Single Player Sorceress questions.

[:1]Hello!

Started to play again Diablo II after I watched some sorceress youtube videos and decided that it's time to actually play one. It's been always a taboo for me to play this class since I never knew how to play it properly (not that I know how to actually play the others though...)



Anyway, after reading lots of guides/tips, I decided to go with Blizzard sorc.

Problem comes with that I can't really have all the items that are shown in those guides, since I am playing only Single Player, no multiplayer at all. I am always mana starved, gobbing potions like a mad man, have to carry 20+ with me to not go oom and go back to town every 4 minutes or so.

Although I have no problems killing things, haven't even died yet (which is actually pretty good for me).



To the actual questions:

Is this a good build for a single player sorc?

Should I respec to more newbie friendly build / or better build for single player only.

Am I wasting my time here, if I have troubles when I get to hell/nightmare?

Should I continue Travincal / Meph runs to try to get better items before I fight Diablo / Baal?



Thanks to anyone that helps me out with tips, and please don't forget that I am playing Single player, and there are no item buying or item transferring.

P.S My build atm is:

Ice Bolt - 4

Ice Blast - 7

Frost Nova - 1

Glacial Spike - 7

Blizzard - 4

Static Field - 1

Telekinesis - 1

Teleport - 1

Just saw that my thread is probably not in the right forum.. Very sorry about that.|||Plenty of ways to modify single player play to allow it to emulate battle.net ladder that are supported by dii.net. There's a link somewhere in the Single Player forum for that. Also, you play a Blizzard sorc, you don't need much gear to work well. That's the whole point of the build. The problem with a lot of builds you find on the internet is that they always go for the "dream items" as if every player would be able to find them (or trade for them). Any build works with the right gear and far less gear than what many guides suggest. Believe me, it is very nice to have an Infinity merc in an eth giant thresher with 15% ed for your act 2 merc as a lightning sorc, but it is unrealistic and you can do just fine without one. That's what dual builds are for.|||It's of course fine to post sorceress questions here, your thread is not misplaced at all. Single player forum would also have been an appropriate place to post your thread, but either way works so ...


Quote:








To the actual questions:

1) Is this a good build for a single player sorc?

2) Should I respec to more newbie friendly build / or better build for single player only.

3) Am I wasting my time here, if I have troubles when I get to hell/nightmare?

4) Should I continue Travincal / Meph runs to try to get better items before I fight Diablo / Baal?




1 and 2) I'd recommend going for a dual elemental sorceress first, especially while you're still inexperienced with the class. A pure blizzard sorceress is mostly used as a specialized magic finder rather then a "play through the game" build. You can respec into pure blizzard after beating the game if you wish to farm mephisto for example, but for playing through the game a first time I'd say go meteorb.

3) Not sure what you mean by "wasting time" nor "here", but in general nightmare is usually a cakewalk if you spend some time leveling in normal (we bnet players usually do baalruns to level 40-45). In hell things get a bit more serious as immunities appear everywhere. You'll either have to skip immunes (if single element sorceresses) or alternate spells more often (dual element).

That said it's still not that hard of a class to beat the game with since your damage is skill biased and ranged, just keep your distance and cast your spells. The occasional dual immune will usually have to be ignored or left to your merc, however the telekinesis and static spells can help if you go fire/cold which is the most common dual element combination (meteorb, blizzballer etc).

4) In normal? Naa, farming for uniques/set items shouldn't be done until nightmare mephisto if you ask me. The rune drops from countess are more reliable so you can make some basic runeworded gear from normal countess. Leaf and stealth are good ones that I often use early on.

If you've got the runeword mod installed to enable ladder only runewords in SP then you should run nightmare countess for the runes to make lore, insight (ladder only) for merc, a spirit (ladder only) sword and possibly splendor or ryhme. Getting the base items to make them in can take a while when it comes to the spirit and insight, but those two items are well worth getting since they take care of your mana problems. You can get gray items with 1-3 sockets from vendors in act 1-2 in normal.|||To add about Spirit - Worldstone Keep and Ancient's Tunnels got high enough area level to drop monarch shields with 4 sockets.|||Quote:








To add about Spirit - Worldstone Keep and Ancient's Tunnels got high enough area level to drop monarch shields with 4 sockets.




I was only talking about a spirit sword though. A spirit shield (=monarch) can be added later but not worth thinking about until late nightmare after all. Monarchs drop all over hell difficulty and they can all get 4 sockets, no need to hunt only in alvl 85 areas such as the two you mentioned.|||I know you weren't specifically talking about shields - but crystal swords with 4 sockets are more common to come by earlier in nightmare (I was talking about nightmare, not hell). For all intents and purposes running dual Spirit isn't too uncommon for the budget sorc in single player and is a fine alternative to Rhyme/Splendor. What I mean here is that there is no need to go into hell until level 75+ and when you got the gear for it as a sorc (and the gear on your merc). This usually means farming nightmare Meph and Baal quite a lot.|||Thanks for the tips!

And also have a few more questions

Does runewords work if I socket an item from the quest at act 5? I mean if the item is white? Does it become grey?

Are there 3 socket item helms/circlets etc ?

Was able to get Stealth on my armor, working nicely thanks for the tip.|||Yes, a white item that you add sockets to becomes a gray item and can thus be runeworded. However you may wish to follow these steps to ensure that the socket quest gives the number of sockets you wish to have:

So say you want a sword with 4 sockets for spirit, you check:

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Sockets

And note that crystal* swords will have a maximum of 4 sockets if the ilvl is in the 26-40 region.

When you kill a monster and a white crystal sword drops you check:

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Area_level

too see if the area level is within 26-40. If it is then you've found yourself a sword that will get 4 sockets from the socket quest.



*: Long and broad swords work just as well imo, but most prefer crystal.



Here's some details if you wish to know more:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=473052

or even more:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=392254