FYI, this is my guide for the zealer sorc. The proper name is "Dual-Dream Zealchantress". I'm sure you can find other guides elsewhere, but this is mine
This is an example. Still working on prebuff gear.
Zeal Damage: 9097 to 54K
Attack Rating: 10624
Defense: 15463
TABLE OF CONTENTS
About
Skills
Ideal Fighting Equipment
Ideal Prebuff Equipment
Mercenary
Stats
Operation
ABOUT
Pros
If you follow this build, you will have one of the best PVM characters in the game, not to mention the funnest to play. She will be fast, durable, and will be able to dish out more damage than just about any other character.
Your main attack will be zeal, and you will soon enjoy teleporting into the middle of a huge clump of hell-difficulty baddies and laying waste to every one of them in mere seconds. Most monsters (even in act 5 hell) will be shattered into ice dust in just 1 blow with your immense damage. Most lower level monsters (up to act 1 hell) will be killed without you even having to hit them (the aura you emanate will be so powerful, everyone on the screen will die just by being in your presence). You will be able to kill almost every monster in Normal and Nightmare without even touching them. I routinely rush people through the Nightmare chaos sanctuary and monsters die at my feet without even having to waste effort clicking on them. Bosses like Diablo / Baal / etc will take just a few hits in Nightmare.
Cons
Iron Maiden. Be very careful in the Hell chaos sanctuary and in Hell baal runs. If death mages are present, target them first and eliminate them. The longer they are alive, the more chance they have of putting Iron Maiden on you. Iron Maiden forces you to do your own damage to yourself. When you hit yourself with your own damage, you will be lucky to survive 1 or 2 hits. If you get caught with Iron Maiden in the middle of an unstoppable 5-hit zeal, forget about it.
Another Downside: You are not a paladin. You will be able to tank to a certain extent, but you are not invincible. You will have about 5K defense, which is better than most sorceresses for sure, but you need to act quick and strike first to avoid being slaughtered. If you have a defiance Merc, your defense can be higher (like 8 to 10k). Be smart, and you shouldn't have a problem. Also, your life will not be high as you may feel comfortable with. Be prepared to have about 750-1000 base life (more in parties obviously). But remember, you will be using E-shield, so your mana (which is another 1.5k will also act as your life).
DISCLAIMER: This is one of the most expensive builds you can even think about building. It is also VERY item dependent. If you cannot obtain the items necessary, don't even bother with this build. In the sections below, I will outline the equipment necessary. It is split into fighting gear (which is almost all necessary), and prebuff gear (which is optional). There are a few other variations possible (such as turning into a werebear) that some people like to do. Personally I don't recommend it, but it's your character, so do what you want.
Good luck!
SKILLS
Fire Skills
Warmth: MAX. You will need this for your E-shield. Plus you will get the benefit of teleporting constantly without EVER having to take a mana potion.
Enchant: Get to 10 originally. Then max later after everything else.
Fire Mastery: Get to 10 originally. Then increase later. This is the LAST thing you will try to max, but you won't be able to max it. If you get to lvl 99, you will get 16 points in it. It's okay, don't worry that you can't max it. There are more important skills.
Cold Skills
Shiver Armor: 1 point. Let +skill items do the rest.
Lightning Skills
Static Field: 1 point. Let +skill items do the rest.
Teleport: 1 point.
Telekinesis: MAX. No, I'm not joking. Max it and you will enjoy a hidden synergy with E-shield for a 25% damage reduction. It's like having BER runes socketed in your stuff. This is the main reason we use E-shield and put a lot of points into ENERGY, rather than just putting all in VITALITY.
E-Shield: 1 point. Trust me, you only need 1. Let +skill items do the rest. You cannot afford extra points to place here anyway as you will be using them all.
Lightning Mastery: MAX. This is your main damage-giving skill. Even though Pallys have a skill called Holy Shock, if you put 2 dreams on a Pally, you will be doing retarded low damage. Due to the Sorc's lightning mastery skill, which increases all lightning damage done by the Dreams to an insane amount, you can be far more effective than a Pally could ever hope to be.
T-Storm: 1 point. The only reason you put a point here is because you have already maxed lightning mastry, so you might as well take advantage of it. It will be doing about 1k damage per strike. Not super great, but useful considering you only put 1 point in it.
