for this build you might consider only one row of full rejuvs, a row of super health pots and a row of antidote pots to counteract slow poison or remove faster/longer poisons. 4 full rejuvs are usually enough for emergencies and antidotes and super health make poison so much less of a headache.
I honestly loved this build for my first sorc on D2R. I have been rocking it for a while on my non ladder softcore and loving it. It does certainly sacrifice kill speed but as someone who has been slowly coming back into playing im not as worried about kill speed vs not dying every 30 seconds
I use this on build on hardcore with prayer instead. Delirium and gloom for merc, no life steal but its good. You can also make an invincible smiter. You use guardian angel, blackhorns face, snowclash, the rising sun, some damage reduction, sol runes, high runes to cap out 95 allres. Finish it off with a last wish. And boom, you take no phsyical damage, fire, lightning, and cold heal you. And with the replenish from the rising sun poison doesnt even tick.
also you can use exile for life tap proc too, but actually running ubers like this, I found I typically don't even need lifetap as I'm getting healed by all the mobs anyway.
Honestly I'm glad to see someone actually use an orb sorc with energy shield. it's always been my go to build, with the extra points left over it easily allows you to dual element and not hurt your cold ability. Though I've always ran the standard spirit, I can definitly see this being a good build.
btw poison length reduced by % is a really nice quality of life stat for ES sorcs since poison bypasses ES and is one of the most annoying types of damage for this build
that's why plague would be an ideal weapon to use the psn reduction from sanctuary alone is worth + skills n chance to cast lower res when hit = perfect for this build
Oh man, I just started HC this season and ripped yesterday on NM council. First NM rip ever for me, played fast and loose. But this sorc was the goal. Rerolling today
Welcome to HC. Once you go HC you can never go back to SC. I ripped my 200fcr nova sorc this season. I forgot to set loot with my buddy. I was heart broken. I found a perfect blizzard ormus a couple days after. So I traded for a deaths fathom and make a 10k blizzard sorc.
This was my first ladder build almost accidentally, dropped Occy, Shako, Vipermagi, and Gerke's all in the same weekend. Went straight for the new Nova synergy, and I absolutely love this character. The Sol runes are totally awesome, I socketed one in a Gladiator's Bane body armor to get even more insane Damage Reduction. It's a really sick body armor for the immortality factor, however, I think getting at least 75% FCR is almost necessary for the grind factor. Isting a Suicide Branch or using a HoTo can help balance the FCR/MF tradeoff like you mentioned. :)
@@Zapzdoughnut sorry for late reply. You can take her ANYWHERE :D she is almost invincible. For early farming, I go to the Arcane Sanctuary. You gain decent XP until level 86-87 here, plus there are no Lightning Immune monsters. You can also do the Eldritch-Shenk-Pindle circuit in Act 5, skipping if they're immune. Once your damage & resistance is higher, go to Chaos, Worldstone Keep, and Secret Cow level. She's also one of the best Key farmers, so look forward to Countess and Nihlathak.
We used to do this way back in the day 22 years ago for pvp. However it was with a shaftstop body, string of ears belt, occy, stormshield, shako or vamp gaze, all socketed with um for resists and bulkath and stone of jordan.
Consider some options here. A Prayer A2 Merc will regen your HP to offset the need to potion. It's a fixed amount, but at high levels that small amount will pretty much fill up your need to pot. Another thing about ES is that you are sacrificing 40 points, so synergy does get lost. I would only consider Orb or other niche builds, but Blizzard is a terrible choice for ES. For Amulet or Helm choices, you can find 2 class skills 25 Damage Reduction magic amulets and circlets, which you can then socket with Mal Runes for Magic Damage Reduction. For HC it may be preferred to do ES, but SC builds Vita is just a lot better.
If you plan to grind to 99 in SC, every death is a massive setback once you hit 97 or so. I would consider this build if I was wanting to grind exp while watching Netflix or something.
Hello, I have a few questions for this interesting build. 1. What about manaburn enemies? Won't those just wreck your energy shield? 2. How does this setup do against dclone and trist? 3. What about immune monsters and Sunder Charms? If you use the sunder for your relevant attack your own resists goes down, or does that simply not matter? 4. How "bad" is the damage? Would their damage even contribute much in a full game and the like, or are you more or less just kind of "there" at that point? Thanks bunches. I have usually avoided sorc's because I dislike playing squishies, but this might be a good option for me.
In the past, manaburn ennemies was glitched, they removed all your mana in one shot. That's why ES build was not viable since the release of Diablo 2. But it's now fixed and a manaburn ennemy burn your mana like a hit... It's not a big deal. Sunder charms are so good with ES build because resists are useless here. Elemental dmg are apply to the ES before the resist. So if you have 95% absorb to mana with a ES level 40 and add to that magic reduced from your stuff and Mal rune on your stuff, your perectly fine and just need poison resist like he explained here. Other resist are bonus of course. Of course, the survivability of ES cost you almost 40 points (you need 20 hard point in TK and 20 points in ES, but maybe 15 if you have a lot of + skill and/or a good memory staff), so the dmg output is less than other build. But it's still enough. I have a Nova ES sorc because I want to only focus on lightning skill, it's way easier and the dmg output is good. The build here is really good, but it's maybe a little cheap. You can see a other similar build here : maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/l90106q7 With 86 dmg reduced and 66 magic reduced, it's invincible. It's like a perfect build with perfect roll and everything of course, but you can take some good ideas. And of course, Skill charm with Srt is so, so good with this build. I don't did Dclone, so I don't know. But like showed here, you can facetank pretty much every boss of the game without losing life at all... I only play Hardcore and it's a really good build.
