Communication refers to the way you play and relate to the people you party with. It is important for all members in the party to communicate properly should any unusual or dangerous situation occur. This aspect of the game is important enough to warrant it's on section in this guide. It is hardcore after all and any one mistake could cost you your life, or worse, another player's life. This section pertains to parties and so if you solo, the following information would be of no relevance to you.

General

When playing in parties, it is useful to know the needs of other players, and also let them know what your needs are and perhaps also your lag condition so that they can keep a lookout for your health. Such needs include whether you or other party members need a lot of mana potions, require resists (where auras are concerned), have a lack of hp/mana (battle orders) among other stuff. If you ask and find out that the necro you are partied with have mana problems maintaining say 8 revives, then you could do him a favour and take less mana potions, and simply cast more static and less finishers yourself.

Fire spells are sprite intensive and large amounts of fire all over the screen can kill the framerate of old graphics cards and those people playing with 64 MB of memory. Before you start to cast firewall and meteors all over the place, it is advisable to ask if they mind or not. Most do, and generally a fire sorceress has to solo more than the standard ice sorceress.

Similarly, ask them if they mind blizzards; although this spell does not really cause framerate to drop, it has a nasty effect of obscuring everything behind the Blizzards, even worse than Firewall/Meteors. It is generally ok to cast one on top of yourself when there are leapers around.

When partying with a necromancer, request him to use Lower Resists on every monster if he has this skill. Static really shines when LR is cast on those lightning resistant monsters such as stranglers and oblivion knights.

Try not to use the telekinesis spell too much. The sound of that spell being cast severely annoys other players, even if the only things it is used on are trapped souls, mana potions, piles of gold and perhaps a few armours that are worth some gold. If you grab a rare, inform the party about it even if it sucks, and then maybe drop it for them to see.

Most players have a tendency to Save and Exit in a lag spike. When partying with a necromancer especially, he may actually wait in the game for longer than necessary before exiting to the channel himself. It is a good practice and courtesy to immediately send a private message to the necromancer when you have reached the channel to tell him you have left the game so that he can leave as well.

Dealing with Specific Situations

The 3 Seals in Chaos Sanctuary

More often than not, the favourite place to get experience with a sorceress would be to party with a necromancer or an amazon in Chaos Sanctuary. The seals by themselves are not dangerous, neither are the monsters itself, but rather the way they all appear suddenly.

Always clear the entire area around the seals first before opening the seals, tell your partner so when you enter Chaos Sanctuary. This isn't really mandatory if your partner is an established one you have always been playing with, and have established plans at what to do at the seals.

The generally safe method of opening the seals would be to decide way before hand who should be the one that always flicks open the seal in the party. This player as a rule of thumb should never open the seal until all other players in the area have indicated that they are ready. Do not open the seal when there are ongoing battles, the last thing anybody wants is a swarm of monsters appearing behind them when they are fighting things in front.

Opening a seal before others have indicated their readiness is generally considered very rude, and a careless mistake can cost a players life at the seals. When fighting at the seals, pay more attention to where you click and do not accidentally open the seal.

Lightning Enchanted Bosses

Lightning Enchanted Bosses (LEBs) can be particular annoying, especially a teleporting one. Static field usually does nothing but scratch them, and other attacks of the sorceress generally tend to cause more retaliatory charged bolts to be released than anything else.

Assuming everybody in the party have maxed lightning resists, these bosses are not killers, just annoying. It is perfectly alright to chain static one of these if all party members are ranged attackers, but before starting to do so, note whether they are getting damaged badly by casting static once or twice first. If there are melee party members around, there are 2 ways to kill the LEB.

The first would be to let the melee player kill it. All other party members stay back as the melee player doesn't want any more bolts than he already has to deal with. Barbs can usually WW a LEB safely. The second method would be to allow the ranged attackers to deal with it, and let the melee players stay back.

Usually, which method takes place isn't discussed beforehand, so usually it will depend on who takes the initiative to attack the LEB first, the ranged or melee player. If you start to attack and a player joins in, pull yourself back.

If an amazon is in the party, request that he use Slow Missiles on the LEB if he has not done so automatically already. This reduces the range and speed of the charged bolts by 1/3 and any attack larger than 7 yards or so of the LEB is safe.

It is wise to ask people in your party whether they have maxed lightning resists or not before adventuring out of town.

Multiple Shot Lightning Enchanted Bosses

These bosses are one of the most feared and lethal combinations of attributes that can ever be generated. Owing to how charged bolts stack, the multishot attribute causes the retaliatory charged bolts to increase and stack on top of each other. In Nightmare difficulty, this is x3, while in hell, this is x7. The end result is seeing super thick white charged bolts.

Always be on the alert for LEBs and MSLEBs. The moment you sight the huge thick bolts, usually the effects of static, teleport and get the way clear of the MSLEB before worrying about telling your party members about it.

Partied with a necromancer, have him make multiple layers of bone wall to shield the bolts from touching both of you. If the MSLEB is a melee type monster, the fastest way to kill it would be to throw a golem near it, and cast Iron Maiden. If the MSLEB is a ranged attack monster, have the necromancer cast Lower Resist on it. Either way, as the sorceress, you should stand behind the bone wall and cast static one time per second, and if the walls fall, wait for them to be recasted before continuing to static.

