Sorceress vs Barbarian
SvB


It's a well-known fact that Barbarians got big muscles and beautiful tattoos, but also half of a brain.

While some of them, aka BvB, just keep fighting each other in their snowy native mountains, others will rampage to our green lands, spawning their dreadful war cries and hunger for fresh blood.

This category of Barbarians - BvC for Barbarian vs Caster - likes to tele around, tri-whirlwind everything in range, leap / tele-ww, until death, says EZ NOOB, kiss, buy blue pots and go on.

This kind of BvC is now a dead meat.

I'm glad to introduce you with :

The SvB

Goal 1 : kill all BvC

Goal 2 : kill all BvC easily

Goal 3 : kill all BvC being afk


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Part 1 - What kind of sorceress a SvB is
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As said before, a BvC is not supposed to think.

He will equip a +1 tele armor to catch you everywhere, he will wield a sharp 481 Grief to cut your thraot - the dagger in the other hand is just for the red aura on his feet because he likes red.
He will have a 35 DS amulet for nice double-blood, 25 OW Gloves for extra-bleeding, 40 Fcr helm/belt to be as fast as the wind.
And dont forget the ring on his finger to survive the enduring chill of his mountains.

Is he an irresistible killing machine ?

Fail !

He will be betrayed by 3 miserable things - has he ever noticed them ?
Light damages on his amulet.
Fire damages on his main axe.
Cold damages on his ring.

So, all a sorceress have to do is to achieve a good combination of pdr / %dr / mdr / ES.

Then the Beast loose his teeth, and becomes a free kill for you !

To fill our goals, I will show 3 different builds, that you can chose from, according to your budget.


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Part 2 - Gear and skill set-up for all Builds
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Stats :

Strength is required only to wear items. Nothing new.
Dexterity is required to reach max block. You should now.
Vitality is a total non-sense here.
Energy is all you need !


Skills :

max Telekinesis, your mana is your life.
max Warmth, your mana is your life.
1 into shiver armor
1 into cold mastery


Main gear :

Natalya's helm soc Mal
Natalya's boots
etheral Gladiator's bane soc Zod
Stormshield soc Mal
up'd Strings of Ears
up'd Frostburns
2 x SoJ
Crescent moon amulet


In Cube :

Memory
+2 amu (mara or seraph)
+3 light amu


In inventory :

Torch
Annihilus
Mana charms, try to get some with +str or +dext.


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Part 3 -Specificities for each Build / Dueling strategy
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Build1 - the cheap one


With random gear, your mana pool will not be high enough to stand close to a BvC for a long time.
You must avoid some hits, and find a way to replenish mana as fast as possible.

Oculus is your main weapon, soc random jewel stats/mana.

The %tele when struck is simply amazing for this build.

Insight on switch : try to have it in a +3Warmth staff, with aura lvl 17.

CtA should be dropped in the Cube.


Offensive Skills :

max Firewall
max Fire Mastery


Defensive Skills :

You will need to invest some hard points into Energy Shield.
Without perfect items, you will need to reach level 20 to 26 energy shield (75% to 81%).
Put into enery shield according to your gear. If you're not sure, put until you can reach level 26.
Any other point goes into Shiver armor.


Tactic :

Dont look at your Life pool while dueling, only your mana pool matters.
Make sure you never run near a ww-ing barb, you would lose your block.
Avoid being locked by pressing 'W' twice.
Tele away as soon as your mana pool drops fast, switch to insight when you're out of range and let mana replen.
If your opponent get closer, switch back to shield immediately and tele away if your mana is not full enough.
Use firewall around you, under your feet. Dont try to aim the Barb.

At a point he will begin to lack mana and he'll be less offensive waiting drunk potions to make effect.
Then only you can play offensively with Firewall.



Build2 - mid-budget :


You can afford perfect pdr / %dr / mdr on your eth Glad's and Strings.
You can afford a slightly better weapon.
You have filled your inventory with decent mana/stats charms.
Still, your mana pool and base defense are not perfect.

Eschuta 20%fire is your main weapon, either 5/5 (good for other usage) or stats/mana jeweled.

CtA on switch

Drop an Arach and a +3 cold amulet in your Cube, for the extra precasts.


Offensive Skills :

max Firewall
max Fire Mastery


Defensive Skills:

+1 tele
You already have a high enough level of energy shield with +9es Memory only.
No more point is needed.
According to your level, try to max Shiver armor - mainly for the defense boost - then Cold Mastery.


Tactic :

You will lead the fight.
Your high defense (12/13K) and mana pool (over 4K) will allow you to duel without Insight.
After all precasts, choose the correct place in the batterfield, where you can be only ww-ed under a small angle.
Stay there, dont ever move, and cast Firewall under your feet or just before you. Let him come, and die.

Only after some very unlucky hit sequencies, you may feel the need to escape to get some mana back.
When his life has drop enough, go hunt him down.



Build3 - the expensive :


Done correctly with all near perfect items, you will have a far better mana pool, a cumfortable amount of defense.
You can stand toe-to-toe with the best BvC, until the end.
More than 15K defense and 5K mana are reachable (15.8K def and 5.2K mana with full perfect at lvl99).

Main weapon : (very) Rare Orb +2sorc sk / +3 cold mastery / 150mana / mdr3 / 20energy / 2soc
perfect jewels in this are : +40def +15mana +9str +9dext

Switch weapon : CtA
You must be able to recast quickly BO/BC after a fight. Your other precasts (ES and Shiver) last much longer.

Same precast gear in Cube as previous setup, and get also some +skills for shiver armor in Stash (Ormus, +3 circlet, skillers maybe).


