Equipment

It is often said that what makes a character is the equipment he wears. This is quite true, especially in the case of a Barbarian. How effective a character is in combat heavily depends on what equipment is worn, a character can survive longer if his equipment gives maxed resists as compared to another one without. Before delving into the equipment options available to a sorceress, we first need to understand why certain item prefixes and suffixes are highly sought after, and why they are important.

This section goes through the equipment you will eventually use in the long run (i.e at level 75) and not equipment to be used during the first 30 levels of playing. These twink equipment is discussed in the section Leveling Up 1-30.

Things Important to a Sorceress

1. Maxed Resists. Resists are highly important as magic spells are one of the more potent sources of damage and they cannot be blocked. 75% resists is twice as good as 50% resists because you take 25% damage in the former and 50% damage in the latter. Lightning resists should always be maxed no matter where. When running exp in areas with other forms of elemental attack, it is also wise to max those particular resists.
   
   
2. Blocking. Blocking is the equivalent of physical resistance. Just like maxed elemental resists, it is also important to have a high block rate to increase your chances of survival in a timeout or lag spike. However, a point to note is that blocking rate is not as important for a non-solo sorceress. Blocking becomes even more important when one realises that the sorceress is extremely unlikely to attain defense ratings that go into the 4-digits.
   
   
3. Hit recovery (HR). When you get hit successfully, whether you manage to block it or not, you will enter hit recovery animation. During this animation, you are unable to do anything except drink potions (sounds illogical huh?). Wearing fast and fastest HR equipment reduces the length of HR animation, allowing you to be able to react faster, such as teleporting out of a hotspot. It is recommended to get either 2 fast or 1 fastest HR.
   
   
4. Hp/mana and fast cast. After considering the above 3 more important issues then comes Hp/mana. These are secondary to having maxed resists. Fast cast is important for killing speed, but are also secondary to resists. Refer to the Tweaking section for a discussion on how much tweaking is really needed.
   
   
5. +Str/Dex. These equipment, should you have them allow you to invest less into Str/Dex to achieve the desired amount of Str/Dex. A +16 Str equipment means 32 more hp or mana to a sorceress, and more for a Barbarian with Battle Orders.
   
   
6. Damage to mana, +skills. These are just additional bonuses that are not really important, they are just the icing on the cake, and if your equipment happens to have some of the above and this as well, then good. If not, don't worry. A level 20 orb and level 21 orb isn't going to be much different.
   
   
7. Defense. Defense is not very important to a sorceress as a sorceress' main defense comes from her blocking. No way is a sorceress able to achieve the Str required to wear extremely high Def armors. (Ok, a Holy Ornate Plate of Simplicity with other nice stats might exist, but chances are, you won't have such an amour.) If you happen to have 500 defense +hp fastest HR good resists mage plate then fine but otherwise don't worry about it. A specific variant called the fighter-mage would however take defense rating very seriously:

   Reader has sent in his following comments: "Although DR isn't a high priority, it is NOT irrelevant. Example: You and your attacker are at the same lvl, and he has 1500 AR. If you totally ignore DR, you may have a DR as low as 300 (including 60% SA). The to-hit chance would then be 83.33% without shield, 46.66% if you use a 44% blocking standard 3DT shield. If you focus a bit more on DR, and manage to get 800, which is not too hard, the to-hit chance is 65.21%, and with the shield 36.52%. If you really try to get a big DR and max SA you will get a great DR. I have roughly 3800 with my fighter-mage, and the to-hit chance wold be 28.30%, 15.84% in this example.

   "So the difference in the to-hit chance between a sorc with DR 300, 800, 3800 would be 83.33%, 65.21%, 28.30% without shield and 46.66%, 36.52%, 15.84% with one.

   "Thus, a sorc that consider DR to some extent (800) would have 10-18% better chance of avoiding being hit compared to a sorc that totally ignores it (300). I'm not saying that DR is tremendously important, because it isn't, but it DOES matter. saying that DR is irrelevant is incorrect."

    

The Equipment

One-Handed Weapon

• Spectral Shard (Fastest cast, +10 resists, 50 mana, 51 dex 35 str req)
• Umes Lament (Fastest cast, 40 mana)
• Maelstrom (Fastest cast, 40L, 13 mana, Half freeze)
• Wyrm/Resist Wand/Scepter of the Magus or rare equivalent (Fastest cast, +mana, +resists)
• Culwen's Point (Faster block, faster hit, +1 skills, 45 dex 51 str req)

Sorceresses mainly get their casting speed from their weapon and the most popular choices are Umes and Maelstrom because they have no requirements to equipment them. However they are harder to get than a Wyrm's Wand of the Magus which can be obtained from shopping with Akara in Nightmare or higher Acts, and these magical wands also have no Dex requirements either.

Spectral Shard is the choice for most sorceress in hell difficulty because of it's high mana and 10 resists, and these sorceress also have enough equipment worn to get the +26 Dex needed to equip one. Twitchthroe gives 10, and a rare amulet with 16 Dex will suffice. However, if you do not have +26 Dex from items, it is better to use a Wyrm's Wand of the Magus and put the 26 stat points into Vit/Ene instead (52 hp or 52 mana, and in the case of mana, it beats Shard since the magical wand adds even more mana on top of that).

Culwen's Point is rarely used by any sorceress and if it is, it is mainly for the +1 skill in Nightmare and lower difficulties.

Shield

• 3D-Tower Shield (51C/48P/57L/48F, 44% block, 75 str req)
• Wall of the Eyeless (Fastest cast, +5 mana per kill, 3% mana steal, 40% block, 27 str req)
• Sigon's Guard (+1 skills, 64% block, 75 str req, level 6)

Generally, a 3D-tower shield is used in Hell difficulty and nothing else, although if your other equipment are good enough to max your resists without the 3D-tower, the Wall is viable since it only has 4% less block than a 3D-tower as well as fastest cast rate which appeals to tweakers. Wall of the Eyeless is great twinking equipment at low levels (1-40) because of the +5 mana per kill, and so is Sigon's Guard because of the high block and +1 skills. Use these only if you can manage to max resists, and this is generally possible in Normal and Nightmare difficulty. Some players keep a Sigon's Guard specifically for use when soloing Duriel.

Armour

• Twitchthroe (+25% block, +10 str, +10 dex, SiaS)
• Heavenly Garb (10% resists, 25% mana regen, 41 str req)
• Rare Mage Plate with Resists, HP/Mana, HR
• Goldskin (30% resists, 80 str req)

Twitchthroe is probably the best armor for a solo sorceress as the 25% additional block nearly halves your chances to be hit from 56% down to 31% with a 3D-tower shield. It also adds 10 Dex towards using a Spectral Shard, and 10 Str so that you only need a base of 65 Str to equip the 3D-tower, giving you a net of 20 hp/mana more.

Goldskin is great for the resists but it slows down running speed significantly as it is considered as a heavy armour. Sorceress tend to avoid this armour unless they are unable to obtain resists elsewhere (perhaps in order to tweak). A Heavenly Garb is not terribly useful as it's resists can be beaten by a good rare mage plate, and the mana regeneration is insignificant once you reach high levels of warmth.