The best way to kill a MSLEB would be to deal damage in large packets, so that the amount of retaliatory bolts are minimal. Corpse Explosion is such a skill, and it is highly underused. Imagine the following situation I have experienced before:

"Opening the Lord De Seis Seal, he spawns right next to it. I teleport out, static once and discover that it is MSLE. The necromancer casts 3 layers of Bone Walls, traps the knights and casts lower resists. I start to cast static once every second. The necromancer casts a few Bone Spirits through the Bone Walls and obtains a corpse. Explode it, the whole seal dead in 15 seconds."

Now this tactic also works on Lord De Seis even if he is not MSLE. When he spawns, simply Bone Prison the whole group before they can move, chain cast static, BS for the first corpse, and one CE kills the whole group. The level of the CE doesn't have to be too high for it to work well. If the necromancer does not have CE or BS, then the next best alternative would be for the sorceress to cast an area spell such as Firewall, Meteor or Blizzard on the MSLE while behind the walls after enough statics. Worst comes to worst, TP out of the area.

With an Amazon, Slow Missiles will reduce the MSLEB to a baby, making it chain static-able and strafable (multishot or guided arrow is better here). As long as the Amazon refreshes the Slow Missiles every 10 seconds, and constantly recasts the Valkarie and Decoy, the MSLEB is killable with minimal effort.

Partied with other classes where they do not have minions as tanks, it is not advisable to try to kill the MSLEB. Discretion is the better part of valour, leave the area and go elsewhere.

Teleporting Hephasto

It is generally understood that players do not look for Hephasto and avoid the Hellforge Area, unless they are partied with a necromancer. Where this is concerned, I will assume that as a sorceress, you will not attempt to look for and kill Hephasto unless you are partied with a necromancer.

Hephasto is generally easy to kill when there are a lot of minions around to tank. The only one that would be of any real danger is a teleporting one. The obvious thing to do when such a Hephasto is identified (either by visual sight on screen, or hearing the teleporting sound) would be to run. Do not even stop to tell the necromancer that Hephasto is teleporting. As the sorceress, you need to tp to town first before the necromancer.

The best way to notify the necro that Hephasto is teleporting is the ZERO button on the keypad. Your character will shout "Help!", "Help me!". Press it twice, teleport back 3 screens, open a tp and enter it. The necromancer should follow right behind you and enter your tp while Hephasto is still engaged with minions. Of course, tell the necromancer beforehand that this is the plan to follow should a teleporting Hephasto be encountered.

It might be possible to continue to clear the River of Flame by returning via the waypoint, depending on how far out Hephasto Hellforge region is. As the Sorceress, remember to recast the TP at the waypoint so that players will not enter it by mistake.

When partied with no-minion players and Hephasto is activated, teleport well away and TP to town. Most importantly, do not ever lure Hephasto to the River of Flame waypoint, save and exit if you have to.

Conclusion

It is important to know the needs of your party members, and also important to let them know your situation, especially when in lag. If you are able to find a playing partner that you always party with everyday, this is obviously a lot better than just randomly looking for playing partners in game. Besides having established plans when facing certain situations and dangers, both you and him would also know each others needs and lag condition. Over time, trust would establish.

Diablo 2's main replayability factor does not lie in the skill trees and ability to customize one's character, but rather the interaction and socializing with other players online, to make new friends everyday, to see and learn new ideas on how to apply skills in ways you have never imagined yourself before. Definitely, partying may not be in everyone's book, given the large amount of PKs out there and perhaps real life relations that require you to be able to save and quit at a moment's notice.

Combat

Most of the time, you would be in combat with monsters, since the sorceress is extremely fragile in nature, more care has to be given in the movement and casting of spells during combat to avoid dying. Knowing what to do in certain situations and remaining calm is one of the key things to being a good sorceress.

Moving Around

There are 2 ways to move around, both have its merits and drawbacks. The first is to have Run toggled on all the time. This has the benefits of being able to move quickly at all times and if caught unaware, it is quick to simply run away. Of course, running is also better in terms of covering large areas. However, the drawback is that you may run too fast into a group of monsters, attracting more monsters than necessary at one time. stamina will be used up and when you need to run away, you would also need to have enough stamina in reserve. To stop running, the Shift key can be used, but usually this also involves changing the default spell hotkeys from F1-F8 to ASDFQWER. Most players play with Run toggled on all the time, since stamina is usually not a factor with high vitality in hardcore play.

The second method is to have the run key toggled off and using the Ctrl key to accelerate and decelerate as needed skillfully. The Shift key can still be used as well to stop moving immediately. Although this method seems worse than being able to move quickly all the time, it allows you to position yourself more accurately before/while using certain spells. Some players say that once you get fastest run/walk boots, you will discover that your walking speed is fast enough, perhaps even too fast, when venturing into unexplored areas.

Assigning mouse buttons and hotkeys

By default, the left mouse button is used to initiate a melee attack with a weapon, while the right mouse button is normally used to cast spells. However, it would be advisable to assign glacial spike to the left mouse button since you do not want to walk up close and melee accidentally while moving or running away. This is a pretty safe assignment, where you stop for a moment to cast glacial spike accidentally, so do the enemies as they get frozen for an instant.