Overview
Warmth: 20
Enchant: 10
Fire Mastery: 10
Shiver Armor: 1
Static Field: 1
Telekinesis: 20
Teleport: 1
Energy Shield: 1
Lightning Mastery: 20
Thunderstorm: 1
SUBTOTAL: 85 points
Pre-reqs associated with the above skills: 9
TOTAL: 93 points
Maxing Enchant at the end: 10 more (total of 20)
Using the rest of your points on Fire Mastery: 6 more (total of 16)
GRAND TOTAL: 110 (therefore, this build will be complete at lvl 99, if you get all skill quest rewards)
IDEAL FIGHTING EQUIPMENT
The focus is on items that increase your IAS and AR, while still providing other useful mods like +skills, +life, +mana, & %DR.
PVM Wep: Passion PB for the +1 Zeal
PVP Wep: 6-sock PB with 5-shael, 1-eth
Helm: Dream Bone Visage for the +15 Holy shock
Shield: Dream Troll Nest for another +15 Holy Shock
Armor: CoH AP
Gloves: Magnus Skin for IAS and AR
Uber & PVP Gloves: Drac's for IAS and life tap
Boots: Gore Riders
PVM Belt: Verdungo's for FHR, %DR, & +life
PVP Belt: If you are fighting traps assassins or lightning sorcs, use T-God's instead.
Rings: 2x Raven Frosts for AR, Dex, & +mana
Ammy: Highlord's for +skill & IAS, & deadly strike
GCs: Lightning GCs of balance (FHR) and of dexterity
SCs: Lifers & +AR charms
Anni charm: Yes (duh)
Torch charm: Sorc Torch
NOTE1: If you don't have 2x Raven Frosts and a Highlord's ammy, then a great substitute is all three Angelic's set ammy & rings.
NOTE2: You can also use a P-Torch if you don't have a S-Torch b/c it will help with your Holy Shock levels, but a S-Torch is much better b/c it increases your lightning mastery, which applies double for each Dream.
NOTE3: Remember, every extra lightning skills point you get will give you an extra 1k damage, but you will be doing soooo much damage anyway, that it's MUCH better to have faster attack speed and higher attack rating than just pure damage. (This is the reason I don't recommend werebear, as I mentioned in the "About" section.)
IDEAL PREBUFF EQUIPMENT
The focus is on anything that will raise your fire skill lvl, no matter how slow or bad it is for fighting. You should be able to get your enchant up to approximately lvl 47-50, which will give you like 17-22k of fire alone, on top of your lightning damage. Even more with fire Rainbow Facet charms as described below.
Wep 1: Call to Arms with decent BO. The purpose of this wep is for the Battle Cries, which increase your skills by 1 point. Even if you only have a +1 BC CtA, it's fine because it will last 15 seconds, which is plenty long enough for you to switch to Wep 2 (below) and enchant yourself and party members.
Helm: A plain blue +3 to fire skills circlet ("volcanic circlet")
Socket it: with two fire Rainbow Facets
Shield: Spirit Monarch
Armor: Your same CoH
Gloves: Magefists of course, for the +1 to fire skills
Boots: Your same Gore Riders
Belt: Arachs for +1 to skills
Rings: 2x Bul-Kathos' or 2x SoJs
Ammy: A plain blue +3 to fire skills ammy ("volcanic amulet")
GCs: Burning Grand Charms (+1 to fire skills). You do not need any secondary mods (they can be plain)
NOTE1: Theoretically better than the Eschuta's Temper is a rare orb with +3 sorc skills and +3 to enchant.
NOTE2: Another option for the shield is 4os monarch socketed with 4 fire Rainbow Facets, or a cheaper solution, a Lidless Wall socketed with one fire Rainbow Facet.
NOTE3: Theoretically, the best prebuff armor would be a 15% increased Fire Damage Ormus' Robes with +3 to enchant or fire mastry, and socketed with a fire Rainbow Facet. However, you probably will never be able to get this armor, and even if you did, you likely wouldn't have room in your stash to hold it because your stash and inventory will be nearly FULL with all the gear and charms.
MERCENARY
Your Mercenary will be crucial to your survivability and effectiveness against lightning-immune monsters.
Merc Type
Your Mercenary will be an Act II "Desert Warrior" merc. There are different types of these mercs based on the option you choose when you hire one in act II from Griez. The options are:
Combat
Offensive
Defensive
For this build, your merc will either be a Defiance merc (Normal and/or Hell "Defensive" option) or a Holy Freeze merc (Nightmare "Defensive" option).
