Table of Contents

• 1) Overview
  • 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.2 Why a Sorceress?
  • 1.3 Statistics of the Build
• 2) The Full Tal Rasha’s FB/FO Sorceress
  • 2.1 Why this build?
  • 2.2 Attributes
  • 2.3 Skills
  • 2.4 Equipment
  • 2.5 Mercenary
    • 2.5.1 Which mercenary to choose?
    • 2.5.2 Mercenary’s Equipment
• 3) The Full Tal Rasha’s Lightning Sorceress
  • 3.1 Why this build?
  • 3.2 Attributes
  • 3.3 Skills
  • 3.4 Equipment
  • 3.5 Mercenary
• 4) The Griffon’s Lightning Sorceress
  • 4.1 Why this build?
  • 4.2 Attributes
  • 4.3 Skills
  • 4.4 Equipment
  • 4.5 Mercenary
• 5) How to start?
  • 5.1 Explanation of terms and phrases
  • 5.2 How to level up?
  • 5.3 Where to MF?
• 6) FAQ and other useful information
• 7) Ending notes
  • 7.1 Credits and thanks

1) Overview

NOTE: This is the d2jsp-friendly version of the guide, so I had to remove most of the useful links. I will replace them with the suggested phrases that you should google to find those (or in some cases similar) links.
If you want to see the version of the guide with those links, PM me and I'll send you the link to the original uncut guide.

1.1 Introduction

Hi, I'm Mate de Vita. I've been playing Diablo II almost from the day it came out, but due to my bad connection I was confined to the very fun, yet after a time slightly boring, single player. Recently, though, I started playing on battle.net and found out that on battle.net Diablo is a completely different game. Luckily I have a friend who has been playing on battle.net for some time now and he gave me a lot of advice on how to start, advice which I now worked upon to turn into a guide for new players.

This guide is made for players who would like to MF with (in my opinion) the best magic finding character in the game: the Sorceress. I will present three different builds:

• A Fire ball/Frozen orb Sorceress. The poor man’s option for an effective magic finder. You’ll be using the full Tal Rasha’s setup with this build, once you can afford it of course. See section 2) of the guide for this build.
• A Lightning Sorceress also utilizing the Tal Rasha’s set. You will go with this as soon as you can afford the Infinity runeword. See section 3) of the guide for this build.
• A Lightning Sorceress, this time using a more expensive setup. See section 4) of the guide for this build.

With the respecialization (henceforth referred to as ‘respec’) option and the Token of Absolution, both brought by patch 1.13, you’ll be able to go from one build to the next with a single character.

The guide is extensive and explains all the choices, and also gives a lot of additional information, but if you don’t want to read the explanations, comparisons, recommendations and other comments, most of the larger sections will have an overview, where the vital information for the build will be summarized.

A few common Sorceress builds that will not be discussed for various reasons include: the Blizzard Sorceress, Orb/Lightning hybrid, Nova Sorceress, various Hydra hybrids, pure Orb Sorceress, Infinity wielding Sorceress, 200fcr Sorceress.

1.2 Why a Sorceress?

Sorceresses have the native ability of teleport (other classes can get it as well, but only via the costly runeword Enigma, or as a skill with charges on certain items) and with their good cast rate frames (which will be discussed a bit later) are the fastest moving character in the game (well, along with a Barbarian, but those are a completely different story).

1.3 What stats will I achieve with this build?

1.3.1 Faster cast rate (FCR)
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31572190&f=87

FCR determines how fast your character casts his/her spells. But there is a little trick to it.
The game determines the speed of casting with how many frames (25 frames = 1 second) a single spell takes. At certain amounts (called breakpoints - BPs) the frames per spell animation amount is reduced and the spell is cast faster. But if you have more fcr than the BP requires, and yet not enough to reach the next BP, the frames/animation will be the same as it would be at the BP. So if two BPs are at 56%fcr and 87%fcr, it's the same if you have 56%fcr or 86%fcr. To make the spell animation faster, you'd need 87%fcr.
See the link above for the BPs for all characters.

With the Fire ball/Frozen orb build you will reach 105%fcr, which is the BP for all spells, except for Chain Lightning and Lightning (again see the link above for complete BP tables).
With the Lightning build you will reach 117-125%fcr, which is enough to reach the 117%fcr BP for Lightning/Chain Lightning and 105%fcr BP for all other spells.

(NOTE: some spells, like meteor and frozen orb have a Casting delay. That means that each time they’re used, they become unusable for a short time. This Delay is not affected by FCR. For more info read http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/castingdelays.shtml )

1.3.2 Faster hit recovery (FHR)

FHR determines how fast you recover from a strong hit you take. Every time a single hit takes more than 1/12 of your maximum life, you will be put into the hit recovery animation, during which you won’t be able to move or attack. There are also some attacks that can put you into this animation even if they take less than 1/12 of your life, so faster hit recovery is a necessity in case you accidentally teleport into a dangerous mob.
The frames/animation system itself is similar to the FCR one.

With these three builds you will reach the 60%fhr BP. It's pointless to go higher than that, in PvM (player vs. monsters) this BP is more than enough.

1.3.3 Other statistics

You can achieve maxed (75%) all resists on hell (which means all elemental attacks will only do 1/4 of their usual damage). The really important resists are lightning (most important) and fire. Always make sure those two are at least above 60 if not maxed. I myself like to keep all my resists maxed, though, makes me feel safer, I guess.
(NOTE: when you do quest 3 in act 5, you get +10 to all resists on each difficulty. When you die, however, this bonus is deactivated until you rejoin, even though that doesn’t show up on the character screen. This is referred to as the ‘Anya bug’.)

You will get around 250-350% MF (better chance to find magic items - see point 5.1 for a more detailed explanation and references) with the full Tal setups, which is plenty. You’ll get less with the last setup, but with its fast killing speed, that won’t really matter much.

nn back to back



i was first

This post was edited by Djsem on Sep 2 2010 07:15am

2) The Full Tal Rasha’s Fire ball + Frozen orb Build

2.1 Why this build?

A fire ball (FB) + frozen orb (FO) build lets you do most hell areas pretty fast, and it doesn’t need expensive equipment to do so. The best thing about it is that it’s a dual element build, which means very few monsters are completely immune to it. So you basically have 3 different sources of damage – fire, cold and physical (which comes from your mercenary).

