Lighting sorceress guide

[HWS-pvpowner]

There are two approaches when making a lightning sorceress:
1. ES Build
2. Vita Build

With
the ES build, you will be using energy shield to allow you to take a
lot of hits, but your damage will suffer as a result. You will be
maxing telekenesis, putting a lot of points into energy shield, and
will be using mana as your life.

With the Vita build, you will be doing a lot of damage (40-50k+) , but will have a harder time staying alive.
You
will be putting all your skills into Lightning, mastery, and its
synergies, and will be relying on high vitality to stay alive.

Basically,
If you are rich, either build will work for you. If you are not
rich yet, I'd recommend going with the vita build, because an es build
just won't produce enough damage output, and you will not have enough
life/mana for es to be effective.

For either build, this is your ideal gear:
Griffon Eye (the best one you can get (-res is more important for a lite sorc)/Shako (if you can't afford a griff)
Armageddon Fletch/Maras//Tals ammy
HOTO (the higher resistances, the better)
Spirit Shield (try to get a 35fcr)
Arach
Frostburns/Magefists
2x sojs/fcr rings with mana and/or resist
Sandstorm Treks

Weapon Switch
CTA (The Higher Battle Orders, the better)
Spirit Shield (any crap spirit is fine here)

Optional:
+9ES staff
+3 ES ormus
(use these for prebuff ES)

You
can also put in a low strength infinity polearm instead of hoto/spirit
for a lot more damage, but at the cost of resistances mana, and fcr.

Iventory:
8x Lightning Gcs with Life
1x Lightning Gc with FHR
Sorc Torch
Anni
9x Life/Mana Scs
1x fhr/mana sc
(The best you can get with these charms...they do cost a bit)

Some FCR Breakpoints you may want to look at:
63 FCR
105 FCR
200 FCR

and some of the FHR Breakpoints you want to hit:
42 FHR
60 FHR
86 FHR
142 FHR

The
set up i gave was a 105fcr/86 FHR. I recommend that combination,
because it provides good fcr and fhr while still allowing you to have
plenty of +skill items and life/mana. However, if you wan more fhr or
fcr, you can mix the gear/ fhr gcs around to hit your desired
breakpoints.

Merc: Act 2 Nightmare Defensive (Holy Freeze) is the best merc for your lightning sorceress.
Eth
Andariel's visage: Aim for High lifeleech, strength, and put a ral in
it to negate the fire resist penalty. (You can also use a gaze here if
you are planning to use a CA infinity)
Eth Ca/Cv Infinity: High -enemy resist and ed are important here
Eth Fort: The more resistances/life per level/defense, the better


1. For the ES build, here are your skills and stats:
Str: enough to wear gear
Dex: None
Vitality: 100-150
Energy: Rest

(experiment
with the Vitality/Energy Combination... Make sure you have enough
vitality so that poison or open wounds can not kill you too quickly,
but at the same time make sure you have enough energy to absorb the
other hits. I find that 100 vita is good if you can afford light lifer
skill charms, and 150 if you can not afford them.)

Skills:
Frozen Armor: 1 Point
Warmth: 1 Point
Thunderstorm: 1 Point
Static Field: 1 Point
Teleport: 1 Point
Telekenesis: Max
Energy
Shield: 7 Points (This should add up to lvl 40 after ES ormus, es
staff, gear, and charms...if you're short, feel free to add but don't
exceed 40 after gear)
Chain Lightning: Max
Lightning: Max
Lightning Mastery: Max
Rest into Nova or Charged Bolt

2. For the Vita Build, here are your skills and stats:

Str: Enough to Wear gear
Dex: None
Vitality: Rest
Energy: about 100

Skills:
Frozen Armor: 1 Point
Warmth: 1 Point
Thunderstorm: 1 Point
Static Field: 1 Point
Teleport: 1 Point
Chain Lightning: Max
Lightning: Max
Lightning Mastery: Max
Nova: Max
Charged Bolt: Rest
After Charged Bolt is maxed, you can put the rest of your points into thunderstorm (if you plan to level your character past 93)

PVM
Strategy: Zap the crap outta everything with chain lightning vs.
multiple enemies and regular lightning vs. single enemies. Beware of
oblivion knights in act 4 and act 5... if iron maiden hits your merc,
better get to town fast and get
to a healer because if he dies,
conviction is gone and you will suck. Teleing around often will also
keep your merc from getting hit from conviction.

PVP Strategy:
Not sure if this is BM, but I like to go with a voulge infin with
magefist, fletch, vipermagi, arach, 2x sojs, treks, and griffon so i
can have 105fcr and conviction without use of a merc. You'll lose some
resists and mana here, but you'll gain a crapload of damage. Tele
around...if you're cheap let the ts and convict kill your enemy (100%
success rate with that), if you're not, hit him with a lightning and
he's dead 1 hit GG.

Don't like voulge infin? Ok. I'll take more
mana fcr and resists then. Slap on your frostburn, tele around, and hit
him with lightning once or twice and he's dead. GG

Good
luck! the Lightning Sorceress is one of the best characters for
dueling, mfing, rushing, chaosing, and baaling. It's one of the most
versatile characters in the game and you can never go wrong with a well
made lightning sorceress.
This guide isnt done by me.