A Defiance merc will increase your defense, allowing you to fair better against groups of monsters beating on you. Defiance is also a very party-friendly merc to have because not many other people have Defiance mercs, and not many Pally's in your party will be using the Defiance aura.
A Holy Freeze merc will freeze monsters in your area down to a crawl, meaning they will hit you less and therefore do less damage over time. Be aware that Holy Freeze is a much more common merc than Defiance so you will most likely not be adding anything unique to your party if you go with this option.
Merc Equipment
Your mercenary doesn't damage equipment. Ever. Therefore ethereal items are acceptable, and even preferred for your merc, as eth items typically have a significant bonus to damage or defense over their non-eth counterparts.
Weapon: Eth Infinity. Infinity is not an option. You need the Conviction aura it provides to break lightning immune monsters. Otherwise, you will have a very hard time in Hell. With Infinity, it's a cake-walk. If you absolutely cannot get an Infinity, then a reasonable (and much cheaper) substitute is Crescent Moon, which goes in a 3os polearm.
Helm: Something with +2 to skills. Andariel's Visage is nice. Vampire Gaze is also nice. Delerium is good too. CoA is overkill. This is an expensive build, not a WASTEFUL build! (Plus, I doubt he would have the STR necessary.)
Armor: Something with +2 to skills. CoH is nice. I recently found a eth Archon Plate with over 600 base def (maybe like 615 or something--I forget exactly). After I socketed it and added CoH runes it now has almost 1200 def. Very nice! Another option is an eth Guardian Angel Templar Coat. You can even upgrade it to a Hellforge Plate using the horodric cube recipe if you are playing on a ladder.
STATS
STR: Only put enough points in strength to use the equipment you need. The highest you will need for STR is 103 to wear the Archon Plate CoH. However, seeing as you will have a Torch (preferably with a +20 to all attributes mod), you will only need to get your base STR up to 83 points. However, if you will be using a Monarch (strength req. 156) like Spirit or a 4 Fire Rainbow Facet shield for prebuff, you will need to get your base up to 116. Then your torch will bring it up to 136, and finally, your CoH will bring it up another 20 points to 156.
DEX: Your attack rating is important so get your DEX up to like 150. Hopefully items (such as lightning grand charms OF DEXTERITY) and +AR small charms will bring it up to about 225-250 points.
VIT & ENR: After you get your STR & DEX up to a usable level, every time you level you should put 2 pts in VIT and 3 pts in ENR. Remember that mana is more important than life as long as E-shield is up, because you get a damage reduction for maxing telekinesis.
OPERATION
Normally you won't need to prebuff at all. Even without putting all your prebuff gear on, just doing a normal quick enchant will still give you a butt-load of damage. However, the VAST majority of your damage will be LIGHTNING (provided by the Holy Shock auras in your Dreams). I'm sure by now, you have realized that 1/3rd of all monsters in hell happen to be immune to lightning. This is bad news, but it's OK because your Merc will be teleporting around with you, and will use his Infinity's Conviction Aura to break all lightning-immune monsters. However, once you get a great prebuff, your Merc's Infinity becomes less important because you actually are doing a LOT of fire damage in addition to your lighting.
This is NOT a very good PVP char, but I do duel sometimes. For PVP or any especially hard lightning immune monsters (like the Ancients), which you know your Merc's Infinity will NOT break, you should take the time to prebuff.
To prebuff, it's easy. First go to your stash and switch out all your fighting gear and lightning grand charms out for your prebuff gear and fire grand charms. Make sure you are holding your CtA. BC yourself. Switch to your Eschuta's Temper. Enchant yourself. (Don't forget to also enchant your merc and other people in your party.) Then switch back to all your fighting gear. It's easy, but it takes like 30-45 seconds to switch all your items (which is a long time).
Once your fighting gear / lightning GCs are back in, don't forget to put up E-shield, T-storm, and Shiver Armor.
i didnt read it (too long) but i appreciate you writing it all out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive. Tupac Shakur
100% Legit baal runners SICK_Bambi 93 Barb (46th barb)
SICK_Paladin 95 Necromancer (12th necro)
SICK_ferret 95 Assassin (10th sin) ~~us West Ladder~~
Right now, the enchant by itself will raise my damage about 11-12K. So assuming I don't have any dreams on, my weapon will do aprox 11-12k. It doesn't really matter if I have a weapon or if I'm just punching. It doesn't vary too much. The only use for the weapon is just to attack faster (or any other useful mods it may have)
Although, I must admit i cheated a tiney bit for this shot by still wearing my prebuff rings, belt, and ammy. If I was actually fighting, i'd use the combat stuff, which will lower it to 61k, but make me faster, more AR, etc.
I still don't have perf gear tho. I'm using eschuc instead of a rare +3sorc skills orb w/ +3 to enchant (which would be ideal if i could find one). Also, I could fit 3 more ele GCs and i havn't socketed my prebuff shako and eschuch yet with a fire facet. Those are my goals. I'll keep you informed of the progress.
By the way, Darkjay, punch is 17k now
Also, one more note:
This is all without a skill shrine and B.C.
I'm working on a rabies druid, but I already ruined it. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn't supposed to put anything in poison creeper... Oh well. Anyway darkjay, if you've got any tips/equipment...
I just went for the highest possible damage, to get every drop of poison out of him, other than that no tips lol... for duels get one hit on him and sit in town
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you ever meet a hafling and a hungry dragon you dont have to outrun the dragon, you only have to outrun the hafling.
Ah. Well, there's some sort of glitch where there's an item that gives level 21 poison creeper, it counts for synergies, but only if you don't have anything in poison creeper from skill points.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This is an example. Still working on prebuff gear.
Zeal Damage: 9097 to 54K
Attack Rating: 10624
Defense: 15463
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pros
If you follow this build, you will have one of the best PVM characters in the game, not to mention the funnest to play. She will be fast, durable, and will be able to dish out more damage than just about any other character.
Your main attack will be zeal, and you will soon enjoy teleporting into the middle of a huge clump of hell-difficulty baddies and laying waste to every one of them in mere seconds. Most monsters (even in act 5 hell) will be shattered into ice dust in just 1 blow with your immense damage. Most lower level monsters (up to act 1 hell) will be killed without you even having to hit them (the aura you emanate will be so powerful, everyone on the screen will die just by being in your presence). You will be able to kill almost every monster in Normal and Nightmare without even touching them. I routinely rush people through the Nightmare chaos sanctuary and monsters die at my feet without even having to waste effort clicking on them. Bosses like Diablo / Baal / etc will take just a few hits in Nightmare.
Cons
Iron Maiden. Be very careful in the Hell chaos sanctuary and in Hell baal runs. If death mages are present, target them first and eliminate them. The longer they are alive, the more chance they have of putting Iron Maiden on you. Iron Maiden forces you to do your own damage to yourself. When you hit yourself with your own damage, you will be lucky to survive 1 or 2 hits. If you get caught with Iron Maiden in the middle of an unstoppable 5-hit zeal, forget about it.
Another Downside: You are not a paladin. You will be able to tank to a certain extent, but you are not invincible. You will have about 5K defense, which is better than most sorceresses for sure, but you need to act quick and strike first to avoid being slaughtered. If you have a defiance Merc, your defense can be higher (like 8 to 10k). Be smart, and you shouldn't have a problem. Also, your life will not be high as you may feel comfortable with. Be prepared to have about 750-1000 base life (more in parties obviously). But remember, you will be using E-shield, so your mana (which is another 1.5k will also act as your life).
DISCLAIMER: This is one of the most expensive builds you can even think about building. It is also VERY item dependent. If you cannot obtain the items necessary, don't even bother with this build. In the sections below, I will outline the equipment necessary. It is split into fighting gear (which is almost all necessary), and prebuff gear (which is optional). There are a few other variations possible (such as turning into a werebear) that some people like to do. Personally I don't recommend it, but it's your character, so do what you want.
Good luck!
SKILLS
Fire Skills
IDEAL FIGHTING EQUIPMENT
The focus is on items that increase your IAS and AR, while still providing other useful mods like +skills, +life, +mana, & %DR.
NOTE2: You can also use a P-Torch if you don't have a S-Torch b/c it will help with your Holy Shock levels, but a S-Torch is much better b/c it increases your lightning mastery, which applies double for each Dream.
NOTE3: Remember, every extra lightning skills point you get will give you an extra 1k damage, but you will be doing soooo much damage anyway, that it's MUCH better to have faster attack speed and higher attack rating than just pure damage. (This is the reason I don't recommend werebear, as I mentioned in the "About" section.)
IDEAL PREBUFF EQUIPMENT
The focus is on anything that will raise your fire skill lvl, no matter how slow or bad it is for fighting. You should be able to get your enchant up to approximately lvl 47-50, which will give you like 17-22k of fire alone, on top of your lightning damage. Even more with fire Rainbow Facet charms as described below.