2.2 Attributes
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/classes/sorceress.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/characters.shtml

Each time you level up (and also as a reward for a certain quest), you will receive 5 stat points to distribute among the four different attributes as you wish.

2.2.1 Strength

Strength affects the melee damage your character does. As a caster our build has no need for this. However strength is also needed to be able to wear equipment. You will need 156 strength to wield a Spirit monarch. But you can also get strength from the items that you wear or have in your inventory. So put just enough into strength to reach 156 after you apply all the strength bonuses from the items.
If you can’t afford a torch and annihilus charm immediately (see point 2.4.11), don’t worry. Just get 156 strength without them, and if you want to, you can respect once you get them, to spare yourself some points that you need elsewhere.

2.2.2 Dexterity

Dexterity determines your attack rating (which is to say your chance to hit an enemy with a melee or ranged physical attack) and affects your defence rating and blocking abilities. It also increases the damage you do using ranged weapons. Out of those, only defence rating and block are relevant.
However the amount you would have to put into dexterity to reach a decent chance to block is too high with a monarch shield and the defense bonus is too small. So no points in here.

2.2.3 Vitality

Simply put, vitality is your life. The more vitality you have, the more life you have, the less chance you have to die.
It also increases your stamina but since you'll be teleporting around all the time, that's not really important.
However life is the most important thing, high damage/mana won't help you if you're dead. So every point you can spare goes into Vitality.

2.2.4 Energy

Points in energy increase your mana, which is required to cast spells. This may surprise you but you don't want any points in here. You'll get enough mana from other sources.

2.2.5 Attributes overview

• Strength: enough to reach 156 after you've counted in the bonuses from equipment.
• Dexterity: none.
• Vitality: everything else.
• Energy: none.

2.3 Skills
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/basics.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/sorceress-lightning.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/sorceress-cold.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/sorceress-fire.shtml
Google: indiablo skill calculator

Every time you level up (and also as a reward for some quests), you will get a skill point to put in a skill of your choice. Your skills are how you get those big ugly evil monsters to die. As a FB/FO sorceress you will obviously be using Fire ball and Frozen orb. Another skill you might like is Meteor. I myself rarely use it, because it messes with your Frozen orb (see the link at the Casting delay note in point 1.3.1), but if you like it, feel free to use it.
Some people like to use one of the 3 cold armors (usually Frozen armor) and/or Thunderstorm, I usually don’t use either.

NOTE: Synergies are skills that add to the damage (or sometimes add other bonuses) to your skills. For example Meteor is a synergy to Fire ball, so each additional point in Meteor will also raise Fire ball’s damage.
However only invested skill points into the synergies will give the synergetic bonus, any +skills from equipment or other sources don’t count.
Also note that masteries are not subject to this rule, as they are technically not synergies (in their case the bonus to the damage of other skills is their primary purpose). So the +skills from equipment or other sources will affect their damage bonus.

2.3.1 Lightning spells

Static field
1 point. An extremely useful skill for bosses, it reduces their life by a percentage (only gets them to 50% maximum life in hell difficulty, though). However more points only increase its range and you'll get enough +skills for that from your equipment.

Telekinesis
1 point. Prerequisite for Teleport. Rarely useful.

Teleport
1 point. One of the best Sorceress skills, insanely useful. You will use this to move around when you're not in town, as well as to escape monster groups and to position yourself properly. However more points only decrease the mana usage and you'll get enough +skills from equipment so you don't need more than 1 point in here.

2.3.2 Cold spells

Frozen Armor&Shiver armor
1 point (optional). Here it's up to you to decide. I personally don't use either of these but if you want a defense boost and some freezing power, put a point in Frozen Armor or both. Don't use these if you're using a holy freeze mercenary (see the mercenary section below).

Ice bolt
1 point. Prerequisite and synergy to Frozen orb. However the 2% is a very small synergy bonus, so you will not be maxing this. You need the points elsewhere.

Ice blast, Frost nova, Glacial spike, Blizzard
1 point each. Prerequisites for Frozen orb. Not used.

Cold mastery
A great skill, reducing the enemies’ cold resistance, thereby boosting your damage a ton. But don’t overdo it, resistances can’t go below -100% (-100% resistance means the monster takes double the normal damage).

Most players (myself included) usually put enough in this skill to get it to somewhere around level 17 with equipment bonuses (at level 17 it reduces enemy cold resist by 100%, so it is fully effective on any monster, since no monster has a native negative cold resistance).
So a few points should be enough.

Frozen orb.
20 points. Right, Frozen orb. Frozen orb is a great skill for many reasons. One of them is that, unlike most other skills, it doesn’t need synergies to be effective. It also does a nice amount of damage if used properly. There is a lot to be said about this skill, but most of it is already summarized here. I highly suggest you read not only the guide, but also the subsequent comments.

Note the mentioned term of ‘Sweetspotting’. This is an incredibly important, almost vital technique to master. As is explained in that guide, the shards that come from the explosion at the end of the Orb’s path are the ones that do the real damage. That means that, to do the most damage, you need to aim your Orb so that it explodes inside the target monster (this technique should always be used against bosses). Mastering this will take some practice but it’s well worth it.

Keep in mind that while you’re casting Orb, you can always stick 2-3 Fireballs in between two Orb casts (because of Orb’s Cast delay), so always do that for some additional damage, unless your enemies are all fire immune.

2.3.3 Fire spells

Warmth
1 point (optional). A nice skill to have in my opinion, with the +skills from your equipment it will provide a decent boost to your mana replenish. This is a spell I like to see on any kind of sorceress.

Inferno, Blaze, Fire wall
1 point each, prerequisites for Meteor.

Fire bolt
X points (see Fire mastery below for explanation). Prerequisite and synergy to both FB and Meteor.

Fire ball
20 points. Your main skill, beside FO. You can cast 2-3 in between Orbs and each will do 8-10k+ damage.

Meteor
20 points. Synergy to FB and also a useful skill. Use it instead of FO when the monsters are cold immune. Can take a bit of practice to master as well.