This setup is extremely realistic. I didn't know about the shield tho! So ty Phil! Also, I do something really similar to this but I use regen rate instead of frostburns. I have noticed that if you get your mana high enough and w about 250% or higher regen rate, the insight merc becomes overkill and you can then go to an infinity merc (I use the holy freeze to slow enemies). Lowly emphasized in this build is telekinesis. Manashield is trash w no points into telekinesis. Even just 10 points makes a world of difference!!
If you don't wanna spend the points into being able to use spirit, use a splendor or sigon's shield. They both have +1 and have lower str requirements. Why no prayer Merc for insight synergy?
Another Sol-heavy build in Legacy used to be Taunt-Barb by SSoG. Turned everything into ever-whiffing meleer. You could even charge into a pack of cows with Zerk and live. Just for memes.
I go warmth with Blaze, i like what you did with flat rate, will try. Blaze you got to run a lot and close to enemies. You good have a few antidote potions stacked to offset the poison.
Poison is not the only devastating thing for this build... With 2500 max mana, you can get destroyed by a group or 2 groups of black souls using lightning attack on you, completely devastating your mana pool, then energy shield turns off and you die. Energy shield is only a 25% dmg reduction against lightning damage when you look at the mana pool, and that very high base lightning dmg without proper mitigation is hard defend. Lightning resist only applies after energy shield, so your mana pool cannot be defended unless its like 3000 - 3500.
Hey Phil - I love this build - started building it for my Sorc, but I have found that 1 Energy is only giving me 2 Mana. Do you know if that's been changed in the 2.4.3 patch, or am I bugged?
You probably not very high level. When you get up in the high 80s and have 100s of points into mana you will be getting 4 mana per point. It wasn't changed. How it's always been.
Ahh gotcha I didn’t realize that was not consistent while leveling up - I have forgotten so much in the 20 or so years since I played original D2 :) Anyway yea I’m about halfway thru Nightmare - level 55 now
@@SweetPhil But I think i figured it out - you've got increase maximum mana by x% gear, which is almost doubling your mana - so, yea, you're still getting a base increase of 2 mana per point in energy, but then your gear is almost doubling that. Try putting your points in energy without the gear on, and I'm pretty sure you'll see it is, in fact, 2 mana per 1 energy :)
when you have more mana than health, the succubus's curse you with a special curse that steals your HP equal to the amount of mana you use. so, if you're teleing to baal, you can theoretically take bunch of dmg from just using your skills.
I'm running a similar build style, but nova instead of orb, phoenix shield, wizspike instead of occy, 2x soj , ararch, silkweaves and a 2 20 ammy. It wrecks chaos. I swap to tgod and wisp if doing worldstone keep. Also it's non ladder. Im too poor on ladder, lol.
I have been messing around with different set ups with the ES build. My favorite so far is Gbane with a Sol and Sprit shield. Sorce is a Nova sorc for key/cow farming. She does 3600 damage, Hits the 105% fcr bp and has 3200 Mana. Not 100% Immortal but she is a TANK. easily does enough damage for higher player levels. Good guide Phil, Love the channel and content.
@@Derzull2468 Unless I get poisoned or blood mana cursed... I can face tank Nilathak no problem. I kill him before he takes even half my mana. I seldom have to pot to take him out.
in early d2 days if you equpipped +3 to bow skills on an act 1 mercenary ... it loses the ability to shoot and instead casting an lighting inferno spell. did ridiculus dmg but was fixed pretty soon.
Finally I have a character that can farm any location. Even without the shield, a shako, a merc running infinity, or a similar ammy, this build still works remarkably well.
I use Kalt billzard buield LV91. Is this buield worth converting to reach level 99? chaos baal runs kill boos quickly? Unfortunately I don't have all the items. I am an offline player
more mana after each kill if you can get it, I run mp enigma, verdungos, shako, soj & fcr ring, fcr amulet. obsession, +3hydra/+3meteor. Max tk, no es(use swap for buff) max hydra and fire mastery, orb, some cold Mastery, frozen armor. With tk synergy and all the dmg reduction, 75 all res, dmg taken goes to mana, (does work) I havnt died in well over a month. Mana curse is nothing, I just split life/mana smart. 15 base strength. My non ladder nova sorc is built similar, hoto, grifs, spirit, infinity merc, silkweaves. Sometimes verdungos sometimes arachnids. es swap so no hard points , max tk. Nova. Static. 1 pt in hydra & fire mastery. Just because I can and it's great VS gloams/black souls/bosses/temptress packs. Feels about invincible even in 8p. My goal. Is to combine the two. Obsession staff with nova/hydra, no hard points in hydra. +fire mastery or frozen armor would be nice additional on obsession for the saved point. Or es/nova obsession, cta swap instead of memory works too but I never use cta anyway. base strength 15, pretty even life/mana, 2/20 amulet so I can drop the fcr ring for the second soj and not need fcr from arachnids... But not necessarily all set in stone. It's extremely fun, reminds me of way back when nova sorc with damage reduction and energy shield was my ONLY build. Baal, cake, ghosts, np. Undead stigian dolls? Probably need to let 10 blow up at onnce. Fall asleep in the middle of cows? Done it. Last wave of baals minions? Zzzz. I stood there and ate it. Obviously always pay attention to curses on your merc and self, amp dmg is the worst of them but completely manageable. Yeah. It's expensive. Big deal, already going to be consolidating best gear on main characters, and preparing for the next ladder sorc. I already have 3 different sorcs, 2 barbs, and 4 pallys. Gear shouldn't be a super huge hurdle for most people at this stage. Imo. Just play to have fun, sometimes wierd shit works out the best. :)
Energy Shield builds don't need resistances other than to poison. Energy shield is not affected by elemental damage and therefore resistances are not needed.
