ES nova sorc help… again

I play this without cta even and I do fine. Sure sometimes I run into a pack a little hot and get 1 shot but thats not often. my merc is running a 16 med Insight, COH and for now until i can get Cure a andys. I just constantly swap between

Teleport and

Nova. constantly placing myself where i can hit things and not get too close. The other thing I do is use static shock on heavy mobs.

My gear is almost the same as yours but I actually have less skillers. 600 health 1400 mana. Just try to stay mobile and I think your fine.

StoBeast wrote: 1 day ago

mikelessar wrote: 1 day ago

How much life and mana do you have with the CTA? How much poison res?

Your gear is good but a 3-10 amu is not bis. Best is 2-20 with e.g. mana, strength, poison res, poison length reduction etc.

One tip: Cast

Cyclone Armor from your Infinity (I hope it is non-

Eth as it should be) with your ES. Oyr ES wiml protect the

Cyclone Armor but it will still soak damage.

I have 698/2170… 60 stats reserved for gear change (I’ve never been able to get used to respec… never do it)

Some people suggest damage taken goes to mana gear,.. just don’t know how to fit it on the build

Hell and this thing doesn’t even have any MF

60 stats just sitting there huh? I have all my extra stat points into energy and I hardly ever die.

The way to play

Nova sorc is:
A) level 40 ES

B) enough life so that lvl 40 ES 5% hit flow though doesn’t take off more than 12% from any monster hits and put you into hit recovery. 600 more than enough

C) TP right into the center of every pack and spam

Nova. They might get in a hit or two, but none of it stuns you, and your

Nova stuns and knocks back them and they never can launch another hit. As soon as you get off a single

Nova they are done for.

D) Repeat

Only exceptions to this rule are

Inferno attack from infected of souls which does not get interrupted by your

Nova, and dolls which explode on Death (and thus

Nova also does not disrupt that on Death attack)

Also monsters with special

Stun attacks like

Blunderbore, viper, or undead Nithalek guys can

Stun you even if you take low damage. But I never have issues with them. In theory teleporting into the center of those packs has

Stun risk. More importantly, you can

Stun them repeatedly as soon as you get off

Nova.

I’ve been doing better since I learned of quick cast

I played 96tz act one (found two subders by the way) and my biggest problem has been my merc dying then I die instantly. Archers kill me quickly . My merc has Cure, Insight, and COH. My merc died (killing me) at least 10 times in act 1.

StoBeast wrote: 17 hours ago

I’ve been doing better since I learned of quick cast

I played 96tz act one (found two subders by the way) and my biggest problem has been my merc dying then I die instantly. Archers kill me quickly . My merc has Cure, Insight, and COH. My merc died (killing me) at least 10 times in act 1.

With ranged attackers like archers it is especially important you TP right on top of them and start blasting

Nova. The best defense for

Nova sorc is being offensive and getting right in the thick of it. Your

Nova stuns enemies and they can't attack you. It's actually MORE dangerous to lie back and cautiously approach in most cases.

My merc never dies and essentially has the same equipment (I run gladiator's bane instead of CoH, but have also run CoH). Main reason he never dies though is because no enemy can ever attack him, I'm constantly stunning them with

Nova.

varangium wrote: 17 hours ago

StoBeast wrote: 17 hours ago

I’ve been doing better since I learned of quick cast

I played 96tz act one (found two subders by the way) and my biggest problem has been my merc dying then I die instantly. Archers kill me quickly . My merc has Cure, Insight, and COH. My merc died (killing me) at least 10 times in act 1.

With ranged attackers like archers it is especially important you TP right on top of them and start blasting

Nova. The best defense for

Nova sorc is being offensive and getting right in the thick of it. Your

Nova stuns enemies and they can't attack you. It's actually MORE dangerous to lie back and cautiously approach in most cases.

My merc never dies and essentially has the same equipment (I run gladiator's bane instead of CoH, but have also run CoH). Main reason he never dies though is because no enemy can ever attack him, I'm constantly stunning them with

Nova.

