Lvl 30 dueling fire sorc build

[funkmu]

Hi everyone, I recently made a LLD fire sorc to duel with and she does own :P. However, as I was building her, I noticed that there aren't any LLD fire sorc builds, this might be because a fire sorc is an incredibly easy build, or something else, but here's a guide that might help some people build up a LLD fire sorc to pwn people :grin:
(This guide is pretty long so bear with me, or if you want u can just skip to the end and look at all the quick facts :P)

So to start out:

GEAR

Chest armor
Vipermagi: The best LLD caster chest in the game. +1 to all skills, 30 FCR, and tons of resists make this the ultimate choice for LLD fire sorcs. This one is highly reccomended.

Spirit Shroud: If you can't get a Vipermagi, go for this chest, it has some decent mods on it, like +1 to all skills and cannot be frozen.

These are basically the only two chests viable for LLD sorcs,
socket them with a pruby for life, or a pskull for mana regen (i'd rather go for the pruby).

If anyone else has any suggestions please post them
(note: do not get Silks of the Victor, it sucks first of all, and the 100 strength requirement is rediculous)

Amulet:
Blazing Amulet of the Squid: This is a magic amulet with +2 to fire skills and from 61-80 life, this is the best option to go with, although finding one with this exact specific suffixes and prefixes is difficult, any other Blazing amulet will do as well.

+1 to all sorc skill magic or rare ammys will also do well, just remember to make them cut the lvl 30 mark :P

Telling of Beads: this is a great ammy from the deciple set. It has +1 to all skills and cold and psn resist making it a decent ammy to have as well if you cant find a blazing amulet.

Headgear:
This part can be personal preference

Peasant's Hat: I personally like this hat, it gives +1 to all skills and +10 to vitality and energy. It's a great choice of headgear especially when socketed with a pruby.

Rare +2 fire skill circlet: If you can find one of these all the better to u :laugh: It's a great helm if you want damage to fire skills, and if you can find one with very nice mods then use it. However, I'd rather have the peasant's crown for the same reasons of +10 to vitality and energy

If all else fails, and you cannot get a peasant's hat or a rare circlet then get the Lore runeword (OrtSol). Socket it into a 2 socket helm that has LOW STR REQ that's important, better yet socket it into a circlet with no str req at all.

Weapons:
Spirit Crystal Sword: The Spirit runeword (TalThulOrtAmn) is the best runeword for LLD sorcs. It has +2 to all skills, gives life and mana, has FCR and is overall just a godly weapon. This is the best choice, and make sure you socket it into a crystal sword because it has hte lowest STR reqs.

Rare orb: Another decent choice is a rare orb with preferable mods of +2 to all fire skills and maybe +1 to fireball or another useful item, personally these things are kinda hard to find, so your better off with a Spirit Sword

Hellplague Long Sword: For all those who play nonladder, or are currently extremly poor, a viable choice is hte Hellplague Longsword because of the +2 to all fire skills.

Leaf Staff: I personally do not like staves because of the fact that you can't equip a shield, but if you can't get any of the above the your last option is a leaf runeword (TirRal) staff. This is a great runeword as it adds a lot of fire skills and mods. The best type of staff to socket it with is one that already has +skills to fireball.

Insight staff: Ive seen and heard from a lot of people that an Insight runeword (RalTirTalSol) staff is the best for an offhand switch, I haven't tested this myself yet, and I don't know why. Please suggestions?

Shield:
Visceratuant defender- Best shield you can get for a LLD sorc, Blizz has yet to make a normal Spirit runeword shield less than a Monarch (stupid pallys and their spirit shields).

Sigon's shield: This shield sucks, it's 75 str req makes it incredibly distastful to me, however if you can't find a visceraturant this is the shield to get.

(note: make sure you socket ur shields with a pdiamond for xtra resists)

Rings:
For all you rich folk, Stone of Jordan Ring is the best item: +1 to all skills on a ring just can't be ignored. Also the huge mana boost.

Get 2 rare rings that have FCR and other useful mods like resist, +dex vit mana str ETC

Manald's Heal:If you cant get those rings use manalds for mana replenish

Angelics: If you can't get manald's use angelics for +life

Belt:
Sting of Ears: best choice because of the damage reduce

Lenymo: If you have no other choice

Gloves:
Magefists: BEST and a MUST HAVE, it's FCR and +1 to fire skills cannot be ignored

Frostburn: I dont like this cuz of hte 60 Str req, but if you find yourself low on mana then get this pair of gloves

Boots:
Cow King's Boots: only reason for this is because the +20 dexterity helps increase ur block rate w/o u having to sacrifice 4 lvls worth of points into dexterity.

