Diablo 2: The Brother (And Sister)hood of EoFF

[Nominus Experse]

I need a few of your brains to help my own shriveled up one.


For my Enchantress Sorceress, I'm wondering if I ought to place all my points in Mana instead of Vitality.

I wonder if this may be a better option than Vitality due to the fact that Energy Shield will absorb around 93-95 percent of all damage done in exchange for around .75 Mana per point of damage. Additionally, there are items that boost maximum Mana by a very substantial amount , whereas I have yet to see an item give a maximum Life boost of 40% or 25%. Obviously, the higher the base number, the greater the percentage increase. A Sorceress also gains more Mana than Life per level.

And since I'm maxing Warmth and Enchant due to its bonuses (Increased Dmg, AR, and duration), "Life" will have a recovery rate of around 360%. I've thought about using an Insight mercenary, which would give me a Mana regeneration of around 1060%, but I don't know how applicable that would actually be. And the Conviction Aura is somewhat needed due to Sorceresses not having any skills other than Enchant that grant AR bonuses - not to mention the fact that such an aura removes most Lightning and/or Fire immunities.

3000 or so Mana is quite a barrier, if I do say so myself, and made even more so when each point of damage done is literally reduced by a 1/4 before my ES feels the brunt of it. But that barrier can be broken, especially since it takes full damage instead of receiving resist bonuses (I believe). Only my Life receives such a luxury. And the scary part of it all is that I would only have around 580 Life if I pour points in Mana instead of Life.

It's a shame that resists are not factored in until after Energy Shield has taken damage, because I ought to have 74% resists on all elements in Hell difficulty - a feat usually only achieved by Paladins.



So I'm not entirely certain what route I ought to take. I have done a number of test runs in Single Player, and placing all my points in Mana instead of Life seemed a better option. The only real issue I had when placing all my points in Mana instead of Vitality was when I came across hordes of Lightning enchanted Scarab Beetles in the Worldstone Keep. For one reason or another, these slaughtered me (probably because of the resists not being factored in for ES), even going so far as to crash the game.

But everything else, I was able to kill (and with ease, I might add) and survive with payers set to 8 - including Baal's Minions of Destruction.

Everything dies in one or two hits, and Baal dies in around four or five.

31897 average damage is sexy (without Conviction Aura from Mercenary factored in).



*An interesting thing I found out is that I am almost immune to the curses Weaken and Iron Maiden. Since all my damage comes from a stacked Lvl 30 Holy Shock aura and Enchant, The effects of Weaken or minimal, and Iron Madain only caused my Mana to deplete by around 700-1000.

EDIT: I was thinking that it may prove beneficial for all of us playing to make a list of items that we are currently IN NEED OF, OMFG looking for. It may a compliment to the character sheet, or I could simply post updates every week.

If this sounds of any use or interest to you, PM me.




And I need a pair of Frostburns, along with any Small Charms with the following mods:
Fine (AR)
Steel (AR)
Iron (AR)
Serpent's (Mana)
Vita (Life)
Balance (FHR)

Any small charms that deal more than 20-30 Fire or Lightning damage.