I think this kind of sorc is commonly not even considered as an option.
But let me tell you that if you run 1 player games, you might have missed something.
I've been carefully testing all imaginable builds on d2 with hero editor, for testing what is the fastest possible clear speed in the game.
Comes out the nova sorc is #1, and by far (yes I was surprised)

Maxed dmg build, you can look at 3.5k average nova damage, with all monsters having -100 res
This means you deal 7k dmg on the whole screen each cast.
Turns out the average life monsters have in hell is also around 7k
You end up 1-hit killing every single thing act 1-2-3, and it simply takes 2-3 hits to kill anything in act 4-5

Some people might think the downside of nova is its weak vs bosses... well, you have quite enough skill points to max charged bolt and light synergie, which allows you to have access to the fastest boss killing sorc spell.
With 24x 900 dmg bolts, vs a -100 res enemy, you deal 43.2k dmg per cast, allowing you to kill hell baal in 1/3 of the time a max dmg hdin can do.

Your typical Lightning sorc needs 12 frames per cast, enough to 1-hit kill a straight line
while this time frame allows 2 nova, enough to kill the whole screen
It feel strange that the 125fcr hdin and the 117fcr light sorc are the 2 builds always considered like the best.... while the nova sorc is literally twice faster when we look at clearing speed of any area in hell, 3 times faster vs bosses, and also 3 times faster at cleaning complete areas in norm and nm (if we need specific area level farming or for rushing purposes)
And the main bonus of this build? The damage output is enough to trigger the fhr animation of any monsters in the game, which is slower than your casting rate, so it is literally impossible for you to get hit by anything except by bosses (who won't last more then 5 sec) and exploding dolls (easy to make them explode away from you since nova's range is long enough and you can't miss)

The 2 builds I used for the tests :

105 fcr :
-25/20 griff
3/25/-5 eschuta
20/-5/+3nova ormus
20/-20 jmod
arach
40mf chancies
50mf travs
2x soj
30@ mara
torch, anni, cta
4x light gcs, 5x 7mf scs
infinity merc

200fcr :
-25/20 griff
3/25/-5 eschuta
5/-5/35@ viper
35fcr spirit mon
arach
magefist
boots of your choice
2x 10fcr rings
2/10fcr amy
torch, anni, cta
4x light gcs, 5x 7mf scs
infinity merc

Both have similar clearing speed. The 105fcr one is faster in later acts cuz you have the 1-hit kill potential vs a few more monsters, while the 200fcr one clears faster act 1-2-3 and tele faster between each points and kills bosses faster.
Both setups won't ever come close to death.

I repeat, this is for 1-2 player games only
Obviously it sucks in a full game.
But I believe most of us run single player games anyway... so maybe you should give it a try

I like Nova too.

But if you're planning to skill lightning/cb too, you could also just make an ordinary light sorc.

Cuz nova doesnt have synergies, you can easily use another spell like orb/fball/fwall.
I know Master_Zappy had/has a nova/fball hybrid. Nova/orb should work too.

Skill based it'll look smt like this:
fb/nova:
20 nova
20 lmastery
20 fball
20 meteor
1 fire mastery
1 warmth, teleport (if needed)
rest in fmastery/fire bolt. (Most of the time bolt is better if you have much +skills)

Orb/nova:
20 orb
1 cmastery
20 nova
20 lmastery
20 ice bolt
1 warmth, teleport (if needed)
Rest where ever u want (TS can be nice I guess)

I rly like Enigma on a sorc, cuz the big str boost along with 2 skills, frw (nice in town), laek and mf.
This would be my optimal setup:
griffs, enigma, maras, sojs, hoto/eschutas (I like hoto more tho), spirit mon, any boots (hspurs/war travs/aldurs), mfists (if fb)/draks (more laek)/chancies (mf), arachs

I wouldnt go 200 fcr myself tho. 105 shld be enough

Here an example of nova/fb hybrid:

e;
Skilled as followed:
20 nova
20 light mastery
20 fball
20 meteor
1 warmth
1 Fire mastery
rest fire bolt (With the +skills I have here it adds more dmg)

Perf eni, perf maras, perf spirit, perf hoto, perf draks, perf arachs, sojs, hotspurs
light skillers 45 life, perf anni+torch, 7 mf/5 all res scs

This post was edited by Klaasje123 on Sep 11 2017 02:32pm

Tested over 30 hell games each, clearing the 32 most common farming areas, here's the average time to complete the task :

200fcr nova sorc : 13min02, death/chicken : 0
105fcr nova sorc : 13min56, death/chicken : 0
117fcr light sorc : 22min34, death/chicken : 1
125fcr hdin : 23min07, death/chicken : 0
125fcr fishymancer : 23min28, death/chicken : 1
163fcr wind druid : 24min13, death/chicken : 1
102fcr/max trap laying speed sin : 24min58, death/chicken : 2
java/ww/frenzy/summoners/blizz/dual element sorcs : all over 25mins

all of them tested with perfect gear for maximized damage, with 4x skillers and 5x 7mf scs

This post was edited by SinsOfTheSun on Sep 11 2017 02:25pm

Name them all.

I know it's not usual to farm so many areas, but that was giving much better numbers for complete clears vs time between each game
if you run only very limited places, it won't matter how fast you can clear, you'll have to wait between each game anyway
So it was fairly done this way

here :

5 bosses
all mini bosses
pit lvl1
pit lvl2
burial ground
mausoleum
countess
cows/gris
ancient tunnels
summoner
trav
forgotten temple
ruined fane
disused reliquary
river of flame
hepha
chaos sanctuary
abadon
pit of acheron
infernal pit
Nithalak
worldstone 1-2-3+throne
and all known good drops like pindle, shenk, socketeye, etc

That was fully clearing all alvl 85+ and killing the specific mobs in other areas

Now, since you are a well know liar here, mister 40SoJ/day guy, I'm going to call bullshit to all of this without video-pro, not like some of this chars can't be kinda close to some of that times, but I'm not going to buy above 150H testing from you with 0 proofs.

I'm only providing info for those who want it
You can do whatever please you, mister-I-call-bullshit-on-everything-and-I-dont-know-much-about-this-game
The only thing you shouldn't do tho is spamming hate on posts you dislike (that would be nice both for your personal well-beeing and ours)
Have a nice day

Thanks for sharing the info!
Yeah that's the exact setup I was running previously
and yes, I was using hoto also, but I stopped when I realized that the defensive stats were not needed cuz of the permanent fhr animation on the whole screen (which is not the case for anything else but nova)
Dual element can be nice, but then you loose the killing speed of maxed charged bolt vs bosses
having nova and weak fb is lame vs bosses
and there's really no need for dual element when you have infinity and -55 light res from griff, 20/-20 shield, and 2x facets in wep/armor
easily gets all monsters to -100, and you simply skip the few who remains immune or let you merc take care of the ones you need dead ^^

usually, people just say stuff that's wrong
but you're on another level: you put emphasis on your mediocrity

85 res from infinity + 55 on self
Name me a list of monsters with that amount of light res (Im not talking about immunes)
I assure you, this is true for over 95% of monsters you'll find, cuz theyre either 0res, ~30res or fully immune and skipped