“Gotta go fast!!”
Disclaimer: This guide is long and thorough. There is a lot of explanation of game mechanics, use of evidence to support argument, and math examples. There are paragraphs of thought to read. If you're not interested in that stuff or do not like reading, there are a lot of spoiler tags to make skipping content easy. If you're just here for the "click these buttons, find these items, go smash" guide, that content is all in the early and midgame build sections in the second post. Feel free to skip all the explanation, experience sharing, and argument for my choices.
Why Play Lightning Sorc? https://median-xl.com/char/Zip/d780 You can do all trophies, Sescheron, Labs 1-5 in easy to find SSF gear. And you can do it pretty quickly. (Minimal interaction with the event and very little power from the attempts made on the build so far - it’s not very consistent with reaching 16.1k harvests without better/more specific gear than shown in the snapshot).
1. No CD Teleport!
► Show Spoiler
You remember the farming meta from D2 classic and LoD? Enigma? No cooldown teleport is a powerful ability. In 2.7, the Lightning tree capstone and superposition ability were reworked. This was overshadowed by the ridiculous Havoc build that season. Superposition is a short range TP (12 yards - it matters in a few places but otherwise isn’t terribly annoying) and has the potential to be no cooldown on any build with enough energy (over 7000). Havoc sorcs in 2.7 could get pretty close or effectively to it with CD near or lower than cast speed. The lightning tree capstone (Entanglement) is a 6 second “debuff” that lowers the Superposition CD by 2 seconds making it 0 CD on basically any late game caster build between 2200 and 2400 energy. It also lost the horrendous drawback from pre-2.7 (for late game) of no potion effect and gained a large mana regen penalty that you can manage with MOs and appropriate skill/gear choices. It’s not insignificant, but manageable and you also get free* (big asterisk) capped cast speed (170% FCR at 60 lightning tree points = over frame cap on orbs and only 24 needed for staves), a bunch of MS (43% at same), and access to more avoid (1% per ten lightning tree points - effective minimum 6%, efficient max 8%). If you look around on TSW ladder you’ll find multiple Entanglement Oskill caster builds for the same reasons.
*There appears to be a bug with the cast speed buff. It does not apply to Superposition. There's probably something related to the skill applying the “debuff” on each cast. It's not really relevant until mid to late game when you have access to gear and gold options to make reaching your breakpoint pretty easy without relying on the speed buff. You don't typically spam tp much over running until you've got most of your easy charms and have enough energy to lower the cd to 0.
*There appears to be a bug with the cast speed buff. It does not apply to Superposition. There's probably something related to the skill applying the “debuff” on each cast. It's not really relevant until mid to late game when you have access to gear and gold options to make reaching your breakpoint pretty easy without relying on the speed buff. You don't typically spam tp much over running until you've got most of your easy charms and have enough energy to lower the cd to 0.
2. SSF Friendly.
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Can do all content SSF wearing the set, short of deep labs. Someone out there has done Sam in the set but I need to learn the fight better before I can also claim that title.
3. Good defense.
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+ High avoid (17 warp armor + 6-8 Entanglement + 10 Chest (Set or Armor of the Old Religion) + 5 Bremm Sleep = 38-40 without really trying. You can cap avoid on this build with a high roll Mistress of Pain and Invisibles
+ High defense for a caster 100-200k in a farming setup with the set and around 300k with a tankier orb setup. It’s not barb or Spearzon but it’s a significant reduction in incoming weapon damage over other high avoid classes like assassin and druid. And you get it without being put into blockstun. You can push the farming setup defense higher with Cold coven over Fire but it’s not generally worth it once you outgrow Ice Elems.
+ Decent Regen from Living Flame (500+) on top of sources from gear plus the regen from Thunderstone when damaging bosses/big targets
+ 25% damage reduction from mana shield when properly geared for the applicable content.
+ Force Blast -40% weapon damage reduction
and/or
+ -33% damage, AR, and movement speed debuff from Miasma. The Haunt effect is both a survivability buff and an indirect damage buff for Thunderstone on certain AIs. Bosses and minibosses that move quickly and wander around a lot like the ranged Corrupted Druids or Lab Corrupted Heroes dodge a lot of your damage while moving. Slowing them down means more of your thunderstones are direct hits and the grazes land closer so more of the 20 released mini bolts still hit them. It’s not important to have while leveling but it’s very useful for certain bosses and rifts especially later on.
