Dragon, Flickering Flame, Hand of Justice on Light sorc

Hey guys,

I have recently decided to go for

Holy Fire Paladin from what I heard its fun to play. But new charms recently kinda changed the game. So I am not sure if paladin is only character which can run it effectively - if yes I will choose pala shield.

I have been thinking about Sorceress running those RWs - I assume

Fire Mastery will boost holy aura same as +fire skillers. Infinity on mercenary + new charm removing fire immunes. And it would still give me enough points to run 2nd element (lighting probably or cold).

Pala synergies gives 620% fire dmg compare to +268% (

Fire Mastery lvl 35) seems kinda low. But I would run other element which will have less dmg than dedicated lightsorc and with less FCR and less +skills.

My thoughts are what I will be missing compare to lightsorc. I would get hopefully similar amount of value from

Holy Fire aura.

I am not sure if dmg will be even high enough to play it smoothly as p1/2.

Build I am thinking is:
Chain lighting
https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/sorceress- ... *--*-20-&0
or

Nova - due to fcr for lighting/chain lighting I think

Nova is way to go.
https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/sorceress- ... *--*-20-&0

or just go pure fire sorc
https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/sorceress- ... 20-*-20-&0
or

Hydra and just run around
https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/sorceress- ... -*-20-20&0
pure fire would be easier to get decent resists

I use Memory on my off hand to get armor and

Energy Shield - I would have to probably switch it for CtA.

Gear:
Head, body armor, weapon, shield = RW

Boots

Infernostride (to help with fire resists) or

Sandstorm Trek
Amulet 13+fcr possibly with +2sorc skills

Arachnid Mesh 20fcr
rings 1x 10fcr + SoJ/BK

Magefist 20fcr
thats 63fcr -> 9frames
+8skills (torch + anni + SoJ +

Arachnid Mesh + crafter amulet) +3fire from Flickering Flame +2from CtA
Charms: 2x light and fire immune removal and rest skillers with resists

Merc - freeze aura:
Infinity, Andy, Fortitude

What are your thoughts? Do you think new charms will unlock some crazy builds like this one?

I have a HolyFire Pally.
He can kill what ever not fire immu quite fast.
In P1/3 pulse dmg is high enough so no need to

Zeal.

Flickering Flame gives a boost to fire res so

Infernostride is not needed.

+fire skillers, +fire gear or even +skill won't boost holy aura.
They could boost indirectly by increasing the lvl of

Fire Mastery but they won't increase directly

Holy Fire dmg.

Generally speaking, a sorc's buff to

Holy Fire won't be anywhere near what a pally can add. Even a theoretical lvl 60

Fire Mastery still only yields like 2/3rds of the pally synergy bonus. Equally, with Infinity rather than a real

Conviction, you won't get the same -res a pally can throw out either.

That having been said...just went ahead and built one, just for the hell of it and to see.
Spoiler alert: It works quite well actually.
Double Dragon, Hand of Justice and Flickering Flame along with full +skill for the rest. Since as a sorc you won't kill stuff instantly in that setup, you do stand around a bit, making FCR less important than +skill (imo) so I just stuck with the 40 from arach +

Magefist.

The flickering rolled a crap -10 but hey, at least there's an extra fire skiller still to make up for it a tad (due to no sunder yet).

Considering how much lower a sorc tick is as compared to a pally, you really don't want to rely solely on that. As an addition however, it works quite nicely. Went full

Hydra here (still gets to 41+) along with the obligatory point in static.

On P1, you don't even need Hydras tbh just jump in, static and a couple ticks do the rest. On P8, the

Holy Fire tick turns into more of a support than primary dmg so jump into larger packs, static 'em down, beyond that hydras do most of the work while

Holy Fire adds lower dmg but with a massive AOE range so each mob your hydras pick off starts with less life than the last one, making them all incrementally faster. It adds up quite nicely and seems well worth dropping the few skill points for, if you stick to high mob density areas. Single target...not so much.

What's a bit interesting is that the ticks actually seem significantly higher than they are with double Dream/Dragon/hoj, despite light mastery adding more to those and

Holy Shock being significantly higher than the few extra lvls in

Holy Fire to begin with.

Clear advantage over a pally is of course the fact that you do still get

Teleport without having to drop a Dragon for Enigma (or deal with charges). That obviously speeds things up a fair bit again and counteracts the lower tick dmg in terms of overall performance. And since you're basically looking at a full

Hydra build with no extraordinary skills needed for the auras, you still have plenty of points left to keep a solid

Energy Shield and remain plenty tanky.

