Worth to respec into light sorc?

I'm currently running a

Fireball/orb sorc with a full

Tal rashsa set, hitting exactly 105 fcr with ~410mf
I'm using this sorc as an all round farmer: Chaos,

Baal, meph, andi, keys, AT... whatever I feel like, and it's working perfectly fine.

If I use all my runes, I would be able to create an Infinity for my merc. I could also hit the 117 fcr breakpoint if I cut my mf by 40.
(Merc is currently using a non-

Eth reaper's)

To really use Infinity, I'd need to spec into lightning. Is there any area mentioned above, that I wouldn't be able to farm with Infinity + pure light sorc?
Would my kill speed even be better with my full

Tal set compared to

Fireball/orb?

Lightning sorc is an option when you got an Infinity and obtained griffon

Diadem as well - then yes, you'll start roastin the crap out of it fast. But these two goodies are costly. Some areas you'll be clearin even faster - the rest comes down to personal taste. I can swap to electricity - but prefer to keep my own cold+fire way.

So with "only" Infinity, but no griffon, it's not really worth it?

Even with Infinity, some mobs do not get their light immunity broken. So yes, there are certain things you still won't blow up. However, those are far and few between and your merc should be able to take them out for you. Do note that for the ones that do get their immunity broken, they still end up with extremely high resistance afterwards and you will do very little actual damage to them by comparison. That's why things like Griffon's and Facets are so important to the setup because you basically use Infinity to break the immunity and then stack on your own -res (which now works fully, because the immunity is broken) to actually be able to do significant damage. If you only get Infinity and no -res yourself yet, you'll probably end up fairly disappointed in that regard.
Though Infinity alone is still a massive damage boost on other, non-immune mobs.

That having been said, I honestly think its a matter of taste and where exactly you plan to farm. The beauty of a sorc is that you have a ton of very viable build options to cover nearly every aspect of the game each (given enough gear to make your merc handle the few immunities that remain). And a lot of them actually do not require an Infinity. Personally, everytime I went light, I regretted it and switched back before long (not saying light is worse, it just doesn't match my playstyle and sorc farming areas as well). Coincidentally, I just sold my last Infinity today for exactly that reason.

Honestly, have a look at the PTR. If you're not sure whether what you plan to build is a better choice for how you plan to use it, it is the perfect place to just try it out for free right now. Admittedly, at least on this one, you don't have access to everything you might want but they do give you the basics to be able to get a realistic impression (Infinity, griffons, ...).

It will work even without griffon - as long as you cut down immunities. But WITH the griffon, you'll roast those pre-immunes much sweeter. Ask the fellow java players - they can tell ya a thing or two about how nice griffon is.

Okay, thanks for your feedback.
One last question: Is Infinity worth it for fire/Ice sorcs?

SuperIllu wrote: 2 years ago

Okay, thanks for your feedback.
One last question: Is Infinity worth it for fire/Ice sorcs?

Not for Cold damage it can't break much immunites - fire would work.

https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II)
Here you can check what is needed to break immunities.

Infinity is brilliant for lightning, pretty good for fire and close to worthless for cold.

Have a look at https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II) to get an idea of where it does and doesn't help.
Do note that on immune monsters, -res only works at 1/5th the normal rate. That means the -85% from Infinity's

Conviction aura actually only takes off 17 res. To remove immunities, you need to drop resistance below 100. That in turn means Infinity only breaks immunities for those mobs that have 116 or less total resist.

That's why it is so pointless for cold because most cold immunes are way above that. Additionally, for non-immunes,

Cold Mastery easily takes them to the limit of -100 res as is, meaning even on non-immunes Infinity doesn't help you at all because its -res is entirely redundant to your own.

For light on the other hand, most immunes are below that 116 threshold, which is why Infinity is so good there. That and the fact that light mastery adds dmg, rather than already reduce res, meaning you get to make (close to, depending on gear) full use of the -85

Conviction from Infinity and get a massive dmg boost on non-immunes. Fire is the same thing, just with a few more mobs that you can't break.

Once the immunity is broken and/or when the mob isn't immune to begin with, the -res applies in full and not just at 1/5th the normal rate.

SuperIllu wrote: 2 years ago

Okay, thanks for your feedback.
One last question: Is Infinity worth it for fire/Ice sorcs?

You can try by yourself in the PTR... I did that some hours ago... the main problem is the low range of the

Conviction aura coming off Infinity
On the PTR you need to sort equipment and stuff because most mercenaries are act2 with Pray aura for example... but there is enough to test lot of builds...

I have Infinity and use full tals but no griffons and it works fine. Adding a -5% light facet to the -15% from tals is the same as griffons anyway...

The one challenge for me at the moment is mana- i use slikweave and a few socketed runes to get +11 to mana after each kill which is fine for P1 but need alot of potions in higher player games...

