Nova Sorc vs heralds

Hey,

I'm doing well with my

Nova sorc, I can kill every monster quite fast in TZ96 P8 except heralds.... In fact, I can kill some types of heralds, but I have to skip most of them.

I'm currently lvl 97 and self wielding Infinity, griffons, viper,

Magefist, 2xsoj, arachnid, tri-res

Boots,+2 10%fcr amulet, skillers, renewed,

Annihilus, torch... and maxed

Nova,

Static Field, mastery, ES and

Telekinesis.

What are my fellow

Nova Sorcs doing to kill heralds in TZ96 runs?

It should be find as long as your merc doesn’t die too fast. Low tier ones are easy, but the tier 5 ones are a bit dangerous. Be careful with extra fast plus fana plus

Concentration aura plus amp damage. They hit hard.

I just use a different character lol she is too squishy against some of those T5s

This is one of the reasons I think lighting is superior to

Nova

I've mainly been playing with my

Ring of Fire WL over my

Nova sorc for

Herald hunting. RoF plays very similar to

Nova, but has no real weaknesses and

Sigil Lethargy is extremely powerful versus tough enemies like Heralds.

Only advantage ES

Nova sorc really has is going 1 FCR frame faster at 105 FCR rate vs. 125 FCR for WL.

That said, I would think ES

Nova sorc should be fine against T-5 heralds with the exception of gloams.

Similar damage, similar playstyle, similar total "life" (ES

Nova sorc has slightly more for me). Excluding the impact of

Sigil Lethargy and demon companion, ES

Nova sorc should arguably be better vs. physical attacks like the feared archers, as it has 25% DR and

Amplify Damage doesn't hit most of your life+mana pool (just life which is way smaller than mana).

However, in practice

Sigil Lethargy makes a huge difference, reduces effective damage by 50%. Also demon draws fire away from you.

In sum - I think ES

Nova sorc should be fine veresus all but gloams, and the handful of T-5 heralds I've fought with her were not a problem, but RoF WL is easier and less stress as he is incredibly tanky with lethargy,

Blood Oath, and demon to draw fire, and plays nearly identical playstyle.

Also versus

Herald gloams, RoF WL will be magnitudes better due to ES interaction with elemental damage (only 25% DR versus 75% DR at standard maxed res with non-ES).

My

Nova sorc handles most Heralds okay. Struggles a bit with Heralds that use missile attacks, or have extra fast speed. I find the trick is just to separate the monsters by drawing a few towards me at a time, deal with those, then go back and do it again. Sometimes the terrain is your best friend. Eg. Doorways act as a choke point. I frequently

Teleport just a couple space backwards, enough to draw my merc back and give me time to cast a few novas. Depending on how well I do protecting the merc, I usually run through 1 - 5 full rejuvs per

Herald to keep the merc alive - depending on what kind of

Herald spawned.

The sunder drop chances are no different for p8 vs p1. So if you're offline just keep /players 1 in the paste buffer and switch over when you get the warning. Then switch back.

departure wrote: 1 day ago

The sunder drop chances are no different for p8 vs p1. So if you're offline just keep /players 1 in the paste buffer and switch over when you get the warning. Then switch back.

It's not about the drop, I've a lot of them, it's about being able to kill the enemies instead of running away.

kastle wrote: 1 day ago

It's not about the drop, I've a lot of them, it's about being able to kill the enemies instead of running away.

Switching to P1 is your friend with the

Nova sorc if you're offline.

Honestly, I'm not sure I've found a character that I want to just roll through p8 heralds with. They erase mercs.

kastle wrote: 1 day ago

Hey,

I'm doing well with my

Nova sorc, I can kill every monster quite fast in TZ96 P8 except heralds.... In fact, I can kill some types of heralds, but I have to skip most of them.

I'm currently lvl 97 and self wielding Infinity, griffons, viper,

Magefist, 2xsoj, arachnid, tri-res

Boots,+2 10%fcr amulet, skillers, renewed,

Annihilus, torch... and maxed

Nova,

Static Field, mastery, ES and

Telekinesis.

What are my fellow

Nova Sorcs doing to kill heralds in TZ96 runs?

What's your Merc?

vued wrote: 23 hours ago

kastle wrote: 1 day ago

Hey,

I'm doing well with my

Nova sorc, I can kill every monster quite fast in TZ96 P8 except heralds.... In fact, I can kill some types of heralds, but I have to skip most of them.

I'm currently lvl 97 and self wielding Infinity, griffons, viper,

Magefist, 2xsoj, arachnid, tri-res

Boots,+2 10%fcr amulet, skillers, renewed,

Annihilus, torch... and maxed

Nova,

Static Field, mastery, ES and

Telekinesis.

What are my fellow

Nova Sorcs doing to kill heralds in TZ96 runs?

What's your Merc?