Some players use the left mouse button in conjunction with the right mouse button to execute spell combos, such as spike/static so that hotkeys do not need to be used, reducing the amount of time needed to cast the spells. Another common combo is spike/firewall. Note that only projectile type spells can be assigned to the left mouse button and that you must target the monster specifically to cast it unless you hold down the Shift button (which prevents you from moving).

If you have a third mouse button, you could consider changing it from turning on and off the automap into a second Alt key for seeing items on the floor.

The default hotkeys for spells are F1-F8, they are pretty convenient in themselves in that they are grouped in 2 bundles of 4, allowing you to feel them and hit the correct hotkey in the dark quickly should your hand leave the keyboard for any reason. Some players place the 4 main spells they use on F1-F8 because it allows their fingers quick access to the potion slots 1-4, while others put the 4 main spells they use on F5-F8 so that their thumb rests the letter I or P to access the Inventory (to drink potions mainly) and Party screens quickly while in combat.

While these default hotkey assignments may not be optimal, they can be changed. F9 for centering the auto-map can be changed into a backup for potion slot 4 since centering the automap can also be done by turning it off and on again.

Many players have also found it more convenient to use their spell hotkeys as ASDFQWER so that their hand rests in its natural keyboard position. Not only are the potion keys quickly accessible, so is the Shift, Ctrl and Alt buttons. Customize the hotkey assignments as you see fit, but the main thing to consider is the ability to quickly switch hotkey spells and to drink potions in an emergency.

Moving in Combat (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

One of the most important aspects of a sorc's game is speed. In many situations, she will need to act quickly to avoid certain death. The speed with which she needs to act is a often a function of time and space. More specifically, it will be a function of how fast the monsters are and how much space separates you from them. There are some relevant concepts you should always keep in mind when fighting monsters, until awareness of those concepts becomes "second nature" to you.

In wilderness areas, be aware of how quickly monsters can close the gap between you. There will always be some monsters in each Act that can move very quickly, perhaps even faster than you can run. As soon as you identify a monster (or monster pack) as being fast, you need to decide what to do in order to stay out of melee range. If you have time to cast spells, then you should try to do spell damage and slow them down with cold spells, and then run/teleport to a safer position. If the monsters are too close to safely cast spells, then sometimes running will be sufficient. But if the monsters are as fast as you, then you are only delaying your problem. At some point, you would have to start teleporting.

Moving in smaller, confined areas is far more dangerous for a sorc than moving in wilderness areas. Hallway-like areas can become clogged with monsters, making escape on foot more risky. Further, because of less available ground space, teleporting to safety becomes much more tricky. In your haste you may sometimes land in a worse place than the one you just left, or you may not see clearly where to teleport to if the passages are twisting and have obstacles. Because a sorc has less space to work with, she must use it wisely. The first order of business is to try to clear out your initial starting area, so that you have a safe place to escape to in case you get into trouble later on. Then proceed area-by-area, enlarging the amount of safe space you have behind you. This simple system will work in all cramped areas of the game, and can be thwarted only by teleporting monsters (there are thankfully not too many of these), revived monsters (you should never see many of these if you have cold spells) and ghosts (which can pass through objects and in some places can come at you from any angle).

Sorcs who do not use cold spells have a special problem in that they do not really have a way to slow down the monsters unless they have someone to tank for them. If fast monsters come after you, running will often not give you enough space to safely cast spells before the monsters reach you. The Teleport spell becomes all the more important for these sorcs. Nothing is faster than teleport. If you are not using cold spells, get used to the idea of Teleport as a frequent means of transportation. Many of your battles may well begin not with a display of sorc pyrotechnics, but rather, with some backwards teleporting intended to give you time to safely cast your offensive spells.

Since speed is so important, you will always want to find items that grant fast/faster/fastest speed increases to abilities such as walk/run, hit recovery, and spell casting. In all of these cases, the benefits stack. You probably do not need more than fastest hit recovery, and a little less than that might be acceptable. Continue on to the spell casting rate section to find out more about the benefits of stacking casting rate bonuses.

Escaping Danger (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

Here is probably the single most important tip for survival as a sorc. Before entering into any potentially dangerous situation, you should always have the following question already answered and actively on your mind: What is my escape route? Usually, the only common monster that should ever kill you is the "lag" monster, because before you get into too much trouble to handle, you should already be following your escape plan.

The most natural means of escape is to run, usually (but not necessarily) back to wherever you just came from. Even if the monsters are as fast as you, you can still prepare a Teleport or town portal (TP) while running. You might instead just outright teleport to wherever it was you were going to run. If you just came from a waypoint, you might think to use that instead. However, waypoints make for undesirable escape routes for a couple of reasons. First, it takes a fair bit of time to activate them and select a new location (which is usually town). During this time, the monsters may catch up to you. This is all quite sporting, but the stakes are rather high. Second, it would no longer be advisable to return by that waypoint because it will probably now be mobbed. Using a TP is probably quicker and will give you an alternate way to get back, instead of two bad ones (mobbed waypoint versus making the trip on foot). If your choice is to escape by going back to town, then try to use a TP. You could afterwards use the nearest safe waypoint, possibly with a little extra running involved, to get back to the monsters.

