Sorceror Weapons

[Mahida]

I'm trying to build up a good sorceror in solo-multi. I'm currently clvl 34, and I have been wondering what weapons to look for. I've read Jarulf's guide so I know which items are possible, but since I only bought the game two months ago, my playing experience is severely limited.

The "best build" posts I have seen prefer Dreamflange, but I was hoping for a slightly longer list, as that mace is rather ... unique (no pun intended) as it is the only 1-handed weapon which gives +skill.
The best non-uniques I can think up are an emerald sword of sorcery/heavens or an archangel's staff of wizardry. The sword sounds like overkill for the resistances, but since I have no obsidan jewelry this might be the way to go. The staff on the other hand means giving up the shield. Any comments on shields are also appreciated.

I am currently doing nightmare (caves and hell). Caves are easy whereas hell depends a lot on the monsters. My last encounter with azure drakes (3 games back) was... difficult to say the least.

My current equipment:
Wizardspike
Sword of Heavens(+15)
Mindcry
Stormshield
Obsidian Shield(Ac 8, 39% Resist All)

PS. I am aware that a character's equipment should be seen as a whole, but by restricting it to weapons and shields I'm focusing on what I find most difficult

[weakwarrior]

I'm trying to build up a good sorceror in solo-multi. I'm currently clvl 34, and I have been wondering what weapons to look for. I've read Jarulf's guide so I know which items are possible, but since I only bought the game two months ago, my playing experience is severely limited.

The "best build" posts I have seen prefer Dreamflange, but I was hoping for a slightly longer list, as that mace is rather ... unique (no pun intended) as it is the only 1-handed weapon which gives +skill.
The best non-uniques I can think up are an emerald sword of sorcery/heavens or an archangel's staff of wizardry. The sword sounds like overkill for the resistances, but since I have no obsidan jewelry this might be the way to go. The staff on the other hand means giving up the shield. Any comments on shields are also appreciated.

I am currently doing nightmare (caves and hell). Caves are easy whereas hell depends a lot on the monsters. My last encounter with azure drakes (3 games back) was... difficult to say the least.

My current equipment:
Wizardspike
Sword of Heavens(+15)
Mindcry
Stormshield
Obsidian Shield(Ac 8, 39% Resist All)

PS. I am aware that a character's equipment should be seen as a whole, but by restricting it to weapons and shields I'm focusing on what I find most difficult

There are generally two accepted ways to play a sorcerer in std diablo: tank and arty. The idea of a tank mage is to get high ac which allows you to tp into anything and start casting. It is the method I use, and is a very quick way to gain exp. although it is admittedly pretty boring.

Tank mages require a high ac plate, so knowing your plate is crucial. If you have a high enough plate then add a stormshield and a high ac helm (generally royal circlet) and you are good to go (if your plate is truly high end you can forgo one of those). The fast block on the SS is helpful too. There are a number of issues you might face (in addition to finding the aforementioned helm and armor (it would be useful to know what you have)). The major one is getting resistance + getting enough strength to use the full plate (you need 90 str for a full plate - SS gives you 10).

If this isn´t an option, and I´m guessing it isn´t, then you need to play more carefully and keep a good distance. In this case you don´t need high ac or a shield, although resistances are always nice so you can take a beating from magic shooters. The std armor is Naj´s light plate which gives you resistances + other good stuff. Until you find that you should remember that Griz can sell obs armor of whatever, and since ac isn´t an issue (read you don´t have any, so deal) you can buy any type he sells (obs shirt of sorcery or the stars). The same goes for helms. This frees you up from looking for resistances in rings so you can use any ring you find. Staffs (AA or otherwise) in this setup are o.k. since you are in trouble if people get close anyway, although losing the wizardspike will mean you need a bit more res from your armor and helm. The wizardspike is o.k. too. Regarding emarald stuff - you are more likely to find a dreamflange than a suffixed emmy one handed weapon (there are less than 10 bosses that can drop it, no regular monsters, griz can´t sell it, and most of them are over the price limit at wirt - not to mention at level 34 he can´t sell sorcery anyway). So in the meantime I would use the wizardspike, obs shield, obs/jade armor or helm (which will max your resists) and then whatever else you find that works best for you. Dreamflanges can be hard to find. I found my first one when my mage was lvl 40 (of course I found the second one the same day - damn Murphy).

