Introduction: Why Build a Light Sorc?
With Godly items, a pure light sorc is the strongest of all sorceresses and one of the strongest characters in the game. The reason she is the strongest of sorceresses is because most light immune monsters, unlike fire or cold immune monsters, have only 100% resist lightning, which means their resistances can be broken by an infinity. A light sorc she can kill 99% of the creatures in the game with her spells. Neither a pure cold sorc nor a pure fire sorc can make this boast. She is also stronger than a dual element sorceress because her primary spells get more synergies and do more damage.
However, if you are poor (cannot afford an infinity, HOTO, or a griffons, and lack torch or annihilus) a pure light sorc is not a smart decision. Her difficulty is that she has to STAND STILL to do damage. Blizzard and meterorb sorcs use "fire-and-forget" weapons like the way a mujaheddin uses a Stinger missile launcher. A blizzard sorc can press a button, teleport away, and watch her spell blast the enemy to bits. A light sorc does not have this luxury. She is a lot less effective at kiting than a blizzard or a meteorb sorc. If she cannot kill her enemies in two or three casts she will be mobbed and destroyed.
The Pros and Cons of Carrying an Infinity
As a light sorceresses, should I carry an infinity or should I leave it on the merc? All good light sorceresses eventually confront this dilemma, and the topic has been discussed in other guides. To summarize:
The advantage of carrying an infinity instead of leaving it on the merc is because of the -55 light resistance mod on the runeword. That mod, if used, will almost double her damage (discussed later). By equipping herself with an infinity she also frees up a weapon spot for her merc, which can be used for an insight (for mana) or a EBOTD Warpike (for physical damage) or a second infinity (explained later).
However the disadvantage of carrying an infinity is that she cannot equip a HOTO, or a Spirit (HOTO is better than eschutchas for a sorc. This is discussed elsewhere, but for now just take my word for it). The HOTO and the Spirit when combined provide +5 to skills, 75 fcr, several hundred points of mana, and +75 to all resistances except fire. In other words, by carrying an infinity she's giving up some essential stuff. Many infinity carrying sorcs rely on mana pots for mana and/or have a slower teleporting speed than a HOTO-Spirit equipped Light Sorc.
The Guide
The build below is an infinity carrying PvM vita sorc (no energy shield) that gets all the benefits of carrying an infinity without any of the costs. She is a vita sorc because she wants to maximize the synergies so she can do godly damage. She won't need an energy shield because she will kill her enemies fast enough so that the ES won't be necessary. Therefore:
Stat Points
Strength: 156 (enough to carry a monarch shield)
Dex: None.
Energy: None.
Life: EVERYTHING.
Skills
Charged Bolt: 20
Lightning: 20
Chain Lightning: 20
Lightning Mastery: 20
Nova: 20
Teleport: 1
Warmth: 1
Static: 1
Equipment
Weapon 1: Low req -55 light resistance infinity
Weapon 2 (on switch): HOTO (40 fcr)
Shield 2 (on switch): Phoenix runeword on Monarch.
Helmet: Griffons (25 fcr)
Armor: Um'd Vipermagi (30 fcr)
Rings: 2 SOJs
Amulet: Maras
Belt: Arachnids (20 fcr)
Boots: Sandstorm Treks (preferably eth) for +Strength for Monarch
Glove: Magefist (20 fcr)
Charms: 6-9 light charms, annihilus, torch, scs for resistances (especially lightning resistance), and scs for life.
With this she will have a lvl 37 lightning/chain lightning with HOTO and lvl 34 with the infinity. The damage from these spells is more than sufficient. Her fcr is 135 with HOTO and 95 with the infinity.
Merc Equipment:
Weapon: Eth CV Infinity (the second infinity- hence the name of this build)
Armor: Eth Fort or Guardian Angel for certain light immunes.
Helm: Eth Andy or CoA with two sockets
In Stash:
CTA and Spirit for BO (Battle Orders)
Explanation and Strategy
For teleporting and killing non-light immune enemies, use weapon set #2 (HOTO and Phoenix). With the HOTO and the rest of the equipment she will have 135 fcr, which is enough for breaking the 105 breakpoint for teleport and the 117 breakpoint for lightning/chain lightning. With this fcr she will be able to teleport and cast spells as fast as any godly light sorc with the exception of the 200 fcr charged bolt builds. Furthermore, since her merc carries an infinity too she will get the benefit of the -85 to light resistance of a conviction aura.
Since she has an phoenix, she will never have mana troubles. A phoenix redeems mana based on killspeed, and a godly light sorc has one of the fastest killspeeds in the game.
For killing light immunes, switch to weapon set #1 (the infinity). Consider:
Let's say hypothetically a sorc does 10k chain lightning damage with HOTO an Spirit before factoring in resistances. A typical light immune monster like a Black Soul will have 100- 17 (from conviction) -25 (from light faceted P Griffons)= 58 light resistance against her spells. In other words after factoring in resistances she will only do 4200 points of damage to a light immune.
If however your sorc carries an infinity instead of a HOTO and a Spirit, the resistance on a light immune monster will be only 100- 17 - 25 -55= 3 (!). Granted she will do less raw damage because she won't have the +5 to skills from the Spirit and the HOTO. So let's say she does only 8k damage with an infinity instead of 10k with HOTO and Spirit. Nonetheless after factoring in resistances she will do 7700 points of damage.
7700 > 4200.