I tested my my fire combo as well with the pally... it doesn't convince me yet. Dream somehow rocks a lot more, although having a lvl44

Holy Fire... it is interesting tho that lightning "feels" so much stronger than fire.
will test when I have a sunder charm.

Can anyone confirm or refute the information that can be found online, that all instances of a single aura stack for higher level higher damage aura but at the same time each such instance deals the full stacked damage?

ie. Double Dream hits twice per pulse as lvl30

Holy Shock? Or is that a relic in some past d2 version, or maybe it was never true?
Just asking this since lvl44

Holy Fire damaging thrice per pulse after sunder charm and

Conviction sounds...dangerous.

yeah i also didn't know auras of same skill - stack.
I heard they pick up the highest one.

Queegon wrote: 2 years ago

Can anyone confirm or refute the information that can be found online, that all instances of a single aura stack for higher level higher damage aura but at the same time each such instance deals the full stacked damage?

ie. Double Dream hits twice per pulse as lvl30

Holy Shock? Or is that a relic in some past d2 version, or maybe it was never true?
Just asking this since lvl44

Holy Fire damaging thrice per pulse after sunder charm and

Conviction sounds...dangerous.

the pulse hits once only with the damage stacked and it pulses around once a second with Dream. you always get one pulse per second.
it hits with a lvl30

Holy Shock + synergies and no point in

Holy Shock.
also pulses once per second with

Holy Fire + synergies for the pally. just feels not as strong imho.

rikus wrote: 2 years ago

yeah i also didn't know auras of same skill - stack.
I heard they pick up the highest one.

they pick the highest one if you have two separate sources.
if your merc has a level 10

Conviction on his gear and your char has a level 12

Conviction on as a pally aura or on gear, the lvl12 will always get picked and the lvl10 is "turned off" i. e. useless.

if your merc has a lvl10 and a lvl12 on his gear he will have a lvl22 aura running.
same for your char.

Crispin wrote: 2 years ago

they pick the highest one if you have to separate sources.

Two.
So suppose you’re using 2 auras as a palli by using a skill and same one with said runewords, they’ll stack? For example level 20

Holy Fire+ 12 from runewords=lvl32?

Care to put up a source?

rikus wrote: 2 years ago

Crispin wrote: 2 years ago

they pick the highest one if you have to separate sources.

Two.
So suppose you’re using 2 auras as a palli by using a skill and same one with said runewords, they’ll stack? For example level 20

Holy Fire+ 12 from runewords=lvl32?

Care to put up a source?

as a dreamer, you don't put points in

Holy Fire for Dragon or

Holy Shock for lightning, because the aura is provided by gear and you can use another aura of your choice.

unforatunately, I am at work and can post hardly any gaming site since anything gaming related is blocked by IT. sorry about that.
what works is this one: https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Auradin? ... h#Tesladin

it works exactly how it's described in this guide.
I would appreciate if someone could put up a source for aura stacking as I cannot at the moment.

as for your question, you can stack the pally aura further by gear. you usually don't do it because you take the synergy and another aura (tesladin usually

Conviction) because you don't have enough points for another aura otherwise. you would have to put the aura on then, which means you lose another aura and points.

rikus wrote: 2 years ago

So suppose you’re using 2 auras as a palli by using a skill and same one with said runewords, they’ll stack? For example level 20

Holy Fire+ 12 from runewords=lvl32?

They won't stack as the higher level one will be picked over the other, which is why a Dragon paladin (for example) should not put any points into

Holy Fire, but only its synergies.

This has been tested time and again, ever since Dream and Dragon were introduced.

also, you would waste points AND you would have to have the aura selected.

Crispin wrote: 2 years ago

the pulse hits once only with the damage stacked and it pulses around once a second with Dream. you always get one pulse per second.
it hits with a lvl30

Holy Shock + synergies and no point in

Holy Shock.
also pulses once per second with

Holy Fire + synergies for the pally. just feels not as strong imho.

Pretty sure it's a pulse every 2 seconds

yeah, might be a little slower. I didn't time it.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

That having been said...just went ahead and built one, just for the hell of it and to see.
Spoiler alert: It works quite well actually.

