So, I've been playing D2 a lot lately. Just created a sorceress who got to L30 last night. I've been distributing points between cold and lightning spells. Need to decide now which way I want to specialize. I have no idea which way I want to go yet. Looking for opinions

 

Blizzard: With the right synergies, the highest damage inflicting spell in the game, and area affect to boot. But damage occurs over time, and has a fairly long casting delay, making it tricky to use effectively. Really need a good tank to make this work, but damn awesome if you can arrange it.

 

Frozen Orbs: This spell seems to be the dominate one these days - I saw a L74 frozen orb sorceress solo'ing the cows without breaking a sweat. Damn sweet spell - lots of damage over a wide area and the casting delay isn't too bad. But mostly just useful for mowing down large mobs in a hurry. Against one or two individual monsters, or a cold immune monster, useless.

 

Chain Lightning: Minimal casting delay, can do crazy amounts of damage in a big hurry, barely need to aim - hit one monster and the rest is automatic. Damage is, however, highly variable - it is possible for any given bolt to do a whopping one point of damage, or, with the right synergies and equipment, thousands of points of damage. Fast cast rate helps compensate for this damage irregularity.

 

Charged Bolt: Negligible casting time, minimal mana use. Damage may seem low at first glance, but with the right equipment and lightning mastery at max, it can be surprisingly effective. But for maximum effectiveness, requires casting at close range, thus can be dangerous to cast.

 

 

Basically, the cold spells are more oriented to group play where tanks are important, while the lightning spells can work well in solo play. Can't decide....

idk im a weird player at that... i always went fire... donno why then i started running a paladin

 

Heh, my brother and his friend finally coerced me into playing D2 a while ago. My strategy was necromancer + skeleton spam. (we don't have the update that nerfed it) 3 of us had something like 40 some combined skeletons, skeleton mages, golems and mercs.

Heh, my brother and his friend finally coerced me into playing D2 a while ago. My strategy was necromancer + skeleton spam. (we don't have the update that nerfed it) 3 of us had something like 40 some combined skeletons, skeleton mages, golems and mercs.

 

Definitely do not see many necros around, and I don't think I've seen a single high-level necro yet.

 

Though I was playing with one yesterday who had bone wall and he fenced in Diablo and was able to contain him long enough for the rest of us to kill him with ranged attacks. It was awesome.

idk im a weird player at that... i always went fire... donno why then i started running a paladin

 

Fire is good, although seemingly rare these days. But I don't think I've seen a single lightning sorceress yet. That's one of the reasons I'm leaning towards one of the two lightning specializations - just to be different.

So I finally went with frozen orbs. Got it up to skill level 5, and cold mastery at skill level 5. It's damn sweet - solo'ed almost all of act 1 in nightmare difficulty with very few problems.

i had a lvl89 frozen orb for single player a few years ago. she was damn sweet. nothing stood in her way... i think i mixed her with fireball though can't remember. so i will be biased here seeing i only played a frozen orb sorch, but i highly recommend her

orbs