Hey I was the last post in the old thread! Do I get anything for that?
Thanks for the equipment run down. Lib may still do a hammerdin at some point, but she settled on a lit sorc last night and Xereena was born. She thought about a blizz sorc, but wasn't that impressed with the dmg (I know I know, I told her about cold mast) and my sorc runs around forbing alot anyway. She's gonna try pure lit for now, and add forb later if she needs it. The 2 of us should complement each other nicely.
I also think being able to teleport was a key factor in her decision, and an enigma based hammerdin is out of my price range. Apparently all the duped runes have been used up and has driven the prices back up, i.e. back to normal pre-dupe prices. It cost me a storm for a measly GUL rune.
So now that I can make a HotO, I don't need it. But everyone keep looking for 4s and white flails for me please! (Low quality without sockets works too.)
So an addition to the old sorc discussion that Cheng, I, and others had (the wizzy + shako vs tal's orb + helm) would be HotO + shako vs. Tal's orb + helm. Assuming the rest of Tal's and storm in common to both, it works out about the same, at least for my build. HotO + shako yeilds another skill point and 50 mf at the cost of >25 resist all (Hoto is 30-40, Tal's set bonus is 50 + 15 on the helm). (The 10% DR is marginal IMO, as the storm has 35%. If you are using upgraded visc (which yeilds another skill point), then this 10% is much more important.) That sounds worthwhile at first, but it gets a bit more complicated though, Tal's set also has 25FHR, and 0 FHR with HotO + Shako is not a good idea. Further if you add up all the life/vit/mana/energy bonuses on all the peices plus for the whole set, Tal's gives a huge bonus to life and respectable bonus to mana (double or more with BO), though the shako does make up some of it. (I neglect the oak charges on HotO, a lvl20+ Oak dies on a Baal run, lvl4 is basically useless in my opinion.) The +10 dex on HotO is also worth noting as this could allow 10 more points in vita. Unfortunately, my sorc is at lvl97, so its a bit late to be diverting attribute points. Another remark is that HotO + shako has more FCR, and allows for a different choice in gloves. And on the side of Tal's set, there is a bonus to the masteries and skill dmg/enemy resist on the orb. So if I were to switch to HotO + shako I would have to make up for the resist, FHR, and life with charms, giving up some mf charms (losing much of the 50% gain from shako) and possibly a skill charm or two (losing that gain as well). (Another option would be to switch travs for sandies, losing upto 50mf, but gaining 20FHR and vit. (Actually I already wear sandies with tal's set, the PR matches the armor nicely and I hit 2 more FHR breakpoints without any FHR charms. I make up the missing mf from travs currently via more mf charms.)) In the end, for my setup, it would really be about the same, if anything Tal's might come out a bit ahead. Tal's set isn't the best at everything, but it's pretty damn good at a lot of things. And Tal's orb + mask is a lot cheaper than HotO + Shako. In the bang-for-the-buck category, Tal's set probably is the best.
I think a real viable alternative would be to also switch storm for upgraded um'd visc. The str req is less, the dex req is less as the shield blocking is higher, and this change allows for much more vit. I could try it with my sorc, but it's a bit too late as I've already invested in str and dex for storm. I think I will suggest it for Lib though. And since she is going lit, another option is actually the good old lidless. That shield + magefist would hit 110 FCR. The blocking would suffer ofcourse, even upgraded lidless is only 40% blocking on a sorc. Given her play style, this option is probably not a good idea.