+ Extra 5% F, C, L absorb
+ Easy repositioning to avoid damage with a 0 CD TP. (Did I mention 0 sec CD teleport?)
- It’s difficult to get capped phys res without hardpoints in Vengeful Power (Only needed for certain endgame content. High physical damage rifts like Fauzt are dealt with with actual defense and avoid fine). I haven’t felt it while farming with the Set (free 20% phys res with your TA trophy) but you’ll need to cap it later on even with your Avoid, mana shield, and dodging if you stick with the spec for deep labs and the hardest bosses (not SSF friendly there because you need a ton of specific UMOs plus Spirit Trance to cap phys res and make Mana Shield reliable- I’ve done up to tier 8 Phoboss off ladder with a few Moon Crystals applied, Mistress of Pain/Vaetia’s Wall, and the Pandemonium season charm)
+ High defense for a caster 100-200k in a farming setup with the set and around 300k with a tankier orb setup. It’s not barb or Spearzon but it’s a significant reduction in incoming weapon damage over other high avoid classes like assassin and druid. And you get it without being put into blockstun. You can push the farming setup defense higher with Cold coven over Fire but it’s not generally worth it once you outgrow Ice Elems.
+ Decent Regen from Living Flame (500+) on top of sources from gear plus the regen from Thunderstone when damaging bosses/big targets
+ 25% damage reduction from mana shield when properly geared for the applicable content.
+ Force Blast -40% weapon damage reduction
and/or
+ -33% damage, AR, and movement speed debuff from Miasma. The Haunt effect is both a survivability buff and an indirect damage buff for Thunderstone on certain AIs. Bosses and minibosses that move quickly and wander around a lot like the ranged Corrupted Druids or Lab Corrupted Heroes dodge a lot of your damage while moving. Slowing them down means more of your thunderstones are direct hits and the grazes land closer so more of the 20 released mini bolts still hit them. It’s not important to have while leveling but it’s very useful for certain bosses and rifts especially later on.
+ Extra 5% F, C, L absorb
+ Easy repositioning to avoid damage with a 0 CD TP. (Did I mention 0 sec CD teleport?)
- It’s difficult to get capped phys res without hardpoints in Vengeful Power (Only needed for certain endgame content. High physical damage rifts like Fauzt are dealt with with actual defense and avoid fine). I haven’t felt it while farming with the Set (free 20% phys res with your TA trophy) but you’ll need to cap it later on even with your Avoid, mana shield, and dodging if you stick with the spec for deep labs and the hardest bosses (not SSF friendly there because you need a ton of specific UMOs plus Spirit Trance to cap phys res and make Mana Shield reliable- I’ve done up to tier 8 Phoboss off ladder with a few Moon Crystals applied, Mistress of Pain/Vaetia’s Wall, and the Pandemonium season charm)
4. High damage
► Show Spoiler
2.9 brought a lot more damage to the build. The Thunderstone modifier lost the damage penalty and all 3 Sorc lightning tree skills now scale very well with energy. 1% more dmg per 100 energy over 1500 is a huge damage boost. Just look at the effective damage increase table - the first 100 Energy going to 1600 has the same relative impact as going from 500 to 600 for other Sorc elemental spells or 800-900 for non-WitchBlood builds at the SF cap. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing. The impact of Witch Blood on the Sorc’s spell damage formula is another reason that SF, while still relevant, is not as important as it is for other casters. Forked Lightning lost its hard point synergy, but Tempest and Thunderstone got so much more powerful. The buff really improved clear times in harder content like Scosglen so you can actually leverage your faster than bowzon movement speed when farming. The spell damage formula can be located in the forum sticky, but it basically works like this for most spells: base damage from skill level * damage multiplier from character level * (stat synergy+Spell Focus+Witch Blood multiplier) * special lightning spell damage multiplier * target resistance. These lightning tree spells get an extra multiplier across the whole formula of 1+(.01 times energy-1500). When you’re starting to add 2% more lsd on top of a x7 multiplier or 2% more witchblood on top of a *4.7 multiplier, the relative effect on total damage is a lot lower. The added multiplicative 20%+ (or 30% to Thunderstone without the relic pre 2.9) to the whole formula is huge in the late game. It got me to clearing Scosglen in around 15 minutes (when timing runs without picking up the lower value drops), while wearing the set with my good jewels, Vision, Nor Tiraj, and rare rings + a good roll 3 skill Black Dwarf. I have 155 pierce with 2 pierce corruptions in that setup so you could cut the rare boots and just run a decent Angelic and I’d gain damage while farming. Good angelics would actually gain damage because my setup is a little over SF cap and 15-20 spell damage (more for the boot because I used UMOs instead of the 10 LSD basic MOs), 30 SF from basic MOs, and 3 all skills would certainly beat the bigger SF bonuses from those 2 pieces as long as my pierce is still at 145.
