First I’d like to say that this build actually works, and works very well. It is not at all squishy and is possibly the most underrated melee build in the game. You’ll be doing somewhere around 15k - 60k per hit(5 hit zeal) and have over 2k life, 10k+attack rating, 10k+ defense, full res, 40 to 75% block, and no fear of tele-stomp-zealing almost any mob in the game. If you like the idea of teleporting from rare pack to rare pack, taking them down fast, and moving on, then this is the build guide for you.
I have been playing melee sorc for many seasons now and being excited for the new season coming I’ve decided to share with you what I have found to be the most fun and viable melee sorc build.
Leveling as melee sorc is not recommended, instead I respec into this build at around level 80, and only if I have at least a Tiamat’s shield, gface, passion, and delerium ready to go. You can get away with a lower level melee sorc but it requires a lot of farming for gear.
Lets start with level 80 ish gearing 
- MINIMUM GEAR REQUIREMENTS (maxroll link at bottom of guide) :
-Helm : Guillaume’s Face (with socket for um or res jewel)
-Amulet : Highlords Wrath (or cats eye if poorer than poor)
-Weapon : Passion (phase blade)
-Armor : Skin of the Vipermagi (with socket for um or res jewel)
-Shield : Tiamat’s Rebuke(prob pdiamond or jewel), Whitstans Guard (prob pdaimond or jewel), or Gerke’s Sanctuary (with socket for um, res jewel, pdiamond, or -15req -jewel for Gerke’s)
-Gloves : Laying of Hands (or any 20ias gloves with res/stats/mf)
-Rings : 2 x Ravenfrost
-Belt : Arachnid Mesh (or any 16 slot belt with helpful stats will do until arach)
-Boots : Wartravelers, Sandstorm Treks, or rare frw/fhr res boots
-on swap : cta + lidless
-Charms : stack charms with LIFE, Fire skill charms, small charms with resists, attack rating, other mods like lightning and fire damage can help a lot as they do get multiplied by your masteries.
This is the best situation gear. I have gone with less and been ok but I don’t want to suggest less for new players in d2, or to new players at melee builds.
Socket your gear to add the um’s / res jewels / pdiamonds you need to get full res in hell. Use Gerke’s if you farming areas with dolls, it has amazing block chance for sorc, all resists, and even damage reduction. You’ll want to make sure you put a -15% req jewel in it though to lower the strength requirement to 114, but look for a good one the stats vary a lot.
- STAT DISTRIBUTION :
Minimum Requirements version :
-Str : enough for gear (115 for gface)
-Dex : add till its 170 - 200 (170ish is fine for starting level 80)
-Vita : everything else
-Energy : nothing
- SKILL POINTS
-20 warmth
-1 firebolt (prereq)
-1 fire blast (prereq)
-20 enchant
-20 fire mastery
-20 lite mastery
-1 static field
-1 telekinesis (prereq)
-1 teleport
-1 or 8 cold mastery (at level 80 just put 1 point and work on shiver armor till 86+ then come back for the other 7 later, will be at 17 after bis gear and bo for -100% with 8 points)
-1 frozen armor (prereq)
-1 ice bolt (prereq)
-1 ice blast (prereq)
-X shiver armor (the rest of your points will go here this is the armor you will use due to its great defense bonus and cold damage to melee attackers,)
- MINIMUM GEAR REQUIREMENTS FOR MERCENARY (maxroll link at bottom of guide) :
Weapon : Reapers Toll (this will help with immunes it casts decrepify a lot)
Armor : Smoke
Helm : Delerium (must have)
***++Tips and Hints++***
Arach is level 80 so if you are pre 80 or can’t afford just use any belt that helps with res, fhr, vita, or dr%. Same goes with Wartravelers you can use rare boots with frw, fhr, and res or find a pair of Treks.
This setup will not be as effective w/o the massive lite damage from dreams, you will still be able to farm hell, but large packs are not easily dealt with. Stick to boss runs and unique/rare mob farming such as countess, andy, meph, pindle etc instead of places like chaos or baal where you can easily become surrounded. Tele-stomp, loot, and go.
