So I often hear people say energy shield is bad because of mana burn. The thing is I don’t think one should use energy shield as the primary mean of survival at all. Instead of going full energy, I recommend going full vitality, max telekinesis, and 1 point in energy shield. After all has been said and done, you’ll end up with:
~ 2k+ health
~ 1200 mana with 2x SOJ
200 mana/sec regeneration with lvl 17 Meditation
71% damage reduction
80% HFR from full Tal & spirit
Mana burn won’t be a problem anymore and you can facetank a lot of stuff in the game. However, ES is not for everyone. You can’t build ES if your merc can’t use insight. You can’t build ES if you are hybrid as there’re just not enough points to go into Telekinesis.
Got mana burned? Teleport out, instantly get your mana back, recast ES. You’re good to go.
Mana burn is 256x mob damage, the time you get mana burn your mana instantly goes to 0, so you can’t really telepirt away right away most cases.
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No way.
Show it on d2 planer.
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It’s with CTA bonus I’d assume. Then it’s the normal amount you end up with full Tal set, 2 sojs, chance guards (magefists for 105%fcr), spirit and war travs. I have a similar setup but with Nagels instead of SoJs. With CTA it’s ~1.9k HP and ~850 mana, with SoJs the mana amount would go up of course. My charms are far from perfect and I’ve currently wasted some points in DEX so there is plenty of room upwards with vitality.
True. But damage will still have to go through your 2k life first, which puts you in no worse position than one in which your non-es version would be. Down a potion and you’ll get out no scratch. Most of the time I don’t even pot to make a point. Unless it’s a fast hitting mob, I only need a sliver of mana to tele out with minimal damage taken.
Somewhat off topic, but… please, 1 charm is all it takes and you are at 88, or 92 FHR.
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ya it’s no worse position except you spent 21 points into ES just to down a pot that you would have had to use anyway without any ES. why not just put those 21 points into a cold armor skill and maybe not be hit in the first place and freeze whatever hit you. Have an a2 merc with defiance youll be over 10k def.
Defense is not that great without max block. I have no problem getting hit on my hammerdin without max block and that guy has max HS w/ 14k defense. The chance of me teleporting into a mob of mana burn elites and not getting hit by any of them is slim to none. It’s just statistically not gonna happen. Even one hit deletes my mana pool so why bother. I really like a Prayer Merc with Insight & ES. It’s like having a perma refilling shrine. I like facetanking 10 dolls and teleporting without a care in the world. The immortal sorc build sacrifices too much damage without being able to deal with mana burn which is the single biggest threat to ES so I don’t like it at all. Maxing out ES on full vita & blizzard at lvl 94 is much more fun; it captures 80% of the tankiness without sacrificing any of the damage. Can’t kill as quickly as lightning but the quality of life is so great.
Please don’t get me wrong - I used to be big fun of ES (before all those synergies etc.). Mana burn isn’t a reason why I disliked ES in D2Res but because of way it calculate damage…
You see on hell elemental damage IS brutal, try run any class with roughly zero resist on hell (total 100 each in normal) and see what happens with you… ES not factor in any resistance you have and once you get poisoned prepare to start drinking pots and antivenom… You got into meteor splash or firewall … you mana pool will drains again at cosmic speed, you got hit by blizzard … same, you got on path of lighting from burning souls … you think absorb will help? yes it will … once you mana pool empty. Frankly the only thing where ES awesome is mitigation of physical damage.
Problem with ES is mechanic how it absorb damage - it do this BEFORE resist, DR, Magic Damage Reduction, Damage Absorb kicks
I use the same mentality for my dual element HC Energy Shield Sorc.
Firewall Blizzard
20 warmth
20 telekinesis
20 blizzard
Fillers are cold mastery/firewall/ES
So you maintain your damage and amount of ES you need as you progress
The idea being firewall has enough points to slowly kill cold immune while blizzard is the main source of damage.
Energy shield points are set up to be able to mitigate all small damage and remove one shots to 4+ shots depending on mobs
Prayer/defensive aura merc depending on gear
60% plus block depending on gear as well.
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when do I encounter these mana burn monsters? right now I am on act II normal difficulty
I have been pondering this exact same approach myself. Why does ES have to be my entire life bar? Can’t it just serve as some tasty damage reduction? And indeed, at least then I have health after being mana burned…
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I’d still go hybrid so 2 to 1 Energy/life. With option depending on shield to go near max block first. So you are tanky.
I’d flip these around go for 1200-1400+ HP and 3k+ Mana
Just the most fun build and class fantasy really. It’s what inspired the low life PoE builds where you have 1 HP and Energy is your life bar. Just be great if they fixed the game so we could play this build as intended here. I’d like to see a “Cannot Be Mana Burned” mod on gear to fix the issue.
HP is supposed to be irrelevant to an ES sorc so it be great if in future patches we can get this accomplished. I’d like to even see a Mod that sacrifices life to energy. So we really can have only 1 HP and Mana is our life bar. Would be fun.
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This just isn’t true.
It’s exactly how I built my HC sorc
20 warmth 10 firewall 1 fire mast.
20 blizzard 5 cold mast
20 telekinesis
5 Es
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Bingo
My Hybrid is Blizzard/Hydra with 16 points into Telekinesis. Almost all stat points into Energy. With 75% ES (lil low but didn’t go crazy with the build and waiting for ladder now)
Lot of ways to build a hybrid ES. Although it be better if they just fix Mana burn so we can go full ES low life build and enjoy it.
I only play HC and I have lost three sorcs to mana burn. In all cases ES seems to be the culprit.
- Circa 2005. Lvl 93 FO/Thunderstorm MF sorc with Wizspike, Shako, Skullders, and Stormshield. Max block. 1 pt in ES. Built for surviving and mostly doing Hell Meph runs. Died to Baal minions when I ran out of mana and got stun locked and couldn’t teleport.
- Circa 2018. Lvl 88 Blizzard sorc. Died while teleporting to Throne Room when i got mana burned/couldn’t teleport after hitting hit by multiple lightning spirits.
- Circa 2020. Lvl 90 Blizzard sorc. Died while teleporting to Throne Room again like 2.
In all cases had ES on, which made me stun lock immediately and couldn’t teleport because my mana went to 0 right away. Next build I’m gonna try without any points in ES.
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Does ES cause the stunlock? what FHR/fcr were you at at the time?
I try to run 86/105 all the time, if possible.
Looks like we can finally play a true ES sorc in 2.4!!! The Mana Burn bug is fixed! So just stack Mana to the ceiling and go for physical dmg reduction.
The test appear to be 1 to 1 on physical dmg to ES. So if you take 200 physical damage that is 200 to Mana. So physical reduction is key with Mana regen and you can fully counter Mana burn now. 
Are souls still dangerous when blind teleporting?