Hi,
I have a lvl 40 sorc in Nightmare. I am mainly on fire element, I have a good staff that gives + skills to Fireball and all fire skills so my Hydra base lvl is around 6-7 but the actual Hydra lvl is around 10s due to items, so it is nice to have a strong Hydra in your arsenal. Also, the fire damage is not bad for the sorc because I read that fire damage is one of the highest damage dealing elements in the game for sorc.
But ofc I’ve started to encounter issues with the immunes. As far as I’ve seen so far, there are many fire immunes and I think they are more than in number compared to the cold immunes. So I’ll have to reset my skills and go for two elements
Which build would you recommend? I like Hydra and FB. They do good damage but I’ll have to choose a second element which is Cold and of course everybody is recommending either Blizz and/or FO. But I guess going for FO and Hydra and FB all together weakens either fire’s or cold’s effectiveness. So I couldn’t decide. I like FO’s big AoE damage which is really good. So couldn’t decide.
One option would be to give up on the fire skills completely and build up on the Blizz build and ignore the cold immunes by tele.
Second would be Meteorb. It’s good to have FO but I don’t actually like Meteor because it is slow and when the foes run off, Meteor does not follow them but I guess blizz follows them whereever they go.
Third would be to go with all the fire skills and have a good Merc to take down the fire immunes.
But regardless of which skills I prefer or like, I would like to hear your options to break immunes.
Would you go for hydra orb ? or would you say blizz and FB or blizz or hydra or anything else?
Thanks
On a playthrough every dual spec you mentioned will work.
Orb + Fireball
Orb + Meteor
Orb + Hydra
Orb + Firewall
Blizzard + Fireball
Blizzard + Meteor (probably the most annoying to aim)
Full Blizzard is more of an endgame spec to farm specific areas, but with a good merc it can work as well (I wouldn’t recommend it though).
As long as you take the one point wonders with it (Tele, Static) a sorceress won’t have any problems.
I’ve always preferred Orb (easy to aim) and Firewall or -ball for leveling. Back in legacy D2 I had Orb/Hydra (before they nerfed Hydra damage).
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so is Orb/Hydra not that good anymore?
It got buffed a lot, it’s OK again. It’s good, safe damage for playing through. It also works for farming but is a bit slow. You need to place the hydras and then wait until they did their job. They shoot only single target fireballs.
I’m currently trying out Orb/Hydra with my ladder sorc so I now have firsthand experience for a playthrough. She was around lvl 70 once I started hell. Before that I used Fireball and Orb with no issues.
I don’t have good items on ladder but one badly rolled Spirit sword and a lucky Tals Amu I found at NM Andy, so total +4 all skills. Rest of the equip is a mix of blue and yellow garbage I found along the way, i.e. I wear a 3 socketed helm with only Topazes.
Once I reached Act 2, I leveled in the Stony Tombs (lvl 85 area) and did Andariel in Hell. Hydra is very good for Andy (vulnerable to fire) so you can just place your Hydras and pull her along them to you. When she reaches you she’s almost dead.
Stony Tomb is a good area for fire/frost because of no fire immunes and many are also not frost immune. Leveled there from around 73 until now 81. Safe way to farm and level up with no gear. Open door (to be really safe use Telekinesis), place all Hydras inside the room, focus on your merc not dying and throw Orbs in between.
Found a Griffons yesterday, first in my entire D2 history. I don’t even have some damn Magefists for my sorc on ladder yet 
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