Hmm. I tele in and then my merc dies and then I die. These are t-5 heralds and they pretty much one shot merc. I usually die before I can even cast

Ok yeah, not for a t-5

Herald, I wouldn’t tp in top of that. I meant for normal monsters champions and uniques.

Static anything tough to take it down by half. T-5

Herald is tough for any character. I haven’t fought enough of them to have a set strategy, and depends on why mods they have and what kind of pack.

varangium wrote: 16 hours ago

Ok yeah, not for a t-5

Herald, I wouldn’t tp in top of that. I meant for normal monsters champions and uniques.

Static anything tough to take it down by half. T-5

Herald is tough for any character. I haven’t fought enough of them to have a set strategy, and depends on why mods they have and what kind of pack.

I went and cleared a1, 2, 4 and I can’t even count the number of heralds at this point.. I mean one every few minutes. I’m getting better. I have to tele away from them to keep the merc from dying. If there are door openings or tunnels, it’s great. If they are archers in act one… I don’t even know what to do… die, I suppose. I keep my warlock in the same game to rescue me. He still has a hephisto that can tank t-5 heralds.

On the plus side, I got arachnids,

Windforce and 2 sunders.. all of heralds. No idea why people are saying hearld drops are crap..

StoBeast wrote: 5 hours ago

varangium wrote: 16 hours ago

Ok yeah, not for a t-5

Herald, I wouldn’t tp in top of that. I meant for normal monsters champions and uniques.

Static anything tough to take it down by half. T-5

Herald is tough for any character. I haven’t fought enough of them to have a set strategy, and depends on why mods they have and what kind of pack.

I went and cleared a1, 2, 4 and I can’t even count the number of heralds at this point.. I mean one every few minutes. I’m getting better. I have to tele away from them to keep the merc from dying. If there are door openings or tunnels, it’s great. If they are archers in act one… I don’t even know what to do… die, I suppose. I keep my warlock in the same game to rescue me. He still has a hephisto that can tank t-5 heralds.

On the plus side, I got arachnids,

Windforce and 2 sunders.. all of heralds. No idea why people are saying hearld drops are crap..

Nice! One other thing I'll say. I have not yet encountered a T-5

Herald gloam with my ES

Nova Sorc, but I would expect that battle to be somewhere between extremely tough and suicide. ES Sorc struggles against gloams in general because having ES is like having 25% elemental resistance on your mana instead of 75%, so your mana "life" takes damage at 3x the rate of a standard maxed resistance character. Against most elemental damage other than gloams insane damage and range, it's usually fine / offset by the super fast mana regen and ability to boost mana with items like sojs and

Frostburn.

Normally it's fine enough even against gloams, you just have to be on top of teleporting and not standing in one place. But against a T-5

Herald pack of gloams, I dunno...

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

StoBeast wrote: 5 hours ago

varangium wrote: 16 hours ago

Ok yeah, not for a t-5

Herald, I wouldn’t tp in top of that. I meant for normal monsters champions and uniques.

Static anything tough to take it down by half. T-5

Herald is tough for any character. I haven’t fought enough of them to have a set strategy, and depends on why mods they have and what kind of pack.

I went and cleared a1, 2, 4 and I can’t even count the number of heralds at this point.. I mean one every few minutes. I’m getting better. I have to tele away from them to keep the merc from dying. If there are door openings or tunnels, it’s great. If they are archers in act one… I don’t even know what to do… die, I suppose. I keep my warlock in the same game to rescue me. He still has a hephisto that can tank t-5 heralds.

On the plus side, I got arachnids,

Windforce and 2 sunders.. all of heralds. No idea why people are saying hearld drops are crap..

Nice! One other thing I'll say. I have not yet encountered a T-5

Herald gloam with my ES

Nova Sorc, but I would expect that battle to be somewhere between extremely tough and suicide. ES Sorc struggles against gloams in general because having ES is like having 25% elemental resistance on your mana instead of 75%, so your mana "life" takes damage at 3x the rate of a standard maxed resistance character. Against most elemental damage other than gloams insane damage and range, it's usually fine / offset by the super fast mana regen and ability to boost mana with items like sojs and

Frostburn.

