Making my 1st sorc

I normally avoid casters cause they don't suit my style but now I really want to try one (D3's fault). I've read many threads and most say that the fire tree is the best for Normal difficulty, should I just stick to it then and respec for NM and Hell?

I'm following the following pattern, anything to add or remove? I'm playing untwinked SP.

Levels 1-18 (17+2 skills points)

1...4 fire bolt (to get Q1 and Q2 done, gemmed bow for merc)

5 warmth

6...11 static

12...15 fire ball ( ~50 fire ball damage)

16...17 static

18..19 tele (telekinesis)

Levels 19...29 (11+2 points)

With these points I would put even more points to static, 3 blizzard, so at lvl29:

you have 4 fire bolt, 1 warmth, 4 fire ball

3 blizz + 4 pre (It's easier to static under blizz and fire is quite weak in act4 act5 anyway)

1 tele + telekinesis

14 static (12 yards, 9 mana cost)|||I highly recommend build a sorceress in a similar vein to Socialism's Orb-it-Aller. It will allow you to get all the way through Hell untwinked. In fact, it's the build I'm currently using to restart SP.

There's an excellent level progression in there. In general, I get Fireball to level 10; place a single point into warmth, static, telekenisis, teleport, and Fire Mastery; and 12 points into Cold Mastery concurrently with Frozen Orb. Then, I max out Frozen Orb, Fireball, and Firebolt, in that order. Oh, and don't put more than 1 point into Teleport, even though the guide suggests it; that's mainly a HC concern, and one I wouldn't even bother with there.

Don't forget to make Leaf and Stealth. Both of those will make getting level 30 much easier, and the runes can be found from the Countess and base from Akara/Charsi.

That's about all really. You can place a few points into Energy if you want, but I generally find it wasteful. I'd rather chug pots and throw sapphires/Tir's into my gear as I see fit. After you get an Act 2 mercenary, life becomes exceptionally easy anyway; he can basically get through to Act 4 by himself. Just use the kris+staff+belt+diamond (any kind; I use chipped/flawed) to roll him a nice beat stick.|||Save up as many skills as you can for pumping the higher ones up later. So hold out on the synergy skills until the main ones are maxed. Also lower levels you can do fine pretending to be melee with static field.|||Quote:








Save up as many skills as you can for pumping the higher ones up later. So hold out on the synergy skills until the main ones are maxed.




Don't do that in the beginning, just save a respec for it. You'll use a bunch more mana per point of damage if you skip synergies and have less fun (IMO) to boot because you'll be terribly weak for some levels.|||Definitely don't save all your skill points seeing as we have respec now. However, I don't like using respecs unless I absolutely have to, which is why I enjoy the Orb-it-Aller so much. It gives me balance all the way through the game and I can use the respecs to alter her after I've gone through based on new gear, etc.

Use Javelins + fire merc w/ 3-chippy bow to get through to level 12. Once there, you start pumping your Fireball (to level 9 or 10). At level 19, you get to make leaf, which gives you another +3-6 (depending on your shopping persistence at Akara) to Fireball, toping out around 200dmg, even untwinked.

Once you get to Act 2, hire a Prayer merc, gamble a Pike, use the chippy recipe on it to get sockets (and hopefully more damage), throw a couple skulls in there, and you have a durable mercenary through Act 4. I'd also use the kris+belt+staff+diamond (any quality) recipe until I created a Partizan. You could then use that Partizan all the way through nightmare (until you make Insight, if used the Runeword Mod).

Mix that in with Blizzard at level 24, and you can easily make it to level 30 entirely on /players8 without having to worry about respecing later. That Fireball will tear most things up with your merc drawing the fire. After you get Frozen Orb, getting through Nightmare is a piece of cake.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed by my advice, save all your chipped gems and *do not* cube them. Diamonds will be used to make the Partizan and the others will be used to reroll a Pike and/or the Partizan. I generally don't cube gems that are below Normal quality for this very reason, especially untwinked.

EDIT:

While I'm at it, considering as you're playing single player, which not pop into the SPF? Friendly community in there.

And here is an excellent guide for getting through the game, untwinked, written by the infamous jiansonz. It's mainly aimed at HC, single-pass characters (common for tournaments in the SPF), but the information is worthwhile anyway. That's where I discovered the Savage Polearm recipe, which is an untwinked staple of mine now.|||first off, both Norm and NM are stupidly easy no matter what your spec is so i wouldn't waste a respec before hell.

for any multiplayer i generally prefer single element sorcs. any element works. just ignore anything immune to you.

good luck.|||Thanks a lot for all your suggestions. I guess I'll follow the Orb-it-Aller model as it feels really good!|||However beware ~ that is a hybrid build, and hybrids are quite weak in hell without excellent gear. The performance will be very low indeed, in multi-player games especially, compared to a standard pure blizz sorc|||Quote:








However beware ~ that is a hybrid build, and hybrids are quite weak in hell without excellent gear. The performance will be very low indeed, in multi-player games especially, compared to a standard pure blizz sorc




Perhaps I'll resort to respec'ing her when I get to Hell?

Also, thank you very much mattinm for the excelent guides and advise I'll be sure to check out the SPF as well.|||Hybrids are generally weaker than their single-class counterparts because they have to spread the points around. However, when entering Hell (and later Nightmare), monster immunities become a larger and larger concern. If you're like me and want to be able to kill everything in the game somewhat efficiently, you'll have to end up being a hybrid.

In that regard, Orb-it-Aller is almost perfect for a player new to sorceresses. Everything she fires is in a straight line. There's no meteor aiming grief. And she's decently powerful, and especially potent against bosses, even with basic gear. You won't be a juggernaut of destruction in Hell, but you should be able to hold your own, provided you do some MFing in NM to prepare yourself (Andy/Mephisto spring to mind).

My basic character progression is Orb-it-Aller/Meteorb [excellent MFer in Nightmare and gets me all the way through Hell] -> Pure Blizzard [excellent MFer in Hell; monster immunities no longer an issue because I've made it through the whole game] -> Blizzballer/Blova [hybrid for running Baal and/or Diablo] -> Pure Lightning [only after I've acquire Infinity].

Also remember that all of the information I've provided has been for untwinked, single-player gaming, allowing the OP to get introduced to basic sorceress strategy without too much headache. If it was online/multiplayer gaming, of course I'd be recommending a single-tree build (cold) the whole way.

Hopefully I see you pop into the SPF .