Infi Lightning is NOT that great

Sorceress
1

So here’s who I am and what I like: I mostly play solo or with a friend or 2. I like to deal huge damage conveniently. I like to kill everything on the screen. I don’t like to manage my resources a lot. I’ve tried blizz, orb ball, and lightning. I thought the moment I got Infinity and full screen of skillers I was done. It would blow my mind. It didn’t.

My stats right now are:

2.3k health
1.2k mana
125 FCR
75% all res
36k max lightning
13.5k max CL
-30% ELR
300% MF

Yes, lightning is hella quick in the killing department. However, the quality of life is garbage. People say lightning immune is easy to break and infinity can break most of them. WRONG. I’ve found I have to skip more mobs than I had with blizzard and orb ball. Lightning mage in WSK lvl 2 - skipped. Lightning enchanted elite - skipped. Cow King immuned to physical - skipped.

Dark Souls are horrible to deal with. You can only break lightning immune mobs that are within the merc’s Conviction aura AOE and so often you have to telestomp lightning immune mobs. You can’t hit Dark Souls from afar and they’re one of the worst monsters to telestomp especially in large number.

Then mana management is a PIA. I got all the way up to 1.2k mana which is pretty respectable for a non ES sorc but boy it’s annoying. Giving up the AOE and crow control from FO sucks. My fully stacked FO did 1k damage each shard and my fire ball did 6.5k. That build obliterated and I didn’t have to skip anything. Rocking 4 types of damage was great and my kill speed was pretty crazy.

I think I’m gonna return this Infinity for a refund. It was fun while it lasted. If you often play in large groups, sure go for lightning. But if you’re like me, then maybe the kill speed isn’t worth giving up everything else that makes gameplay enjoyable - and much cheaper.

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Diablo 2 at first seems a easy game where you kill everything with a single hit. But that’s wrong. It is designed this to be impossible. There is no single build that can kill everything with one hit. Coming from this light is the best one for end game quick clear if you have high end gear. Keep in mind that some mobs have to be killed by your merc, thats why you have to gear him with same mindset that you gear yourself. Give him Fortitude, Andariel’s Visage socketed with RAL, And a Infinity on a ETH Thresher and he will clear even faster than you sometimes.
36K Lightning is decent but not max. Max starts from 45K+.
Also the game is designed in such a way that for end game max dmg you have to sacrifice MF. Basically you have to have 2 different chars - one for MF on certain areas and one for RUNE hunt with max dmg (faster clear times). You can not have both. This is by design.
Get your char Chains of Honour, Griffon, Mara’s, Arachnid mesh, 2 SOJ, Frostburn Gauntlets, Aldur’s Boots and fill your inventory with Light Skillers (if you get ones with life even better but they are quite expensive) and small charms 20 life + 10+ Mana , CTA (5 or 6 BO) and you will see how things becomes more easy to deal with. But dont think that even then you will just fly over everything.
Diablo is a hard game that seems easy, never forget that.

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You don’t need 35k lightning :slight_smile:
Try with 15k lightning, infinity and ~1500 Hydras.

5

i am done many build with infinity merc so far. and now I am rady to make another infinity for myself with a normal cyde. My main chain build is COH Mara Phoenix with eshuta. It is really powerful. But I want to do infinity Nova build now :)) it would be good with cyde?

6

Are you doing Pure lightning with Infinity with no backup? If so that’s your problem.

I run Lightning+Frozen Orb with an infinity merc. Only 13k lightning but enough to 1 shot kill anything that is not light immune - this is because of infinity. For light immunes that can’t be broken, FO will handle them.

I can clear Chaos, cows and Baal throne (where Lister very frequently spawns with unbreakable light immunity) without breaking a sweat.

If you’re doing mostly 1-4 player runs, you don’t need 35k lightning as someone pointed out. Spare some points into FO and 1 point in CM. I put 15 points into FO, ymmv.