- Tempest is a great clearing skill. But, you need to look for density to leverage it to its full potential. This is where 0 sec CD teleport comes in. And, this is something you should be doing anyway in games like these, but being punished so clearly for chasing straggler trash mobs is a great way to learn that lesson if you didn’t already know it. Your travel time is already close to 0 so just skip the stragglers that aren’t worth stoning. It really excels against melee mobs because they naturally group up and overlap multiple bolts with each other for you. Tankier ranged mobs (especially with lightning absorb) are annoying and you should skip more of them if you can’t put yourself into a convenient angle to overlap several bolts from a different position. Before 2.9 it was great in all the 130 zones (besides Impaler Archons in Triune.) Post 2.9, the 20 - 25%+ dmg boost is enough to clear Scos trash quickly so you can stone the sapling guards, druids, and etherborns.
- Thunderstone is a little temperamental on targeting at range. Ideally you are tanky enough to get close before you spam, but, if not, try moving yourself a bit if a bunch of the bolts are missing a stationary target relatively far away. The projectile (overshooting or undershooting the target) and explosion (pattern the bolts disperse in) have consistent behavior so moving a short hop or little walk can fix a low dmg ranged stone. The damage is very high. 30 sec Uldyssian on my speedfarming setup with 155 pierce. 4/4 Eye of the Storm translates to 2.5% life regen per sec with a staff and a little more than 2% with an orb. The max lightning res is nice while leveling and farming Scos, but you you can’t run around with 86-89 max lit res in the harder content and rely on it to cap you. Similar but not as big of an issue with the PLR. Nice while burning down the poison caster druids and Sapling Guards though you’ll want decent base PLR for that content before you start to heavily outgear it.
- Forked Lightning is kinda mediocre. The bolts have predictable behavior based on the direction you shoot. The older guide focusing on it and Ghostmoon are major reasons I wanted to write an updated guide. The bolts flow out slower than Tempest, end shorter, and it doesn’t auto target. The auto targeting is a big speed difference when you’re clearing the easier farming content, because what slows you down is picking up items and delays between porting and shooting and needing more than 2 or 3 shots per position. It’s also never going to compete with Thunderstone on single target damage. It’s great for the first 35-40 levels but Tempest+Ice Elem and Nova Charge covens does the job just fine before free respecs go away. When I tested speedfarming in 2.7. Tempest and FL were similar speed in Fauzt with a staff for the faster teleports and that was with the natural 30% damage advantage FL used to have from the old synergy. Basically, if 1) you’re free to just zip around and look for density and 2) the trash monster health pools are not very high, then there’s no advantage to FL’s higher potential damage on smaller groups and always shooting max bolts in your chosen direction.
- Tempest is a great clearing skill. But, you need to look for density to leverage it to its full potential. This is where 0 sec CD teleport comes in. And, this is something you should be doing anyway in games like these, but being punished so clearly for chasing straggler trash mobs is a great way to learn that lesson if you didn’t already know it. Your travel time is already close to 0 so just skip the stragglers that aren’t worth stoning. It really excels against melee mobs because they naturally group up and overlap multiple bolts with each other for you. Tankier ranged mobs (especially with lightning absorb) are annoying and you should skip more of them if you can’t put yourself into a convenient angle to overlap several bolts from a different position. Before 2.9 it was great in all the 130 zones (besides Impaler Archons in Triune.) Post 2.9, the 20 - 25%+ dmg boost is enough to clear Scos trash quickly so you can stone the sapling guards, druids, and etherborns.
