Hey folks, I just came back after about a year off here and my kid is playing the game. That being said, I am reminded why I stopped and need some advice. I’ve got an 87 Necro and a 75 Sorc. The sorc is lightning and stuck in A3 Hell as she’s out of respec tokens and apparently… EVERYTHING is lightning immune in A3.
Would it just be easier to start over or try to farm the respec dust with my Necro? He can do pretty much anything, but slowly as he’s a Fishymancer. I’ve got the first one, but I’ve spent days trying to get Meph to drop the flipping thing, and still have Diablo/Baal to look forward to.
I tried trading for one in chat like the old days, but no dice so far. Many thanks all.
No matter what, you’re going to be faced with a rough monster as a sorc even if you go dual ele. In general it should be easy to get your merc a nice insight or obedience
and thus your merc should be able to take care of the majority of your immunes and plus, your class has the best mobility skill naturally, teleport…there is nothing wrong with skipping monsters. In fact, no matter what your build is and even if you have decent gear, monent you decide to fight a tough moon lord/souls/doll rare pack you’re gonna get wrecked…
Understood. I do have an Insight now, although it’s not an ogre axe, it’s some mid tier polearm, so he doesn’t do tons of dmg. My necro has a Crescent Moon on a superior Ogre Axe though, so I want to trade that up once this guy has the STR for it.
Missing the Lo rune (surprise surprise) for Fortitude, but once I combine some Ohms or just find it, he’ll have his armor. I just don’t want to waste it on a subpar 4 socket armor, so I’m waiting for a good one. I think he’s got an empty 4 socket, 470 armor piece on now I was going to use.
I’m getting there, but I’m mostly SSF and don’t like trading, just play for fun. Maybe with my kid or friends.
Negative, I have a 75 poison sunder in the stash. Only one I’ve found so far.
See my main is a Summon Necro, but he just can’t farm things very quickly, so I rolled a Sorc little over a year ago and bricked her when I foolishly ran out of respecs so I stopped playing.
My son is interested in the game now so I’m back. I have a respec token now (thanks Taisheelon) and thankfully can do it right this time to start farming things up. Since my sorc was stuck in A3, I couldn’t do terror zones to get the sunders anyway.
Don’t waste a Lo for fort on your merc, use treachery much more cost effective.
Orge axes cant get more than 3 sockets but you should be able to find an eth elite polearm than can get 4 or 5 sockets while just wandering through hell.
Personally I would stay lightning and just skip past a3 as much as possible because A4 and A5 have very few lightning immunes versus fire and cold. Things like crescent moon for the lightning pierce are really only after you get a sunder but at your stage it is very unnecessary and might even wreck you even more by trying to use one with poor gear (a regular soul would just need to breath on you)
Welcome to cookie-cutter 101, where you are a single tree sorceress and can’t get anywhere!
Did you seriously expect you could just mindlessly use a single tree and romp through hell like you were smashing soapy bubbles in teh tub???
Did you even put any thought into your build BEFORE you did it? Or, did you just go to some website and mimic the “S” tier MF build???
That kind of mindset doesn’t deserve help or advice. But, you’re in luck … I will give you some insight and maybe you’ll use that nogging for something other than a hat rack!
D2R, Hell mode … a lot of enemies that immune to a lot of things, go figure, right? I mean it is called Hell mode for a reason. So, let’s put on our little thinking caps, shall we???
Almost everywhere in Hell mode, monsters are immune to 1 of the 3 trees in your abilities. Some are immune to 2 trees. And, then again, some have more than that!!!
So, how can we spec a sorceress to survive in Hell??? Maybe using more than one skill tree? Absolutely!!! You hit the nail on the head. You are smarter than you let on in your posts.
Now, I have used several sorceress builds in Hell mode. I have experienced these immunes through actual gameplay without being rushed.
First and foremost, a 3 tree build for the likes of you would be incomprehensible.
So let’s make it a little easier on you … we’ll do a simple 2 skill tree build … I don’t want you to try and think too hard. It might strain you.
A frozen Orb/Fireball sorceress. YES! She is highly viable, if you build her right and equip her right and actually take the time to build a proper mercenary. Yes, the mercenary is in fact important to your very survival. Now, before you get all riled up, I use this build in Hardcore. So, yes, it works and she lives!!!
Your primary skills will be:
Fireball
Frozen Orb
some into synergies
Most importantly. RESISTANCES! Yes, even in easycore, resistances matter and will help your sorceress live!
You want that little character screen to say all 75’s for resistances. Technically, you really want all of your res’ to be 100+ in hell, AFTER, mode reductions [-40 for NM and -60 for Hell … that’s -100 res in all in Hell mode]. Bet you didn’t take that into account did ya???
Next, GC’s, you want 4 cold gc’s for your cold skills and 3 fire gc’s for your fireskills. Why only 3 fire, well, because you’re gonna wear magefists!!! Not just for the mana/replen, but for the +1 to fire skills as well. now you have +4 to fire skills and +4 to cold skills.
The main reason for fireball & frozen orb, well, I am glad you asked. Spam-ability, and damage, and mana control. You see, this has been thought out for you already, no strain.
Your merc, well and Act 2 freezy merc with Obedience. Why freezy? I am so glad you asked!!!
While teleporting, his aura gives you a second or two of time so you don’t get mana drained by a monster and, here it comes … his aura slows your enemies down so that you can kill them!!!
Also, Obedience gives him killing power. Now, these suggestions are made to keep you from cost overruns and having to shop your favorite RMT stores!!!
Tals mask, VGaze, Gface, so many options for your mercs hat.
Armor, c’mon, gotta leave you a little room to think.
Hell countess is always cold/fire immune, her little entourage that surrounds her is always lightning immune. Yet, Using this setup an combination, I can run her easily in Hell, in HC without dying at all!!!
