I will start as kicker and probarly quit after 2 hell mf runs as usual xD

Fireball and meteor until late nightmare - max out fireball, 1 pt fire mastery then max out meteor. Pick up every gem except flawed if you plan to do more than just run Hell Mephisto, otherwise disregard.

Run norm countess until you get
tir ral - leaf
tal eth - stealth
couple tirs, rals, etc are nice too but not necessary

Use fireball build to run NM countess until you get a couple sols, amns, shaels as they might come in handy later.

Respec to vita blizzard once I have minimum
ancients pledge or 3 pdiamond kite shield if I get lucky with hellforge
stealth armor
20 FCR wand - spirit broadsword is obviously superior
x2 FCR rings
Topazes in helm and mf everywhere else, vendor shopped boots gloves belt etc work fine
Put like 60ish into strength, rest vit. No need spirit monarch we still have 2 respecs.
Should have 700ish life which is enough for Hell.

Rush through act 1 and 2, buy a magic war pike from Farah, roll it until it's cruel (200-300ED) and hopefully 2 sockets. Any damage mod will work for ancients, I like to beat the game so I can run cows for eth polearms and such. Chuck a shael/amn or eth/amn whatever you have in there to make it better.

Run through the rest of the game skipping cold immunes, unless they are unskippable like lord de seis, at which point use the merc and the cruel war pike to smash them.

Glitch merc for ancients to take out the cold immune, continue to baal.

Shouldn't have too many issues with baal waves or baal.

I find that the monster density in Cows beats the lack of density in say, Mausoleum, when it comes to finding eth 4 socket elite polearms (they also have increased drop odds for elite polearms so it's a no brainer). Therefore I like to go through the entire game not just through to act 3. Blizz sorcs are shitty at running Pits and Hell Countess until they get a merc with a half decent polearm even then they are not optimal.

Once stormshield is acquired, respec to blizz sorc with max block, defiance merc, Tgods, and eth elite merc polearm like obedience or insight. Idgaf about 105 FCR, I'd rather have a sorc that doesn't lose 500 baal runs worth of exp from a bad teleport.

Respec later to lightning if infinity is acquired and I really want to spend another fifteen high runes on gear I didn't find, like griffons, 35 FCR spirit monarch, 17% FCR sorc amulet, enigma, etc.

why max meteor first? fire mastery gives more fire dmg then the synergy from meteor.

Well you could go with an Enchanter Bow sorc at the beginning... especially if you find that unique level 15 bow that deals Exploding damage getting more damage from enchant for yourself and your merc.

There is also the old school Fire Wall / Blizzard build from 1.09 days, now with synergies it is a little bit better than then.

If you are untwinked... hybridize early levels with Enchant, Warmth and 1 Base Glacial spike (mana guzzler) and use a bow on switch... but (just remembered Raven Claw bow) a fire bolt orb on other side. Also, if you have like some +Dex charms, you could equip javs and throw those in early levels.

You can just respec later on after you get some decent gear... I normally use Rogue (cold) Act 1 Normal to Act 2 Nightmare and switch merc.

Nostalgia moments again...

Meteor gives 14% to fire ball, fire mastery only gives 7% after the first point. 20 in fb and 20 in FM gives 700 fireball, 20 in fb and 20 in meteor with 1 in mastery gives 1100.

Meteor also works decent for nightmare meph and trav council.


After about level 50ish I respec to blizz or frozen orb anyways so either approach is fine, nightmare is a joke for sorcs.

Cool thanks for info this is rly helpful

Also I currently drop bugged mephisto, do you do normal meph runs? Or suggest drop bugged ones

I’m just joining public diaruns and since I can lock him in place anyway I can quite easily kill him

I usually have extra time and do andariel too

Currently lvl 66 and blizz

what do u mean with ''rolling'' a war pike tho ? until its cruel

Dang... not sure if this is still current, but Nightmare cow runs have a higher % chance of finding 3/20/20s... think this also applies to WSK & Throne (NM)

In hell difficulty I believe it is Act 3 upwards... something about ilvl 0lvl or other things... dang it... been so long just going off from old memories.

Too tired to look up Arreat summit prefix / suffix (charms) or other guides relating to the answer.

EDIT: I use to collect what fell there and re-roll them, it was fun times.

This post was edited by izParagonzi on Apr 20 2021 07:33am

I think normal baal is the only normal boss worth running. That is only til like lvl 40-50. Quest glitch Andarial for nightmare and hell runs.

Buy a magic warpike from farah act 2 hell.

Roll it in the cube with 3 chipped, 3 standard, or 3 flawless gems until you get 200-300 ED. Also comes with 1-2 sockets. Chuck whatever you got in there, Use that for merc to slay immunes until you get something better.

Sometimes I get skunked after so many mephisto runs and he doesnt drop me a bonehew or anything good.