Is Sasja's Meteorb guide outdated?

I've recently got back into D2 and am making an MF sorc but I'm undecided on a build. His meteorb build (here) seems like a good choice. I'm afraid of going through with it though. It was written back in 04 when the 1.10 patch was out. How much has changed since then? Is that build no longer viable nowadays? Any better MF builds for sorc? Help would be greatly appreciated.|||The meteorb build itself is and will never be outdated, as long as D2 is around. Sasja always kept it pretty uptodate. The only thing that might differs is the choice of gear, since most will use the "Spirit" runword shield nowadays instead of going the max-block route. Max-block still works as intended though.

Sasjas guid is very thorough and gives alot more information than you might need for just startig out, still it is the most comprehensive Meteorb guide around.|||dunno if it's outdated but I just made one and she does pretty good. having issues with doing mf runs as I don't have have a merc that will live yet.

she does 8k metor dmg, and 450 orb, and 2300 fireball, shes lvl 83 has 860 vit, and 424 mana. no + skills charms at all.

max block.

equipped with the following.

weap. occy

gloves. mage/chance

boots. war travs

shield- hel'd stormshield.

helm. p topaz shako

rings ravenfrost/dwarf//// 2x nagel

amulet + 3 cold skills (really need something better here)

if anyones up for showing me the "moat trick" in person in a game please hit me up here or on battlenet. / *nimitz87

edit : her resists are the following in hell.

19, 55, 75, 47

still need to do hell anya, and If I had a mara's or anni they'd all be maxed in hell.

Chad|||1.09 guides are really outdated and talk bull****, but there have been no major updates since 1.10 so you can listen to those. 1-10 was the biggest update in diablo history|||Also, sasja's a she |||Quote:








also, sasja's a she






how would you know??!?!?



>.>

<.<



EDIT: Just read Nightlife's post again, and wanted to give some advice real quick. You can definitely make a merc that will have survivability... but you might have to re-think the issue. Most guides to making a strong merc concentrate on gear that contains Life Leech, and that is all well and good, especially for beginning play. But you are talking about Hell mode and Mephisto, and big daddy Meph can't be leeched. Of course if you are rich and can get your merc some chance-to-cast Life Tap (like Act5 Barb merc w/ Last Wish) then things might be easier, but of course that is expensive.

So re-shift your thinking a little on your merc's gear. Try mixing the nice synergy of a Act2 Prayer Merc along with Meditation aura from Insight, and compliment it with gear that has PDR/MDR. Also don't skimp on resists if you can find some for merc, but just get a little and don't go overboard, they should have fairly high resists naturally already. And lastly perhaps try mixing in some old-fashion Slow gear if you are still having trouble. The one problem with Slow gear is that works great on Bosses, but then your merc might hit weak and won't be much killing help for anything non-Boss.

Keeping in mind what I said, here is an example of what I am mentioning: Act2 Prayer Merc, Insight in a 4os Ethereal Thresher (CA,GPA,GT,CV), eth or normal Vamp Gaze socketed with Um or Sol, eth or normal Glad Bane socketed with Sol. This setup gets you a nice combination of the following: Decent dmg (up to +260% ED combined with an Eth Elite Polearm isn't bad), quite a bit of PDR and some MDR, a boost to resists if needed thru use of one Um rune, and an additional amount of %-dmg reduction from the Gaze to help if merc gets swarmed. The combination of PDR reducing dmg frame by frame, and synergized Prayer adding constantly to his Life frame by frame, provides almost an equivalent effect that Life Leech would, yet this setup continues to work on Bosses that can't be leeched. Add to that the fact that as a Sorc you can tactically Teleport your merc away for a few secs if he gets in trouble, and let his Prayer get a frame or 2 of Life added back in, before sending him back to the fray.

Another option in the armor dept is trying to cube eBug an Elite 3os armor for use with Treachery. You should be able to get one over 1000def, and when the Fade triggers on it your merc will gain not only some extra resists and curse length reduction, but also the hidden effect of %-dmg reduction (perfect 20%-dmg on Gaze plus the Fade effect won't get you to cap, but it's a very nice chunk). Not to mention the IAS provided by Treachery at all times!|||The only knock I've ever heard on sasja's MeteOrb build is from people who vary from the intended play style. Specifically, I have read people stating it should be called a Fireball/Orb sorc, but her guide specifically states that the playstyle is to plant your merc at a mob, back away and start dropping Meteors on the merc. That's how I play mine (but to be fair, I'm in 1.09, so Fireball isn't getting the ubar synergy bonus). Thing is, since you max both skills, it's up to you which skill to focus on.

Once I get my MeteOrb sorc to level 99 (98 now, last several points going to expand static range, and I also dropped one in Enchant for the merc), I'll do some HF collections in 1.10s, then move on to 1.13c, and that should allow me to speak to it's viability in the current patch. Quite viable in 1.09 though, and that's with the 'wasted' points not benefitting from synergies.|||I understand it was written in the beggining of 1.10, so people didn't know yet what was going to work. People say Meteor is useless because they forgot how it is to be poor. if you're playing untwinked and don't have enough +skills gear, Meteor becomes much more important becasue Fball won't be able always to put enemies in recover. So what i do is drop a meteor ona point I think a mob will be and start spamming FB. When you have top gear it doesn't matter, because FBall will kill most things in one shot anyway. Even then, I still use Meteor to "bomb" the place where Waves 2 and 3 of Baal's minions wil appear. Do the same with Diablo and he drops very fast to stack residual fires + static. Also there is always higher player games where Meteor can still play a role.|||I haven't played since 1.09 and I have found Sasja's guide extremely useful since I picked the game back up this ladder season.

Thanks Sasja!