Sander's boots: same reason as cow king, but Sander's only gives +10 dex but also gives +5 to str

(this is a judgement call)

SKILL DISTRIBUTION

At level 30 you only have 29 points to play around with. However, if you are hell grushed and have done all the skill quests, you have 41 points to play around with. Getting hell grushed is highly reccommended for LLD Sorcs or just LLD casters in general

So here's the skill distribution:

19-Fireball (you can't put 20 points into this because at level 30 the max for fireball is 19)
1-Fire mastery (YOU NEED THIS 1 POINT, WITH OUT IT YOUR SORC WILL SUCK BALLS)
1-Telekensis (prereq)
1-Teleport
1- Frozen armor
1- warmth (optional)
19-20- firebolt (synergy to fireball)

Others:
Energy shield- I don't see why any sorc that duels would use this, but ive seen lld sorcs use it and if you want it, get a staff or something on ur switch that has +skills to es
Meteor- dont get meteor, it has too many prereqs to be a useful synergy to fireball, it's also too slow to be viable in pvp

ATTRIBUTE DISTRIBUTION

Whether you do this by charms or by putting points into it, at the end of the day you need:
45-75 to STR (if you get all the good gear i recommended you only need 45 Str)
90 DEX (90 dex is max block at lvl 30)
All the rest into vitality
Base Energy

HOW TO PLAY

Dont be stupid, learning how to play is easy, tele about and shoot fireballs duh :P

QUICK SUMMARY
This is the best stuff you can use so i'm just listing them.

Items:
Vipermagi
+2 Fire skill ammy
Stone of Jordan Rings
Spirit Sword
Visceraturant Defender
Insight staff on switch
Cowking boots
Peasant's crown or rare +2 fire skill circlet

Skills:
19-fireball
1-telekenisis
1-teleport
1-fire mastery
1-warmth (optional)
1-frozen armor
rest into firebolt

Stats (after charms, and items are accounted for):
47 STR
90 DEX
All rest of points into vitality
Base energy

Well this is my guide, hopefully you had fun reading it please leave comments and suggestions on how to improve :wink3:

[Wuben]

No word whatsoever on how to reach 105 FCR. What about ES builds? What about life replenish?

[DayDream]

Yeah... Should always aim for 105fcr.

35 Spirit sword
30 Viper magi
20 Magefist
2Firesorc ammy/10fcr/stats/resist ammy
Peasant crown or rare circlet. Peasant crown if you decide to get a 10fcr belt.
I prefer 2Firesorc/10fcr/stats/resist/soc circ with strings for belt.

Insight is used on switch because mana potions are not allowed to be used in most llds.

ES builds.. some do get but majority don't. Source of life replenish is pskulls in anything that can have sockets.

[NewForumBloke]

Pskulls > Rubies Unless your lld is for pubbing.

Viper is pretty much the only option for a FB sorc, Though i have managed in the past to use a 'Stealth' which imo is > than a shroud.

String is the usually used for melee and a 24 fhr/10 fcr/ life/ mana/ rep for casters. But i have used just a String in the past for the mdr portion of it.

35 fcr/xx/x Spirit is necessary imo, but you can manage 105 w/o perf at the cost of dmg.

2/20/ mana/ life circ though, with a pskull >>>>> Peasent any day. A peasent crown on a sorc most of the time should just be your temp until you can get a 2/20.

Any Insight staff with at least +1 shiver armor is the only option imo for a switch weapon.

If you need the fcr, a 2/10 fcr mana/res/life ammy is fine, other wise my favorite is also a 2/80 life ammy.

15/10+ life/mana sc's and iirc 45-50 mana gcs/life or stats are necessary to obtain a ES build. Along with a +3 es/shiver/xxx insight on switch. (prebuffing is optional)

Highest dmg build goes something like this:

2/20 circ
Viper
Visc
2 Fire Skills/ 3 Fireball/ 20 fcr orb.
1x 10 fcr/ high mana/ life ring
SoJ
10 Fcr Caster belt
Mages
Tri Res Rares/ Sanders/ Cow Kings boots
Switch: +1-3 Shiver Insight Staff w/ +3 Fireball

All socketed with Pskulls for drawn out lld duels.

Yes you could drop the fcr ring for a SoJ for the max dmg, but then you would be going at 63 fcr bp and thats just not really an option imo...