If you think you have time to cast a cold spell to slow the monsters down before they meet you, then try that first. But understand that if you let a monster get within melee range, it may still be able to hit you even if you successfully cast a cold spell, since you used up some time in casting the spell, during which the monster may be swinging a weapon at you. And if it attacks you, you may be slowed down due to blocking or hit recovery, during which time most of the other melee monsters in the area will try to mob you.

This is easily one of the most dangerous situations you will find yourself in. You may or may not be able to get off a spell, depending on whether the monster hits you, how frequently that monster type attacks, and how many monsters are attacking you at once. If you choose to cast a spell, then Teleport is preferable to a cold spell, for the reason just given, and also because Teleport takes effect immediately. Usually though, your best bet in this case is to try to run, hoping that you outrun the monster's attack swing. If you have Teleport hotkeyed, as opposed to having it set to the right mouse button, then running has an advantage over teleporting in that your response time to issue the command is usually a little faster because you do not need to take the time to switch hotkeys. If your attempt to run succeeds, you will have put a little space between you and the monster(s) and you can now get a spell off. If you do not succeed, the monsters have nearly 100% chance to get past your armor. If you do not block the hit with a shield, you will thus be injured, and possibly get mobbed during hit recovery.

The only time you should not necessarily consider running as the immediate response to a melee attack is if you happen to have a very high DR. If the monsters are too close, then you can take a chance on them taking a swing or two at you, since they may be more likely to miss than hit, given the combined defenses of your armor and shield. This is not to say that it is ever a good idea to have monsters swinging at you, but you have a good chance in this situation to get off a spell, so teleporting is safer than it would be otherwise. Consult the discussion of armor in the Items section to learn more about the relevance of armor.

If and when you are hit, you might still be able to get away if there is only one monster. But what do you do if you are mobbed? Sometimes death comes so quickly that you have no time to react. But if you are not immediately killed, there are two main options. One is to keep trying to teleport out of the mess. (This is when having items that increase spell casting rate can really save your skin). When trying to teleport, click the mouse button repeatedly, but not wildly. If you keep clicking the button wildly, then if you ever do get to teleport, you might teleport wildly as well. Who knows where you will end up? You could conceivably make your situation even worse than it was. But if you cannot even get off even a single teleport, then blasting your way out of trouble is certainly not possible. The only other option for trying to avoid death is to leave the game.

Taking advantage of monster behavior (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

One thing you must become adept at if you are to survive is managing crowds of monsters. I will say a few words here about a few specific scenarios.

When you move, the entire crowd of monsters more-or-less moves with you. After all, they all want to kill you. Understanding this behavior allows you to treat crowds almost as you would treat individual monsters, especially if most of the monsters in the crowd use melee attacks. The main idea is to cast an AoE spell on top of the crowd -- or an area where the crowd will soon be -- and then reposition yourself so as to keep the monsters in the area affected by the spell. The simplest example of this is casting BLZ on a crowd and then running around the edges of the affected area, or teleporting back and forth across two opposite ends of it.

When faced with a boss monster and its minions, you often will not get the move-all-as-one behavior just described. So what you need to do is treat the minions as you would individual monsters, killing the boss either first or last, depending on how it interacts with its minions. Generally speaking, when monster resurrection/spawning is involved, you must kill as soon as possible any monster that is doing the resurrecting/spawning. An alternative is to try to separate the boss from its minions, but this is usually not easy, as sometimes the minions will not follow very far from the boss, or the boss has surprisingly long range with its resurrection ability, or the monster will keep spawning an endless number of minions. When monster healing is involved instead (and you will see this in Act3), it is usually better to kill whatever is easiest to kill, since dead monsters do not get healed.

Although monsters are sometimes smart enough to retreat from battle, they ultimately know only to come after you. But since you can move around wherever and for whatever reason you like, you are "smarter" than the monsters in that you can lead them where you will. So use terrain to your advantage by making mental notes of good places you see to stage future battles and then leading the monsters there. There exist bottleneck areas, obstacles, and walls in every Act. Learn to use them. For example, if you see a monster hiding around a corner, shooting FO at it is not a bad idea, since the ice bolts will soon have a clear path to the monster, while you are safe from attack. In Kurast, Travincal, and the alter room of the Claw Viper Temple, there exists high ground you can use to give you an advantage over some of the melee monsters.

Management of Health and Mana (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

If you are in the middle of combat, you should always drink a health potion once your life orb has less than 70% health. This is because the next hit might well kill you. On higher difficulty levels, you should drink one at any time you incur damage, since the monsters hit so hard, and it takes time for the orb to refill. In fact, I strongly recommend having at least one column of full rejuvination potions in your belt for emergencies. If your life orb is above 90%, and you are avoiding taking more hits, and you have items that replenish life, then you can often just let your life replenish back to 100% without the aid of potions. And of course, take advantage of any potions that fall to the ground.

You will sometimes find that you are spending mana at a dangerously fast rate. And the last thing you want is to run out of mana in the middle of a battle. There are some things you can do to help yourself out without sacrificing your effectiveness in combat:

1. Are you bulking up on expensive spells without adding anything to Warmth? Powerful spells are great, but if casting one a few times drains half your mana, then maybe you need more Warmth.
   