I kinda wasnt expecting anyone to make RW and try it. Thanks man. This actually wants me to rather run "worse" sorc than pala to be honest just for fun - when i join public games I see same builds over and over again. I play mostly P1 or with friend. So P8 doesnt really matter to me. So I will have to find 3os normal shield.

I assume you made that screenshot with cow health after 1 pulse?

mockingbirdreal wrote: 2 years ago

+fire skillers, +fire gear or even +skill won't boost holy aura.
They could boost indirectly by increasing the lvl of

Fire Mastery but they won't increase directly

Holy Fire dmg.

What do u mean indirectly? Like added fire dmg on melee hit and not

Holy Fire pulse dmg? So if i decided to go with other element than fire I can just skip entire fire skill tree? I am aware of +3fire skills on Flickering Flame wound be kinda waste of +skills if i went other element.

The Flash wrote: 2 years ago

What do u mean indirectly? Like added fire dmg on melee hit and not

Holy Fire pulse dmg? So if i decided to go with other element than fire I can just skip entire fire skill tree? I am aware of +3fire skills on Flickering Flame wound be kinda waste of +skills if i went other element.

The +skill gear means higher lvl of

Fire Mastery.
Higher lvl of

Fire Mastery means higher boost to

Holy Fire (both melee hit and pulse dmg)

mockingbirdreal wrote: 2 years ago

The +skill gear means higher lvl of

Fire Mastery.
Higher lvl of

Fire Mastery means higher boost to

Holy Fire (both melee hit and pulse dmg)

so fire sorc is the way to go. thx for clarification

The Flash wrote: 2 years ago

mockingbirdreal wrote: 2 years ago

The +skill gear means higher lvl of

Fire Mastery.
Higher lvl of

Fire Mastery means higher boost to

Holy Fire (both melee hit and pulse dmg)

so fire sorc is the way to go. thx for clarification

Well,

Fire Mastery has no pre-reqs. So other than the 20 pts in that, you don't need to go fire. That leaves plenty of skill points to go for other builds as well. Fire would merely be advantageous because it allows you to go for full fire skillers, fully boosting both, your

Holy Fire and your active skills. The same goes for Flickering Flame. Equally, you only need one sunder charm and don't need to worry about another one for your active element (except perhaps for static but I'd consider that optional) so one more skiller.

I raised such pala in s4, and tested 2 setups:

1) pure firedin - double Dragon + hoj + 2x faceted coa (max fireresist+salv sinergies). Pulse is rather large, hits harder. Pala has 30% phys dr with dungo and coa, so he isn't afraid of zealin mobs if needs to. Rather strong roaster, but sunder is quite helpful addition here. By default, i like that setup more.
2) tesla hybrid - Dragon + hoj + dual Dream, maxed fireres+lightres+some

Salvation.
Pros: versatility - you nn sunders, either flame or shock is doin the job. And some extra res and mf from dreams, which is helpful, especially with good roll.
Cons: less pulse coverage, and lower damage overall. Still enough on lower ppl, but may be less fun on higher (5 or above).

Neither setup is mistake, but both will end up boring some time later (just run around n

Zeal em occasionally).

I‘be been playing around with this concept recently too, as a console player i don’t have the accuracy of a mouse, only a vague direction to cast spells light tele, blizzard, etc. and while you’d think a controller can be more precise for skill use, anything more than 2 or 3 buttons per second ends up just a big mash… I’d love my fire Druid if it wasn’t for the ‘layering of effects’, in the end I’m probably only getting about 2/3rds what i should be…

Anyways while it’s been proven the better Dream character is the sorc, and the better fire-adin is the paladin, I’ve always wanted to make thunderstorm work, trying making controller use even easier.

So i did that: sorc, dual dreams, Crescent Moon, Infinity merc, maxed out thunderstorm and the synergies, as well as

Energy Shield and synergies… not much left over. The CTA is in a +3

Energy Shield +1 chilling armour. + 1

Enchant staff. With a pack full of charms and the standard gear (no FCR needed), it actually performs fairly well. You static everything, holy lightning does good tic damage, you can either

Nova the rest or even bonk them with your Crescent Moon. She can clear p7 content, just not as fast as a pure

Nova sorc - which is sutil the controller golden standard IMAO

I also tried a 4x lighting faceted armour vs a coh: the 4x facets wins as long as there’s no incoming elemental damage (Cows), other than that Coh is the way to go