A bit of help needed

So, I recently returned to Diablo 2 after years away and started playing with a friend. Long story short, I made a Sorc to MF with since the ladder is all new and shiny.

Anyhow, I seem to have come to an impasse with my dear Sorcy. I just hit level 60 earlier today and I've been using the Orb-it-aller build posted up above. It's an awesome build and I thoroughly enjoyed it once I got Orb at 30 and straight on to 60. My orb is maxed and hits like a monster truck, but that's not the problem.

The problem is, I can't seem to go anywhere now that I've finished up NM. I think I'm still too low for Hell, and I wouldn't go anyway since I can barely survive in NM. I'll state that I have absolutely no gear whatsoeverrrr. Using some +3 cold staff, and a bunch of random stuff that I've found. My res in NM is laughable, I can't get hit by a bolt of anything or I die. My merc has a "Malice" polearm that I made back in normal and still haven't found anything to upgrade to. He's got no life leech so he just keels over unless I spam pots into him.

Basically, I'm a mess. I tried NM meph and got my rear-end handed to me. Only thing I can do 100% is Countess and Andy, but..I really don't get anything. So, what to do?! Been saving up Runes and Pgems to try and get stuff but that actually requires me to kill stuff! Anyway, help is appreciated.

Just for a reference my sorc is:

90 str (+10 from gear)

base dex

rest vit (579 health/210 mana)

Max FO, 15 Ice bolt, 7 CM +4 from ammy/staff, rest is firebolt/fireball/fm

71% FHR, 35% fcr

My Merc: Malice poleaxe, Rockfleece plate, and some crappy blue helm : / I have the runes for insight but, I don't think I should use it since he still has no LL and I can't find a decent wep >.<

Needless to say my FO is nice, but my fireball is..a bit lackluster, I can't hurt anything with it not even with static spam and then try to finish. That's about all I can remember off the top of my head. So, help me! Should I try max block? Different build? Is there somewhere I can try to get decent gear to trade/have?!

Thanks |||You should try a blizzard / tal rasha set based build.

Max out blizzard and all the synergies along with cold mastery, 1pt in warmth, static, tele, shiver armor.

Don't go for max block.

Equip full tal rasha set with any boots, frostburns or magefists, any +fcr rings or resists rings you find while mfing, and spirit shield if you can afford to craft one (quite easy in ladder).

Hire an act 2 defensive merc (norm or hell for defiance aura) and give him anything that gives nice def or life leach.

Keep leveling. At lvl 80 or so you'll be able to mf in hell quite easily (meph and andy won't cause trouble).|||forgot to say something:

use blizzard in right click and while it's red, cast glacial spikes while waiting for blizzard.|||with runes u can farm from the nm countess and some that usually drop in nm at some point build as much as possible of these:

spirit 1 hand sword 'tal thul ort amn'

rhyme bone or grim shield 'shael eth' for max block and mf or ancient pledge 'ral ort tal' for base dex and more res

for armor there are several choices, i put them in order of my personal preference:

-smoke 'nef lum'

-lionheart 'hel lum fal'

-stealth 'tal eth'

splendor circlet or bone helm 'ort sol'

craft a caster belt and gamble or craft some boots with res

this should give u a few plus skills and more than decent res in nm. i�d personally go for max block but this is ofc a matter of preference. respec and put no points into ice bolt, instead invest them into fireball and its synergies.

ur merc will benefit from having insight if he�s an a2 normal combat merc. it should keep him alive long enough while u run over everything with ur orb

try to get to 65 fcr and everything should be easier|||Thanks guys! Got my bone shield super easy, broke my heart getting a crystal sword in nm cows and taking to Larz only to waste the socket 'cause it came out +6 instead of 4 >.< Not to mention I was all happy to make an insight wep for my merc and realized too late it wasn't even a polearm! Debating if I should waste my only Hel to unsocket it, the runes aren't that high for me to worry about really.

Ah well, it's what I get for playin when my brain is fried. Thanks again, guys.|||krupa's post x2

providing you can stand the brainmelting amount of countess runs needed to grab all those runes, its your easy route to a reasonable setup, enough to get you past nm meph etc.

beyond that either trade for a tals, or something like occulus + shako + arachnid + vipermagi + silkweave + magefist... personally I'd go tals, its cheap to trade for.