Level 80 with all skill q’s done is the minimum req for this build. You’ll have just enough skill points to cover what you need, and just enough level to wear all the gear. You will not have much life until higher levels unless you have nice charms, so expect to be a bit squishy until then. You can play as melee sorc before level 80 I just don’t have a guide for that … yet. Zeal sorc is playable at level 43, that is the req for passion, but before level 80 most any other build is going to be far better for farming experience by killing large groups. Melee sorc doesn’t get good at killing groups until you have best in slot gear.
At lower levels (80-90), you can get away with 170ish dex at first and 7k attack rating so as to save yourself some points for vita, but you might miss a bunch when fighting bosses like baal for example. Life charms are important and make sure you at least have a CTA for the BO. You can also 1 point cold mastery at first then 5-6 into shiver armor so you have better defense while leveling, come back to get cold mastery at -100% once you have all your gear and are level 90+.
- BEST IN SLOT SETUP (maxroll link at bottom of guide):
-Helm : Dream (bone visage or demonhead)
-Weapon : Passion (phase blade)
-Armor : Chains of Honor (dusk shroud)
-Shield : Dream (troll nest) or Gerke’s Sanctuary (for areas with dolls so you can max block)
-Gloves : Laying of Hands
-Rings : 2 x ravenfrost (240+ attack rating is > than hi dex, but get high dex too if you can)
-Belt : Arachnid Mesh
-Boots : War Travelers or Sandstorm Treks (situational mf or fhr)
-on swap : cta + lidless w/fire facet
- CHARMS : (try to get as much LIFE out of your charms as you can)
-Torch & Anni (high stats on these will save you lots of points you can then put into vita)
-Fire skill grand charms (with LIFE/dex/fhr)
-Grand charms with attack rating and LIFE / fhr
-Small charms with fhr and res / attack rating
-Small charms with LIFE and res / attack rating
- MERC SETUP :
-Act 2 normal defensive (Defiance aura)
-Weapon : eth Infinity (thresher or giant thresher for the ias, you want merc to proc often)
-Armor : eth Fortitude
-Helm : eth Delerium (Yes Dererium, the effects that this helm puts out will keep you and your merc alive w/o life leech and combined with the effects from your dual Dreams the enemy monsters will almost always be confused and not attacking you or your merc anyway. It is especially helpful when are teleporting through thick packs and when you fight ubers)
- STAT DISTRIBUTION :
Best in Slot version :
-Str : enough for gear 107 / 114 (107 for most areas but 114 for swapping to Gerkes(with-15req jwl) if farming areas where you need the 75% block such as Durance or WSK vs dolls)
-Dex : add till its 204 after gear+charms (204 will give you 75% block when using Gerkes)
-Vita : everything else
-Energy : nothing
- SKILL POINTS
-20 warmth
-1 firebolt (prereq)
-1 fire blast (prereq)
-20 enchant
-20 fire mastery
-20 lite mastery
-1 static field
-1 telekinesis (prereq)
-1 teleport
-1 or 8 cold mastery (at level 80 just put 1 point and work on shiver armor till 86+ then come back for the other 7 later, will be at 17 after bis gear and bo for -100% with 8 points)
-1 frozen armor (prereq)
-1 ice bolt (prereq)
-1 ice blast (prereq)
-X shiver armor (the rest of your points will go here this is the armor you will use due to its great defense bonus and cold damage to melee attackers,)
- PLAYING ZEAL SORC:
It’s basically a teleporting smiter. Extremely effective on boss and small groups. Athough you won’t see much aoe until you get your best in slot gear, running with minimum requirements you’ll be able to farm most of the bosses.
Prebuff by casting bo with switch weapons, then cast shiver armor, and cast enchant on yourself and merc. Now swap to main weapons.
Zeal on left click , right click can swap between tele, static and zeal hotkeys.
I like to hold right click on enemy and while the tele is happening I swap right click hotkey to zeal for a tele stomp zeal works great vs rares and bosses. Your merc will be smashing things as well and sending chain lightnings which will mop things up combined with your auras.
- MAGIC FINDING :
For mf gear it really depends how your mf rolls on your dreams, but I am easily able to hit 200+ mf with added mf charms and gheeds and still have space for a few attack rating and res charms for hell.