Act 2 freeze aura with Insight

Thresher + Cure + Chains of Honor

departure wrote: 1 day ago

kastle wrote: 1 day ago

It's not about the drop, I've a lot of them, it's about being able to kill the enemies instead of running away.

Switching to P1 is your friend with the

Nova sorc if you're offline.

Honestly, I'm not sure I've found a character that I want to just roll through p8 heralds with. They erase mercs.

Give mossaic a chance...

kastle wrote: 20 hours ago

vued wrote: 23 hours ago

kastle wrote: 1 day ago

Hey,

I'm doing well with my

Nova sorc, I can kill every monster quite fast in TZ96 P8 except heralds.... In fact, I can kill some types of heralds, but I have to skip most of them.

I'm currently lvl 97 and self wielding Infinity, griffons, viper,

Magefist, 2xsoj, arachnid, tri-res

Boots,+2 10%fcr amulet, skillers, renewed,

Annihilus, torch... and maxed

Nova,

Static Field, mastery, ES and

Telekinesis.

What are my fellow

Nova Sorcs doing to kill heralds in TZ96 runs?

What's your Merc?

Act 2 freeze aura with Insight

Thresher + Cure + Chains of Honor

Assuming you also have a 6BO CTA on switch, your setup has little room for improvement.
I'm guessing that your Merc dies fast, you can't kill them fast enough and they deal too much damage for you too stand the heat. You can consider this a challenge where you simply have to "play better". Do you for instance use

Static Field to bring them down to half health first?

Gear wise, I can only see charms to improve your character. Get 12fhr skillers to reach the 60 BP (do you get

Stun locked by Heralds?) and small charms should be res+life or mana life. Also fill out you complete inventory with charms, even put away the cube if you have to. You got to squeeze out the last bit of performance at every end.

You can pre buff your ES with a Memory stick. You can also consider more defensive GC instead of skillers if damage is OK and you are just too squishy.

After all that, you might need to re-adjust your vita/energy distribution. With more life from charms, you can put more in Energy. In the optimal setup with maxed ES I believe you don't need any points in vita.

You can try switching your Merc to an A5 (more tanky) or a Manic Pixie (more crowd control). It depends on what your current struggle is to give more concrete advice.

Finally, you can try casting supportive spells (from charges), like sigil of lethargy and curses (

Lower Resist,

Decrepify...).

Hope this helps. Please let us know how those changes work out. You can also share a video, this would help us spot potential improvementa on play style and tactics.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

Assuming you also have a 6BO CTA on switch, your setup has little room for improvement.

Yep, 6/4 CTA on switch.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

I'm guessing that your Merc dies fast, you can't kill them fast enough and they deal too much damage for you too stand the heat.

I think the problem is that some

Herald types hit too hard and mana doesn't recover quickly enought to keep pushing novas, also novas deal very little damage to them, arround 3% of their total life. I attack them from the side, not from the center to become less exposed. I also use the map to keep them far from my reach. Also, I kit them teleporting away before they can hit my merc, but some of them are so fast that if I keep going with this strategy I deal little to no damage and when several hits reach the merc at the same time he eventually dies.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

Do you for instance use

Static Field to bring them down to half health first?

Yes, even in regular tanky mobs to kill them faster.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

Gear wise, I can only see charms to improve your character. Get 12fhr skillers to reach the 60 BP (do you get

Stun locked by Heralds?) and small charms should be res+life or mana life. Also fill out you complete inventory with charms, even put away the cube if you have to. You got to squeeze out the last bit of performance at every end.

No, stunlock is not a problem.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

You can pre buff your ES with a Memory stick. You can also consider more defensive GC instead of skillers if damage is OK and you are just too squishy.

I'll try. I've a +6 Memory but I'm too lazy to use it.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

After all that, you might need to re-adjust your vita/energy distribution. With more life from charms, you can put more in Energy. In the optimal setup with maxed ES I believe you don't need any points in vita.

0 points in vita. 667 hp / 2922 mana

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

You can try switching your Merc to an A5 (more tanky) or a Manic Pixie (more crowd control). It depends on what your current struggle is to give more concrete advice.

I think loosing Insight would be a major drawback.

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

Finally, you can try casting supportive spells (from charges), like sigil of lethargy and curses (

Lower Resist,

Decrepify...).

That sounds sad :-p

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

Hope this helps. Please let us know how those changes work out. You can also share a video, this would help us spot potential improvementa on play style and tactics.

I'll try the ES prebuff, thanks for your response sir.

If you're just looking to boost your

Nova sorc, you can do slightly more damage with a

Nova

Ormus + jewel. It comes at the cost of having to get a 2/20 and losing some res from viper.

I prefer sandstorm or silkweaves over my tri-res

Boots. Res doesn't matter much at all for ES sorc. There's a whole thread on this where I go into way too much detail on the

Boots.