Questions on a sorc build I'm trying (not the usual sorc Q's) And a scary morning ;)

[Matt]

Questions on a sorc build I'm trying (not the usual sorc Q's) And a scary morning

Ok, the scary thing first.

Was helping a friend, who none of you here know (i think)
Hes a level 80 wind druid, I'm my 79 javazon.
We go to act3 (all of this is in hell of course) and I run to kurast baazar from Travincal, killing some boss on the way to grab the jade figurine, I pop down into the ruined temple to find about 6 things (wailing beasts and spider magus's IIRC) on it, luckily, neither LI, so I kill them all.

TP him, Kill battlemaid Sarina (Sarena?) and grab our Lan esems tome.
We run the sewers on the way to radament, kill him without much incident, then the nasty bit.

We decided to do his hell hellforge. We get a RoF with Abyss knights (Light immune) and Stranglers (Light immune) and Maw fiends. Slow going, with me not being much help vs knights or stranglers, its the LAST way we look, so we cleared the whole thing

We reach the hellforge area, and see fanatacism. Uh oh. Hephasto comes at us... his mods were: Spectral hit, Extra fast, Aura enchanted (Fanatacism) Lightning enchanted Cursed. (I'm not sure if he had extra strong, I thought he always did, maybe I'm thinking of some other monster, anywho, its possible he did, he was packing some damage, but I dont actually remember seeing it on him.. so I dont know)

We battle for a bit, get him to about 1/3rd life, then he lands a hit on my friend... Bam. Hes dead. I think fanat+spectral hit in combination with his cyclone armor wearing off was a baaaad thing. Looked like a 1 hit ko to me, though he said it was 2 (first one maybe got rid of the cyclone armor?)

Well, now I have a really badass hephasto chasing my poor amped amazon. I threw up a decoy behind me, which lasted one hit... long enough to get me to town.

Talked to Jamella to heal myself/unamp. Now, I have no oaksage, and a really mean hephasto after me, Luckily, we had cleared the RoF earlier, so I was safe running back a ways to regroup. The worst thing was, he was light immune, so I could not LF OR charged strike him... had to jab (glad I upped those eth titans) He killed my first valk in about 5 seconds, the next one lasted a lot longer.

On the second Valk, I popped in to jab him, he hit me ONCE and brought my health to a sliver (as in, I saw no red) smashed a full juv, unamped and tried again, he hit me again with the same result, figured it was a matter of time before I got koed. Went in, cast a valk on him, found a nice spot where he was not after me (going for valk) and the light bolts were not hitting me, and was able to finish him off, an excellent battle!


Now, my other question, I'm making a tri-elementalist sorcy!
Does this look good skillwise?
Max orb
Max charged bolt
Max light mastry
10 cold mastry
10 firewall
10 fire mastry
1 shiver armor
1 ES
1-5 Tele
1-5 warmth
1 static
Remaining points into Telekenesis.

For gear, I was thinking:
+2 sorc hat I have
2/2/2 Tals orb (perfect for this build!)
Tals belt (it IS a mfer afterall)
Whistans (I like max block) or mosers if i need resists
a +3 light skills ammy, to boost ES, Tele, TK, Charged bolt, Light mastry.
+mana rings
Dont know what boots... nats maybe
Magefists, FCR and fire skills
Vipermagi or something

Basically, I will use charged bolt/orb/FW because they are not synegery dependant. I will use orb to kill LI's, Charged bolt to kill CI's and FW on the rare CI+LI's.

I figure with some nice +light skills/+all skills, she will be ok in the ES/TK/Tele/Warmth department with low actual investment there, with most of my points going to offensive skills.
I figure FCR will be...
30 from viper
20 from magefists
Need 13 more to feel safe from somewhere... If I use Tals mask/belt/orb, what bonuses do I get? (if any skills/13+FCR are there, I'll use the mask over a +2 coronet)

I figure by ~lvl 85, she will be all set to kill most anything, and teleport most things, if not all. Eventually, I will probably use Full Tals, with some Um runes to max out resists, with mf gear everywhere else, but theres a start to everything

Just asking if this looks viable, I hope its something creative enough to be more fun than a usual build, and strong enough to be viable most anywhere.

Any corrections or anything?
Thanks for your help!

-Matt

 

[rettet181]

Generally putting most of your points into the main skill and the rest into mastery works best on a tri-sorc. Charged bolt isn't the best choice either, it'll work, but chain lightning is better.

Your skill spread should look something like this:

20 Frozen Orb
20 Fire Wall
20 Chain Lightning/Charged Bolt
~20 Lightning Mastery
~20 Fire Mastery
1 Cold Mastery (and only 1)
1 energy shield (if you want)
1 teleport
1 warmth

I'd suggest maxing orb first, the other 2 skills next, then light mastery, then fire master (if you get that high)

Hope this helps.

 

[Matt]

I know that on a pure light sorc CL>CB, however, when I am only maxing one skill per tree (aka, not blizz/meteor/CL because they cost more points with synergys) is CL still better?

 

[HCTwinJava]

i agree CL is better for a tri sorc

but i'd recommend -

CM: 10+. This allows you to use it reliably killing non-CI's
LM: 20, and get L skills as high as possible with items.
FM: 10, and raise it beyond 10 only with spare skill pts and/or items.

the basic tactics would be: open FO, spam CL, finish off with FO. FW: allows you to cast and forget, and use it as a main killing skill only for CI+LI.

CB's effectiveness requires close range, good for boss killing. CL is much better in terms of crowd control. Considering your skill point distribution, FO + FW + a merc allow you to do what CB would otherwise do, and they will do better and more safely than CB.

 

[Afro AmeriZON]

Correct me if I am wrong but that +3 light ammy won't do much to help your telekenesis because the synergy for ES comes from hard points not +skills, right? But it will boost your light damage, so go for it.

Edit: Forget this post, I thought you said you were using the +3 JUST for telekenesis. I reread it and noticed all the other skills. So yeah go for it!! Wow...A monday with ~10 hours total sleep over 4 days sucks for work...haha. I must be seeing things. :flip:

 

[HCTwinJava]

yeah, only hard pts in TK will synergize ES.


Actually, a tri sorc could be better off if she puts no pts in ES and shiver. Consider the following:

Frozen armor: 1
Shiver: 0
Warmth: 1
Tele: 1
ES: 0

if you need shiver/ES, you can always cast from a staff or orb. They won't help much regardless. The difference between Frozen and shiver is trivial. Your sorc will need many +L skills, so the cost of any hard pt in her ES (out of her very tight skill budget) can be very high too. Her mana will run out so fast, thansk to 63FCR and CL/CB, that ES may actually kill her in difficult places (whereas in easier places ES helps little). Also, high blocking won't go very well with high lvl ES.

 

[STINGER]

Kudos on trying the tri-elem, but man it seems take make more since going with (2) elements and be powerfull and using Static and Merc for the rest.

Dont want to change your mind, but it jsut looks like other than "solo" or small games the Tri-Sorc would be very weak, slow killing and have less defenseive setup.

 

[HCTwinJava]

i wouldn't say "very weak".

A well-built tri sorc in not too bad gear can virtually kill everything in the game - that's exactly the unique power of such a build.

The strength of "strong" sorcs are very item dependent. A sorc in poor gear and the same sorc in her best battle gear can look like completely two different sorcs. A tri sorc in good gear almost surely kills faster and survives better than a more specialized sorc in poor gear.