Normally it's fine enough even against gloams, you just have to be on top of teleporting and not standing in one place. But against a T-5

Herald pack of gloams, I dunno...

I have 2 soj and FB... Burning Soul in PLains of Dispair one shot me, not even sure it was the main dude... took my warlock down to half health in 1 shot... i ran.

StoBeast wrote: 1 hour ago

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

StoBeast wrote: 5 hours ago

I went and cleared a1, 2, 4 and I can’t even count the number of heralds at this point.. I mean one every few minutes. I’m getting better. I have to tele away from them to keep the merc from dying. If there are door openings or tunnels, it’s great. If they are archers in act one… I don’t even know what to do… die, I suppose. I keep my warlock in the same game to rescue me. He still has a hephisto that can tank t-5 heralds.

On the plus side, I got arachnids,

Windforce and 2 sunders.. all of heralds. No idea why people are saying hearld drops are crap..

Nice! One other thing I'll say. I have not yet encountered a T-5

Herald gloam with my ES

Nova Sorc, but I would expect that battle to be somewhere between extremely tough and suicide. ES Sorc struggles against gloams in general because having ES is like having 25% elemental resistance on your mana instead of 75%, so your mana "life" takes damage at 3x the rate of a standard maxed resistance character. Against most elemental damage other than gloams insane damage and range, it's usually fine / offset by the super fast mana regen and ability to boost mana with items like sojs and

Frostburn.

Normally it's fine enough even against gloams, you just have to be on top of teleporting and not standing in one place. But against a T-5

Herald pack of gloams, I dunno...

I have 2 soj and FB... Burning Soul in PLains of Dispair one shot me, not even sure it was the main dude... took my warlock down to half health in 1 shot... i ran.

You could try an ammy or ring with

Dim Vision charges, which shut down ranged attackers.

Dim Vision doesn’t work on super uniques, but I assume it should still work on heralds.

Here are a few ideas:
1. With this gear, you should not die, at least on P1, even in Chaos. So maybe it's play style.

Nova sorc is not invincible, if you play het like if she were, this can lead to Death. There are combinations of packs that are very strong and a squishy sorc can die if you just tele in there. I usually tele at borders, that leads to half the potential damage compared to teleporting into the center of an area.
2. Those 60 stats are huge. That's 180 mana, before SoJ and CTA. Put them to practice. Probably all in mana, maybe in vita. Why/how do you die? Running out of mana or damage bypassing your ES?
3. What level are you?

Nova spec is very squishy until ~80 and much more steady at 90+. Where are you?
4. You are lacking fhr. 86 BP is a good target. I only see 20 (sandstorm) on your gear. That puts you at 11 frames. Do you have any other sources? 12 fhr on skillers is in most cases better than extra life.
5. 3/10 amu is not bis. 2/10 with extra mana(!!!), stats, life, and/or res is better. 2/20 is not needed (contrary to what someone else posted).

Hope this helps!

StoBeast wrote: 1 hour ago

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

StoBeast wrote: 5 hours ago

I went and cleared a1, 2, 4 and I can’t even count the number of heralds at this point.. I mean one every few minutes. I’m getting better. I have to tele away from them to keep the merc from dying. If there are door openings or tunnels, it’s great. If they are archers in act one… I don’t even know what to do… die, I suppose. I keep my warlock in the same game to rescue me. He still has a hephisto that can tank t-5 heralds.

On the plus side, I got arachnids,

Windforce and 2 sunders.. all of heralds. No idea why people are saying hearld drops are crap..

