hey guys

back in the day of d2lod i always did frozen orb, sometimes hybrid with chain lightning but these days with the new items is there any need of doing hybrid at all?

plus - i started plaiyng warlock but i absolutely cannot keep going on doing mf runs without teleport and no way im buying eni, so i just grushed a sorc:

what's the best build atm for a budget sorc to do countess - andy - meph runs, maybe focusing mostly on keyruns and stuff like that?

you can do with basic / mid gear easily farm tkeys and hkeys with nova sorc
hit me ingame and ill show you my gear, or sell ya stuff you are missing

edit, andy and meph runs, you need to switch / respech to blizzard, needs better gear

This post was edited by r7ap7r on Mar 5 2026 03:17am

i wouldnt mind spending a bit - plus i have some of the 20k damage warlock's gear i can just move, should i just go blizz then?

i think its really the question what you like, both of em nova or blizzard cannot farm every spot like an echoing strike lock could.

and if you wanna have some more fun, rocking mf and finding items, blizzard is the way you shoud go

but nova is very unique and also fun too, if you never tried her, i often played blizzard sorc never tried nova, this season i started nova and enjoyed her rly
but you get bored after doing the 100th time countess/summoner all the time
well she can do hell cows p1 too, tbh
when u get gg gear (self weared scythe infinity and sunder charm) she rocks every spot.

Nova is the best budget key runner but it is horrible for andy/meph. To adjust for what you want to do, you'll need to drop nova points to a minimum and add either blizzard or hydra.

Use a skill calculator like the one at wowhead to determine the minimum nova damage that is equal to 1/12 of the countess minion's max hit points given your current gear. Should be 810 dmg in most cases or 680 dmg if you use crescent moon. This will allow you to always put the minions into hit recovery so you will survive the runs with budget gear. Arcane goatmen will also get put into hit recovery with this level of damage so now you can run 2 keys on a budget. It should be <40 points in lightning tree to accomplish this with +7 skills.

That leaves you enough points to get a 3k blizzard or a 1.2k hydra. Add a lower res wand and you'll be fast enough with the bosses.

If you have enough charms/gear for >1200 life and capped res already you could go pure fire sorc and still survive the key runs. This is probably better than blizz for running countess as your merc needs to do too much work vs cold immune countess minions for efficiency.

P1 you can get by with a frozen orb / fireball sorc. Otherwise go blizz+ ice blast classic cold Sorc but only farm bosses / ancient tunnels

Starter build = Blizzard Sorc
Endgame build = Nova, Lightning, Blizzard, Fireball, Demon Machine Enchant sorc

For running Endbosses with 300mf +, Blizzard sorc is the best. For leveling and area clear, Nova sorc wins in sc.

For funsies, try out demon machine sorc and the new fireball sorc. They're fun.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 5 2026 07:21am

thx for the help guys, i'm trying out nova sorc and its very interesting, my gear sucks bad but i can clear what i wana clear very quick and pretty safe

y'all are the best

you don't need great gear to do an enchant sorc with demon machine just the crossbow and razortail belt and you can use hellwarden will helm (its cheap as fuck and have everything you need on it) you can eighter go with a secondary skill like frozen orb on switch and a might merc or just buy a cheap fire sunder from D2r LoD ladder and put all those points you have left over from maxing enchant into Telekinesis/Energy shield (a simple a2 prayer merc with insight & cure if you go ES)

This post was edited by Bers3rker on Mar 5 2026 02:03pm

ok just youtubed that lmao i had no idea something like this existed