- Thunderstone is a little temperamental on targeting at range. Ideally you are tanky enough to get close before you spam, but, if not, try moving yourself a bit if a bunch of the bolts are missing a stationary target relatively far away. The projectile (overshooting or undershooting the target) and explosion (pattern the bolts disperse in) have consistent behavior so moving a short hop or little walk can fix a low dmg ranged stone. The damage is very high. 30 sec Uldyssian on my speedfarming setup with 155 pierce. 4/4 Eye of the Storm translates to 2.5% life regen per sec with a staff and a little more than 2% with an orb. The max lightning res is nice while leveling and farming Scos, but you you can’t run around with 86-89 max lit res in the harder content and rely on it to cap you. Similar but not as big of an issue with the PLR. Nice while burning down the poison caster druids and Sapling Guards though you’ll want decent base PLR for that content before you start to heavily outgear it.
- Forked Lightning is kinda mediocre. The bolts have predictable behavior based on the direction you shoot. The older guide focusing on it and Ghostmoon are major reasons I wanted to write an updated guide. The bolts flow out slower than Tempest, end shorter, and it doesn’t auto target. The auto targeting is a big speed difference when you’re clearing the easier farming content, because what slows you down is picking up items and delays between porting and shooting and needing more than 2 or 3 shots per position. It’s also never going to compete with Thunderstone on single target damage. It’s great for the first 35-40 levels but Tempest+Ice Elem and Nova Charge covens does the job just fine before free respecs go away. When I tested speedfarming in 2.7. Tempest and FL were similar speed in Fauzt with a staff for the faster teleports and that was with the natural 30% damage advantage FL used to have from the old synergy. Basically, if 1) you’re free to just zip around and look for density and 2) the trash monster health pools are not very high, then there’s no advantage to FL’s higher potential damage on smaller groups and always shooting max bolts in your chosen direction.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
SSF = Solo Self Found
(L)SD = (Lightning) Spell Damage
SF = Spell Focus
Pgem = Perfect Gem
PDR = Physical Damage Reduced
PLR = Poison Length Reduction
FL = Forked Lightning
Stone/Stoning = Thunderstone
MoP = Mistress of Pain
Att = Attributes
Pierce = -x to Enemy Lightning Resistance
SSF/SP Play
I play single player and have been building up a stash and bunch of mules since September 2023 when I rediscovered the game for the 4th or 5th time. A Mistress of Pain dropped on my Unholy Melee pally and the changes in 2.7 got me excited to dive in deep to the build. The mob refresh of 2.8 made farming certain Scos rolls pretty fast in my MoP build and I was excited to explore more when the regular set of mobs came back and got the pleasant surprise of the additional damage scalar in 2.9. Since initially leveling the build in 2.7, I’ve leveled 3 more times and completed all of the trophies in the new trophy system on an SSF sorc on ladder in 2.10. The other test leveling builds were one with full focus on FL through to Hell in 2.8 and one I just leveled with the method explained below in the guide. I’m writing the guide as SSF/SP focused, because this build is quite friendly to that playstyle at least until your progression options are Lab 8+ and Samael. I also have leveled a melee sorc to see what all the fuss is about. It is just a better spec until you get the lightning sorc set and enough energy to hit the 0 cooldown breakpoint on Superposition. Implicit in the spell damage formula is much more intense exponential scaling for spells with levels, charms, and gear when compared to weapon builds. Most if not all weapon builds delete the early game as long as you have a decent weapon; casters don’t catch up until midgame. If you don’t mind playing towards a gear transition in mid game, you could just level with that spec and transition when you find the set pieces or get them from the mirror temple (2.10 set.) I intend to post a part 2 to this very long guide for what to do about SSF Sam/deep labs and leveling to 150 if you choose to undertake that grind. Current plan is to gather gear for a Cold respec and do a bunch more learning about a new spec on my SSF 2.10 ladder sorc, though, I am also accumulating gear for the Mana build.