I think thats all that ive seen wrong/ missing, if i missed something else ill post again.

-BLoke :smug:

[brokensvt]

"8/25 10:23: How do I build a LLD fire sorc?"

"Today: THIS is how you build a LLD fire sorc!"

Oh, and I always liked Shael's in my Viper and/or Circlet to meet the 86% FHR breakpoint.

:P

[crawlingdeadman]

eld whitstan not a shield option? there are better things that can go in a shield than a pdiamond. a dex/res jewel or an eld for instance. 90 dex to hit max block with what, visc?

'it's easy, duh' is a very poor atempt at a dueling strategy. how do you defend against a desyncing pally? if you're going to say 'dont be stupid' maybe you should just keep the "strategy" section out of it... it's not like you gave any info in it anyway.

@bloke: you forgot the +fire mastery on the godly orb there...

[NewForumBloke]

Strat for a lld fb sorc isnt too different from a hld one from what ive read, though ive never played a hld one. It takes a lot of practice thats for sure, especially against dysnch pala's and .... uh hmmm... i dont know... PLAGUE ZONS *cough*

Dont think a lld fb sorc is OMG I EZ U SO BADD FB=1337 n00b!!!!11 Its just like any other lld build, it takes time and practice.

One piece of advice that a fellow lld gave to me was:
"Play with the crappiest gear you can get your hands on, if you get good at that, imagine how much better you'll be when you upgrade you gear."

@CDM Bah! how could i forget that?

[funkmu]

ok dysnching pallies, cant help ya there the point for them is to f u up for desynch however, for chargers u can rly screw around with them by teleing behind them and shooting (unless in the game ur in is bm for tele and also if u cant hold up the mana), melee classes like zealers smiters, kicksins, unless they have dragonflight and charge (same strat as charger) just run and shoot, hdins ele druids and bone necs are essentially tie duel unless u have rly good aim and a huge mana supply.

For ele druids, it's extremly difficult to duel them cuz of cyclone armor and nado, however if ur vigilant and have a decent mana supply you can tele in front and shoot behind (or even running works if u use sanders or cowking)

For hdins, dodging hammers is easy, just watch out for the charge and shoot, hdins generally have high resists cuz of spirit shield and vipermagi so it takes lots of fbs to kill them, again remain vigilant and do hit and run tactics, holy hammer should rarely hit you.

Bone necs are the easiests out of all of em, manly because bone prison and wall is ineffective against sorcs who can just tele out. Bone spirit is easy to dodge and so is bone spear, (ive also out casted some necros in a straight on shootout)

After several duels and stuff i realized that insight isnt only useful it's downright necessary, the mana regen just cannot be ignored.

The tactics ive posted are what ive done and experienced and what have worked for me, although even with the tele thing for chargers, they still hit a bunch of the time and ususally when they do it's 1 shot dead.

What I've thought of in theory, and what i dont have the reflexes or skills to do is tele right behind them land a fireball and tele away. Im not sure if that works or not, ppl are ususally moving.

[funkmu]

Ok the above reply, please completely disregard it. It's chock full of grammatical errors, did it when i was half asleep here's the real one.

Srry about that before, like I said I just made my sorceress so I havent dueled as much yet, but now I've gotten some tactics for dueling that might work, if not again suggestions :P.
I guess I should post some of the tactics I've used in duels against various classes, I've found them ususally effective enough, if not to kill the person but at least draw it out to a tie (again suggestions would be appreciated).

Teleport is important, but a lot of people hate sorcs who do it.
Desynch pallies... nope, no help there lol, unless you just want to teleport behind them if you read below down at chargers.

For melee:
Chargers: bane of all sorcs period. Their high dmg rate can ususally 1 shot you easily. However, what i've done in the past and has worked reasonably well is tele a few steps behind the charger and shooting. This can screw around with the charger's aim and they can miss a lot. If your not allowed to teleport, then gg your screwed.

Zeal/Smite/Kick/Wolf/Bash/WW/any conventional melee class:
For zealers/smiters/kicksins, it's basically hit and run tactics, use teleport only sparingly because of the heavy toll it takes on your mana. You can ususally out run a meleer at your level, however if they leap, charge, dragonflight, etc use the strategy above. Do not get into stun lock whatever you do, stun lock is a horrible experience for casters, tele out if u possibly can. Sorcs can also tank a reasonable amount of damage (at least with max block).

