MF Sorceress Guide (suitable for Hardcore)

Zax-11538 · March 21, 2022, 12:43pm

Hello, this is part of my Item finding guide project. I originaly planned to release it all together but rest is not finished yet. I still work on rest but I decided to atleast post part of it which is this sorcress guide/walkthrough how to make sorc for finding items. I will be releasing main guide in next 2 days with technical informations about finding items and detailed information about places where to MF.

This sorceress guide will be then included in it. I had to write it in different topic anyway as it would be all too long to be in one topic. I also plan to include eventualy other characters playthrough/guides and Item databse so new players know which items have value and for what they can use them.

Keep in mind that this is mostly aimed to be for players who are rather new in Diablo but I am sure plenty of people who play for some time can find some usefull info in it too. It is a lot of text, nobody has to read everything, you can just read parts of your own choosing, I tried to make it as much structuralized as possible to make reading little bit easier

This was honestly a lot of work and I hope some new players will benefit from it and maybe learn from it. If anyone has any feedback what more to include or what to improve, feel free to say it. I know my grammar sucks as I am not native english speaker.

INTRODUCTION

There are many builds suitable for finding items. Some people prefer different builds than others. I am not saying my prefered builds or even character playthrough will be best, but it is something I played in past and used for MF many times so I know its working. This guide/walkthrough is for sorceress but I have plans to do same for other 6 characters eventualy to improve this guide even more.

My Guides will also be suitable for hardcore players and I think that my playthrough is quite detailed for that to increase odds of survival. Lastly I would like to say that not all characters are same as good at certain things. Barbarian might excel at something other class struggle or sorecess can easily access bosses with teleport while some other characters have to take different approach.

Also there is difference in playing online or offline and I will mention difference to reflect that. You have to understand that every new path with character is different as Diablo 2 loot is very random, but I will try my best to increase your chances to make it to hell and have some decent start for finding items.

SORCERESS

Considered as best meta MF character by many and if you play online and competition with others is important, then sorceress can give you results very fast because sorc has access to teleport skill so she can move around maps at great speed and farm bosses or certain places very easily even with not that good equip. There are 3 elements you can choose: fire, cold and lightning, but you can even make combination of them. Then you will be more versatile, able to farm more places. But you will not be that effective at killing as specialized builds.

My suggestion for playthrough is to start as cold sorceress Blizzard Build with progression to Frozen Orb/Fire Wall after Normal difficulty. Then for Hell after finishing game change to Frozen Orb/Energy shield as it is my prefered choice I suggest and she is just great for Hardcore play.

If you play offline/single player, you can use /players X command. I suggest using /Players 3 setting for more loot and experience for normal. If you play online, try to do quests and leveling with others so its faster and easier.

I will be providing useful tips for every act from ACT I Normal up to ACT V Hell and then at the end of this playthrough I will give you links to some other builds where you can find good informations how to build up your character and what items you will need for your build to improve it. My playthrough might be quite massive as it is a lot of reading so i also made much shorter version for those who dont want to read a lot of text. Its of course a lot less detailed.

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SHORTER LESS DETAILED WALKTHROUGH SUITABLE FOR ONLINE SOFTCORE PLAY

Normal Difficulty

ACT I+II

Keep joining public games and level with others and keep leveling up Ice Blast as main dmg skill, it will help to carry you or others with high damage.
Use topaz gems in armor and helm to increase your MF.
save any 2 white sorceress orbs you find on your playthough. i will get to that later.
Keep one topaz for Gem shrines if you find them and keep upgrading it.
You can invest like 20 attribute points in energy to make your life easier with mana.
You can keep joining Tristram runs to level up to 15 with others or join games with players and level up solo there by doing few Countess runs (Black Marsh)
Do not use Imbue yet.
Identify all amulets and rings you find, some can have +%MF bonus.
Try to buy wand with Faster cast rate from Akara untill you find some decent magic sorc orb.
Dont forget to invest 1 point at lvl 6 to Static field and at lvl 18 to Teleport.
Hire ACT II Combat mercenary with Prayer aura.
In ACT II kill Radament, grab the cube and complete horadric staff, kill Summoner and then level up to atleast 18. Usual place where to level up are Tal rasha Tombs, in group or solo in game with more players. You can also level up well in Lost city and ancient tunnels.

ACT III+IV

Main quest in ACT III cannot be skipped in 2.4 patch so you have to hunt the organs, try teleport to find Spider Caverns and Flayer dungeon.
When you find Flayer dungeon, use TP outside and teleport further to find Lower Kurast Waypoint, then use Topened town portal to go back and find Khalim´s Brain in Flayer Dungeon.
Kill Council in Travincal, complete Khalims flail to open entrance and kill Mephisto. Dont forget to do Lam esen tome quest and first quest to get +20 life.
In ACT IV kill Izual and do hellforge quest but preferably solo or with people you know. Keep only the flawless and perfect gems from now on, sold the rest with exception of topaz gems. Keep upgrading them together as you will need them later.

ACT V

You need level 25 to get experience in ACT V so level up to 24 or 25 in ACT IV or III.
If you are not playing at start of season, it should be possible to find people doing “cows runs” where you can leech XP from 20 to 24 and then do Ancient quest in ACT V to get 25. Look out for white Crystal or Broad sword in cow level as you can use it to add 4 socket by Larzuk and make Spirit RW in it.
In ACT V kill shenk, save Barbarians to get Ral ort tal and make Ancients pledge in Large or Kite shield (can be bought from Fara ACT II sometimes)
Save anya but DO NOT TALK TO HER AFTER YOU SAVE HER, not until level 48
Keep leveling Blizzard from level 24
Use gamble to buy heavy gloves and boots with MF bonus on it, vendors can also sell boots and gloves with MF.
Keep checking socketed helms in ACT V, 3x socket helm can already drop here.
Join or create baalruns to level up to 40, always teleport down to make baalruns fast and use TP in Throne room or at the entrance so others might go there from town. if you have still low level, you might take it slower as monsters in Worldstone keep will give you some decent XP.
Always go for Baal kill even when others dont do it. It is easy to kill him with static field. Switch to MF equip if you are left solo for a kill. If you have group of people you know, keep quest bugging his drop.

Nightmare Difficulty

Reset skills and attributes at Akara and switch to Frozen Orb build. 20 Frozen Orb, 16 Cold Mastery, 20 Ice bolt, then continue level up Energy shield and rest telekinesis. Dont use energy Shield until telekinesis is fully maxed.
It is not required to reset skills and attributes to Frozen orb build if you play online with others, you can just continue with blizzard sorc instead and not waste respec if you plan to MF with her anyway. I will be posting links how to make blizzard build below Playthroughs.
If you play on Softcore, you dont have to invest in fire skills as Cold will be enough to get you where you need to start MF runs with some content skipping with teleport.
Look out for any 4 socket polearm for merc to make insight in it and 4 socket sword to make Spirit.
Also look for 3 socket helm and 4 socket gothic plate and use perfect topaz gems in it as soon as possible to significantly boost your MF. If you dont want to wait for perfect gems, use Flawless ones as its only 4% MF loss per gem.
You can run Countess few times to get some runes for spirit and Insight but dont waste too much time there.
When you make level 48, use NM imbue on one of your white Sorc Orbs, talk to anya after you save her and do both these things on Normal also, that way you will get 4 rare sorc orbs with item level 48 and chance to get +2 skills on them.
Nightmare with frozen orb will be piece of cake, rush everything solo with teleport as fast as possible, your goal is to make it to Baalruns NM.
Crate or keep joining public Baalruns, preferably teleport to make it faster. It is important to have some Faster cast rate( preferably 63% for breakpoint) so you are not obliterated by souls who spawn on NM and hell in worldstone keep. Max lighting resist is not bad idea also.
If you are not the one teleporting, you can use time of waiting to visit Shenk and Rectifier at Frigid highlands, Pindleskin or simply kill stuff in worldstone keep.
If you cannot find good Baalruns, you can just join some random public games with few players and level up in worldstone keep and throne of destruction solo. Its polite to ask if you can level up somehwere else first. It should not bother people who do quest in first or second ACT II.
Keep killing Baal, he can already give you some decent items.
It is best to level up to 65-70 at NM baalruns, then you can go hell. If your items suck and you really struggle, do few baalruns solo or few NM mephisto runs. You can also use vendors and gamble to get some items.

Hell Difficulty

Plenty of monsters on Hell will be cold immune, so simply teleport over them and progress further. You might not be able to finish some quests because of it but it doesnt
matter, you can get it once you have strong mercenary to kill cold immune enemies. ACT I should be quite easy and fast.
You will have to go full teleport mode in few maps like Underground passage, Claw Viper temple, Tal Rasha tomb or various places of ACT III to avoid cold immunes.
If you want to start your MF journey in Ancient tunnels, you dont even need to go to ACT III
Your goal on Hell is to get to get acess to good area85 place and to Andariel and Mephisto. You honestly dont need more unless you plan to hunt Keys of destruction.
You can keep quest bugging Mephisto, guide how to do it is in “Basic information” section.

It is up to you if you will keep playing Frozen orb, Blizzard or other builds. Part to get to Item fidning on hell is done. I made a list of stuff you can do with various builds so you can check that in next section after playthroughs. I usualy start to run Andariel and Mephisto to get some basic items for sorceress and when I have 300% or more MF and commonly used items starts to decline in value, I switch to mostly running area85 maps and killing elites. Same goes for rune hunting, I usualy do that later as items have high price compared to runes early on.

