LLD101

[xshadow1]

Preface

I'm pretty sure there are no shortage of guides on the subject, and I don't claim to have any mastery over the subject on which I write. My target audience, however, is for the person who is looking to get started in low level dueling (regardless of whether it's LLD101-sanctioned or not) and likes playing sorceresses.

Why should I make a Level 30 Blizzard Sorceress?

Simply put, a Blizzard sorceress is great against the majority of randoms that you will encounter in (low-level) public dueling games. With entry-level equipment, Ice Blast and Blizzard are devastating against most of the opponents you'll face because Cold Mastery will pierce through their resistances. That being said, as with any LLD build, there are good matchups and bad matchups, but a Blizzard sorceress has more of the former and less of the latter.

In addition, decent gear isn't as difficult to come by. Unlike a fireball sorceress, you don't need to worry about hitting higher FCR breakpoints while having a large mana ball to draw from. You can also do comparable damage thanks to cold mastery -- compare the damage against a random opponent who only has visually maxed resists [1]:

1000 damage Blizzard/Ice Blast with Level 11 (-70%) Cold Mastery deals 161.5 damage vs. an opponent with 75% cold resist and no MDR [2]
2000 damage Fireball deals 85 damage vs. an opponent with 75% fire resist and no MDR [3]
3000 damage Fireball deals 127.5 damage vs. an opponent with 75% fire resist and no MDR [4]

Calculation performed by applying the 17% PvP damage penalty followed by applying 75% resistance, modified by Cold Mastery if applicable.

[1] Visually maxed resists meaning that the opponent has not stacked resists past the visual maximum of 75%
[2] Damage typical of what is possible at level 30, non-hell rushed (assumes +10 to cold skills)
[3] Damage typical of what is possible at level 30, non-hell rushed (assumes +10 to fire skills)
[4] Damage typical of what is possible at level 30, hell-rushed (assumes +10 to fire skills)

Of course, the fireball sorceress will hit more often than the cold sorceress, so the average damage done will be higher -- but strictly comparing the non-hell rushed cold and fire sorceresses, the fire sorceress needs to hit almost twice as fast as the cold sorceress to deal the same damage!

Skill Point Distribution

Non-hell rushed (33 Skill Points)

With +10 cold skills, this achieves 916-948 Ice Blast damage and 935-1034 Blizzard damage

Main Skills
7 Blizzard
20 Ice Blast

Support Skills
1 Cold Mastery
1 Warmth

Prerequisites/Synergies
2 Ice Bolt
1 Frost Nova
1 Glacial Spike

Hell rushed (41 Skill Points)

With +10 cold skills, this achieves 1257-1301 Ice Blast damage and 1109-1226 Blizzard damage

Main Skills
7 Blizzard
20 Ice Blast

Support Skills
1 Cold Mastery
1 Warmth

Prerequisites/Synergies
10 Ice Bolt -- this is all that changes
1 Frost Nova
1 Glacial Spike

Skill Discussion

Personally, I don't invest in cold armor -- a +3 Shiver Armor staff works just fine, and saves points to invest in synergies. You can shop a +Shiver Armor / +Teleport** gnarled or battle staff from Act 2 normal and socket it with the Larzuk quest (it gets 4 sockets), make an Insight staff, which will be a great weapon switch.

As discussed in other guides, Energy Shield is not recommended because it takes way too much mana to sustain.

I strongly recommend the 1 point in Warmth, it makes quite a bit of a difference if you don't have loads of life/mana SCs and you only lose about 30-50 blizzard and ice blast damage.

**Even though I love sorceresses for their teleport ability, it only takes one or two duels against a teleporting sorceress to find out how dull it really is for the other person... an Insight staff with +Shiver armor / +Teleport is more than sufficient if you want to harass other players by teleporting around.

Equipment

Helm -- Ideally, a rare +2 cold skills circlet the usual good stuff -- FHR, FR/W, FCR, life replenish, life/mana, resistances, 2 sockets. However, since FCR is not crucial, an effective budget setup would be a Peasant Crown (+1 skills) or a plain +2 cold skill circlet. Socket with Shael rune(s) for FHR, a Perfect Ruby if you need the life, Perfect Sapphire if you need the mana**, Perfect Skull if you want +replenish life.

As a last resort if you're really poor, a Tarnhelm or Lore runeword (Ort-Sol) will also provide +1 skills.

**Actually, if you need mana, you'd be better off socketing with a Perfect Ruby and diverting stat points from vitality to energy. Unless you're so desperate you feel the need to do both...

Amulet -- Ideally, a rare +2 cold skills amulet with FCR, resistances, life/mana. As with the helm, FCR is not critical (though useful if you want to hit the 63% breakpoint) so a plain +2 cold skills amulet will suffice. You can also alternatively use Telling of Beads, the Eye of Etlich, or a plain +1 cold skills amulet.

