Resists vs. Defense for Sorceress

[BlizzBallerSorc]

My modest goal as a relative newcomer to D2 to beat the entire game on all three difficulties, and I wanted to check on something to make sure my strategy going forward is correct. I've been doing some reading, and it seems the following are true:

-Defense only protects against physical damage. Somehow, I only just now read this detail. I feel pretty stupid, because this makes an enormous difference, for me, since I'm playing a sorc.

-Defense only reduces the chance on will be hit, not the damage done. The only way to decrease the physical damage done by an attack would be to use items with the "Damage Reduced" feature, though increasing the player's vitality would also make the damage relatively less when compared with the total amount of health.

-Defense isn't even in operation for characters who are running.

-Resistances reduce the amount of elemental damage an enemy can hit me with. So, if I have a 50 lightning resist, and I'm hit by a lightning attack that deals 1,000 damage, I'll only take 500 damage.

-Shields only block physical damage.


To me, this would mean that my priorities would be the following:
1. Maxing out all my resistances, since as a sorc I will take ranged attacks more often than melee, and elemental more often than physical.
2. I can foresee max block (which I already have) will be useful to me in certain situations when I unexpectedly am dealt physical damage. (For example, it's nice when suddenly mobbed by a group of Stygian Dolls.)
3. A higher defense would seem to be the last priority on this list, mainly to protect against missile attacks. Aside from these, I should be avoiding any kind of physical damage if possible, so I shouldn't let myself get in situations where I take physical hits very often. Also, if defense doesn't even decrease the amount of damage done, but just the chance that I will sustain a hit, it seems even less important.


My conclusion is that I'd probably be better of in hell running around with minimal defense, and maxed resists, rather than having some really heavy armor and low resists.

Is my thinking here correct?

 

[pharphis]

Absolutely correct. A good 1pt wonder for sorcs is to use shiver armor which slows the enemy's attacking animation DURING the attack, effectively giving you a safer teleport (and an enhanced defense boost)

I personally also use energy shield but opinion varies on this greatly. 1 pt + skills is easily 40-70% dmg mitigated to mana. ofc those who don't like ES don't like their mana running out. For me this is what insight/full rejuvs are for

Block is also a 50/50 thing between people and personally I don't like it on sorcs. Better to have twice as much life than to block attacks you should barely be getting hit by to begin with

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

Thanks for the reply--very helpful. The main reason I'm using max block is that I picked up Whitstan's, and even though I was at base dex at that point, a lot of my gear randomly adds points to dex even though I wasn't looking for that feature. I just put a few more points into it, and put some charms in my inventory, and I was at max block pretty quickly without sacrificing too many points I could have used in vitality. I'm using a Spirit Sword as my main attack, and with its +2 to Skills, it's about as good as any two-handed item I've got. (I have Leaf on back up, but I'm basically a Cold Sorc who uses my Fire Skills whenever I run into a cold immune, so even with Leaf, my fire skills aren't dealing the damage that my Cold Skills are. )


I may, however, switch to a unique stave (Razorswitch) I have in my stash with its big +50 to all resistances. That will give me a net increase of +31 (minus the +19 from the P Diamond in my Whitstan's). I really hate to get only +1 to all skills with Razorswitch, but my main problem right now is that I'm dying when I try to proceed on to Act 1 of Hell--it's not that I'm having a problem killing monsters.


I'm going to try to make the Smoke Runeword ASAP, as I think I have the runes to do so.


As for Shiver Armor, does this skill have to be selected to be in operation; i.e., do I have to have it selected in one of my attack slots like a defensive Paladin aura? Or is it just always in operation once I have put a point into it?

 

[pharphis]

nah you just cast shiver armor and it lasts for the duration shown in the skill description.

razorswitch and smoke are both fantastic, cheap options for res and res/fcr. If you can, aim for either the 63% or 105% fcr breakpoint. Anything b/w the two shows gives difference in cast speed. If you're not at 63, yet, then I'd try your best to get there, as teleporting is one of the most important safety skills the sorc has (for sorc + merc) even if you aren't skipping the quests and bosspacks. Positioning is everything. If your merc can't handle a pack (might or fanat packs) and you don't want it to die, tele back, cast spells, repeat as needed

 

[thefranklin]

Good advice! There are also some monster skills that ignore defense (zombie charges for instance).

I am mostly against sorc blocking, only because you can use the shield offensively, If you are gearing your shield defensively (stormshield, whitstans), blocking is worth it. But even then it is a toss up on which is better.

 

[Cyrax]

To add to what's already been written...

One of the reasons people don't like using ES on a sorc is that with no mana, there's no way to teleport out of danger. I know you can take potions for that but same is true for life (except for one hit kills).

Personally i don't like block on sorc' for two reasons. First is, that you can use a shield like spirite which gives lots of good things to a sorc, like 2+skills and resists. Second is that blocking does prevent (physical) damage, however blocking also makes you go into the blocking animation which also prevents you from teleporting to safety. That makes it a two edged sword. So like phar i prefer my sorc to have some more life, which not only helps vs physical, but also vs elemental attacks.

