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Fire Sorceress build

Fire Sorceress has best balance of damage, survivability, and supply among all sorceress builds. Most gears for this build are cheap, making this build very budget-friendly.

Character stats

• Strength: A total of 156 with all gears/charms to wield the Monarch shield with Phoenix runeword.
• Dexterity: None.
• Vitality: All other points.
• Energy: None.

Skills

Add 20 points to each of the following skills:

• Fire Bolt (synergy skill to increase the damage of Fire Ball).
• Fire Ball (main attack skill, small area damage).
• Meteor (synergy skill to increase the damage of Fire Ball).
• Fire Mastery (synergy skill to increase the damage of Fire Ball).
• Hydra (secondary attack skill, great for scouting and assisting Fire Ball).

Add 1 point to each of the following skills:

• Warmth (for faster mana regeneration).
• Static Field (quickly slash surrounding enemies’ life).
• Teleport (for faster movement).
• Frozen Armor (for increased armor).
• all necessary passby skills.

Remarks:

1. Hydra can be cast from distance and is particularly effective against Souls and Stygian Dolls which are very dangerous enemies.
2. Meteor has high damage but it also has very long cooldown. It also takes a while for the meteors to fall and the enemies are probably mostly killed by then. Therefore it is not a useful skill in real battles.
3. The player can cast Enchant on allies to increase their physical damages. The duration is very long.
4. The player can cast Blaze right before returning town to increase the sorceress’ run speed there. This is helpful to save time since the sorceress cannot teleport in town. However, Blaze has very short duration.

Gears

• Shield: Monarch shield base with Phoenix runeword providing level 15 Redemption Aura for life and mana regeneration from enemy corpses; -28% enemy fire resistance greatly increase the fire damages made by the sorceress; +10% maximum fire resistance and +5% maximum lightning resistance increase the maximum resistances of the sorceress to these two types of damage.

• Helm: Diadem (or other helms with good defense but require strength no greater than 156) with Flickering Flame runeword: +3 Fire Skills and -15% Enemy Fire Resistance for higher fire damage on targets; Level 8 Fire Resist aura to gain +107% Fire Resistance on the character and +5% Maximum Fire Resistance; Additional mana, Half Freeze Duration, and Poison Length Reduction by 50% are also very useful attributes.

• Gloves: Magefist for its +1 Fire Skills and +20% Faster Cast Rate.

• Belt: Arachnid Mesh for +1 All Skills and +20% Faster Cast Rate.

• Armor: Skin of the Vipermagi for +1 All Skills, +30% Faster Cast Rates, +35 All Resistance. Add one socket with one Lightning Facet for -5% Enemy Lightning Resistance. Can be upgraded for higher defense.

• Rings: Stone of Jordan on both hands, each providing +1 All Skills, 20 Mana, and +25% Maximum Mana.

• Boots: Rare boots with Lightning, Fire, and Poison Resistances. Additional +30% Faster Run/Walk Speed and +10% Faster Hit Recovery are also very useful. Poison Length Reduction and Half Freeze Duration are also useful attributes.

• Weapon: Magic one-hand sorceress orb with +3 Fire Skills for Sorceresses, +20% Faster Cast Rate, +3 Fire Ball skill, and +2 sockets with Fire Facets for -10% Enemy Fire Resistance. Additional Hydra or Fire Mastery skills, life, and mana are also useful.

• Amulet: If using a magic one-hand sorceress orb with +20% Faster Cast Rate, then equip a caster amulet with +2 All Sorceress Skills, +15% Faster Cast Rate (to reach a total of +105% Faster Cast Rate), and some resistance on Lightning, Fire, and Poison. Strength and life are also useful attributes.

• Switch Weapon and Shield: Crystal Sword or Flail with Call to Arms runeword to bump all skills by 1 and life/mana for 60%+, and Monarch shield with Spirit runeword to increase the skill levels on Call to Arms.

• Inventory: Sorceress Torch, Annihilus, Flame Rift charm (aka the fire sunder grand charm), 7 Fire Skill grand charms with life or Faster Hit Recovery, All Resistance small charms with life or Faster Hit Recovery to make 42% Faster Hit Recovery, and max out Fire/Lightning/Poison resistances, and more life the better.

Remarks:

1. Alternative weapon and amulet combination: If the sorceress orb above is not available, one can also use the Eschuta’s Temper with +3 All Sorceress Skills, +40% Faster Cast Rate, and +1 socket with Fire Facet for -5% Enemy Fire Resistance. Then use Mara’s Kaleidoscope for its +2 All Skills and +30 All Resistances which also increase the skill levels on Call to Arms. The combination of Eschuta’s Temper and Mara’s aleidoscope has a little lower damage than the combination of magic orb and caster amulet above does, but is a lot cheaper than the latter.

2. +25 fire skill levels: +3 from weapon, +3 from helm, +2 from amulet, +1 from armor, +1 from belt, +2 from rings, +1 from gloves, +3 from Torch, +1 from Annihilus, +7 from skill charms, and +1 from Battle Command on Call to Arms.

3. -58% enemy fire resistance: -10% from weapon, -15% from helm, -28% from shield, and -5% from armor.

4. +105% faster cast rate: +20% from weapon, +15% from amulet, +30% from armor, +20% from belt, and +20% from gloves.

5. Weapon with 6 socketed fire facets: while it provides -30% enemy fire resistance (versus -10% on the magic orb), it does not have any faster cast rate and the only way to make this up is by replacing the two Stone of Jordan rings with rings having +10% faster cast rate. This choice sacrifices too many skill levels and is not worth it.

6. Armor with 4 socketed fire facets: for -20% enemy fire resistance (versus -5% on the Skin of the Vipermagi), such armor lacks +1 All Skills, +30% faster cast rate, and +35% all resistances which are too useful to lose.

7. Ormus’ Robes: only provide +20% faster cast rate which means the sorceress has to replace either the amulet with one having +17% faster cast rate or one Stone of Jordan with some ring having +10% faster cast rate. Meanwhile, Ormus’ Robes does not have any resistance and +1 all skill levels like the Skin of Vipermagi. The benefit of having +3 Fire Ball skills seems not enough to compensate the loss.

8. Put Flickering Flame on mercenary: the sorceress will probably use a helm with +2 all skills, +20% faster cast rate, +2 socketed fire facet. This does not have the 10% maximum fire resistance, poison length reduction, half freeze duration, and only has -10% enemy fire resitance. Therefore, it is less preferred than putting the Flickering Flame on the sorceress.

Mercenary

Use Act II Mercenary with Defiance Aura and the following gears:

• Weapon: Ethereal Thresher/Giant Thresher/Great Poleaxe with Infinity runeword for its Conviction Aura.
• Helm: Ethereal helm with high defense and the Cure runeword for its level 1 Cleansing Aura to reduce poison length and curse duration.
• Armor: Ethereal armor with high defense with the Chains of Honor ruenword for boosting all resistance and life leech.

Remarks:

1. The combination of Andariel’s Visage and Fortitude runeword can be an alternative for high defense at the cost of losing the Cleansing Aura.

2. The Holy Freeze Aura will freeze enemies which will not have corpses left after being killed. This makes negative effect to the Redemption Aura.

Summary

• Attack: the high-level Fire Ball and Hydra make huge damage to enemies with skill grand charms, -58% enemy fire resistance, and +105% Faster Cast Rate.

• Survivability: The Fire, Light, and Poison resistances should be maxed out, particularly at 90%, 80%, and 75%, respectively. The Cold resistance is at a high level over 30%.

• Supply: The Redemption Aura constantly consumes bodies of killed enemies for life and mana generation.