This is pretty cool. My one concern is it seems to sacrifice so much on kill speed for an overkill on survivability. I personally like more of a balance between the two.
I used to precast a 95% ES immortal nova sorc for pubs back in the day and would annoy the shit out of people because they couldn't kill you. Great troll build
is Sol rune (damage reduced by 7) better than Ber rune (damage reduced by 8%) ? is gerrke sanctuary better than stormshield ? (kind of same question : one's got damage reduced by number, the other by a %) in a way : is Sol rune a ber rune "budget" ? thanks for your responses :)
Thundergod is not that good choice. Good ES sorc need arach or Tal rasha belt. Also choice of mercenary is not optimal. Usualy Prayer is best one to synergize with insight prayer for double effect. Thats quite important as ES sorc struggle with poison and double prayer counter that effectively.
@@serious409 ok i get that, my answer is same, not optimal setup. For tank bulid is not only important high defense but most importanly decent block. Thats why you use tal belt, it has +20 dex improving block chance, it has also some MF you need too obviously, +30 Mana and some damage goes to mana, whcih is not significant with high ES level, but still usefull. An arach is used for different reasons, +skills increase level of BO and increase mana by 5%. Its quite pointless to use Thundergods on ES sorc because of order of incoming dmg and energy shield.
having block is a high investment. sorc don't need block. if you don't have fast block recovery than it's the same as a stun lock. when blocking. it is inconvenient to have as well. when you need to keep casting. you just need faster hit recovery.
Is there a way to get enough mana regen without Insight? I was thinking you just use an Infinity and rock Nova. It’s the perfect play style because you’re not afraid of damage. And then you’re not limited to farming ancient tunnels, mephisto, stony tombs, etc.
Playing without the aura from Insight is tough when you have this much Mana, but yeah if you can rock a Crescent Moon on your main hand, you can get the best of both worlds. EDIT: Although you really want a good Eschuta's Temper and Griffon's to drop the immunities like an Infinity would.
tbh might as well go for a mix es wich has always been tougher and just put spirit shield in from the get go for the huge start it is between some of the part choosen and the es maxed this build ... sux O_o not only are you not as tough as a mix es but you have no dmg xD
Hey phil, i was wondering if you’d ever cover Classic mode content. I know its not popular but theres definitely a small community still playing classic which is more challenging(some may call it boring), but the play style is definitely different without runewords.
No, you need the flat dmg reduction, not the % dmg reduction that stormshield has, and Sanctuary shield doesnt give enough reduction. In theory you can get enough flat dmg reduction without a shield at all, allowing you to play what ever other shield you want or even use a staff, but you would need to get enough flat dmg reduction from other gear then. You can also focus on getting gear that gets your Energy Shield to even higher lvl. A lvl 40 Energy Shield gets you 95% dmg reduction compared to the 84% in this video, so you wont need as much flat dmg reduction to reduce all dmg to 0. There is another hidden upside with energy shield, it more or less makes you immune to entering Hit Recovery, which is a type of stun from taking too much damage in one hit. Meaning that you can more or less always teleport around as you wish without worring about getting surrounded and permastunned. This is also a reason for trying to make a shieldless version of the build, since without shield you also have no % block rate, making you immune to being "blocklocked". That been said, i think a recent rebalance has made both hit recovery and blocklocks less punishing, so it might not matter as much anymore.
why the hell would you max ice bolt instead of cold mastery? am i missing some technicality that shouldnt exist in the game or is that just a dumb decision?
Energy shield is rocking. I suppose not everyone has a Griffons and +3 Eldrich orb but you can easilly get to level 90 on Nova alone and farm all the keys. Arcane Sanctuary itself is a under rated leveling place with runes and keys as rewards.
With high ES this is completely negligible. Say you get hit for 1000 with a 95% energy shield. The actual damage you take is 50 and this restores 5 mana (10% of damage taken). So with full synergy from telekinesis you would lose 713 mana (75% of 950) then get back 5 mana from the ring.
I like a blizzard frozen orb combo. Good aoe. Crit hits with blizz, and spread with FO. Feels good now since they dont share the cooldown. But works for me only with quickcast since there is much more clicking to rly get the rotation. But feels great overall If u know how to operate as a sorc, u dont need to max ur mana and ES this much so u can buff damage more. Imo feels that it clears much better cuz u can aim with FO, and blizzard has a punch even without its all synergies maxed out.
@@kuksio92 You might struggle to have enough skillpoints though, since you need atleast 44 skillpoints in the lightning tree for your Energy Shield. But i guess if you skip Ice Bolt synnergy for Frozen Orb then you could max out Blizzard aswell, though you would have no blizzard synnergy.
@@qubingjianshen8210 u don't rly need this much point into es and telekinesis if u know how to play a sorc. Phill's build is more proof of concept than anything usable in pve But if he would tube down the strength of es and telekinesis and out these into blizzard, then this char would be much more usable for farming etc.
