Frustrated with HELL (MF Blizzard Sorc)

General Discussion
1

Hi,
Got atm around 2.7k Blizzard damage, low res and not much hp.
While everything in NM is doable, Hell is a different story…
I’d like your help / tips what to do atm;

  1. MF runs in NM alone? Doesn’t doing these alone have less drop rate from monsters? NM Andi/Meph/Dia/Baal/Countess/Cows/Shenk/Eldritch/Pindal-are these effective MF runs in NM? Are there chances of dropping good items? Currently dropping low items…
  2. How to “survive” and cope in Hell with all those cold immunes? Just skip by them? I can hardly teleport to Andi Hell and kill her…I understand there’s a sunder charm that “removes” cold immune, is this correct?
  3. What would you recommend for MF? How much % is relevant for farming, and is there a “MF cap”? I’ve been on many youtube guides, but if you invest in MF items it kinda means, for me at least, that your resistances and damage drop.
  4. So atm what would you recommend I focus on? Should I just get to Act 5 Hell? Should I farm in NM? How can I get enough damage & MF & resistances that can allow me to survive Hell and MF there instead of NM? My main goal is the reach ACT5 Hell, farm Hell and get gear for other characters I’ll create.

I understand that Hell is a lot more difficult than NM, I’m looking for a good way to deal with that. Or should I altogether change my build?
Thanks :slight_smile:

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2

Pure Blizz sorc is good for specific area farming since Blizzard hits like a truck, but it can be frustrating at times for quest progression. Skipping immune monsters is your option, unless you MUST kill them, then you must rely on your merc. 1 point into static helps weaken against non-lightning immune, but you’ll have to get close depending on how many +skills you have. Claw viper temple is one big PITA area to deal with for pure Blizz sorcs.

IMO the best questing sorc is a Fireball+synergies/Frozen Orb/1pt Static sorc. There aren’t that many Fire+Cold immune monsters, and the ones that you must kill your merc can take care of them. (Act 4 seal boss, Lord De Seis is often fire+cold immune)

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3

You can either skip them, or help your merc kill them. Get him some good gear. If you can find something with “slows target”, it makes all the non extra fast monsters easy for him to handle. My sorc currently uses woestave. It’s damage is crap, but it has open wounds, 50% slow and -target defense so merc can slowly but surely kill anyone that needs killing. The blind also helps a little bit when teleporting around - merc stabs mobs and then they become idle for some time. Make sure to help your merc with static field (you should have at least level 7 with +skills) and telekinesis (it stuns and\or knocks back enemies)

Ofcourse that doesn’t help with big packs - those are better skipped.

As for the sunder charm, don’t hold your breath. You can get them only after you beat hell; it will take some time to find one, AND it will murder your cold resistance that you’ll need to compensate with more charms and other gear, or you’ll be dying to frost novas on monster deaths.

get basic stuff if you haven’t already. 28% or mroe FCR Spirit sword, 3x perf diamond sheild, stealth, lore helm, 1 more FCR piece. Use the rest of the gear slots to max out resistances in order: All res 0 > Lightning 75 > Fire 75 > Cold 50 > +Life. You can shop resistance boots belts and gloves from vendors; you can make a prismatic amulet using 1 of each perfect gem + amulet cube recipe.

If you’re still struggling, you can get more levels. You can actually level up in nightmare baalruns up to 75 (or 78 if you’re really stubborn; or 80 if you’re lucky with the terror zone). If you’re above that, you can farm Hell Crypt and Mausoleum - they’re very easy areas with high level monsters, albeit a bit sparsly populated.

Get your merc a good weapon with decent damage. Inisght is a common option for mana regen and damage, but don’t feel ashamed to replace the meditaion aura with mana potions - if you can find a slow target weapon like Woestave or Kelpie Snare, they will make your life a bunch easier.

Your merc obviously should be act 2 either might or holy freeze. Holy freeze makes normal monsters alot safer and easier for both you and him.

4

A prayer A2 merc with Insight + Cure helm is a great choice as well. Since the Prayer aura synergizes with both Meditation and Cleansing, he will provide a massive amount of health regen for both you and the merc. I’ve seen the merc regen from a sliver to full health in less than 20 seconds. It’s like you’re being constantly healed by a Greater/Super health potion. It allows you to focus more on attacking and not so much on making sure you and your merc need a health potion.

You are the main source of damage anyway… All you need is a belt of rejuves for when things get dicey. And of course a quick teleport will reel him back in from danger.

