energy shield for squishy hydra/fire ball sorc

Depends on your life/energy pool. I fear that you do not Win anything by that, instead only loose Mana when being hit. I am running my Blizzard and Fireball/ Meteor Sorc without ES. My Novasorc ofc with ES, but there I went all in energy.

ES isn't a must have. You can safely play without if you have 65+ all res with vita maxed.
With some magic damage reduction and a an A5 tank with Plague, you're safe.

That's my Frozen Orb build.

put the rest into Telekinesis. annoying to recast the es in town with gear but extra dmg reduction is worth it

Energy Shield helps a lot with survivability, I tell you that after leveling Fireball + Hydra to 99

krathkor wrote: 19 hours ago

not a sorc player so....

with my leftover points should i:

1 point Energy Shield rest in Telekinesis
or
all in Energy Shield

merc has Insight/Cure/ Prayer....

If you want to use ES, 20 hard points in Telekinesis are a must imho.

I wouldn't use ES on a fire sorc, but that's just me. I'd dump extra points into Static Field for the longer range.

justinman114 wrote: 13 hours ago

I wouldn't use ES on a fire sorc, but that's just me. I'd dump extra points into Static Field for the longer range.

Even hell Mephisto dies from 3 fireballs. With sunders and enough -efr, I don't think Static Field is needed on a fire sorc. And even 1 pt is enough if you want to bring down tough targets like Ubers.

I agree though that ES is not needed and on hardcore I'm too afraid to use it. A single bad mana burn situation or refresh not working and you are toast. In theory ES sorc is super tanky but in practice, there are those situations where your ES just fails.

I think you benefit more from Hydras for safe killing of nasty heralds.

My Fire Sorc has no spare points for ES. Energy Shield is useless without maxed synergy, that's 24 additional skill points I don't have.

I maxed Fireball, Hydra, Fire Bolt, Warmth and Fire Mastery. Remaining points into Meteor. One pointers: Telekinesis, Teleport, Frozen Armor and Static Field.

After BO I am close to 2K life with maxed resists. Merc is standard Infinity guy. My gear is gg stuff (CoH, jeweled Eschuta's, Phoenix, Flickering, renewed Sunder, 6 skillers etc.)

Thing is, if you are playing /p1, you don't need ES. My FB does 19k damage, so anything just dies after 1-2 hits. Even 10k is more than enough. A room filled with Hydras is cleared in seconds.

If you are playing /p8, you need a maxed Fireball, the Hydras alone don't do the trick. Even with my setup and when I throw everything I have on them at once, it takes a while to bring down strong Heralds, so there's no room for investing in ES.

The only way I see is to go Fireball/ Meteor only. But then you lose the ability to safely fight dangerous enemies offscreen. It's a trade-off, as always.

DasNarf wrote: 7 hours ago

My Fire Sorc has no spare points for ES. Energy Shield is useless without maxed synergy, that's 24 additional skill points I don't have.

I maxed Fireball, Hydra, Fire Bolt, Warmth and Fire Mastery. Remaining points into Meteor. One pointers: Telekinesis, Teleport, Frozen Armor and Static Field.

After BO I am close to 2K life with maxed resists. Merc is standard Infinity guy. My gear is gg stuff (CoH, jeweled Eschuta's, Phoenix, Flickering, renewed Sunder, 6 skillers etc.)

Thing is, if you are playing /p1, you don't need ES. My FB does 19k damage, so anything just dies after 1-2 hits. Even 10k is more than enough. A room filled with Hydras is cleared in seconds.

If you are playing /p8, you need a maxed Fireball, the Hydras alone don't do the trick. Even with my setup and when I throw everything I have on them at once, it takes a while to bring down strong Heralds, so there's no room for investing in ES.

The only way I see is to go Fireball/ Meteor only. But then you lose the ability to safely fight dangerous enemies offscreen. It's a trade-off, as always.

I'd max Meteor before Warmth. For me, Fireball is the main skill and Hydra only secondary.

vued wrote: 2 hours ago

I'd max Meteor before Warmth. For me, Fireball is the main skill and Hydra only secondary.

I'd prefer to have maximum mana regen, but I guess both ways are viable. My main skill is Hydra, I always summon all six and then start spamming Fireballs and Meteors. I do /p8 most of my time, and this rotation seems to deal maximum damage.