Side note on WW: whirlwind is a funny skill for sorcs to duel, usually WW is a straight on attack w/o the ability to change direction (a slow charge in other words). Dueling WW's should be relatively easy, run or tele out of the range and shoot back, and since they don't have the change in direction they take the hit and they cant stop WW until it's run it's course.

For melee please tell me about builds that i forgot to mention, ususally because I havent come across any of them.

casters:

Hammerdins:
Dueling hammerdins ususally require a vast amount of mana, or at least a fast mana regen. Since your not a melee class, hdins have a hard time hitting you with holy hammers. Hammers are also relatively easy to dodge, if you do get hit, it'll ususally be one or 2 shots. When you duel hammerdins, they generally have lots of resists due to vipermagi and spirit shield so it'd take several hits to take them down. Tele out of their range always, if they try to charge tele behind lakes (swamps?) and other unwalkable areas in the Blood Moor. After that do hit and run tactics. However if you dont have a lot of mana, you'll be mainly running and frustrating the hell out of the hammerdin. These duels are ususally painfully long and drawn out if the hammerdin is very conserative in where he hammers, if he's one of those douches who stand in place and let a storm of hammers out, just fb him to death with ease.

Ele druids:
This is worse than the hammerdin. You absolutely need a fast mana regen on ele druids. Ele druids you can ususally out run, even if the hurricane freezes you, you can still tele away. However, the downside about dueling elemental druids is cyclone armor. It sucks, and if you use hit and run tactics, you'll find yourself in a never ending duel. The most ive done to a ele druid was half health in a 15minute duel (he didn't kill me, but we gave it up as a tie). However, a viable tactic could be to stop as the druid is casting tornado. Tornado is a rather slow skill to cast, so if you time it right and tele away at just the right spot, you might land a couple hits of fb b4 tornado is finished. Again, most good druids recast cyclone armor after it's been torn away (which is most likely all you'll accomplish).

Bone necros:
Somewhat easier than a ele druid as bone necros dont have high damaging tornado or a cyclone armor (although bone armor is almost as effective). Bone necros who cast bone spear can be dodged and teled by, bone spirits can be dodged even easier as they go so slowly. Finally bone prison and wall are ineffective just tele out or fb ourself out of there. Bone necros also dont have as high resists as hdins, so it'll take a tad bit less to kill them.

Other builds:
Trappers: I have no skill for this, but try to tele next to the assassin and cast, generaly trappers just cast their traps and run around letting the trap do all the work, so dueling htem is a very daunting and diffcult task (however those trapsins are ususally at least lvl 40 or maybe 39, and I haven't really seen a viable LLD trapsin).

Summoning necros:
This is dumb, you don't even have to aim for the necro in the begining, just destroy his army with fireball and dodge the ice undead mages.

Fohers:
I've only seen one LLD foher, and he sucked, Fohers are easier to shoot at than hammerdins, as you don't have to avoid hammers, just stack up on light resist tele near him and shoot. The key point is to be close, against fohers, you follow them and they do hit and run tatics (quite a change :P)

Warcry Barbs:
Warcry has a very low range, so it's easy to stay out of the AOE also warcry barbs are affected by block, so you can also tank damage if you have max block.

Bowzons:
I haven't really seen any UBER bow zons for LLD, only good ones Ive seen are low MLDs like lvl 39s and such. Dueling bowzons can be a pain as slow missile reaks havoc on fireball, all I can say is tele right up to her and fb is your only basic option. Also guided arrow can be a pain.

Javazons: same as bowzons, havent seen uber ones in LLD but all the same, dont worry much about lighting fury, treat javazons as melee class because charged strike is a very dangerous skill to get close to. Also dont duel them all together if they use slow missile, your dead, period after the get you with slow missile.

Other tactics:

I've mentioned this above, but if you are quite skilled at playing Diablo 2, then one strategy I've thought up in theory, tho has been quite sucky for me in practice (I am terrible at the actual gameplay part, my FBs miss alot) is to tele right next to the person FB then tele away before they can react, this would be very cool if I could pull it off. Got the idea from nigma toting summoner necros in high lvls who'd do this, tele right next to you and let like 60 skeletons and various undead hit you at hte same time.

Mana, what people have said above about insight are quite right, you need one for hte mana regen, without it you'd die very soon because the toll of having base mana and a mana sucking fireball and teleport is too great on your mana supply, you ususally run out after about 5 teles and maybe 8 or 9 fbs in quick succession. Unless whoever your duelin has low fire resist and tolerance, use FB sparingly and only at hte best opporunities.