   
2. Are you racing to get high-level spells before you have the mana and mana regen ability to support them? Just because a spell is available does not mean that you should use it. The level restriction of a spell does not necessarily reflect its effectiveness in combat. Anyone who has ever used SF knows this well.
   
   
3. Are you casting a particular spell repeatedly when fewer castings will do? Spells like FO can be devastating, but casting 10 in rapid succession will often do no better than casting half as many and casting a few more times of static field instead. You need to keep track of how your spells are affecting the monsters' HP in order to gauge how many castings you need. Also, look into the possibility that there are more effective ways to target your spells than how you are currently doing it.
   
   
4. Are you stacking your casting rate bonuses and using mana-intensive spells, but not adding to Warmth? One popular spell when stacked casting rates are in effect is FO, but that will drain your mana orb in a hurry. You need to get lots of Warmth if you are going to be spending mana at much higher rates than usual.
   
   
5. Are you using spells in a situation where the monsters are highly resistant to the spell type? You can cast CL at a pack of Storm Casters until the cows come home, but whatever mana you do not waste doing that they will drain, and then you will have nothing.
   
   
6. Do not use mana potions from your belt until your mana orb is nearly empty. This is because you have a chance to regenerate some mana as the potion is taking effect, thus maximizing the total mana regained during that time. If your mana orb is as much as half full, then you do not need to drink a mana potion anyway.
   
   
7. Do not be afraid to back off from a battle. If you have the space to work with, run away from the monsters so that your mana has time to regen. If you think you cannot get your mana back quickly enough for it to be useful, get back to town as quickly as possible. It is better to be a chicken than a sitting duck.

Setting up a TP every once in a while is not a bad idea. When you are outmatched by the monsters, you can often run back to it and thereby get to town quickly. This is especially useful in Act4, since running back to town may mean leaving monsters on the stairs of the Pandemonium Fortress. If you do not have any of the waypoints for Act4, then this is a very bad thing to have happen.

Some Particularly Problematic Monsters by Dog of Justice

Might Enchanted: The might aura eventually needs to be feared. In Hell Act 4 it is sufficiently high level to be significantly more dangerous than the Cursed boss attribute, especially since the aura lends itself to other monsters as well. Supposing the monster is level 60, the aura is level 15. Doing +180% more damage or 2.8 times more damage, a few hits are more than enough to slaughter any sorceress. And of course if you are cursed while being hit by a horde of Might-enchanted monsters...

Hephasto: Be aware that when a monster with the cursed attribute hits a target, it has a 50% chance to curse everything in the vicinity. Also, the attack that curses you does not receive the double damage bonus, though subsequent attacks will. So if you have a good life total and Energy Shield level, you can often survive one hit from Hell Hephasto. But if you're cursed at that point, TELEPORT OR RUN THE HELL AWAY AND RETURN TO TOWN and get that Amplify Damage removed, or you will almost certainly die. Hephasto hits for 357-537 damage in Hell difficulty (Extra Strong = x3 damage) without an additional helping attribute (pray that he's not Aura Enchanted with Might; if he has Might and Teleportation... don't make a habit of regularly fighting Hell Hephasto okay?), which you can usually survive at that point. You probably cannot survive a follow-up hit for double that amount.

Lightning Enchanted: With good Lightning Resistance, these are annoying, but usually will not kill you if you know what you are doing. The real danger is a Lightning Enchanted monster with the Multishot attribute as well. Multishot multiplies the number of retaliatory charged bolts released... and thanks to how Charged Bolt works, these bolts are stacked on top of each other, so you end up seeing thick white "bolts from hell". Continuing to fight one of these is usually not worth the risk; RuthlessPsycho died to one.

Undead Stygian Dolls and Undead Soul Killers: These monsters are found in the Durance of Hate levels and Sewer levels below Kurast. Their death explosion damage actually increases with the number of players in the game since their hp scales. Basically, if you're near one when one dies in an 8 player game, you're probably dead. If you see them, town portal out and enter another game, don't think about behaving otherwise. They are that dangerous. It is also a good idea to hire a cold mercenary.

Tips on Clearing Act 4

Act 4 is probably the place where your sorceress will spend most of the time leveling up, aside from Act 2 as well. It is useful to note down the danger spots of each area and this will vary with each game depending on monster spawn.

There isn't really much problem with Outer Steppes all the way to City of the Damned if you already have maxed all your resists. However, sorcs run a lot. Normally when you clear areas for experience points, you follow a certain procedure such as following the edges of the map first before clearing the center so as to avoid being swarmed. There is an escape route as what is behind you has already been cleared. The problem with this lies in the initial starting points. Many players die right at the entrance to the Outer Steppes than in many other places in Act 4 (not taking timeouts/disconnects into consideration). The reason is that even slight maneuvering can activate a whole stream of monsters from a variety of angles. They can overwhelm you very quickly, particularly if there are leapers, which are resistant to cold and lightning and are a pain the ass to kill.

So, the trouble spot is usually at the spot where you step through the archway into the Outer Steppes because you can only retreat into town, causing a blocked exit from town. This is usually less of a problem with Plains of Despair because there is no waypoint, so presumably you will have cleared Outer Steppes/City of the Damned already before entering it. Half the time, you could possibly find yourself drawing monsters out back into the Steppes because you know it is cleared already. At least until I clear that initial area stairs area into the Plains.