Fire mastery
Right, now the hard part about skilling a FB/FO sorceress. The points between Fire mastery and Fire bolt should be split in a precise way to maximize your Fire ball damage. To make matters worse, the optimal amount of points in each depends on your +all skills, your +fire mastery, your number of leftover points and so on.

For maximum damage, play around with the skill calculator in the links above. If you don’t want to waste too much time, just keep your Fire mastery slvl 10 levels above your Fire bolt hlvl (see point 5.1 for the explanation of slvl and hlvl).

2.3.4 Skills overview

Prerequisites that only need 1 point will not be listed.

• Static field: 1
• Teleport: 1
• Frozen Armor: 1 (optional)
• Shiver Armor: 1 (even more optional)
• Frozen orb: 20
• Cold mastery: enough for ~slvl 17
• Warmth: 1 (very nice to have but not vital)
• Fire ball: 20
• Meteor: 20
• Split the rest so that Fire mastery slvl = Fire bolt hlvl + 10

2.4 Equipment
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-110.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-111.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/uniques.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/

I will always list the item I recommend first. If you choose another item, you will need to calculate some things, like how much %fcr you need to make up for in the other items.

You will be using the full Tal Rasha set ( http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/sets/sets7.shtml#talrashas ) if you follow this guide completely. An often used same-cost alternative is the Tal trio (Tal belt, amulet and armor), Harlequin Crest Shako and The Occulus. The full comparison between the two setups is can be found in point 3.4.13 (it is done there for a Lightning Sorceress, but it is very similar for the FB/FO Sorceress, if anything the Tal set is even more superior in this case).

2.4.1 Weapon

Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye Swirling Crystal
This is the weapon of choice, since you're going with the full Tal set. 20%fcr, mana, life, +1-2 to both masteries, +1 to sorceress skills, -15% enemy fire resist, +15% cold damage.
You should look for one with +2 to fire and cold mastery. Do not use this weapon if you're not going with full Tal's.

The Oculus Swirling Crystal
The best choice for this build in my opinion if for some reason you decide that you dislike the Tal set. Very cheap and effective, gives you +3 to sorceress skills and 30%fcr, as well as 20vitality, 20energy, 20all resistances, 50MF and 5 mana after each kill.
The only downside is the 25% Chance to cast teleport, which can teleport you to a random location on your screen if you get hit. Well, just another reason to avoid getting hit.

2.4.2 Body Armor

Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate
Whether you go for the full Tal set or not, this is a good armor choice. It's cheap and offers a huge MF bonus, a lot of resists and 10%fcr when you wear another part of the set (which you will).

Skin of the Vipermagi Serpentskin Armor
This is a nice armor, if you decide not to go with the Full Tal set. It is fairly cheap and offers +1 to all skills, 30%fcr (helps you reach the desired fcr BP if you choose a different setup) and 20-35all resistances.

Ormus Robes Dusk Shroud
Another decent unique armor, offers 10-15% spell damage, 20%fcr and a +3 skill bonus to any sorceress skill, excluding masteries, FO and Hydra. If you manage to get one that has good bonuses to fire and cold skills, and +3 to FB, this can be a great armor. However it will probably be a bit too costly.

2.4.3 Shield

Spirit Monarch (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn)
One of the best runewords in the game (relative to price) in my opinion. The runes are very cheap, all can be acquired via nightmare/hell Countess. A 4 socket monarch can be bought cheap or found (I found mine at hell Countess as well) in many areas.
This runeword gives you +2 skills, 25-35%fcr, fhr, resists, mana and vitality.
If it has 35%fcr, you’ll be able to reach the fcr BP without a fcr ring, otherwise you’ll need one.

Lidless Wall Grim Shield
A bit cheaper than spirit and it has a much lower strength requirement, but also offers much less. Only gives +1 skills, 20fcr and a lot fewer other bonuses than Spirit.

2.4.4 Helm

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask
You're only going to use this because you need it to complete the Tal set. Only offers 15res, mana, life, do not use it if you're not using full Tal's.

Harlequin Crest Shako
a.k.a. Shako a.k.a. the ultimate PvM helm. Very cheap and offers really nice bonuses: +2 skills, mana, life, MF, 10%physical damage reduction, +2 attributes. Basically everything it offers is nice. Like with Oculus, you should use this if you're not going with the full Tal's.

2.4.5 Belt

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt
A nice belt, whether you go for full Tal or not. Mana, MF, 10%fcr if you wear 2 other Tal items.

Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash
A better belt, with +1 skills, 20%fcr, 5%max mana, but also a bit more costly. You can use this if you want and can afford it (if you don’t go with the full Tal setup, obviously).

2.4.6 Gloves

Magefist Light Gauntlets
20%fcr, +25%mana replenish, +1 fire skills and cheap as well. You need the fcr and the +1 fire skills is a nice boost for your FB and Meteor.

Trang-Oul's Claws Heavy Bracers
20%fcr, 30 cold resist and they're cheap. Nice.

2.4.7 Boots

War Traveler Battle Boots
Vitality, strength, MF and they're cheap. Also the 25%frw is nice when you're in town.

Silkweave Mesh Boots
10%max mana, 5 mana after each kill, if you're having mana problems, try these. Again the 30%frw is nice in town.

Sandstorm Trek Scarabshell Boots
A bit more expensive than the WT, they offer similar vitality and strength bonuses and a decent amount of poison resist instead of the WT's MF. And they offer 20%fhr which means that you can reach the 86%fhr bp. However that bp is not necessary in pvm (even the 60% one is questionable).

Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
40-50% fire resist (to cover the lack of fire resist on spirit) and 40%frw for when you’re in town.

2.4.8 The switch

Wand of Lower Resistance
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-curses.shtml#lowerresist
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/magic/chargedsuffixes.shtml
A wand with charges of the Lower Resistance curse.
This is nice for monsters that are tough to kill, it speeds up the process a bit. It can also break a few monsters' immunities. You can buy this from any wand selling vendor on hell (Akara can be close to the waypoint, which makes it easy to quickly reset her stock). You can get 75 charges of level 2 Lower Resistance when you're level 76 and you can get 82 charges of level 3 Lower Resistance if you level all the way to 99 (not recommended). The wand type doesn't matter.