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LONGER MORE DETAILED WALKTHROUGH FOR HARDCORE OR OFFLINE PLAY

NORMAL DIFFICULTY

Here you have skill and attributes spreadsheet for my build:

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

NORMAL - ACT I

Raise your strength to 25, then invest rest points into vitality.
Shrines are great temporary boost and some might provide great help for boss fights if you take them before you go to boss.
Staves, wands and scepters can be sold for a lot of money if they have +skills
Keep all gems, Runes, Jewels and Rejuvenation potions you find
Switching to higher player setting offline before you open chests can greatly increasse number of items dropped from them.
Place 1 skill point into Frozen Armor, Warmth, Telekinesis and Static Field, rest use to level up Ice blast.
Finish Quest 1 to get +skill reward and 1 free skills/attributes reset (do not use that one yet, you have only one per difficulty).
Buy Scepter from akara and use it to kill frozen enemies who survive your Ice Blast. Static Field can help to lower health of stronger monsters or bigger groups.
Ice blast cost a lot of mana, fill your inventory with mana potions every town visit.
Finish second quest so you can hire Rogue mercenary at Kashya, buy her Long bow at Charsi or Gheed. Buy the fire version of Rogue btw.
Socket your helm and armor with 4 topaz gems as soon as possible to increase your Magic find bonus.
The countess in Black Marsh Tower can be great source of runes early in game. Several runs on her can get you many useful runes, farm her on players 1 or her rune drop will be worse.
Tristram runs are great place to level up from 6-13, dont forget to save Deckard Cain there.
Complete horadic malus quest but do not use Imbue reward yet.
Use antidotes to increase your poison resistance when you go fight Andariel.
Consider killing Andariel for quest completition solo to get quest drop without others taking it.
You should be atleast level 15 when you finish ACT I.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Andariel:

Andariel Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube

NORMAL - ACT II

Look out for 3 socket Large shields, 2-3 socket Breast plates and 2 socket helms, you can buy all of it from Fara sometimes.
Keep one Antidote in invetory, it helps if you are superpoisoned by Mummies or Greater Mummies.
Look out for items with lightning resistance, its very usefull in ACT II against Scarabs releasing charged bolts.
Items with +Faster cast rate will help you to execute your casting animations faster, you can check various breakpoints here: Breakpoints - Diablo Wiki
Keep checking Runewords to see what options yo have with your equip, Tal Eth is prefered Runeword from level 17. Diablo2 io is great for checking runwords with runes you have All Diablo 2 Resurrected Runewords • diablo2.io
3 socket Breast plate can give you several options, you can use topazes for MF, rubies for life, Sapphires for more mana or emeralds for increased chance to block with
shield
2 socket helm be used for same as armor, MF, Dexterity, Life or Mana.
It is possible to buy Large shield of deflecting from Fara with quite high chance to help with Duriel Fight at the end of ACT.
If you have some Tir runes, they can be inserted into socketed equip to gain mana from your kills.
Greater Mummies have strong physical and magical attacks, facing several of them at once might be very dangerous. Try to always kill them first.
You dont need more than 45 strentgh in ACT II, dexterity is optional. 15 points in dex might help with act boss Duriel to increase your block chance if you play hardcore.
Place one skill point to Teleport, Frost Nova and Glacial Spike and continue level up Ice Blast.
Vendors in ACT II sells better mana and health potions than in ACT I.
When you are level 20, you can try to buy Heavy Gloves and Heavy boots in gamle until you will buy one with 15-25% Magic find bonus.
Hire ACT II combat mercenary and equip him with polearm or spear, vendors can sell scythe for example which is good. If you have one with sockets add skulls in it for life
leech. Combat mercenary has prayer aura so it will be healing you and him constantly over time.
With little support with potions is you mercenary capable of killing most monsters in ACT 2 on his own.
First Quest in ACT II is to kill Radament in sewers, reward are better prices in town and Book of skill with +1 skill point. So sewers should be first place to visit.
Lure Radament´s undead army from him and destroy it with Ice Blast so Radament cant revive them.
Visit Halls of the dead in Dry hills for Horadric Cube and combine all gems (3x chipped to flawed…) to higher levels and also 3 Rejuvenation potions to Full rejuvenation potions in Horadric cube.
You can start using teleport to skip some parts of game, but it will be very demanding on your mana.
Right Tal Rasha tomb sign can be found in quest log, but also by checking floating symbols at Summoner platform. Right symbol with true tomb is always missing there.
Tal Rasha tombs are great source of loot and experience and can be often seen in game lobby as “Tombruns”, they are usualy run up to level 22-24.
If you play online and want to level up faster, look for games with more players and go kill monsters solo so you can get a lot more experience. Ice blast is strong enough to level up solo even in full games.

Duriel
Duriel is quite strong melee fighter with Holy freeze aura. If you want to increase your chances of surviving focus on Defense, High block chance and cold resistance. Cold resistance can be increased by drinking few Thawing potions. Before you go to Duriel Lair, drink thawing potions, prepare equip, mana/health/rejuvenation potions, hire and equip mercenary, then spam him with static field and finish him off with Ice Blast. Good tip for using Static field against boss is to buy staff or find orb with +Static Field skill so range of Static fild allows you to be out of boss melee range. Skill shrines do the trick also.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Duriel:
Duriel Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube

You should be atleast level 20 before you go to ACT III.

NORMAL - ACT III

Ormus can sell even better Mana and Health potions
You can raise your strength to 60 so you can equip some items which can drop in late ACT III, rest points as always goes into Vitality.
Keep leveling up Ice blast but you can start leveling Blizzard from level 24 and it will be really handy against hordes of fetish warriors.
If you for some reason forgot to place skill point in teleport, it is possible to buy Staves with teleport from Ormus.
If you dont have high fire resistance, avoid Fetish Shamans like a plague. They can drain your Life very quickly with Fire inferno. Fire resistance and magic damage reduction on items really helps against that.
It is really important to have high Fire, Cold and Lightning resistances for ACT III so definitely focus on items with resistances if you play hardcore.
You can use 3 socket Large shield and insert some Rals/rubies and Topazes/Ort in it to get higher resistances. Or you can also use Diamonds to increase all resistances at once.
Do not go close Thorned Hulks, they can stun you and then channel multiple attacks with frenzy and you will have hard time to get out.
You need to find Spider Cavern in Spider Forest for Khalims Eye and Flayer Dungeon in Flayer Jungle for Khalims Brain. Both have entrances without Waypoint outside so if you see waypoint, you are in the wrong place.
The Gidbin quest can be completed in same place as Flayer dungeon entrace, it usualy is somewhere near in Fetish village. Upon activation it spawn elite Fetish who will drop the Gidbin dagger. Take it to Ormus to get rare ring as reward.
Flayer Dungeon, Swampy Pit, Sewers and Durance of Hate can have Stygian dolls inside, these explode upon death dealing damage to you when you stand close to them. It is not a big deal on normal but very dangerous on NM and Hell.
Great Marsh can have Gloams, Lighting shooting partialy invisible monsters, proceed with caution.
Find Lam Esen Tome book in Ruined temple to get +5 atttributes reward from Alkor.
Lower kurast objects and sewers level 2 super chests can be run on higher player setting for some items if you are missing charms, runes and gems or other things.
You should have some fire resistance when you fight council members in Travincal, if you dont, try to avoid too much heat from Hydras.
Council members can be good source of gems as they tend to drop third level of gems sometimes.
Vampire lords in Durance of Hate are very dangerous and deal a lot of damage if you dont have high fire resistance, dont stay in impact zone of their Meteors and avoid fighting too many of them at once or you will easily die.
You should have high cold, fire and lightning resistance when you reach Durance of Hate level 3.
Third level of Durance of Hate can have plenty of Vampire lords and there is also Bremm Sparkfist council member, propably second most deadly monster in ACT III. If your lighting resistance is low, stay back and snipe him from distance by using merc as bait.

Mephisto

Mephisto
Mephisto is formidable enemy with strong physical attack at melee range and plenty of high damage spells. High Lightning, Cold and Poison resistance is important against his
spells. You can raise your poison and cold resistances by drinking several Thawing and antidote potions and for Lightning you need some items or shield with lightning resistances.

Before you engage Mephisto I highly suggest to check act 1 maps and find skill shrine to increase your Static field level to have bigger radius on it, so you dont have to stay in his melee range. Merc should survive few hits providing some time to lower Mephisto´s Health by Static field and finishing him off with Ice Blast+Blizzard. If merc is dead, you can still keep distance and avoid his spells with little finesse and shoot your spells between his attacks. He can cast Lighting, Frost Nova, Charged Bolts, Poison Clouds. He can also cast blizzard with pretty high damage but its quite rare. His last spell is Skull Orb. It deals partialy Physical and Cold damage and it can be blocked by block chance. When you kill Mephisto, dont forget to open Super Chest at the end of room but be carefull, there are Vampire Lord around usualy.

You can also be attacked by invisible entity in the middle of Mephisto room. It cannot be attacked and killed and it occasionaly manifest in few places and can strike you so keep that in mind as this can happens even when Mephisto is dead or in middle of fight with him.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Mephisto:
Mephisto Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube

NORMAL - ACT IV

When you go to ACT IV, you should be atleast level 23, but if you didnt skip content, you can be here also easily around level 27 and if you for example also played on higher player setting, you can make even level 30+ before you face final ACT Boss Diablo. Level 30 can be very helpful in with fight him because you can have Cold Mastery. You can keep leveling up Blizzard and start adding points to Cold Mastery from level 30. All attributes should go to Vitality, but you can consider increasing strength only if you find something very good worth using. ACT IV has quite strong monsters with a lot of Health so try to stay away from group of monsters at close range.