5

Hell is meant to punish players who specialize into a single element. To defeat Hell early on, it is recommended you roll Hybrid(Fireball/Frozen Orb or Hydra + Frozen Orb) or with an Ally or two to deal with enemies you cannot harm. If playing solo, your Mercenary will have to deal with the Immune enemies and its best to be a Hybrid because you can use two elements to deal damage. There will be the rare Fire/Cold Immune Unique but Static Field + Mercenary should be enough.

Then once you defeat Hell Difficulty and start farming Terror Zones, you’ll start seeing Sunder Charms dropping from Champions and Uniques. These charms will break Monster Immunity for you at the cost of reducing your resistance to that respective element by up to 70-90. In your case, you’d want Cold Rupture to handle Cold Immunes and the charm sets all Cold Immune Monsters to 95 Resistance, including Act 5 Super Unique Frozenstein despite him having 285 Cold Resistance.

Once Sundered, Cold Mastery, Conviction Aura(Infinity or ally Paladin) and Lower Resist Curse(Wand, Plague or ally Necromancer) work at 1/5th effectiveness. Any sources of -Enemy Cold Resistance from gear(ex: Rainbow Facets or Doom Runeword) work at 100%. Meaning if you want to crush Hell Difficulty as a Cold Sorceress(or Fire/Lightning Sorceress), it’ll take some work.

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6

Hell sucks, as designed…

For a Blizz sorc, focus on Catacombs/Andy runs for gear. You will learn the tricks to avoid getting slaughtered and using your Blizz at a distance down there. Just TP up the walls to avoid packs of mobs that will 1 shot you.

As mentioned, in order to proceed, you will need assistance or go dual fire/cold. I prefer a Orb/Hydra sorc to really do some damage in Hell.

7

I mean just make a Smoke, 2 Spirits, a Lore and fill in in the short term with any rare drops for rings/gloves/boots with MF/resists. Gamble amulets until you get something halfway decent. Belt is w/e.

In the current state of the game Cata TZ Andi farm just rains uniques even with low MF. If online try to catch that and go hard. :stuck_out_tongue:

For non TZ farming on blizz sorc… just spam Ancient Tunnels in hell. Frankly nothing should even be hitting you in there.

8

For Hell I usually go pure lightning to start, not blizz. Pure lightning allows you to do COUNTESS which is huge early and solves your early and mid rune problems (+tkeys) along with fallen packs/ghosts (runes) helping your general loot with easy lightning kills. Pure lightning is perfectly good for COWS too, the cow king is immune but everything else melts to lightning/chain lightning. Pure lightning also destroys ARCANE SANCTUARY which is huge early and solves your “where do I farm if not the countess?” problem. More ghosts (runes) and lightning ‘weak’ enemies (+hkeys). Pure lightning also allows the farming trinity trifecta of ELDRITCH/SHENK/PINDLE which you can always do on any game you make (barring lightning enchanted/immune), to good effect.

Blizz doesn’t really do any of that, and instead focuses on one thing and one thing only…Mephisto. and cows to a lesser extent. If you just want to farm Meph, and/or Andy, then Blizz sorc will be great. For everything else…not as much.

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I’ll try pure lightning :slight_smile:
Which skills & gear should I invest in?

10

Personally I just do 1 warmth 1 frozen armor 1 static field 1 telekinesis 1 teleport and then 20 lightning 20 chain lightning 20 lightning mastery 20 charged bolt and then you can do points into Nova or Teleport depending what you want

Gear, right now I’m using a Spirit sword, Ancients Pledge shield, Stealth armor, magic 20fcr circlet, my best rare rings with resists/whatever, goldwrap belt, Trang gloves, rare boots with MF, and best rare amulet with resists/whatever

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11

Where should I MF farm with this build, and at large?
Is it necessary or even worth doing MF in NM? Do high level items drop there?
Or just do stuff that I can handle in Hell?

12

I’m lv. 90 now, I run Frozen Orb at LMB and Glacial Spike (for crowd control) at RMB and Blizzard hotkeyed, I just spam’em uncontollably. I also drop some Hydras to the taste for immune foes (although I have a sunder charm) or just additional DPS. Energy Shield and Teleport, of course. Core skills at 27. Act II Merc with Insight as a mana battery. Feeling pretty comfortable anywhere in Hell, although I don’t feel powerful enough to 1v1 Diablo Clone yet. Trying to farm a Ber finally to make a Heart of the Oak and swap some of the resistance charms I have to carry for now.

13

Do you need a cold sunder? I have a perf -70 you can just have. Blizz damage with minimum maced resiprosities its usually around 9-10k even with tals armor build it absolutely poops on everything even after the nerf.

Sounds like you need to tweak your build…

I have a perf cold dmg nightwings veil you can have too just let me know.