@@kuksio92 You don't need even a single point in Telekinesis or ES to play sorc, infact some of the best sorc builds don't put any points in ES or even just 1 point if they want protection from getting stuck in Hit Recovery, but this video was about making a maxed out ES sorc so i fail to see your reasoning as valid. And "Phills" build have existed for many years already, its most definitely a tried and true pve build, mainly to play a tank role in hardcore, as being able to stand still infront of any boss in the game will help everyone elses DPS to stay high compared to when the boss is running around chasing someone. This build being able to tank anything is far more important for group pve then marginally increasing the builds dps. The main reason why this build have gotten more notice as of late is because blizzard "fixed" the mana burn bug that have crippled max ES builds for decades. ps. if you do a 1 point ES build you need to know what you are doing, as 1 point ES can often get you killed more then no ES at all. 1 point ES shield build are not for Energy sorcs, but for Vitality sorcs that are telestomping ontop of enemy groups.
@@qubingjianshen8210 I didn't say 1 point es I've out around 10 into es and 10 into telekinesis. With 600ish Mana and insight. It's good survivability and much better dps. It's just my opinion and way of playing.
Eth CV and an Andariel's Visage is basic merc gear?Pretty sure that is end game Merc gear unless you need to place the high end runewords on a merc then you are just rich.
To your point about no one cares about “damage reduced by x” that’s why I love playing hardcore makes stats core players don’t care about have a much higher value p.s wouldnt storm sheild work better with this build because of the damage reduction?
Is this game as popular as it was back in version 08 or 09 for PC? What platform you people play on? How full or empty are the servers? And finally, is it worth getting again? And be honest please. Nothing hurts worse than a boldfaced lie.
for this build you might consider only one row of full rejuvs, a row of super health pots and a row of antidote pots to counteract slow poison or remove faster/longer poisons. 4 full rejuvs are usually enough for emergencies and antidotes and super health make poison so much less of a headache.
So nice having thawing and antis.
I no this is a late reply but have prayer aura merc with max poison res means u heal faster than 95% of monsters in game poison damage
I honestly loved this build for my first sorc on D2R. I have been rocking it for a while on my non ladder softcore and loving it. It does certainly sacrifice kill speed but as someone who has been slowly coming back into playing im not as worried about kill speed vs not dying every 30 seconds
I use this on build on hardcore with prayer instead. Delirium and gloom for merc, no life steal but its good.
You can also make an invincible smiter. You use guardian angel, blackhorns face, snowclash, the rising sun, some damage reduction, sol runes, high runes to cap out 95 allres. Finish it off with a last wish. And boom, you take no phsyical damage, fire, lightning, and cold heal you. And with the replenish from the rising sun poison doesnt even tick.
Might try this thanks good for ubers?
For those of us who aren’t millionaires, can I use a Grief instead of LW? Lol
Oh yea didnt see last wish haha wats a cheap weapon could sub it for
@@MattSeesGray yeah you could you just lose out on the defiance and the super high level life tap (and might aura of course)
also you can use exile for life tap proc too, but actually running ubers like this, I found I typically don't even need lifetap as I'm getting healed by all the mobs anyway.
Honestly I'm glad to see someone actually use an orb sorc with energy shield. it's always been my go to build, with the extra points left over it easily allows you to dual element and not hurt your cold ability. Though I've always ran the standard spirit, I can definitly see this being a good build.
btw poison length reduced by % is a really nice quality of life stat for ES sorcs since poison bypasses ES and is one of the most annoying types of damage for this build
that's why plague would be an ideal weapon to use the psn reduction from sanctuary alone is worth + skills n chance to cast lower res when hit = perfect for this build
Depending on where you're farming, that poison can go from a minor nuisance to very detrimental. %length reduction is vital.
Good luck overstacking past the -100 penalty that the game doesnt tell you about.
For this build, I'd suggest using Silkweave boots for the 10% mana and 5 mana per kill. I do this for my nova sorc and it works great.
Sounds good
U can also find a something circlet of mechanics that gives 3 sockets and damage reduced, then rune it out for more dmg reduce
use a prayer merc on this build. it heals your hp super fast when you have ES. Also combats poison even more.
Oh man, I just started HC this season and ripped yesterday on NM council. First NM rip ever for me, played fast and loose. But this sorc was the goal. Rerolling today
Welcome to HC. Once you go HC you can never go back to SC. I ripped my 200fcr nova sorc this season. I forgot to set loot with my buddy. I was heart broken. I found a perfect blizzard ormus a couple days after. So I traded for a deaths fathom and make a 10k blizzard sorc.
@@NathanPsprague Thing is I have never ripped in NM before. It was always something in Norm or getting a toon built up and getting careless in Hell
This was my first ladder build almost accidentally, dropped Occy, Shako, Vipermagi, and Gerke's all in the same weekend. Went straight for the new Nova synergy, and I absolutely love this character. The Sol runes are totally awesome, I socketed one in a Gladiator's Bane body armor to get even more insane Damage Reduction. It's a really sick body armor for the immortality factor, however, I think getting at least 75% FCR is almost necessary for the grind factor. Isting a Suicide Branch or using a HoTo can help balance the FCR/MF tradeoff like you mentioned. :)
Where do you farm on her with nova?
@@Zapzdoughnut sorry for late reply. You can take her ANYWHERE :D she is almost invincible. For early farming, I go to the Arcane Sanctuary. You gain decent XP until level 86-87 here, plus there are no Lightning Immune monsters. You can also do the Eldritch-Shenk-Pindle circuit in Act 5, skipping if they're immune. Once your damage & resistance is higher, go to Chaos, Worldstone Keep, and Secret Cow level. She's also one of the best Key farmers, so look forward to Countess and Nihlathak.