Call to Arms (Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm) in a random weapon
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/barbarian-warcries.shtml#battleorders
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/barbarian-warcries.shtml#battlecommand
+2-6 to Battle Command and +1-6 to Battle Orders. This means +1 all skills and a life/mana boost. However the runeword is quite pricey and it's not really needed in pvm.
If you somehow can afford it and you decide to go with this, also wear a second Spirit Monarch (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) for the +2 skills, which will further boost your Battle Command and Battle Orders.

2.4.9 Rings

If your Spirit has less than 35%fcr, you’ll need one rare/magic rings with 10%fcr and possibly other adds. Just look for ring drops while you're leveling and use whatever 10%fcr rings you find. If you get resist (or other useful) adds on them, even better, but any fcr ring will work.

Dwarf Star Ring
When you have enough fcr, you can use this. It gives some life and fire absorb, so if you have problems with fire attacks (Chaos Sanctuary is a place for those), get this.

Wisp Projector Ring
MF and light absorb. If you have problems with lightning attacks (the Burning Souls in Baal’s Throne room and in a few other areas are a good example), get this.

Nagelring Ring
You can also use the Nagelring. It gives a MF bonus and is cheap.

Stone of Jordan Ring
This is the ring most casters use if they don't need any more fcr. +1 skills and a very nice mana boost make it an awesome ring. However it can be quite expensive.

2.4.10 Amulet

Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet
+2 sorceress skills, lightning resist, mana, life, 10fcr with 4 Tal's items. It's a cheap and effective choice for an amulet.

Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet
+2 skills, all resists, +5 attributes. A great amulet for any char, however it's more expensive than Tal's and you obviously can't have full Tal's if you wear it.

2.4.11 Inventory

Hellfire torch Large Charm & Annihilus Small Charm - two insanely useful charms, both have +skills, +attributes and resists, anni offers an experience bonus as well. They can be a bit costly, depending on what stats you want on them, but they're worth it. You should be able to get low ones at a cheap price though.

Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
A nice amount of MF and it's pretty cheap.

Magic charms with resists (try to get all resists to 75 on hell), life, mana, MF.

Don't fill up your inventory, you'll need some room to pick up items. The Horadric Cube helps a lot with that, it takes only 4 squares in your inventory but gives you 12 squares of room inside.
And of course have a tome of town portal in your inventory at all times.

2.4.12 Equipment overview

Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye Swirling Crystal
Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate
Spirit Monarch (possibly with 35%fcr)
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt
Magefist Light Gauntlets
War Traveler Battle Boots/Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
Dwarf Star Ring/Wisp Projector Ring/Nagelring Ring/Stone of Jordan Ring + rare/magic ring with 10%fcr if needed. If fcr isn’t needed, use any combination of the above-listed rings.
Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet
Wand of Lower Resistance on switch

Hellfire torch Large Charm
Annihilus Small Charm
Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
Magic charms with resists, life, mana, MF

Horadric Cube
Tome of town portal

2.5 Mercenary
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/hirelings.shtml
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=42086445&f=87

The mercenaries (or hirelings) are your loyal allies who can help you defeat the monsters, either directly (by killing them) or indirectly (by using abilities to boost your damage/life/etc.)
For this build you'll be using an act 2 mercenary, whom you can hire from Greiz, who is in the northern part of Lut Gholein.

2.5.1 What kind of an act 2 mercenary should I use?

As you can see in the link I gave above, act 2 mercenaries have different auras, depending on the difficulty you hire them in and the type of mercenary you hire.
NOTE: The merc's aura depends on the difficulty they're hired in, not the difficulty they're currently in. So for example, if you hire a defensive merc in nightmare and then go to hell difficulty with him, he'll still have the holy freeze aura.
NOTE 2: Normal difficulty and Hell difficulty mercenaries of the same type have the same aura but the Normal difficulty ones have higher stats. Therefore you should never hire your mercenary in Hell difficulty.

There are 3 types of mercenaries I'd consider here.

Normal combat (prayer)
Prayer will slowly heal both the merc and you. This can be a nice choice if you use Insight on your mercenary. The prayer aura synergizes with Insight's meditation and boosts the life replenish.

Nightmare defensive (holy freeze)
With holy freeze he'll slow down all the monsters around him and have a small chance to shatter them, leaving no bodies to be revived (e.g. by shamans or greater mummies) or used for Corpse explosion (Nihlathak) or similar skills. And what's more, this aura also works on cold immune monsters, so it’s still a viable choice, even though you already have a source of cold damage in your FO.

Nightmare offensive (might)
Might will boost the damage your mercenary will do to other monsters and consequentially will increase the amount of life he leeches through %life stolen per hit, which means more survivability for your merc. Nothing about might aura to help you though.

2.5.2 Mercenary's Equipment
(see the links in point 2.4)

A couple of things here.
First of all, items on a merc don't lose durability. That means that you can give him ethereal items (ethereal = better damage/defense but can't repair it, a more detailed explanation is available here) but those will mostly cost more than non-ethereal ones.
Second of all, the best polearm for your merc would be an eth Giant Thresher. It has a similar damage per second to the one of Cryptic Axe/Colossus Voulge, and it has a faster weapon speed, which means more crushing blow (if you have any) + less attack interruptions -> more damage.
A Thresher has a little bit lower average damage but the same weapon speed. It also has lower requirements and is easier to find.

Here is the IAS BP table for a (Giant) Thresher (if you're using a different polearm, use the weapon speed calculator (Google: titanseal's attack speed calculator) to find out how much IAS you need, the BPs depend on the weapon in use):

IAS --- FPA --- Attacks/sec.
0% --- 6.5 --- 3.33
8% --- 6 --- 3.57
22% --- 5.5 --- 3.84
42% --- 5 --- 4.16
75% --- 4.5 --- 4.54
142% --- 4 --- 5

1) What to look for in the merc's equipment?
The main things you want on your merc's equipment are: Life steal (LS%), increased attack speed (IAS), crushing blow (CB), resists, %physical damage reduction. A few other nice adds are: chance to cast amplify damage, enhanced damage/defense, +skills.