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the problem is I see people put pure Lightning on a pedestal, saying it’s the fastest clear build in the game and such, with lightning gear prices going through the roof. I tried and wasn’t impressed. Kills fast when it works, which is not 99% of the time like people claim, but everything else sucks.

8

Yea its overrated for pvm - no idea about pvp maybe its godly for pvp. Even Griffon’s is overrated for pvm given its price. I was using it and then went back to shako. The huge life+mana+mf makes for much better overall efficiency. The extra power from griff were negligible given I had infinity and crescent moon - even on a hybrid light+fo sorc.

The price between Griff and shako is huge as well, really not worth it for 1-4p pvm.

9

I’m pretty lazy. I like playing one handed watching chain lightning destroy everything. I use the other hand to point at the screen while I shriek in an old voice ‘UNLIMITED POWER!’

10

Don’t tell a hammerdin he can’t solo everything in the game. Sure he has to use holy bolt on wave 2 baal but bhammer all day.

11

On P1 and whereabouts sure, a hybrid build can probably match the speed.

Here is my rune farming Sorceress. Used exclusively for P8 Pits, Chaos and Baal Waves farming.

Weapon: Crescent Moon
Armor: Chains of Honor
Helmet: Griffon’s
Shield: Spirit
Gloves: Magefists
Boots: Silkweaves
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Ring 1: SoJ
Ring 2: general purpose mana, life, resistance, strength ring with +1 mana/kill
Amulet: pretty gg crafted one, +2 Sorceress, +18% FCR all res and MF

Torch, 7x Lightning skiller, Gheed and small MF and resist charms. No Anni yet but I haven’t found 2nd SoJ yet. Probably should get around and do it, haha.

Anyway, every piece of her gear is carefully thought out and the result is, well, awesome. She is godly to play. The way she clears every mob in Chaos Sanctuary on P8 brings smile to my face every single time.

She is not perfect - Souls in WK are so annoying that I’d rather skip them and yes, you can’t break those lightning skeleton mages there as well. But everything else? Just melts.

Crescent Moon makes huge difference against many mobs and boss packs. You clearly see it against those with broken immunities and those that spawned with stuff like Spectral Hit or Magic Resistance or Lightning Enchanted.

Silkweaves get me huge mana returns, that with my ring (+1) and CM (+2) gets me +8 per kill. This is huge. I can clear a full Chaos on P8 without popping a single mana pot sometimes. Sometimes I pop one, when I get hit but mana drains. Other than that, quality of life is pretty decent. I can sacrifice that if I want more MF.
Currently she has 109% MF but she is not for farming uniques (though I did have a chuckle when I dropped Death’s Web in CS with that 109% MF). She is for clearing speed, for my enjoyment and for dropping runes.

I have played a pure blizz sorceress before and the main difference between them is well, blizz is more locked out of content. With 8x Cold skillers she is able to farm stuff on P8 no problem but she is not as fast when cold immunes appear. She clears Ancient Tunnels on P8 but she needs to skip all Oblivion Knights in Chaos. Baal Wave 2 is just a nightmare.
That leaves the merc to pick up the slack which is not efficient on higher players counts.

Lightning kills so fast that sometimes I forget that I’m on P8. I don’t even change Diablo to P7 because it hardly makes a difference.

Every build has it’s purpose. A hybrid build will not perform as well in a full game/P8 but on P1-3 I would be considering it as well.

Infinity Lightning Sorceress is overkill for that.

Also - Thunderstorm. Gods that skill is beautiful. When you teleport around and the screen flashes and you see those arcs of lightning hitting enemies. Who cares that the damage is low. It’s so awesome.

But - judging by your posted build you know what you want and I can see how it works for you. I am certainly not saying you are wrong, just adding an asterisk to that. Your video of clearing WSK is, frankly, quite impressive. I doubt the results would be similar for much higher players counts though :slight_smile: