ES/Nova sorc - I don't get the hype

Hi all,

I've played various sorc builds from budget

Hydra/orb using 3 part

Tal Rasha to more expensive builds like Blizz,

Nova, FB. What I can't seem to understand why ES/

Nova sorc is regarded so high.

Defense: life vs ES. If you stack more mana than life then that curse that makes you spend life instead of mana in A5 is a hard counter. Mana burn is a major pain. Overall seems to me its bad design to make your offence and defence depend on the same stat - mana.
Offensively its not bad, but vs bosses it takes forever (compared to other sorc builds). So to conclude, not safe to farm anywhere, bosses are a pain.

Compare that for example with

Fireball sorc with Phoenix - you are mostly invincible (other than one shot) due to Phoenix. You don't need to invest into mana since spell cost is so low, all is life + str for items. If you encounter a hard pack/

Herald, kite them and throw hydras/

Meteor. It shreds bosses like rarely any build, they are dead as soon as they appear on top of 6 hydras and a

Meteor. To conclude, it can do anything, bosses die in fraction of second, can kill at a high distance.

So why is

Nova sorc S tier and FB sorc is considered sub par/trash build?

Simple. A

Scythe is way more intimidating than a small stick with a knob on the end

But in all seriousness, I feel the same way about the javazon. I have one, all the BiS gear (yes 6/40 javs too) and I don't get the hype. For anything other than cows I find it annoying to play. It just comes down to play style and preferences.

For some reason, my ES

Nova Sorc never gets mana burned, so it's a non issue.

Only thing a bit annoying is the blood mana curse from the witches and

Baal. Way I solve for that is just to carry more life than otherwise necessary, and have Cure

Helm on merc so it wears off quickly. Combo of that takes it from a 10 down to a 2 on the annoyance scale. Those two things also solve for poison, which bypasses ES.

And then boss/champion gloams with the right mods can still be dangerous if you aren't paying attention and just stand and let yourself get shot a bunch. Other than that, is fine. Aside from the one time I forgot to cast ES and got fried by gloams

My

Nova sorc does not use ES at all.
full life, mana per kill, some resistance. 1 SOJ and mana amulet

Knappogue wrote: 2 hours ago

Simple. A

Scythe is way more intimidating than a small stick with a knob on the end

But in all seriousness, I feel the same way about the javazon. I have one, all the BiS gear (yes 6/40 javs too) and I don't get the hype. For anything other than cows I find it annoying to play. It just comes down to play style and preferences.

But you do agree javazon is almost like cheat mode, 1 button screen clear, 2-3 hit boss killer, the

Dodge mechanics are a layer of defense no other char has. Overall she kills much faster than anything can kill her. So here I agree its down to preference , but

Nova just seems inferior to me compared to other sorc builds.

leox wrote: 2 hours ago

My

Nova sorc does not use ES at all.
full life, mana per kill, some resistance. 1 SOJ and mana amulet

That makes more sense to me, you free up 40 skill points to invest in anther tree, or in chain/lighting giving you some distance options. Perhaps its not that I dislike

Nova that much, it a good crowd kill skill, I guess I dislike ES, but all the guides are like ES/

Nova is the bomb.

EDIT: added ES to the title, to clarify.

I don't particularly care for the play pattern or the strength/weakness of a build but boy do I love a good ol' synergy.

Or in this case a new-ish one.

You have a sorceress, she has roughly the same amount of health as mana (with health>mana to prevent mana curse), she has

Energy Shield on at max level, so you get health+mana as "total health".

And the synergy on top of that is

Prayer+Insight+Cure Emilio replenishing both your life and mana that both get reduced with ES on, which is just a feel-good-all-around that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I prefer a

Chain Lightning sorc with lightning on swap.

Chain Lightning is more effective at AOE, meaning it will clear a complete area in seconds, and then when it comes to boss kills such as Diablo, I swap to lightning which takes him down in seconds from a distance, meaning without getting close enough to smell his feet. I don't use ES, I chose

Frozen Armor instead.

well...

I just run my

Nova sorc once...

I realize that some build can target

Baal very good . And it is not my current

Nova sorc setup.

Just set your goal and optimize it according your need. Different build have different area...

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

Knappogue wrote: 2 hours ago

[..] more intimidating than a small stick with a knob on the end [..]

WHO'S KNOBBY STICK U CALLIN SMALL, SON?!?

Your fire sorc's. Your fire sorc has a small knobby stick. Prove me wrong.

mhlg wrote: 2 hours ago

I prefer a

Chain Lightning sorc with lightning on swap.

Chain Lightning is more effective at AOE, meaning it will clear a complete area in seconds, and then when it comes to boss kills such as Diablo, I swap to lightning which takes him down in seconds from a distance, meaning without getting close enough to smell his feet. I don't use ES, I chose

Frozen Armor instead.

I too prefer this to

Nova/ES, but I never saw in guides CL/L consider S tier, nor even the tier bellow.

Knappogue wrote: 2 hours ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

Knappogue wrote: 2 hours ago

[..] more intimidating than a small stick with a knob on the end [..]

WHO'S KNOBBY STICK U CALLIN SMALL, SON?!?

