Orb-Baller PVM (Expensive)

Hello !

I've been playing hybrid sorceress for years now.

All the story began with a mistake...
When synergies appeared in the game, I simply didnt notice how much they could improve the damages for a mono-element build.
So I built my first sorceress (back in 2004 or so) with max fireball / frozen orb / fire+cold masteries, just as usual. I wasted points into Thunderstorm or Cold armors.

I quickly realised how poor my damages were, comparatively to a 100% cold or 100% fire sorceress.

But I also realised that this kind of sorceress has 2 strong advantages :
- she can solo Hell without Infinity, at a slow rate of course, but better than any other build ;
- the cast delay between 2 orbs allow her to cast some fireballs in between, so in the end you can deal decent damages per second.

The first point is interesting at a new ladder begining of course, with Infinity impossible to have, or for "poor" ( = no-boting?) players as I've always been.

The second point made people laugh for long times, with my ~ 3K fireball ~ 0.5K orb.

With practise and upgraded items, that I came to find / trade over years, I've come to a much more powerfull build, that I consider now as the Top1 pvm sorc-build.

With her, you can simply do anything in pvm.

Rushing people, opening Baal runs, killing Bosses in few seconds, cleaning Chaos, mf-ing everywhere... with top efficiency.
Even Uber-Tristram is allowed, though she is not designed for that, and I dont guarantee 100% Torch drop.

How is it possible ? Why is it the best build overall ?

Mainly because of Fireball and Frozen orb mechanisms :
- Fireball is the largest ranged attack,
- Orb deals so much damages if correctly aimed,
- Both superior to Meteor / Blizzard for crowd control and precise killings,
- Killing faster than a top Lightning sorceress, with a "slow" 12frames/cast (117%).

And of course the use of 2 elements allows you to run everywhere, only very few bosses will spawn with both fire and cold immunities.
And once all minions are dead, the Boss itself is just a joke for a strong merc.

But to achieve that, you must get a high level sorceress, and pretty expensive gear.

My hybrid sorceress (Europe Soft NoLad), currently level96, deals :
1K Frozen Orb
14.5K Fireball
with her "mf" setup (free slots in inventory) and some non-perfect items.

On the top end, you could reach :
1.1 K frozen Orb
17 K fireball (average damages).


Gear to use :

I've probably tried everything possible, including incredibly rare Orbs (with editor).
Here is the best - no option :

Helm : NightWing 15% - sox 5/5 fire
Weapon : Death Fathom 30% - high res - sox 5/5 fire
Shield : Spirit 35%fcr
Body (*) : Enigma MagePlate
Gloves : (bi-upped) Mages
Belt : Arachnid
Boots : (eth) Sandstorm Treks
Amulet : 10fcr 2sorc stats/res
Rings : 2 x SoJ

(*) a Fireball 15/15 Ormus sox 5/5 fire worth mentioning over Enigma.
This will allow Mara as a cheap amulet.
But Enigma remains the best choice, for huge life, some %dr, some mf.

Inventory :
Torch, annihilus, obviously,
1 x Fire Skiller / 12fhr,
6-8 x Fire Skiller / life, if you need or not free slots to pick up,
8-10 x res/life small charms,
id and tp in belt.

Switch :
CtA - Spirit

Mercenary :
act2 Holy Freeze (Might or Prayer are not bad too)
Infinity in eth Great Poleaxe
eth bugged Treachery
(eth) Andy sox 15ias / 30fr

in Stash :
optional : +X chilling or shiver orb for precast,
optional2 (for Uber Tristram) :
- Life tap wand
- Kira Um'ed.
- Wizzy 30light res jewel in it.

About RbF :
Cold RbF are powerfull for their +5% cold damages, that your mastery doesnt provide.
Fire RbF are powerfull for their -5% fire res, that your mastery doesnt provide.

With NW + DF, you already have +45% cold, so +10% from cold RbF would be a 7% increase in damages.

With Infinity, you already have -85% fire pierce. So -10% from fire RbF will be :
- vs -50% res a 0% increased damages (Andariel),
- vs 0% res a 5.5% increased damages (wave3 and many monsters),
- vs 50% res a 7.5% increased damages (Diablo, Baal, wave2)
- vs 60% res a 8% increased damages (Oblivion knights),
- vs 75% res a 9% increased damages (Mephisto, Duriel, Fire enchanted Boss with 0% base res),
- vs 95% res a 11% increased damages (wave4, DC),
- vs 100% res a 59% increased damages (Magic resistant or Spectral hit Oblivion bosses),
- vs 117+% res a 0% increased damages (wave5, Chaos Megademons...).

Mephisto / Baal / Diablo / Oblivion knights will die faster with fire RbF.
Thats why I suggest them.
Of course cold wouldnt be so bad ! Or a mix of the 2.

About resistances :
This build suffers the lack of 65@ from CoH.
But this can be covered with charms, so Enigma remains better than CoH.
You must get as many res as possible on Death Fathom and amulet, if you dont want to use too many 5@/life or 11/life small charms.
Try to get some extra fire or cold res on amu.

This an expensive build for a pvm char !
Yes, but only Death Fathom and the rare/crafted amulet are really expensive.
Sacrifice some life and 2skill points (1 hard into teleport) and you will have a much less expensive CoH setup !

Having teleport from Enigma causes a weird bug, that you can notice with any char.
If you find an orb (or a staff), you identify it and it comes to have +X teleport, you sell or throw it, then you cannot use teleport anymore !
You must take off and put back your enigma.

This setup allows :
105% fcr (8frames fireball / teleport)
86%fhr (7frames recovery)
75@res (again, with expensive gear)
up to 3.7 K life (perfect gear), ~ 3K with random life/skillers.