 

[krischan]

Actually, defense respectively blocking protects egainst everything which has to undergo the to-hit respectively the blocking procedure. Must nonphysical attacks hit automatically, but not all of them. The berserk skill (deals magical damage) has to hit and can be blocked and death explosions from stygian dolls or the red balls from succubi (half physical, half fire damage IIRC) can be blocked as well.

Anyway, investments in defense or blocking don't pay off for a sorc, for the mentioned reasons. Exception: Melee enchantresses should have 75% blocking, but defense doesn't matter much for them as well IMO because they cannot load up enough of it to make it worth doing.

 

[RobbyD]

Resists are a must for any character I make. Period. Too many ranged elemental attacks in the game for me to ever try to finish a character with poor resists.

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

Thanks for the info everyone. For the meantime, to get by, I'm just going to grab a decent 4 socket armor and put the following in it:
Tal - +30 % Poison Resist
Thul - +30% Cold Resist
Ort - +30% Lightning Resist
Um - +22% All Resists

For a total of +52 Resist to Poison, Lightning, Cold, and +22 Resist Fire. I already have enough Fire Resist charms/gear that with this all my resistances will be maxed or close in Hell.

Any reason that's a bad decision? I know it's not as good as picking up some fantastic item, but I can't really rely on a good drop, since I don't have the time to do hundreds of Baal runs, and my main goal is just to finish the game.

EDIT: I suppose I could just also grab some normal armor and take my chances on socketing it with the Horadric Cube. As I understand it, since it rolls out of 6, I'd have a 1 in 6 chance of getting 1, 2, or 3 sockets, and a 1 in 2 chance of getting 4 sockets.

 

[nulio]

If you are playing untwinked just keep the Um rune for something better. Use an extra Ort. Cheap stuff until you shop/find a better armor.

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

If you are playing untwinked just keep the Um rune for something better. Use an extra Ort. Cheap stuff until you shop/find a better armor.

Thanks for the input! I was wondering if I should save the Um for something better.
As soon as I find a Lum I'll make Smoke. Hopefully I can run the Hell Countess and get a Lum without too much hassle.

 

[pharphis]

lum won't take any time at all at hell countess and smoke is perfect. If you have 2x um or um + all res jewel you could use multiples of those and stick ias, pdr, fhr, etc. in the rest of the sockets. I'd go with smoke, though

 

[RobbyD]

Um only gives 15% res all in armor - 22% is only for shields. I also recommend Smoke - that's a very nice armor. A good roll Skin of the Vipermagi is much better for a Sorc though... but the Smoke can then be put on your merc. The 20% FHR helps an A2 merc a LOT.

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

Um only gives 15% res all in armor - 22% is only for shields. I also recommend Smoke - that's a very nice armor. A good roll Skin of the Vipermagi is much better for a Sorc though... but the Smoke can then be put on your merc. The 20% FHR helps an A2 merc a LOT.

Thanks for pointing this out. I got bored trying to find a 4 socket armor that I could use, so I just threw Tal, Thul, and Ort in a 3 socket Cuirass. I also kept my eye out for charms and gear with resists and picked up a few things. Here are the results:
Before:
-Defense 1492
-Resistances in Hell: Fire 30, Cold -5, Lightning 7, Poison 2.
After:
Defense 863
Resistances in Hell: Fire 75, Cold 56, Lightning 75, Poison 63.

The difference is pretty huge. Before, I was getting killed literally within the first few steps onto the Blood Moor. Just now I went and cleared the Blood Moor and half the Den of Evil with no problem.

I felt this wasn't too bad an increase for just grabbing what I could on ~5 runs through the Worldstone Keep to the Throne of Destruction. I also picked up a 4 socket Ornate Plate that I can throw some runes/jewels in to up my resists on my Barb until his natural resists catch up.

Hopefully soon it's on to Smoke or Skin of the Viper Magi!

 

[fearedbliss]

For my Nova/Orb sorc in 1.09, I wanted to be as strong as possible in all aspects since I would be Mfing and also leveling up the char at close range (Nova when doing Cow Runs, or just in your face action for Mfing Meph, Andy, Baal) or doing Hell Ancients and Diablo when rushing my chars.

With my Stormshield+PDiamond, and a Viper, I pretty much have near max res in hell. Also thanks to my high Dex and the SS, I have 75% block. This makes me survive every encounter possible in the game.

 

[Jeremy67]

I agree. Smoke is a good suit of armour and fairly easy to assemble. I've used it with some of my characters and have occasionally used the charges of Weaken when things have gotten scary. It weakens enemy physical attacks by 33% for 20 seconds and can be assigned a hotkey. I'm considering it as an option for my own sorc.

 

[NoisemakerArrow]

This is the first time I've noticed the Weaken charges on Smoke...

And I've actually used it on a char for years.

 

[BlizzBallerSorc]

Yes, I've long since finished the character I mentioned in this thread, and I never got the Lum to make Smoke, but now I've got piles of Lums and I've been using smoke on the Paladin I'm playing. The Weaken is actually really nice, especially for bosses, or when I see a mob of threatening looking monsters heading for me. I actually have the Weaken on my switch so I can cast it easily, and I find myself using it a lot.