Energy shield is the complete opposite of a one point wonder: instead of giving you immense benefit with just one point in it, you are required to go all in (max telekinesis) if you put even just one point in energy shield.
Between gear, torch, and anni, a typical sorc has +15 to all skills. If I don’t want to invest too much into it or have enough points to begin with, I can only afford to put 1 point into Telekinesis, which means 2 points of mana is burned for every point of damage I take. Naturally, I want a very low level energy shield to work with and am ok with that. Lvl 1 energy shield channels 20% of damage taken into mana and my mana pool can work with that even when my telekinesis only has 1 hard point. Yet, as soon as I click on energy shield, BAM, congratulations now I have a lvl 16 energy shield that channels 71% of damage taken into mana. It’s unusable as every third hit depletes my mana pool.
The issue isn’t the skill, it’s how they attempted to intergrate it into D2.
In D1 the spell took 100% of the dmg you received in drained your mana. It was vital to the sorcerer’s ability to survive.
In D2, it would be a good skill if you could hit the 100% threshold. I do not know if it’s possible, but as long as it is that difficult to do so, I just don’t see the point. It would force you to split your stats between Energy and Vitality which isn’t ideal. Most builds require you to spend 0 points in to mana.
To my knowledge there is a build for the Sorc where she does have energy shield where she has the highest “HP” in the game because of it, but I can’t see it being a very strong build other than being a big meat shield.
I do hope when they introduce it in to the new patch, they make TS get a bonus dmg from activating mana shield as a “conductor” and perhaps make it so Nova gets synergy from TS and Telekenesis since Nova take so much mana. it would also be different if there was a valid build based around having high mana instead of just putting points in to STR and then VIT all the time.
It might also help if Sorceress got any real benefit to putting points into Energy. Two mana per point spent is almost always going to be strictly worse than having the points in Vitality.
I think the biggest problem with ES isn’t the skill at all; it’s the mana burn bug. Makes it waaay too easy to get 2-shotted.
Immortal sorc says hi
was just about to post that lol XD
edit for warriorofice: ES is purposely made to take 200% dmg without kinesis synergy…for every point in telekinesis the mana shield take 6.25% less dmg…up to -125%…which meant only 75% of the dmg goes to mana with full kinesis synergy…or rather i should say its the equivalent of 25% dmr to mana to both spells and physical dmg and cant be lowered by amp dmg//decripy unlike the dmr % for physical dmg from gear
go to cooley youtube channel for the ES immortal sorc build…he showcase the whole gear set up(make the sorc entirely unkillable)
The issue isn’t the properly functioning portion of mana burn, it’s the melee mana burn bug. Currently any melee hit applies a 256x multiplier against what the actual mana burned should be. So if you took just two points of damage and were supposed to have four mana burned, it would instead burn 1024 mana. And since the proper burn values are never that low on a monster hit, you essentially lose all mana instantly.
You can be immortal against ranged, but not melee. If the melee bug were fixed, ES sorc would be extremely viable in virtually every situation, and without the insane gear requirement to try and mitigate the bug.
bug introduced in the remaster ?..assuming thats correct though…channelling 95% of the dmg to mana despite not having the mana should still tank the dmg with the dmr gear shielding the remaining 5% from harming the health no ?
^Exactly. I played ES for quite a while, and it’s usually fine, but melee mana burn can just kill you during a blink of the eye.
Taking damage while you have 0 mana will deactivate your ES, and the next hit from anything kills you because you have no points in vit.
edit: Or maybe it’s having 0 mana in the first place that deactivates it… one of the two.
The bug was in the OG D2/LoD as well. It was never fixed and thus remained in the code when D2R was made.
ic i didn’t remember that part
I have energy shield build on hardcore and usualy mana burn monsters take my mana to zero, but sometimes it even take out my mana shield completely.
Yeah always wondered about that eversince D2 was a fresh young game.
Like barbarian get 4hp, amazon/pally got 3.
Why didnt the sorc get at least 3? or maybe even 4 per?
Of course with insight it’s not really an issue, but still.
Because you dont go close to enemies and have teleport.
I’m going to assume that poster meant, 3 or 4 points of mana per point of energy, not vitality.
exactly. Sorry I thought this was obvious 
That would be insane tho. Even now you can make pretty much immortal sorc.
Perhaps. In a game all about killing as many things as you can as quickly as possible, being a wall doesn’t necessarily mean OP.
ES is only used in PVP, not PVM.
Enemies burn through your mana all the time and if you’re depending on ES to keep you alive then: omae wa mou shindeiru.
Also, the amount of points you need to invest in to ES to even make it viable severely gimp your damage output in PvM… so yeah, don’t use ES.
All the cookie cutter builds omit it for a reason, it’s obviously garbage.