Mhm. Hardcore is a different league altogether. And sorceress may be the most difficult class to start with, without help or gear. So you put the bar high for yourself. The first lesson in hardcore, if you want to survive, is to learn to have patience and make steady progress. One step at a time.
The best thing to do is to begin with warmt, and skill fire bolt. When you get to level 6, skill static field and fire bolt every other level. Progress may be a bit slow, but this is for the better for later.
Cold skills probably can work as well, i haven't done that route in normal. I imagine that glacial spike is pretty efficient.
When you get to level 12, fire ball becomes available. This should be your main skill through entire normal, along with static field for large high hit point groups, until you reach level 30. Then hydra is a great skill.
Static field is very overpowered in normal, since you can drain enemy hit points down to 1% if necessary. Nightmare too, down to 25% hp. That includes bosses as well. Though some monsters and bosses have lightning resist, and may take a few casts to bring down, when you get static to level 15+, it hits for a very long range and is extremely efficient. Only when you get to hell mode and is well equipped, can you consider ditching it and focusing on hydra and frozen orb.
Now to the mana problem. It is well known that this is a problem. Sacrificing gear slots for socketed armor and helmets with sapphire gems is the best way to increase mana. Using pots is not to get around, you have to use them, and use them often. Collect armors and staves/wands and sell them to get gold to buy mana pots. Sacrifice a few points in strength to use heavy belt, to get 3x4 pot slots.
One technique to mitigate mana spending, is this: You herd the monsters a little bit. Herd them into a pack. Start using spells while kiting them or having the merc engage them if he or she can tolerate it. When you use spells, use a mana pot or two. Mana and health potions don't give you mana or health outright, it increases the regeneration rate. This way, you can make the regeneration last for a longer time, making you able to keep casting mana-costly spells for a longer time until it either refills, breaking the regeneration, or empties.
Either way, remember that this is one of the most difficult ways to begin on the ground level, so be patient and make steady progress.
One big ace in the hole you have as a sorceress using high level static field in normal and nightmare, is doing baalruns. The 5 packs baal drops, is very easy to defeat when just spamming static field. This is very valuable to other players too if you play multiplayer. This also makes baalruns easier... making you find gear faster.
I don't play d2r, so i don't know if quest bugging is an option. If it is, you should check it out:
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=71142281But when you get hardcore to work, it is very rewarding and exhilarating. This is my season so far:
Thread i made:
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=95805751&f=21This post was edited by Taurean on Aug 18 2022 07:52am
D2:R