Plenty of sorceress use a rare mage plate with resists and hp/mana. This is a good choice if you party a lot and do not generally need as much block as a solo sorceress. However, I must stress that a Twitchthroe and 3D-tower shield combo cannot be beaten in terms of defensive capabilities by even the best mage plate with the highest defense and it would be best to wear this setup all the time. More on this will be discussed below.

Helm

• Rare Helm/Cap/Etc with Resists, HP/Mana
• Tarnhelm (+1 skills, 25%-49% item, 75% gold)

Tarnhelm is only used in lower difficulties where it does not compromise resists mainly for the +1 skills to augment the weak low level skills. A rare is almost always used, unless maxed resists can be obtained without a rare helm. Tarnhelm is also used by itemfinder sorcs.

Gloves

• Frostburn (+40% max mana)
• Magefist (Fastest cast, +1 fire skills)

In hardcore, hp is important for any character and the mana pool of a sorceress is smaller than that of the softcore counterpart. Mana is often an issue in the first 50 levels and the Frostburn's +40% max mana is more valuable than a Magefist.

"A Frostburn increases mana/sec regeneration by 40%, a Magefist by 25% + 1 Warmth (12%) = 37%." This is incorrect. The matter is that Magefist adds 37% to BASE mana/sec regeneration (which is 100%) while a Frostburn adds 40% to TOTAL mana/sec regeneration, which is usually 2 to 4 times higher than the base one. For example suppose I have a level 10 warmth (+138%). Wearing Frostburn would increase my total mana by 40% (32% if one SoJ is used, 26.7% if 2 SoJs), and since the mana orb fills up to full at the same rate, my actual mana/sec regeneration also increases by a corresponding 40% (or 32%, 26.7%). Wearing a Magefist would increase my mana regeneration from (100% + 138% =) 238% to (100% + 138% + 37% =) 275%. But 275% / 238% = 1.155, meaning that my actual mana/sec regeneration rate has increased by only 15.5%. In this scenario, Frostburn improves mana/sec regeneration 2.6 times (40%/15.5%) better than Magefist.

In other words, Frostburn always increases the current mana/sec rate by 40% (32%, 26.7%), while Magefist increases the current mana/sec rate by (100% + Warmth% + OtherRegenBonuses% + 37%)/(100% + Warmth% + OtherRegenBonuses%). At Warmth level 7 (+102%) and above with no other bonuses (such as Heavenly Garb), Magefist starts to increase current mana/sec rate by less than 40%. If Warmth is level 6 or below, wearing Magefist would then actually improve your mana regeneration better than Frostburn would (with one SoJ), although Frostburn's +40% max mana would probably still be more useful in allowing you to cast more spells to finish off monsters even if you regen the mana back slower. With one SoJ, Magefist barely wins Frostburn at Warmth level 8 (+114%), Magefist's 32.5% against Frostburn's 32%. The higher the level of warmth, the more effective Frostburn is when compared to Magefist in increasing mana/sec regeneration. At Warmth skill level 20, Magefist would increase current mana/sec regeneration by 10.3% only.

Thus the real difference between Frostburn and Magefist is +40% max mana and faster mana/sec regeneration (warmth level 7 or more) versus the fastest cast ability and possibly some improved fire skills. Generally, the 40% more mana means a lot more than one more level of every fire skill because static field is the main damage dealer. Doing slightly more damage with higher mana costing meteors or firewalls doesn't really make much difference. Most sorceress in hardcore settle with 3 points of fast cast (3 and 4 points cast at the same speed). Having 40% more mana physically also means you can cast more spells. Remember that the mana added by Frostburn can also be used for Energy Shield. At level 75, Frostburn gives about 200 mana to a typical sorceress and this translates to 100 EHP (effective HP). Read the Hp/mana Balance section for more on the EHP concept.

If you're very lucky and acquire two very high quality fast cast jewelry items (one amulet one ring), Magefist will be able to offer a +25% cast rate improvement (from 10fpc to 8fpc) instead of just +10-11% (one fast cast jewelry only, from 10fpc to 9fpc). Under this rare circumstance, if you think your main bottleneck is Static Field casting speed and you feel you have life and mana to burn (unlikely in Hardcore play), you may consider replacing Frostburn with Magefist.

For the full analysis of Frostburn versus Magefist, refer to the Tweaking section.

Boots

• Rare Boots/Greaves/Etc with Fastest Run, Resists, HP/Mana, HR
• Threads of Cthon (Fastest run, 50% stamina drain, 10 hp, 30 str req)
• Vidala's Fetlocks (Fastest run, +150 stamina, level 14, 50 str req)
• Tearhaunch (Faster run, +5 str, +5 dex, 10% resists, 70 str req)

Threads of Cthon is generally a good twink equipment to use early on, and so is Tearhaunches and Vidala's Fetlock. However, a rare is almost invariably better, which can be seen quite obviously. These set and unique boots are generally stop-gaps until good rare boots are gambled or found.

Belt

• Nightsmoke
• Rare Belt with Resists, HP/Mana, HR

As it is, Nightsmoke as a belt is currently both overrated and underrated for different reasons. It is overrated because mana drain from energy shield is twice the life shielded and Nightsmoke mana gain is computed based on the damage left after ES. Also, Nightsmoke only works with melee damage. Suppose I have a level 7 Energy Shield (46%), and I'm hit for 100 damage. Without Nightsmoke, I lose 54 life and 46*2 = 92 mana. With Nightsmoke, you lose 54 life and 92-27 = 65 mana. Now, as a sorceress, one obviously does not plan to be hit for 100 damage that often. In the meantime, by Hell Act 4, with a pretty good mana pool, the difference between a 65 mana hit and a 92 mana hit (given that such hits aren't going to happen very often) isn't big.

However, if you consider the effects of Nightsmoke as a whole, it adds more effective hit points (EHP) than any rare belt can. Wearing Nightsmoke, the additional mana generated from being damaged means more EHP, and a sorceress can extend his EHP by a value equal to 1/4 of each hp, allowing him to survive 2 or 3 more (melee) hits. Should a player be able to obtain maxed resists from elsewhere but the belt, the Nightsmoke is probably a better choice for survival than even the best rare belts. Read the Hp/mana Balance section, Page One, for more on the EHP concept and a full discussion and example comparison between a good rare belt and Nightsmoke.

Amulet

• Prismatic Amulet, hopefully rare with other mods
• +1 skill Amulet, hopefully rare with other mods

On the rare amulet, good resistances are essentially a must, but if you're very lucky, you might have +1 or even +2 to all skills on top of that. When thinking of replacing an amulet with great resistances but no skill bonus with one with a skill bonus but poor resistances, consider that replacing a rare ring with a SoJ is probably a better deal.

Great things to look for on an amulet are also minus magic damage, hp, mana and possibly +Dex to contribute towards using a Spectral Shard.

