I'm building a Tal Rasha's Sorceress next...

...and with Sunder Charms being a thing now i don't know what to go for.

For Reference, this is the gear i'm basically set on.

Boots are a Placeholder, got a pair of Waterwalks too (depends on wether or not i use ES). The Infinity is a Place Holder aswell. I actually need to decide if i'm using Infinity or Insight because sadly, i currently only have one base and the Cube trolls me with with 3 or 5 socket rolls (every time i actually get a

Eth

Thresher /

Giant Thresher)

I don't plan to do MF runs with that Sorceress (got a Hammerdin with 300MF, perfectly servicable) but i probably end up farming Keys, Essences or doing Cows. So a little bit of everything. So the goal is to have an enjoyable time not to break any damage or speed records.

In pre Sunder times i usually went with FO /

Fireball but i'm glad that's not necessary anymore.

Is there a build that would work exceptionally well with a Full

Tal's set?


Few points i'd like to have some input on:

For the Merc: Infinity or Insight? Self wield is out of the picture so i gotta chose and when using Sunder Charms Infinity should have a effective resistance reduction of 17 right?

I usually take

Holy Freeze over

Prayer. The extra Life Regen never was that appealing to me and if i'm running ES it's even less important. Thanks to ShadowHeart though, i now have a Cure and i'm itching to try that out. Is the

Prayer Synergy from

Cleansing only more Life Regen or does it have additional effects like even shorter Curse/Poison duration?

With Infinity:

Going Cold, is the extra -res (that comes in addition to

Cold Mastery) noticable in actual gameplay?

How good is Blizzard together with a Sunder Charm and

Tal Rasha's. I've once tried Blizzard with

Tal's but was very underwhelmed. I always had the feeling that the Damage output was subpar to other builds and together with the clunkyness it was overall a mediocre expirience. The one time i had a dedicated Cold Sorc with all the good Stuff (DF, Nightwing's,

Snowclash, Blizz

Ormus) the damage output was so much through the roof that i've happily accepted the big Point Investment (and the clunkyness). But with

Tal's i probably won't end up at those numbers. Unless Sunder Charms can actually make this worthwile.

If i go the Cold Route: Is there much reason to go beyond -150 with

Cold Mastery even with Sunder Charms? Rule of thump was getting to -150 and ignore

Cold Mastery beyond that. On one Hand, sure with Sunder Charms you're getting something out of those extra -res but then again...
...it's effectively -1 per spent point on sundered Enemies. Looks like a big investment with a small return. Those Skillpoints probably can be spent on something more useful...


...which brings me to

Energy Shield:

I only have two Lightning GC and i don't plan to buy more. Usually, given the time, i find them. So my ES woud end up at 37 (with

Battle Command from CTA). Not ideal but very close. And since i would need Lightning Skiller anyway i'm asking myself if i shouldn't try to go with

Nova. I don't need the Killspeed of a dedicated

Nova with self wield Infinity (i mostly play solo anyway). But i also don't want to port right next to the enemy, burn through my mana and then have the enemy still standing there laughing at me

Tal's is a very solid all-rounder solution that works with all builds.

That having been said, the main differentiator here isn't "does it work?" but "how much worse is it, compared to non-

Tal's?".

For lightning, I for one would characterize the difference as night and day, making

Tal's still work with it but feel like a shit choice.
For cold, the difference is noticeable but really not thaaat bad and perfectly acceptable considering the gain you get in other aspects (MF and whatnot) as compared to a full dmg cold setup.
For fire, the difference is surprisingly small. Almost disturbingly small. But imo that's mainly because post-sunder fire is just crazy good. I know you said it isn't your plan but you can definitely set some speed records with a fire sorc, even when rocking

Tal's.