Offensive Skills :

none


Defensive Skills:

All your points go into Shiver Armor - Chilling armor - Cold mastery - Ice armor, in that order.

Notice that you dont even need to put 1 into teleport (see Notes below).


Tactic :

This is the afk-killer setup. Watch them die.



Notes for this last Setup :

- no Raven/fcr or Raven/Bk BvC can stand against you more than few seconds. Only 2xRaven BvC can really hurt.

- you still have the option of tele-ing away for a little mana replen - though I'd consider it as losing the fight in a way.

- you can be easily BM'ed with 2xRaven + Snowclash (or other absorb, or really high stacked res).

- you can also BM with this setup, just party a high level BO/Shout barb. Enjoy 30+K def and 7-8K mana !

- this Setup requires real top-end items to be efficient against well-geared BvC. And, as you see, the dueling strategy is not so fun - wait and see.

- for some of these reasons, and despites the fact that I posted this last setup - mostly for the record, I wouldn't recommend it. The second is much more fun in my eyes.




Notes for all Setups :


- suspecting an unusual high-defense char, a smart BvC would switch to Angelics.
Ruining your efforts for 2 reasons : increased chance to hit (so faster mana drain) and losing the wonderful 1-30 light damage on Highlord.
But a BvC with Angelics is no longer a BvC

- if he's very pro, he would even use BotD to get rid off the 5-30 fire damages on Grief, and reach a higher max critical amount of damages than Grief.

- and again if he has a brain, he would simply Berserk you - assuming only 1 point into Berserk would give a better bonus to damages than max WW.
And indeed he would over-critical you. You could still be safe if using a higher level of Energy Shield (get some +skills in Stash).

- but dont worry, most BvC are just BvC... they will probably just be crying "HAX RANDOM" and you'll be safe !



Further duels :


You can simply use these setups to duel melee chars as Zealots / Auradins / Bears etc.
Bowazon shouldnt be too hard if they also have some mdr overflow - and faith + raven count already as twice ! But if they got at least 1 poison javelin in switch, you should be dead.

Smiter is out of question, since Smite doesnt trigger any elemental damage.

Dont try to duel an elemental / magical char, a SvB is not a SvS.


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Acknowledgements :
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To all people who contributed to the Amazon Basin Ressources.
Very usefull informations, that you hardly find somewhere else !

To Tommyvv@jsp, who kept my interest alive in trying to develop new chars, and of course for his great works on immortal sorceress.

To Xtopia@jsp, for the usefull discussions we had around the Gandhi-sorc concept.

To nehe@jsp, KillaMikey@jsp and Master_Zappy@jsp, who were eager to help me testing some pre-version in real situations.

To all of you who dueled me @ Europe No-Ladder. Specially to those with BB, 37x3/20/20 ... that I finally managed to kill !

To all of you who have read few lines of this guide, thanks ! I hope you have enjoyed it.

This post was edited by feanur on Mar 15 2011 08:43am

first

looks fun!

i would like to have discussion about goal 3: AFK!

getting just enof mdr/pdr for a 100%mana ratio
and pumping the rest in mana/sec regen when afk+defend so you have a better regen mana then the baba have damage/sec!

So far, I've tried to avoid the maths !

But let's give it a try... where are my aspirines ?



I tested a quiete similar BvC setup, though he got lvl 31 axe master / WW (using a Visio 2sox fcr circlet).
But I'll follow your figures - pretty the same as mine in the end.



I believe you forgot 15ed on base Beast. But nevermind



You should treat Beast critical chance and Grief critical chance separately, they're not the same. Grief got 20%DS.
And DS will not simply add to Weapon mastery, each roll being checked one after the other, and one succesfull excluding the other.

Anyway, your final result is pretty what a barb will do ~ 30K ø damages per second. 5K pvp.



Having Shiver armor active will have a strong psycho effect on barb, who will instantly equip at least 1 Raven. And I believe Raven is a common piece of BvC setup.
So at least 1 overflow with Beast, and 2 with Grief.



In your exemple, you have 75% block and still ~ 400mana / sec. Along with the needed pdr/mdr to negate any top critical strike.
As far as I know, only Insight can lead to such a powerfull mana replenish. When do you have time to switch shield/insight ?

Let's see if I can tank full hits.
In last setup, this sorc reach ~16K def. Vs 12K AR barb, chance to be hit ~ 47% - both Barb and sorc having level 95.

I'll take the same amount as you :
5219 /sec after pvp
2453 after 47% chance to hit
2453*0.75es*0.75tlekinesis = 1380
345 after 75% blocked
range-out / failed tri-ww -20% as you said?
345-20%=276
i stand in open field, still 276 mana drained per second.

Mana pool = 5.2K
Warmth is level 29 (+366%)
Hence (5.2K / 120)*4.66 = + 203 mana / sec

276 - 203 = 73.

Still miss 73 mana / sec.

5.2K / 73 = 71.2 sec.

I'm dead if the barb can keep ww me for 71.2 seconds.

Impossible because :
with GM absorb he will die from shiver armor before 1min11,
he will miss mana long before killing me, drinking pots that will add some delay between his ww.
And the more he waits, the more mana replen : autowin afk !

make one and cry

So this is a what? The sorc version of a medic?

if nothing else you will die from open wounds and venom from grief...

Open wounds or venom(*) cannot kill.

You will stay at 1hp

(*) except from poison nova or poison javelins

a lower es is intresting also!



lets say you have 80es instead of 95es and your mdr overflow still gives 100%mana ratio

276/0.95*0.8 = 232 mana drained bye baba/sec

i like your defence also!