L86 blizzard sorc needs advice

I am guessing that a new brother / sister just joined our ranks fighting against the prime evils.

My recommendation would be

Blizzard 20
Glacial Spike 20
Ice Blast 20
Ice Bolt 20
Cold Mastery 10
Frost Nova 1
Warmth 1
Charged Bolt 1
Telekinesis 16
Teleport 1

Get Memory or a decent orb on swap to precast Energy Shield. Annoying but would last some 15 minutes. Chilling Armor you can recast anytime from Snowclash. Don't ignore the Energy Shield. As you progress towards 99, survivability is the top priority, especially with the heralds now.
I certainly don't recommend a dual element build, it's suboptimal since the sunders exist

ganseng wrote: 5 hours ago

My recommendation would be

Blizzard 20
Glacial Spike 20
Ice Blast 20
Ice Bolt 20
Cold Mastery 10
Frost Nova 1
Warmth 1
Charged Bolt 1
Telekinesis 17

Get Memory or a decent orb on swap to precast Energy Shield. Annoying but would last some 15 minutes. Chilling Armor you can recast anytime from Snowclash. Don't ignore the Energy Shield. As you progress towards 99, survivability is the top priority, especially with the heralds now.
I certainly don't recommend a dual element build, it's suboptimal since the sunders exist

You forgot the most important skill - Teleport, my friend.

I would max out Cold Mastery for the cold immunes and skip on ES completely:

20 Blizzard
20 Glacial Spike
20 Ice Blast
20 Ice Bolt
20 Cold Mastery
1 Warmth
1 Frozen Armor
1 Frost Nova
1 Telekinesis
1 Static Field
1 Teleport

106 skill points, so you are maxed at level 95 (94 skill points from leveling + 12 from quests)

Flyhorse wrote: 5 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 5 hours ago

My recommendation would be

Blizzard 20
Glacial Spike 20
Ice Blast 20
Ice Bolt 20
Cold Mastery 10
Frost Nova 1
Warmth 1
Charged Bolt 1
Telekinesis 17

Get Memory or a decent orb on swap to precast Energy Shield. Annoying but would last some 15 minutes. Chilling Armor you can recast anytime from Snowclash. Don't ignore the Energy Shield. As you progress towards 99, survivability is the top priority, especially with the heralds now.
I certainly don't recommend a dual element build, it's suboptimal since the sunders exist

You forgot the most important skill - Teleport, my friend.

my bad, corrected. and if OP doesn't have a sunder, he can get it from me for free on SC NL

about max dmg (max Cold Mastery) vs max survivability (max Telekinesis), here are the numbers


Lvl 10 Cold Mastery + 20 points from gear = -165 res. -25 res from gear = -25 - 165 / 5 = -58 res on cold immunes

Lvl 20 Cold Mastery + 20 points from gear = -215 res. -25 res from gear = -25 - 215 / 5 = -68 res on cold immunes

Non-cold immunes are screwed anyways

-85 res from emilio's Infinity or Lower Resist from a5's Plague ignored

Imo survivability is more important, but let everyone decide for themselves

mikelessar wrote: 5 hours ago

I would max out Cold Mastery for the cold immunes and skip on ES completely:

20 Blizzard
20 Glacial Spike
20 Ice Blast
20 Ice Bolt
20 Cold Mastery
1 Warmth
1 Frozen Armor
1 Frost Nova
1 Telekinesis
1 Static Field
1 Teleport

106 skill points, so you are maxed at level 95 (94 skill points from leveling + 12 from quests)

Static fields tends to be rather unnecessary for blizz sorcs imo, thanks to the inherently fairly overkill dmg on blizz itself.
But yeah, agreed on the rest.

Blizz sorcs don't have left-over skill points until hitting 95 for the first spare for 5 of them at 99. Certainly not 30 spare points at lvl 86. Looking at the OP's build, blizz, mastery and synergies are all barely half-way done so that's where those points should go for a real blizz sorc. And imo that's including a respec to drop the 2nd point in Teleport, the 4 to get Energy Shield and the one in Static Field to open up 36 instead of 30, all of which then go towards blizzard, mastery and finishing 2 of the 3 synergies.

Energy Shield tends to be completely unnecessary for a blizz sorc as you never have a reason to be in the thick of it (and hence to get hit) to begin with.

Schnorki wrote: 1 hour ago

Static fields tends to be rather unnecessary for blizz sorcs imo, thanks to the inherently fairly overkill dmg on blizz itself.
But yeah, agreed on the rest.

For P1, a Blizz Sorc usually does not need it, but P5-8 is different. Baal packs and Herald packs can be so tough that it makes sense to cast Static in between Blizzard casts. The cast delay is 1.8 seconds, after all.

mikelessar wrote: 1 hour ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 hour ago

Static fields tends to be rather unnecessary for blizz sorcs imo, thanks to the inherently fairly overkill dmg on blizz itself.
But yeah, agreed on the rest.

For P1, a Blizz Sorc usually does not need it, but P5-8 is different. Baal packs and Herald packs can be so tough that it makes sense to cast Static in between Blizzard casts. The cast delay is 1.8 seconds, after all.

Gives you something to do in the cast delay I guess, true. But I never bothered with it even on P8. And never missed it.
But be that as it may, them last 5 points from 95-99 are indeed just left over so might as well do whatever one feels like with them. Not losing anything of importance with a pt in Static Field anymore there anyways.
(Technically, 6 from 94 on I guess, seeing how blizz sorcs are so far off and safe that Frozen Armor, too is rather optional - though I for one still prefer to have that one just out of Principle)