Nice! One other thing I'll say. I have not yet encountered a T-5

Herald gloam with my ES

Nova Sorc, but I would expect that battle to be somewhere between extremely tough and suicide. ES Sorc struggles against gloams in general because having ES is like having 25% elemental resistance on your mana instead of 75%, so your mana "life" takes damage at 3x the rate of a standard maxed resistance character. Against most elemental damage other than gloams insane damage and range, it's usually fine / offset by the super fast mana regen and ability to boost mana with items like sojs and

Frostburn.

Normally it's fine enough even against gloams, you just have to be on top of teleporting and not standing in one place. But against a T-5

Herald pack of gloams, I dunno...

I have 2 soj and FB... Burning Soul in PLains of Dispair one shot me, not even sure it was the main dude... took my warlock down to half health in 1 shot... i ran.

Oh and another thing to try might be

Raven charges. Ravens cast

Dim Vision for you. Heart of the Oak actually has

Raven charges, or you can find on rings, ammys, etc..

vued wrote: 1 hour ago

Here are a few ideas:
1. With this gear, you should not die, at least on P1, even in Chaos. So maybe it's play style.

Nova sorc is not invincible, if you play het like if she were, this can lead to Death. There are combinations of packs that are very strong and a squishy sorc can die if you just tele in there. I usually tele at borders, that leads to half the potential damage compared to teleporting into the center of an area.
2. Those 60 stats are huge. That's 180 mana, before SoJ and CTA. Put them to practice. Probably all in mana, maybe in vita. Why/how do you die? Running out of mana or damage bypassing your ES?
3. What level are you?

Nova spec is very squishy until ~80 and much more steady at 90+. Where are you?
4. You are lacking fhr. 86 BP is a good target. I only see 20 (sandstorm) on your gear. That puts you at 11 frames. Do you have any other sources? 12 fhr on skillers is in most cases better than extra life.
5. 3/10 amu is not bis. 2/10 with extra mana(!!!), stats, life, and/or res is better. 2/20 is not needed (contrary to what someone else posted).

Hope this helps!

Regarding hit recovery, I may be in the minority in this opinion, but I don't think FHR is necessary for ES sorc, at least if you are typically playing P1, unless you run really low life. But running at least some life from charms and a little vitality investment is nice QoL versus poison damage,

Baal mana burn, and blood mana curse, the general banes of an ES sorc's existence (along with gloams)

The math shows that you should never go into hit recovery, aside from a special

Stun attack that guarantees

Stun (in which case I'm not sure FHR applies to the special

Stun length). Let's say you have 750 health as an example:
- An attack of 1500!!! hits you. This is a crazy strong attack, not even sure what combination of mods could do it.
- 5% flows through to your health. That's 75. 13 MDR from viper reduces to 62.
- 62 / 750 = 8.27%. This is less than 1/12 (8.5%), so per diablo documentation you should not experience hit recovery.

The math supports this, and also my experience in practice supports this. A high level

Herald soul/gloam with mods is probably the one exception to this. Also I'm ignoring lightning res, which I do run in the negative so would make the math slightly worse.

varangium wrote: 56 minutes ago

vued wrote: 1 hour ago

Here are a few ideas:
1. With this gear, you should not die, at least on P1, even in Chaos. So maybe it's play style.

Nova sorc is not invincible, if you play het like if she were, this can lead to Death. There are combinations of packs that are very strong and a squishy sorc can die if you just tele in there. I usually tele at borders, that leads to half the potential damage compared to teleporting into the center of an area.
2. Those 60 stats are huge. That's 180 mana, before SoJ and CTA. Put them to practice. Probably all in mana, maybe in vita. Why/how do you die? Running out of mana or damage bypassing your ES?
3. What level are you?

Nova spec is very squishy until ~80 and much more steady at 90+. Where are you?
4. You are lacking fhr. 86 BP is a good target. I only see 20 (sandstorm) on your gear. That puts you at 11 frames. Do you have any other sources? 12 fhr on skillers is in most cases better than extra life.
5. 3/10 amu is not bis. 2/10 with extra mana(!!!), stats, life, and/or res is better. 2/20 is not needed (contrary to what someone else posted).

