If you were me, what would you do to progress?

General Discussion
1

I think I’m a level 75 Lightning/Frozen Orb sorc in Act 1 Hell quest 5ish. The best gear I have is a Lore, Spirit weapon, Ancient’s Pledge, Stealth, some fcr rings and a caster amulet. My merc has an Insight, some unique helmet and I forgot the armor. I’m finding my damage to be relatively good with my Lightning being around 3k atm maybe a little more, but my defense and resistances aren’t so hot. Obviously there’s tons of room to improve but I’m not exactly sure how to execute said progression.

Given all that I said where I’m at in the story and my gear how would you much more skilled players start to improve your standing in terms of gear.

I’m not looking for a pep talk about my skill choices as I like to have two elements at my disposal for the immune monsters because I don’t like having to run away from immunes being a single element user.

Basically I wanna know what gear should I have my eyes set on and the best way and areas to go about getting them.

2

You’re already to the point where you have access to the Pits and the Mausoleum, both of which are level 85 areas. You can farm these areas in hopes of some nice gear. You can also farm The Countess in the Forgotten Tower for runes. There are plenty of ghosts down there as well, which have among the best chances for dropping high runes for a regular monster.

Stack as much magic find as you can without sacrificing much kill speed/survivability and run those areas. Tal Rashas Wrappings is the set you’re wanting, but you also want things like The Oculus, Griffons Eye, Eschutas Temper, Skin of the ViperMagi, WarTravelers, Maras Kaleidoscope, Arachnid Mesh and several other items to not only further refine your build, but potentially other class builds as well.

Stealth is a great early starter armor, but it’s benefits are drowned out at higher difficulties. I’d suggest looking for a 4 socket armor and slapping 4 perfect topaz in it until you can get something better like Tals armor, or Skullers Ire.

Keep a lookout for a 4 socket Monarch shield, you can use it to create a Spirit shield. (156 strength required)

The further you press on quest wise, the more level 85 areas you’ll have access to. Killing Baal will of course grant access to Hell cows, which is a great source for finding runes, that is as long as you have a build that can kill them quickly.

3

Run pits, find a Monarch, white or 4os, make a spirit Mon immediately.
Farm Pits, Countess, Ancient Tunnels with the Orb, Andy and Meph hard for the next level gear you need. Shako, Occy/echutas, vmagi or better, rings, ammy, travs, trang gloves or magefist, get your merc a really good 4os eth thresher or better, insight that baby, get him a tals helm at the least for the life leech, there are other options, eth 3os elite armor and make him a treachery.

Have fun!

4

Meph and Andy farming in Nightmare. Or just keep farming Any in hell if you can do it quickly and safely.

Get the shako, occy, and whatever else is an upgrade. Swap over to more MF if you find/ have it. Rings/ belt/ boots/ MF on swap (Rhyme shield and alibaba/ gull dagger)

5

As noted by DarkJedi farm the Countess and kill ghost on your way to her, not only high runes but lower runes can be quite useful.

Nightmare Cows should be doable as well and while it can’t give you the proverbial good stuff it is pretty useful and allot easier when your not decked out yet and much of the good (not godly) gear can drop there.

Same for Baal Nightmare.

Of course I you can already do decent runs now or with minor upgrades Hell is a better place to farm, if you can’t no shame in doing some Nightmare to better prepare for Hell.

Good farming spots are all level 85 areas you can easily find and clean fast.
All act bosses you can get to and kill easy, with Andariel and Mephisto being favorites.
Andariel has very high drop chance and if you can run her with some mf comfortably it would be a very good one to farm some of the better gear.
Mephisto is an easy boss that can drop quite well and is easy to reach, if he’s to strong you can do the moat trick but Lightning and Orb aren’t the best skills for that so you would always have to take allot of mana pots.
Arcane Sanctuary is reasonably easy to farm with a lightning build and has nice drops and good rune chances (mostly because of the ghost but many nicely packed group you can kill fast from a distance.
Travincal is nice but I don’t think you would have a great time trying to kill the Council unless you have a tough merc and lure them to come with only a few at a time.
Shenk/Eldritch/Pindle in act 5 are nice fast trips, be warned though Pindle charges for allot of damage so open with FO for slow and do it last so you can leave game if you risk getting overwhelmed.

