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

mhlg wrote: 1 day ago

varangium wrote: 1 day 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.

Blizzard and

Ice Blast can do this, too (I estimate for my Sorc 2-3 seconds at P1)

All this talk is making me want to dust off my sorc and try a new build on it.

Nova sorc gameplay is better in D4... or D3. If you really like the

Nova sorc play style, those games are much better for it. Sacrilege, I know. Those games have ways to pull monsters onto you and then nuke.

Nova play style feels very clunky to me in D2 by comparison. D3/D4 have multiple builds/classes that do the "group and nuke" play style.

Fire sorc (

Fireball

Meteor

Hydra) has a good feel to me and the sunder charms (the ones that actually dropped) made it accessible to gear.

Hydra obliterates act bosses.

oOKIWIOo wrote: 1 day ago

[..] the cold spells are visually the most pleasing ones

And acoustically.

With the right gear, ES NovaSorc is very fast, very powerful and easy to play. You mustonly be careful with Dolls and Souls and Mana Burn Witches and

Baal's Mana Burn. Otherwise there is basically nothing that can stop you. (Maybe some dangerous heralds). Resistances apart from Poison do not matter as long as ES is up. And it always is. I have -69% light res and that's no problem. ES always takes the same fire, light and cold damage. But poison damage bypasses ES, so you need some Mana, PLR and the merc's

Cleansing aura comes in handy (see below).

My gear:

Griffon's Eye with 5-5 Light facet, self-wield Infinity in

Scythe for massive -55% to Enemy Light Res,

Skin of the Vipermagi, SoJ and

Frostburn for lots of additional mana, +2 +20 FCR amu with PLR and extra mana,

Arachnid Mesh, rare +10 FCR ring with life and mana and rare

Boots with FRW, poison res, FHR and mana,

Crack of the Heavens, skillers,

Gheed's Fortune, sc with Life and poison res.

Prayer Merc with Chains of Honor and Cure and Insight for massive life and mana regen and

Cleansing Aura.

With +6 BO CTA I have 1009 life and 3520 Mana and I deal about 4000 damage per

Nova Cast (8 frames), but I have lots of -enemy light res, so most monsters suffer much more than 4000 damage. For bosses and strong uniques I cast

Static Field before engaging. You pretty much just hop from back to pack and hold the

Nova button until everything is dead. Not clunky at all. Mobs usually die after 1 or 2 hits (under 1 second).

But yes, it needs powerful gear to shine.

Javazon is powerful, indeed, but outside of Cow Level, it is much slower than this Beast of a Sorc.

Diablo is fast, just a couple of seconds., although I haven't timed it. 2-3 static fields, then taking into account negative resistance,

Nova does around 20k damage per second to Diablo, and his health after

Static Field is ~50% or 30k. So probably about 2 seconds total.

Only

Baal is a bit slow with 400k health, mana burn, and blood mana curse (although I usually just ignore it and fire away and chug a potion when low).

And then the Ubers and mini-ubers, their health regen is at about 16k life / sec, which is why I need the merc open wounds, the net of 4k/sec without OW is too low, it would take about 3 minutes if I never moved and just straight

Nova'd and absorbed damage the whole time.

Regardless of the aiming, I have personally found

Nova to be faster than CL at clearing for general use. But I could always try CL again to see if that still holds.

This won't win any speed kill awards but here is lighting killing

Baal in under 15 seconds.

mhlg wrote: 1 day ago

This won't win any speed kill awards but here is lighting killing

Baal in under 15 seconds.

Next time use Static and you are down to 10 seconds.

mikelessar wrote: 1 day ago

mhlg wrote: 1 day ago

This won't win any speed kill awards but here is lighting killing

Baal in under 15 seconds.

Next time use Static and you are down to 10 seconds.

Pointless addition because the difference is irrelevant.

Hammerdin is fine, it just takes slightly longer to launch all the hammers and have them spiral and hit enemies. It's fast, just not quite as fast as

Nova. I don't feel squishy with ES/

Nova sorc at all. I TP right into the middle of cows, and no issues. I've let them intentionally hit me without using

Nova, and my character is still fine, can absorb a ton of hits and none of them trigger hit recovery. I feel invincible, not squishy (except to gloams).

varangium wrote: 2 hours ago

Hammerdin is fine, it just takes slightly longer to launch all the hammers and have them spiral and hit enemies. It's fast, just not quite as fast as

Nova. I don't feel squishy with ES/

Nova sorc at all. I TP right into the middle of cows, and no issues. I've let them intentionally hit me without using

Nova, and my character is still fine, can absorb a ton of hits and none of them trigger hit recovery. I feel invincible, not squishy (except to gloams).

Are you referring to P1? Most builds can stomp P1, even with terrible gear.

Yes, P1. I occasionally do larger games, but play online and don't like to worry about who is quickest to the loot.

At higher player counts

Nova still works fine, but I try not to TP right into the middle of cows in a P8 game. In P8 cows I often static the cows first due to huge range and take them down to 50% quickly. ~850 health, ~3300 mana, and maxed TK is the equivalent of 5250 hp versus physical, with about 400 hp equivalent of health regen per second. And

Nova knocks back any enemy trying to hit you. So very tanky still.

But speed advantage of

Nova at P1 probably doesn't hold at P8 versus builds that have higher DPS.