Jamella sells fourth level of potions replenishing even more health of Mana but they are not cheap.
Venom lords have deadly Fire Inferno like Fetish Shamans from ACT III so high fire resistance is required when facing them, or stay away from their melee range all the time.
Do not let Regurgitators to eat corpses, freeze them before they do or they will shoot high damage projectiles at you after eating them.
Izual has insanely high Health so use Static field on him untill he is barely alive and then finish him with Ice Blast. Dont forget to pick up +2 skill point reward from Tyrael after you destroy Izual.
Ort runes sometimes drops in ACT IV so you can make runeword Ancient pledge in 3 socket Large shield if you also already have Ral and Tal. You can also combine 3 Ral runes in cube to get Ort.
You can complete Hellforge quest in River of flame, reward will be few gems and 1 Rune. Hephasto the Armorer has to be killed for Hellforge hammer so use merc as bait and kill him from distance as he is strong hitter.
You can encounter range version of Doom knights in River of flame, they shoot various elemental projectiles as if they are in pack with elite, they can do suprising amount of range damage when they hit you all together so watch out.
Spectre like monsters Finger Mages can be sometimes found in River of Flame and always in Chaos Sanctuary. They shoot slow moving magic tendrils sucking your mana so try to avoid them as you already need a lot of mana for your spells and dont have luxury to lose more.
You will encounter Oblivion mages in Chaos Sanctuary, they use variety of curses making your life miserable: Weaken, Decrepify, Amplify damage and Lower resist so be very carefull. Lower resists is extremely deadly in combination with Fire inferno from Venom Lords.

Chaos Sanctuary

In order to spawn Diablo, it is required to activate 5 seals in Chaos Sanctuary. 3 seals also spawn super unique monsters you have to kill and this cannot be avoided. Grand Vizier of Chaos is spawned by seal on the left side of Chaos Sanctuary(closer one to pentagram in the middle) and he is easier of all 3 because finger mages are quite weak. But still be carefull to not end up in middle of pack because it might be tough to get out as they will drain all your mana. It happened to me my last playthrough and I almost died there because of it. Activate another seal behind the first one in same dierection and go to right of Pentagram. Infector of souls will be spawned by seal on right side and he and his pack is one of the most dangerous encounters on normal difficulty. His pack is extra fast and if they surround you its game over because even with high fire resistance is their Fire inferno super strong. What can be hard for majority of builds will not be so hard for your build tho because you can kill them from distance with blizzard while your mercenary lure them to himself, Ice blast can also freeze them in place if they get too close. Lord de Ses will be spawned by seal in the middle section. He has always Fanaticism aura and because he can also cast Amplify damage, this can be pretty dangerous. Just keep distance when you kill him and his pack. Then prepare for Diablo fight.

Diablo

Diablo
You need high fire and lightning resistances against Diablo and damage and magic damage reduction helps a lot against his two most strong spells. If you already can, make Ancients Pledge runeword in shield or place gems or runes into shield and helm to increase resistances. You can also try to make crafted Crown “Safety recipe”, it has damage reductions and Lighting resistance. You need perfect Emerald, magic Crown, any Jewel and Ith rune. For armor I suggest 3 socket breast plate with best Rubies you have so you can have more life to survive Diablo Spells. Diablo can cast Ring of fire, Fire wall, Bone Prison and his most dangerous spells Firestorm and Red Lighting hose. Firestorm is doing Fire + Physical damage and Lighting hose is doing Lightning + Physical damage.

That is why damage reductions can improve your chance of survival significantly together with high resistances because both firestorm and lighting hose apply their damage in frames.

You can choose risky and fast way or slow and safe way to kill Diablo. Fast way is to teleport into middle of pentagram after activating seal and spamming Static field. When Diablo spawn it will start hitting him and you can seriously lower his health. If you will be lucky, he wont cast Inferno or lighting hose right away and you will be able to finish him off with blizzard and Ice Blast quite easily. If you will see his casting animation, you need to go away and teleport or move to side. Be also ready to drink Rejuvenation potions and prepare enough mana and health potions for fight. Safe and slow way is basicly starting to fight him from range and spamming blizzard and Ice blast while avoiding his spells instead of going close to him and using static field. If you will keep using town portal in close proximity to Diablo he can cast Bone Prison on it and block you, but you can teleport out of it or destroy it. Just keep that in mind as its not fun to go out of TP and be killed by his inferno or lighting while you cant move. I have seen deaths like this.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Diablo:
Diablo Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube

NORMAL - ACT V

You need to be atleast level 25 before you go to ACT V, because you will not level up there if you are lower. If you are being rushed , lvl 20 is enough to make Ancients quest and gain one level, but you will have to level up rest levels to 25 in ACT III or IV. Doing Secret Cow level is often used to level up fast from level 20 to 24 or 25, but you need someone who can carry you there and kill cows, or you need enchant sorc and preferably Raven Claw Long bow to kill Cows with it yourself. If you are level 25 already, you can level up in ACT V just fine and you will gain here quite a lot of levels.

ACT V hasbig maps and it will take time if you decide to clear everything. Most people who play online just do first quest, save Anya and then join Baalruns (runs on final boss) to level up very fast. That is preffered way if you play online to be able to MF as soon as possible. I usualy level up to 40 in ACT V, but you can even push it to 45 if you play hardcore. That means more skills and attributes to survive better. Keep investing points to vitality and when you get to like 38, start adding some attributes to strength. I usualy try to raise it to around 100 so you can equip majority of items you find on nightmare or even hell. Keep investing skill points into blizzard and Cold mastery and you will stand before importat decision at the end of ACT V before going to nightmare but first I will share some more tips and talk about that choice later.

You will get +Socket reward for completing first quest, Larzuk will add 1 socket to Unique/Set/rare items, 1-2 sockets to Magic items and 1-6 sockets to White items. Number of sockets depends on level of item, for example certain items you find on normal will have enough item level to get 4 sockets if you find them from high level enemies.
Crystal, Broad and Long Sword (requires also dexterity) found in secret cow level on normal will get 4 sockets from Larzuk.
Polearms found in secret cow level on normal will also get 4 sockets from larzuk.
I suggest to not waste socket quest for Swords or polearms to make runewords Spirit and Insight for mercenary. Boths usualy drops somewhere on Nightmare and Spirit is overrated anyway. Nice rare sorceress Orb can be great also and you will get chance to get 3 early on Nightmare
If you find any white sorceress Orb, keep 2 for now because you will need them later. Can be any kind but white quality.
Complete second quest and resque Barbarians, reward will be chance to hire them as mercenary and also getting Ral, Or and Tal rune. If you dont have it already, make runeword Ancients pledge(Ral+Ort+Tal) in Large shield. Kite shield is also possible option.
If you will be lucky with runes and get Shael, you can make excelent runeword in shield Rhyme(Shael+Eth)to have something even betetr than Ancients pledge RW. But it has lower resistances.
If you find Sol and have also spare Ort, you can make Runeword Lore (Ort+Sol) in helm.
Keep checking all grey helms you will see because they are able to spawn with 3 sockets in ACT V and you can socket them with 3 perfect Topaz gems eventualy to gain big MF boost.
Big minotaur like creatures can be found in dungeons over ACT V, they have frenzy attack and are considered as one of the most dangerous enemies in Diablo 2, if you see elite pack of them, dont let them get close to you by any chance or you will most certainly die.
Frozen Horrors can be little tough to kill as they are highly resistant to cold damage so you can either skip them or let your mercenary kill them while you weaken them with Static Field.
ACT V has new Gargantuan type monsters and they have stun attack, dont get close if there is more of them or you will have hard time to get out of stun.
Evil Urns spawn elite packs or Champions based on type of monsters you can encounter in map you are in so consider danger vs benefit(XP+loot). Its not fun to spawn minotaur Lord elite pack with Fanaticism auraon top of your head.
Hell tempress and other sucubuss creature types can cast curses, if you life is higher than mana, curse they cast will lower your defense, if your mana is higher, you will get Blood Mana curse so casting will cost you both Life and Mana. If your life is very low it can be very dangerous. Some can also cast Amplify damage.
Frozen River is required to visit to save Anya. It is place with pretty nasty monster combinations and there is elite pack of Frozen Abyss with super Unique Frozenstain guarding Anya. He is Immune to cold so use static field and let merc to finish him.
When you save Anya, dont talk to her in Town unless you have level 48 already because her reward is based on your level and you can get much better Rare sorceress orbs at level 48.
Check your Tome of town portals if it is full, it is only way how to stop fight with Ancients with exception of using save and exit.

Ancients

Killing 3 Ancient Barbarians is biggest challenge in game, but dont worry. They are not hard on normal unless you are seriously underleveled. When you click on Altar, their statues become alive and will attack you. They have various quite high resistances but no special powers like other Unique monsters. They will get 1 special power on Nightmare and another one on Hell. They spawn with few items on them so this can lead in rare occasions to situation where they have immunity even on normal difficulty or having things like Nova when struck and possibly even Amplify curse on attack. If something like that happens, you can simply use townportal to reset them back to Statues. It might be usefull to drop some potions on ground in case you struggle with Mana or Life before the fight.

3 Barbarians are Korlic, Talic and Madawc. Korlic is mainly using Leap attack so you can easily avoid it just by moving around. Talic is using Whirlwind and can deal a lot of damage with it. Madawc will buffing others with shouts and is using Double throw so it can be avoided to some extent too. Try to kill them one by one. Start with Talic, then Korlic and Madawc as last because he is quite resistant to cold and lightning damage. Wearing some gear increasing survivability like helm with rubies or armor with emeralds for better block can be usefull. MF equip has no use here as they dont drop any items.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Ancients and Baal
Ancients + Baal Normal Kill - Sorceress - YouTube

When you kill ancients always go find Waypoint to Worldstone keep level 2 or you will be forced to fight ancients again to get pass them in next game.
Worldstone keep is also decent place to level up if you are weak to deal with Baal waves in throne room.
If your character is strong enough, you can raise players setting to 5 or 7, if you play online, you can keep joining games where are people completing ACT I or II and level up in ACT 5 in same game to get bonus XP.
Pindleskin (Red tp in town after you save Anya and talk to her which you should not by following this guide) and Eldricht the Rectifier(Frigid Highlands WP) elite packs can provide decent experience bonus before you are able to do baalruns.
If you play online, remember one important thing: You are sorc and have teleport skill so it is your job to teleport baalruns. Dont be that guy standing in town and let others go to throne rune by walking. Even if your mana is low you can teleport and drink mana potions on the way down. But if you play hardcore, always consider if you are durable enough to survive. It is also better to do short jumps around enemies and not blindly hold the teleport.
Watch out for Minotur Lords as they are in Worldstone keep 3 and Throne of destruction.
If you play hardcore, keep in mind that Player killer exists so dont go to portals leading just outside of town or to portals made by unknown players before others test the safety.
Common place where player killer try to kill people online is cow level. They like to surround the red portal with hord of cows so everyone who goes in will die.