Sorcs are not like barbs, they can stand in the archway and wait for the enemies to queue up one by one to be chopped up. One method would be to run out and teleport away to one side, throw up a TP, and return via the stairs from the fortress while the enemies are stuck like magnets to the TP. You may have to repeat this a few times before everything dies. The spawners and leapers are probably the most irritating monsters to kill.

Similarly for Plains of Despair, you can also run in and teleport to one side, and teleport over the chasm right back into Steppes and return via the stairs. If you meet Izual at the stairs, lure him back to Steppes. Do not try to fight on the stairs, most spells don't really work well in such a narrow place.

City of the Damned is also a problem for two reasons. If you waypoint into the City, you haven't cleared any "safe zones" in which to retreat. This is particularly problematic if there are a bunch of Abyss Knights along with some Stygonian Dogs there. You can get swarmed easily at this waypoint from multiple directions. Given a sorcs' low hitpoints, even though you may have good resistances, be careful about taking the waypoint into this area, barbarians have died before being swarmed.

River of Flame is very different because it is not a wide open space, it is essentially long narrow corridors. It is much easier to control as they all come from the same one direction, even if the monsters are more powerful. It is relatively easy to avoid Hephasto simply by not going Northwest or Southeast at any junctions that you could choose to go Northeast or Southwest. If you don't have a choice, only able to choose from Northwest and Southeast, then advance slowly. However the presence of Urdars could prove slightly problematic with their high regeneration rates and one of the best areas to level up in is actually the Plains. No monster is resistant to both cold and lightning there so killing things are faster as well having Izual.

Izual himself seems to be problematic sometimes. Apparently for sorcs, if you solo him, static field seems to work properly on him, while if there are any minions around in your party (of other party members), Izual somehow seems very hard to kill, with static field not seeming to work. Someone said that Izual's HP bar will update correctly only when he hits something, so perhaps you could offer to tank Izual. His damage isn't all that high. When Izual dies, everything monster around him in a 2 screen or so radius will also automatically die.

Similarly, going towards the Chaos Sanctuary, there are only 3 different layouts the bridge can form in the 3 sets of tiles that bridge the waypoint and Chaos Sanctuary. Memorize the 3 of them and it is easy to figure out which direction you should walk on the bridges to reach Chaos quickly. However make use of the bridges to prevent enemies from reaching you, similar to Arcane Sanctuary and not the other way, allowing a horde of monsters to surround you..

Chaos Sanctuary could also be considered as one of the most dangerous yet safest places. It is dangerous due to the monsters having higher HP and resistances as well being able to deal more damages as the fact that everything is predictable. Chaos always spawns the same monsters and the entire area has 2 fixed different layouts only. In this manner, knowing what to expect in Chaos Sanctuary makes it safer.

However what is uncertain is what causes the De Sis Seal to open. Someone had claimed that if you TK the seal and it doesn't open and then you open it by hand at a certain spot, the whole seal will spawn in a specific place depending how how the seal was broken. 

Coping With Lag (Extract from VenomousVixen's Complete Sorceress Guide)

Sad to say, lag is part of the game. Out of all the char classes, it is most deadly to sorcs because of their low HP, and in my opinion is the best argument a sorc has for wearing high-DR armor. This is because during lag, you may end up getting mobbed or otherwise be standing still for excessive amounts of time, which is exactly when DR would come into play. A DR that allows the mosters an 80% chance to hit (for example) is poor protection, but it is better than no defense at all. In any case, while there is sometimes nothing you can do to prevent lag, understanding when lag occurs due to player-controlled events can help keep you alive.

One thing to always keep in mind is that some spells cause more lag than others. Spells such as BLZ, FO, FW, Meteor, and Hydra, which require that a lot of graphics be displayed, can contribute to lag. The more of these you cast (regardless of whether you stack them), the more lag you might get. In fact, there is currently a bug in the game that draws spell animation twice for other players whenever you cast a spell. Keep this in mind, even though your allies may not openly complain about all the lag you are causing them. At the same time, if you are playing with a sorc who is wildly casting spells that are causing far too much lag to justify their use, there is no harm in asking this person to change tactics. Whether or not you want to try to cope with such a player is up to you.

Another time lag occurs is when you are entering new areas of an Act. For example, leaving town at the start of an Act can make the game appear to freeze while the data for the new area is being loaded. Other "firsts" that cause lag are opening chests and barrels and such, and casting a spell for the first time. There are some things you can do to help reduce the danger you are in during these times. First, when leaving town for the first time, do not run out of town but move slowly, so that if lag occurs, you are not too close to any monsters that may be just outside waiting. Second, as soon as you are out of town, cast some offensive spells that you expect to be using (i.e. the ones you have hotkeyed), so that the relevant graphics are loaded into your computer's memory. When you soon encounter some monsters, the game should not get especially laggy when you start to use those spells "for real", since the graphics have already been loaded. Third, if you have not lately opened any chests, barrels, stashes and such, wait until the area is free of monsters before you do so. Fourth, turn off the overhead map. You have no need for it at the very beginning of each new area, and it is always a source of lag. More generally, turning off the overhead map as much as possible during game play can noticeably reduce the lag when multiple players or monsters are on the screen.

