Author: Zharous[/COLOR]
from http://www.diabloii.net
The goal of the damage-reduced sorceress is to wear Stormshield. With Stormshield, Shako, and enough dexterity to maintain 75% blocking, your resistance to physical damage should be higher then any other character in the game. For example, with 45% damage reduction, 75% blocking, 61% energy shield, total physical damage reduced will be 94.6%. With Shaftstop and 75% damage reduction equipment, total physical damage resistance can be brought up to 97.5%. In comparison, the best any other character class can hope to reach is 93.7% with 75% blocking and 75% damage reduction alone. *
What this means is that a sorceress built using this guide is able to act as her own tank for timed spells, surviving in hordes of cows without problems, teleport across and through any group of monsters without taking damage. A shield can block Mephisto's main "orb" attack, and DR sorceresses can stand up right next to him without taking noticeable damage.
The only problems with this build are the extremely low life and the lack of ability at low levels. Until this sorceress reaches the mid 30s and can start using life charms, this character is incredibly weak. Also due to the lower vitality levels later in the game, elemental damage can pose more of a threat then usual. However once your character reaches the high 60s and 70s, the abilities of this character will start outstripping any other sorceress build.
This guide also assumes you will be using this character for magic finding while playing, and a majority of the equipment recommendations are based on this.
* Total Physical Resistance is calculated via the formula: Resistance = 1 - (1-X)(1-Y)(1-Z)
X represents damage reduced percentage in decimal rating (eg: 0.45), Y effective blocking rate, Z is energy shield rating
Statistics
Between the 505 stat points that are given in the course of the game itself and the 80 stat points that are given out to a level 1 sorceress, you have 585 points here to utilize:
Strength: 156 is your goal by level 73 for Stormshield
It is recommended to use equipment to boost your strength here, since items such as War Travelers or charms with secondary mods to increase your strength. If you follow the equipment guide below, it is only necessary to actually increase your strength to 144, since the 1.09 Shako and War Travelers give you +12 to strength alone.
Dexterity: 237 is required once you reach level 99 to maintain a 75% blocking rate.
However, at lower levels you will need much to maintain 75% blocking. Similarly, other equipment worn will lessen the requirement here, and with Shako and Tal Rasha's belt, you should only need 215 actual points into this stat.
The formula to determine how many points you need in dexterity for blocking is as follows:
Shield Blocking X (Dexterity - 15)) / (Character Level * 2) = Total Blocking
For Stormshield (unique monarch), this calculates to the following: (Monarch = 42 blocking + 25 increased = 67%)
67 (x - 15) / (99 X 2) = 75
67 (x - 15) = 14850
x - 15 = 222
Dex @ lev 99 = 237
A good, inexpensive shield to use from until reaching level 73 is Whitstan's Guard. Only requiring 53 strength and usable at level 29, this is also a good replacement shield if you wish to place almost 100 extra points into either vitality or energy. The calculations for dexterity run as follows for Whitstan's Guard (set round shield) blocking: (25 blocking + 55 increased = 80%)
80 (x - 15) / (99 X 2) = 75
80 (x - 15) = 14850
x - 15 = 186
Dex @ lev 99 = 201
Vitality: Base (1 point = 2 vit)
Why base? This is viable for players who can play low levels dangerously or with groups when starting out. On average, the equipment you will pick up later including Shako, Tal Rasha's amulet, Oculus, and War Travelers increase your vitality considerably. Adding points into vitality returns the least benefit when compared to any of the other stats. For example, you would have to put 10 stat points into vitality to receive 20 life, a similar gain which you could obtain by a 1x1 small charm in your inventory.
With only eight small 20-life charms and around ~500-600 life, a level 73 sorceress with Stormshield has sufficient life to survive and deal out damage to cows with ease and can be a viable pvp character. In addition, the resistances provided by Stormshield negate the need to hold as many resistance charms normally held by other sorceresses.
Mana: Everything else (1 point = 2.0-3.8 mana)
With a high energy field, and high warmth, your mana should absorb most of the damage you take from physical or elemental damage. With Frostburn and two Stones of Jordan, every point placed into energy will return 3.8 mana, and with most damage being absorbed by your mana through a high energy shield, adding points into energy returns a far greater benefit then vitality does. By level 99, you should have around 250 points in energy.