Weapon -- Spirit runeword Crystal Sword. It packs +2 skills, FCR, FHR, and a huge helping of mana. (A pity that it's a bit more difficult to obtain non-ladder...) Depending on availability, you could also go with a rare +2 cold skill orb, preferably with +Ice Blast, +Blizzard, +Cold Mastery (actually due to skill levels, all three skills spawning on the same item is probably impossible), and ideally also packing FCR/resist/life/mana.

Weapon Switch -- Insight Staff (for the meditation aura), preferably with +Shiver Armor, +Teleport

Body Armor -- Skin of the Vipermagi. No question about this, it has +1 skills, FCR, resists, MDR... preferably socketed with a Shael rune, otherwise a Perfect Ruby if life is needed.

Shield -- Visceratuant. +1 skills, +blocking chance, faster block rate. Socket with a perfect diamond.

Gloves -- Frostburn if you need mana (though you will need additional stat points in strength if you go this route), otherwise Magefist for FCR and regen mana. (I personally use Frostburn, I'm not wealthy enough to have an inventory full of life/mana scs.)

Rings -- 2x Stones of Jordan -- +skills, +mana! Alternately, a FCR/mana ring with replenish life, life or resists will also work. However, SOJs are pretty much needed to boost your skill damage. This is arguably the most expensive equipment you will need (aside from the inventory full of +life charms) -- but much easier to obtain than a bunch of +damage/etc. jewels that melee characters need.

Belt -- Take your pick -- Nightsmoke for +mana and +resists, String of Ears for DR and MDR, Death's Sash for Cannot be Frozen. You could also go with a rare crafted belt with FHR, mana, and FCR.

Boots -- Take your pick -- Sander's Riprap for 40% FR/W, +5 str, +10 dex, or Cow King's Boots for 30% FR/W and +20 dex. The latter is a more of a stat-saver though the extra FR/W can be very useful in outrunning your opponents. A rare pair of boots with FHR and FR/W could also work.

Equipment Discussion
Hitting the 37% FCR breakpoint should be trivially easy with Skin of the Vipermagi providing 30% FCR. On ladder, hitting the 63% FCR breakpoint is also very easy thanks to the Spirit runeword.

If you can hit it, the 105% FCR breakpoint will allow you to fast-cast Ice Blast, but 63% is plenty fast unless you're sure you can achieve 105% without shorting yourself in other areas (like mana).

With Spirit providing 55% FHR (wow!), you should target the 86% FHR (7 frame) breakpoint, which two shael runes (one in helm and one in armor) will give you. If you don't have Spirit, you could more easily pursue the 60% FHR (8 frame) breakpoint, though most sorceress LLD guides strongly recommend the 86% FHR breakpoint.

Charms

Enough 5% FHR small charms to hit your desired FHR breakpoint.
For the remainder, load up on +15 life small charms**, preferably with a second +mana mod.

**If you can't afford 40x 15 life SCs, you can use +10-14 life SCs as a substitute, which should be easier to find. +15-20 life LCs can also be used in a pinch while you build up your charm base...

If desperate for mana, +45 mana GCs (ideally with a +25 life sustenance suffix) could also be used.

Stat Point Allocation

You've probably heard it before if you've read any guides:

Enough strength to wear equipment.
Enough dexterity for max block.
Rest in vitality.
Base energy.

That being said, your strength target is either 45 or 60, depending on whether you're using Magefists or Frostburn.

Your dexterity target is 90 for max block with Visceratuant.

Depending on your gear choices, and whether you decide to hell rush, you will have anywhere between 35 and 60 points to dump into vitality.

Summary

Life: With an inventory full of +15 life small charms, it's not hard to break 900 or 1000 life with this build. I use many suboptimal (10-15) small charms and have about 920 life with a hell-rushed build.

Mana: I don't have access to D2 at the moment, but using Spirit, Frosties and 2x SOJs, I had around 560 mana. 400 (with 500-600+ as a target if you like casting Ice Blast often) should be sufficient with an Insight staff on weapon switch.

Skill Damage: (calculated using the D2Items.com skill applet)

Non-hell rushed: With +10 cold skills, this achieves 916-948 Ice Blast damage and 935-1034 Blizzard damage.

Hell rushed: With +10 cold skills, this achieves 1257-1301 Ice Blast damage and 1109-1226 Blizzard damage.

Of course, don't discount the fact that you'll have Cold Mastery working for you as well (-70% at slvl 11). It's possible to go considerably higher with an optimal +2 cold skill orb that has +3 blizzard or +3 ice blast (depending on which skill you prefer as your primary attack).

To hell rush or not to hell rush?

Rationale

Now, I realize that this is probably beyond the scope of the discussion but I figured that while we were discussing Blizzard sorceress LLDs, I figured I'd chime in with a few words on the topic of rushing. I don't compete on LLD101, so I don't really have any incentive to adhere to the rules and guidelines prescribed here -- but since this is a low level dueling community, I still think that discussion on the topic is still relevant.

