Diablo II staged against the sorceress? (is the sorceress weak?)

Firstly, this is supposed to be a discussion about the sorceress class. What about exactly? Read on!

I have been playing DII for a very long time and I could not help but notice that the sorceress class is somewhat gimped. Why? Perhaps I am wrong here, but hear me out.

Before you read on, the following is an opinion from a sorceress player whose playing style does NOT include a mercenary and who likes SOLO play more than teaming up, and I shy away from Infinity not only because it's become boring, but because it's too generic as well (at least for me). Plus, the use of Infinity also means using a mercenary, so...Anyway, please read the following keeping in mind what I just said.

I'm talking about immunities on Hell.

There are simply too many of them. Almost any monster I run into has an elemental immunity. When I run into a boss, it has at least two immunities, and if they happen to be the ones I specialized for, I'm basically screwed. And tri-elemental sorceresses leave me too weak to be honest...so much effort for them for just mediocre damage, or even less than mediocre...it's not worth it in my opinion. Too much effort for a mediocre result.

Elemental immunities are way too common. Physical immunes, magic immunes and poison immunes are not nearly as common as fire, cold and lightning immunities. You see whole packs immune to one of your elements, like cold, for example. And they are very common compared to let's say, physical immune packs. Physical immune packs are rare compared to cold immune packs, or fire immune packs, or lightning immune packs.

I'll be honest....I feel like **** when I invest 50+ skill points into fire only to see that every other boss on Hell is immune to it, not to mention a bunch of other normal monsters. That's half my god damn skill points...and they ain't worth crap. Almost any other PvM build can get more out of 50 skill points than a sorceress. Because my 50 skill points don't mean **** when so many monsters are immune to fire.

Is the game staged against the sorceress? Are a sorceresses' skill points worth less than those of other classes?

IMO, the answer is yes. But I would like to hear your opinions. Am I wrong and just over reacting, or is there some truth in what I said?

Thanks for reading, and I'm eagerly awaiting any comments.|||Perhaps try out d2 versions 1.06 or earlier. No immunities there so you can enjoy spamming your favourite skills as much as you want. More hell viable skills overall, too. and once you try 1.06 static field, there is no way sorceress could seem underpowered, Lol |||Quote:








Perhaps try out d2 versions 1.06 or earlier. No immunities there so you can enjoy spamming your favourite skills as much as you want. More hell viable skills overall, too. and once you try 1.06 static field, there is no way sorceress could seem underpowered, Lol




This much I know But this is version 1.13, and not 1.06, sadly. And I play on battle.net, so I can't really just play any version I like. I wouldn't want to either, since 1.13 is the official version.

But like I said, I play on Battle.net, so playing another version is not a possibility |||wow this brings back memories of the world of warcraft forums, back when i played that game LOL. everyone always complaining about how their class sucks. probably a troll post but i'll bite.

sorceress is the 2nd most played class on bnet, just behind paladin. she's not gimp at all. If you think she's gimp, you're doing it wrong.

and most classes have problems with immunities, not just sorcs.

I'm not sure what you're problem is-- a dual element sorc build can easily solo hell untwinked. single element sorcs make some of the best MF chars and you can spec energy shield for very high survivability. my infinity lightning sorc can solo any area of the game quickly and easily while wearing 1700% gold find gear.

so i guess your main problem is killing that one dual immune mob (that you should be skipping anyway) because you can't be bothered to hire a merc?|||Quote:








wow this brings back memories of the world of warcraft forums, back when i played that game LOL. everyone always complaining about how their class sucks. probably a troll post but i'll bite.

sorceress is the 2nd most played class on bnet, just behind paladin. she's not gimp at all. If you think she's gimp, you're doing it wrong.

and most classes have problems with immunities, not just sorcs.

I'm not sure what you're problem is-- a dual element sorc build can easily solo hell untwinked. single element sorcs make some of the best MF chars and you can spec energy shield for very high survivability. my infinity lightning sorc can solo any area of the game quickly and easily while wearing 1700% gold find gear.

so i guess your main problem is killing that one dual immune mob (that you should be skipping anyway) because you can't be bothered to hire a merc?




No my friend, this is not a troll post Thanks for replying! This is not a whine either, like I said, it's supposed to be a discussion.