Here is the full Loot Notifier for version 4.1.6. (# makes D2 stats ignore everything after that on the line. Just add it to a leveling line you no longer need)
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#SOCKETABLES-------------------------
"^(Jah|Cham|Zod) Rune$"
"Container" purple
"Runestone|Essence$" red
"Great Rune" red
"Enchanted Rune" red
#LEVELING SOCKETABLES—---------------
"^(El|Eld|Tir|Eth|Tal|Ral|Ort|Thul|Amn|Dol|Fal|Um|Ist|Gul|Vex|Ohm|Lo|Sur|Ber|Jah|Cham|Zod) Rune$"
"^(Perfect Topaz|Perfect Onyx|Perfect Bloodstone|Perfect Turquoise|Perfect Amber)$"
"Jewel"
#CYCLE-------------------------------
"Cycle"
"Medium Cycle"
"Large Cycle"
"Golden Cycle" red
#REAGENTS----------------------------
"Emblem"
"Enchanting"
"Occult Effigy"
"Mystic Dye"
"Treasure"
"Item Design"
"Book of Cain"
"Positronic Brain"
"Reagent\|!(Pos)"
"Whisper"
#QUEST ITEMS--------------------------
"Ring of the Five"
"Sigil$"
"Tome of Possession"
"Tenet"
"Riftstone" red
"Quest\|"
#MISC---------------------------------
"Wings"
"Pulsating Worldstone Shard"
"Angel Bag"
"Sunless Crystal Bird"
"Reality Piercer"
"Ghost Trance"
"^Scroll"
#EQUIPMENT----------------------------
sacred eth superior
1 2 3 4 unique
sacred unique name
"Ring$|Amulet$|Jewel|Quiver" unique name
"Master"
"Amulet" rare {[3-9] to All Skills}
"Ring$" rare {Skills}
"Ring$|Amulet" rare {Enemy L}
set name
"Light Gauntlets" angelic #This is a piece with the highest potential for lategame - might as well roll extra gloves while you find your midgame belt and boots
"Belt" angelic
"Light Plated Boots" angelic
angelic {[3-9] to All Skills|[0-1][0-2] to All Skills}
“Kite” angelic #3 to 1 hunting for 5 skills for the buff swap. You can hide/move this down to other spec equipment once you have one. Cold Sorc can get a pretty useful angelic shield with big phys res skills and other stats
#LEVELING EQUIPMENT—---------------------
"Circlet" rare sacred #For crafting in early late game if you never find a decent random rare
"Circlet|Coronet|Tiara|Diadem" rare
"^(Eagle Orb|Sacred Globe|Smoked Sphere|Clasped Orb|Jared’s Stone)" sacred rare #For crafting a Blood Fury orb
#RARE FARMING FOR OTHER SPECS—--------- (tends to cause crashes the more work you have D2Stats do scanning for specific Angelic combos- no need to use if you don’t plan on playing a weapon or funky oskill build that would be helped by a specific and rare angelic)
“Quiver” rare {Attack Speed}
"Short Battle Bow" sacred rare {Skills}
"Ring$" {Innate}{Enemy}{Life on Striking}
"Light Plate \(Angelic\)"
"Quiver" rare {Striking}
"Ceremonial" sacred rare #crafting base for a Cold Sorc Churel Armor or remove rare tag for a RW base for the huge phys res from [item]Curandera[/item]
"Jared" sacred #base for Cold Sorc weapon
angelic magic
"Light Plate" angelic
angelic {Ice Lance}
angelic {Bladestorm}{Adds}
angelic {Bladestorm}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Bladestorm}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Bladestorm}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Thunder Wave}{Adds}
angelic {Thunder Wave}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Thunder Wave}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Thunder Wave}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Time Strike}{Adds}
angelic {Time Strike}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Time Strike}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Time Strike}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {8 Arrow}{Adds}
angelic {8 Arrow}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {8 Arrow}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {8 Arrow}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic "Scepter|Giant" {60 Flamestrike}
angelic {50 Mind Flay}
angelic "Scepter|Giant" {60 Arcane Torrent}
angelic "Scepter|Giant" {Magic Missiles}
angelic "Scepter|Giant" {60 Searing Glow}
angelic {60 Lorenado}
angelic {Stormblast}
angelic {30 Disintegrate}
angelic {Claw Tornado}{Adds}
