Quote (general_patton @ Tue, Nov 4 2008, 03:59am)

Skills in Descending Order

Max Frozen Orb
Enough into Cold Mastery to hit lvl 17 (not much after torch, anni, Tal's set)
1 point Teleport
1 point Static Field
1 point Chilling Armor (yes, chilling armor, the second one. It's much better as it freezes targets before you get hit, rather than simply raising some defense)
1 point Warmth
Max Hydra
Max Telekinesis
Enough into Energy Shield to hit +80% or so (after 9 es leaf stick, not too much)
Dump the rest into Fire Mastery + hydra synergies. Depending on your gear, decided exactly how many points into what will yield more damage using a skill calculator

Stats
Strength - enough for gear
Dex - enough for max block. Yes, maxblock with an ES sorc
Vit - none
Energy - the rest.

Gear

Tal Helm with Sol Rune or Sapphire, dex jewel etc. Um rune if you need.

Tal Armor with Sol rune or Sapphire, dex jewel, etc.

Tal Amulet

Tal Belt

Tal Weapon with a facet, a dex jewel, a strength jewel. Doesn't really matter, find something that helps you.

Sandstorm Treks - hit recovery, strength, poison resists (very nice)

x2 Stone of Jordan - 1 to skills, 25% maximum mana. Great for ES sorcs, as that equates to a ton of life.

Magefists - 1 to fire skills (aids in hydra and warmth), 20 % faster cast rate, 30% mana regen. Awesome gloves.

Gerke's Sanctuary - Weird, huh? This is the shield that makes this sorc so strong. It's cheap, and best of all, it doesn't have a strength requirement of 156. No way, fuck that.
Defense: 221-268 (varies)(Base Defense: 68-78)
Required Level: 44
Required Strength: 133
+180-240% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+30% Increased Chance of Blocking
All Resistances +20-30 (varies)
Replenish Life +15
Damage Reduced By 11-16 (varies)
Magic Damage Reduced By 14-18 (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)
**Socket this with a Shael rune to hit the 7 frame blocking breakpoint.

Weapon Switch
9 ES memory stick (helps if you really want to save plus skills and increase survivability.
Call to Arms - get the highest you can. If you don't have one of these, get a barbarian friend and have him BO you.

Inventory
Torch
Annihilus
Gheeds
Random MF charms
Whatever cold and fire GCs you can scrape together. They aren't really needed, but they certainly help.

Mercenary - Act 2 Normal Combat - Very important, this mercenary is the lifeline of the sorc. Prayer Aura ftw.
Insight Ethereal Great Poleaxe axe - try to get a lvl 17 aura, as that mana regen keeps you alive.
Treachery - 45% IAS, fade, venom. Keeps the mercenary hitting things fast and faded. Chains of Honor is great as well, if you can afford it.
Andy's Visage with a Ral rune - 20% IAS, massive strength, life leech, and a ton of poison resist to boot.

FAQ

Why a Tal sorc guide? They aren't original at all.
Of course they aren't. This guide isn't supposed to be original, it's supposed to be a guide for the magicfinders that play Hardcore or the casual JSPer that can't afford much more than Tal set and some Frostburns. I don't claim this character build to be original, just effective at magicfinding and surviving. I'm not expecting a sticky with this guide, but that's not to say that I won't ask for one

But Energy Shield, wont' you get raped by Manaburns or Mana Maiden?
That's just the thing with this Sorceress. If you play her right, you shouldn't get hit. But this sorceress has Max Block, PDR and MDR, a prayer + meditation mercenary to regenerate her life and mana bulb at crazy speeds, and she also gets a 7 frame block rate. She also comes built in with Glacial Spike to freeze the masses of non cold immunes for easier and safer killing.

Why Prayer Merc?
Prayer mercenaries grant the Prayer aura, which regenerates health every 2 seconds. Meditation gets a synergy bonus from Prayer, and as such effectively doubles Prayer's healing speed (its like having 2 prayer auras stacked on top of eachother). On an Energy Shield sorceress, Meditation and 2 prayer auras is a winning combination. A Prayer mercenary also benefits from plus skills, which are further increased by the passive synergy bonus to Meditation. So by all means pile on the plus skills for the mercenary!

Why is Tal's Set so special?

This is what Tal's Set gives
Tals' Set with this gear selection gives enough cast rate to hit the 9th frame faster cast rate breakpoint, which is good enough on a max block sorceress that uses 2 cast delay spells.

Tal's Set also grants adequate magicfind, a respectable hit recovery level, a ton of resists (which is hardly needed, but this ES sorc only hits about 80%), and a decent amount of plus skills at a relatively low cost. Yes, I know that -resists does not work with Hydra, as Hydra is a summon.

