I have not played seriously for a few years but I want to challenge myself to go for 99 this season. I struggle to find good guidance on which build would be best for P8 TZ while I'm solo in an area.

Self infi nova?
200fcr chain?
Regular light with merc infi?

I basically try to figure out which is best before investing but I dont like nova playetyle too much. Is that the best for p8 games tho to deal with all immunes etc?

self infi nova 105 fcr
if you are able to filter through all the troll posts, I'm sure you can easily find the build that has been posted a billion times

Im trying ro figure out how much worse a "regular" light would be for new terror sone specifically

It's quite good at elite/boss sniping
but it lacks the aoe of nova and the ease of just brainlessly telestomping packs with random positioning

but the traditional light sorc is still among the top builds

Try both in hero editor.

Once you play nova, lite sorc feels clunky.

I use infinity as the break point for the deciding factor. No infinity I play chain light and clear mobs from safety. Once self-infinity it’s time to respec into es nova and tele stomp the game

How about chain 200fcr on tzs with high player count?

it lacks dmg
chain is nice on low player count
200fcr is nice on low player count

for p8, you want 117fcr and to use lightning, not chain
skip scattered trash mobs, blast the elites and anything close to them

if you don't like skipping mobs, you really better play nova

How about Charged Bolt 200fcr?
I'm not a fan of nova, just annoys me, but I need p8 clear ability against immunes. Just exploring options

Nova > Light > other elements > other builds > other games > ... > ??? > chain lightning and charged bolts

You can achieve very similar results in terms of xp and drops if you use lightning.
You just need to skip scattered trash mobs.
If you start to blast lightning at every single target you see you'll have slow clear speed compared to nova.
But if you blast all the elites faster than nova can, then you'll have very similar results to a nova sorc clearing all