Ways to start ladder

The CM nerf is going to really gimp my go-anywhere no-gear-swap hardcore tank sorc. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted but back to the cookie cutter I guess. Losing 2/3 of your damage might be tolerable when you're playing a max dam build but alternate or poor man builds are going to suffer greatly.

Edited: I said losing 1/3 damage but meant 2/3.

lowkey wrote: 1 year ago

For those wanting something different on new patch, one of the new OP builds is

Demon Machine Sorc.
Prebuff is actually quite decent - easy to get used to for those not used to prebuffing.
It one-shots players8 cow packs. Just something different to try if you're bored of what you've been running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_azJujIVVc

Since I mostly play p1 or p2, I think I can probably manage that build without all the pre-buffing stuff, which I can't stand. I never play sorc but it looks like a lot of fun, I might have to give this a try!

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

lowkey wrote: 1 year ago

For those wanting something different on new patch, one of the new OP builds is

Demon Machine Sorc.
Prebuff is actually quite decent - easy to get used to for those not used to prebuffing.
It one-shots players8 cow packs. Just something different to try if you're bored of what you've been running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_azJujIVVc

Since I mostly play p1 or p2, I think I can probably manage that build without all the pre-buffing stuff, which I can't stand. I never play sorc but it looks like a lot of fun, I might have to give this a try!

Sorcs and crossbows - what could go wrong? ^_^

pyropy wrote: 1 year ago

Losing 1/3 of your damage might be tolerable when you're playing a max dam build but alternate or poor man builds are going to suffer greatly.

This is something that the fortunate(wealthy) D2R player doesn't understand.

lscottl wrote: 1 year ago

pyropy wrote: 1 year ago

Losing 1/3 of your damage might be tolerable when you're playing a max dam build but alternate or poor man builds are going to suffer greatly.

This is something that the fortunate(wealthy) D2R player doesn't understand.

I am clearly not (yet) in that category even if I trade a lot to get there.

It's indeed losing a lot... but only against immunes, not against everyone. My friend plays a cold sorc in NL and he'll be super happy of the Sunder I bought for him on previous ladder as he never played ladder s2 - he has never seen when it was real strong, so will anyway be happier than in current NL.

Cold sorc has always been a good and cheap farming build, no? Not the absolute highest end build but easy to play and easy to gear. That didn't change with S2 and won't change with S3, surely?

With sunders and before CM against immunes got nerfed in S3, it was stronger. But in S1 and before there was no such thing as sunder.

To sum up:

Ladder S2 Cold sorc >>
Ladder S3 / Non-ladder S3 Cold Sorc >
NL S1 S2 / Ladder S1 Cold sorc

So some people say it's terrible now. Sure, it's worse than in L S2, but it's still better than all other contexts - assuming the remainder of the gear is the same.

Don't forget LS Sin.
You have 5 traps, each deals 1-12k dmg.
A cheap Crescent Moon reduces monsters Lightning Resistance by 35%

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

With sunders and before CM against immunes got nerfed in S3, it was stronger. But in S1 and before there was no such thing as sunder.

To sum up:

Ladder S2 Cold sorc >
Ladder S3 / Non-ladder S3 Cold Sorc >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NL S1 S2 / Ladder S1 Cold sorc

So some people say it's terrible now. Sure, it's worse than in L S2, but it's still better than all other contexts - assuming the remainder of the gear is the same.

Corrected the '>' indicators for ya. :p

Pre-sunder cold was effectively a binary build because you generally had no way to break immunities whatsoever as conv/LR doesn't cut it for cold. It was excellent at what it does but extremely limited as to where it does what it does as a result of the unbreakable immunities.

S2 removed that entirely. Which is obviously massive. You basically made every zone effectively free of cold immunes, opening up the entirety of the game to cold sorcs.

S3 does not re-introduce that binary limitation. All it does is drop your damage (albeit significantly) in certain cases which may or may not make any difference. If you run into cold immune pack after cold immune pack, sure, you'll notice a solid slow-down as compared to S2. But if you look at things like

Baal runs for example, wave 2 will actually look pretty much exactly the same as it does in S2 because them cold immune skeletons have a fraction of the life of Achmel next to them. So by the time your inherently-AoE damage takes down Achmel, you will still have also killed all of the skeletons with it, despite them being hit by a nerfed

Cold Mastery while Achmel sits at the usual -100.
Depending on where you go, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference whatsoever to S2 (and yes, I did already actively test that to confirm the fairly simple math behind it) while in other places, you will slow down noticeably but still be able to kill stuff just fine (yes, even in early/mid gear for you blizz sorcs). Either one is worlds better than pre-S2 cold ever was.

Mind you, I am in no way saying cold needed a nerf. Quite the opposite..I've always advocated that the excessive bitching about "OMG BLIZZ RULES ALL NAU!" is completely bonkers (blizz has always failed by comparison come late game..even in S2..thankfully, cold != blizz, even though most don't get that). I'm merely saying that it is by no means the end of the world for cold and certainly does not leave it a broken build by any means. After all, cold was already excellent at what it does and rather popular before sunders were ever invented. And back then, cold was infinitely worse than it'll be after Wednesday.

I for one continue to very much look forward to my NL sorc finally getting her

Cold Rupture in a couple days and (even more so after simple math + testing) am by no means even considering any other build for her.

Nothing will change with regards to how many cold sorcs you see at ladder start. Everybody and their brother will still be using one.

End game, cold sorcs will be a lot less viable compared to lightning or fire sorcs. That was already the case before the CM nerf but will be more so now.

Doom as a weapon will finally have some uses

The opportunity cost for Doom is way too high imo.
For a druid, sure. But when you have access to fathom as an alternative?

Either way, post-patch final testing confirms my prior math and simulated testing:
Hard to tell any difference between pre-nerf and post-nerf CM as cold immunes tend to still be next to higher life non-immunes. CS mages fall over at basically the same time as the non-CI stuff next to them.

Baal wave 2 skellies still die faster than Achmel. All perfectly fine and dandy and pretty much 0 seconds lost on run time because of it.

The only exception, as also expected, is when you jump from fully CI to fully CI to fully CI packs but that isn't exactly common. And even then, it only gets to the point of seeing a slowdown. Still works perfectly fine, just a tad slower.