Skills
Cold Skills
20 Frozen Orb
5 prerequisites for frozen orb
1 Frozen Armor
1 Shiver Armor
1 Chilling Armor
1 Cold mastery (~69% - 73% piercing with skill items)
Lightning Skills
1 Static Field (wide enough radius when boosted with skill items)
7 Energy Shield (~16 with skill items or 61% damage absorb)
5 prerequsites for energy shield
Fire Skills
5 Prerequisites for Meteor
20 Meteor
20 Fire Mastery
9 Warmth (Should be around 250% with skill items)
Only 96 out of the 110 provided skills are given in this guide, so depending on your personal preferences you can put up to 14 additional points into warmth, static field or even an another skill.
Why use Frozen Orb? This spell is very useful in most acts, and still works well in pvp and cows, but won't be needed as much after acquiring Stormshield. Frozen orb is incredibly overpowered for normal and nightmare games, and is incredibly useful for completing quests or leveling a sorceress from levels 30 through 70. Also Frozen Orb is often the most effective spell for taking out fire resistant or fire immune bosses.
Why Meteor? Meteor and Nova work the best for clearing thickly packed groups of monsters, such as the cows in the cow level since both skills do damage in a wide, circular area and are not blocked or impeded by monsters. However while nova requires quite a few faster cast items to deal out enough damage and requires much more mana, meteor does an immense blast of damage instantly, and can be used with magic find items easily. In addition, it can be thrown to any area on the screen, and meteor's burning damage can be stacked up. The sole problem with meteor, it's casting delay of meteor becomes irrelevant if you can personally round the cows together and ignore their attacks while calling repeated meteors down on them.
The best tactic I have found for 8 player cow games for a DR sorc is to round the cows into a tight mass, similar to what a javelin-based Amazon would do. Then while standing to one side, proceed to cast repeated meteors down immediately next to yourself on one side of the horde, as they move towards you. Alternate between static field and meteor without moving, and the entire group of cows should drop within seconds.
With level 30 Meteor and level 30 fire mastery which is not difficult to obtain, meteor will do 5621-5687 damage immediately to a wide area of cows, and is sufficient to drop an entire "pack" of cows in two hits in a 8 player game by itself. When combined with static field, a meteor can frequently drop a group in only one hit.
Equipment
Helm: Shako (Ptopaz)
Armor: Tal Rasha's (Ptopaz) or Naj's Light Plate
Weapon: Oculus (Ist rune)
Shield: Stormshield / Whitstan's Guard
Gloves: Frostburn / Magefist for levels 75+
Belt: Tal Rasha's
Amulet: Tal Rasha's
Rings: 2 SOJs
Boots: War Travelers
Charms: Several 20-life small charms, I recommend around 10 for a 200 life boost, more for low level sorceresses if needed
Other then a high-blocking shield such as Stormshield, there is little else you absolutely need. This suggested layout is powerful, gives you a base of up to 396% magic find without crippling your character in any way.
One last quick note about damage/mana items. It is critical to have at least one piece of equipment that provides damage/mana, since damage taken from mana is 2X the amount of damage taken from life. Having damage/mana items will offset this penalty when you are taking damage quickly, such as being caught by lag, trapped by a group of cows, or caught in stun-lock by a swarm of guided arrows. But more importantly, this will keep your mana shield up and return to you enough energy to continue casting. Normally if you take a great deal of damage your mana drops to nothing and your mana shield is dropped. If you take a few more hits, despite having your mana recharge, having your mana shield go down will leave you considerably weaker, and probably kill you if you don't have time to restore it. However, if you have damage to mana items, whatever damage is applied is first taken as a ratio from your mana and life, and then returned back to you afterwards. This keeps your energy shield up and giving you a substantial boost of "virtual life" for the next time you are pounded which is absolutely essential in this build. Generally I prefer to use Tal Rasha's belt for it's 37% dam/mana rating, which is quite effective, as well as provide a substantial +30 mana and +20 dexterity bonus or Naj's light plate, which provides 45% damage/mana.
Feel free to send any comments, disagreements, or even questions to wirsz@hotmail.com. I usually play in the USWest realm under the account Zharous, and have several sorceresses who occasionally show up in various types of games.