2) Weapon

Insight (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol)
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/paladin-defense.shtml#meditation
Any 4 socket polearm will do. The runes are all cheap and can be found via nightmare/hell Countess.
Insight gives the merc and consequentially you a meditation aura, which means that your mana problems are all-but gone, which can save your ass if you accidentally teleport into a mob with Mana burn or Mana drain. Any aura level will do fine.
However Insight lacks LS%, IAS and CB. You'll need to make up for these with the other two items.

3) Armor

Treachery (Shael+Thul+Lem)
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/assassin-shadow.shtml#fade
Not too expensive, this runeword has more to offer than you'd think when you first see it. First of all the 45%IAS is great. It gives your merc the chance for a much higher attack speed (see the BP table and weapon speed calculator above) than you'd get with other armors. The chance to cast fade is also very nice. A level 15 fade will give 60 to all resists and even a hidden bonus of 15%physical damage reduction. And lastly Treachery gives another 30 cold resist.

4) Helm

Andariel's Visage Demonhead
A lovely merc helm, offers nice LS%, 20%IAS, +2skills, 10 max poison resist and 70 poison resist. A bad point is that it decreases his fire resist by 30. You can counter that by socketing it (via Larzuk quest - act 5 quest 1) and inserting a ral rune or a jewel inside. However (e.g. if you're using Thresher and Treachery), you may also want to put a 15%IAS jewel in that socket to reach a certain BP (4.5fpa in the case of Thresher+Treachery).
However if using Insight, you'll have no CB.

Vampire Gaze Grim Helm
Offers LS% and a nice amount of %physical damage reduction. Again, you can socket it via Larzuk quest and put in whatever you want. It lacks Andy's IAS and other mods though.
Again if using Insight, you'll have no CB.

Guillaume's Face Winged Helm
A nice amount of CB%, this helm is a good choice if you're going to use Insight and want that CB. Unfortunately it offers no LS%, so you'll have no LS% on your merc. Not my favorite choice with this particular build, I'd rather have LS% on merc than CB (CB won't help if he's dead). Like with the previous two you can socket it with whatever you want if you decide to use it.

5) Overview of the optimal Insight setup

Insight (Giant) Thresher - possibly ethereal
Treachery in any armor (as high defense as possible without having a too high str req)
Andariel's Visage Demonhead (LS and other adds) or Guillaume's Face Winged Helm (CB) - socketed with ral/IAS jewel/whatever you want (use the weapon speed calculator above to see if you need any more IAS)

3) The Full Tal Rasha’s Lightning Build

3.1 Why this build?

A proper Lightning Sorceress is the fastest PvM character in the game. This full Tal Rasha build is to be used immediately when you can afford the Infinity runeword for your mercenary (see point 3.5.2/1).

3.2 Attributes

See 2.2, it’s the same for this build.

3.3 Skills

Small difference in the one pointers, with the Lightning build I actually use Thunderstorm, because it can be nice with your +light skill grand charms (if you have any) and more importantly your lightning mastery.
You will obviously mostly be using the skills from the Lightning skill tree.

3.3.1 Lightning spells

Static field
1 point. See 2.3.1 for explanation.

Telekinesis
1 point.

Teleport
1 point.

Charged bolt
20 points. Prerequisite and synergy to Lightning and Chain lightning. Also useful against bosses if you get up close.

Nova
1 point at first, when you max your other skills, dump the rest of your skill points in this. Rarely used.

Thunderstorm
1 point. You just have to cast it every now and then, it does the rest by itself. A bit of extra damage. If you manage to max nova, put the rest of the points here.

Lightning
20 points. One of your two main skills. Useful for almost any situation. If the groups of monsters are large (and possibly in a straight line, though that rarely happens), it can hit even more monsters than Chain lightning, and it has 2-3 times Chain lightning’s damage. Also used for bosses if you don’t use charged bolt (with Lightning you can kill them from far away).

Chain lightning
20 points. Your other main skill, used for scattered groups.

Lightning mastery
20 points. Awesome bonus to all your used skills.

3.3.2 Cold spells

Frozen Armor&Shiver armor
1 point (optional).

3.3.3 Fire spells

Warmth
1 point.

3.3.4 Skills overview

• Static field: 1
• Teleport: 1
• Charged bolt: 20
• Lightning: 20
• Chain lightning: 20
• Lightning mastery: 20
• Nova: Remaining points
• Thunderstorm: 1 (+remaining points if you max nova)
• Frozen Armor: 1 (optional)
• Shiver Armor: 1 (even more optional)
• Warmth: 1

3.4 Equipment

You will be using the full Tal Rasha set again.

3.4.1 Weapon

Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye Swirling Crystal
20%fcr, mana, life, +1-2 to lightning mastery, +1 to sorceress skills, -15% enemy lightning resist. You should look for one with +2 to lightning mastery.

The Oculus Swirling Crystal
Explanation in point 2.4.1.

3.4.2 Body Armor

Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate
Explanation in point 2.4.2.

Skin of the Vipermagi Serpentskin Armor
Same as above.

3.4.3 Shield

Spirit Monarch (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn)
Must have at least 27%fcr (I suggest you get a 32+%fcr one, so you can use it in the third build as well).

3.4.4 Helm

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask
Full Tal’s, ‘nuff said.

Harlequin Crest Shako
Explanation in point 2.4.4.

3.4.5 Belt

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt
Full Tal’s.

Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash
2.4.5.

3.4.6 Gloves

Trang-Oul's Claws Heavy Bracers
20%fcr, 30 cold resist and they're cheap. Here these are actually my primary choice.

Magefist Light Gauntlets
20%fcr, +25%mana replenish, +1 fire skills and cheap as well. Not my primary choice here, you have enough mana replenish with your high level warmth, and that is basically the only thing they offer for this build, besides fcr.

3.4.7 Boots

War Traveler Battle Boots
The boots if you want some extra %MF.

Silkweave Mesh Boots
The boots if you have mana problems.

Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
40-50% fire resist (to cover the lack of fire resist on spirit) and 40%frw for when you’re in town.