Rings

• The Stone of Jordan
• Fast Cast Ring with Resists, HP/Mana
• Any ring that helps to max resists

One of the most effective combinations is to use a SoJ and a rare ring, where the rare ring supplements resists. Try to obtain fast cast on either the amulet or the rare ring as well. Having fast cast on both the amulet and rare ring generally doesn't improve casting speed as 3 and 4 points of casting both cast at 10fpc. See the Tweaking section for more on fast casting.

One point worthy of note is that an SoJ increases base mana by 25%. At level 75, this probably translates to about 120 more mana (assuming base naked mana of 480, which is realistic), which is equilvilant to 60 EHP (effective hit points) when considering in the use of Energy Shield. Thus an SoJ is equivilant to a ring that gives 40 hp and 40 mana (40 + 40/2 = 60 EHP), so the differences between an SoJ and such a ring is the +1 skills and other modifiers on the rare ring. Read the Hp/mana Balance section, Page One, for more on the EHP concept.

Staves

• Iron Jang Bong Staff
• The Salamander
• Arcanna's Warstaff
• Rare Staff with +skills, Hp/mana, Resists, Fastest Cast

As a HC sorceress, I do not recommend using a staff as you will have 0% block without a shield. Twitchthroe's +25% block only works in conjunction with a shield, although the block% display isn't changed on the shield. The only time when using a staff is acceptable is in Act 1 and 2 of Normal difficulty, where a average defense armor actually works. Staves are generally twink equipment.

Now if you manage to find yourself a good mage plate and get DR up to about 800 (with Shiver Armor), it is still reasonable to use a staff up through Nightmare as 800 DR is generally still sufficient in Nightmare. There are fighter-mages around with 3800 DR (ornate plates of simplicity, grim helms, etc, maxed Shiver Armor). Even without a shield, the chance of a level 75 monster hitting them is close to 28%. With a tower shield, this would be 16%.

A sorceress with 300 defense gets hit about 83% of the time. Using Twitchthroe and a tower shield gives 69% blocking. After factoring in the 31% chance to hit after blocking, the chance to hit is about 26%, or 2% better than a fighter-mage.

My point is that it is equally viable to make a staff-using sorc to hell difficulty, but only if you have the equipment. The possibility of getting all the high defense equipment is very low. The disadvantage of using a staff would then be that the other equipment would have to compensate for resists from not using a 3DT (+57% resists all). The advantage would be that the staff would probably be a +2 to all skills staff with additional bonuses to specific preferred skills since the only suffix or prefix available on a staff that is not available on a wand or scepter are sorceress skills.

Armour/Shield Indepth Studies By Dog of Justice

First off, we will look at which armor is better, Twitchthroe or a rare Mage Plate provides about 500 DR, and up to 59 hp 59 mana and perhaps some resists, while using a 3D-tower shield. However, we also need to subtract 20 hp for the effect of Twitchthroe's +10 strength, thus the relative advantage is at most 39 + 59/2 = 68.5 EHP and some resists. It's reasonable to have about 600-750 life when fighting in Hell Act 4, and be close to level 75. We will use these numbers to fold DR and blocking rate into our rating system.

The characteristic AR of Hell Act 4 is 1484 (371 times 4, an Urdar), and the characteristic monster level is 80. Using these numbers, let's compute your chance to be hit with Twitchthroe, taking blocking and a 60% Shiver Armor into account:

200 * 1484/(1484+130*1.6) * 80/(80+75) * (1-.69) = 28.1%

For the rare Mage Plate:
200 * 1484/(1484+580*1.6) * 80/(80+75) * (1-.44) = 35.6%

Thus, Twitchthroe gives over 21% (1-28.1/35.6) better physical defense than a rare Mage Plate, and at least half the danger in the usual leveling areas of Hell Act 4 is physical, assuming you've maxed the relevant resistances. Then the 68.5 EHP advantage of using the Mage Plate instead only provides 10.5% (68.5/650) better physical survivability and 10.5% better magical survivability, and is seen to be inferior. That's a rather good rare plate just described, yet we just found it inferior to Twitchthroe that anyone can gamble by mid-Nightmare or so.

Rare Ornate Plate with the simplicity attribute and 800 DR can't be counted on for more than about 30 EHP, and that's probably generous. Then, we have to throw in a negative 74 EHP modifier, for the 37 extra points of strength above 65 you need to put in to wear the armor.

200 * 1484/(1484+880*1.6) * 80/(80+75) * (1-.44) = 29.7%

With such high DR Ornate, you're still more likely to be hit than with Twitchthroe! And this isn't even when you're running! Then, the Ornate's 44 EHP disadvantage buries it further. Not to mention the incredible difficulty of obtaining an 800 DR Ornate with the simplicity suffix with other attributes worth 30 EHP.

So, if you're going to go with a 3D-tower, Twitchthroe is the only sensible armor choice for the long haul. We now proceed to investigate the few viable equipment configurations not involving a 3D-tower shield.

As has been seen above, 44% blocking is vastly inferior to 69% blocking, and in the meantime, it's practically impossible to find a shield with better non-blocking attributes than the 3D-tower. Twitchthroe makes up for the socketed tower's blocking disadvantage, and in fact brings blocking to near maximum. But it's only other property that's useful to a Sorceress is +10 strength, which isn't that big a deal. So the one combination that could compete would be a shield with very high blocking on its own and good other properties (either rare or Sigon's Guard), combined with a rare armor with high DR and good other properties, or maybe a unique armor with not-so-high DR but awesome other properties (i.e. Goldskin). We now investigate exactly how good the rare shield and rare armor would need to be to compete.

There are essentially two classes of possibilities, one best represented by rare Bone Shield (60%) + rare Mage Plate, and the other by Tower Shield (64%) + Goldskin. As we saw earlier, rare Ornate setups can't be expected to be better than rare Mage Plate setups.

With 60% blocking and 600 total DR before Shiver Armor, we can use our formulas to estimate the number of EHP necessary for the rare Bone Shield + rare Mage Plate to compare to Twitchthroe + 3D-Tower Shield:

200 * 1484/(1484+600*1.6) * 80/(80+75) * (1-.6) = 25.1%

This provides about a 12% physical defense advantage over the Twitchthroe setup. This is an overestimate since we aren't taking running into account. However, is the rare Bone Shield and Mage Plate able to make up for the 50% resists offered by the 3D-tower shield? If not, one might have to give up some hp/mana items such as rings in order to boost resistances.

In a nutshell, the best rare Bone Shield and best rare Mage Plate you'll ever find probably won't combine to be any more effective than Twitchthroe + socketed Tower Shield. You would need 60% blocking on the shield, 500 DR on the Mage Plate, about 130-140 points of resistances/life/mana between the two items for equality. However, this IS the one combination that can conceivably be equal or superior at all, and conveniently, it provides slightly faster running speed as well.

It should be mentioned that rare Mage Plate + 64% Tower Shield setups are also part of this class. With the Tower, you lose 30 EHP from the strength requirement going from 60 to 75, but gain slightly more than that from the improved physical defense, but the difference is so small that the running speed disadvantage probably means the Bone Shield is superior. Sigon's Guard looks pretty good on paper here, but in practice you'll end up being too desperate for resistances to end up with an advantage over Twitchthroe + 3D-Tower Shield.