Sometimes the lag can get very bad and you may even lose server connection. One way to tell if the game is badly lagged is by watching your mana orb while you are casting spells (perhaps move your cursor over it to see the mana count). If you do not see your mana being used up or regenerating at all, then the game is badly lagged. During that time, no matter what you see on the screen, there may be monsters (new or old) attacking you. Even though your screen is not updating properly, you can sometimes still issue commands to your char. Running is risky, however, since you cannot see where you are going; you might end up running into a new pack of monsters. And anyway, if you run, you have only your shield for defense, whereas if you stand still, your shield can block and your armor (such as it is) can work for you. Some people try to exit the game as soon as possible in the hope that they will not die during the lag interval. You might instead try to cast some spells in the hope that they will keep you alive until (and if) you start to get proper screen updates again. Aside from periodically drinking potions, some good spells to try are FN, Nova and SF. Together, they will slow and damage anything that is near you. You do not need to target these spells, so you can cast them blindly and they will still be effective. If you have Meteor or BLZ, consider stacking these spells on top of yourself, in the hopes that they will kill whatever may be attacking you. Casting them on top of yourself does not mean casting them where you guess you might actually be on the map, but rather, casting them over the center area of the screen. Remember that your char is always centered in the middle of the screen. Do not be fooled into thinking something like "well gee, I was a few yards to the left when the screen stopped updating properly, so I should cast BLZ over to the left". Wherever you go, there you are: in the middle of the screen. With this in mind, you can also cast fire spells around yourself, such as FW and Hydra. And definitely do not forget to renew your cold armor and ES.

If you feel fairly certain that there is an area you can blindly run to which has no monsters in it, then that can be a good option. To run most effectively in this situation, point your cursor at the furthest point away from you in the direction you want to run. Then click repeatedly while your sorc is running. The reason why you click repeatedly, instead of holding down the mouse button, is that while you are lagged, you might accidentally click on a monster (you would have no idea of this, since the info on the screen is not updating properly), in which case, you would be inadvertently telling your sorc to run right up to it. That is obviously very bad. Repeated clicking allows your sorc to keep moving the same direction while constantly selecting new targets on the ground. If you accidentally click on a monster, it is not a problem since in a short moment you will be re-targeting just beyond it, thus allowing you a chance to run past it. Blindly running may sound like a scary thing to try. But as the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Other Tips

Sorcs by far at most prone to lag deaths as their hp is little, and they don't have any form of minions. Hence, alwaya try to party. Even a barb or a pally helps and you generally clear more than twice as fast in the first 30 levels, where you have not developed your high level powerful skills. Obviously, try not to leech, help by casting static and frost nova. Unless you have chosen to be a pure soloist that is.

Always have some method of chilling enemies. Frost nova works well, and so does Orb, and investing at least 1 point into either of them are both worth it. Not only does monsters move slower, they deal damage twice as slowly.

If the connection is laggy, keep an extra distance between you and any monsters on the screen as very likely, you are desynced with the server, you may find yourself in the ever annoying position of being hit by melee monsters apparently half a screen away. Be extremely careful of the slow but hard hitting monsters - vultures, ghoul class monsters, and doom knights as this is the most likely way they will hit you. If you see them apparently trying to swing at thin air, you're actually the target, so move!

In open areas take on packs of melee monsters as large as you can comfortably handle. Since all your attacks hit multiple targets it won't take much longer to kill a pack of 20 than a pack of 5, providing they don't kill you first of course. This is really the key principle of sorceress power levelling. Play it safe in a new area at first, take on a few at a time and work your way up and check the spawn. When ranged monsters are mixed in, go more slowly as these do get significantly more dangerous with numbers, most notably in Canyon of the Magi and City of the Damned. Try to lead the melee monsters away first and deal with them separately.

When chain casting static field, hold down the right mouse button rather than repeatedly clicking it, it's faster. This works well for other spells too; click on the area (not a monster or you'll be locked on it) you want to shoot at, hold down the button and move the mouse. This technique allows you to make full use of increased cast rate items.

Try to play in large 6-8 player games. The power of static field is often wasted in small games.

Try to check boss attributes before a fight if possible. Though MSLE is a very lethal combo, there are other very dangerous ones such as teleport/extra strong/cursed, might/cursed and extra fast/fanaticism which should be treated with great caution if not avoided altogether. Against holy freeze be prepared to teleport a lot, and if lag messes up your teleportation, leave the game.

Only solo in areas with no dangerous monster types. Flayers and vultures hit very hard, and undead stygonian dolls and undead souls explode when they die. Avoid areas with such monsters and other fast moving creature types such as rogues and saber cats. The only real areas with no extremely fast moving monsters are the entire Act 4, far Oasis, Sewers Level 1 and 2, Harem and Palace Cellars, Ancient Tunnels and Blood Moor.

Keep an eye on party members' hit points, if they start dropping with no attempt to heal they are probably lagged and your priority becomes to protect them. Run close to the monsters surrounding them to try to get them chasing you instead, freeze them with glacial spike, and chill them with orb/frost nova and hope they drop or un-lag before they die.

Should someone really die next to you, and you know it is a timeout death (HP drops slowly over 10 seconds), the next important thing is to attempt to loot the corpse before he drops out. Teleport away from the corpse to get monsters to chase you and move away from the corpse, start drinking potions stored in your inventory and teleport back and loot half the corpse. If you can, drop some of the equipment you looted and try to loot the remaining ones. Obviously, if it is too risky such as you lag yourself, don't do this.