Throne of Destruction

Throne of destruction has usualy Imps and minotaur lords so stay away from them if you can and kill them from distance. After you clear main room with Baal on throne, Baal will start spawning his 5 waves. There is alays pause between waves so you can use it for precasting blizzard in place where waves are spawning. Baal will be also casting decrepify on you and your mercenary if you are close enough so keep distance.

Wave 1 - Collenzo the Annihilator with Dark ones - weak and easy to kill group.
Wave 2 - Achmel the Cursed with pack of Greater Mummies and bone skeletal mages with ice bolts - easy to kill but they can poison you so you might visit town after you kill the wave to heal yourself or use Antidotes.
Wave 3 - Bartuc the Bloody with pack of Council members - can be dangerous because he is lighting enchanted and also cast a lot of hydras. Its not issue if you keep distance but watch your merc as Hydras can easily kill him.
Wave 4 - Ventar the Unholy with pack of Venom Lords - just dont let them surround you, merc should tank them ejust fine while you kill them with blizzard.
Wave 5 - Lister the Tormentor with pack of Minions of Destruction - Minions of destruction are quite dangerous if they get close to you with their stunning attack and knock back. They can easily kill your mercenary and they will take few blizzards to kill so you will have to reposition few times before they will die. Ice blast or Glacial Spike really helps to keep them in place so blizzard can destroy them.

Baal

Many people who do baalruns ignore Baal and they go next baalrun instead, but you should not do that. Baal is not only decent source of experience but most importantly he can already drop some decent loot on Normal, even better than Andariel on Nightmare. If you want to maximize your chances to get something good for him, you can lower his HP to very small amount with Static Field and then switch your gear and equip items with magic find. This might be complicated if you play online public games so atleast character with highest MF should have final hit on Baal and you can carry some MF equip for fast switching in Horadric Cube for example or on weapon switch.

Baal itself is not that dangerous boss and you will more hate him than fear him because his abilities. But be carefull anyway as he can hit very hard at close range with his melee attack and can suprise you with his damage . He can cast curse to lower your defence and Blood mana curse if your mana is higher than Life. And he has plenty of spells: Incineration Nova shooting fireballs in radius, Hoarfrost dealing cold damage with knockback effect, Mana rift doing magic damage and draining 50% mana and Teleport. Baal can also fully clone himself, that can make encounter a lot more dangerous if you get between two of them. His clone has only 50% HP and you can notice him by his name as “Demon” under baal is more far on left than on original Baal.

Preparation for Nightmare

You should be definitely at level 40 before you go nightmare and have some decent equip so your resistances are 75% on Normal. If you didnt find better armor, you should keep using breast plate with flawless or perfect rubies. If you are missing some decent charms or runes, you can farm Cows on normal serveral times. Cow king also often drops some low level sets. It is possible to make 4 socket sword or 4 socket polearm from white weapon bases from Cows normal if you take the item to Larzuk and use socket quest reward. Your every character has only 3 these socket rewards so I highly suggest not waste it for 4 socket base as you will usualy find it on Nightmare eventualy and you can still use some decent rare Orbs instead. If you do cows, look out for two white Orbs, you will need them on level 48. If you still decide to use socket quest and have 4 socket polearm, you can make runeword Insight in it for your ACT II mercenary to greatly incrase your mana regeneration. 4 socket sword base can be used for runeword Spirit. Both these runewords are very usfull and will help you quite a lot. You can also make runeword Rhyme (Shael+Eth) if you find Shael as it has nice MF bonus so you can keep it on switch for additional bonusMF before boss kills.

Here is video I made with demonstration with some preparations for Nightmare and some farming at Cows
Upgrading + farming Cows Normal - Sorceress - YouTube

Build decision

As I said before, you will stand before important decision at level 40. You can decide which build you will choose to go play further. Lightning sorc has has hard time to MF before you will get very expensive runeword infinity and fire builds struggle because of Immune monsters in certain places. So I think best is continue as cold build.

You should know what is your goal with character. For example you can keep playing blizzard to have only cold element if you prefer highest raw damage. But you will have it little bit harder on hell as you will have to skip many places with immune monsters to finish game. But if you for example plan to focus farming area 85 zone, you dont have to go futher than ACT II Hell and do rest of content at any point later. Or maybe you want to farm Mephisto Hell so you dont have to do ACT IV and V until you have much better equip, level or help from your friends.

There is certainly many builds you can play but I personaly have best experience with Frozen orb for Nightmare and Hell and if you want to fully finish game, you can also add firewall as Frozen orb dont need so many skill points to be fully maxed. I will follow Frozen Orb/Fire Wall build for rest of this playthrough, but feel free to play what you like. There is few example of different build after playthrough section with lists of stuff youcan do with those builds.

I almost forgot to mention why is Frozen orb my prefered build. It doesnt have that high damage as blizzard but it need less skill points so you can invest in another element or for example in Energy Shield + Telekinesis. I like mechanics of Frozen orb more than Blizzard as it does cover more space than blizzard and it is very strong skill if you can aim it well and let it explode exactly on your target.

If you want to fully follow my guide make a skill/attributes reset now at akara and invest points on lvl 40+ by following my spreadsheet and if you will level up above 75, keep adding skill points into Fire Mastery and Attributes into Vitality.

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY

Nightmare with Frozen Orb will be piece of cake. There are only certain places where you need to be more careful but I will mention those. Try to make some compromise with items so you will have some MF on your characters and also survival gear. Your main equip goal should be making runewords Spirit and Insight. Insight will help with mana regeneration and it is also great weapon for mercenary. Spirit will add life, mana and +2 all skills and can have up to 35% faster cast rate on max roll. Thats only 7% from 37 % breakpoint. You need to preferably use Broad or Crystal sword with 4 sockets for it. Long sword can be used too but it require little bit more dexterity. It is also possible to make 4 sockets in Broad or Crystal sword or into polearms by socket recipe in cube (Ral+Amn+Perfect Amethyst+white weapon) and if you are lucky you will get 4 sockets. If you are unlucky with Insight base, your mercenary can be wielding runeword Malice. It should not be hard to find good weapon base for it on your journey. When you make it to level 48 and still will be without spirit you have chance to get 3 rare Orbs. I will explain how in set of tips for nightmare later.

Frozen orb is fully capable of clearing Nightmare on /players 3 setting just fine and you will encounter more cold immune monsters only in ACT V. You can let your merc to kill them or you can skip them, but you should already have some points in Fire Wall to deal with them with fire damage. If you want to get to Item finding phase on hell as fast as possible, feel free to skip majority of content of Nighmare and try to make it to NM baalruns to level up there as soon as possible.

When you have level 54, it is possible to use Spirit in Monarch shield, but you will not find one until you are on hell and its more usefull to have more Life and respec again when you will find Monarch with 4 sockets. Lets go to tips:

ACT I NIGHTMARE

First thing you need to do in town is to keep checking Akara to buy wands with Life tap and Lower resist charges. Life tap is good for keeping merc alive in tough fights. Lower resist can be used for Static Field so it has stronger effect and your Fire Wall will be also doing more damage because of it.
You dont have to pick up all gems anymore, gather only flawless gems. Also third level of topaz gems to combine them because you will need more topazes for MF.
Perfect gems can be used to make some Crafted items or to reroll magic items. Players mostly use them to reroll Grand charms to get skillers (charms with+1 skill tabs).
Certain maps like for example Forgotten Tower levels are bigger on nightmare so be ready for that.
Dont teleport behind walls if you dont know what is there, always try to do shorter teleports in places you can see. Blind teleporting with holding teleport skill can lead into teleporting to middle of boss packs.
Faster cast rate is Important and it helps you to execute casting animation faster and it is crucial for teleporting, Faster Cast rate (FCR) breakpoints are 0, 9, 20, 37, 63, 105 and 200% and you should have atleast 37% if you want to teleport to unknown places to avoid being hit by monsters, but 63% is definitely better for that as 37% is still risky.
Unique monsters are getting one more ability on Nightmare so they are more dangerous.
Fire enchanted monsters have more strong explosion so stay away and take extreme caution against fire enchanted monsters with big health pool like Grisworld, Radament, Coldworm and even regular high HP unique monsters.
Lightning enchanted monsters are even more dangerous with combination with Cold or Fire enchanted as bolts will carry often bonus cold and fire damage.
Keep combining rejuvenation potions into full rejuvenation potions and always have them ready in belt.
Look for 3 socket helms and 4 scoket Gothic plate, they will be your first serious high MF equip if you use Perfect topaz gems in them.
If you are mising resistances, you can try to make prismatic amulet or resist rings with cube recipe, check arreat summit Horadric Cube page for learning more about that.
Identify all magic rings and amulets as they can provide good bonuses. I for example found magic ring with +115 mana on my playthrough (you can also combine 3 of each to get new random ring or amulet)
If you find some decent 2 or 3 socket light type armor, keep it for later.
In ACT I do Den of evil, save Cain, bring back Charsi Horadric Malus and Kill Andariel. Eveything else is optional.
The Countess can be farmed for better runes if you need some. Dont forget to do her at /players 1 setting so your chance to get runes from her is not lower.
Andariel should be easy, you and merc drink few antidote potions, keep distance from her and cast Life tapfrom wand on switch so merc can tank her and survive. Keep 1 antidote for merc after you kill Andy so he wont die.
If you already have some MF equip prepared, switch to it before final hit on Andariel.
Andariel NM can be repeatedly farmed but she have worse loot table than Baal normal so you will be better continue next ACTS.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Andariel NM
Andariel kill Nightmare - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT II NIGHTMARE

You will have to decide which mercenary you will use. Offensive will have Might aura so he will deal more damage. Defensive has Holy freeze, ideal for crowd control and to keep enemies from attacking you. Combat mercenary has useless thorns aura. I personaly suggest to use Holy freeze or Combat merc from normal with Prayer Aura. It doesnt seem like best choice but when you get Insight for your merc, he will be healing you a lot as he will have double healing bonus from both Prayer and Meditation aura (Insight).