A nice cheap little setup will include Full Tals!!! WOW!
Your merc kills dual cold/fire immunes for you, you kill light immunes with your fire/cold, and if it’s fire immune you use cold and merc … and, wait for it … if it’s cold immune, you use fire and merc!!! Hint, Hint: 1 point wonder skill … STATIC! Another one: WARMTH! Gotta keep that mana up, you know?
It’s a win-Win!!!
So, you now have the basics, wanted to leave you a little room to think and learn!
Remember, this is PROVEN to work in HELL, in Hardcore … WITHOUT DYING!!!
This is but one option. With 3 full skill tress, there are many, many options!!! I challenge you to sit down and think a minute. You can do it!! You CAN come up with a viable build that is successful top play with more than 1 skill tree!!!
Most of us have been doing this already for 20+ years!!!
Now that you have the basics, I wish you luck and success.
I hope you have learned something from this!!! [Wishful thinking!]
:eidt:
The best, mostest viablest necro build you can have for Hell:
Full Trangs, summoner. With act 2 might merc carrying obedience. There is NOTHING he cannot handle, nothing!
As far as chat trade goes, LMFAO, good friggin luck!
You’ll need to waste most of your storage space and all of your shared stash just to accommodate all the pgems someone might want to trade you with!!! Hahahahahahahaaa ! Trade for pgems, lol, that’s like when you were 10 years old or something.
Yeah you should work on the sorc. I see the person below me has sent a reply and offered you a free respec token. You should try a dual element sorc of your preference. You can look up various guides on them. I prefer fb/orb (meteorb) but I know a lot of people prefer cl/orb. But just look through what you like the best before using that token.
Some useful gear for untwinked sorc:
helm- lore, shako, tarn, peasant
armor- lionheart, vmagi
ammy- maras, tals ammy, any rare/crafted ammy with sorc skills on it
shield- spirit monarch
weapon- hoto, spirit sword
boots- war travelers, silkweave, tearhaunch, hotspur, infernostride, aldurs
gloves- chance guard, mages, trangs
belt- arach, crafted caster belt
rings- it varies but rare fcr rings work
Just make sure you hit 105% fcr for the build. 117% fcr if you are lightning. Start from cheap gear until you can gradually build up to top end gear. Here is what a 105% fcr sorc would look like when finished:
helm- shako ist
ammy- maras
weapon- hoto
armor- enigma
shield- 35% fcr spirit
gloves- chance guard
ring 1- fcr/str/life/mana rare ring
ring 2- wisp projector
belt- arach
boots- war travelers
torch, anni, gheeds, and 7% mf scs (some with resistances may have less than 7% mf on them)
Hello mate. Add me and I can give you some items to help you get going with that sorc. Not much, what I could find on some old mules, but should make your life easier: a shako, an ormus, a tal’s ammy, a spirit sword, some fcr rings, trang gloves
zaman#2521
Appreciate the replies. I just got through Hell Diablo last night with Orb/Hydra. Been going pretty well. Also, I am mostly SSF so I try to acknowledge there are things I may never see. I pillaged my Necro for his gear (RIP) so right now running:
Shako w/ Topaz
Sipirit Monarch and Spirit BSword
Vmagi Chest
Sandstorm Trek boots
Tals ammy
SoJ/Nagerling Rings
Belt is still yellow. Never found a decent one yet oddly enough.
Gloves are just frostburn for now.
Gheeds fortune in inv.
Merc has just a lifesteal helm and yellow 800def armor with an Insight. I’ve never seen a ber rune or andy’s helm in 20 years so that’s about as good as I’ve found thus far. He is cold spec A2.
I have 89fcr right now, but I have two 10%fcr yellow rings in the stash. Is the FCR worth ditching the SoJ/Nagerling? They would put me at 109%
Enigma is on the radar, but I haven’t see a ber rune ever. I have two 3 socket mage plates waiting for that glorious day though lol.
Alright, so I’m 80 now and have been doing Andy, Meph, and Cows. I don’t remember cows being this slow in the past. Although, I did read that the introduction of synergies hit dual spec’s pretty hard. I’m only on players 1 and a group of cows takes a concerted effort to chew through as Orb/Hydra.
So now that I have a character capable of farming the end game, should the goal be to focus on terror zones until a Cold/Lightning sunder drops, then go single element again for dmg?
Like I previously said, to me dual specing isn’t much of a solution, if you stayed pure light you would be farming a bit more quickly…orb/hydra will definitely be lacking in overall dps…
Sunder is completely unnecessary unless you have strong pierce/infinity and even then it isn’t like it would help you farm cows/meph/andy. Cold Sorcs are lucky that they have natural pierce which makes sunders most effective on them, but again, you aren’t fighting hordes of frozen horrors, it won’t help you.
So yes if you want to farm a few specific areas, best to go single spec either pure blizz, fb, hydra, lightning or nova. Also, unless they are TZd, target farming andy/meph is outdated, better off farming best alvl 85 spots suited for your element.
Thanks, I see that now that I’m farming end game. Yeah, now that I have beaten the game and grabbed all the waypoints, being able to bounce around and target farm is pretty stellar. My favorite build has been Nova sorc in original D2, although occasionally you get overzealous with a lightning enchant and fry yourself lol.
Is lightning/chain lighting pretty viable? I did that up to early 70s when I hit the wall and it felt good until I had a stroke trying to get past A3.
Yes, as I said pure blizz, fb, hydra, lightning (CL is pointless) or nova are your strongest options. Blizz to me is best for noobs or poor players but landing hits can be annoying for single targets, only downside. Lightning is good, again CL pointless, there are many areas perfect for light sorcs but they really shine once you get infinity whereas blizz doesn’t use one…
