Need help with a melee sorc!

[Norrit]

Need help with a melee sorc!

Hey guys,

This week i've decided to give it a shot on a melee sorc, and so far her gear is as follows:

head: 3fire/30frw/20s circlet (socketed with 2x IAS jewels)
ammy: Highlord's wrath
Weapon: "Passion" Phase Blade
Armor: Up'd skin of the vipermagi
shield: Moser's blessed circle (socketed with 2 pdiamonds)
Glove: Magefists
rings: rare ring with dual leech and resists/Raven Frost
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Boots: Gore rider

Total IAS: 70% (more than needed)
Total FCR: 70% (also more than needed)

Her stats basically are str/dex for gear, rest vita, zero ene
Skills so far are:

1 fire bolt
1 fire ball
20 warmth
20 enchant
20 fire mastery
1 static
1 telekinesis
1 teleport


now my questions are:

1) Where to spend the rest of skill points? Lightning mastery so eventually I'll get dual dreams, or max frozen orb and put the remaining in cold mastery?

2) Assuming I ever get wealthy enough to afford it, is dual dreams a good option? Or it would just be a waste of hrs and would accomplish the same as going for the cold tree? What about fortitude armor?

3) How do I reach good fhr with this sorc? only scs? Or is there some gear that I have overlooked that might help here?

4) Better gear suggestions that doesnt include dream that I might have overlooked?

5) I've seen somewhere on the forums how much dex a sorc need to get max block with all shields in the game, but can't seem to find it. Is it a good idea to go max block? (i'm asking because i've already spent a lot in dex to use the phase blade anyway, so what the hell, if it's worth it I might as well go max block.)

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Need help with a melee sorc!

rearranging the order:

1) I can't speak for dual-dreams, but my own experiences with lesser gear made FrozenOrb slightly superior to Lightning Mastery. I suspect the dual-dreams would reverse that trend.

2) Ditto on dual-dreams. I love Fort though... you might possibly be able to get something useful out of your leech because of it. (Without Fort, your physical damage will be so low that you won't notice leech, except for Lifetap)

5) Yeah, I think with the ~100 dex you already have tied up on the Phaseblade, another ~80 for max-block is worth it to me.


3 & 4) Equipment Ideas:

Belt: I'd look at dropping the Arachnid's Mesh (use it on prebuff) and maybe a crafted blood belt with 24 FHR. The OpenWounds can be nice when the 25% flee triggers on Passion (I hate that mod)... it's kindof nice to see a monster start to run away and die 1/2 a screen later because of OW.

Gloves: Dracul's Grasp are pretty much a best choice, by far. As I said, your leech will be pretty poor because of your low physical damage, so having the Lifetap trigger once in a while will go a long ways towards keeping you alive... and they have additional 25% OpenWounds. Combine these with the Goreriders and you have a pretty decent amount of OW.

Shield: I don't know if it's in your price range, but a 'Sanctuary' runeword is very comparable to Moser's in resists & blocking, but it comes with a couple extra decent mods (20 FHR, +20 Dex, etc.). Sanctuary & Stormshield are my two preferred melee shields, and in your case Sanctuary looks like a better fit.

Prebuff: You didn't mention it, but +skills are very important to getting good/great damage with your Enchant. At the very least, you should shop good a 'Leaf' staff from Drognan in Act2, since that's +6 Enchant for cheap. Ormus' Robes can be very nice, but I don't know what they trade for. The Arachnid's & Magefists are a nice prebuff, of course, as are +skill rings (SoJ/BKWB) and a 'volcanic' amulet. +Skill charms never hurt too, obviously.


The biggest lack with some of these suggestions would be your questing FCR gets nerfed quite badly. To me, the solution would be to try to find a rare circlet that had +2 fire, 20 FCR & 2-sockets, but I suspect those are very expensive to trade for, especially if you try to keep the FRW bonus too. Otherwise, I might consider going without the FCR... with blocking and resists and a slow teleport you'll do ok most of the time.

 

[Norrit]

Re: Need help with a melee sorc!

Thanks for the reply, sirpoopsalot. As far as prebuffing goes, I'm planning on leaf or if I can ever get my hands on it, one of those magic orbs with +3 sorc skills and +3 enchant and pair that with a lidless wall for +7 enchant (since i'm not going to have the str for a spirit monarch)

I liked your gear suggestions a lot, though I'm not sure I can drop the arachs, as it complements my otherwise lacking fcr so nicely I completely overlooked dracs (how could I forget the best zealer gloves in a zeal sorc is beyond me) and I looked up on bloodfist right now. 30% fhr right there if I really need
Sanctuary is well within my budget (I actually have ko ko mal sitting on a mule) so I just need to find a 3os troll nest. Thanks for pointing out the "moser on steroids"

keep posting guys. thanks for the info so far!