You should already be level 48 or very close to it at this point. When you are, take your 2 white orbs you found before and use Charsi reward to imbue it on both difficulties, then go speak to Anya on normal (remember when i told you to not speak with her yet?) to get another rare orb. There is very high chance atleast on of them will be quite good for you if you dont have spirit. It might be even better than spirit, but it depends on roll on skills. Then you can go back to Nightmare or if you are completionist, finish quest with killing Nihlathak on normal.

You need to kill Radament and complete Horadric staff again in ACT II, rest is optional and you can skip it.
I usualy teleport around edges of outside maps of ACT II to get further. Try to find waypoints in Far oasis, Lost City, Arcane Sanctuary and Canyon of the Magi so you can rush others in future if you are playing online.
If you play hardcore, be extremely cautious in Maggot lair and at any circumstance do not go close to unique Scarabs and their minions, always kill them from distance.
Duriel should not cause any issues, just drink thawing potions again and cast Life tap (wand with charges from vendors) and Static Field on him and then finish him off with Frozen orbs.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Duriel NM
Duriel kill Nightmare - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT III NIGHTMARE

Do golden Bird quest, Lam esen tome, and take Gidbin to Ormus. Then you have to do Khalims parts completition.
Be very careful in Great Marsh, because Gloams can spawn there. If you dont have atleast 60% lighting resist and decent Life, try to make some equip to get higher lighting resist and take it slow, be always on the move and shoot Orbs between so you dont stand still to be hit by multiple lightnings from Gloams. Dont try to move in direaction towards gloams, try to move around them.
You will most likely encounter Stygian dolls in Sewers, Swampy Pit or Durance of Hate. They are a lot more dangerous than on normal. Let them engage your mercenary and kill them from distance. They are often quite fast so be sure they are not close to you when you shoot orbs.
Dont fortget to take important waypoints close to quests as you might need it for rushing friends or random players. I will not mention this again.
Travincal should not be hard, but stay far enough from Fire Enchanted and Lightning Enchanted council members.
Durance of Hate will be much bigger on nightmare and you will truly “Hate” it.
Strategy against mephisto is the same as on normal. Thawing potions and high enough cold and lighting resistance. Cast Life tap, let merc tank him and then cast Static field and kill him with Frozen Orb.
Brem Sparkfist at third level of Durance of Hate can be very deadly so be carefull.
Mephisto NM is actualy worth farming as he can already give you pretty good items like Oculus, Skullders, War travelers and various usefull items. So if you feel like you need some better items, you can stop here and farm him. If you play online you can make a lot of profit here on at start of season if you are too weak for farming him on Hell difficulty.
If you play offline, maps always stays same unless you change difficulty so you can keep reseting map until you will get entrance to Durance of Hate level 3 very close to Waypoint.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Mephisto NM
Mephisto kill Nightmare - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT IV NIGHTMARE

Plains of Despair can have Souls (Gloams) so be very carefull here as map can be full of them. If your lightning resistance is low and they spawn there, leave game and try to get better monster combination next game. You can keep using this trick in many places because most locations in Diablo 2 have more than 3 different types of monster but usualy only 3 types are spawning.
Dont forget to kill Izual to get +2 skills reward.
Make Hellforge Quest to get rune. It is valuable quest so do it alone or with people you trust as max rune drop on nighmare is Um.

DIABLO NIGHTMARE
Diablo on Nighmare has bugged Lighting hose skill so it does zero damage if you stand directly in his face. So you should be able to safely use static without him frying you with his lightingspell. But his Firestorm can still kill you so dont stand there too long. Use same strategy as for other bosses, life tap–>Static–>Frozen Orb. You will understand why Fire build is not optimal for Nightmare here as Chaos sanctuary is full of Fire immune Doom Knights.

Here is video I made with demonstration of killing Diablo NM
Diablo kill Nightmare - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT V NIGHTMARE

ACT V is special in a sense that majority of maps can have new guest monsters from previous acts. That might result in very dangerous new monster combinations. You will also encounter some regular Cold immune monsters for the first time on Nightmare so you will have to use mercenary or Fire Wall to kill them.

Dont forget to finish first quest but its practiacly unavoidable.
First two maps on Nightmare have plenty of new ranged type monsters making these locations quite dangerous so watch out. I usualy just skip majority of ACT V myself and teleport on side of map to next location.
Saving Anya could be difficult because there might be Souls and Cold immune Sirens. They are hard to kill as they often fly over water so you cant kill them with Fire Wall and merc might have also hard time to get to them.
If you are skipping outside maps, dont forget to take some waypoints atleasts in Glacial Trail and Ancients Way.
Minotaur Lords are still Extremely Dangerous so dont blindly teleport in maps where they can spawn.
Some cave locations will have Cold immune frozen terrors and Frozen Tundra has Cold immune Goatman so consider skipping them. Its faster that way.

Ancients

Ancients are much more Dangerous on Nightmare and will get one random ability. If they spawn as Cold immune, just use TP to reset them. If you play hardcore, always reset them if they are cursed and visit town to get rid of curse before activating them again. If they spawn as Fire enchanted, dont stand close when they die, it might kill you. If you use Life tap, it should improve chance of your mercenary to stay alive. If he already has Insight, try to keep him alive because you would lose meditation in case of his death.

Worldstone Keep

Worldstone keep is pretty dangerous place as it hosts new monster types like Doom knights with oblivion knights casting curses and various other monsters like Souls. Souls are there quite often actualy. Worldstone keep is good place to level up as monster density there is high. It can be usefull for solo leveling in game with more players and you dont even need to go down to throne room. Based on my experience is here there decent chance to drop some valuable runes.

Baalruns are favourite place where to level up on Nighmare and if you are playing online you can usualy find some NM baalruns. Since you are playing sorceress, it will be expected from you to teleport baalruns. Dont do it if you are underleveled or missing decent equip as you might easily die. If you also play Hardcore, you can still teleport but do short teleporting and clear dangerous monsters. Teleporting blindly in middle of elite packs or souls pack is easy way to die and graveyard is full of D2 heroes like that.

It is very usefull to have Thundergods Visor or Blackthorn face mask with full resist. Then you can bemore relaxed as souls will basicly heal you with their attacks as both items have lightning absorb. Teleporting on Hardcore is always dangerous job so consider risk vs benefit. There is no shame in walk to throne with others if you are not confident with your life, resistances, faster cast rate or skill. But if you are teleporting on HC, always allow someone to loot your corpse in case you die.

Throne of Destruction+Baal

Throne of destruction is also very dangerous place, there can be Souls, Stygian dolls, Sirens, Oblivion Mages and Greater mummies so take it slow and dont rush it and always first discover which 3 types of monster you face here. Also before you enter Throne room, be prepared for instant danger. I have seen souls packs with conviction or dolls with fanaticism standing next to entrance from Worldstone keep 3 in past on several occasions. So be ready to go back fast, drinkg full rejuv potions or even leave game.

Greater mummies are exceptionaly nasty as they can revive killed souls and also stygian dolls. Sirens can also curse you and are immune to cold so be ready to kill them with merc or Fire Wall. Other than that should be anything in Throne room killable with Cold. Baal waves should not cause any troubles, but it might happen that super unique monstes will be immune to cold. In that case get close to Baal so he cast decrepify on you and your merc can fight immune monster without it. Also watch abilities of elites and stay away from last two wave elites if they are fire enchanted as they have a lot of hp and explosion might kill you. Last wave can be also quite dangerous when they are extra fast so be ready to back out.

Strategy against Baal is same as on Normal. He can drop all exceptional unique items and sets and even some elite uniques. He can for example drop Unique Harlequin Crest Shako. Its definitely good to keep farming him until you have some decent equip for Hell. When I play HC, I kept running him until I had enough good items to be confident for hell and finished level 78 after multiple runs on him. Normaly is 75 maximum level you should be there before you go Hell so dont waste more time on him on softcore.

Here is video I made with demonstration of Anya+Ancients+Baal
ACT V+Ancients+Baalrun Nightmare - Sorceress - YouTube

Preparation for Hell

If you play softcore, preparation for hell is not that big deal so keep in mind I wrote all this mostly for Hardcore players. Difficulty from Nightmare to hell is very steep in comparison to Normal–>Nightmare so be ready for monsters doing a lot more damage. Without proper equip will be Hell very hard so consider spending some time on nightmare to get items and runes to be equipped better. Mabye do some more baalruns, Meph runs or few Cow runs. Resistances will be probably biggest issue and it will be difficult to achieve high numbers without some runewords. If you didnt find any good armor with resistances, you can try to make Smoke (Nef+Lum), because it has very nice +50% all resistance bonus. Lionheart (Hel+Lum+Fal) is also very good or some rare armor with resistances and various stat bonuses. Lore runeword (Ort+Sol) might be usefull as helm. Very good for mercenary is Insight, but sometimes it is possible to make Obedience. Even Obedience in Partizan can be pretty powerfull. Mercenary can also use Malice or Strength in decent weapon base if you dont have anything else.

