Advice on ES nova spec

mikelessar wrote: 21 hours ago

Cure is ladder-only. You must buy one.

What character level do you have?

Have you put any points in Str, Vit and Dex (which you should not do)?

Level 86. 0 str 0 dex 0 vit

louner wrote: 20 hours ago

Resistantces do not matter at all if you are using

Energy Shield.

Also check this out forums/budget-non-squishy-nova-sorc-t1770329.html

That’s nice. I’ve seen someone recommend that armor and I’m kind of mad because I found that and threw it away because it looked like one of those useless uniques. Kind of stupid because I kept 3 griswolds armor because it looked cool.

I may try this, but it means ditching my whole build basically … I guess at least the expensive bit, Infinity

mikelessar wrote: 18 hours ago

StoBeast, you have not told us about your charms. Of course, skillers are a good idea and maybe 2 or 3 +12 fhr grand charms (ideally with +1 lightning) because you are tele-stomping all the time.

This is probably not a great thing, but none of my characters have any charms beyond anni/torch/sunder. I cannot stand having no inventory in a loot based game. I’m not a big fan of building characters for specific tasks … I want to be able to generally find items with any character and it requires an inventory.

You can get a gladiator's bane for free or a few pgems.

But I promise you - go

Frostburn, dual soj, arachnid, vipermagi, griffon, Infinity (you have all the expensive items here already), max out TK, don't overinvest points into strength (and none into dex), and supplement your resistances with resistance

Boots or charms, and you will be super tanky.

Resistances - mara/anni/torch/magi you are already at 35 resist all in hell (maybe slightly less since they may not all be perfect). Ignoring sunder, which you may just have to use a few decent lighting resist charms as a temporary solution until you are leveled.

Then you can use your 2 sockets for ums to get to 70, and is super easy to get to 75. Or use your sockets for

Sol and

Mal if you want more MDR/DR, and use a few more charms. And this is ignoring the

Boots which you can use for resistance also.

Gladiator's bane DR/MDR is pretty cool and will work well with a not yet maxed ES, so you can go that route also, but I think it's the tougher way to go because then you are lacking resistances, + skill and FCR.

Once you are around level 90 you can stop worrying about resists so much, as your ES should be close to maxed (depending on your skiller count)

You can pre-buff with Memory to ensure level 40 ES (for 95% damage to mana). I would try to stack more resist charms and get those out of the negs. I run around 30 or so, and sometimes more if I am running scary areas. You could try switching to a FCR ring and using a Mara's or a

Tal's Amulet. If you can find some tri-res

Boots they would also help a lot but that's obviously tougher. Otherwise your gear looks fine and damage should be sufficient.

If you are rushing people - do it with

Wizardspike + Spirit. Switch to Infinity only when need to kill something. You get so much FHR from Spirit, it is really hard to loose.
Having

Crescent Moon + Spirit instead of Infinity can solve your survival issues as well.

May sound stupid, but you didn't forgot to turn on EnergyShield, right?

varangium wrote: 15 hours ago

You can get a gladiator's bane for free or a few pgems.

But I promise you - go

Frostburn, dual soj, arachnid, vipermagi, griffon, Infinity (you have all the expensive items here already), max out TK, don't overinvest points into strength (and none into dex), and supplement your resistances with resistance

Boots or charms, and you will be super tanky.

Resistances - mara/anni/torch/magi you are already at 35 resist all in hell (maybe slightly less since they may not all be perfect). Ignoring sunder, which you may just have to use a few decent lighting resist charms as a temporary solution until you are leveled.

Then you can use your 2 sockets for ums to get to 70, and is super easy to get to 75. Or use your sockets for

Sol and

Mal if you want more MDR/DR, and use a few more charms. And this is ignoring the

Boots which you can use for resistance also.

Gladiator's bane DR/MDR is pretty cool and will work well with a not yet maxed ES, so you can go that route also, but I think it's the tougher way to go because then you are lacking resistances, + skill and FCR.

Once you are around level 90 you can stop worrying about resists so much, as your ES should be close to maxed (depending on your skiller count)

I think a

Mal in viper is plenty sufficient.

The main issue is having only 10 pts in tele, as was already mentioned.
The guide OP follewed is bad, esp. because it maxes all offensive skills before doing anything for ES. If you go like that, you're gonna have a bad time.