[Dlav123]

k i saw 2 flaws while reading this i think u can only have 7 on any weapon to a certain skill so 9 ES staff i think is impossible and if u have one i would love to see it and in the pvm strat is says




PVM
Strategy: Zap the crap outta everything with chain lightning vs.
multiple enemies and regular lightning vs. single enemies. Beware of
oblivion knights in act 4 and act 5... if iron maiden hits your merc,
better get to town fast and get
to a healer because if he dies,
conviction is gone and you will suck. Teleing around often will also
keep your merc from getting hit from conviction.
shouldn't that be iron maidan
other than that i give this guide a 8/10

[saracen85]

@dlav
when he meant 9es staff he probably meant memory runeword made in a staff with inherent +3ES, thus +9ES total =)

btw, @OP, you got your fcr focus a bit wrong. 63/105 fcr is the general fcr. however, chain lightning, lightning (and inferno out of completeness) work under different fcr breakpoints. 78 for 13 frames, 117 for 12 frames and 194 for 11 frames.

[JKH]

Very nice build

[ayeaykay]

i dint see wat armor to use? is tht in there?

[Zarley]

i dint see wat armor to use? is tht in there?

Vipermagi or COH.

[®@þþ3¬]

Remember that the bps for lightning/chain lightning are different form the other fcr bps. I cant remember them from the top of my head but I do remember that you should aim for 117 fcr in PvP :)

[ayeaykay]

ok yea tht is wat i use a coh. i dont like vipermagi unless it is upped. even then i dont like it because it only has 1 to skills and less res than coh

[Zarley]

Yes, but Viper's 30 FCR can actually get you more skills if it lets you use SOJs instead of FCR rings. And a perfect Um'd Viper has 50 res, only 15 less than COH.

And up'd or non-upd has little bearing. The extra defense rating is essentially worthless to a sorc unless she's partied up with a barb with a high-level Shout and/or a paladin with Defiance.

[exitsoldier]

first and most immportant flaw.
mana burn gets u killed.
useless build

[Zarley]

first and most immportant flaw.
mana burn gets u killed.
useless build

Let's try to be more positive than that, please. Mana burn will basically get EVERY character killed so your "criticism" is hardly insightful.

And while Energy Shield tends to be a more PVP-oriented skill, it can be used very successfully in PVM.

[dainbramage]

first and most immportant flaw.
mana burn gets u killed.
useless build

Mana burned
ES goes down
Sorc walks away from mana burners
Teles out.


Problem solved.

[ayeaykay]

i used this guide and my mana is fine all the time. and i dont even have any sojs yet!

although i do die quite easily(maybe it is cuz i use eschutas and not hoto)(also i do not have a merc yet)

[saracen85]

it's probably because of the unsynergized ES.
even damage from non-manaburn monsters can be deadly to you.

for every single point of damage absorbed by ES, 2 points of mana will be taken away.

this is why TK synergy is important to ES. it'll reduce that proportion up to the point where for every single point of damage absorbed by ES, 0.75 mana is taken away =)

[GuiSilva]

I got a vita based light sorc, lv90, all light synergies maxed except nova wich I have 6 pts in it, I read everywhere that I should be putting 1 pt in frozen armor. Does frozen armor really helps out or is a wasted pt that I should be spending on nova to gain more light dmg ????

[saracen85]

I got a vita based light sorc, lv90, all light synergies maxed except nova wich I have 6 pts in it, I read everywhere that I should be putting 1 pt in frozen armor. Does frozen armor really helps out or is a wasted pt that I should be spending on nova to gain more light dmg ????

it depends.. what type of armor you're wearing? those that are high (~1k+ defense) would certainly benefit from frozen armor. otherwise, it really isn't a necessity. you can even find a staff/orb with +1 to any cold armor and cast a prebuff..

[GuiSilva]

I'm wearing pure MF gear, tals armor etc..
The way I see, I should be putting every single pt from now on in nova to max out light dmg. What's ur opinion, is spending 1pt on frozen armor a good call ???

[rconnor]

sounds like a good build...I had a friend with a similar build and he loved it...maybe I'll give it a go

[Belhemel]

Pretty standard build although I still like eschutas over hoto but hoto does give more life so w/e your style. I also like maxing cb instead of nova as cb fully synergized can wipeout big enemies in one to two hits. All you have to do is tele around act bosses and uniques until they lock on your merc tele behind them and unload. Trust me they will be dead and gone especially if you have infinity on your merc.

[theOG22093]

ok yea tht is wat i use a coh. i dont like vipermagi unless it is upped. even then i dont like it because it only has 1 to skills and less res than coh

just skimmed through and saw that post.....defense really isnt going to help much
nice guide, congrats

[ayeaykay]

just skimmed through and saw that post.....defense really isnt going to help much
nice guide, congrats

yea but it looks sexier and i am not goin for fcr. u will usually want to wear vipermagi for fcr