HELL DIFFICULTY

Always try to keep distance from monsters and avoid their attacks. Everything is very deadly on Hell withouh very good items and unique monsters will get additional ability. Teleport very carefully and not into places you dont see. Use Frozen Orb as main attack and Fire Wall on Cold immune monsters. Its not that easy to aim it well so it will need some practice. Best is to cast it 3x under feet of enemies while your merc is keeping them busy. If your mercenary struggle with enemies, you can try buy merc with holy freze aura and also support him with Life tap wand. You will face many immune monsters on Hell so some situation might become more challenging. Keep adding attributes to Vitality, but you might also consider adding points into strength so you can use Spirit Monarch (req str 154) if you find one. I usualy dont raise strength above 100 and if I manage to find 4 socket Monarch, I use another Attributes/skill reset to redistribute points and then invest the points into streangth. Because it would be pointless to lose 50 points you can have in vitality if you dont have Moanrch for spirit anyway.

ACT I HELL

White Monarch can be used to add 4 sockets at Larzuk quest reward or by trying socketing recipe in cube. Monarch is ideal for runeword Spirit.
Try to complete Den of Evil for quest reward, rest of ACT I quests can be skipped and you can go straight to Andariel.
If you play softcore you can teleport and skip majority of Hell, if you play hardcore, it is better to take it slower and clear paths to next maps so you have also escape route if sthings will go sideways.
Treehead Woodfist is cold immune and extra fast so quite dangerous, you can lure him away and then teleport close to Tree to take scroll and avoid fight completely.
Andariel Hell can be farmed for better equip, but she cant drop most elite things. Most enemies in Catacombs are not cold immune so you can kill stuff here to gain some levels and kill Andariel at the end as bonus.
Tainted will be most dangerous enemy in Catacombs so keep that in mind and always keep distance from them. Zombies hit hard too but they are slow.
Dont bother with The Countes, its not worth farming her with Cold build unless your mercenary is strong enough to kill her pack on his own.
Fight with Andariel have same rules as on Nightmare. You can use antidotes and just avoid her attacks, best strategy is shoot orb at ther and teleport behind her. That way she turn to you and follow path of frozen orb so it does maximum damage to her.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT I Hell
ACT I HELL - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT II HELL

Radament can be Cold immune, if that is the case, you can make new game to roll different abilities on him or kill him with Fire Wall.
There can be big groups of skeletons archer shooting fire arrows in Sewers. If you fire resistance is not high, be carefull around them and avoid their shots.
Scarabs are extremely dangerous on hell as their charged bolts often carry bonus elemental damage if they have elemental abilities so always check for elite ones and their minions as they carry bonus damage too.
Rocky waste and Dry hill can be easily skipped, just follow edge of map until you find entrance to next zone.
Stony tomb is new interesting place to farm as its new area85 zone in 2.4 patch. It can be repeated to find items or gain some levels. Monsters there are not that hard, mostly slow moving enemies but Scarabs can be dangerous. Second level has alway Cold immune super unique Zombie.
Far oasis and Maggot Lair have no cold immune so you should not have problem there, just keep distance from bettles in maggot lair, especially around corners.
Maggot Lair can be farmed for items but it will be probably too hard for frozen Orb Sorc, I usualy go here with Fire ball sorc.
Lost city can be harder because of darkness so try to stick to edge of map and take it very slow untill you find entrance to Claw Viper Temple.
Claw Viper temple is dangerous place and snakes hit hard with charge attack. You will need here help of your mercenary and both Fire and Cold damage.
Its better to avoid fight with Fangskin on second level of Claw Viper temple so you can just teleport in to the middle section. But be ready for very rare occsion where Fangskin and his pack can partialy spawn inside. In that case teleport back and take it slow.
When you lift of drakness you can look for Waypoint in lost city and it is possible to farm Ancient Tunnels here (area85). It is favourite area for Blizzard or Frozen orb builds.
Most of the Palace in town can be easily skipped if you aim for entrances to next levels. Palace has some monsters who can deal a lot of damage so take it slower.
Fire eye on third level of Pallace cellar 3 can be very dangerous and is always fire enchanted so stay away from him in far enough distance.
Arcane Sanctuary has cold immune Ghoul Lords and taking them down with Fire Wall might be too slow so you can try to skip them but first lure and kill ghosts and goatman who are around too.

Tal Rasha Tombs+Duriel
Not fun palce to be because of various nasty monster combinations and immunities. It is possible that non cold immune monsters will spawn here so you can keep trying making new games untill you have that combination (Mummy+Scarab Demons+Wraiths). You can either risk it and teleport around to find Duriel room if your FCR is decent or you can take it slow. place is big so always try to have one path cleaned from monsters so you have escape route. Duriel should not be hard, just teleport around him and use frozen orb to kill him.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT II Hell
ACT II HELL - Sorceress - YouTube

Here is video I made with farming Ancient tunnels Hell before going ACT III
ACT II Hell Ancient tunnels farming - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT III HELL

Act 3 will be probably hardest in your playthrough if you play solo. Biggest issue are hordes of Cold Immune fetish warriors so you will have to use Fire Wall a lot. It might just take some time and strategizing. It is important to use Mercenary as tank so you can use Fire Wall on monsters who stand in one place fighting your merc. Sometimes it helps to weaken them first with static field. Dont go too fast or you run into big groups of flayers and will be surrounded easily and merc will die. Try to fight always only few at the same time and kill shamans first with Frozen orb as they are only Fire immune.

If Cold immune Thorned hulks in Spider forest are giving you trouble, you can skip them with teleport.
You can keep running Arachnid Lair as it is quite safe location because waypoint is just next to entrance and monsters in it are not cold immune, but there is not much space to move around.
Its not a rule but you will probably be forced to be in Great Marsh also, be extremely carefull as Gloams (souls) can spawn there. They are very deadly if your lightning resistances are low. Try to be always on move avoiding their lighting and kill them one by one as they will start floating around when you engage them. If you see Gloams on edge of your screen dont ever go directly into their position, start to move around in circles around them.
Flayer Jungle will be the worst as many fetish warrior will be Cold immune so you have to have mercenary, preferably with some life leech so he can survive.
If you decide to save some time and teleport in Flayer jungle to skip immune monsters, have atleast 63% faster cast rate and fingers close to your belt potions or escape/save and exit. Also ACT II merc with holy freeze helps to slow down enemies if you teleport into them.
Flayer Dungeon can have Undead Stygian dolls and they are extremely deadly on hell so take it slow and let merc to lure them on him and then kill them from distance. If you are aproached by them from sides, just teleport back a little so they will go for your merc. Do not ever kill them when they are close to you.
Lower Kurast can be good place to farm if you are playing offline or have access to games with more players doing MF runs online, just click objects there on higher player setting and you have very good chance to get gems, charms or runes and sometimes even unique or set item.
Be carefull around Heirophants casting Lightning and Blizzard, it can deal a lot of damage with lower resistances.
Stygian dolls can be found in Sewers so keep that in mind and use your merc to kill them safely from distance.
Lam esen tome on hell might be difficult, because map is small and Sariana and her big pack of minions are cold immune and extra fast. Your merc will most likely not be able to survive them so you can just try to lure them out of main room and then teleport back to just snatch the book and escape with TP.
Try to clear path from WP to council members and place surrounding zone infront of temple so nothing will bother you while you fight Council.

Travincal

Elite council members could be immune to Cold and Fire. In that case your Mercenary have to kill them, but you try to help with with telekinesis to disrupt some of council member attacks. Do not fight too many of them at once as they can heal each other and also Hydras can kill your merc very fast. It is actualy not required to kill all council members. One elite one is enough to drop Khalims Flail and that is all you need and then you just have to smash compelling orb with finished Khalims Flail. Be extremely cautios when you fight council as they can do a lot of damage with Lightning, Fire and Cold enchantments.

Durance of Hate

Durance of Hate is dangerous place, but only Blood Lords are cold immune here. Most of the time is Durance of hate full of Undead stygian dolls so same rules aply here as before. Use mercenary as bait and kill them from distance and watch what is going on around you, so you are not surrounded by dolls from sides or from behind. There are also Maulers, pretty heavy hitters if you get close to them. It will take some time before you will get to Third level because map is huge on hell difficulty.

Mephisto

Try to go to Mephisto from left side of Durance of Hate 3 because Bremm Sparkfist is usualy on other side or in the middle. If he is in your way, you will have to fight him. If he is not I suggest not going close to him as he is quite dangerous. If there are Blood lords, you have to kill them with Fire wall. Once the path is clear, you can fight Mephisto. Mephisto is not exactly easy boss and his spells do quie a lot of damage on Hell. Especialy his Blizzard is very strong but he rarely use it. He will be most of the timecasting Lightning and Skull missile. Both can be avoided with some skilled movement. You should not go against Mephisto with low lighting and cold resistance. And keep your life at 80-100% all the time when you fight him

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT III Hell
ACT III Hell - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT IV HELL

Plains of Despair can have Souls and there is usualy a lot of them and nowhere to hide, so if your resistance is not high, consider making new game untill different monsters types will spawn there.
Dont forget to kill Izual to gain +2 skill points from Tyrael.
River of flame can have Cold immune Vile mothers so if you dont want to fight them you can do same tactic as with souls in plains of Despair. Just make new game to have different monsters.
Do Hell Forge quest, but be carefull around Hephasto because he is very strong on hell. You can get rune up to Gul as reward from HF.
Dont do Hellforge quest with people you dont know as they might take your reward.

Chaos Sanctuary
Very dangerous place, so dont run into groups of monsters too fast or you will lose your mercenary. Try to always engage only few monsters at once. Oblivion mages are immune to cold so you will have to kill them with mercenary and Fire Wall, but you will need some patience as they often run away from Fire Wall. Grand vizier will be easy for you to kill and Infector of souls is not hard either unless you let his group to surround you. Lord de said is little bit harder as he is cold and Fire immune. Your mercenary has to kill him. You can help him with telekinesis. If your mercenary has too low damage, you can try to get him something with open wounds to kill De Seis slowly over time with it.

