best sheild for endgame cold sorc

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439
I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

From your posts, it seems you are kinda new-ish to D2? (Sorry if I'm wrong)


I'm not sure if you know how defense works in diablo: defense only reduce the chance for you to be hit (by physical attacks) it DOESN'T reduce the damage you take from each hit. Even with low defense, being a sorceress (mobile and ranged character) + having a frost armor (boosting your def a bit), you should be able to survive with

Ormus.
If anything having more fcr would make you more safe, as you could

Teleport out of harm's way faster.

In some cases, that defense can be important. Like if you mis-operate, a barbarian monster a5 catch you. You will need fhr or high defense to avoid been continue '

Stun'. Or recover from hit quickly.

But I am at the other extreme , no frost armor skill. low defense, more points into life, more things to fcr, always watch and avoid been caught by barbarian monster.
My defense is like something 1000?

My life is very high, so the '

Stun hit recover threshold ' is not that easy to reach.

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 8 hours ago

I've tried several shields, and Phoenix seems to work the best for me.

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

Def doesn't really matter for a sorc in PvM. It's the res and life from

Duriel's that help you out. Have you considered Chains of Honor or viper skin?

JulieP wrote: 6 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439
I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

From your posts, it seems you are kinda new-ish to D2? (Sorry if I'm wrong)


I'm not sure if you know how defense works in diablo: defense only reduce the chance for you to be hit (by physical attacks) it DOESN'T reduce the damage you take from each hit. Even with low defense, being a sorceress (mobile and ranged character) + having a frost armor (boosting your def a bit), you should be able to survive with

Ormus.
If anything having more fcr would make you more safe, as you could

Teleport out of harm's way faster.

so because i get hit less, with higher def, i dont take less damage?
less def more hits more damage right?

vued wrote: 5 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 8 hours ago

I've tried several shields, and Phoenix seems to work the best for me.

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

Der doesn't really matter for a sorc in PvM. It's the res and life from

Duriel's that help you out. Have you considered Chains of Honor or viper skin?

Chains of Honor looks best and I never heard of this one yet
Viper I was always on the fence some but I just recently got back on my sorc since spending lots of time with my necro

richhtx wrote: 5 hours ago

so because i get hit less, with higher def, i dont take less damage?
less def more hits more damage right?

In theory yes, but you're not supposed to go in the middle of packs of monster, you're a ranged character that is slowing every enemy around you (Cold sorc)
As a sorc, your mitigating being hit by being mobile and staying far from monsters; high fcr helps more in being hard to hit.

You can see the chance for enemies to hit you. Just hover over your defense stat (in your character stats page) I doubt the difference is that big between the two armors

vued wrote: 11 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 11 hours ago

Wow that last sheild must be incredibly rare csnt find one for sale anywhere

It's similarly rare as a JMoD but less sought after.

I found like 12 currently on sale (across all modes, though) on this other trading site, starting as low as 5

Jah for one.

Really? I found one, thought it looked valuable, but never looked into it too much.

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 8 hours ago

I've tried several shields, and Phoenix seems to work the best for me.

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

for me (blizzard)

Ormus is BiS. You need good resists (mainly lightning) and make sure you hit the fcr breakpoint (63 I think), maybe fill up some 5fcr small charms. You souldnt get hit at all excpet if you miss-

Teleport, then fcr and life pool is important to get out of there. CtA on swap gets you to 99% undyable

Nothing can beats Spirit.
+2 all skills, 35 FCR, 55FHR, high mana, vita, res, DR...
Everything in this runeword is useful.

It's just overpowered.

AndreABG wrote: 3 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 8 hours ago

I've tried several shields, and Phoenix seems to work the best for me.

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

for me (blizzard)

Ormus is BiS. You need good resists (mainly lightning) and make sure you hit the fcr breakpoint (63 I think), maybe fill up some 5fcr small charms. You souldnt get hit at all excpet if you miss-

Teleport, then fcr and life pool is important to get out of there. CtA on swap gets you to 99% undyable

I don’t k ow what most of the acronyms mean

Bis? Cta? And I’ve seen this breakpoint talked about some but don’t understand it

richhtx wrote: 2 hours ago

AndreABG wrote: 3 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

for me (blizzard)

Ormus is BiS. You need good resists (mainly lightning) and make sure you hit the fcr breakpoint (63 I think), maybe fill up some 5fcr small charms. You souldnt get hit at all excpet if you miss-

Teleport, then fcr and life pool is important to get out of there. CtA on swap gets you to 99% undyable

I don’t k ow what most of the acronyms mean

Bis? Cta? And I’ve seen this breakpoint talked about some but don’t understand it

Bis = best in slot
CTA = Call To Arms
Fhr = faster hit recovery
Fcr = faster cast rate
Bp = break point. Things like fcr and fhr don't scale like you'd expect. Think of a bp like a mile Stone. Once you reach it your character will do the action animation faster. Let's use sorc fcr frames as an example. At 60 fcr it takes 8 animation frames to cast your spell. But at 86fcr it takes 7 frames. However any fcr between 60 and 86 will still take 8 frames. The less frames an action takes, the more actions you can perform per second.

richhtx wrote: 2 hours ago

I don’t k ow what most of the acronyms mean

Bis? Cta? And I’ve seen this breakpoint talked about some but don’t understand it