As you can see carrying an infinity is CLEARLY better than any other equipment for killing light immunes. It is also better than a crescent moon- spirit combo because -55 light resistance from an infinity is better than -35 light resistance and +2 skills from a crescent moon and a spirit (I'll provide the math if asked for, but it's pretty much the same as above). For single player games the difference between using an infinity and a HOTO-Spirit combo don't matter much because 4200 damage is enough to kill most enemies in two or three casts. But in a eight-player game where monsters have 4.5 times the health of monsters in single player games the difference becomes important.
P.S. Whenever you need BO, go to town, equip the CTA and Spirit, cast BO, and then unequip. The BO should last for several minutes, which is more than enough time for a godly light sorc to do whatever it is she needs to do.
Possible Objections:
1. The conviction auras from the infinity equipped on the merc and the infinity equipped on the sorc don't stack.
Response: I never said they did. The reason why your merc carries an infinity is so that you will have the benefits of the conviction aura when you use weapon set #2 (HOTO and Phoenix). The reason why your sorc carries an infinity is to recieve the -55 light resistance mod on the infinity.
2. Without ES, Spirit or an insight on the merc, your sorc will run out of mana.
Response: The phoenix and SOJs will take care of all your mana needs.
3. Where do you get BO?
Response: In town, from the CTA in your stash.
4. My merc just died! The oblivion knights (or Black Souls) just killed him. What do I do?
Response: Since you're carrying an infinity, you can still get the benefit of its aura. Unlike most light sorcs you're not utterly useless without your merc when fighting light immunes.
5. Why is HOTO better than eschutchas?
Response: the +% damage modifiers on the eschutchas factor in ON TOP of lightning mastery. For example, let's say lightning mastery provides +500% damage to your spells, and let's say an eschutchas provides +20% light damage. That means with an eschutchas and lightning mastery you'd do +520% damage to your spells. The damage added by eschutchas is negligible. It's better to give up this negligible extra damage and get the resistances and the extra mana from the HOTO.
6. This equipment will take me forever to find.
Response: Who says YOU have to find everything? You can buy all of the equipment above for $50 on the net. Considering the amount of time you're already spending on DII this $50 is worth it.
7. Why Vipermagi armor instead of CoH?
Response: the fcr provided by the vipermagi is necessary to break the 105 and 117 breakpoints. With an um rune in the socket a vipermagi provides almost as much resistances (55) as a CoH (65). If you absolutely must use a CoH, use two good fcr rings instead of sojs to break the breakpoints. The fcr is worth the costs.
Any Other Questions or Comments?|||You forget Eschutas can be socketed with a light jewel. Also the +25% light damage is small but not neglible.
CTA from stash ? Have you tried this ? It's not like demon limb where you can prebuff in town. You'll spend half your BO time, level 18 with suggested equipment which lasts 205 seconds. You won't be able to complete a chaos run without several trips to town. You need that mana from BO more than you need 2 weapon switches. Stick with infinity+insight merc, or eschutas/hoto.
Now for mana, actually eschutas may give more mana than hoto with your suggested build. Eschutas : adds up to 60 mana. hoto: adds 15%. Hoto will yield more only if you have more than 400 boostable mana. I don't see that much mana in the build above.
If you're using phoenix then it won't matter anyway just go with Eschutas. Bear in mind spirit shield has a bucketload of boostable mana.|||Two ways around it:
First, don't use BO. It's not necessary except to survive teleports into monster packs (and with 105 fcr you can BO at town and finish teleporting to your destination in under three minutes, easily). From experience with a lightning fury javazon the phoenix literally doubles/triples you mana and life because it constantly replenishes it- as long as you're killing, which you should be doing without any problems.
The HOTO is necessary for resistances, which eschutchas doesn't provide. 40 resistances = 8 scs of 5% resist alls. It's better to use HOTO and 8 scs of life or mana than eschutchas with 8 scs of resist alls.
Second, if BO is absolutely necessary for you, use CTA and Spirit instead of HOTO and Phoenix. There are variations but the point is that carrying an infinity boosts damage by a tremendous amount, especially against light immunes. It easily beats eschutchas and spirit, even with a light facet in the eschutchas.|||Nice, but too bad you recomend buying stuff on the net instead of earning it by playing the game. See, your guide is PvM and if you already bought the best gear, the point of playing PvM is what exactly?|||Quote:
See, your guide is PvM and if you already bought the best gear, the point of playing PvM is what exactly?
I would guess: Completing the game
.|||Here's and idea, Crescent Moon + 4 die monarch gives you -55% res and +20%light damage. That beats the -45 to -55 res from infinity. But seriously Cresent Moon + spirit monarch is a much better middle ground than either.|||I Am thinking of a build simlar to this and would like coments,Main gear
Grifins
Vipermagi
Arachnids
2 soj
magefist
maras
and infinity stick
with bo stick and lidless on switch
merc with insite
The plan was to use the second switch for bo & tele (extra 20 fcr gets to next bp)
Then use the infinity for all the killing
Apart from the price (
) is there any problems with this.|||Yes that's fine, but you could always just swap out an soj for an fcr ring so you don't need to switch whenever you want to hit the 105 fcr breakpoint.|||its 117 for lightning and doable with infi handheld. or you can use crescent moon+spirit shield to make it easier to achieve, while maintaining the similar high -res effect|||I did consider trying for 117 but while possible i would lose out on skill res and it would make an expencive build even more so. But despite these points do you think it would be better to go for it?Doing it this way i get both the auras and lots of -res, while keping it simple to use (ie no prebuf and swap.)
and thanks for the coments,
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