If you look for further reading and insight you might want to read the full guide by sasja.
Quote:
What, you mean like a guide? No, there's already a Meteorb guide in the Sorceress stickies that covers almost everything.
You could check some of the other threads like the one I mentioned for my past posts. And this thread too where I kinda go through some of the pros of Infinity for a dual tree Sorc.
As for the build... well, may as well go through the gear + skills for you all.
Example of level 90 Sorceress:
Gear:
Weapon, Armor, Helm, Amulet, Belt: full Tal Rasha's set - Orb, Helm and Armour socketed with 5/5 Fire Facets ideally
Shield: Spirit Monarch - 35% FCR, 112 mana
Gloves: Magefists - upgraded to Crusader Gauntlets (151 str req)
Rings: two Stones of Jordan
Boots: your choice, but for this I'll use Waterwalk
Switch:Call To Arms + Spirit Monarch
Charms: Hellfire Torch, Annihilus, one 8% FHR Large Charm
Stats assuming Torch and Anni are perfect (base(modified)):
STR: 116[156]
DEX: 25[100]
VIT: 364[426]
NRG: 35[85]
Skills: base(modified)
Cold Spells 25 points:
1(16) Ice Bolt
1(16) Ice Blast
1(16) Glacial Spike
1(16) Frost Nova
1(16) Blizzard
20(35) Frozen Orb
0(17) Cold Mastery
Lightning Spells 3 points:
1(16) Telekinesis
1(16) Static Field
1(16) Teleport
0(17) Lightning Mastery
Fire Spells 73 points:
20(36) Fire Bolt
1(17) Inferno
1(17) Blaze
1(17) Fire Wall
1(17) Warmth
20(36) Fire Ball
20(36) Meteor
9(27) Fire Mastery - final points go here
Now, for the important stuff:
Fire Ball damage: 10326-11252 (avg 10789)
Frozen Orb damage: 564-591 (avg 577.5)
Meteor impact damage: 21356-22239 (avg 21797)
Meteor residual damage: 1651-1733 per second (avg 1692 per second)
Static Field range: 13.3 yards @ -100% enemy lightning resist with Infinity
Cold Mastery reduction: -100% enemy cold resistance, -185% with Infinity
Enemy Fire res reduction: -30% enemy fire resistance, -115% with Infinity
Teleport mana cost: 9
Total resists:
Fire: 145%
Cold: 180%
Lit: 213%
Pois: 140%
Chance to Block: 19.83% (19%)
Hit Recovery: 7 frames (86% FHR)
Cast Rate: 8 frames (105% FCR exactly)
Total mana regeneration: +247%
1403 Life before BO, 1279 of it BO-able
Life with self-BO from 6boCTA (slvl13 BO): 2311 Life
Mana: 966 before Battle Orders, 1423 after BO (yep that's with base starting energy too... yowza)
Mercenary:
Act 2 Holy Freeze
"Infinity" ethereal Thresher or Giant Thresher
Andariel's Visage socketed with Jewel of Fervor
"Fortitude" ethereal (bugged) Sacred Armor
195 base str at level 90 and +30 from Andariel's = 225, enough for ethereal Sacred Armor(222 str req)
...phew, that was grueling...
Notes:
This is an example of my ideal sorceress at level 90, designed to combine the highest possible Fire spell damage coupled with a Frozen Orb damage that's higher than if using a combination of Uniques + Runewords. For this, Tal Rasha's set is required to build around.
Note that I've not included Fire Skill GCs in the damage equations. With them, her Fire Ball damage would increase by approx 660...750 damage and Meteor by 1300...1400 per GC added. Expect to see a Fire Ball damage of 13701-14845 and a Meteor of 28149-29235 with just 5 Fire skiller GCs. And then of course you'll be adding each skill point past level 90 to Fire Mastery, resulting in even higher fire damage. So at level 95 with 5 Fire skillers, you'll have a 15026-16280 Fire Ball and a 30870-32061 Meteor @ 2302-2401 damage/second... truly awesome for a hybrid.