Your fire sorc's. Your fire sorc has a small knobby stick. Prove me wrong.

Mine does, I admit

missusecel wrote: 2 hours ago

But you do agree javazon is almost like cheat mode, 1 button screen clear, 2-3 hit boss killer, the

Dodge mechanics are a layer of defense no other char has. Overall she kills much faster than anything can kill her. So here I agree its down to preference , but

Nova just seems inferior to me compared to other sorc builds.

Javazon is like a cheat code, yes. But for me its way too painful to play. I play on xbox where targeting is like "yea I'll throw this jav in generally the direction you asked, Oh I missed your target? Let's try again. Yea fuck you again".

The casting animation for an amazon is like pulling

Teeth, and reference my previous statement. "Oh you want to

Teleport? sure ill

Teleport you NEXT to what you wanted and in the distance I feel like going. Yea, you wanted the room addjacent to your target, I know you did. Got you good fucker. Oh and I'm going to do it slower than your kid putting their shoes for school".

Because of that I like characters where I don't really need to aim. Like the

Nova sorc, hammerdin,

Zeal paladin, dragondin, strafezon, etc. My

Nova sorc is actually my go to farming keys, essences, statues and my hdin for magic find. Bosses don't last long after

Static Field. Thunderstorm does great auto-killing stragglers, and

Nova means I don't need to aim. I'm rocking 3.2k mana with max FHR. BUT its great for MY preferences and MY play style. The sound she makes though? Yea I'm with @Schnorki, I'd rather listen to my dog farting than that

Nova noise BS.

I want to create a lightning sorc with

Nova but i don't know if use

Energy Shield or not...what do you think? i'm going to rock Infinity in hand.

missusecel wrote: 3 hours ago

Hi all,

I've played various sorc builds from budget

Hydra/orb using 3 part

Tal Rasha to more expensive builds like Blizz,

Nova, FB. What I can't seem to understand why ES/

Nova sorc is regarded so high.

Defense: life vs ES. If you stack more mana than life then that curse that makes you spend life instead of mana in A5 is a hard counter. Mana burn is a major pain. Overall seems to me its bad design to make your offence and defence depend on the same stat - mana.
Offensively its not bad, but vs bosses it takes forever (compared to other sorc builds). So to conclude, not safe to farm anywhere, bosses are a pain.

Compare that for example with

Fireball sorc with Phoenix - you are mostly invincible (other than one shot) due to Phoenix. You don't need to invest into mana since spell cost is so low, all is life + str for items. If you encounter a hard pack/

Herald, kite them and throw hydras/

Meteor. It shreds bosses like rarely any build, they are dead as soon as they appear on top of 6 hydras and a

Meteor. To conclude, it can do anything, bosses die in fraction of second, can kill at a high distance.

So why is

Nova sorc S tier and FB sorc is considered sub par/trash build?

u need high end gear for it to really shine. u need a lot of skillers, and/or a Memory staff to buff ES. u want ES to absorb 95% of damage. there is an immortal version or a 120 FCR version. i like the former.


https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/k89ri0lx

MOX wrote: 2 hours ago

I want to create a lightning sorc with

Nova but i don't know if use

Energy Shield or not...what do you think? i'm going to rock Infinity in hand.

i have 2 lightning sorc. with my self wielding Infinity i use

Chain Lightning and no ES. with my ES sorc i use

Nova. see above post by me.

Once you are geared up, I prefer it to lightning/

Chain Lightning and to hammerdin. Is just faster to me on online P1 to telestomp everything and no need to aim. Don't need resistances (other than Poison) or FHR as nothing ever really touches life, so you can get good MF also.

Only downside other than what I already mentioned is bosses with 400k+ hp. So

Baal is slightly slow, although is still probably like 20s or less. And is not good versus the Ubers (I assume, I haven't tried) due to the huge health regen and mediocore single target damage.

Mini ubers (

Lilith,

Izual,

Duriel) I can take down without much problem, but does require poison and cold potion pre-buffing, plus some specialized merc gear so that my merc never dies and can get open wounds in to stop the regen.

Fire WL with

Ring of Fire though plays like

Nova sorc - similar or better speed, but with the no blood mana drawback, plus apocolypse to hit far off screen targets like blizzard and apply greater DPS to bosses. With

Blood Oath and huge HP, nothing can touch it, even gloams.

Basically, as with all things WL combines the best of a bunch of characters with almost no drawbacks.

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

Fire WL with

Ring of Fire though plays like

Nova sorc - similar or better speed, but with the no blood mana drawback, plus apocolypse to hit far off screen targets like blizzard and apply greater DPS to bosses. With

Blood Oath and huge HP, nothing can touch it, even gloams.

Basically, as with all things WL combines the best of a bunch of characters with almost no drawbacks.

That is why this Char is boring

I have the gear for a

Nova Sorc but haven't been able to bring myself to level up a Char yet. Despite this, at least for my taste the cold spells are visually the most pleasing ones

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

Is just faster to me on online P1 to telestomp everything and no need to aim.

You don't need to aim with chain lighting either, just fire in the general direction of a mob and it will ripple through the entire group. Once you've cleared everything but a boss kill such as Diablo then you can swap to lighting, which I estimate kills Diablo in under 5 seconds.