For Tower + Goldskin, you have 64% blocking and about 320 total DR before Shiver Armor, so:

200 * 1484/(1484+320*1.6) * 80/(80+75) * (1-.64) = 27.6%

This is only a 1-2% physical defense advantage over Twitchthroe + 3D-Tower. However this means that the Tower must try to make up the remaining 20% resists and 20 EHP (+10 Str from Twitchthroe) when we are already demanding the +20% blocking attribute on the shield. Sigon's Guard's +1 to all skills attribute can be considered to be worth not a lot, especially if the sorceress' skills are already developed to high levels.

One can argue that the only time Twitchthroe matters is versus melee attacks, which you won't get into if you party 90% of the time. However, you will get disconnected sooner or later, or the necromancer you party with would. Who cares about blocking if one never get disconnected? A sorceress would never be hit by melee in such a never-disconnect world, in such a world, then would a mage plate with resists and HP be better.

What remains to be stressed is that Twitchthroe and 3D-tower shields are relatively easy-to-obtain equipment as compared to the high defense rare armours and rare shields we have used to discuss the above.

Understanding +Skills Items (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

Starting with Nightmare difficulty, you can buy staves that give +2 to all sorc skills. The vendors will sell them for as little as 5000 gold. Are you getting an amazing deal? Or do the vendors know something that you do not? In this last part of the Skills section, I will try to explain the value of +skills items.

The first thing to note is that +skills items add only to skills in which you already have a point invested. So, the more skills there are that have points invested in them, the more you could potentially benefit. On the other hand, once you learn all of your favorite spells, you will not be using half of your spells due to the fact that some spells are mere prerequisites for better ones. Does all this wasted extra skill matter? No. When you are trying develop your skills, all you care about is having as many points as you can usefully get in your favorite skills. A +skills item does this generally better than a staff that adds only to specific skills. Skills which you can usually expect to have include: Warmth, a cold armor, Teleport and ES. That is already at least 4 skill points that a +1 skills item would be collectively giving you, at least 8 skill points if your items give +2 skills, and so on. Of course, the number of extra skill points goes up when you factor in whatever offensive spells you use. That is quite a lot of extra skill points to be getting all at once, and all of them useful.

Is there ever a time when the benefits of +skills items would not be missed? Perhaps there are two: when your char is either very low or very high level. A low-level char (say, less than level 25) will not have access to all desirable skills because of level restrictions. So, +skills items would have limited effect. A high-level char (say, 60+) will have accumulated well over 60 skill points. Some skills may already be maxed out by that time. But adding a few skill points to an already very powerful spell gives you: a very powerful spell. The extra advantages conferred by +skills items would be dwarfed by the sheer number of skill points already invested in your favorite spells. I would like to suggest, then, that the benefits of +skills items increase and decrease along a bell-shaped curve that starts out low, peaks rapidly at about level 30, stays high until somewhere in the range of level 60-70, then starts to fall rapidly until level 80 or so, when it is low again. The more general point would be that +skills items help you best when (a) you do not already have a large number of skill points invested in your favorite skills, and (b) you make use of multiple offense-oriented skills. A sorc who makes use of, say, 6 offense-oriented skills gets much more out of +skills items than a sorc who makes use of only 2 such skills.

It must be kept in mind that this analysis ignores other factors that are relevant to determining whether you should equip a particular +skills item. For example, if you have low resistances, then a diamond tower shield would likely be more useful than Sigon's shield. Another example is the debate between CP and Shard. Some sorcs do not care about the +1 skills from CP because they place higher value on the casting rate bonus from Shard. But if you are interested in understanding just +skills items on their own terms, then I think the "bell-shaped curve" theory is on the right track. (Perhaps the curve peaks sooner/later depending on a higher/lower total number of +skills points granted by your equipped items, but this is more detail than I care to go into.)

There are some additional benefits to having +skills items early on that you should take advantage of. Because you will have extra points in all the offensive spells you are currently using, the +skills bonus helps to ensure that your spells are not too weak to keep you alive. Further benefits follow from this. First, you can afford to start investing a few skill points in prerequisites for higher-level spells you do not yet have. Second, you can afford to instead invest some more points in Warmth, which is usually not a bad thing to do. Third, you can delay a difficult decision as to what major spell you should get next, or start specializing in, and instead invest points in other places.

Finally, it should be noted that for some skills, you are likely to end up relying on +skills items to boost them so that you can invest your skill points elsewhere. Try to anticipate this. For example, if you have decided that you want to get SF up to level 10, do not invest 10 points if you expect to be getting several +skills items. The exact number of +skills points that your future items will give you is not easy to predict, but if you are trying to invest your skill points optimally, then you will need to try to guess. If you are having trouble guessing, then +2 is a decent conservative estimate.

Reader has sent in the following comments on +skills equipment: "The guide says that it does not really matter if you have a skill at lvl 20 or 21, so these bonuses is not very important. I beg to differ. Maybe not lvl 21 will be a huge difference from lvl 20, but lvl 25 will most certainly make a difference, a 25% improvement! (unless the skill was better at lvl 1 then the increase for each point spent, or if the increase isn't the same for each lvl) Most of your skills will be much better if you have lvl 25+, you will most certainly feel the difference.

"Also, if you have spent your points on a lot of different skills you will "gain" a HUGE amount of skill points! If you use warmth, SF, GS, FO, TS, SA, ES, Cold mastery and have +5 all skills you you will gain 40(!!) skill points. I'd go for Sigons Guard, Tarnhelm, SoJ, a + skill amulet, and Culwen's point. Silks of the Victor demands 100 STR, so unless you REALLY want it you should use something different. When the expansion comes and we will get orbs (one handed weapons that boost skills just like staves do), Culwen's point will be history, as will all staves."

Do note that although the setup might give a handy 40 skill points worth, it is at the cost of having a lot less resists, not to say that not really all 40 skill points are that useful and not all sorceress actually use more than 5 spells. Getting all the resists from only 1 ring, 1 amulet, a body armour, a belt and a pair of boots is extremely difficulty if you think about it, and this setup is probably viable only up to the end of Nightmare difficulty unless your equipment is godly (an unlikely event in hardcore). How often do you find a +1 skills amulet with prismatic on it?

Imbuing

There are only 3 imbues over the lifetime of any character, hence they should be used very carefully, and at the right times. Imbues are based on character level, meaning if you are higher level, more prefixes/suffixes become available to you in the imbue. Every prefix/suffix has a associated level value. In an imbue, the prefixes and suffixes available to you is your character level + 6 (Chaos Sanctuary webpage says +4, which is incorrect).

What is the best level to imbue at? For armours such as boots, helm, belt, gloves, armour, the best level is at level 30. This is because the Holy prefix is a level 36 prefix, and +hp, +mana and +resists prefixes and suffixes are at levels below 36. Similarly, a weapon is best imbued at level 29, because the King's prefix is level 35, and the Merciless and Slaughter is below 35. Imbuing at level 29 for weapons and 30 for armours may not guarantee you a good imbue, but it is the level where you have the BEST chances.