Hope this helps!

Regarding hit recovery, I may be in the minority in this opinion, but I don't think FHR is necessary for ES sorc, at least if you are typically playing P1, unless you run really low life. But running at least some life from charms and a little vitality investment is nice QoL versus poison damage,

Baal mana burn, and blood mana curse, the general banes of an ES sorc's existence (along with gloams)

The math shows that you should never go into hit recovery, aside from a special

Stun attack that guarantees

Stun (in which case I'm not sure FHR applies to the special

Stun length). Let's say you have 750 health as an example:
- An attack of 1500!!! hits you. This is a crazy strong attack, not even sure what combination of mods could do it.
- 5% flows through to your health. That's 75. 13 MDR from viper reduces to 62.
- 62 / 750 = 8.27%. This is less than 1/12 (8.5%), so per diablo documentation you should not experience hit recovery.

The math supports this, and also my experience in practice supports this. A high level

Herald soul/gloam with mods is probably the one exception to this. Also I'm ignoring lightning res, which I do run in the negative so would make the math slightly worse.

Vipers are among the most dangerous creeps for my ES sorc. So yes, this is about

Stun skills, not

Stun due to 1/8 life lost.

Interesting, I've never had any issues with pit vipers, and I have 0 FHR. You gain an invulnerability period after being struck and put into hit recovery, so I can just spam

Nova after the initial strike. So long as they can't kill me during the initial recovery, I'm good, and I don't think they have ever come anywhere near close.

I haven't tested it, but it was unclear from trying to research online whether FHR helped with the fixed

Stun length of special attacks. Not saying it doesn't help, just I tried to research it and couldn't find a clear answer.

vued wrote: 45 minutes ago

varangium wrote: 56 minutes ago

vued wrote: 1 hour ago

Here are a few ideas:
1. With this gear, you should not die, at least on P1, even in Chaos. So maybe it's play style.

Nova sorc is not invincible, if you play het like if she were, this can lead to Death. There are combinations of packs that are very strong and a squishy sorc can die if you just tele in there. I usually tele at borders, that leads to half the potential damage compared to teleporting into the center of an area.
2. Those 60 stats are huge. That's 180 mana, before SoJ and CTA. Put them to practice. Probably all in mana, maybe in vita. Why/how do you die? Running out of mana or damage bypassing your ES?
3. What level are you?

Nova spec is very squishy until ~80 and much more steady at 90+. Where are you?
4. You are lacking fhr. 86 BP is a good target. I only see 20 (sandstorm) on your gear. That puts you at 11 frames. Do you have any other sources? 12 fhr on skillers is in most cases better than extra life.
5. 3/10 amu is not bis. 2/10 with extra mana(!!!), stats, life, and/or res is better. 2/20 is not needed (contrary to what someone else posted).

Hope this helps!

Regarding hit recovery, I may be in the minority in this opinion, but I don't think FHR is necessary for ES sorc, at least if you are typically playing P1, unless you run really low life. But running at least some life from charms and a little vitality investment is nice QoL versus poison damage,

Baal mana burn, and blood mana curse, the general banes of an ES sorc's existence (along with gloams)

The math shows that you should never go into hit recovery, aside from a special

Stun attack that guarantees

Stun (in which case I'm not sure FHR applies to the special

Stun length). Let's say you have 750 health as an example:
- An attack of 1500!!! hits you. This is a crazy strong attack, not even sure what combination of mods could do it.
- 5% flows through to your health. That's 75. 13 MDR from viper reduces to 62.
- 62 / 750 = 8.27%. This is less than 1/12 (8.5%), so per diablo documentation you should not experience hit recovery.

The math supports this, and also my experience in practice supports this. A high level

Herald soul/gloam with mods is probably the one exception to this. Also I'm ignoring lightning res, which I do run in the negative so would make the math slightly worse.

Vipers are among the most dangerous creeps for my ES sorc. So yes, this is about

Stun skills, not

Stun due to 1/8 life lost.