Diablo 2 expansion

Can someone please suggest a good build for a Sorceress character in this game? I installed it again, but I haven't played in ages, and I know a lot has changed due to patching. Thanks!

.

I personally favour Blizzard, but Fireball is good too. I don't particularly like Lightning, but it is the most versatile of the three elements since there are the fewest immunes and easiest to break.
Every sorceress needs at least one point into Static Field, Teleport, and Warmth. Usually never more except Enchantresses for their Syngergy in Warmth.

Blizzard:
20 Blizzard
20 Glacial Spike
20 Ice Blast
x Cold Mastery (Enough to get -195% total reduction, never more though if you're poor, you usually get 20 points anyways)
1 Chilling Armour (Unless you want to use a Buff Orb/Snowclash)
Spare points into Ice Bolt

Fire Ball:
20 Fire Ball
20 Meteor
20 Fire Mastery
20 Fire Bolt
Spare points go into learning Energy Shield and syngergising with Telekinesis usually. Maybe one into Shiver Armour for the Defense boost.

Lightning:
20 Lightning
20 Chain Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
1 in each other Lightning skill
Usually 1 into Shiver Armour, or use a PreCast Weapon
Rest into Charged Bolt followed by Nova
I can't remember how many points there are left in this build, but I'm fairly sure CB gets maxed and Nova gets a few at higher levels. Alternatively, you can max Nova instead and use that as an attack.


Alternatively, there's Orb+Element Sorcs for more versatility but lower damage:
20 Frozen Orb
20 Cold Mastery
And either Fire:
20 Fire Mastery
20 Meteor/Fireball
Or Lightning:
20 Chain Lightning
20 Lightning Mastery

You'll be weaker with each individual element, but you'll be able to kill monsters that aren't immune to both your elements, whereas single element sorcs are restricted more by huge immunity areas.

.

snip

No ES? Or does that all come from equips? I forget. Anyway, for the first character you never really have all that much stuff, so it's pretty much impossible to have a perfect build. Usually I just go Hammerdin first (easy as hell to make), get rushed into Hell Baal, and use that character to farm for some decent items before starting a real character with a nice build.

No ES? Or does that all come from equips? I forget. Anyway, for the first character you never really have all that much stuff, so it's pretty much impossible to have a perfect build. Usually I just go Hammerdin first (easy as hell to make), get rushed into Hell Baal, and use that character to farm for some decent items before starting a real character with a nice build.

I've never liked much Blizzard sorcs to use ES. I personally don't really use it often on any of my builds, whether I have it or not actually.
Blizzard is the tightest for points of any build, since you have to invest in so many to get ES in the first place, might as well make yourself a Memory to get the job done if you really want it.
I personally like making a Sorceress first since they can teleport. Makes running a bit easier, though depending on what you're doing, you might not be able to kill anything in Hell, leaving you at Nightmare runs. Hammerdins don't have as much of this issue, but the lack of teleport (without Enigma) gets to me, and I don't like how MF gear stacks up on Paladins.

I've never liked much Blizzard sorcs to use ES. I personally don't really use it often on any of my builds, whether I have it or not actually.
Blizzard is the tightest for points of any build, since you have to invest in so many to get ES in the first place, might as well make yourself a Memory to get the job done if you really want it.
I personally like making a Sorceress first since they can teleport. Makes running a bit easier, though depending on what you're doing, you might not be able to kill anything in Hell, leaving you at Nightmare runs. Hammerdins don't have as much of this issue, but the lack of teleport (without Enigma) gets to me, and I don't like how MF gear stacks up on Paladins.

What's wrong with MF-adins?

As for this, I heard MF Barbarians are better, since they are meant to take hits, and they can dual wield Ali-Babas, which maximize obtainable MF.

What's wrong with MF-adins?

As for this, I heard MF Barbarians are better, since they are meant to take hits, and they can dual wield Ali-Babas, which maximize obtainable MF.

There's nothing wrong with them, I just don't like MFing with a Paladin. MF Barbs can get better MF, but you end up not being able to kill anything. It was generally accepted that running with more than 250% is just wasted effort, especially if it hinders your killing speed, due to diminishing returns.

It really depends though. In Single Players since the maps don't change unless manually rerolled, you can simply reroll until you get a good map and then any character that can kill fast and safe will do. Heck, I run Hell Meph with a summoner necro until I found all the non-armor parts of Immortal King Set (got lucky with the armor as I found it off a random mob pile in Travincical), which I used to make a barb as my current Meph runner. Summoners are good to MF run with anyways since you can literally sacrifice every single gear for MF due to the fact that you hardly take damage at all.

Sorceresses still shine in spots like Countess though, where there are five maps to go through, which means teleport is still a noticable improvement in speed no matter how good the maps are, and it's nigh impsossible to get five good maps anyways. Other than that I just don't like how little they have in way of defensive abilities. Speaking of which...

Energy Shield is a rather bad idea in general PvM no matter how you put it. For dedicated ES sorcs, you need to max Telekinesis to make the shield efficient whcih means less points to synergize attacks with, and you need to invest in Energy to ensure that the bulb absorb things. This is bad when Mana Burn mosnters show up, as due to a bug they do 256x the mana damage they're supposed to be doing (512x if they drain life or stamina as well), which means the bulb empties instantly BEFORE energy shield comes into play at all, so now you have half HP to take attacks with. Without telekenesis or mana investment, using ES basically amounts to giving everything around you mana burn. Sure it could potentially save you from something like an Extra Strong Frenzytaur while you're under Amplify Damage or something, but it's too much trouble to mantain. Not to mention it eats up three extra points due to prereq. A sorc with a lot of points in Vitality can take most attacks just fine anyways (unlike how squishy mages are in MS without Magic Guard).

Countess can be a tough one because you run into every immune there on occasion. The Countess herself is usually immune to Fire and Ice, and the monsters around her can be immune to Lightning. Usually, if you're running Hell Countess though, you have a mercenary strong enough to either kill her by himself while you smack everything else, or you finish the job and have him cover you from the things around.
The only issue I have with Hell Meph is either the lightning council member in Durance3 or the Vampires. Otherwise, it's a piece of cake with any sorceress provided you don't aggro the other stuff that's around.

There's nothing wrong with them, I just don't like MFing with a Paladin. MF Barbs can get better MF, but you end up not being able to kill anything. It was generally accepted that running with more than 250% is just wasted effort, especially if it hinders your killing speed, due to diminishing returns.

Diminishing returns? Say what? All that MF counts despite diminishing returns. I heard the best MFers have ~900-1000% MF. Madness.

Diminishing returns? Say what? All that MF counts despite diminishing returns. I heard the best MFers have ~900-1000% MF. Madness.

You might as well be naked and trying to kill things if you have 1000% MF. The best MFers are those who can run a boss most efficiently with the amount of MF they have on. I could Hell Andy with ~400 in under a minute if I tracked the stairs fast enough, 2 minutes if I have to search the entire 3rd floor. It would probably take me four or five if I had to run with 1000%, and I run a huge risk of dying because I lack any FHR, FCR, and general defense and offense.

Ehh, Countess isn't difficult. I run her with an CL/Orb sorc and most of the time I just tele into the room and CL everything into smouldering oblivion. If there are a bunch of normal archers I'll alernative Orb and Cl to make sure archers die too. Trouble come up when an archer bosspack shows up though (damn those archers), then Iwould usually teleport to the side, wait for them to come out and then dispatch them. I never run Hell Meph with that sorc yet (though I'd imagine Blizzard would do a lot better) since my barb runs Meph just fine.

I like Sorceress with Max CL and max Frozen Orb, the rest goes to the synergies.