3.4.8 The switch

Wand of Lower Resistance
Helps with the tougher broken immunes (along with the mercenary’s Infinity’s Conviction aura – see point 3.5.2/2) and other tough monsters.

Call to Arms (Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm) in a random weapon
Still not needed in my opinion, but if it makes you feel safer and you can afford it, well I guess you can use it.

3.4.9 Rings

2 rare/magic rings with 10%fcr and possibly other adds are needed this time to get to the 117%fcr BP.

3.4.10 Amulet

Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet
Full Tal’s set.

Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet
Will be used in the third build, can’t have full Tal’s with it obviously.

3.4.11 Inventory

Hellfire torch Large Charm & Annihilus Small Charm – as high stats as you can afford.

Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
Some extra MF.

Magic charms with resists (try to get all resists to 75 on hell), life, mana, MF.

Again don't fill up your inventory, you'll need some room to pick up items and use the Horadric Cube.
And of course have a tome of town portal in your inventory at all times.

3.4.12 Equipment overview

Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye Swirling Crystal
Tal Rasha's Guardianship Lacquered Plate
Spirit Monarch (27+%fcr)
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt
Trang-Oul's Claws Heavy Bracers
War Traveler Battle Boots/Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
2 rare/magic rings with 10%fcr and other mods if possible.
Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet
Wand of Lower Resistance on switch

Hellfire torch Large Charm
Annihilus Small Charm
Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
Magic charms with resists, life, mana, MF

Horadric Cube
Tome of town portal

3.4.13 Full Tal’s vs. Tal Trio + Shako + Occy

On one hand we have the full Tal's set and on the other we have the Tal trio (Tal belt, amulet and armor) + Harlequin Crest Shako + The Oculus. So what does each of these setups have to offer?

First the full Tal's set:

• 50%fcr
• 179 to mana
• 317 to life
• 10 to energy (which is basically an additional 20 to mana, since you won't be using any % boosts)
• +1-2 to lightning mastery (preferably 2)
• +1-2 to fire mastery (useless)
• +1-2 to cold mastery (useless)
• +6 to sorceress skill levels
• -15% to enemy fire resistance (useless)
• -15% to enemy lightning resistance
• +15% to cold skills damage (useless)
• 10% life stolen per hit (useless)
• 10% mana stolen per hit (useless)
• +138 to lightning resist
• +105 to cold and fire resist
• +65 to poison resist
• 15 magic damage reduction
• 163-168%mf
• 37% damage taken goes to mana
• +20 to dexterity
• adds 3-32 lightning damage (useless)
• replenish life +10
• 25%fhr
• display aura (useless but looks cool)

And now for the Tal trio + Shako + Occy setup:

• 50%fcr
• 15 magic damage reduction
• +93 to lightning resist
• +60 to cold and fire resist
• +20 to posion resist
• 263-268%mf
• 37% damage taken goes to mana
• ~200 to mana (around lvl 85)
• +22 to dexterity
• +5 to sorceress skill levels
• ~170 to life (around lvl 85)
• replenish life +10
• +5 mana after each kill
• 25% chance to cast lvl 1 teleport when struck (why did they have to go and give it this mod?)
• +22 to vitality (basically additional 44 points to life)
• +22 to energy (basically additional 44 points to mana)
• +2 to all skills
• 10% physical damage reduction
• +2 to strength

Now for the comparison, if we take out all the useless mods and mods that both setups have, and add up life and mana, we are left with:

• 100 to life
• +2 to lightning mastery
• +1 to sorceress skill levels
• -15% to enemy lightning resistance
• +45 to all resists
• 25%fhr

vs.

• 100%mf
• ~40 to mana (around lvl 85)
• +5 mana after each kill
• +2 to all skills
• 10% physical damage reduction

There, this looks a little easier to compare, doesn't it?

To finish the comparison:

• The +1 sorceress skills, +2 lightning mastery and -15% enemy lightning resistance will give more damage than +2 to all skills.
• The 100 life is better than 40 mana and +5 mana after each kill, you shouldn't be lacking mana (even if you aren't wearing Silkweaves), thanks to spirit and your other mana boost items.
• The 45 all resists is far superior to 10% physical damage reduction, which you shouldn't be needing too much with this build.
• Now we're left with 25%fhr on one hand and 100%mf on the other. The fhr will let you reach the 60%fhr bp with no additional charms. This isn't really needed but it's still nice to have. The 100%mf is a large boost but unfortunately the effective mf is raised by a lot less (see the guides in section 5.1 for a more detailed explanation).

Hopefully you see now why I chose the full Tal set.

3.5 Mercenary

3.5.1 What kind of an act 2 mercenary should I use?

The types of mercenaries I'd consider here are the same as above, with a different order of preference.

Nightmare defensive (holy freeze)
You have no source of slowing the monsters and this provides some much needed safety.

Normal combat (prayer)
Still a nice aura, just not as effective without Insight on merc.

Nightmare offensive (might)
Same as 2.5.1.

3.5.2 Mercenary's Equipment

The (Giant) Thresher is in this case even more superior to other polearms, because with Infinity you automatically get 40%CB. Faster attacks -> more CB -> more damage.

1) Weapon

Infinity (Ber+Mal+Ber+Ist)
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/paladin-offense.shtml#conviction
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=45978417&f=87
This is the ultimate mercenary weapon for any elemental character. Unfortunately it is also one of the most expensive ones, it will most likely cost more than your entire equipment.

Infinity gives the merc a conviction aura, which will not only lower the resistances of monsters, but will also remove immunity from almost all Lightning immune monsters and will lower their defense, making it much easier for the merc to hit them.
Plus it has many other great mods, such as CB, Vitality, MF (NOTE: the merc's MF only counts if he makes the kill - in that case your MF is added to the merc's. If you make the kill, only your MF counts), Prevent monster heal and a lot of enhanced damage.
The only thing Infinity lacks is IAS which you'll have to make up for with the other two items.

NOTE: The -lightning resistance will only work for the wielder, so unfortunately this mod doesn't help you if your merc is wielding the Infinity.

2) Armor

Treachery (Shael+Thul+Lem)
Even more useful here, because it boosts the CB on Infinity a lot with its IAS.