If you don't have 20 pts in tele, don't use ES. You'd be more tanky with all vita if you only have 10 pts in tele.

Hello there, I use a level 87

Nova sorc similar to yours, and it works really fine.

My own stuff : self wield Infinity, Griffon Vipermagi, 2 Soj, Arach,

Magefist.

What is different now :
- Ammy is a 2/10 - yours should not be an issue
- I use

Silkweave, to restore much mana and get extra mana pool, but Trek is fine too, matter of taste. And Silks are super cheap .

Waterwalk, not a great fan.
- I have a +3 ES Memory on swap (so total +9) instead of Cta - but should not change much.

Merc :

Prayer, elite

Eth Insight, Cure, Fortitude (but could be Treachery for more budget option)

As for on gear, overall, I'd say yours is fine, except for the missing Cure help. As Cure makes a "double dipping" with

Prayer and

Meditation, it really helps recovering mana and health super fast, and with

Silkweave also, and poison vanishes too.

Side note : for my sockets, I have one lightning rainbow facet in my Griffon (not changed yet for a

Guardian's Light, but it's the goal), the other though in Vipermagi is a resistance jewel (6/33 light/6/6) - could be an

Um too.

The main differences are probably on :
- Skills : 20

Nova / 20 mastery / 20 static of course, 1 in

Warmth and

Frozen Armor, 20 in TK, 1 in

Energy Shield. Extra points went to thunderstorm, but probably that part is NOT really useful so more ES is certainly not a bad idea.

As for how ES works, TK points diminish the cost of how much a hit does to you, ES points change how it shares between Vita and Mana. So 20 TK is really the top priority (actually maxed that before Static for better survivability), while upping ES is less priority

- Vita / Energy repartition : no STR/DEX neither, but I did do a ~1/3 Vita 2/3 Ene (makes around 750 life for 1500 mana), which is probably a bit safer. But pure energy builds are supposed to work once again.

- Biggest difference though is probably that I use charms. 6 skillers, one (old) Sunder, and two super cheap (8 all res 20 life + 30+/30+ life mana large charms). If you don't want to fill fully, all fine, but as ES is your main survivability some extra skills points do count. With Memory, my 1 point in ES casts at level 26, sending 80% of damage to mana. And I do have small charms all for res, the goal being that they are all positive (with Sunder!) at least and poison is at 30+. As you have a very good CtA and more points in ES than me, I feel you don't need as many skillers - getting at least level 25-30 in ES and max TK (only hard points count) should be ok. But a few resistances charms should help quite a lot. When playing her, I usually fear nothing and tele like a fool, though she got killed a few times that's rare if I don't mess up (but she is definitely unable to do Uber T, that's not her job!). The only case I stop is with pack of Souls with Uniques, where I simply put my Sunder in cube, and possibly dolls but I don't fail, should go fine.

To sum up what I'd do if I were you :
- Priority 1 : max TK, get a Cure for your merc and better

Boots, either Treks or

Silkweave (2nd being cheap, I'd try those first if I were you)
- Priority 2 : if you want, add a few charms, not a full inventory but perhaps a third of half of it to get some extra res / life / mana to help with survivability. No one likes large charms so those are super cheap usually, if you don't care about spacing they are a good bargain. Goal is to get at least positive on all res.
- That should solve most of your squishiness - see first how you are up to there and let us know

So nothing of a revolution, just slight touches of optimization.

2 tings.

MDR, DR

This is my ES battlesorc. Don't fall into the resist trap...Resist are for pussies as far as ES is concerned.

Base vit is 50. Everything else into En , points in Str when needed.
Triple Cure/Insight/

Prayer merc for unlimited "health" regen.

Skaijuice wrote: 1 hour ago

2 tings.

MDR, DR

This is my ES battlesorc. Don't fall into the resist trap...Resist are for pussies as far as ES is concerned.

Base vit is 50. Everything else into En , points in Str when needed.

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Triple Cure/Insight/

Prayer merc for unlimited "health" regen.

interesting way. Does this mitigate damage from stygian doll? They are only thing my Warlock is afraid of. They do hit through

Blood Oath 93% damage reduce. At least when they die in packs