Gerke's Sanctuary? Wtf...
Gerke's Sanctuary is a great shield that grants block, resists, and most importantly, PDR and MDR. These by far help you more than Damage Reduction % in PvM. Damage Reduction # reduces the amount of physical damage you take, along with Magic Damage Reduced by # which reduces the elemental damage you take. Combine this with a max block energy shield sorc that has a prayer/meditation mercenary and the chances of dying start to diminish. You really have to fuck up to die with this sorceress, and gloams aren't as great of a hazard with this kind of equipment. I definitely recommend sniping Gloams around a corner with Hydras, however.

Why are you using Hydras?
Hydra is a great secondary skill that allows this sorceress to do adequate fire damage without investing too many skillpoints into synergies for the sake of a decent Energy Shield with a maxed Telekinesis. Cast Hydra and they do the work for you, although Frozen Orb by far is this Sorceress's main attack.

PvM Strategies

Magicfind areas such as Andariel, Mephisto, Travincal, Pindleskin, Frigid Highlands (the mercenary + Static field + hydras can finish them with relative ease). There's not much to say here, Static field the bosses, Glacial spike monsters to freeze them, Hydra the cold immunes and Frozen orb everything else.

Quote (FinalOnSlaught @ Mon, Nov 17 2008, 09:05pm)

for all of you touting es / mb / mf is a waste i laugh @ you..

lvl 89 sorceress ManaPoints on this seasons HCL.

40 Hoto
maras
soj
raven
Um'd Shako
Um'd Perf Def Guardian angel
Um'd Storm Shield
Arach
MageFists
64 life waters.

Max block / es / blizz / prayer meditation merc..

i can tele into anything and live with 45%dr 95fire / 90res res.

4.8k blizz
1.6k life
1.8k mana

has survived so far, and hits 75%fcr bp or w/e it is

Quote (and1balla_7 @ Tue, Nov 18 2008, 05:52am)

id rather go mb vit and use a infinity merc just cause its a sorc i mean :S.  there are a few cold immunes u can break haha :S.

and have u thought of fire wall instead of hydra?  fire wall+ mastery = more dam then hydra + mastery if i recall.

Quote (general_patton @ Wed, Nov 19 2008, 02:30pm)

I like hydra because it auto aims on targets, you can shoot it around corners, it isn't quite as mana intensive as firewall, and it is more conducive to PvM and not solely boss running. Firewall has it's place, but it is somewhat ineffective without freezing the target first, which in that case, why would you use firewall at all if you had to freeze the target first?

Firewall probably does more damage on the character screen, from what I remember it does like 7k with shitty gear.

I'll try firewall on my hero editor rather than Hydra and I'll see how it goes.

Edit: There are only a very small amount of cold immunes that are broken, you are much better off using a prayer insight mercenary.

Quote (izParagonzi @ Tue, Nov 18 2008, 08:04pm)

<DIV class="quote1">Quote (general_patton @ Wed, Nov 19 2008, 02:30pm)</DIV><DIV class="quote2">I like hydra because it auto aims on targets, you can shoot it around corners, it isn't quite as mana intensive as firewall, and it is more conducive to PvM and not solely boss running. Firewall has it's place, but it is somewhat ineffective without freezing the target first, which in that case, why would you use firewall at all if you had to freeze the target first?

Firewall probably does more damage on the character screen, from what I remember it does like 7k with shitty gear.

I'll try firewall on my hero editor rather than Hydra and I'll see how it goes.

Edit: There are only a very small amount of cold immunes that are broken, you are much better off using a prayer insight mercenary.</DIV>

Hi ya: Just a note on the Fire Wall idea. My first post got stickied, but, since I can not respond, I did a repost:
http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=21486830&f=87&st=0#entry123205531

The initial Fire Wall damage reaches 5-9k (this is dependent on what level your Fire Mastery is)

Quote (general_patton @ Wed, Nov 19 2008, 10:00pm)

THe damage of hydra with Tal's set, assuming you are about lvl 85 with a torch, anni, CTA, and no skillers, you hit about 1k or so. But that is when you max out telekinesis first, so there are not a whole lot of points into fire mastery. The hydra is more of a backup, they are a bit more effective when you spam Static Field between hydra castings.

Obviously, if you leveled up more, put less points into ES and more into fire mastery, or got some fire skillers, the damage would be quite a bit higher. I still hit like 500ish frozen orb damage, which is more than enough for me.

This build is designed to take damage with few problems and damage the most amount of opponents it's skill points can afford. Fire wall is likely viable.

Quote (general_patton @ Tue, Nov 4 2008, 03:59am)

But Energy Shield, wont' you get raped by Manaburns or Mana Maiden?