Do not cast firewall and mass meteor when partied with other people, unless their graphics card can handle it. Fire spells tend to kill the framerate of older graphics card and cause so much lag that it can kill, intentionally or not. Firewall is best reserved for dispatching tough bosses that have been pinned down by your allies and on things stuck across bridges.

Realise when relying on party members or their minions to tank for you that if they drop connection, TP out or do a panic save-and-exit that all the heat will suddenly be on you. Be prepared and always leave yourself an escape route. Be aware of how your partners operate, make sure they know how you operate too. Refer to the Communication section for more on this.

Try not to use the telekinesis spell too much. The sound of that spell being cast severely annoys other players, even if the only things it is used on are trapped souls, mana potions, piles of gold and perhaps a few armours that are worth some gold. If you grab a rare, inform the party about it even if it sucks, and then maybe drop it for them to see.

Always be alert for all LEs and MSLEs. It is generally ok to chain static a LE, assuming everyone in the party has maxed lightning resists, the lightning bolts don't hurt much, but MSLEs are different. When you are facing a boss that you know is always lightning enchanted such as Bremm, Fangskin and Kaa, there is a very good chance that it is multishot as well. When opening seals, after the monsters have appeared, cast static once, listen for the telltale sounds a LE/MSLE and if you hear an LE, mouseover to see if it is multishot before starting to chain static.

When playing any character, try to aim for the long term benefits. No doubt this may mean it is harder to level the first 30 levels perhaps (especially with super low mana for a sorceress), it will pay off.

Type "fps" in the chat window in the game so you can see your ping. This will give warning of lag spikes. Monitoring the pattern of pings as they go up and down should give you a general idea of whether it is safe to play or not.

Be wary of PKs. A level 27 paladin hanging around act 2 normal and demanding to party up is probably a PK. Know the standard PK tricks and avoid them if you suspect anything fishy. Simply leave the game when you see a PK coming, or if you are paranoid, the moment they declare hostility.

Never make the entire playing field invisible by opening both the character and inventory screens unless you are in town. This is a very embarrassing way to get killed, so is falling asleep at the keyboard.

Anything you aren't using right now or carrying as an alternate piece of gear should be given away or transferred to another character (muled) so you don't lose it if you die - especially if it's valuable.

Know which waypoints are dangerous to travel to, and keep within yourself a list of waypoints that shouldn't be touched after the game is a certain amount of time old.

Links

If you would like to add a link here, please me the address and write a small description. I will only add a link here if it is related to hardcore and/or related to the sorceress class.

Official Sites

Other Sites

Sorceress Guides

Other Hardcore Guides

Feedback

You've probably looked and read through most of this guide by now, and have disagreed with some things. Or perhaps you have a few extra comments to add or like to contribute your own opinions to this guide as well, or point out mistakes buried within the guide. Whatever it is, I welcome your comments and criticisms (constructive ones please) and you can email me your comments.

About the Author

Xinhuan is an avid Diablo 2 player currently playing on the USWest server. He lives in Singapore, which is located in Southeast Asia, at the tip of the Malaysia peninsular. When D2 first came out, he originally played on the highly unstable Asia server, and first started hardcore after a month of playing a softcore sorceress.

In September 2000, not being able to withstand the constant average ping of 3000 even on a cable connection playing hardcore, he migrated to USWest and has remained there ever since, playing with an average ping of 350.

With respect to his experience in playing a sorceress, he has an old school style level 63 (SC) sorceress on Asia where everyone thought +skills is the way to go. On USWest, he has a softcore level 76 sorceress while in hardcore, he has 6 sorceress, level 74, 56, 41, 64, 80 and 80, where the last two are still alive. He also has a level 80 necromancer (alive), 76 bowazon (dead) and 50 hammerdin (alive).

The first level 74 was a firewall sorceress, the next three being tweakers and semi-tweakers, and the final two and the softcore being nearly identical triplets, the current recognized standard of an Orb sorceress with 3 points of casting. Where deaths are concerned, 3 out of 4 were disconnects and the final one was being ripped off at the Vizier Seal by some itchy hand (mana burn bosses are as good as having no Energy Shield).

Regarding whether a player is more skilled or not between a level 80 and 90, one would regard the level 90 as simply having a lot more time, patience and luck to survive through any disconnects and lag. What determines the skill of a player is more a function of what he does and how he thinks when he encounters certain situations and how he planned his character. A lightning-only sorceress is tough to play and takes a lot longer to level, but with some luck, it is still possible to attain high levels. Certainly, the level of a character is a major determinant to the skill of a player but beyond level 70, it is no longer an accurate gauge.

Currently, Xinhuan is enlisted in National Service (army) for 2.5 years, as required by Singapore Law upon all males reaching the age of 19 or 20. He will only be able to return home once a week or so, until the end of his service. This most probably marks the end of his Diablo 2 career and this guide represents his effort into promoting the sorceress class as one of the most rewarding paths that can be undertaken in harcore.

Ok, writing about myself is as dumb as recording yourself on a tape recorder. "You now speak to Ormus..." ;+P

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