Personally, I wouldn't touch fire or lightning without an Infinity. Ever. Insight is for cold.
That does make lightning even more painful in terms of

Tal's vs. others because the mana issues inherent to light also feel amplified.
Fire really doesn't have that problem and can merrily plow through even without stacking energy, foregoing ES entirely and having a solid life pool instead.
Cold..really does not need Infinity. You can easily get

Cold Mastery + facets to the point of taking any and all non-immunes to the -100

Cap. So Infinity only does anything at all on immunes where it adds another -17 res. Considering how much you can get from CM + facets already though (no reason not to overstack CM on a cold sorc..they have plenty of skill pts), that extra -17 imo doesn't make even remotely enough of a difference to justify not using another merc weapon.

All that said, I for one would go with either fire or cold, depending on which playstyle you prefer.

And as for the

Prayer synergy:

Cleansing (and Insight's

Meditation) both gain the healing effect of your merc's

Prayer (assuming you use a

Prayer merc). That means all 3 auras (

Prayer,

Cleansing &

Meditation) will heal for the same healing your merc's

Prayer normally does by itself, effectively tripling his healing output. That's it though, no hidden bonus to the curse reduction or mana regen values.

Very thoroughly, thank you.

So all thinks considered i think i'll go with a Cold Sorc. I thought maybe there is some redeeming quality for Tals on

Nova but i figured as much (from reading that other

Nova Sorc thread). A Fire Sorc somehow even never crossed my mind to begin with and i'll take that as a sign that i'm probably not that interested in a Fire Sorc (even though you've said that they work exceptionally with Tals). This way i'll also save me the Infinity and can use it on a Self wield Sorc in the future.

I already have played with the thought of either building a dedicated Cold /

Nova Sorc but then i'd either "need" a DF or Griffon's respectively. Add Facette's to the mix and it's a bit over my current budget. Additionally Tals has quite a lot of Res whereas the majority of my test setups for Cold and

Nova somewhat struggled in that department.

furthermore i'll be freezing the enemies myself and can try out If

Prayer + Insight + Cure is really noticable.

thanks again

I ploughed thru the entire last ladder with

Fireball Sorc, with only whole

Tal's set + Sunder, 0 skillers, no Torch, no SoJs, even an average Anni I got as a gift (it was like 14/14 or something) and ofc no Infinity and it wrecked everything in it's path (didn't try Ubers I assume she couldn't do it easily as in 'just go in and kill'). I found some nice stuff and runes even tho I don't really like ladder and I usually play it for couple of days (did maybe a week now just to try to make some ladder exclusive RW). What I am saying is on P1 you can farm or just play and have fun EVERYWHERE with it like this.

After seeing what just plain

Fireball Sorc can do I would have to notice that you basically don't need any particular gear for Cold (I played with Blizzard/Orb one for a while on NL, usually players 4-8) or Fire Sorc.
At the end I finally got my hands on DF for my Coldie and F me if it has any noticeable difference (although I didn't use any gear with facets), I swear that build would be OP even naked. Some difference was felt when I switched from

Tal's to Nightwings + CoH (+Arachs that I had to move to some other char very quickly after). I would have to say that Cold Sorc is definitely the easiest for SSF.

About Blizzard: Yes it is clunky and odd but if you manage to get used to it, when and where to cast it, it does miracles. Also something very important: ORB, ORB, ORB! If you are gonna play Cold with the

Tal's set as you mentioned, you are probably gonna end up like me using

Frozen Orb far more often than actual Blizzard which build's meant to be all about. Orb will become your best friend and your lover, you are gonna use it everywhere and all the time!
Think about Blizzard as a mistress (it will give you that oomf you occasionally need) and Orb as your wife (it will definitely take care of you).

About

Energy Shield: I never use ES as I stated in one other thread... Tried it and I don't like it, I just don't like it personally. I would rather have 1-1.5k HP and roll with that and save those precious points so I can put them into something more useful. For example you can max

Warmth and let go of the Insight idea (I did the math and you basically get from half to 2/3 mana regen [depending on mana pool] in comparison to

Meditation) and with mana pots and full rejuvs being available all the time it's not really an issue. If you are going for the Fire build, I would suggest to definitely rather spend points on

Enchant than on ES and boost your Merc even more that way -- it gives far more security for both of you (because of clearing speed) than ES will (IMHO).