Normal items you should try to get is Occulus (Occy), “Spirit” Shield, Harlequin Crest (Shako), Skin of the Vipermagi (Viper).
Alternatives are plenty as you can mix and match allot, but basically weapons, armor, helm, shield that give most to the skills your using, while you have enough all resistance which is very important in Hell, defense is a nice bonus but should not be your main focus as you want to keep out of melee range anyway.
Faster Cast Rate you should aim for 105 or more, but everything above 105 does not do anything unless you reach 200, this does not help allot for Frozen Orb, but still very usefull so if you have 115 and a 10fcr ring you could replace that for a better ring without it and not lose anything.
Usually things like gloves Magefist or Trang Ouls Claw for the FCR or if you don’t need more just use best rares you have with a decent resistance.
Belts/Rings/Boots are often best you can find to fix any resistance problems, sure things like Arachnid Mesh and Stone of Jordan are very strong, but also very expensive and rare so if you get them nice, otherwise just fill in the gaps with these items.
Amulet +skills if you can find (or gamble).

Alternatively to the above is Belt/Amulet/Armor of the Tal Rasha set or the full Tal Rasha set, while not the very best these items are very good for magic finding and quite solid.

Since I am not sure of your exact gear I’ll just name a few “easy” items, you should be able to farm with little RNG that might help you in very short term.

Smoke: 2 Socket Body armor, all you need is Nef-Lum, make it in the highest defense Light armor you can find, if you don’t have any go shop in act 2 normal for a 2 sock non-magic breastplate.
Adds decent defence, but more important 50% to all resistance which you said you were lacking so this should help allot.

Splendor: 2 Socket Shield with an Eth-Lum, +1 to skills, bit of FCR, mana regen energy and magic find. Cheap and easy to get.

Spirit: If you can get yourself a 4 sock Monarch its the best shield you can get most of the time.

6

Energy sheild and a merc with insight means you are invincible basically….

7

if you’re farming games solo just stop. You will NEVER get a full set of gear doing that.

You need to get a build like full blizzard that can kill in P5+ games and MF until your eyes bleed or you stop seeing games made.

8

Yes you will, dont spam misinformation because you have 1 particular narrative.

9

One: There is no bad choice of skills when you go multi-tree. It improves your versatility and effectiveness. Now, it takes a little longer being dual-treed to develop “power”.

Go back to NM and play more. Boost your res’ big time. One thing I learned from HC, res=life. A lot disagree with me, but, When I get any char to Hell, I like their res to be +100 in Hell.

Two: Mercenary is important and the skills they have. As a sorc, I recommend act2 freezy merc. Especially when teleing. Gives you an extra second or two without being hit. Plus, gives you extra time to assault the enemy.

Three: Gear! Runewords are ok. Uniques are ok. Set items are ok. Don’t rule any of them out or combos of them all to gear your sorc to live. Some uniques, set items can be upgraded. Sometimes just 2 items of a set combined with a rare can make a huge difference.

Example: My druid summoner with fire back-up. Full aldurs, with some pieces upgraded. Added Trangs gloves & belt. Some items upgraded. GC’s, SC’s, etc. 5 given sockets to populate with whatever will help me live. Added a socket to armor. So, a 6th socket. Merc has Sazabi hat & armor, BK sword, and the new runeword for a sword. Now, all of these are temporary, maybe. I change and upgrade as I go. There are way too many options to limit yourself.

Pep talk:

Dual tree is so much better than single tree. It adds options, versatility, and the ability to adapt to different enemies. ANYTIME you provide yourself with options and choices, you provide yourself with the ability to progress. Otherwise, be limited and stagnant, and frustrated. As a sorc, you don’t melee, so, IMHO, you don’t need dex unless needed for gear. Mana is not needed, as you progress your gear/merc will provide all you need. Concentrate on str for your gear and all of the rest into vitality. No life, no live. Keep playing as much hell as you can to progress and find higher end drops. But, use areas of NM to improve on gear for you and merc. Especially res/life. Don’t give up. Work through issue. Adapt, adjust, and overcome. Then when you do and kick the game’s butt. Come back to the forums and when you see posts from control freaks or from disbelievers, you can tell them you run that build and it does work and they can stuff it! LMAO!

DO NOT get caught up in the rhetoric of: You have to have infinity, you have to be straight light sorc to be strong, you have to do this, you have to do that … It’s crap! The game is designed for you to be what you want to be with proper planning, proper skill placement, proper gear, proper merc. Use ALL of these aspects to make YOUR character into the bomb.

Good luck.

10

Thunderstorm and Inferno build? :stuck_out_tongue:

11

LOL, Given time and thought, there could be a way. Not sure if I am up to that endeavor. Luckily, multi-tree, means 2 or more TREES to select skills from, not just 2 skills. but, point taken.