We used to do this way back in the day 22 years ago for pvp. However it was with a shaftstop body, string of ears belt, occy, stormshield, shako or vamp gaze, all socketed with um for resists and bulkath and stone of jordan.
A major point almost nobody knows is having a magic amy that has +2 sorc skills and +20/25 damage reduce (not easy to find).
Consider some options here. A Prayer A2 Merc will regen your HP to offset the need to potion. It's a fixed amount, but at high levels that small amount will pretty much fill up your need to pot. Another thing about ES is that you are sacrificing 40 points, so synergy does get lost. I would only consider Orb or other niche builds, but Blizzard is a terrible choice for ES.
For Amulet or Helm choices, you can find 2 class skills 25 Damage Reduction magic amulets and circlets, which you can then socket with Mal Runes for Magic Damage Reduction. For HC it may be preferred to do ES, but SC builds Vita is just a lot better.
If you plan to grind to 99 in SC, every death is a massive setback once you hit 97 or so. I would consider this build if I was wanting to grind exp while watching Netflix or something.
Hello, I have a few questions for this interesting build.
1. What about manaburn enemies? Won't those just wreck your energy shield?
2. How does this setup do against dclone and trist?
3. What about immune monsters and Sunder Charms? If you use the sunder for your relevant attack your own resists goes down, or does that simply not matter?
4. How "bad" is the damage? Would their damage even contribute much in a full game and the like, or are you more or less just kind of "there" at that point?
Thanks bunches. I have usually avoided sorc's because I dislike playing squishies, but this might be a good option for me.
In the past, manaburn ennemies was glitched, they removed all your mana in one shot. That's why ES build was not viable since the release of Diablo 2. But it's now fixed and a manaburn ennemy burn your mana like a hit... It's not a big deal.
Sunder charms are so good with ES build because resists are useless here. Elemental dmg are apply to the ES before the resist. So if you have 95% absorb to mana with a ES level 40 and add to that magic reduced from your stuff and Mal rune on your stuff, your perectly fine and just need poison resist like he explained here. Other resist are bonus of course.
Of course, the survivability of ES cost you almost 40 points (you need 20 hard point in TK and 20 points in ES, but maybe 15 if you have a lot of + skill and/or a good memory staff), so the dmg output is less than other build. But it's still enough. I have a Nova ES sorc because I want to only focus on lightning skill, it's way easier and the dmg output is good.
The build here is really good, but it's maybe a little cheap. You can see a other similar build here :
maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/l90106q7
With 86 dmg reduced and 66 magic reduced, it's invincible. It's like a perfect build with perfect roll and everything of course, but you can take some good ideas. And of course, Skill charm with Srt is so, so good with this build.
I don't did Dclone, so I don't know. But like showed here, you can facetank pretty much every boss of the game without losing life at all...
I only play Hardcore and it's a really good build.
This amulet is actually sick.
Gladiators Bane is a better choice than Vipermagi imho and Natures Peace over dwarf star.
If you're using Lidless on the switch, for a skill board, you could also get away with Sigon's, since it also has a All Skills mod.
This setup is extremely realistic. I didn't know about the shield tho! So ty Phil!
Also, I do something really similar to this but I use regen rate instead of frostburns. I have noticed that if you get your mana high enough and w about 250% or higher regen rate, the insight merc becomes overkill and you can then go to an infinity merc (I use the holy freeze to slow enemies). Lowly emphasized in this build is telekinesis. Manashield is trash w no points into telekinesis. Even just 10 points makes a world of difference!!
This is the kind of build that keeps me close to Diablo II
u forgot to go for max block with gerkes...
Shouldn't you be switching to Warpspear or Memory for +6 to Energy Shield?
If you don't wanna spend the points into being able to use spirit, use a splendor or sigon's shield. They both have +1 and have lower str requirements. Why no prayer Merc for insight synergy?
Splendor nor sigon shield offer nothing to this build.
@@skatersirian it allows you to get +1 on CTA switch. Watch the video and realize why you're an idiot.
@@skatersirian Yeah it does... To go with his cta on switch for that 1 extra skill point.
You are slow@@skatersirian
@@thetavibes9021You use Memory runeword on swap. This video is a bad build
Another Sol-heavy build in Legacy used to be Taunt-Barb by SSoG. Turned everything into ever-whiffing meleer.
You could even charge into a pack of cows with Zerk and live. Just for memes.
I go warmth with Blaze, i like what you did with flat rate, will try. Blaze you got to run a lot and close to enemies. You good have a few antidote potions stacked to offset the poison.
Poison is not the only devastating thing for this build... With 2500 max mana, you can get destroyed by a group or 2 groups of black souls using lightning attack on you, completely devastating your mana pool, then energy shield turns off and you die. Energy shield is only a 25% dmg reduction against lightning damage when you look at the mana pool, and that very high base lightning dmg without proper mitigation is hard defend. Lightning resist only applies after energy shield, so your mana pool cannot be defended unless its like 3000 - 3500.
Finally some1 gives a shoutout to this shield
Hey Phil - I love this build - started building it for my Sorc, but I have found that 1 Energy is only giving me 2 Mana. Do you know if that's been changed in the 2.4.3 patch, or am I bugged?
You probably not very high level. When you get up in the high 80s and have 100s of points into mana you will be getting 4 mana per point. It wasn't changed. How it's always been.