3) Helm

Andariel's Visage Demonhead
Socket with an IAS jewel to reach the 75% breakpoint. Helps a lot with Infinity’s CB and adds other useful mods as well.

4) Overview of the optimal Infinity setup

Infinity (Giant) Thresher - possibly ethereal
Treachery
Andariel's Visage Demonhead - socketed with an IAS jewel

4) The Griffon’s Lightning Build

4.1 Why this build?

Remember that I said a Lightning Sorceress is the fastest PvM char if it’s properly used and equipped? Well, this is that mentioned proper equipment. It doesn’t have as much %MF as the previous two builds, but with its high killing speed that doesn’t really matter.

4.2 Attributes

Same as 2.2 or 3.2.

4.3 Skills

Same as 3.3.

4.4 Equipment

Guess what? This time you will not be using the full Tal set. Disappointed? Don’t be, this setup is even more effective.

4.4.1 Weapon

Eschuta's Temper Eldritch Orb
One of the two possible weapons, this one is a more damage-oriented one. With 40%fcr, +3skills and a lightning damage boost, it provides the best damage and it has a minor bonus of 20-30 to energy, increasing your mana.

Heart of the Oak (Ko+Vex+Pul+Thul)
The other option, this is a more safety-oriented one. Also has +3skills and 40%fcr, but instead of a damage boost offers 30-40all resists, some mana and Oak spirit charges (which increase your life a bit). I personally prefer Eschuta’s but use whichever you wish.

Crescent Moon (Shael+Um+Tir)
-35 enemy lightning resist, some magic absorb, and some mana after each kill. The –ELR can give a huge damage bonus. Unfortunately this weapon has no fcr, though. Use if you wish, but you’ll need to change some other equipment to reach the proper fcr BP.

4.4.2 Body Armor

Chains of Honor (Dol+Um+Ber+Ist)
+2skills, massive resists, some life and %physical damage reduction. A simply awesome armor.

Skin of the Vipermagi Serpentskin Armor
A cheaper (and of course not as good) version of the Chains of Honor, but also has 30%fcr, which lets you switch some of your other equipment.

4.4.3 Shield

Spirit Monarch (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn)
Needs to have at least 32%fcr.

4.4.4 Helm

Griffon’s Eye Diadem
There is a reason I call this the Griffon’s build. This diadem is the one and only choice for any non-budget PvM Light Sorceress (or any other lightning using char, other than a trapper assassin). +1skills, 25%fcr, -enemy lightning resist, +lightning damage. Can be costly but it’s worth it. Look for one with high -enemy lightning resist, the +damage isn’t as important.

4.4.5 Belt

Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash
A belt with +1 skills, 20%fcr, 5%max mana. Not really many other choices.

4.4.6 Gloves

Bloodfist Heavy Gloves
Life and fhr, these gloves add some safety to your build.

Chance Guards Chain Gloves
If you feel you need some more %MF, use these.

Frostburn Gauntlets
40%max mana. It’s not likely, but if you have any mana problems, these are the gloves for you.

4.4.7 Boots

War Traveler Battle Boots
Vitality, strength, MF.

Silkweave Mesh Boots
In case you have mana problems.

Sandstorm Trek Scarabshell Boots
Vitality, strength, poison resist.

Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
40-50% fire resist (to cover the lack of fire resist on spirit) and 40%frw for when you’re in town.

4.4.8 The switch

Wand of Lower Resistance
See 2.4.8.

Call to Arms (Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm) in a random weapon
Still not really needed, use it if you like.

4.4.9 Rings

Any combination of two of the following rings:

Dwarf Star Ring
Life + fire absorb.

Wisp Projector Ring
MF and light absorb.

Nagelring Ring
MF bonus.

Stone of Jordan Ring
+1skills, massive mana boost.

4.4.10 Amulet

Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet
+2 skills, 20-30all resists, +5 attributes. A great amulet for any char. The clear winner.

Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet
+2 sorceress skills, lightning resist, mana, life. A bit cheaper, but also inferior to Mara’s.

4.4.11 Inventory

Hellfire torch Large Charm & Annihilus Small Charm – as good as you can get.

Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
Some extra MF.

Magic charms with resists (try to get all resists to 75 on hell), life, mana, MF.

4.4.12 Equipment overview

Eschuta's Temper Eldritch Orb/Heart of the Oak
Chains of Honor
Spirit Monarch (32+%fcr)
Griffon’s Eye Diadem
Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash
Bloodfist Heavy Gloves/Chance Guards Chain Gloves
War Traveler Battle Boots/Aldur’s Advance Battle Boots
Any combination of: Dwarf Star Ring/Wisp Projector Ring/Nagelring Ring/Stone of Jordan Ring
Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet
Wand of Lower Resistance on switch

Hellfire torch Large Charm
Annihilus Small Charm
Gheed's Fortune Grand Charm
Magic charms with resists, life, mana, MF

Horadric Cube
Tome of town portal

4.5 Mercenary

Same as 3.5.

5) Where and how to level and where and how to find items

5.1 An explanation of terms and phrases

Mf - Magic find, can also be used as a verb - I'm going to mf = I'm going to kill some monsters/bosses to try to get some good items. When mfing, join random games with a lot of people. The more players there are in a game, the more items the monsters will drop. But the monsters will also have more life when there are more players in the game.
Also used as short for %Better chance to find magic items, which is a mod that can spawn on various items. Generally more %MF means more unique/set/rare drops but the increase in chance quickly starts diminishing.
Google: gta's guide to all that is items
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=19480795&f=87&o=0
Google: diablo 2 wiki item generation
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31211678&f=87
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=30828911&f=87

Run - A repeated clearing of a certain area (or more areas) in subsequent games, with the goal being leveling or finding items. Example: Tristram run = killing tristram monsters to level up. When doing runs to level up, look for games, that will usually be titled something like Tristram-04 or Tristrun-002. The more people there are in a party, the faster you'll get experience. When a game ends, the runner will usually make a new game with the next number (if a game's name is Tristrun-002, the next game's name will be Tristrun-003).