At the very least your inv should be slotted with a ani sorc torch and all cold skillers and a cube. Id have to look at what you have to know for sure whats happening

14

Highly unrecommended to spec into a single element unless you already have the gear, or sunder charms, to take advantage of it.

Immune in this game = you do no damage to it, in practical terms. I wouldn’t go full lightning, what I would do is the fire/ice hybrid that has been mentioned already.

Smoke is a great piece until you can get a VMagi with a nice jewel in it, and will take you all the way through Hell if needed.

Don’t underestimate your resists. There are two schools of thought on resists: YOLO, and cap at all costs. I try to cap at all costs, even if it means lowering my damage output, because lower damage while alive is ALWAYS better than no damage while dead. Not to mention, the xp hit on death is brutal at higher levels.

Look into the fireball/frozen orb build, or a meteorb build, or a blizzard/fireball build, but don’t go into single element until you start farming terror zones and get a sunder under your belt that you want.

You could use Claymore’s, if you’re really that desperate to get going in Hell, but most of the fun of D2 is finding your own stuff.

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15

Practice killing Andy. It’s doable with skill. Sacrifice everything for max mf.

16

Do that. Andi is nice to run.

I would go dual element and farm TZ until a cold sunder drops and then go cold only.

Definitely don’t do that, OP. MF has diminishing returns. Kill speed is king, esp. when you are at 200-250MF.

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17

The best thing you can do is farm terror zones with minimal cold immunes until you get the sunder charm. From there, it’s best to go blizzorb. Hybrid builds are really weak and really slow without amazing gear to fill in the gaps left by missing synergy bonuses. You could say that any elemental build is good once you get sunder, but the limited pierce available, and the extreme rarity of items or runewords that offer pierce, means that you need amazing gear to make fire or lit work as well.

Sunder charms are a wet fart because reducing an immunity to 95 res does close to nothing for a majority of elements without key pieces of additional pierce. In the case of physical and magic resistance, those sunder charms are truly useless. They need to reduce mobs to 50 res to give them any real purpose in bridging power gaps between entering hell and having perfect gear for your build. Cold sunder blizz sorc is the only noteworthy use, and only because cold mastery reduces enemy resistance instead of buffing cold damage.

18

Your points are great, but before I gave all my stuff away last time, I had a viable fire only sorc with a fire sunder.

Just food for thought.

Cheers,

19

I know fire and lit are not only viable, but far better than cold in the best gear. Getting that gear goes eons beyond throwing on a fire or lit sunder charm. These charms don’t bridge gaps between ultra rare drops and a substantial amount of hi runes for just about all builds aside from cold sorc specifically. If cold mastery was “boost cold damage by %” instead of pierce for investing points, all of these charms would be pointless prior to having amazing gear.

20

The Cold Sorc is not an S-tier.

Blizzard is the only spell that is any good in the tree on Hell, especially if it’s more than a P1-3 game.

Frost is currently what fire used to be when there were no immunity breaks.

The skill tree is also totally skill point intensive, without having many alternatives.

I played my main as Frost last season and really had the best stuff you can get, plus 7 + 1 Skiller/HP.

I re-skilled the Sorc x times from Blizzard to FO, to Frost Nova, with and without Glacial Spike.

The Frost Nova Sorc is the most fun, but it’s only kind of playable on light in P2, and that with S-tier equipment, but you can already tell that the Frost Nova is pretty weak.

FO is not much better. From P3 onwards it’s also just hard here.

Blizzard manages to do a bit better until P4-P5, but then it’s slowly reaching its limit.

The Cold-Sorc can only be played in combination and targeted continuous use of Blizzard, Orb and Nova/Glacial Spike, or for bosses with Ice Blast, depending on the skill.

There is no such top skill.

When I compare it to my much less well-equipped Fire Sorc or the Nova Sorc from the Lightning Tree, they knock everything down much faster and easier.

Especially with the frost nova, you have to work hard and always work well with the teleport.

The frost sorc is like the physical bow amazon. They are fun, but even with Best EQ they are only B tier.

Fire Sorc is A tier with almost S tier qualities, Lightning Nova is S tier, along with Javazon and Mosaic Assa.

Cold-Sorc is rather the lover variant unfortunately…

I had bought a perfect Doom RW (-60%), a very expensive +3 skill helmet with 2 sockets +Faster Cast and 2 facets in it, a very expensive amu + 3 skills Faster Cast and really tried everything from Ormus Robe to Facet Shield that the high-end EQ had to offer…
Had +47 skill in Frostnova, blizzard damage from 12k to almost 15k, depending on what gear you put on, also because of the - resistances. The Frost Sorc is simply low. You can like it, but you have to be content with its mediocrity, just like the Bow Amazon. I had it as a main the season before last and tried everything… same game… but that’s another topic.

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