angelic {Claw Tornado}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Claw Tornado}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Claw Tornado}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Knife Throw}{Adds}
angelic {Knife Throw}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Knife Throw}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Knife Throw}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Hammertime}{Adds}
angelic {Hammertime}{Maximum D}{Prefixes: [1-2]}
angelic {Hammertime}{Prefixes: [1-2]}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Hammertime}{Minimum D}{Suffix: [1-2]}
angelic {Javelin Nova}
angelic {Funeral Pyre}
angelic {Flametail}
angelic {Tantrum}
angelic {Silver Dart}
angelic {Phoenix Wave}
angelic {Pentagram}
angelic {[3-4] to All Skills}{Enemy}
#CONSUMABLES----------------------------
"Mystic Orb"
"Shrine \(10" orange
"Vessel" orange
"Oil of (Conjuration|Augmentation|Greater Luck|Intensity)"
"Arcane (Shard|Crystal|Cluster)"
"Corrupted (Shard|Crystal|Cluster)"
"Heavenly|Crate"
"Belladonna"
"Trophy" red
"Relic" red
"Signet of Learning"
"Large Signet of Learning" green
"Greater Signet"
"Greater Signet of Learning" red
#CHARMS----------------------------
"Spirit of Creation|Legacy of Blood|Hammer of the Taan Judges|Azmodan's Heart|Sacred Worldstone Key|Horazon's Focus|Moon of the Spider|Visions of Akarat|Zakarum's Ear|Bone Chimes|Spirit Trance Herb|Soul of Kabraxis|Fool's Gold|Silver Seal of Ureh|Weather Control|Demonsbane|Xazax's Illusion|The Ancient Repositories" green stat
"Crystalline Flame Medallion|Umbaru Treasure|Sunstone of the Twin Seas|The Butcher's Tooth|Optical Detector|Laser Focus Crystal|Scroll of Kings|Six Angel Bag" green
"The Black Road|Sunstone of the Gods|Idol of Vanity" green
"Cold Fusion Schematics|Lylia's Curse|Astrogha's Venom Stinger|The Glorious Book of Median|Eternal Bone Pile|The Sleep|Dragon Claw|Neutrality Pact|Vial of Elder Blood" green stat
"Corrupted Wormhole|Books of Kalan" green
"Mark of Victory|Riftwalker's Eye|Dulra Fruit|Dulra Aegis|Dimensional Key" greenEndgame Farming Filter
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}Explanation and tips:
► Show Spoiler
The LEVELING sets of lines are designed to meet your needs for the leveling period. You can delete from/hide them with # as appropriate. You won’t really need more than 10 of each resist Pgem or 20 Ptopaz and the utility resist runes run out of usefulness relatively quickly. Once you’ve found 1 set of LoFal, 1 Sur for later (possibly Arcane Protection if RNGesus is Stingy with Elemental Clash and decent craft/rares), MalCham, and up to 2 sets of ChamIstVex, additional low runes don’t really have much value anymore. I’m a little obsessive though and you have more space if SP; I have 1 stack of 50 collected of all Pgems and low runes sitting in my shared stash for convenience. I also like to keep collecting at least Cham/Zod for uptiering into more Ol’s for desperate box fodder, Dulra Aegis fodder, or (really ambitious, here) possibly uptiering into Xiths to craft amulets.
3 Lpierce Farsight Globe (lower level req) or Lightning Rune to pierce cap for the content is better than all options. Next is PTopaz/Pul until you start replacing them with good crafted jewels. You pretty much need 4 spell damage and 2% energy or 15 SF to outperform 5% energy on a damage front - decent rolls with good defensive stats like mana, life, and life regen might be worth it to you. The runes in the list are what you need (or can downlevel) to make your target runewords + the resist runes while you wait for the appropriate Perfect Gems and enough money/charms to fix your low resists with MOs on Honorifics.
Pickup and save all jewels until you have like 30 and afterward maintain a decent pool of fodder for crafting more. They are useful for the socket punch recipe and any that rolled -reqs are important in transitioning to mid game gear. You’ll also need them for crafting your best in slot socketables after you reach 99+.