What should a sorceress imbue? Seeing as how most of the sorceress' equipment can be gambled for the best choice is to imbue a mage plate. Imbuing a wand/scepter is not a good choice because fastest cast and +mana are just 2 out of over 30+ possible prefixes and suffixes available to a weapon. A exceptional belt could also be a good imbue choice because it has 4 rows, even a demonhide sash. Another possible imbue choice is a Grim Helm, take it as a gamble for a high defense cap.

If you already planned to use Twitchthroe, the sorceress' imbues could be usually better used on weapons that some of your other characters use, such as an executioner sword, a lance or a gothic bow. Even if you do not have other characters of other classes to imbue for, you might get a good weapon imbue to trade away for a pair of good boots or helm or a fast cast ring with resists and mana.

Conclusion

A good sorceress setup one can aim for is Frostburn, 1 SoJ, Shard, Twitchthroe, 3D-Tower Shield, Nightsmoke, Prismatic amulet with nice stats, Fast cast ring with resists, rare helm and boots with resists and hp/mana and HR. With this setup, the sorceress has 69% block, 90% resists (10 shard, 10 Nightsmoke, 50 shield, 20 amulet, you need 125% to max in hell), +1 (SoJ) or +2 skills depending on the amulet, and 3 point cast.

Nightsmoke extends your EHP (read the Energy Shield Discussion under the section Hp/mana Balance, Page One) by about 100 over an average belt with hp/mana, and the remaining 35% resists and HR is easily covered by the fast cast ring, rare helm and rare boots. If the +16 dex is unavailable from the other equipment for the Shard (+10 from Twitchthroe already), a Wyrm's Wand/Scepter of the Magus or Umes/Maelstrom is perfectly fine too. Also, the Frostburn and SoJ both add to EHP as compared to Magefist.

Prioritize your needs as you advance from difficulty level to difficulty level and swap in equipment as needed. Obviously not as much resists is needed in nightmare as in hell and a few resists equipment could be swapped out in favour of +skills bonus (e.g tarnhelm) until you reach hell.

Tweaking

Tweaking is the term used to describe the usage of fast and fastest cast items to achieve extremely fast casting rates, by reducing the amount of frames needed to display the cast animation. Since 1.04, all "faster cast" items have been renamed to "fastest cast", as both of them are actually the same thing.

Below is a table that tells you how much speed one would get by donning tweaking items. Fast cast items are given an arbitrary value of 1 and Fastest cast items are given a value of 2, so if you are wearing 2 fast cast and 1 faster/fastest cast items, you have 4 points worth of casting. The game runs at exactly 25 FPS (frames per seconds), although usually more frames is rendered on the graphics card per second. You can see your FPS rendering rate by typing "fps" in the chat box in a game, along with other useful information such as your ping. If your FPS goes below 25, you will experience jerky game play and screen updating. Generally FPS + Skip = a maximum of 25.

In the table below, I have included a column indicating how many times one can chain cast static in about 2 seconds (45-55 frames), which sounds normal because to a solo sorceress, one shouldn't be standing still for more than that. while for a party sorceress, 2 seconds worth of static is generally doing enough damage for the party members or yourself to finish the monsters.

One point of note is that 3 points and 4 points of casting cast at the same speed, and so is 6/7 points and 8/9. Given the amount of times we cast static in a period approximately equal to 2 seconds, how much damage are we dealing to a 0% resistant (lightning) monster compared to one with maximum (75%) resistance?

All sorceresses are guaranteed to have at least 2 points of casting from the weapon, so we will take that as a base, that a minimum 23.7% of a monsters health would be left by the end of 2.20 seconds. Adding one more point to this (with a ring/amulet, 3 points) reduces the amount of time needed from 2.20 to 2.00 seconds for the same damage, or a 10% improvement. Although 0.2 seconds might not seem to be a lot, it actually is, and this is multiplied should you further chain cast beyond 2 seconds.

If you have 4 points of casting, where 2 points are both from rings, consider changing one of them to a SoJ, as this will not affect casting speed. As such, 3 point casting setups and 5 point casting setups (with a Magefist) are the most prevalent, assuming that a 3D-tower shield is used and not a Wall. If a wall is used, the resultant player usually ends up swapping his fast cast jewelry for prismatic rings, unless he is lucky enough to obtain a prismatic fast cast ring, so the advantages of using a Wall isn't there.

At 5 points of casting (weapon, Magefist, 1 ring/amulet), the overall improvement as compared to 3 points (say swapping a Frostburn for a Magefist) is sacrificing 0.16 seconds for dealing up to 5.9% more damage. Is this worthy of losing 40% maximum mana? Suppose a sorceress casts at 3 points, (2.00 seconds) then fires his finisher 3 times to finish the remaining 23.7% health, as compared to another sorceress casting at 5 points, (2.16 seconds) then fires his finisher twice to finish the remaining 17.8%. Which is better? Static can be considered to consume no mana, but casting 3 finishers compared to 2 finishers take 1.5 more times mana. But wearing Frostburn gives you 1.65/1.25=1.32 times more only (assume SoJ as second ring).

The above applies to orb sorceress only though, because other finishers like Hydra, Firewall and Blizzard can be precast. Now quite obviously at 5 points cast, one can kill faster because the AoE spell has already been precast and all the player needs to do is to mass static. But does that really help you level faster by casting faster with a smaller mana pool by using Magefist instead of Frostburn? One would probably need to visit town a lot more often to recharge mana, where a Frostburn user might on the other hand, just drink a mana potion. Remember that casting faster also drains your mana faster, and that is on top of having a smaller mana pool.

All this discussion was based on monsters with 0% lightning resists, the fast cast concept is further dwarfed by lightning resists. A player would only do 4.5% more damage to a monster with maximum lightning resists by moving from 3 to 5 points of cast, and a finisher spell could probably do better than that. This means you will most likely static a resistant monster less and cast more finishers. You will then need more mana, so quite obviously a Frostburn wins in this scenario. There are plenty of lightning resistant monsters in Act 4, such as leapers, stranglers and burning souls.

The debate between Frostburn and Magefist doesn't end here. Frostburn gives the player an additional 40% of his base mana. At level 75, a sorceress base mana would be close to 500. 40% of that is 200 mana. This 200 mana can be used by Energy Shield! If you have read the section Hp/mana Balance, you would realise that this 200 mana represents 100 EHP (effective HP). This 200 mana also means you can cast 200 more mana's worth of spells before you run dry.

"A Frostburn increases mana/sec regeneration by 40%, a Magefist by 25% + 1 Warmth (12%) = 37%." This is incorrect. The matter is that Magefist adds 37% to BASE mana/sec regeneration (which is 100%) while a Frostburn adds 40% to TOTAL mana/sec regeneration, which is usually 2 to 4 times higher than the base one. For example suppose I have a level 10 warmth (+138%). Wearing Frostburn would increase my total mana by 40% (32% if one SoJ is used, 26.7% if 2 SoJs), and since the mana orb fills up to full at the same rate, my actual mana/sec regeneration also increases by a corresponding 40% (or 32%, 26.7%). Wearing a Magefist would increase my mana regeneration from (100% + 138% =) 238% to (100% + 138% + 37% =) 275%. But 275% / 238% = 1.155, meaning that my actual mana/sec regeneration rate has increased by only 15.5%. In this scenario, Frostburn improves mana/sec regeneration 2.6 times (40%/15.5%) better than Magefist.

