Efficiency Hype Thread for Early Ladder Sorceress

Diablo II: Resurrected Sorceress
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I am aware that there are a large amount of informations all over the internet and that the best approach for a Holy Grail Sorceress has been discussed many times over but I thought it would have been a good idea to have a thread that compiles the best informations to gather before the game launches.

1- What are the best areas to farm certain base(s) for certain runewords such as Spirit or Infinity?

2- What is the most efficient farming order for bosses and areas?

3- Early on, Cold Sorc are the most efficient but what about later on. Is Lightning that much superior and why?

4- What are some good early runewords to have?

5- Around what level should the Cow Level and the Countess be farmed?

6- What’s your take on Cold Mastery, should it be boosted considering the fresh economy of Diablo 2 Resurrected?

7- What is your Magic Find sweet spot and why?

8- Any other tips ?

Thank you.

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I have done 2 sorc dry runs so far, the best advice I can say is go watch MrLlama’s Sorc play through, he does Norm, NM, then Hell and has some great tips in there to get through, where to farm, what to collect and what are the good runewords.

Coles Notes that I do with my early>end game MF sorc.

Normal farming is Countess for runes, you want to collect Tal-Eth, Tir x3 atleast for mana per kill, Ort-Sol, then collect extras for Spirit and other basic runes to collect for later runewords.
Find or Shop from Charsi a couple of 2 open socket armors, 2 open socket helms, 3 open socket shield, I usually find a 3open Kite Shield along the way, some prefer Large Shield or Bone Shield to run less STR.
At level 17 make a Stealth Armor.
Later on build a Lore helm.
Act 5 Q2 gives you the runes for Ancients Pledge shield.

Normal Cows is your go to leveling point and where you will find the proper Ilvl Crystal or Broad sword to take to Larzuk for 4open sockets, to make a Spirit sword. If you get good drops throughout Normal, you could make this right away or youll need to farm NM Countess for the rest.
Pick up white Jared Stones to imbue after level 60
Go with Nova for Normal, switch to Frozen Orb for NM and Hell. It is a great “kiting” skill to keep you alive, Fireball may be powerful, but you need to be stationary to cast it.

Farm NM Andy for Soj, Meph, and Baal.

Move into Hell when ready, Andy should be no problem, A2 should be ok, A3> can be dicey depending on gear.
Farm Hell Andy for awhile, you can get tons of gear from her. I found a Shako within 30 runs, WarTravs, Magefists, ect. Still waiting on that Viper Magi.
If you go Blizz or Orb isnt bad, Blizz is better in the Ancient Tunnels, run those as well, I found a Que Haggans, Echutas, and a few other things during some AT runs.

Stick with cold until you have some gear for Light. Once I found the Echutas, I switched to light and had a decent time farming Pits and Chaos, AT, Meph, Andy, those become harder without Cold.

Just play is the best tip to give, find what works for you, research builds and guides.

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Tremendous advices !

Thank you so much for taking the time to write, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Good luck on your Sorc !

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I usually rock Ancients Pledge in Act 2 and onwards already. If you farm the countess you should easily get Tal + Ral Runes, enough of them to cube an Ort easily. So Ral-Ort-Tal is available very very early on.

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Did I miss read something as I read on several pages that they are releasing all gear and runewords in non-ladder meaning you don’t need to do ladder to get them.

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I am going somewhat different:
Normal Act 1
Farm countess for Tal, Eth, Tir, Ral. Important - keep any FHR gc you will find (they seem to drop in act 1 consistently)
Act 2
get 2 os breastplate, 3os long bow, hire prayer merc, get +3 fireball 2os staff from Drognan make leaf, stealth.
Kill everything
NM act 1
Farm Andy (quest bugged) - first goal is 4os polearm, make Insight (may need to run countes few times but in all honesty you should have runes for 1 Insight and Spirit by now) remember 3os LB? it should be Edge by now. Use it to gamble for FCR circlet if you dont have one already. While farming Andy you should actually find 4os sword make Spirit. Keep rolling Insights.
Main prize here:
SoJ
Big prizes:
Vipermagi, Magefists, Eyeless.
I generally stay at Andy till 105/86 - I know that Meph is better, but when it comes to Act 3 I just want to tele through it and forget.
Tele to Eldritch - catch up on lvls (now is ok to farm Meph)
Hell Act 1
Farm
Mausoleum till you get White Monarch (this is worth using socket quest) - I know it is like worst 85 area but it seems to be dropping Monarchs reliably - make Spirit.
Your goal here is:
Get Tal Rasha set (trade) (cheapest one, stats dont matter much really at this point)
remember FHR gc you kept from normal? there you go - pick the best one and put it in Inventory.

WT
If your Spirit shield - 35fcr get any ring you please
If 25+ fcr - you need 1 fcr ring
if less you need 2 fcr rings
Tele to Baal - kill it

Make proper Char
Get it to Hel WSK wp - DONT KILL BAAL

Start game with Sorc
Kill Meph, Andy, clear Ancient tunnels (open Cows) and everything your proper Char cant clear easily.
Leave game, rejoin with proper Char, kill Ball and everything else worth farming.

Edit: Added cows bit

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Farm countess for a bit at 15 for the runes for stealth, steel, nadir and leaf. Shouldn’t take long. Shop your cheap socketed stuff in A1/A2.

When you hit nightmare, farm countess for an hour or two to make spirit, lore and rhyme. Maybe smoke if you like. Hit normal cows for a crystal sword to socket or be on the lookout act 4 and up. Broad sword works too. A 2 socket bone shield from normal a2 is fine for rhyme to start.

That is about it on early runewords.

Edit: Almost forgot insight. Gotta farm that too at countess. Makes a huge difference.

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Mausoleum isn’t that bad especially for a sorc. No natural cold immune unlike pits. I usually cycle both mausoleum and ancient tunnels on a pure blizzard sorc along with Andy and Meph early ladder. Pretty simple cycle.

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I haven’t played D2 for over 10 years but I’m one of those fanatics that played well over 10000 hours… here are my thoughts.

  1. Spirit = nightmare countess, infinity = farm Mephisto and trade for high runes… IMO is the fastest way

  2. Assuming you’re a cold sorc, run mephisto until you get decent gear then do mephisto + ancient tunnels

  3. Lighting is only good with infinity because it can break a lot of immunities while cold sorc can’t. Stick with cold sorc until you have the right gear to farm in chaos, pits, baals etc

  4. Spirit… it’s op

  5. Cows aren’t necessary unless you don’t mind leveling at a slower speed. I would recommend getting to hell A4 ASAP and then do cs runs and eventually moving up to Baal runs.

  6. Depends on your + skill gears and whether you choose to be a blizzard sorc or a frozen orb sorc. The mastery won’t lower resist on immunes so it’s really up to your final gear.

  7. Faster run > high mfs. The mf curve isn’t linear. It’s like a root curve. I don’t know the exact value but you can assume from 200% mf, the effect of additional mf is significantly decreased. Again it all depends on your gear but don’t sacrifice speed over mf. Towards the end game, most people should be able to farm 500+ mf with negligible speed loss.

  8. Grind…

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Splendor is a nice shield before reaching hell mode. You can make it in NM.