Melee Sorceress [1.3]

So, I just hit level 24 - although, I have another character 120, so I've provided for myself an early honorific. What are some good MO ideas that will balance her early game well? Her mana drops fast, so I'm assuming mana on attack?

Do you mean MO ideas for the Honorific, or just in general?

Solfege wrote:Do you mean MO ideas for the Honorific, or just in general?

Altogether. The honorific I'm assuming is the same as at used to be, max resists//tcd//maybe minion life % for the ice eles?

But on the warped blade? Mana on attack, life on attack? Etc? Anything else? Is leech better than on attack in certain cases like bladestorm?

For the weapon--now that Bladestorm converts nearly all Physical damage to Magic damage, LL isn't that great for it (still good for Wraithsword, tho). LoA is far better, IMO. As for MoA, usually a single orb is good enough early on. Might need 2 later when you get more +Skills gear. The rest is just %ED and %EWD.

For orbs generally--it's more about boosting defense, STR/DEX, and Resists. There's room for MF, too. Then in Terror and beyond, you'll want +Minion Resists.

For Honorifics specifically--I went with +Resists, FR/W, and +Minion Resists. The rest is pretty open, so I went with STR and MF. Points into Frigid Sphere will increase Elementals' life, so I usually don't worry about that, but like I said, you should have room so go for it if you want. It'd be good for Blade Spirits.

Alright. Sounds like I'm following the right path so far. Out of curiousity, does your skill plan for the early game change at all? Fusillade at this lower level seems to be so.. weak because of it's heavy cooldown. Even with 4 skill points invested, it's on a 14 second cooldown. And it's damage is only slightly higher than bladestorm/wraithstorm.

Yeah, early on, it's kinda weak. Moonstrike got a nice little buff, so both Wraithsword and Fusillade will deal much more damage with more points into Moonstrike (as long as it's active). I only put 9 points into Fusillade to hit the 9.6 second timer. It's mostly just for supplemental damage or for things you don't really want to melee. It's not really necessary, just a "nice to have" skill.

Solfege wrote:Yeah, early on, it's kinda weak. Moonstrike got a nice little buff, so both Wraithsword and Fusillade will deal much more damage with more points into Moonstrike (as long as it's active). I only put 9 points into Fusillade to hit the 9.6 second timer. It's mostly just for supplemental damage or for things you don't really want to melee. It's not really necessary, just a "nice to have" skill.

It's really, really good for some ubers though. You can do QT straight after azmodan, just orb your jewelry with reduced phys damage and socket pgems in all your armor and get cb gems/mos on your weapon. Then simply run around him and using fussilade whenever it's off cooldown, while keeping moonstrke buff up. EZ PZ.

I also think (although I haven't tried), it might be really good for Zorun Tzin. Whenever he jumps on you just use Fussi. With a lot of CB, smaxed fussi damage is insane.

For Kabraxis, I found maxing Vengeful Power to be great. He has a lot of multi hit melee attacks and if you find a way to survive, he'll kill himself in a very short time. I only played SP so I only managed to bring him to about 40% before dying and cropse recovery becoming a pita, healing him back up. Should be no problem in MP with just honorifics/TU.

What is the difference between Smax and Max for skills?

Curlyfries117 wrote:What is the difference between Smax and Max for skills?

When people say "Smax" it's short for Supermax, meaning use anything you can to boost the max level for that skill and dump as many points as humanly possible. Just saying max means using the natural skill level cap and maxing to it. It's almost the same.

Thanks for the guide!

I used it and got through to Destruction Baal no problems. Even did most of the ubers you marked green and blue. Toraja, Triune, Bremmtown & Belial are giving me a bit of trouble, I'm at the point where I guess I should farm something, but I'm not sure what. I think Nihlathak & TA are my best bets for farming?

I'm using the Druid set belt Marchosias' Hatred, which I feel is quite good and maybe worth mentioning as a gear option?

All your advice on specs is a bit confusing, but I've found lightning/ice to be my best bet. The offensive bonus from flamefront is additive with other stuff so not as big as I thought it would be, hardly worth the bother.

Also I found points in Frozen Elementals (or their synergy) are a waste... the little buggers die like flies even with them. I found that my points were better invested in the Blade Elementals, which scale quite nicely with hard points. I'm smaxing them, so they have like 35k hp and almost never die. With them as my backbone meatshields I find it easy just to keep 1-2 frozen elementals alive. This is coming at the expense of familiar, which I only have 4 points in.

I was wondering what mystic orbs I should use on my witchhunter's hood helm & dragon's breach shield - also is it worth is to use MOs to get 100% reduced curse duration? I used my crafted gloves and boots to get that, I hope that wasn't bad.

Is there some secret to getting sacred warp blades? I'm still using my TU weapon, feels like I might be stuck with it forever. Also, is there some secret to getting etheral items? They seem more rare than I remember them being.

I'm really impressed by how good the Abjurer mercenary is - I've got mine equipped with TU longsword and TU ancient armor, but I can't seem to find any good budget (IE TU or runeword) shield or helm options for him. For the longest time I had a shield on him that made him cast bloodlust when he killed an enemy... but after some testing I don't think that kind of item works on mercs (or at least not on this one).

Thanks againt for the guide! 8-)