One other thing to remember, if you have no resistance to a certain attack then you will try to block the attack if you have a shield, and you will get stunned if you don´t block. This slows things down a lot, so it´s good to have at least a little resistance to everything.

[weakwarrior]

A couple of final thoughts. If you try and cast a spell you can´t block so be wary of just trying to use a shield to keep melee people away. If you want to know how much ac you need for you character level and the area you are in langolier has an excellent site - http://www.dpsyche.com. You can also look at your chance of finding specific equipment there as well.

[Nystul]

In the absence of Dreamflange, Wizardspike is actually pretty darn good. It would be #2 on my list. But that really depends on your playing style and the other equipment you choose. I don't really need much resistance from a weapon if I will be getting some from my shield, armor, and Thinking Cap. If you are going for high AC, then you could benefit more from the big resistance weapons. Emerald weapons are hard to come by, but obsidian weapons can be bought from Griswold, and 2 high obsidian items will get you to 75% resistance.

There is not much point in considering 2 handed weapons when you already have Wizardspike and nice shield options. But some people do like to have the most destructive fireball humanly possible, in which case the AA/Wiz has some appeal.

A lot of mages keep a second weapon to deal with triple immunes (especially the advocates on hell/hell 16). The main point of this weapon would be to deal as much damage as possible. Civerb's Cudgel is very popular for this. Or something along the lines of a king's sword of slaughter. Keep in mind also that if you depend on your main weapon for fire resistance (as you might with an emerald or obsidian weapon), you would need to adjust your level 16 setup to make sure you have high fire resistance with your high damage weapon.

This class is inherently very powerful once you get your magic built up and read a lot of books. Items are purely optional, even in hell/hell. Warriors don't have such a luxury! Once you've got the playing style down, it should be a walk in the park regardless of items.

[Mahida]

Thank you both for your replies, it looks very useful. I'll try a lot of miniquotes to make it obvious which part I'm answering:

There are generally two accepted ways to play a sorcerer in std diablo: tank and arty. The idea of a tank mage is to get high ac which allows you to tp into anything and start casting. It is the method I use, and is a very quick way to gain exp. although it is admittedly pretty boring.

I guess my way could be described as a combination of the most defensive elements from those two. I like the protection from (relatively) high AC, since monsters often do get close to me. I NEVER teleport blindly in uncleared areas. Actually I don't teleport much at all. Or use Stone Curse. My hotkeys are all for attack spells. I imagine I'll need to change that when I push towards Hell/Hell, but right now it works for me. I've experimented with changing the hotkeys if an entire dlvl if immune to fire or lightning. Not sure if I like it yet...

Tank mages require a high ac plate, so knowing your plate is crucial. If you have a high enough plate then add a stormshield and a high ac helm (generally royal circlet) and you are good to go (if your plate is truly high end you can forgo one of those). The fast block on the SS is helpful too. There are a number of issues you might face (in addition to finding the aforementioned helm and armor (it would be useful to know what you have)). The major one is getting resistance + getting enough strength to use the full plate (you need 90 str for a full plate - SS gives you 10).

I'm wearing a Saintly Plate (AC 43, +123%, Real AC 95, Req Str 65), and it is the highest AC I have found so far. Probably not what you call high AC plate though. I have a Jade Helm (+22%) and a Helm of the Stars(+11). This leaves my jewelry, but I have 20 of those so I'm not going to list it!
With a setup to max AC, I can push it to 175.

One other thing to remember, if you have no resistance to a certain attack then you will try to block the attack if you have a shield, and you will get stunned if you don´t block. This slows things down a lot, so it´s good to have at least a little resistance to everything.

Failing to block is not really an issue. The max setup mentioned above gives me perfect block vs. anything in Hell/Hell! At least as far as I can tell (174 Dex). My usual setup puts dex at 100-120. Not perfect, but enough to stop most hits, if blocking is possible. In any case I never go with zero res to anything unless I already know the monsters on that dlvl have no attack of that kind.

In the absence of Dreamflange, Wizardspike is actually pretty darn good. It would be #2 on my list. But that really depends on your playing style and the other equipment you choose. I don't really need much resistance from a weapon if I will be getting some from my shield, armor, and Thinking Cap. If you are going for high AC, then you could benefit more from the big resistance weapons. Emerald weapons are hard to come by, but obsidian weapons can be bought from Griswold, and 2 high obsidian items will get you to 75% resistance.