Diablo
You should not have any issues with killing Diablo if your fire and lightning resistance is high enough. Just avoid his Firestorm and and Lightning hose so it wont hit you. If you have some MF items, you can put them on when Diablo has low health to finish him off with more MF. If you are fine with more risk, you can start fight with static fild in middle of pentagram.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT IV Hell
ACT IV Hell - Sorceress - YouTube

ACT V HELL

ACT V Hell

Pretty much all maps in ACT V hell have new guest monsters, that makes some areas extremely tough and some monster combination can be really nasty. So keep that in mind as you can meet new monsters in places where they werent on lower difficulties. It is also not required to finish rest of the game after you save Anya as it will be your last usefull quest reward improving your survival. After that you only have to kill Ancients and Baal. Ancients are really hard on Hell and you can die there easily and Worldstone keep is also quite tough sometimes. So it is fully up to you if you want to continue. I personaly only finish Ancients and Baal when I play softcore. I would not risk dying on Harcore if my goal was to use sorc for MF runs. Also if you play online, consider not killing baal so you can keep killing him with quest bug later.

Bloody Foothils is best to teleport(stick to left side) because monsters there are very nasty and you will have really tough time to clear it slowly.
After you make it to first waypoint, kill the Shenk the Overseer to get quest reward in town. He is Cold immune just as his minions so use fire+mercenary.
Frigid highlands+arreat plateau - teleporting again because these locations are just time consuming and with many cold immunes.

Saving Anya
I highly suggest not to teleport in Cave areas of ACT V if you play hardcore because some of them can have very dangerous monsters and teleporting into them can result in death even if your character is decently equiped. Frozen river is one of these areas and it can have very nasty monsters inside. It is up to consideration if you even need resist scroll reward from here and if it is worth the risk on hardcore. What can you encounter here? Souls, sucubuss casting amplify damage and always hitting attacks, vipers with magic damage and many more. Be very careful if you see Reanimate horde as they like to raise from death and then charge you from back. That might be very deadly if they hit critical strike or if you have amplify damage from Succubus. It can even one shot you.

Frozen Tundra can be teleported without too much danger but you can usualy kill here majority of monsters.
If you didnt find waypoint in Frozen Tundra try to look out for one in Ancient´s way as you will need it if you leave game when fighting ancients.

Arreat summit - Ancients

Now come most challenging moment of your playthrough. Ancients on Hell are very dangerous and its very easy to die here. Key is to be always on the move and keep the distance from them. You will need to keep your mercenary alive atleast until you significantly damage ancients or kill one of them. It is very handy to throw around arreat summit like 30 mana and health potions just in case so you can grab them if yours will be depleted. Also some full rejuvenation potions if you have. If you found some decent sword and have something with life leech, you can consider to hire act 5 Frenzy barbarian as he can tank ancients quite well. If you dont have already, its time to buy wands with lower resist and life tap charges. It will be really helpfull if your mercenary has something with crushing blow so he can lower health of ancients significantly with his hits.

Keep reseting ancients until they dont have cursed ability and only korlic will be Cold immune. Then cast Life tap from charges on them so your mercenary wont die fast and occasionaly cast the Life tap on them again so they wont lose it. Then kill Talic first as he is most dangerous at close range. Just keep running away and cast frozen orb until he dies. Then focus Madawc and kill him also with frozen orbs while still constantly moving around so Korlic wont hit you with Leap attack. If your mercenary has decent weapon and life leech, he should be able to kill him. If his weapon is too weak, you will need to kill Korlic with Fire Wall. If mercenary is dead, you can use Lower resist wand to lower his fire resistance so Fire Wall kills him little bit faster. Be prepared for long fight.

Worldstone keep

Its essential to take waypoint in keep 2 before you leave the game. Take it very slow from Arreat Summit so you dont lure too many monsters close to entrance. If you will be unlucky, you will have Death lords on first level. Dont let them charge their frenzy on your mercenary and teleport with him always back while you cast frozen orb on them. All worldstone keep levels can have various monsters and guest monsters from different acts. Most dangerous are probably Souls on second level andand they tend to be there quite often.

Throne of Destruction+Baal

Clear path to Throne room so you can retreat back in case of being in danger. Throne of Destruction can have basicly worst monster combinations in game, Minotaur lords, Souls, Dolls, Oblivion Mages, Succubus with Amplify damage and more and all this can results in various pretty dangerous combos like oblivion mages casting lower resist together with souls or Greater Mummies reviving dolls or souls.

Wave 1 - Weak and easy to kill.
Wave 2 - Second wave is bit problematic as Greater mummies are pretty durable and skeleton mages are cold imune, keep throwing orbs on the mummies while avoiding projectiles from skeletons and finish of skeletons with fire wall after mummies are dead. Mummies can revive some other undeads in throne so be cautious about that.
Wave 3 - Watch the charged bolts if elite council is also cold/fire enchanted or has conviction aura. Other than that just kill him with Frozen Orbs and retreat if hydras are melting your merc.
Wave 4 - Venom Lords are not that deadly but they are quite resilient and it will take a while to kill them probably, use hit and run tactic with tactic retreat when they surround your merc.
Wave 5 - Minions of destruction are fire imunes so killing them is not hard, only issue is if they are extra fast. Lister can be sometimes also Cold immune so your merc has to kill him or simply lure him down to entrance to throne room and teleport back to Baal and he will escape. Static can help but carefull if he is fire enchanted.

Baal is not hard, he just has a lot of Health. He will be mostly dangerous to you at melee range or if he makes his clone. If both of them is too much for you, you can wait in town for some time and his clone will eventualy disappear. You can use lower resist wand on Baal and then static field to lower his health to haf and then finish him with frozen Orbs. If you play online consider not killing him on quest to keep quest bug.

Here is video I made with demonstration of ACT V Hell
ACT V Hell - Sorceress - YouTube

Here is video demonstration of equip after killing Baal
Equip demonstration after Baal Hell kill - Sorceress - YouTube

And done, you are finished with playthrough, if you have done it, good job Now I will talk a little about what you can do next to get into item farming and what are some of your
options.

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SORCERESS BUILDS AND WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR

In this section I will talk about some details about Frozen/Orb sorc, where to MF, how to play her, what to equip and other things. I will also provide similar informations for few other builds with links to Icy veins where you can check the details about them.

Frozen Orb/Energy Shield build

I love Frozen Orb sorc and I play her every time. She is very good for playing Hardcore, good at killing bosses and excelent for rushing others. She is also not that expensive, she is worse at clearing game on higher player setting in comparison to blizzard, but less required skill points to finish build let you to invest in more skill to make you more versatile or durable. I always choose survival over being versatile so I will talk about that build, but you can surely check some guides how to make double element build with Frozen Orb.

If you followed this playthrough, you are already familiar with Frozen Orb, but only reason why we invested in Fire Wall was to complete game as it would be a lot more problematic with single element. So it is time to reset attributes and skills into Frozen Orb/ES build. It is excelent build for Hardcore and there is more ways how to play that build. You can invest points into energy instead of Vitality ad max energy shield, but I dont suggest that to unexperienced players. We will stick to vitality. So why Energy shield? Well sorceress is fragile character and her Life is not that high, you will usualy have around 700-1200 Life and that can be easily taken out. Energy shield will be basicly first line of defense before Life and % of taken damage will be first removed from your Mana pool. Fully maxed telekinesis also means that 1 point of damage will take out only 0,75 mana. Just be carefull around mana burn monsters as they can deplete your mana shield faster with their hits.

If you want to have full explanation how Energy shield works, I suggest to check this video from Ginger Gaming Monitor:

D2R Skills & Abilities - Energy Shield (Sorceress Lightning Spells) - YouTube

Attributtes
Your strength should not go higher than 156 which is required to equip Spirit monarch. Rest of points should go to Vitality.

Skills
20 Frozen Orb, 20 Ice Bolt, 16 Cold mastery, 1 point in Frozen armor, Telekinesis, Static Field, Teleport, Warmth, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Frost Nova, Glacial spike, Blizzard, Charged bolts, Lightning, Chain Lightning and Energy shield. Then keep leveling up Telekineses to 20 and further points invest into higher level of Energy shield.

Frozen Orb/ES Sorceress Equip

Magic find equip:

Weapon - Oculus+Ist, Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye
Shield - Spirit Monarch, Gerke´s Sanctuary+Um, RW Sanctuary
Helm - Harlequin Cresh Shako with P. Topaz
Armor - Skullder´s Ire, Tal Rasha’s Guardianship, RW Lionheart, RW Enigma
Belt - Tal Rasha’s Fine-Spun Cloth
Gloves - Frostburns, Chance Guards
Boots - War Travelers, Waterwalks, Rare boots with resist and MF
Amulet - Tal Rasha’s Adjudication, Rare amulet with skills/MF/resist
Rings - Stone of Jordan, Nagelring, Rare wing with MF/resist/FCR, Wisp Projector
Second Weapon slot - RW Call to Arms, Blade of Alibaba with Ist runes+RW Rhyme
Charms - Annihilus, Torch, Gheed´s Fortune, 5-7% MF small charms, Charms with Life, Mana resistances, mana.
Mercenary - RW insight in elite polearm, RW Fortitude, RW Lionheart, Andariel´s Visage, Vampire gaze

Budget Equip:

Weapon - Rare sorceress Orb, Spirit, Razorswitch
Shield - Ancient´s Pledge, RW Rhyme, The Ward
Helm - Tarnhelm, Stealskull, 3x P. Topaz helm, Lore Helm, Naj’s Circlet (two parts)
Armor - Skullder´s Ire, RW Smoke, 4x P. Topaz Gothic Plate, RW Lionheart, Naj’s Light Plate (2 parts)
Belt - Goldwrap, String of Ears, Nightsmoke belt, Rare belt with Life, resist and FHR%
Gloves - Frostburns, Chance Guards, Magic/Rare Gloves with MF
Boots - Magic/Rare boots with MF, Silkweave, Aldur’s Advance
Amulet - Magic/Rare amulets with MF
Rings - Nagelring, Magic/Rare rings with MF, Raven Frost, Dwarf Star
Second Weapon slot - Gull Dagger, Blade of Alibaba, RW Rhyme
Charms - Gheed´s Fortune, small charms with MF, Charms with Life, Mana resistances, mana.
Mercenary - RW insight in any polearm, Helm with life leech, Armor with resistances

Frostburns are critical piece of equipment as they increase mana pool by 40%, making your energy shield a lot more effective.