Well this is all I have to say on tactics, again suggestions for improvement are welcome :P

[funkmu]

plague zons?? I havent come across them yet on my sorc :(

[DayDream]

Would have to say ele druid is worse because they will never catch you. necros are more of a challenge. They can dodge your fireballs and target you with bone spirit and give you no chance to retaliate. 125fcr necro casting mass bone spirit and then spear to where you will teleport will stop your teleport and then all the casted spirits will hit you at once and gg.

And what about kickers?
They can teleport to you and kick your sorc to death. That and they can completely null the fireball attack, I believe with their claws? I don't remember. If it doesn't null the fireball, they have fade and stacked resist to tank your fireballs with.

[crawlingdeadman]

what i was kinda hinting at would be to just leave out the strategy until you've dueled with your character for more than a week. it sounds like all the experience you have so far is against stupid pubs.

plague zons?? I havent come across them yet on my sorc :(

what realm are you on? i have a plague zon on east NL and i can give you some experience vs her type :grin: .

[DaemonAkuma]

I used a gg kicksin. I killed 99% of FB sorcs. The reason for this was nothing more than their dmg output. Note, however, I did not use spurs. I usually just Dflight with a Malice claw and let them slow bleed and waste mana spamming FB wildly while I ran away and claw blocked the few FBs near me. Note, however, that claw block (as I've heard) can only get to 60% in lld or whatnot (I do not know this as a fact). I also use a FB sorc and I can outdamage any kicker so far lvl 30-40. >40 they can be a problem and require the good ol' "run, turn, boom" approach.

As for Insight, I have one with +2 ES and +2 Chilling Armor. I switch to this weapon often to regen mana as I think that potting in general is bullcrap since that eliminates the crutch of mass dmg spells. This isn't as true in HLD as it is in LLD *cough* desyncing hdins *cough*

I also shael'd my crown and my vmagic to hit the 86% Bp since you actually gain mroe life that way than using the scs (esp since that frees up room for life/mana scs). Many people I know care little for hitting the FHR BP but I have found it to be quite useful. I use Visc > Whitstan's b/c it takes very little to hit max block with it (esp using sander's or cow boots) and has +1 skill. I have not socketed this yet...can't decide between Shael or Sol or some kind of Jewel.

I would also like to strongly support the "duel with crap gear" approach. That is what I did with the exception of a 35% spirit CS. I got very good that way, often killing chars much better geared (and higher lvl) than me. I can tell you that, using those same skills and slapping on 105FCR gear and everything else you're surprised by how much more effective that is.

Windy druids are not a threat if you are patient. Necros have the potential to be very, very nasty, but also are not the most dangerous apponent. Since I mostly duel in pubs it's the "cheapadin" builds that kill me...the conc-using smiters with spurs, noko, etc on. Good stuff.

[NewForumBloke]

Necro's can easily be a sorc's worst nightmare, even in lld, especially if they're skilled and become used to your tatics. Woodz for example for a while couldnt beat my fb, but we spared for quite a bit (me to learn to fight necros and him to fight sorc's). We learned A LOT from one another and in the end it got to the point where i was having quite a bit of difficulty dueling him lol.

In all honesty ive rarely, if ever, have lost to a lld kicker with my fb. Maybe i just never dueled the right one, though CDM had a pretty nice one.

@DaemonAkuma: Eld the Visc or 15 res/9dex/xxx jewel it. Those are in my exp the best things to put into it. I suppose though that a sol'd visc in the stash could be even better against melee than a whistan could ever hope to be. I think CDM and Fed will back me on the eld or res/dex jewel.

-BLoke :smug:

[DaemonAkuma]

Well I've already got 75% block w/o the Eld in, so the stats have been allocated. -_- My resists are maxed atm I believe, or pretty close to it, I'll have to take a look. A Sol is probably atm, unless I can find a jewel that can be gg enough to take up the slot. Regardless I'm still not hitting the 105 FCR BP (2/20 circs are so hard t ocome by for lld).

[NewForumBloke]

Well, my best luck with circs for lld have been other sites and gambling. As for the shield, imo you can never have too much res, even in lld. It can really help against cold sorc's sometimes and the occasional foh/mage/ v/t pala. Though the few there are, there are even fewer that are good and the good ones... well lets just say theres sometimes not enough res in the world that can stop em lol.

All the same, and i checked this, 15/9 dex/xxx jewel's seem to be the favored best out there. Until then, and since you already have max block w/o the eld, sol sounds fine to me, or just a plain ol' pdia i suppose could work.