itself and I can even get +3 Zeal from it for an extra damage/AR boost. If I want to be a heavier hitter then I could use a Seraph Rod but I'd need 60% IAS from other gear (probably 20% gloves, 20% Andy's Visage, 15% from a 40/15 in Andy's Visage, and 10% Nosferatu).

The question is if it's worth it for the higher base damage of a Seraph Rod. I'm thinking it is because Andariel's and Nosferatu both have some good points besides their IAS. The only thing that could possibly be different is what's inside Andy's, which honestly can't change much anyway.

 

[lumpor]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

You could skip nos coil and the ias jewel for a high lords. Then string of ears instead. You'll lose the slowing, which is quite effective with zeal but...

 

[XCodes]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

A Caduceus is probably the best way to go, then. I can make up the base damage with +16-18 Damage Rare jewels I imagine, and then have some resistances to counteract Andy's fire weakness and Phoenix's utter lack of resistances.

 

[ael]

Re: Making a Sorceress after long break.

1pt in teleport wouldn't hurt, too.