Mercenary

Mercenary:

Mercenary choice is very important for the Orb/ES build. It is critical to have Insight so you can regeneare your Mana shield Fast. So your best choice is ACT II desert Merc who can wield Insight. You can make one in some low level polearms early on Nighmare. It is providing good abilities so even with not so good weapon will be your merc capable to kill some enemies. You just have to keep him alive and if he is in danger, dont hesitate to teleport back so he can replenish his life.

It is up to consideration which type of ACT II merc to use. You can be using Holy freeze type or Prayer. Holy Freeze is good for crowd control and it makes enemies at close range less dangerous. I usualy use Prayer version tho.

If your merc is using Prayer, it works as synergy for Meditation aura from Insight so your merc will have double healing bonus. This means that your merc can be regenerating his and yours Health by ±45 health per second. Thats actualy a lot and your mana will be regenerating by Meditation too so you basicly do not need mana and health potions at all if you play carefully.

How to play Frozen/Orb sorc

Always activate Frozen Armor and Energy shield in town and Battle orders from CTA if you have it as soon as you go out of Town. Teleport to your prefered MF/Rune spot and start killing monsters. Keep a distance from them by using teleport and your movement. It is very important to keep distanes from monsters and also avoiding their range hits. Most projectiles are slower so they can be avodided by simple movement.

Try to keep your mana up as it works as your prolonged Life. Be extremely carefull around Mana burn monsters as they can take out your whole Mana pool and energy shield by one hit, but in that case you should still have high amount of Life to escape and recast Energy shield.

It will take some practice to aim Frozen orb well as it does most damage if Frozen orb explosion is directly on top of enemy or when Frozen orb track the monsters as it moves.

I have prefered weapon Oculus but many people dont want to use it on HC because 50% chance random teleport when being hit. Oculus has too much MF to be ignored. If you play carefully and avoid being hit, Oculus will not cause any problems to you as even if random teleporting sometimes happens, your Life+Mana pool will be good enoughto survive. You can actualy benefit from Oculus as if you by mistake teleport into elite pack or very dangerous situation, there is high chance to that Oculus will get out out of it so you can save yourself. You just have to react fast.

If you want to see how to play in action, I recorded video with doing Andariel, Mephisto Ancient tunnels and Stony tomb with my online lvl 91 Hardcore Sorceress. Keep in mind that I teleport recklessly because I am already enough durable to survive bad situations. I also show my equip in the video.

Sorceress - demonstration of Frozen Orb/ES Build - YouTube

If your mercenary is not strong enough to survive Andariel and Mephisto, watch my recorded Hell playthrough where you see me using some tactics against without merc. You can also find there video with me Farming Ancient tunnels few times (sound was not recorded btw)

What can Frozen Orb/ES sorc do well

What can Frozen Orb/ES sorc do well:

Cows Normal/Nightmare
Rushing Normal/Nightmare/hell
Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto
Mausolum+Crypt
Stony Tomb
Maggot Lair
Ancient Tunnels
Arachnid Lair
Swampy Pit
Lower Kurast (objects farming)

Advantages:

Easy to equip
Additional skills for second element or more defensive build
Teleport skill
Easy and fast leveling
can use Frozen orb on left side with teleport on right
Excelent survavibility

Disadvantages:

More risky fight with Mephisto early on
Shorter effective damage range
less crowd control
MF Items for sorceress are expensive at start of ladder season

Blizzard build

Blizzard sorceress is probably most played build amongst Diablo Player base. It can do very high damage so it is possible to clear monsters easily even on higher player setting. Blizzard does not cover as much space as Frozen orb, but very high damage kills enemies very fast. Fully maxed Blizzard build excel at damage but it require
to invest more points into synergies.

Blizzard Sorceress Build - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

Equip for blizzard sorc:

Blizzard Sorceress Build BiS Gear and Runes - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

What can Blizzard sorc do well:

Cows Normal/Nightmare/Hell
Rushing Normal/Nightmare/hell
Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto
Mausolum+Crypt
Stony Tomb
Maggot Lair
Ancient Tunnels
Arachnid Lair
Lower Kurast (objects farming)
Swampy Pit
Travincal
Pindleskin

Advantages:

Easy to equip
Teleport skill
Good crown control with Ice Blast/Glacial Spike
Easy and fast leveling
Can kill mephisto from safety
Can farm content on higher player setting

Disadvantages:

Blizzard is not that great against fast moving enemies as they can leave impact zone
Less free skills for second element or more defensive build
MF Items for sorceress are expensive at start of ladder season
High mana cost of skills
Blizzard and teleport both occupy right side when casted

Fireball/Meteor Build

Fireball/Meteor is great at killing group of monsters very fast and Faster cast rate is very important because it will allow you to shoot fireballs faster. Fire build is little bit more demanding on equip than cold sorc but can deal a lot of damage very fast to group of monsters. It is always better to respec into Fire sorc than do playthrough with her as some places on Nighmare have fire immune monsters. Fire element had limited options where to farm before version 2.4 but its much better now with new high level areas.

Fireball Sorceress Build - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

Equip for Fireball sorc:

Fireball Sorceress Build BiS Gear and Runes - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

What can Fireball sorc do well:

Cows Normal/Nightmare/Hell
Rushing Normal/Nightmare
Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto
Mausolum+Crypt
Stony Tomb
Maggot Lair
Sewer Levels 1-2 (ACT III)
Lower Kurast (objects farming)
Eldritch the Rectifier+Shenk the Overseer
Tresh Socket
Icy Cellar

Advantages:

Easy to equip
very long effective range with Fireball
Teleport skill
Easy and fast leveling on Hell
Can kill mephisto from safety
Can farm content on higher player setting
Kills Andariel extremely fast
Can use Fireball on left side with teleport on right

Disadvantages:

Playthrough on Nightmare is complicated because of fire immune monsters
Less damage against high fire resistant monsters
No crowd control
MF Items for sorceress are expensive at start of ladder season
High mana cost of skills
Fireball doesnt pierce targets

Lightning Sorceress

Lightning sorceress is great at killing multiple enemies at once as Lightning pierce targets and Chain Lightning can hit multiple enemies at once. Lighting builds withut Infinity runeword with Conviction always struggled in past because game doesnt really offer good farming spot to MF for characters with lightning damage. Situation is definitely better with patch 2.4 as there are some new places to farm, but its far from being good as with cold or fire element.

If you can invest into Infinity, your Lightning sorc will become great MF character and because many monsters in area 85 maps have their resistance only at 100% or slightly above, you will be able to farm in majority of area85 maps. Lightning sorc has one big advantage over other elements and thats Key farming. She can run all 3: Countess, Summoner and Nihlathak quite well so if you want to have keys to start farming Hellfore torches, Lighting sorceress is perfect for that.

If you want to know how to build up lightning sorceress I suggest to visit link below where you can see skill distribution and some equip options.

Lightning Sorceress Build Skills - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

Equip for Lightning sorc:
Lightning Sorceress Build BiS Gear and Runes - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Icy Veins

Here is list of stuff you can do with Lighting sorc even without Infinity:

Cows Normal/Nightmare/Hell
Rushing Normal/Nightmare/hell
The Countess, Summoner, Nihlathak
Arcane Sanctuary
Disused Fane, Ruined Temple, Forgotten Reliquary
Lower Kurast (objects farming)
Tresh Socket
Eldritch the Rectifier+Shenk the Overseer
Pit of Acheron
Pindleskin

Advantages:

Excelent Pandemonium event Keys farmer
very long effective range with Lightning
Teleport skill
Can kill mephisto from safety
Can farm content on higher player setting
Can use Lightning on left side with teleport on right

Disadvantages:

You need to learn different FCR breakpoints
Not that many options where to MF without infinity
No crowd control
MF Items for sorceress are expensive at start of ladder season
High mana cost of skills
More expensive equip to be able to farm more area 85 zones

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IMPORTANT LINKS

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for The Outer Cloister:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 1, The Outer Cloister. Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for The Jail:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 1 Jail. Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Underground Passage:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 1 Underground Passage, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Forgotten Tower:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 1, Forgotten Tower, Countess. Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Catacombs:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 1 Catacombs, Andariel. Mental MapHack. - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for ACT II Sewers:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 Sewers, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for ACT II outside maps:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 Outside Maps, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Claw Viper Temple:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 The Claw Viper Temple, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Maggot lair:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 Maggot Lair, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Pallace Cellar:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 The Palace Cellar, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Tal Rash’s Tomb:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 2 Tal Rash's Tomb - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Tal Rasha’s Tomb Symbols:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Tal Rasha's Tomb Symbols, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for ACT III Sewers:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 3 Sewers, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Flayer Dungeon:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 3 Flayer Dungeon, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Diablo II Finding Mephisto extensive guide by DarkHumility
Diablo II Finding Mephisto (Durance 3) Map Reading Tutorial from Waypoint w/ Random Map Generation! - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for ACT IV:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 4 All, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for all frozen Caves:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 5 All Frozen Caves, Mental Maphack - YouTube

Mental Maphack from Sweet Phil for Worldstone Keep:
Diablo 2 Resurrected - Act 5 Worldstone Keep, Mental Maphack - YouTube

How to find Nihlathak by Dbrunski125
Farm Destruction Keys Easily - Diablo 2 Resurrected - Nihlathak Guide - YouTube

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Teleknesia-1634 · April 20, 2023, 1:06am

thank you very much, for this guide bro!