In other words, Frostburn always increases the current mana/sec rate by 40% (32%, 26.7%), while Magefist increases the current mana/sec rate by (100% + Warmth% + OtherRegenBonuses% + 37%)/(100% + Warmth% + OtherRegenBonuses%). At Warmth level 7 (+102%) and above with no other bonuses (such as Heavenly Garb), Magefist starts to increase current mana/sec rate by less than 40%. If Warmth is level 6 or below, wearing Magefist would then actually improve your mana regeneration better than Frostburn would (with one SoJ), although Frostburn's +40% max mana would probably still be more useful in allowing you to cast more spells to finish off monsters even if you regen the mana back slower. With one SoJ, Magefist barely wins Frostburn at Warmth level 8 (+114%), Magefist's 32.5% against Frostburn's 32%. The higher the level of warmth, the more effective Frostburn is when compared to Magefist in increasing mana/sec regeneration. At Warmth skill level 20, Magefist would increase current mana/sec regeneration by 10.3% only.

True, Magefist adds 1 level to all fire spells, but assuming a fire sorceress maxes his finishing fire spell, does a level 21 and level 22 fire spell (meteor, hydra, firewall) make a lot of difference? Fire mastery also improves, but since it has diminishing returns, assuming the player has already raised his FM to a decent level, +1 to FM is in effect adding 2% or so more damage, and in conjunction with finisher spell itself being raised a level, perhaps a total of 5% damage increase can be obtained. This 5% probably translates to 2% when fire resistances of monsters are considered in. In this aspect, Frostburn's 40% mana and the prospects of having 100 more EHP is better than doing 2% more damage to a monster.

Where you have 2 fast cast jewelry equipped instead (probably 1 ring 1 amulet), wearing Magefist instead of Frostburn brings you from 4 point cast to 6 point cast. Here the argument is not the same as from 3 point cast to 5 point cast, because in this scenario, you are doing 4.5%-5.9% more hp worth's of damage in 0.08 seconds less. However, considering the other effects of Frostburn and Magefist, this 5% hp damage is probably not worth having 100 more EHP and more mana to burn off to deal the same 5% more damage.

Unless your equipment is godly, an unlikely event in hardcore, you will almost never achieve 7 points of casting and above and maintain good values of resists. All out-tweaking will not really work in hardcore if it means sacrificing other useful life-saving abilities such as blocking, resists and hp.

Conclusion

Being able to cast faster is a nice bonus, but I will strongly urge the player not to overdo it at the expense of hp, mana and resists. Fast casting does not directly help in allowing you to survive better as opposed to hp, mana and resists. A realistic target to aim for is 3 points of casting from the weapon and 1 ring, wear 1 SoJ and Frostburn. Remember that the Frostburn and SoJ both adds to EHP and this itself makes it a good combination for hardcore play.

Leveling Up 1-30

The sorceress is arguably the most fragile class in Diablo 2, since it has no minions, and has the least hp and defense. In hardcore, this makes it even harder to level up as death is permanent. In the first 30 levels, the player has to juggle between his hp, mana and equipment needs, splitting up the stat points into Str, Vit and Ene, whereas other classes do not need to focus on more than 2 initial stats with some ample life leeching or minions.

This section is a rough guide of how to level up a sorceress in the early stages with as minimal risk and danger as possible by soloing. I will not go into leveling the first 30 levels partied, because all there is to do for the sorceress is to cast static and frost nova while standing behind other players. Anyone can reach level 30 without dying by partying a lot, it just takes a longer time.

There are 2 main ways to level up a sorceress: beginning completely from scratch, and twinked to the brim. I will not go into the ethical issues on whether it is correct to twink a character or not from level 1. Most people twink.

Leveling Up 1-18, Untwinked

Starting out with nothing, the basic method to level up from level 1 to 6 is by pure meleeing with the staff of firebolt. Cast firebolts sparingly and just melee. Clear out the surface area of Blood Moor first before entering the Den of Evil. You will probably enter the Den at level 3, and come out at level 4 or 5. Proceed slowly into the cold plains and move a few steps at a time so as not to attract more than 5 monsters at the same time. Drink potions as needed to survive and pick up sashes and quilted armors to wear.

Your very first skill point should be placed in Freezing Armor, and put it on hotkey and cast it whenever it is down. It will keep you alive longer since you are doing a lot of melee fighting early on. Put the second point in warmth, and the third and fourth point into ice bolt and charged bolt (prerequisite for energy shield). On reaching level 6, throw the fifth and sixth points into frost nova and static field. Because you probably do not have any leech rings, put everything in the first 3 levels into Vit to double your hp, and from then on, put Str/Vit/Ene in a 2/2/1 fashion until you reach 75 Str.

Use frost nova to chill the enemies, static field is probably next to useless at level 1. Melee your way through Stony Fields and you should reach level 8. Put skill points into static field the next 2 levels to up it to level 3, and it should be sufficient to use both static and frost nova to melee your way through the Underground Passage.

Be aware of the dangers of Treehead Woodfist (Extra Fast, Extra Strong) and Rakanishu (Lightning Enchanted) and run away when you see them. On reaching level 12 in the Black Marsh, you can now use blaze or lightning. Using them is simple, for blaze, just cast it and run away and make monsters follow you in straight lines; for lightning, do the same, run away and make monsters follow you in straight lines so that you can cast lightning though them. By level 13 or so, you should abandon all thoughts of meleeing.

Advance slowly though Tamoe Highlands and Outer Cloister and you should reach level 15. Barracks and beyond in Act 1 is generally not a safe place for a sorceress to level in, so join a Kill Andariel game and party for that quest.

Level up in Act 2 sewers from 15 to 18, always cast frost nova to chill the skeletons and skeleton archers so that their damage is reduced by about half. Static field comes into play here, so the general idea is to frost nova a small group, cast static about 4 times, and then finish off with lightning. Pick up every item to sell if needed so that you can buy town portal scrolls to visit town every 30 seconds.

Lightning is chosen here because it is a prerequisite to Energy Shield and it can damage many monsters simultaneously, unlike ice blast. Once level 18 is reached, several options open up, but the safest route is the spike/static combo.

Whenever you Str increases to a point where you can upgrade your shield to one with a better blocking rate, do so as blocking is important for your survival with so little hp. When you come across items that add hp, wear them over those that add mana. As most of Act 1 and Act 2 deal fire damage, fire resistances is the only one of any real importance in the first 18 levels, as well as lightning resists for the occasional LEB.

From then on, level up with your preferred spell (lightning, spike, blaze) in Far Oasis, Lost City and Ancient Tunnels to level 24, party for Duriel and Mephisto and enter Act 4 at level 25. Skip Act 3 because flayers run too fast and can deal serious damage to you before you can react quickly enough to them (think of lag). Level 24 is chosen for Duriel because of Energy Shield.