NOTE2: Another option for the shield is 4os monarch socketed with 4 fire Rainbow Facets, or a cheaper solution, a Lidless Wall socketed with one fire Rainbow Facet.
NOTE3: Theoretically, the best prebuff armor would be a 15% increased Fire Damage Ormus' Robes with +3 to enchant or fire mastry, and socketed with a fire Rainbow Facet. However, you probably will never be able to get this armor, and even if you did, you likely wouldn't have room in your stash to hold it because your stash and inventory will be nearly FULL with all the gear and charms.
MERCENARY
Your Mercenary will be crucial to your survivability and effectiveness against lightning-immune monsters.
Merc Type
Your Mercenary will be an Act II "Desert Warrior" merc. There are different types of these mercs based on the option you choose when you hire one in act II from Griez. The options are:
A Defiance merc will increase your defense, allowing you to fair better against groups of monsters beating on you. Defiance is also a very party-friendly merc to have because not many other people have Defiance mercs, and not many Pally's in your party will be using the Defiance aura.
A Holy Freeze merc will freeze monsters in your area down to a crawl, meaning they will hit you less and therefore do less damage over time. Be aware that Holy Freeze is a much more common merc than Defiance so you will most likely not be adding anything unique to your party if you go with this option.
Merc Equipment
Your mercenary doesn't damage equipment. Ever. Therefore ethereal items are acceptable, and even preferred for your merc, as eth items typically have a significant bonus to damage or defense over their non-eth counterparts.
Normally you won't need to prebuff at all. Even without putting all your prebuff gear on, just doing a normal quick enchant will still give you a butt-load of damage. However, the VAST majority of your damage will be LIGHTNING (provided by the Holy Shock auras in your Dreams). I'm sure by now, you have realized that 1/3rd of all monsters in hell happen to be immune to lightning. This is bad news, but it's OK because your Merc will be teleporting around with you, and will use his Infinity's Conviction Aura to break all lightning-immune monsters. However, once you get a great prebuff, your Merc's Infinity becomes less important because you actually are doing a LOT of fire damage in addition to your lighting.
This is NOT a very good PVP char, but I do duel sometimes. For PVP or any especially hard lightning immune monsters (like the Ancients), which you know your Merc's Infinity will NOT break, you should take the time to prebuff.
To prebuff, it's easy. First go to your stash and switch out all your fighting gear and lightning grand charms out for your prebuff gear and fire grand charms. Make sure you are holding your CtA. BC yourself. Switch to your Eschuta's Temper. Enchant yourself. (Don't forget to also enchant your merc and other people in your party.) Then switch back to all your fighting gear. It's easy, but it takes like 30-45 seconds to switch all your items (which is a long time).
Once your fighting gear / lightning GCs are back in, don't forget to put up E-shield, T-storm, and Shiver Armor.
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.
Tupac Shakur
100% Legit baal runners
SICK_Bambi 93 Barb (46th barb)
SICK_Paladin 95 Necromancer (12th necro)
SICK_ferret 95 Assassin (10th sin)
~~us West Ladder~~
Ferret, yeah both dreams definitely stack on top of each other because when I take one off, my damage is reduced like by half.
ty
unfortunately no, the ladder reset 1 month ago (25 jun 07) kicked me down to non-ladder
My sorc I belive had 13k a punch. She was a guided arrow/melee sorc lol
Right now, the enchant by itself will raise my damage about 11-12K. So assuming I don't have any dreams on, my weapon will do aprox 11-12k. It doesn't really matter if I have a weapon or if I'm just punching. It doesn't vary too much. The only use for the weapon is just to attack faster (or any other useful mods it may have)
Cool, yeah definitely let me know how it goes
Although, I must admit i cheated a tiney bit for this shot by still wearing my prebuff rings, belt, and ammy. If I was actually fighting, i'd use the combat stuff, which will lower it to 61k, but make me faster, more AR, etc.
I still don't have perf gear tho. I'm using eschuc instead of a rare +3sorc skills orb w/ +3 to enchant (which would be ideal if i could find one). Also, I could fit 3 more ele GCs and i havn't socketed my prebuff shako and eschuch yet with a fire facet. Those are my goals. I'll keep you informed of the progress.
By the way, Darkjay, punch is 17k now
Also, one more note:
This is all without a skill shrine and B.C.
One of these days im going to work on my beasty... the infamous Rabies Druid...