TheDoo wrote: 6 months ago

I ploughed thru the entire last ladder with

Fireball Sorc, with only whole

Tal's set + Sunder, 0 skillers, no Torch, no SoJs, even an average Anni I got as a gift (it was like 14/14 or something) and ofc no Infinity and it wrecked everything in it's path (didn't try Ubers I assume she couldn't do it easily as in 'just go in and kill'). I found some nice stuff and runes even tho I don't really like ladder and I usually play it for couple of days (did maybe a week now just to try to make some ladder exclusive RW). What I am saying is on P1 you can farm or just play and have fun EVERYWHERE with it like this.

After seeing what just plain

Fireball Sorc can do I would have to notice that you basically don't need any particular gear for Cold (I played with Blizzard/Orb one for a while on NL, usually players 4-8) or Fire Sorc.
At the end I finally got my hands on DF for my Coldie and F me if it has any noticeable difference (although I didn't use any gear with facets), I swear that build would be OP even naked. Some difference was felt when I switched from

Tal's to Nightwings + CoH (+Arachs that I had to move to some other char very quickly after). I would have to say that Cold Sorc is definitely the easiest for SSF.

About Blizzard: Yes it is clunky and odd but if you manage to get used to it, when and where to cast it, it does miracles. Also something very important: ORB, ORB, ORB! If you are gonna play Cold with the

Tal's set as you mentioned, you are probably gonna end up like me using

Frozen Orb far more often than actual Blizzard which build's meant to be all about. Orb will become your best friend and your lover, you are gonna use it everywhere and all the time!
Think about Blizzard as a mistress (it will give you that oomf you occasionally need) and Orb as your wife (it will definitely take care of you).

About

Energy Shield: I never use ES as I stated in one other thread... Tried it and I don't like it, I just don't like it personally. I would rather have 1-1.5k HP and roll with that and save those precious points so I can put them into something more useful. For example you can max

Warmth and let go of the Insight idea (I did the math and you basically get from half to 2/3 mana regen [depending on mana pool] in comparison to

Meditation) and with mana pots and full rejuvs being available all the time it's not really an issue. If you are going for the Fire build, I would suggest to definitely rather spend points on

Enchant than on ES and boost your Merc even more that way -- it gives far more security for both of you (because of clearing speed) than ES will (IMHO).

I won't argue against a Fire Sorc. I don't have any real arguments why i don't want to go Fire. Somehow i just don't feel like it.

Maybe i have paraphrased the Blizzard stuff wrong. Even without the BIS Gear, Blizz sure is quite impactful (and with the Point investment it needs to be) but sadly it feels like so much of that power goes to waste. Once you get the hang out of the positioning with FO, your cleartimes are probably faster than with blizzard (if that orb pops right in the center of your dedicated target the damage is huge).

Well except if you take it to the extreme.
With that one Blizz build i ran the Skill level was well over 45 and i only had to invest 1 Point into CM to get to -150 Res. Then we're past "impactful" and entering genocide territory.

But yeah, it'll be a

Frozen Orb Sorc (since the selection is quite limited on that end...)

With ES it's perfectly acceptable if you say that you don't like it. I too have things that i don't like (without any particular reason) but my line of thinking is this:

If i invest 40 Points into ES / Tele i can treat my Mana as Life. So a point in energy = a point in vita. But here is the thing: even if both Points are equals, Life and Mana is not. See, you have things like SoJs, Frostbrand,

Silkweave etc and most of them are easy to aquire. If you have a CTA this snowballs and the gap get's even bigger. And then you can pair this with an Insight and basically have a "health regeneration" that's even faster than any Life Pot you can get (bar Rejuv). Furthermore (if your ES is on a high enough level) the actual damage you take on health is so minimal that stuff like recovery animations are non existent.