I know all classes have problems with immunities, and I did not say otherwise. I was making the point that immunities are way more of a problem for a sorceress than other classes, because the sorceress relies on elemental damage (fire, cold, lightning), and those immunities are the most common types of immunities in the game. Physical, magic and poison immunes are very rare compared to fire, cold and lightning.

Also, let's leave mercenaries out of this. Everyone has their own play style, and mine does not include a mercenary. My main problem is not with the mercenaries themselves, but rather with the fact that a sorceress RELIES on one to be a tank. I happen to like the idea of a sorceress who can get by on her own, and prefer to play without a mercenary.

Also, I realize that the sorceress is a great MF-er, and that it's a very common and popular class, and very fun to play (it's the only class I have ever played, I tried other classes and no class I ever played was nearly as interesting as the sorceress) but that's not the point of the discussion |||I agree that Sorcs have an unfair disadvantage. Light Sorc with Infinity is the only one which can handle Hell like other characters. Other builds do work but its difficult (compared with Light Sorc/Hammerdin/Summoner ext.) even with great gear.

Of course if you did change the game so there were no immunities then Sorcs skills would have to be completly rebalanced. Without immunities sorcs would be far too powerful so all there skills would need to be nerfed.

IMO all they should really do is stop infinity breaking light immunes, at least then other builds would compete on an even playing field.|||It really is unfair for the sorceress if you focus on mastering a single powerful skill like lightning or blizzard.

When you choose to go dual elemental, your usually forced to use the same typical skills.|||I think they should find ways to sorcs break cold and fire imunities, but infinity would be too obvious. Maybe cold mastery could break imunities, they would just have the max monster cold resist should be -200.



It would be nice do spam a super orb and kill everything on screen, like lightning does today.

Or maybe make Hydras able to break immunities.|||Quote:








I agree that Sorcs have an unfair disadvantage. Light Sorc with Infinity is the only one which can handle Hell like other characters. Other builds do work but its difficult (compared with Light Sorc/Hammerdin/Summoner ext.) even with great gear.

Of course if you did change the game so there were no immunities then Sorcs skills would have to be completly rebalanced. Without immunities sorcs would be far too powerful so all there skills would need to be nerfed.

IMO all they should really do is stop infinity breaking light immunes, at least then other builds would compete on an even playing field.




I agree. I think there should be only one immunity per monster, and that the 6 types of immunities should be spread out equally among the monsters in Hell difficulty, so that no one immunity would be encountered too often.

Like this, I have always felt that the game is pretty much staged against me, and I don't even wanna talk about Uber Tristram, where the adds are immune to ALL 3 of your elements. And everywhere I go, elemental immunities are abundant, and there's no way you can use your skills freely like other classes. And you know that your main skill will only last you until Hell, because then it's gonna be overshadowed by immunities.


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It really is unfair for the sorceress if you focus on mastering a single powerful skill like lightning or blizzard.

When you choose to go dual elemental, your usually forced to use the same typical skills.




Yup, Frozen Orb is getting really boring as a backup skill, especially after I made like what, 50 sorceresses or so during the time I played DII? And I'm talking 50 minimum here, what on Single Player mode, what on Battle.net, SC or HC...you name it.


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I think they should find ways to sorcs break cold and fire imunities, but infinity would be too obvious. Maybe cold mastery could break imunities, they would just have the max monster cold resist should be -200.



It would be nice do spam a super orb and kill everything on screen, like lightning does today.

Or maybe make Hydras able to break immunities.




It's kind of ironic that the sorceress has no inherent way whatsoever to break immunities, considering that almost EVERY Hell monster has at least one elemental immunity, and the sorceress deals only elemental damage.|||Blizzard has tried to balance the game but it's difficult to do that. You have serveral classes each with their strengths and weaknesses so it's really impossible to do it fairly. No matter what is done, one class will always seem stronger or weaker than another. When I think of a sorceress or some type of magic user, I imagine someone that has control of magic to deal with any type of situation. I play Single Player and I've made Tri-Elementalists which I posted in the Single Player Forum and some that I did not post. I do have to agree that they are weaker and I play them on lower player settings (up to a 4 player game). I've created some Dual-Elementalists (Meteorb and CL/FO) and noticed the increase in power in those builds. My merc takes care of the immunities that my sorc cannot deal with otherwise I just teleport past it. Maybe we're better off playing a different game.