How to stat her :

This is an easy part.

I dont suggest max block, since Spirit is an awfull shield for that.
If you blind-tele through WSK, you just rely on 8frames tele / 7frames recovery / strong merc / high life / juv in the end... to be safe.
Having done that a hundred times without dying, I can tell that block is not necessary.

I also dont suggest the use of Energy Shield :
- you dont have any skill point left to put into Telekinesis,
- you will face mana-burning monsters,
- you will spend huge mana while casting infinite fireball/orb at a high speed and high level.

So this is a strictly full vita - no block build.

With perfect gear, you will allocate :
0 into strength (if some on your amulet),
0 into dexterity,
0 into energy.


How to skill her :

There comes trouble / choices. You cannot maximize both fireball and frozen orb, you must be level 120 for this !

As an hybrid, you will use both elements, or more one or the other, depending on the situation.
So you could choose to strenghten more fire and weaken cold, or the opposite, or trying to have a good balanced setup.

All you must do is to avoid mistaken placement, that could lead to non-optimal damages.

Put exactly 1 into Cold Mastery, no more no less.
With 1 hard point, with all +skills from gear, with -85% from infinity, all non-immune monsters will be pierced to -100% res.
So more than 1 point into mastery is a total waste !
And as you perfectly know, most of cold-immunes wont be broken by infinity.

At level 80/81, you must have :

* Cold tree :
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery

* Light tree :
nothing !
optional : 1 Static (killing Boss in full games, useless in 1-4 players game)
Enigma provides teleportation, so you save 2 skills.

* Fire tree :
1 Warmth
20 Fireball
20 Firebolt
20 Meteor
1 Fire Mastery

Then for levels 81/82 to 99, you will get up to 19 remaining points (18 if you put 1 into static) that you can allocate to Fire Mastery or ice bolt.
This is your choice, both will be optimal choices.
My choice was ice bolt (more usefull in Chaos, and I find fire damages already good enough).

Here are your damages at Level 99 without Static :
ice bolt - Fire mastery / Frozen Orb / Fireball
1 - 20 / 819 fo / 23.7K fb
5 - 16 / 883 fo / 22.2K fb
10 - 11 / 964 fo / 20.5K fb
15 - 6 / 1044 fo / 18.8K fb
20 - 1 / 1125 fo / 17K fb

So you can gain 37.25% cold damages if putting all into cold synergy, or gain +38.8% fire damages if putting all into Fire mastery.
Or a balanced choice inbetween.

Notice that putting into Fire Mastery before maxing Meteor / Firebolt is a huge mistake because you have fire skillers to boost fire mastery !!


Gameplay :

Fireball and Frozen orb are easy to aim, dealing damages with long range.
Unlike Firewall, they will trigger hit recovery on monsters (if they just dont die in 1 hit), so you will find this very easy and safe to play.

Just choose the correct skill :

* vs Cold immunes : Fireball

* vs Fire immunes : Orb

* vs Light/poison immunes :
- 1 Frozen orb : slows everybody
- 3 Fireballs
- 1 Frozen orb if some survived
- 3 Fireballs
- etc... for the max damages per second (here you are unbeatable!).

In this situation, you miss 1 fireball out of ~4, with ~ 2/3 damages of a pure fireball sorc (16K instead of 24K).
So you finally deal 50% of the fire damages a pure fb sorc would do, plus an extra 1K Frozen Orb attack.

* Chaos Sanctuary in full games:
- 1 meteor on Oblivion knight standing behind a pack of fire resistant/immunes,
- 1 Frozen orb
- 1 or 2 Fireballs on some Finger Mage if they dare to approach you
- 1 meteor etc...

* Chaos Sanctuary in Solo :
- 1 Frozen orb is enough to clear the way for further fireballs.

* Things you shouldnt do to stay alive :

- Cast fireball when surrounded by dolls : walk back and let your merc in the middle.
I found this funny that in 8-players, dolls are less dangerous, since your merc will not be able to 1-shot them !
- Try to tank a strong pack of Souls (will-o-wisp) : stay behind, use fireball, you have a better range than them.
- Tank Lilith without stacking antidotes on you and your merc.
- Tank Uber-Tristram.

* Uber-Tristram :

Though she is not designed for that, this sorceress can achieve the special quest, but only with good strategy and high efforts.

- have the 3 Ubers separated.
You dont have a chance if they all spawn on you together.

- try to kill Baal first. Fireball/Meteor are your main attacks here. Shoot also the vampires/wraith around, you dont need to be surrounded.
Baal is the "easy" part, because you can get rid off all his minions quickly.

- then attract Diablo. Use Frozen Orb/Meteor, just ignore his minions, walk away from them in circles.
Tele back to town if your merc is not safe or dies.

- a good strategy would be to trap Ubers in some corner, cast life tap (from switch) to increase merc surviviability, and stack Meteor damages.

- for Mephisto, it is time to change some pieces of gear. Wizzy for you, Kira for your merc.

- all your attacks will hurt Mephisto, shoot all skeletons that could take you as a target, or that could put your merc into trouble. Now good luck !!

In the end, Uber-Tristram is a strong challenge (as for any sorc as far as I know), and you'd better probably try this with a friendly Smiter online, just in case !

Just to be clear, I usually spent more than 1 hour and use 20~40 full rejuv in Uber-Tristram.
And if I come to die, I just reload with a Smiter.
But I also enjoy that challenge !


* DClone :
I was not so many times honored by his visit in my games.
And I think I can understand him, because he dies so fast !
Usual tactic : 1 orb / 3fb etc...


Conclusion :

I hope that you will find some interest in this build, which is for me as exciting to play now after years than it was when I began with.

Best regards,

feanur