There is not much point in considering 2 handed weapons when you already have Wizardspike and nice shield options. But some people do like to have the most destructive fireball humanly possible, in which case the AA/Wiz has some appeal.

Ok, so Wizardspike is #2 and no point in buying an AA/Wiz staff. Yay! I've seen two at Adria so far without buying them and I was starting to wonder if it was stupid to refuse them. This clears my conscience, thanks!
I'll keep a lookout at Griz for Obsidian 1-handed weapons.

A lot of mages keep a second weapon to deal with triple immunes (especially the advocates on hell/hell 16). The main point of this weapon would be to deal as much damage as possible. Civerb's Cudgel is very popular for this. Or something along the lines of a king's sword of slaughter. Keep in mind also that if you depend on your main weapon for fire resistance (as you might with an emerald or obsidian weapon), you would need to adjust your level 16 setup to make sure you have high fire resistance with your high damage weapon.

I planned to avoid keeping high dam weapons so far, since I wouldnt need it till Hell/Hell. If I find a CC or King's/Slaughter then it's a definite keep, but anything less would just be taking up inventory space and annoying me for the time being.

This class is inherently very powerful once you get your magic built up and read a lot of books. Items are purely optional, even in hell/hell. Warriors don't have such a luxury! Once you've got the playing style down, it should be a walk in the park regardless of items.

So I keep reading. I did pick the class at random as I have almost always done whenever I'm creating a character in D1, D2 or anything similar. The only exception being if I've already played that class so much I want something new.

[weakwarrior]

I planned to avoid keeping high dam weapons so far, since I wouldnt need it till Hell/Hell. If I find a CC or King's/Slaughter then it's a definite keep, but anything less would just be taking up inventory space and annoying me for the time being.

Just a few quick points. A CC will appear very rarely in hell as if a unique mace is dropped it will probably be a dreamflange - not that you would mind. If you get to hell/hell and still don't have a CC I'd recommend a few normal difficulty butcher runs. King's sword's of slaughter can only be found at Wirt and the best ones even he can't sell (price limit), so don't hold your breath on that. If you see a king's sword of haste or speed at Griz you should probably buy it. When all is said and done, despite the fact that CCs are very plebian, they will almost certainly deal more damage per shot/time than any other one handed weapon.

Regarding inventory, I would recommend when you have collected a good number of things you want to keep, but don't plan on using anytime soon, that you backup your character (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/content/view/750/109/ - it's a good idea to do this anyway), go to battlenet, find someone who will hold a game for you, make a regular difficulty game, drop all the stuff you want to save, quit the game, create a new character (I recommend a warrior because of his starting Str), join the game and pick up your stuff. These characters are commonly referred to as mules for obvious reasons. This will free up your inventory on your main character. If for some reason you can't join the game after you dropped your stuff, you will still have the character backed up.

[Sekel]

Hmm, I love Arch Angels staves, so I wouldnt put them on the scrap list. But ok, generally its not a good choice for a tank mage (as long as we consider tank mage as a good choice). I put Dreamflange as the NO.1 to the list -> +1 slvl, huge amount of mana and +50% rezist magic ... what can beat it?
BTW: if happens, that monsters are getting near to you too often and you AC is not very effective, you wil need fast block shield anyway. I vote for Holly Defender.

Nevertheless, my mages tend to use AAW staff. FB at slvl 20 is really nice and slvl 20 Golem can kill 2 stonecursed Advocates in a row. Its ultimate definition of arty mage. Maxed attacking power in cost of nonexisting defence. NO.2

As for the rest I think that Mindcry and Wizardspike are fine. Its hard to say which one is better. It depends whether you are looking for more mana or +slvl.

And the + all resist weapons..... its fine to have one for item recovery, for the moments when you die in the middle of group of 120 witches, but .... topaz/amber/jade/obsidian jewel can do the same.
Obsi weapon can be a choice in case you have no other possibility to get some resist.
Keep some tripple immune killer instead. CC, Kings/speed swords are good choices. I wouldnt loose my time with shopping for Kings/Slaugter, but hey, maybe you get lucky.

As Nystul said

This class is inherently very powerful once you get your magic built up and read a lot of books. Items are purely optional, even in hell/hell. Warriors don't have such a luxury! Once you've got the playing style down, it should be a walk in the park regardless of items.

There are still some monsters I dont want to meet very often even with high lvl sorc, but whatever. All what is needed for item recovery is a little of mana :-)