Ahh gotcha I didn’t realize that was not consistent while leveling up - I have forgotten so much in the 20 or so years since I played original D2 :) Anyway yea I’m about halfway thru Nightmare - level 55 now
@@SweetPhil But I think i figured it out - you've got increase maximum mana by x% gear, which is almost doubling your mana - so, yea, you're still getting a base increase of 2 mana per point in energy, but then your gear is almost doubling that.
Try putting your points in energy without the gear on, and I'm pretty sure you'll see it is, in fact, 2 mana per 1 energy :)
Gerke's Sanctuary is actually an amazing shield especially for HC.
Shouldnt be string of ears be better here for the belt? With the flat dmg reduced mods?
when you have more mana than health, the succubus's curse you with a special curse that steals your HP equal to the amount of mana you use. so, if you're teleing to baal, you can theoretically take bunch of dmg from just using your skills.
I run into this key farming Nihlathak, it does pull your life but you can chug pots to get through it. I have a Nova ES sorc. 600 life 3200 mana.
I'm running a similar build style, but nova instead of orb, phoenix shield, wizspike instead of occy, 2x soj , ararch, silkweaves and a 2 20 ammy. It wrecks chaos. I swap to tgod and wisp if doing worldstone keep. Also it's non ladder. Im too poor on ladder, lol.
Heh... brings me back to 1.09 rocking energy shield, frozen orb, and fire wall. Cows was a cake walk in an 8 player game.
I have been messing around with different set ups with the ES build. My favorite so far is Gbane with a Sol and Sprit shield. Sorce is a Nova sorc for key/cow farming. She does 3600 damage, Hits the 105% fcr bp and has 3200 Mana. Not 100% Immortal but she is a TANK. easily does enough damage for higher player levels. Good guide Phil, Love the channel and content.
This is almost exactly what I do, grinds very consistently and most importantly stress-free.
How do you deal with nilatak?
@@Derzull2468 Unless I get poisoned or blood mana cursed... I can face tank Nilathak no problem. I kill him before he takes even half my mana. I seldom have to pot to take him out.
@@Derzull2468Natures peace
in early d2 days if you equpipped +3 to bow skills on an act 1 mercenary ... it loses the ability to shoot and instead casting an lighting inferno spell. did ridiculus dmg but was fixed pretty soon.
Finally I have a character that can farm any location. Even without the shield, a shako, a merc running infinity, or a similar ammy, this build still works remarkably well.
I use Kalt billzard buield LV91. Is this buield worth converting to reach level 99? chaos baal runs kill boos quickly? Unfortunately I don't have all the items. I am an offline player
Try the build out with plage, it has a chance of casting lower res and you get the cleansing aura against poison damage.
more mana after each kill if you can get it, I run mp enigma, verdungos, shako, soj & fcr ring, fcr amulet. obsession, +3hydra/+3meteor. Max tk, no es(use swap for buff) max hydra and fire mastery, orb, some cold Mastery, frozen armor. With tk synergy and all the dmg reduction, 75 all res, dmg taken goes to mana, (does work) I havnt died in well over a month. Mana curse is nothing, I just split life/mana smart. 15 base strength.
My non ladder nova sorc is built similar, hoto, grifs, spirit, infinity merc, silkweaves. Sometimes verdungos sometimes arachnids.
es swap so no hard points , max tk. Nova. Static. 1 pt in hydra & fire mastery. Just because I can and it's great VS gloams/black souls/bosses/temptress packs. Feels about invincible even in 8p.
My goal. Is to combine the two.
Obsession staff with nova/hydra, no hard points in hydra. +fire mastery or frozen armor would be nice additional on obsession for the saved point. Or es/nova obsession, cta swap instead of memory works too but I never use cta anyway.
base strength 15, pretty even life/mana, 2/20 amulet so I can drop the fcr ring for the second soj and not need fcr from arachnids... But not necessarily all set in stone.
It's extremely fun, reminds me of way back when nova sorc with damage reduction and energy shield was my ONLY build. Baal, cake, ghosts, np. Undead stigian dolls? Probably need to let 10 blow up at onnce. Fall asleep in the middle of cows? Done it. Last wave of baals minions? Zzzz. I stood there and ate it. Obviously always pay attention to curses on your merc and self, amp dmg is the worst of them but completely manageable.
Yeah. It's expensive. Big deal, already going to be consolidating best gear on main characters, and preparing for the next ladder sorc. I already have 3 different sorcs, 2 barbs, and 4 pallys. Gear shouldn't be a super huge hurdle for most people at this stage. Imo.
Just play to have fun, sometimes wierd shit works out the best. :)
Energy Shield builds don't need resistances other than to poison. Energy shield is not affected by elemental damage and therefore resistances are not needed.
Not entierly true. Every small damage that ES dosent absorb, goes to your all res
@@killalldotpy Yeah but if you're fully leveled and geared that damage is so miniscule it's almost not noticeable.
I think enlightenment would be a great runeword armor to sub if you can’t find skin of magi
this is really coool, and you'd better make energy shield level up to 40, which will absorb 90% damage!! that' ll make it really invincible
At 40, it's 95% absorb.
This is pretty cool. My one concern is it seems to sacrifice so much on kill speed for an overkill on survivability. I personally like more of a balance between the two.
Yes it is not "the best builds that has ever existed". It is a mega tank that does make significant sacrifices to achieve said tankiness.