By level 18, you should have an estimated amount of about 150 hp and 150 mana. Also, your warmth should be about level 6, static about 6, have one point in your main attack spell of choice at level 18 (spike/chain lightning/firewall), one in teleport and the remaining 6 points in prerequisites.

Some players have emailed in to say that Inferno and Blaze are also good spells to use in Act 1 and 2, especially if you manage to find a staff that adds to these skills. Blaze is extremely mana effective for the damage it does to monsters chasing you while inferno would be more useful against ranged attackers which do not move around much. Note that these 2 skills are not very useful beyond Normal difficulty though, with increasing enemy resists especially in a multiplayer environment.

Leveling Up 1-18, Twinked

Here, I will assume that you are twinked to the fullest possible extent, and have the following equipment at your disposal at level 1: Tarnhelm, The Eye of Etlitch, 2 SoJs, Khalim's Will, Nightsmoke, Threads of Cthon, Wall of the Eyeless, Twitchthroe, Bloodfist, Magefist, Umes Lament or Maelstrom.

By level 18, I will also assume you have the following equipment available: Dragon's Wand of the Magus, Frostburn, 3D-Tower shield. By level 22, I assume you can switch to a +1 sorceress amulet with other modifiers, as well as Wyrm's rings and perhaps even Wyrm's wand of the Magus. By definition of being fully twinked, I also assume you will have access to Act 2 at level 12 and Act 4 at level 18.

Any other combination between fully twinked and fully untwinked goes under the "semi-twinked" category, and probably parts of the information from both the Twinked and Untwinked section apply.

If you do not have Nightsmoke, Lenymo will do, so will Hsaru's Iron Belt. A magical Amulet of the Leech (level 4) can replace the Eye of Etlitch. High mana rings can replace the SoJs but they usually have a level 18 or 22 requirement. If Khalim's Will is too much of a hassle to transmute, a Hellforge Hammer will work as well. If there is no Twitchthroe, Greyform will work fine and quickly change into a high defense armor as soon as possible. Of all the equipment, The Wall of the Eyeless is really the key to power-leveling the first 30 levels, so try to get one, it really makes life a lot easier.

With 5% life leeching and a Khalim's Will swinging 3 times every second, you should be able to melee everything in sight up to level 14 without using a single potion. Work your way though to Outer Cloister, even monsters there die in at most 2 swings in a 8 player game. Why? Khalim's Will does 1-15 damage, adds 1-20 fire damage. Add in 1-3 cold damage from the Eye. Add in 2-24 lightning damage from 2 SoJs. Add in +5 max damage from Bloodfist, and if you opt to use Hotspurs, that's 2-4 additional fire damage. Now throw in the Str bonus and you pack a mean punch swinging at an insane speed. While meleeing, follow the same skill plan as an untwinked character, and cast frost nova occasionally.

If you happen across a LEB, melee it once to see if you lose a significant amount of life. If not, hit him 2 more times and if you feel you can handle the lightning damage with a few potions, go for it. Rakanishu is completely meleeable with 5% life steal and a Khalim's Will.

Alternatively, once you reach level 8 or so, you can start to collect monsters, about 15 of them, in Dark Wood and Black Marsh. This is relatively easy, considering the amounts of carvers you meet there. Cast static field 5 times, cast frost nova twice, and you have a dead playing field. You used 70 mana, but you gained 75 from the Wall of the Eyeless. If you follow this method, it would be better to take off the Khalim's Will and wear an Umes. If you don't have the Wall, do this near the waypoint for quick town refills. At level 12, instead of using frost nova as the finisher, change to lightning. Remember that all your skills are at level 2 or 3, so they can kill in Act 1.

If you wear enough "damage reduced" items, say -4 damage, such as Bladebuckle, you can turn on Shiver Armour, and watch everything in Tamoe Highlands kill themselves when they hit you, while you suffer no or little damage.

Enter Act 2 at level 12 to 14. You can still melee effectively to level 18 in the sewers, but you will require about 150 AR. This can be achieved using AR rings and perhaps using the Centurion unique leather armour. If you're meleeing, you probably won't need mana from 2 SoJs anyway, so take one off and wear an AR ring. The better method would be to use frost nova/static/lightning to kill until level 18.

Once you hit 18, you can opt to jump straight to Act 4, and static/spike in Steppes. Mana potions drop everywhere on top of your high mana and regeneration. If you want to feel really safe, go to Act 4 at level 24. Level up only in Steppes and Plains. If there are burning souls in Plains, either switch to a 3D-tower shield, or avoid it if you do not like taking off the Wall, since +5 mana per kill is way too cool at low levels where spells don't cost 40 mana to cast. With the Wall, the Flesh Spawners are an extra bonus, because each extra young you kill nets you 5 more mana with a Wall of the Eyeless and with a area effect spell like Blizzard or Spike, a few more young doesn't really make a difference.

A sorceress probably takes the same amount of mana to kill two monsters or a group of 20, hence the key power-leveling is actually to ignore the stragglers and collect monsters. If the stragglers follow you, they will eventually die with the next group of monsters. A lot of strategies involve collecting monsters for efficient killing, since the mana pool of a sorceress is poor at low levels.

Avoid City of the Damned and River of Flame, since there are Abyss Knights and Damned monsters, both of which are cold and static resistant, and there are Urdars, which regenerate their HP way too fast.

The skill and stat points allocation should be roughly the same as that of an untwinked sorceress.

Leveling Up 18-30

Regardless of equipment, leveling up from level 18 to 30 uses the same strategies and skills. The only difference between twinked and untwinked sorceress is that twinked ones have a lot more mana to burn, and have skills that are higher level from +items. But higher level spells means higher casting cost, so the difference is that twinked characters can clear faster with less mana problems, and probably can survive a timeout while an untwinked one will have to visit town a lot more often and cannot survive a timeout.

How to level up from 18 to 30 would largely be determined by the type of sorceress being built, and which skill tree is being followed. I will consider 3 main types of sorceress, fire sorceress (one that plans to use hydra, meteor or firewall), ice sorceress (one that plans to use blizzard, orb or glacial spike) and lightning sorceress (one that plans to use nova, chain lightning and thunderstorm). A combination sorc such as one that uses 2 skill trees can probably apply strategies from both types of sorceress, usually with greater effect.

Fire Sorceress

The fire sorceress is one of the more viable sorceress to level, but when going down this path, consider the effects of causing lag to youself and other players from using fire based spells. However, when played properly, they are equally devastating as compared to ice sorceress. It is inferior to the ice sorceress in that ice spells do not cause as much lag, and they have the side effect of chilling the monsters while fire spells rely on brute damage.

Firewall is not a good choice to use for leveling up from 18 to 24 because it's duration is too short to be of any real use. Blaze is probably a better choice, just cast it and run. If frost nova is used to chill, you can double back and forth creating uber-blazes for the enemy to run through.