Rush - When a player gets another player through the entire difficulty (starting with andariel quest and ending with either killing diablo, defeating the ancients or killing baal), doing only the necessary quests. For a better explanation of what you're supposed to do as the rusher (the person doing the rush) or the rushee (the person being rushed), try reading the rushing guide (Google: game faqs diablo 2 rush)

Gater (a.k.a. Bumper) - Used in bug rushing, a gater is a player who hasn't yet completed the baal quest but meets the level requirement for it (20 in normal, 40 in nightmare). IF such a player is in a party with other players who do not meet the level requirement, when he gets the quest done (or is in the worldstone chamber when another player kills baal), they do too.

Skill hard level (hlvl) - Points actually invested in the skill via skillpoints that you get when you level up or as quest rewards.

Skill soft level (slvl) - Total skill level, including any +skill bonuses. It is displayed on the skill tree or if you hover your mouse over the desired skill in the skill speed bar.

5.2 How to start

This is the leveling/rushing method for people who have absolutely nothing to start with - with it you can get to lvl 80 in 8-12 hours with some luck - depending on the availability of runs:

1. Make a sorceress of course.
2. Join a 5+ player game and kill stuff in blood moor until you're lvl 5
3. Join a tristrun and do tristruns until lvl 12
4. Join a party that's going to kill andy
5. Join a party that's going to do the summoner quest
6. Tombrun until lvl 20
7. Cowrun until lvl 24
8. Ask on the forums for a normal rush, with some luck you'll get a free one, the ancients quest will put you at lvl 25. Do not do the baal quest yet.
9. Baalrun until lvl 40
10. Offer a normal gater in exchange for a nightmare rush (you can even earn a little bit from this - quite a few players that want to be bug-rushed or want to offer bug-rushes are willing to pay for a gater)
11. Nightmare baalrun until lvl 60
12. Offer a nightmare gater in exchange for a hell rush (you can again earn a little bit from this)
13. Hell baalrun until lvl 85
14. Go mf
15. ...
16. Profit

The alternative with bug-rushing and chaos runs can be faster but without fg you're not likely to find a gater, so the above method will mostly be faster and easier, plus it can even get you some money.

5.3 Where to MF
Google: diablo 2 area levels
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/super.shtml

Unless otherwise specified, all the following areas are meant on hell difficulty:

The answer to this depends on what build you’re using.
If you don't have Infinity on your mercenary, then nice places to mf are:
Nightmare Travincal (Council Members), hell Countess, Andariel, Summoner, Mephisto, Shenk, Eldritch, Pindleskin, Ancient Tunnels.

If you however can afford Infinity, you should mf:
Countess, Pit lvl 2, Andariel, Ancient Tunnels, Summoner, Travincal (optional), Mephisto, Council Members near Mephisto (optional), Shenk, Eldritch, Pindleskin, Nihlathak (not recommended - he can be very tough), Chaos Sanctuary, Worldstone Keep.




6) FAQ and other useful information

1. How do I kill bosses?
   The simplest (and yet effective) strategy is to simply teleport next to them, cast a few static fields, then teleport away and let your merc distract him while you're pumping out lightnings (or sweetspotting + fireballing as explained in 2.3.2). If your merc is about to die, give him a potion or two (shift + 1, 2, 3 or 4 is default to give him a potion from your belt).
   Another less safe but faster strategy is to teleport right next to the boss, pump out static field, then spam Charged Bolt. It does quite a nice amount of damage and its cast rate is faster than Lightning's.
   
2. What if I'm level 80+ but can't afford any of this equipment and just have what I found while leveling?
   Look for the following things in the equipment you find or make (in this order): +skills and %fcr, -enemy cold/fire resistance, resists, +damage, life, mf, fhr, mana.
   Do nightmare cows. They're fairly easy even without equipment and they can drop some nice items. In there you should look mainly for nice charms and socketable items.
   Whatever you do, do not kill the cow king! If you do, you won't be able to open the cow level on that difficulty any more. The cow king is located in a structure with high wooden walls somewhere in the cow level (not the one with low walls).
   
3. What should I put in the sockets that I can get in my equipment with the Larzuk quest?
   Nice choices are perfect topazes (for the helm and armor) and lightning rainbow facets (unique jewels) or rare/magic jewels. Ums can be nice if you need some additional resists.
   
4. Which items should I buy first?
   You should get the full Tal set as soon as you can, it's cheap and gives you a huge boost. Also get magefists. Get Spirit after you get all the items that increase your strength.
   
5. Can this character be used for anything other than mf-ing?
   This sorc can also be used for normal/nm rushes (and damn fast and good ones if properly equipped and if you know what you're doing), with which you can again earn something. It's also possible to rush hell if you have infinity but it won't be as easy as with a hammerdin or similar.
   It's not meant to be used in PvP though, so don't be surprised when someone one-hit-kills you if you're feeling too brave.

7) Ending notes

I hope this guide helped you make a useful mf sorceress. Should you have any comments, suggestions, questions or similar, feel free to PM me or post them here.

7.1 Credits & Thanks

(I will post the names under which I know the people, since I don't know the many names they use. If they ever read this guide, they'll know I meant them)

• aaronjer - for introducing me to the world of Diablo II LoD battle.net and giving me the draft for this guide (albeit unknowingly and unintentionally)
• Arreat Summit ( http://classic.battle.net/ ) - for the useful (although sometimes lacking or even wrong) information about the game
• Faelwen - for the many incredibly useful, in-depth and accurate guides, for helping me out with some wrong info on arreat summit and for helping me with the Full Tal/Tal trio setup comparison
• JayPee and Synonym - for their mercenary guides
• Synonym - for reminding me that fortitude and CA/CV have superior items
• Ancalagon - for his inspirational guides and for helping me with the Full Tal/Tal trio setup comparison
• every other person that helped me with the many questions I posted on d2jsp
  and last but not least
• you, for reading, commenting and hopefully trying out this build

1st! Well, not because of that asshole djsem ^^

Finally something to put in my notes that's worth it

This post was edited by Synonym on Sep 2 2010 07:15am

ty^^ I knew I couldn't post it without interruptions, but I'm not as bothered by those as some people

And inb4tl;dr





This post was edited by MateDeVita on Sep 2 2010 07:16am

tl;dr

Well actually I did some of it Good job!