@@SweetPhil I like it, it's fun to make build that goes out of the "meta" sometime event if it is not as strong !
Could be incredible for hc though. Tankiness is a huge concern when one mistake could lose a few hundred hours of progress lol
@@MakotoMonokuro i beat hc with this build.
@@didyoubot how do you kill immunes... not enough skills for 2nd attack tree
Add a passion weapon and put points into enchant and warmth. You can put the mana shield to the real test with a zeal sorc.
imas try that ty :)
Definitely read that as "invisible" and I was waiting to see when that came into play until you said invincible 😂
using an act2 merc with the prayer aura isnt a bad idea. if u do take minor health damage it heals u up quickly
Prayer merc with both Insight and Cure...
Takes away both Poison and Curses really fast and heals you like crazy!
When I used to play d2, this was always one of my ladder starters
not enough skill points for 2nd attack tree.. unless cold mys + sunder... so what to do againts immunes ?
Building one for nova with cres moon runeword and merc rocking cure kind of interesting tbh never tried it before
I used to precast a 95% ES immortal nova sorc for pubs back in the day and would annoy the shit out of people because they couldn't kill you. Great troll build
Eth+Lum in a shield would give you a +1 skill for that cta swap
Sweet Phil with his invincible biceps.
😆😆😆💪💪💪
5:01
1 point Energy = 2 points to Mana!
4 Points would be only, if you increase your max mana by 100%.
is Sol rune (damage reduced by 7) better than Ber rune (damage reduced by 8%) ?
is gerrke sanctuary better than stormshield ? (kind of same question : one's got damage reduced by number, the other by a %)
in a way : is Sol rune a ber rune "budget" ?
thanks for your responses :)
You don’t get how ES works.
@@nicolasbascunan4013 so you should explain. And by the way, i.m juste asking things, proof that i didn't know
If you had fade from a trench be even crazier and could dump a few things
I wanna see a build that doesn't die from dolls. My level 80 sorceress still gets her cheeks clapped in nightmare when dolls show up.
I'd swap the treks for hotspur. even with the high poison res on treks i'd rather 90 fire 85 light res and get that poison res with charms.
i had a really fun time "dueling" one of these on my poison nova nec lol.
Mobs dying at reasonable good speed, meanwhile 5 frozen orbs later and nothing is dead
This is viable for hc? Or i max res alot more?
Thundergod is not that good choice. Good ES sorc need arach or Tal rasha belt. Also choice of mercenary is not optimal. Usualy Prayer is best one to synergize with insight prayer for double effect. Thats quite important as ES sorc struggle with poison and double prayer counter that effectively.
It’s a tank build.
@@serious409 ok i get that, my answer is same, not optimal setup. For tank bulid is not only important high defense but most importanly decent block. Thats why you use tal belt, it has +20 dex improving block chance, it has also some MF you need too obviously, +30 Mana and some damage goes to mana, whcih is not significant with high ES level, but still usefull. An arach is used for different reasons, +skills increase level of BO and increase mana by 5%. Its quite pointless to use Thundergods on ES sorc because of order of incoming dmg and energy shield.
having block is a high investment. sorc don't need block. if you don't have fast block recovery than it's the same as a stun lock. when blocking. it is inconvenient to have as well. when you need to keep casting. you just need faster hit recovery.
Literally LMAO at the chaos mobs doing absolutely nothing while try-harding against the godly sorc XD
Dude thanks for that videos I thought that would work everyone always sais vit vit vit I knew there was something else
Used in when d2 first came out it's fun
Finding Etheral monarch would be good enough I believe for str req.
How did you get -110% enemy cold resist?
Is there a way to get enough mana regen without Insight? I was thinking you just use an Infinity and rock Nova. It’s the perfect play style because you’re not afraid of damage. And then you’re not limited to farming ancient tunnels, mephisto, stony tombs, etc.
Playing without the aura from Insight is tough when you have this much Mana, but yeah if you can rock a Crescent Moon on your main hand, you can get the best of both worlds.
EDIT: Although you really want a good Eschuta's Temper and Griffon's to drop the immunities like an Infinity would.
Sounds like the ideal build for hardcore runs.
oculus cannot be ideal for hardcore)
@@rainfallnow
Good point
Could have changed belt to the set belt that gives more magic reduction.
Now that’s what I call Diablo immortal. LOL!!😉😎
An eth monarch only needs 146 str, so you could totally just rock that on your CTA swap for the extra hp and mana boost with no down sides.
tbh might as well go for a mix es wich has always been tougher and just put spirit shield in from the get go for the huge start it is
between some of the part choosen and the es maxed this build ... sux O_o
not only are you not as tough as a mix es but you have no dmg xD
Great video break down...very informative..
played d2 20y ago, remember that raven+blackoak made ice sorceress literally heal you (in pvp), so flat point dmg reduction is still a thing?
I wonder if this build would be stronger with updated a1 merc with insight bow
Is this build still works? Can be do on budget? (like without god tier amulet and soj)
Or with spirit instead of wand in this video
using act 5 merc with 2 plague and poison will not hurt u anymore
Hey phil, i was wondering if you’d ever cover Classic mode content. I know its not popular but theres definitely a small community still playing classic which is more challenging(some may call it boring), but the play style is definitely different without runewords.
I would never covet it extensively. Maybe only a video showing the difference or something like that.
Would the sanctuary shield or stormshield be better?
No, you need the flat dmg reduction, not the % dmg reduction that stormshield has, and Sanctuary shield doesnt give enough reduction.
