Seems like there is a big jump in difficulty even at level 80. You only have enough points to master 2 elements and you can’t protect against all elements. I can never survive a cold elite. Easily NMD20 but get’s murdered easily in NMD21. The drops aren’t getting better too.
Don’t go for resists as they are currently reeeeally bad, for survival get a decently rolled damage reduction pants (and maybe health), and get % armor in helmet if your build can fit that in. Make sure you have skulls on your jewelry and you should be able to survive nm tier 21 easily.
level 80 vs level 75 mobs(NM21) should be very doable, it’s very hard to imagine what you’re struggling with unless you can showcase what exactly is happening.
LV 100 lightning/ice sorc here and I just built into 100% damage since defence doesnt work. Did a tier 64 nightmare dungeon earlier today and its pretty easy to clear with the dps but so many things can 1 shot you. Just stay mobile and rush your dps.
Running arc lash with 3 def skills, ice blade summon, and unstable currents ult.
You’re at a level and NDM level where Sorcs haven’t dropped off a cliff yet. So thankfully there are things you can do to manage. From my personal experience of not looking up guides until around level 75, here’s what I can tell.
This is where your Paragon board starts to really matter. You can get by with mostly ignoring Glyphs up to now, but not anymore from this point. You should have at least 4 Glyphs equipped by now with at least one Glyph at level 15. I don’t use Imbiber glyph anymore, but gosh do I remember feeling it was a godsend when I first equipped it around level 70s. The extra healing from the glyph was just the training wheels I needed to survive with my poor dodging skills, until I got used to enemy attack patterns.
Other thing is gear. More than half your gear should be Ancestral by this point. Your weapon should be at least around power level 770.
Between glyph and gear, it should put you in the kill them before they kill you territory. I remember my journey from level 60 to 80. My tankiness didn’t change, but what made the experience go from hard to easy is being able to kill stuff faster.
I didn’t use aspect of control until mid 80s - because again, I wasn’t 100% following a guide. In my mind, all I cared about was having the Ice Shards, Avalanche, and stacking armor aspects covered. Suffice to say, I was missing out on so much dps potential at that point. So my playstyle at that point wasn’t the usual divebomb CC burst. Stay at a distance and start attacking mobs from the edge of your screen. Do this at least until you are comfortable enough with the divebomb playstyle.
2-3 hits from a Cold Elite will freeze you. A cold elite can easily chain freeze and keep you perma frozen. That doesn’t change even at higher levels. If you’re not divebombing with Teleport, then Teleport as far as you can the moment you get frozen and start shooting back.
What would also help is if you can tell us what skills you use. You don’t necessarily need to go with the meta builds yet at NMD21, but it’ll help people make suggestions to your specific play style.
Defense does work. I’m level 56 in WT4 (monster level 73+) and I’m immortal. I went into a nightmare dungeon 85, and once my damage reductions come online, they can’t kill me either unless I get CC’d.
I solod the capstone at 53 went straight into the hell right and face tanked everything.
I get 10% damage reduction to burning, 30% damage reduction after teleport, 15% lowered enemy damage from the lightning passive, Barrier every time I blow a cool down, and 30% cool down reduction + the key passive that resets lighting cool down when picking up crackling energy. I’ve got “basic attacks grant 20 damage reduction.” aspect, I set with spark.
There are diminishing returns on damage reduction, but your going to inevitably drop one during combat.
Once I get going pretty much nothing can kill me unless I don’t manage my cds properly.
I also use teleport as the enchant, and max engage charges +3, with +4 teleport on the shoes.
You guys aren’t playing the same game as me, I guess.
All res has a diminishing return to, but 40-45 is the target, but it takes about 60 to get there.
you get 35% to two per ring, you can get 40% on gear without spending any paragon for it, you should be enhancing damage reduction where ever possible.
Damage reductions seem to increase the value you get from barriers, which increases the value of barrier generation. Fortify is easy to build when your under an over shield.
At level 56 i have 5k armor also. I don’t even need to take flame shield or ice armor.
I am level 100 and have 5k armor, get used to it. The only thing that changes is your HP value and your shield proc value/uptime. Look forward to nightmare dungeons 1 shotting you, even lv100 druids i know with high HP,DEF,Fortify get 1 shot.
You’re probably the best sorc player in the entire universe. @ level 56, you’re actually able to solo nightmare dungeon 85 and can’t get killed unless CC’d 
I don’t know what to say but to salute you for being the best player out there.
Any sorc not running shards is pretty great tbh. When being the best = being the exact same as everyone else theres def more value in playing for fun while tier climbing.
when I first arrive at wt4 I was 62, it was rough for for the first 5 hours as I dont have any ancestral item. after 5 hours and level up couple time its getting easier. once I’m fully deck out with ancestral its a walk in the park.
presume u use the current meta which is the iceshard/blizzard, sorc real struggle start once u hit nightmare dungeon 60. anything before that was not really a big issue, once u obtain bis in every slot I was playing lvl 60 dungeon like I was playing 40, real challenge was how to not get carry away with random teleport and range mob that will one shot u. but I was playing mostly melee lightning build from the start and swap to ice shard/blizzard build later. the difference was night and day, its soo much more easier/safer to attack from range then up close.
Kept on getting frozen. My cold resistance is at 40% and I get frozen for quite a few seconds. Fine if I don’t meet any but it seems there are always a few.
Would it be possible for you to record one nm85 dungeon run solo at that level and show me the video and your build? I think lot of people would benefit from your expertise.
So if resistance is useless, I should swap out all my resistant gear to something else? I’m using Orb/Hydra/Arc lash. I can deal with most things except being frozen.
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I dont know the calculations but devs admitted that elemental resistances doesn’t work as intended and they will fix it for season 2. Based on that i would simply ignore putting much value for elemental resistances and instead focus on damage reduction instead.
I think he meant nightmare dungeons with lvl85 enemies. NM T85 is just oneshots from almost any enemy.
Don’t rely on defensive spells unless you are specialized into Crackling Energy and Teleport only. Nova/Flame Shield/Raiment+Teleport are used for offense.
Sorcerer primary damage mitigation is CC, get some items with CC duration and try to burst everything down before Unstoppable kicks in, then you have to kite and try your best to survive until you get your CDs and Unstoppable wears off. Rinse and repeat till you die of boredom.
Which build are you running? I’m level 71 with an ice shards/blizzard hybrid build. I just started doing nightmare dungeons because I was focusing on getting all the paragon first. I can fly through NMD25 without any issues. I haven’t tried anything higher yet because I don’t have the sigils for it.
Level 80 running 35-40 NM’s and only dying to the cheap explody crap.
Running Blizzard with Shard and Fireball enchantments. Yes, Fireball, not Fire Bolt. It’s super bomb for packs and obliterates everything on the map once even 1 mob explodes. Put 5/5 in both Shards and Fireball for the 50% dmg on death explosion and just roll that.
For single target, save your Novas for them. Blizz, dodge in, Nova, Blizz and that’s usually it. Even Suppressors get rocked this way.
Also add I’m running Ice Spikes for Deep Freeze and Blizz obviously.
Good luck out there!
It’s sad to before to use specific builds to get through. It was fun using orb/hydra/arc lash.
I can get through if there are no freeze. My teleport is only level 1.
Add more health, DR, armour