These are upsides that simply are not possible with life. Is there even an item that has +%Life ? 1.08

Shako and Arcy could level the playing Field (and would actually work exceptionally well with sorc builds) but sadly that is long gone / was never there for d2r

Then if you go the Life route you can't be Lazy with your Res (or your block for that matter). And with FHR it's sadly that you only notice the lack thereof, when you actually need it. AD Cursed in CS and De Seis spawns in a place where you've just ported to? Tough luck, chances are you're dead.

I do realize that this is not universally applicable. Maybe you don't have much +all or Lightning Skills and your ES ends up at lvl 30. Then we're going into areas where it's probably not a wise choice to try and go for it. If you don't have a CTA ES sure as hell looks way less appealing. There are builds that don't have the Skillpoints (Blizzard for example) or maybe have an Infinity on your merc and thus your manareg isn't as fast as it probably needs to be in "those situations"

And at the same time i have a really hard time to come up with Pros for Vita if conditions are met / the cards aligned for ES. I simply can't pinpoint any scenario where Vita would actually even remotely as efficient as Energy. Again, there are some nasty Enemy combinations, but those exist for almost every build. Recently my Hammerdin with almost 3k life, Max Res, Max Block and 15k def got one shottet by some Stygs or Wraits while i was only teleporting past them. I still don't know what happened on that day. And even if the Prime of a Hammerdin as the best build are over (Mosaic, Java, Self Wield Infinity Novas etc...) he should easily be the tankiest out of all of those top tier builds and that by a landslide. So in that situation the fate of any other build would have probably been the same

I did need to go with Vita back when i had to go for

Fireball aswell. It wasn't a cheap build (got a near Perfect

Death's Fathom in NoLadder after a ladder ended) and since i went with

Stormshield and Maxblock my life ended up at somewhere around 1400 - 1500 (a bit over 2,2k with BO). And to get to 1500 i had to get Life Skillers
My Clearspeed was still comparatively slow and i still died alot. Max Block, Max Res (at least on screen,

Anya bug wasn't yet discovered), one of most min maxed builds i have ever tinkered together and then such an underwhelming performance

This is not to sway anyones opinion on that topic (you do you), it's just to clarify that the Pro ES choice wasn't made on a whim. So no hate, no bad feelings just a healthy discussion

I know that ES has many advantages, I was just saying that if you go with Fire or Cold Sorc and you decide to spend those points elsewhere it's absolutely viable choice since I played it like that and didn't experience any problems. Yes you can occasionally die but you can die from crappy RNG anywhere and with anything (like some bs group of souls in

Icy Cellar/

Frozen River that obliterate screen with lightnings and one-shot you or double bad group combining

Conviction and Might auras from like Hell Lord packs around a corner)... That being said I would say again, IMHO ES is essential for HC tho. But again, I personally never connected with it and it's just odd for me to use it (plus I gotta say I never tried

Nova Sorc yet and I always go for max res, it's a must for me and I always find a place for those extra skill points here and there). Yeah, it surely depends a lot on playstyle, I wasn't trying to convince you it's better, just it's something you COULD do, simply because FO and

Fireball builds are so OP it's not even funny.

I have pretty standard gear now (CtA, Magefists, DF, CoH, Nightwings for cold and Flickering Flame, Eschuta for fire variant) but I mostly ran with full

Tal's set in both cases (ladder

Fireball and non-ladder Blizzard/Orb) but I also tried some other stuff like

Shako,

Frostburn,

Gloom's Trap,

Snowclash, no SoJs [didn't have them], 10% FCR rings, etc.). Ofc I also had some budget MF gear like simple plain 34% MF

Boots and stuff like that...

Obsession is one of the RWs that has %Total Life btw, but it's not applicable for your post. Also Dream, full Sazabi's set and Enigma (not really applicable here unless you are gonna do that badass Sorcker with double Dreams).

Final note: With

Tal's set you won't have much if any problem with maxing your res and on top of that I think it's also quite decent for some dual Sorc build (like Lightning Storm + Orb for example).