duysir0 wrote:Note quite sure why there is a guide recommend using Posion tree, it absolute sucks ass imo; especially the Hive skill - deals mediocre dmg and actually blind u, the passive is not that awesome either. The Fire tree is cool as it is, nice HP boost, HP regen, has Fire Dance with huge dmg buff. I personally feel the passive from Lightning tree is nearly a must. 20% avoid and ton of def, not to mention Nova Charge dmg scales with Dex. Tried Fire + Lightning tree with Melee Sorc last season, although the 2 passives don't seem synergy with each other that much but it's makes u and ur bladdy minions super tanky (even in hard uber). Lightning + Cold, Cold + Fire could possibly work too.
Hive isn't the point of poison tree at all; it's merely a nice damage boost. The real purpose of poison tree is Vengeful Power, which gives a massive 25% to life, 20% REDUCED DAMAGE, and a 20% chance to counterattack with a crushing blow.
hive is nice in that its damage is directly related to how much dex you have, so later in the game it does thousands of dmg per second.
Personally I run poison and lightning. If you read all the comments after the melee sorc guide, it goes fairly in depth with all the options available in the different trees and the percs for each one... any combination of elements is viable, they all just have different playstyles! Feel free to ask me any more questions.