You'll notice zero points in Cold Mastery. That was intentional; I still reach the "recommended" slvl 17 CM relying on the +2 granted from Tal's set weapon. And with a Frozen Orb hitting monsters at -185% enemy resistance, I don't think I need any more points in Cold Mastery. I also don't advocate the use of Cold skill GCs either. The way I see it, Fire is your main element, Cold is a backup, and Frozen Orb is the best and cheapest skill-point wise backup spell the Sorceress has. Fire GCs will increase both your Fire Ball and Meteor damage exponentially, while Cold GCs only increase Frozen Orb's damage by a small amount - and Cold Mastery is already as high as it needs to be IMO.
As for the other charms - you'll need 35% more Fire and Poison resist from charms to reach the max (80% for Fire, 75% for Poison). You'll also need 6% more FHR to get to 86%. Otherwise, it's skillers and +life charms or MF charms depending on what you need.
At level 99 your chance to block will still be 18%, which isn't half bad for a full Vit stat setup with a Spirit Monarch. Just watch out for the slow 9 frame block animation; hope that you're casting when you block things so you wont be slowed down by it.
Oh, and as a little bonus, she still has 163%-168% MF with current gear, with a possibility of 213%-258% MF if you just include Gheed's Fortune and War Traveler instead of Waterwalk. With just six 7% MF small charms you'll have 300%. So as a MF character she's still as capable as the rest of them. She's an excellent Act Boss runner with such a fast casting, high damage Fire Ball. She's also good at area MFing places such as the Pit; Fire Ball takes out everything not Fire Immune in 1 or 2 hits, with the possibility of more than one monster hit by a Fire Ball if bunched together, while Frozen Orb takes care of Fire Immunes nicely. A nice benefit is that the only Fire Immunes in the Pit are Devilkin, who have low life and a whole mob drops with only a couple of Orbs.
She can hold her own in Chaos - Fire Ball is an awesome skill for taking out OK's from far away, and it also chews through the Fingermages (Storm Casters). The only real problem she has is against Lord de Seis - he often spawns Cold/Fire Immune, and Infector - you need some slick teleporting and Orb aiming skills to be able to take him down without his group swamping you. You might want to keep Glacial Spike permanently on your left click, and adopt a pattern of Orb,Spike,Spike,Orb,Spike,Spike... to make life safer against him. The same can be said for Ventar and Lister in the Throne - that strategy has saved my life numerous times. FYI Glacial Spike will have a freeze time of just under a second in Hell (3.9 seconds listed), so you'll have to be quick and accurate to keep them frozen in place.
err... I guess that's about it for now.
asses out:|||Wouldn't 1 point in cold mastery be needed in order for it to benefit from +skill bonuses?Edit: Nevermind; I didn't know Tal Rasha's Wrappings adds one to Cold Mastery.|||This space for rent.|||how should the skill progression be like?|||Having full gear, I now understand the use of Infinity. I always thought Insight would be needed for the mana, but my mana simply cannot be drained...even after a 10 minute fight with uber Diablo my mana was still topped off...no need for Insight then.
This is a great build
Followed it pretty much exactly but don't agree with the Waterwalks. War Travelers are much better for the magic finder.I need to find some facets and an Infinity to take my damage to the next level...|||Awesome, I just visited the sorc forums trying to find that good old meteorb guide and I run into this interesting new version of it. This is going to be alot of fun.
|||Hi there, I just have a small question...where are the best places to level your merc?|||Great Guide, my level 85 Meteorb Sorc is doing awesome 
|||so do u not need any of the cold shields or the skill that takes damage from your mana instead of your life?|||Quote:so do u not need any of the cold shields or the skill that takes damage from your mana instead of your life?
For this build you can use Shiver Armor with just 1 hard skillpoint invested. This will grant you a bit more safety, since attackers will be chilled/slowed the moment they decide to attack, unlike Frozen Armor where attackers are slowed when they actually hit your character.
Energy Shield is also not needed. There are various builds that focus on Energy Shield, but for the Meteorb this would be a waste of valueable skill points.
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