SuperIllu wrote: 2 years ago

I'm currently running a

Fireball/orb sorc with a full

Tal rashsa set, hitting exactly 105 fcr with ~410mf
I'm using this sorc as an all round farmer: Chaos,

Baal, meph, andi, keys, AT... whatever I feel like, and it's working perfectly fine.

If I use all my runes, I would be able to create an Infinity for my merc. I could also hit the 117 fcr breakpoint if I cut my mf by 40.
(Merc is currently using a non-

Eth reaper's)

To really use Infinity, I'd need to spec into lightning. Is there any area mentioned above, that I wouldn't be able to farm with Infinity + pure light sorc?
Would my kill speed even be better with my full

Tal set compared to

Fireball/orb?

Totally worth it even with Infinity only! I did respec from exact same setup as yours. I also did run the full

Tal for a bit but decided to go with a custom setup and now I'm even happier. I do not run with tons of MF (currently 200), but clear speed is fantastic. I did not regret at all switching to Light.

You can check my times for farming in this small project of mine - Project: iFarm Acts Tour vol. 100

RMac85 wrote: 2 years ago

I have Infinity and use full tals but no griffons and it works fine. Adding a -5% light facet to the -15% from tals is the same as griffons anyway...

The one challenge for me at the moment is mana- i use slikweave and a few socketed runes to get +11 to mana after each kill which is fine for P1 but need alot of potions in higher player games...

Frostburn +

Shako

GamerRoss wrote: 2 years ago

RMac85 wrote: 2 years ago

I have Infinity and use full tals but no griffons and it works fine. Adding a -5% light facet to the -15% from tals is the same as griffons anyway...

The one challenge for me at the moment is mana- i use slikweave and a few socketed runes to get +11 to mana after each kill which is fine for P1 but need alot of potions in higher player games...

Frostburn +

Shako

Thanks, probably need to go this way but without griffons (can't afford), the -15% light resist from full tals is kind of necessary for light immunes. Plus I need the FCR from

Magefist to hit the 117 breakpoint...

Might try this out though thanks...

I recommend staying with

Fireball and orb. You can spend your resources twinking it with facets etc. maybe even ditch cta and go with faceted shield on each switch, to pump each element.

My first actually effective build when I was a noob was a

Fireball / orb sorc and it’s still my favorite build. I just love having dual projectiles, dual element. It requires a bit more tact, especially to master orb explosion! But very effective and so so much fun just shooting AoE bombs with

Fireball. The only build I’ve found that rivals

Fireball/orb for fun is

Freezing Arrow /

Lightning Fury Zon. I sound like a broken record always talking about this build but really it plays similarly: dual element AoE projectiles, but with Zon it has

Pierce and phys damage to boot. But no tele so I stack rw like a madman and that ends up being fun itself, and nice in town to have 160%+ faster rw

Usin an infy on my

Glacial Spike + blizzard +

Fire Wall sorc. That wall is roastin with its 12k with Infinity, i can tell not helpin with cold tho, but still nice.

I made my Infinity in a normal

Scythe so my sorc could hold it.

then you can keep your Insight merc for mana.

you also get ~ -50 lightning res, so when you break your light immunes with

Conviction, you do lots of damage to them without griffons.

to reach the 117 breakpoint you will have to ditch all of your MF gear. but you will definitely speed up your runs.

runes/charms/jewels don't need MF though and at this point... most unique items are worthless anyways.

this also makes sure your

Conviction aura is close to you, not wandering off somewhere or dead.

you also get

Cyclone Armor charges and look more badass.

would recommend !

If uniques are worthless, what do you buy with your runes?

I guess if you’re hunting for a jmod or some ridiculously rare yellow item…

From my perspective, a lightning sorc is extremely effective even without a

Griffon's Eye.

Currently running with:

Shako, Mara's, HOTO, Spirit, Skullders Ire,

Arachnid Mesh, Bul-Khatos ring, crafted ring (FCR, all res, life, mana),

Magefist and

War Traveler + 2 GC skillers.

Merc:
Infinity (

Thresher), Andy' Visage and Treachery.

More or less everything melts (approx 28k dmg) - there can be a few lightning immunes that don't break, but in general I can farm all valuable areas (Pit,

Ancient Tunnels,

Arcane Sanctuary, Chaos, WSK, Nihlatak (shift ring to

Nature's Peace), Pindle, cows, Trav, Durance, whatever....). MF is still at exactly 300%.....

The setup is not extremely expensive. Looking forward to (hopefully) add a

Griffon's Eye, that would just be crazy effective!

Chickenhawk wrote: 2 years ago

I made my Infinity in a normal

Scythe so my sorc could hold it.

then you can keep your Insight merc for mana.

you also get ~ -50 lightning res, so when you break your light immunes with

Conviction, you do lots of damage to them without griffons.

That's actually awesome! I generally don't like Infinity due to cookie-cutter OPness, but your build is unique. The 35% FRW is a nice touch, too, even for a sorc it helps some and great for town.

You could also make a cresent moon pretty cheap to really help break the immunes. Its gonna hurt your FCR with no hoto or occy. But you will Slap some mobs