Diablo IV, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 Forums - Diabloii.Net
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I've never played through Diablo II before, except on Normal, a decade ago, with a Paladin. So, I've come at this build with relatively no prior knowledge. I'm sure there are many slip ups I've made in the basic structure, but she's nevertheless made it through Hell. When I first began research, it seemed like Meteorb was the most prevalent sorc build for soloing Hell, so I wanted something a tiny bit less mainstream. I settled on the Blizzard/Fireball build as something equally well-established and viable.
My Game-Play Style:
I don't have a lot of time on my hands (working full-time + in grad school), so my primary goal was just to finish the game. I didn't have time for tons of MF runs to find good gear, so I was basically just picking up whatever I found while questing. Since I was playing untwinked (it's not like I have any other characters to provide gear for my Sorc) I knew this would mean I have some not so great equipment.
Stats:
Base (with Gear)
Strength 144 (158) - For the Spirit Monarch.
Dexterity – Base (46)
Vitality – 261 (315)
Energy – 85(105) - I added some points here, which were quite nice before my Merc had Insight. With the mana regen from Insight, perhaps these points weren’t necessary, but my Vitality seemed fine without.
Resists in Hell: 75/75/75/75
Fireball Damage: 2106-2336
Blizzard Damage: 2290-2427 +9 Cold Mastery
Skills: Hard Points (+Skills)
Cold Skills
Ice Bolt: 7(14) – (for synergy points)
Ice Blast: 20(27) - Secondary fast cast skill.
Glacial Spike: 2(9) – I only meant to put 1 here, but no biggie as it makes no difference for Blizz damage.
Frost Nova: 1(8)
Blizzard: 20(27) - Main Delay Spell.
Cold Mastery: 2(9)
Fire Skills
Fireball: 20 (27)
Fire Bolt: 18 (25)
Fire Mastery: 3 (10)
Lightning Skills
1 Teleport, 1 Telekinesis, 1 Static Field
Gear:
Helm: Lore in Shako
Armor: Enlightenment in Great Hauberk
Amulet: Mahim Oak Curio Amulet
Rings: Rare rings with resists, FCR.
Gloves: Rare Gloves, Fire Resist, Reduce Poison Length, etc.
Belt: Demonhide Sash +30% Cold Resist
Boots: Natalya’s Soul Mesh Boots, 40% faster run/walk, Lightning, Cold Resist
Weapon: Spirit Crystal Sword, 30% FCR
Shield: Spirit Monarch, 31% FCR
63% FCR Breakpoint (I wish I could have made it to 105%, but just couldn’t get the gear for it.)
On Switch: Spirit Crystal Sword, Gemmed Dragon Shield, 2 PDiamond, PEmerald for Maxed resists
Merc – Vikhyat, Holy Freeze Merc
Helm: Gemmed Giant Conch, 328 Defense
(Ethereal, Socketed with HCube for Enhanced Defense) +19 Strength, +26% Enhanced Damage
Armor: Gloom in Kraken Shell, 1616 Defense
Weapon: Insight Colossus Voulge
Defense: 3247
Damage: 481-2039
Resists in Hell: Maxed
Note: I actually made it through all of NM and part of Hell with an Act V merc, but the Act 2 Holy Freeze merc was so much more effective. This merc + Insight was perfect for my character.
Maxing Cold Skills First - If I'd know about the Leaf runeword, it would have made sense to focus on fire skills first, and then go to cold skills, but I was essentially a cold sorc until late NM/Hell. I don't regret this--I just enjoy cold skills more, and Ice Blast and Blizzard were incredibly effective for the earlier stages of the game. In Hell, I finally started "Blizz-Balling" and continued from there.
Max Block - After picking up Whitstan's Guard in NM (I actually found two), I decided to try out Max Block. In NM it was quite nice, and with a PDiamond in my Whitstan's, my resists were fine. When I got a respec in Hell (I only got one, as I added the 1.13 patch after moving to Hell), I decided to ditch max block, since I would be wielding the Spirit Monarch, and I didn't feel like plugging that many points into Dexterity. I decided I'd just need to stay out of harm's way in Hell. I think I made the right choice. If I were going to level this char to 99, then I might go for max block, but I think the Vitality was a better choice for finishing the game.
Resists - I really didn't run into any trouble with this character until I tried to move to Hell. I had abysmal resists and would immediately die on the Blood Moor. After I received some schooling from the members here, I quickly was able to move on. A quick trip to NM Larzuk for purchasing a socketed Armor/Helm and some common runes (Tal, Ral, Ort, Thul) quickly got my resists maxed or near maxed, and I'm pretty sure I could have made it all the way through Hell with this makeshift gear. My defense seemed not to matter very much at all; I felt like the resists were my main problem with survivability.
Meteor vs. Firebolt - I'm quite glad I used my respec to plug skill points into Fire Bolt instead of Meteor. For one, I just don't like Meteor. It's too slow--if I could just somehow have a Fire Blizzard, I'd take it, but I don’t like the way Meteor plays. Secondly, in the early stages of Hell it made a huge difference to redirect the skill points from Meteor pre-reqs to Fire Bolt and Fire Mastery. The respec doubled my Fireball damage.
Best Rune Drops – Ohm in the Worldstone Keep (Hell), Mal in the Bloody Foothills (Hell), from Shenk I believe. IIRC, I found two Ums in NM and didn't think anything of it. Because of the resist all feature, I was thinking Um came next after Tal, Ral, Ort, Thul, but when I went back and looked, to my surprise it was a much rarer Rune.
Best Items - Blackthorn's Face, Baranar's Star. Could I build a decent Pally (or another character) using Baranar's Star? It looks like a really cool weapon at first glance, but sometimes that's deceiving. Certain bells and whistles aren't as useful as they appear.
Problem Areas - Aside from trying to venture into Hell with hardly any resists, I really didn't find the game so difficult as to be unenjoyable at any point. My main problem was dying just because of rushing things a bit--that, or accidentally teleporting onto a band of monsters when I meant to Blizzard them. Normal Diablo was a big challenge, NM less so, and Hell was the easiest. Static, then Blizzard and Fireball and he was gone in no time--my merc didn't even die. Mephisto was never very difficult. The boss I was most scared of was Duriel after reading old threads about how he'd kill cold sorcs, but I just bought a Blaze staff and ran in circles on Normal, and on NM and Hell I blizzed him to death.
The Ancients were the most difficult, but still, not too much of a problem in Normal and NM, especially since you can just Town Portal in desperate situations. In Hell, they were terrible. I had almost zero success until I discovered you can break them apart using the jagged cliff area on the lower right side of area, and fight them one by one for the most part. I really like that you can't go back to town without restarting the fight. It really tests your tactics!
Normal and Nightmare Baal weren’t too rough, but Hell Baal was pretty epic: I cast a scroll of town portal right next to the portal into the Worldstone Chamber, my plan being to head back to Harrogath and stock up on potions. But I accidently clicked on the Worldstone Chamber portal without a scroll of TP to get back! Neither my merc or I died, but after Baal died I looked down and my belt was completely empty of potions—so it was a close call that made the end of the game even cooler! I can understand why people like hardcore—the high stakes does add an element of suspense!
That's plenty long--I had a ton of fun playing the game, and I really think if I had better equipment it might not have been as much of a challenge. Thanks to everyone who helped. And feel free to point out glaring mistakes in my build! I'm always up for learning from my mistakes.
I might add some screenshots later as well.