You can look for a pair of gloves with 20ias and mf to swap out with LoH. Can swap ravens for nagels but youll lose the cannot be frozen. Works well enough though in places like act 1pit where your lightning pulse kills everything.
I’ve made it to 350+ mf for pit runs, about 300% in bear form for other areas, around 250% in zeal form, but it does get a bit squishy without the life from charms so you have to play more cautiously.
***++Additional Comments and Notes++***
– ATTACK RATING : I can’t say enough how important this is. You NEED to be at least 9kish if not more attack rating for hell, and 11k+ for ubers. Reroll that passion pb until you get high attack rating %.
– You won’t even care about mana burn with this build when you are fighting, so more room in belt for heals and juvs. Zeal only costs 2 mana so even after mana burn it comes back incredibly fast due to your high warmth skill. Tele is only 14 iirc. If you are doing runs teleporting long distances though you may want to have a column for mana pots.
– Sometimes I teleport where I’m going while on swap weapons ( cta + lidless ) for the extra fcr, and other times I am on main weapons ( passion + dream ) for the extra res/confuse proc. It will depend what kind of mobs you are going through. For places like durance of hate and worldstone/throne you’ll likely want to be on main weapons while teleporting for the extra chance to confuse the dolls and souls.
– Don’t forget that even when the enemy is fire and lite immune you can still beat it down. If it’s a demon it will be taking 550% extra damage from your physical attacks, and undead will take an extra 175%. Combined with the damage from travs, and your deadly strike chance from hilords, you’ll do plenty of physical damage. Also, your ravens add a decent amount of cold damage and so does shiver armor, and any cold damage from charms (yes cold mastery does work with cold damage from melee attacks).
– One note with this build is the curse decrepify, this will cause your zeal to slow down a lot and therefore chaos can be a bit daunting sometimes because of all the doom knights. It doesn’t stop the build as long as you have good attack rating. Tele stomping the casters first can make it much less frustrating. The same goes for baal runs, it is very doable despite being a bit slow.
– Dolls suck. They will eat you. Stay away from dolls. Tele past them if you can or let merc engage them first and be ready to drink potions. If you really have an itch to beat down some dolls or want to farm areas with dolls you can. Swap your shield with a Gerkes. You’ll lose a lot of lightning damage but you’ll gain a lot of defense vs melee. More on Gerkes below in the max block setup. You can also try a 20dr vgaze.
– MAX BLOCK variant setup : Use a Gerkes Sanctuary shield socketed with a -15 req jewel. This shield is amazing for melee sorc. It has 75% chance to block, good defense, all resists, good damage/magic reduction, and even a whopping +15 replenish life. You will have to add 7 points of strength more that the BIS setup mentioned above to hit 114 str req for Gerkes with -15req jewel, but you can throw on treks since you’ll need the fhr and they can add 5 str. You will want to be at 204 total dex after gear to hit 75% max block. You’ll lose some damage from the dream, but you’ll gain the ability to block and not get 1 hit by things like dolls. I recommend this setup for running baal, durance, abbadon, etc. Gerkes varies a lot so be sure to find a good one before you socket it.
– Getting good at the tele-stomp-zeal is the bread and butter of this build, actually tele and zeal are about the only skills you have besides your chant/shiver armor prebuffs lol. This build is perfect for teleporting from rare pack to rare pack, taking them down fast, and moving on. Positioning is key with this build, sometimes you may need to sidestep the adds and telestomp the elite first before dealing with the adds. One such case would be Lord DeSies in chaos sanctuary. Play smart, you are not a tank and there are some nasty monsters out there, be ready to use potions.
– Static Field is something to consider taking out once you are 90+ and fully geared the mobs drop so fast even hell baal goes down so quick from the zeal it’s almost a waste of time to cast static.
_ Oh ya you can also use Beast Runeword to turn into a bear.
– If there is something else I haven’t mentioned please post and let me know
https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/x20106y4 = Minimum Requirements build
https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/nv0106hj = my D2R sorc (fully geared zeal/chant/bear)
https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/060106ot = my LoD sorc (fully geared zeal/chant/bear)