3 Lpierce Farsight Globe (lower level req) or Lightning Rune to pierce cap for the content is better than all options. Next is PTopaz/Pul until you start replacing them with good crafted jewels. You pretty much need 4 spell damage and 2% energy or 15 SF to outperform 5% energy on a damage front - decent rolls with good defensive stats like mana, life, and life regen might be worth it to you. The runes in the list are what you need (or can downlevel) to make your target runewords + the resist runes while you wait for the appropriate Perfect Gems and enough money/charms to fix your low resists with MOs on Honorifics.
Pickup and save all jewels until you have like 30 and afterward maintain a decent pool of fodder for crafting more. They are useful for the socket punch recipe and any that rolled -reqs are important in transitioning to mid game gear. You’ll also need them for crafting your best in slot socketables after you reach 99+.
AC management:
► Show Spoiler
The only good tiered uniques for the build are Ennead’s Bane and Heartrend (tier3+ requires significant investment in strength but it is a little better than OrtDol. Elverfolk is better than both). Don’t waste ACs fishing for useful Unique Jewelry. Only SU jewelry even competes with good rares. All the rest of your ACs should go into shrine blesses, unlocking the mirror set (if it’s in the season), or crafting a good set of 24-26 jewels. You need to invest in strength to wear the generic spell damage TUs above tier 2 (Heavy Glove, Sash, Boot, Cap). At that point they have at most 10 spell damage. That is equivalent to the doubled effect of single element spell damage MOs on an honorific. Then, you get the doubled effect on the rest of your MOs and can put more points in energy while you equip a low req base. For elemental spell casters, I tend to ignore all the TUs that don’t offer my build any pierce unless I’ll have the stats to wear them anyway. Pierce is the most important stat to get fixed, especially the first 35-70 when you’re getting more than 1% of your effective damage on that target for each point.
Crafted Jewels with SD recipe:
► Show Spoiler
Wait until level 99 to craft any (and don’t burn good rolls on a leveling runeword.) Most important 3 stats are 2% LSD, 11-15 SF, 2% Energy or 5 flat/1% att. You’ll need 2 of the 3 to beat your PTopaz. Then, work on a set of 3 rolls. Then, 3 rolls plus a good 4th mod/lucky upgrade. The other good mods are flat life, flat mana, hp regen, fhr (to 3 frame breakpoint), -10 reqs (depending on the state of your charms - a few to a lot are useful in Labbing setup) >> exp (unless Cain), single res.
Corruptions:
► Show Spoiler
Save all the pieces of Elemental Children you find. The set’s soft spots are pierce and max res. Fish for good corruptions. Over time, you’ll see a lot of each piece. Same goes for all the other options with the exception of the extremely rare drops. Ex: don’t be stupid and brick your only Spirit Walker.
UMO Management:
► Show Spoiler
For purposes of this guide, the most important use of UMOs is making your Dulra Aegis. If you take this far and try to push with UMO’d gear, you’re looking for Invisiblex1/Moon Crystalx2/some Auriel’s Focus (Depends on other gear - SF cap and PLR cap) for Armor. Uldyssian’s Spiritx2/Eye of the Stormx2 (maybe 1 less Eye for an extra breath of Thaumaturgy for an Angelic staff, Eerie vs Ornate depends on your pierce) for Weapon. Eye of Malic/Endless Light to fix pierce/Explorer’s Globe if more space after LSD/ManaRegen for Jewelry.
Charsi Imbues: Save these to lower frustration levels when looking for a crafting base sacred circlet or Blood Fury orb
) and the boss deals significant fire damage in the entire arena that is negated if you are standing in the cold ring. This is the first mechanic you encounter like this, and if you read the Mana Shield explanation above, you’ll understand why you are having big mana problems with it on in here. The fire damage is still draining your mana while it ticks even in the safe spot that negates all damage it would do to your health. Stone the boss while you dodge rift storms and hide in the cold ring when it’s up. You can tank the fire damage for a while, but it’s tough with low max res especially if you get hit by his lightning spiral or the Shambler. This is one of the better builds to do the higher tier Invasion quests with between Stone’s really high damage at range and on demand teleport.
![:-]](./images/smilies/icon_innocent.gif "Innocent"){kind=icon}
