Part of what makes Nova so strong is her offensive ability. However, the nature of the build is still to get into the middle of everything, and going all-in for glass cannon offense still got hairy scary, even fully geared. Nova sorc is all I've played for a year and a half, and there are loads of variables and easy mistakes, should you choose to go anywhere in the game.Schnorki wrote: 8 months agoGenerally true. Though I'd claim that any truly geared offensive build still won't die to the point where you don't care to 99 (at least I never did, back when I still chased 99s 20 years ago ^^). The difference is really in that "once in 3 years" insane affix combination in triple-packs or something that will one-shot you no matter what. That'd be so rare though that SC 95+, dropping even a hardly noticeable bit of offense for it won't be worth it. HC..different story as always.saggytits wrote: 8 months agoThis is definitely more of a hardcore build for sure. I'd like to add though, that 95+ in softcore is close to hardcore anyway. You really, really don't want to die if you're going for 99. The negligible difference in offense, I feel, is outweighed by the massive hit you take for dying.Schnorki wrote: 8 months ago
I dare say that's really the main point here.
Fortitude is far from the best option offensively and in terms of defense is complete overkill 99.9% of the time. So for softcore, for me personally, I'd never even consider it. And yet, if I actually played hardcore, the odds of my going with fort would be fairly high, simply because unlike softcore, you do actually have to account for those .1% situations that may end up killing you if you're not running overkill defense.
Well, that and going with something more offensive doesn't necessarily actually make you better, depending on your overall gear and what you do/farm.
Simple example (with arbitrary numbers):
Say your Nova in defensive gear does 2k dmg. Say that same Nova in offensive gear does 2.5k dmg. Obviously, the offensive one would be "better".
But if you farm mobs with say 5.9k life, you would actually need 3 novas in either setup, making your offensive gear effectively the same offensively while being worse defensively.
The numbers are obviously arbitrary but the concept holds and happens more often than you'd think. Especially if you primarily play lower player counts. You often don't notice real gains until you focus on P8 or bosses/ubers.
Either way, solid HC/defense build choice.
Side note:
Agreed with Th3ory (as so often) - aesthetics make or break it! Though my preference wouldn't be the golden clunker.
When you can go anywhere, more 85 areas get tempting for the sake of varying the grind to 99. For me, that meant longer games where ES would wear off. That definitely is a preventable mistake to those who can keep up on their buffs. The same goes for when Battle Orders wears off - to that point I'll add I've found elite Fortitude improves survivability more than a Call To Arms. Even the most consistent player will have the occasional bad Teleport, get a little greedy with one Nova too many, position a little too close to that Chaos seal pop etc. Things happen. They used to happen to me all the time... until I wore Fortitude. I've lost at least 15 HC Nova sorcs above 80, and haven't died yet while wearing fort. But man have I come close several times. The more I played it, the more places I saw defense helping massively.
The clearest cases I've noticed that made me pucker were champion soul packs and ubers. It doesn't matter how much mana you have, those souls are gonna nuke it. When they do, you need 90 lit res, 20 absorb (if your res isn’t 95), and tons of defense to cover the loss of Energy Shield from losing mana, as their melee still hurts. Uber Baal has some extreme hatred for Nova sorcs with his constant targeting and mana drain. You can effectively forget ES against him, unless you want to either lose charm space for mana pots or hit town repeatedly. Lilith is just filthy anyway. You'll need all the defense and damage reduction you can get against her.
There is certainly a case to be made for avoiding those areas, among others. And they definitely aren't for everyone. For me, I have a hard time reconciling heavy time investment into a build that can go zoom zoom in 95% of areas and hit massive roadblocks in the remaining 5%. Going full energy and neglecting resists was fun for a while. I just don't want to sit out or keep running away in endgame content like ubers, and like to breathe easier while teleporting in general. The telestomp playstyle is more conducive to going YOLO on everything too. You can handle a long load screen to a hot WP, such as Frigid Highlands from another act. You can annoy that player crashing your full game to cow solo, who carefully crafts a trap around the red portal. High def and lit res wins there too. Playing the same thing long enough changed my mind towards the more consistent approach: both in offense with self-wield Infinity, and in defense with Fortitude.
Fun fact about cosmetics: the entire reason I discovered Fortitude was because I got tired of looking at vmagi sorcs everywhere. I searched chest runewords with FCR that let me pick my base, and found very few. I, like many others, forgot Fortitude had that 25%. I initially went for a Full Plate Mail base for a season to keep the requirements low. Then came the Kraken Shell, before finally settling on the looks/def/reqs/speed balance offered by a Great Hauberk.
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