Personally, I find hell rushing and questing a pain in the ass -- yet my LLD Blizz Sorc "ltchies" was hell-rushed and quested (by myself, with quite some effort). With a little experience dueling in public games, I have come to the conclusion that hell rushing is unnecessary if you're just looking to have a good time owning randoms who come to duel in public games.

Why is it unnecessary? In my experience, duels against low level and high level randoms are very lopsided. If they don't have stacked resists, your cold mastery will penetrate their defenses and your Blizzard and Ice Blast will devastate them. If they do have stacked resists (or enough Life / Bone Armor / Cyclone Armor to absorb your hits). For this reason, I find that the effect of hell rushing in a random pub duel is just to make it more lopsided (if it was already in your favor) or have little effect (if it was in your opponent's favor).

Advantages of Hell Rushing

A hell-rushed sorceress has the following advantages over a non-rushed sorceress:

+8 skill points from the den/radament/izual quests in NM and Hell
+40 life from the Jade Figurine quests in NM and Hell
+10 stat points from the Lam Esan's Tome quest in NM and Hell
+20% resist all from the Anya quests in NM and Hell

Assuming the stat points are diverted into vitality (where a sorceress gets +2 life per stat point invested), this is a net of +60 life. While not insignificant, it's still only about 6-7% of your life total if you have 900-1000 life. The edge helps somewhat, but I argue that it is unnecessary when duels are as lopsided as they are against randoms in public games.

The more tangible benefits are the +20% resist all and the +8 stat points. The resistances are offset due to the fact that you already have +64% resist all assuming a 35% Vipermagi, 19% from the Pdiamond in the Visceratuant, and 10% from the normal Anya quest. Assuming that your other gear and charms provide no resistances, a single 11-15% resistance jewel will take your resistances to 75%. There is a drawback in not being able to stack resistances vs. other cold sorceresses, but aside from that matchup the +20% resist all reward is not all that necessary.

The big difference is the additional damage that the skill quests give you. An additional 8 points in Ice Bolt gives the hell rushed sorceress a considerable advantage over the non-hell rushed sorceress, as seen by these reiterated damage figures:

Non-hell rushed: With +10 cold skills, this achieves 916-948 Ice Blast damage and 935-1034 Blizzard damage.

Hell rushed: With +10 cold skills, this achieves 1257-1301 Ice Blast damage and 1109-1226 Blizzard damage.

The Blizzard damage goes up 18.6%, the Ice Blast damage goes up 37.2% with the additional 8 synergy points in Ice Bolt.

Assuming that Blizzard is your primary skill: If it normally takes 5 direct hits to kill your opponent with a hell-rushed Blizzard, it will take 6 direct hits to kill your opponent with the non-hell rushed Blizzard. In close duels, the extra damage could be the deciding factor -- but from my experience with cold sorceresses the duels are lopsided enough that the extra damage really isn't necessary (unless you want to win with style points, or have your opponents muttering about hacks).

Assuming that Ice Blast is your primary skill: If it normally takes 5 direct hits to kill your opponent with a hell-rushed Ice Blast, it will take 7 direct hits to kill your opponent with a non-hell rushed Ice Blast. This difference is not as close as it is with the Blizzard, and considering the difficulty of landing hits with Ice Blast (due to the slower projectile velocity), this would be a situation where you would consider hell rushing for the extra damage. Still, I feel that the Blizzard sorceress dominates duels with randoms and that the additional handicap of using a weaker Ice Blast is not so great that it will automatically shift duels in your opponents' favor -- again, my experience with these lopsided duels is that if you handily win with your hell-rushed sorceress, you'll have little additional difficulty winning duels with a non-hell rushed sorceress.

[crawlingdeadman]

great guide. i had a hammerdin that i first started out on and i didnt hell rush him for the longest time. after i did i think i gained 500 damage and an insignificant amount of life. you should mention the biggest advantage to non hell rushed is just being able to see the games with out switching. caster gear is cheap and you did a great job hitting the highlights but maybe mention stealth and spirit shroud as possible alternatives. maybe mention rhyme as well (i had a bitch of a time finding a visc when i wanted it).

again great guide, well written and not too long.

[xshadow1]

[heprea]

visc vs casters, whistanse vs melee

[crawlingdeadman]

i think if you do what you're talking about it's the str bug if you die so you'd have to have 2spaces open when you pick up your bod or you'd lose the bladebuckle. that would be a decent cheapie though especially if you're using frosties anyway. so you lose out on the 5 str big whoop people use string etc etc no one'll ever use bladebuckle making it a cheap alterative. i like the dex on it for sure but i dunno i think nightsmoke would be better... guess it depends on res and what you can find/get it's in there as being usefull as long as you're not going out of your way for it.

[ShadowStalk3r]

[Waramp]

isnt this stickied in the wrong forum?

[Dao Jones]

Sure is. Lemme fix that.

[gw_epyon]

Hate to bump this, but can I get a confirmation on 4 sockets in a gnarled or battle staff from a2 normal? Was 99% sure they would get two sockets as the ilvl of the shopkeep's items aren't high enough to get max.