I see you just got another answer but I'll fill in a bit of detail:

BIS = Best In Slot (when an item is considered the best alternative compared to all others for a specific build)
CTA = The Runeword Call To Arms, useful for pre-buff

Breakpoints is an artifact of this game being old and having a hard-coded internal framerate of 25fps, which the developers (back in -99ish) decided to use as the main clockwork to build a lot of the game's mechanics around. For this reason, variables on items that improve the frequency of events or actions (Faster cast rate, Faster block rate, Increased attack speed, Faster hit recovery) has to be translated to a specific number of frames between each such event (casting a spell, attacking, etc) by the game engine. Breakpoints are the values at which these variables actually leads to faster casting/blocking/attacking etc. after taking into account the game's internal 25fps "clock", and they are usually different for different classes.

An example with Faster Cast Rate (FCR): the sorceress casting a

Fireball can do so once every 13th frame with no FCR gear. Say, you equip 2x 10FCR rings = 20FCR, this takes the actual cast rate down to 10 frames between each

Fireball. However 30FCR won't be enough to go down to 9 frames, for that you need 37FCR, and the number needed for each reduction in the number of frames between each cast rises steeply with diminishing returns.

Breakpoints for cast rate, hit recovery, and block rate are fairly straightforward and are listed for example here: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=2450747

For attack speed it is a bit more complicated as it depends not only on class but also on the weapon used and some other things, for that a calculator is recommended: attackspeed.php

Though you may also note that many spells have internal "cast delays" that make FCR and breakpoints less important. The cold sorc's strongest spells Blizzard and

Frozen Orb are of this kind, why is also why there is reason in the first place to consider alternatives to the Spirit shield for the cold sorc.

The bottom line is that for variables that are affected by breakpoints, one need to look at the breakpoints to decide if a piece of gear that increases the variable (e.g. FCR) is worth it. If you don't pass the next breakpoint, the stat increase is worthless. All due to engineering decisions from another century that probably made total sense at the time.

richhtx wrote: 2 hours ago

AndreABG wrote: 3 hours ago

richhtx wrote: 8 hours ago

I’ll try one

It’s funny that out of all the amor I’ve tried for this character the duriels shell works the very best for protection, I upgraded mine to great haubrek , the def doubled 1439

I just may put cold facet or frost jewel in it for added damages

I have an

Ormus robe for added cold skill damage and -enemy res but it’s such low def I don’t stand a chance in level 92 tz

for me (blizzard)

Ormus is BiS. You need good resists (mainly lightning) and make sure you hit the fcr breakpoint (63 I think), maybe fill up some 5fcr small charms. You souldnt get hit at all excpet if you miss-

Teleport, then fcr and life pool is important to get out of there. CtA on swap gets you to 99% undyable

I don’t k ow what most of the acronyms mean

Bis? Cta? And I’ve seen this breakpoint talked about some but don’t understand it

BiS - Best in slot, the best item in that equipment slot for that build (cold sorc, since sunder charms usualy blizzard and

Frozen Orb, no ES)
CtA - Call To Arms, a runeword (https://fabd.github.io/diablo2-runewizard/) in flails that gives any class the barbarian skills to temporary boost all skills by one and to increase life and mana (depending on skill level after all +skills, around 50%)
Breakpoints: the game "physics" runs at 24 fps, lets say a classes hit recovery is 30 frames (meaning if you take to much damage you go into an animation and cant do anything until this is over) - if you fhr (faster hit recovery) 15% that'll make your animation 25.5 frames - there are no half frames (with exceptions) - you wasted some fhr% because your character will play an animation lasting 26 frame (all numbers are totaly thought out, I'm just talking about the Principle)
All kinds of stuff have therefore breakpoints - having values in between wont help you, with 59fhr on the sorc you will stay in hit recovery the same time as having 42. But if you have 60 (just 1 more) you will get from 9 frames to 8 (11% faster!, those numbers are actualy correct). I usualy aim for the next 86%

Here are all relevant breakpoints for all classes (except warlock since the post is oooold, but afaik warlock has identical breakpoints to paladin): https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=2450747

Attack speed has a very similar behaviour though more complex, depending on weapon (speed) that varies even on the same weapon from class to class and on- or off-weapon IAS (increased Attack speed). Just google attack speed calculator. This also applies (and calculators support) your hireling (merc)

AndreABG wrote: 1 hour ago

Here are all relevant breakpoints for all classes (except warlock since the post is oooold, but afaik warlock has identical breakpoints to paladin): https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=2450747

Sort of. Warlock has the same BPs (FCR, FHR, FBR) as a Necromancer. Necro and Paladin happen to have identical FCR BPs.

Wow scored a

Wyrmhide viper magi for 5 mixed gems

richhtx wrote: 48 minutes ago

Wow scored a

Wyrmhide viper magi for 5 mixed gems

Viper magi is stronger than it looks at first glance, I use it on my light sorc. The fcr on it opens up the possibility to run 2 Stone of Jordan (instead of 1 + fcr ring) so you get back the the missing skill to a +2 runeword alternative and have one more socket for facet (probably a

Caster Amulet can give you the fcr too, but I want max damage and use a +3 light skill 10 fcr one)