In theory you can get enough flat dmg reduction without a shield at all, allowing you to play what ever other shield you want or even use a staff, but you would need to get enough flat dmg reduction from other gear then.
You can also focus on getting gear that gets your Energy Shield to even higher lvl.
A lvl 40 Energy Shield gets you 95% dmg reduction compared to the 84% in this video, so you wont need as much flat dmg reduction to reduce all dmg to 0.
There is another hidden upside with energy shield, it more or less makes you immune to entering Hit Recovery, which is a type of stun from taking too much damage in one hit.
Meaning that you can more or less always teleport around as you wish without worring about getting surrounded and permastunned.
This is also a reason for trying to make a shieldless version of the build, since without shield you also have no % block rate, making you immune to being "blocklocked".
That been said, i think a recent rebalance has made both hit recovery and blocklocks less punishing, so it might not matter as much anymore.
Its more tanky than the bear druid?
That’s killer now I see in chaos
I’m using that shield and gave max block and a lot of mana max warmth 5k blizz 4 k on the max block side with a babi 2 ist
Soon as i get hit by mana burn it all goes away, i thought they fixed this issue
why the hell would you max ice bolt instead of cold mastery? am i missing some technicality that shouldnt exist in the game or is that just a dumb decision?
Does magic reduced include elemental damage?
Energy shield is rocking. I suppose not everyone has a Griffons and +3 Eldrich orb but you can easilly get to level 90 on Nova alone and farm all the keys. Arcane Sanctuary itself is a under rated leveling place with runes and keys as rewards.
what about Carrion Wind as the ring? +55% poison resist but i wonder how the 10% damage taken goes to mana actually hits with energy shield... hmm
With high ES this is completely negligible. Say you get hit for 1000 with a 95% energy shield. The actual damage you take is 50 and this restores 5 mana (10% of damage taken).
So with full synergy from telekinesis you would lose 713 mana (75% of 950) then get back 5 mana from the ring.
I like a blizzard frozen orb combo.
Good aoe. Crit hits with blizz, and spread with FO.
Feels good now since they dont share the cooldown.
But works for me only with quickcast since there is much more clicking to rly get the rotation.
But feels great overall
If u know how to operate as a sorc, u dont need to max ur mana and ES this much so u can buff damage more.
Imo feels that it clears much better cuz u can aim with FO, and blizzard has a punch even without its all synergies maxed out.
And if u want to, u can add a glacial spike in between for crowd controll
@@kuksio92 You might struggle to have enough skillpoints though, since you need atleast 44 skillpoints in the lightning tree for your Energy Shield.
But i guess if you skip Ice Bolt synnergy for Frozen Orb then you could max out Blizzard aswell, though you would have no blizzard synnergy.
@@qubingjianshen8210 u don't rly need this much point into es and telekinesis if u know how to play a sorc.
Phill's build is more proof of concept than anything usable in pve
But if he would tube down the strength of es and telekinesis and out these into blizzard, then this char would be much more usable for farming etc.
@@kuksio92 You don't need even a single point in Telekinesis or ES to play sorc, infact some of the best sorc builds don't put any points in ES or even just 1 point if they want protection from getting stuck in Hit Recovery, but this video was about making a maxed out ES sorc so i fail to see your reasoning as valid.
And "Phills" build have existed for many years already, its most definitely a tried and true pve build, mainly to play a tank role in hardcore,
as being able to stand still infront of any boss in the game will help everyone elses DPS to stay high compared to when the boss is running around chasing someone.
This build being able to tank anything is far more important for group pve then marginally increasing the builds dps.
The main reason why this build have gotten more notice as of late is because blizzard "fixed" the mana burn bug that have crippled max ES builds for decades.
ps. if you do a 1 point ES build you need to know what you are doing, as 1 point ES can often get you killed more then no ES at all. 1 point ES shield build are not for Energy sorcs, but for Vitality sorcs that are telestomping ontop of enemy groups.
@@qubingjianshen8210 I didn't say 1 point es
I've out around 10 into es and 10 into telekinesis. With 600ish Mana and insight. It's good survivability and much better dps. It's just my opinion and way of playing.
Very sweet would love to see the math on how this works
Eth treks are good but why not upped water walk?
what can you do about dolls tho? my hc sorc recently died even tho i was "immortal"
Eth CV and an Andariel's Visage is basic merc gear?Pretty sure that is end game Merc gear unless you need to place the high end runewords on a merc then you are just rich.
Str req is a lot better than trying to use a medusa gaze similar shield look tho.
Yea I don’t have a insight but a reapers but looking for a tomb they smash the cold imm
so what is the status to be invincible in short? no one writes about it much
I played this as my first char this ladder. I liked it but the blood mana curse is the bane of your existence. Nothing you can do.
Gerke is 74% block chance does that mean you dont need to spend much dex
To your point about no one cares about “damage reduced by x” that’s why I love playing hardcore makes stats core players don’t care about have a much higher value p.s wouldnt storm sheild work better with this build because of the damage reduction?
What could you use to reduce poison length without totally dismantling the build?
they sell poison potions.
@@Goobermint I was thinking gear wise, but that works.
Jade Tan Do?
Is this game as popular as it was back in version 08 or 09 for PC? What platform you people play on? How full or empty are the servers? And finally, is it worth getting again? And be honest please. Nothing hurts worse than a boldfaced lie.
You know what sucks tho. The sorb gear doesnt work with es. Only hp mana still takes the hit. Its dumb.
great build, it's feels never die