I’m just a casual player doing non-ladder softcore.
I’ve gotten just about every possible build to Hell. About a week ago I happened to complete Tal Rasha’s wrappings self-found. I kinda just happened into it, actually not expecting to get the full set, then realizing that I actually had everything except the amulet when I got the chest piece off an armor rack, and then finding the amulet off a random kill.
I’ve gotta say this set kicks butt and its actually the first high level set I’ve completed.
I was Hydra-Orb, and once I completed it and had several sunders I decided to go for some pure specs. First I tried Lightning, but I found that in my gear it didn’t seem that good. It did little to handle getting rushed and I found my merc dying more with Lighting than with Hydra-Orb. So I tried pure Fire. This seemed a little better, sort of. The Hydras made it possible to do stuff like shoot off screen better and plan ahead of time for stuff like poping seals and doing bosses, but it was quite weak when it came to dealing with getting rushed or reacting to surprises.
So I tried Cold, being worried that with the Mastery nerf it would be too weak since Tal Rasha’s didn’t give resistance benefits for Cold like it does for Fire and Lightning, but I found that even with that it still did better than the other two.
I’ve since leveled a bit and put more into CM and I also found a perfect Lightning Rainbow facet, which I traded for a perfect Cold facet. I debated with myself about whether I should socket it into Tal Rasha’s and decided to just go for it, so I put it into the weapon as I already had a Topaz in the chest.
Now I’ve been looking at some guides to see about BiS gear, and quite honestly, I’m not sure its really even worth going for it.
I haven’t done all the math but it seems to me that even a perfectly kitted BiS Cold Sorc is really just barely better than Tal Rasha’s, and it seems like I would need to get a full BiS set of stuff before its worth changing anything out. So I may just put three facets into Tal Rasha’s and call it good and not even worry about trying to go for anything else.
When I look at trying to do the 4 set and replacing the head I’m not sure even the BiS items are an improvement over the set bonuses. Maybe marginally. And some of the guides seem like total overkill, like for example suggesting Doom and 4 faceted shield, etc. Honestly, right now with 15 base points into Mastery and a single facet she already laughs at cold immunes. I mean I don’t see her as an uber runner anyway, and I’m playing on-line so I can’t really do solo-P8 anyway, so like playing group multi-player or solo P1 she already clears everything with ease. If I put 2 more facets into Tal Rasha’s I can’t imagine she would need to be any better.
I am using Blizz-ball, so I’ve got a single point into Glacial Spike at the moment, but honestly I’m going to stop putting points into CM and put the rest into GSpike to pump up Blizzard and I think I’ll be good. I’m at 88 now, so…
So, out of curiosity, how much better is a BiS geared Cold Sorc than Tal Rasha’s? I mean honestly as I have her geared with Full Tal Rasha’s and modest other items, with a single facet she seems quite powerful as it is for PvM. Is there really any point in trying to gear past Tal Rasha’s? Seems to me, if I really wanted to invest into gear I’d be better off trading for other characters or something and not really putting any more gear on this toon. And should I go ahead and socket the head piece and put a facet into that (or maybe even an Ist or Topaz)?