By level 24, if firewall is your main choice, it should be developed to level 5 or so now. It is now powerful enough to kill with a decent duration. Collect a few monsters, cast frost nova on them, and cast firewall in an asterix pattern. Run around the perimeter of this asterix of fire, keeping the enemy monsters inside. While running, cast static field every 2 steps or so. This technique is called kiting, and is similar to using blizzard.

At level 24, the meteor spell becomes available, it's usage is the same as that of blizzard, but it takes practice to time it accurately so that it lands as the monsters walk into it.

If you're twinked, you can go Act 4 immediately and blaze away, with a high defense armor, or Twitchthroe + Wall of the Eyeless, you probably can survive anything in the Steppes. Otherwise, Blaze is effective in Act 2, so stay in Act 2 till you are 24. Enter Act 4 at about level 25 and switch to meteor or firewall.

Ice Sorceress

The ice sorceress is the easiest and safest sorceress to level. Chilling a monster slows it down by about half, so the monsters do damage at half their speed, and you will not get stunned lock. Most players have at least one way to chill the enemies and ice sorceress are the most popular choices in leveling a viable sorceress. And op top of all this, there is Cold Mastery is help as well.

Whether you plan to use Glacial Spike, Orb, or Blizzard as your long term spell, the method to level is simple. Walk around the area you are in, gather a huge crowd of monsters to follow you. Use Frost Nova to chill them as you gather monsters and when you have a sufficiently big crowd, chill them again with Frost Nova, cast static field twice and glacial spike once in alternation until they are dead. This uses up about 100 to 150 mana, so return to town as soon as the battle ends, or you exhaust your mana first. Granted, you may find yourself visiting town every 30 seconds. When casting Spike, aim at the stranglers first, before they drain your mana. The glacial spike method is viable all the way until you reach level 30.

When you attain level 24, a second method of leveling becomes available to you in the form of the Blizzard spell. Similarly, you walk around the area collecting monsters, but instead of casting Frost Nova, you cast 2 or 3 Blizzards, and just static as the monsters walk through the storm. If any monster actually reaches you, Spike them once and it's probably dead. This is actually more mana efficient than simply using static/spike.

If you are twinked, you can jump straight away into Act 4 at level 18 and static/spike away. Stay in Steppes and Plains till level 30. If you are untwinked, just use spike with perhaps only one or two castings of static in Act 2, going into Act 4 at level 25. Flayers run too fast for your own good, even if you use glacial spike.

Lightning Sorceress

The hardest sorceress type to play is the lightning sorceress. Aside from the fact that most lightning spells do not have their minimum damage increased as the skill level increases, Chain Lightning and Lightning have a constant casting speed (23 frames) that cannot be reduced by fast cast items. Throw in the fact that most monsters in Hell Act 4 have very high lightning resists, it is easily seen why this path is rarely chosen, except for the challenged.

The typical method would be to run around collecting monsters, cast frost nova to chill, and static a couple of times, followed by a finishing Nova or a few Chain Lightnings. There really isn't any other method for a lightning sorceress to use. At level 24, a bonus spell, Thunderstorm comes into the scene, but since that is an automatic damage dealing spell, it's really just more of a bonus, allowing you to still finish monsters should you run out of mana to cast chain or nova.

Just like an ice sorceress, twinked characters can jump to Act 4 at level 18, while untwinked ones can remain in Act 2 till 24.

Leveling up Beyond Level 30

Beyond level 30, there is not much point writing a guide to how to level, because everybody would have a different set of skills and playing styles. During this time you should have already formed an idea of what spells you would like to specialize in. The only advice that I can give is what levels you should be before you advance into another act.

Enter Nightmare difficulty at level 33 to 35. Party with a group for Diablo in Chaos Sanctuary, or obtain help to kill Diablo from your friends. There is no reason to rush the confrontation, since it is a good idea to stay a while in Act4 anyway, trying to improve your sorceress for Nightmare. You should be at or near 75 Str by now to use a tower shield. Do not be afraid to go back to Act3 periodically to check the vendors for items, especially since Ormus' supply of spell caster weapons is much larger than what Jamella offers and will have the same level of quality, given your char level. Halbu sells some pretty good armours, keep looking until you see one with the colossus suffix, which can add over 50 HP.

In Nightmare, ignore Act 1 in general, the experience is too little to be useful, and the rogues run faster than the skeletons in the sewers. Skip to Act 2 and level up from 33-42 in the Sewers, Far Oasis, Lost City and Ancient Tunnels. You can go as far as level 46 in the Lost City before suffering exp losses. Again skip Act 3 and enter Nightmare Act 4 at level 42-46. By then, a sorceress should have about 400 hp and 600 mana. A conservative player would enter Hell difficulty at level 55, but level 50 is fine as well.

Once you enter hell difficulty, get to Act 4 as soon as possible, and party with necromancers/amazons to run River and Chaos. If you prefer to solo, do the same areas in Act 2 from level 55-70 and enter Act 4 at level 70. Again, it is NOT wise to level in Act 3. Might Enchanted flayers kill in 1 second, whether in Nightmare or in Hell difficulty.

Safe Areas to Level Up In

Safe places to level up are those that:

1. Have little to no elemental attack. This means only Lightning Resists matter in case you meet a LEB. (Still, your resists should be all Maxed, a unique pack could appear and it is of a monster type not generated in that area.)
2. Contain creatures that move slowly. This will lower your chances of being surrounded. You can flee easily.
3. No annoying monsters like Unravelers.

Such areas include:

1. Sewers 1-3, Act 2
2. Leaperless Lost City
3. Arcane Sanctuary
4. Kurast Bazaar
5. Areas up to Tamoe Highland in Act 1. The openness of the area makes it easy to run, and Act 1 monsters are slow anyway.
6. Outer Steppes
7. Harem/Palace Cellars
8. Ancient Tunnels

There are many other areas where great experience exists, with a little more elemental attack mainly, the rest of Act 4. It is extremely unwise to get experience in areas with fast moving/hitting creatures, such as:

1. Canyon of the Magi
2. Flayer Jungle
3. Durance of Hate 1-3
4. Travincal

Areas which are DARK and NARROW are usually not good to level in as well, as there are many cases where you end up being cornered:

1. Catacombs 1-4
2. Durance of Hate 1-3
3. City of the Damned (certain layouts)

Maggot Lair is not a problem since it is SO narrow that you can't get surrounded, if you watch your back. It is generally possible to level up purely in 4 areas in the entire game:

1. Act 1, Dark Wood up to Outer Cloister
2. Act 2, Sewers and Ancient Tunnels
3. Act 3, Kurast Bazaar
4. Act 4, Outer Steppes and Plains of Despair

It is not worth risking your life to level up slightly faster. One would rather waste 2 more hours to level up then to waste one week on a dead character.

Conclusion

Most people do not play sorceress as their first class in hardcore, but rather other classes. The fragility of a sorceress is such that it makes a lot of difference when it is twinked and untwinked in the first 30 levels. Most players tend to play other classes first and collect items for a future hardcore sorceress. Off the record, I have managed to solo a level 30 sorceress in 4 hours twinked (with help for Act Bosses), while my very first hardcore sorceress took about 3 days (about 5 hours a day) of tedious playing and partying to reach the same level untwinked.