This new Guardian broke my game

[JoeBruce]

A few years back, I finally managed to Guardian a single-pass, untwinked Hydra sorceress. She was lvl 86 when that happened, and I got her up to 90 running Ancient Tunnels (not looking for Tal's armor). She perished due to carelessness (amp'd, cold enchanted boss).

I luckily had a lvl 50 sorceress waiting in the wings. This one I had used some nice twinking gear to get to that level and only spending a couple of skills points (static, teleport, warmth). So I had this sorceress ready to go into Nightmare with 40+ unspent skill points. I even made a thread about that. I decided to do something I've always loathed: a single-element build. I was running Ancient Tunnels anyway. Time to make a Blizzard sorc.

I stopped to run the Tunnels whenever I got there, probably in the late 70s. As I progressed through the 80s I started to quest onward a little bit. I just finished her the other night at lvl 88. She has 800 life, 50% block, +2 skills, and just over 300% magic find. Part of why I did this was to take advantage of Terror Zones, although I really have no idea what those are. I know they appear randomly and rotate at an interval. I think the monster levels are higher? Whatever. One of the first Terror Zones I got was Tal Rasha's Chamber, and since I was in the neighborhood, I went to check it out.

Somewhere in there I got a unique grand charm drop. I was already carrying Gheed's, but I was pretty sure I could put that in one of the shared stashes and pick up this one. I popped back down, picked up my new Gheed's, and identified it to see what kind of roll I got. Much to my surprise, it wasn't a Gheed's. It was something called a cold sunder. And it removed monster immunity to the element that this character used. At first I couldn't believe it. Eventually I realized it also tanks my cold resistance—I thought the big negative number was what applied to my enemies, to break their resist—so at least there's an attempt at balance. But surely, this was game-breaking. A charm that solves the only problem a Blizzard sorc has: cold immunes.

I didn't know there were new unique charms! (Okay, I kind of did, but knew nothing about them. I guess I had heard these mentioned. Obviously, I know I didn't "break the game," but it was still a very interesting and amusing few minutes. I'm keeping this sunder charm in my stash for now, so I can grab it if I find myself in an area with cold immunes; but for now I'll probably stick to running Ancient Tunnels and Pindleskin, not looking for Tal's armor or amulet (the latter of which was lost on the lvl 90 Hydra sorceress).) At least now my single-element Guardian has a way to handle anything in the game. Shenk, here I come!

I've been going to a diablo2.io site for updated info, but it doesn't seem they have anything about charms in their database. Odd. Where do y'all go to get updated D2 info? The Arreat Summit hasn't been updated in a looong time.

 

[Vang]

Check out the guides on this site, they are pretty up-to-date on all things D2-related.

 

[drmalawi]

Google "sunder charm d2r"

Lower resist, conviction, cold mastery (and iirc also amp dmg and decrepify) only works at 1/5 "strength" against sundered monsters.

So let's say your only -% cold res on your char is cold mastery at -150%. A cold immune monster will get his/her cold resistance down to 95% first, and then cold mastery will be -150%/5 = -30%. This means that the monster will have cold resistance 65%. So in order to take fully advantage of this sunder charm, you "need" more sources of -% cold res. Like voice of reason, facets, doom weapon, infinity merc etc.

 

[JoeBruce]

Well, that guardian didn't last long! I got careless in a terror zone, down in Nihlathak's spot. Corpse explosion got me: feel like a noob.

I had on a really nice amulet (+ skills, all res, and magic find), a mediocre Skin of the Viper Maji, decent chance guards, nice rare boots, and a number of good charms (magic find, a +36% gheeds I'd just found, and a +42 life grand charm I'd just found, not to mention my new Cold Rupture charm). The rest was a Wizardspike and magic find stuff, easily replaceable, although the rings were in the upper 20's for +magic find.

My last sorc died at lvl 90 too. This one was <15% from lvl 91. I can never seem to keep a sorceress alive. But I love them so...

 

[drmalawi]

Have you tried energy shield in D2R yet? It works much better

 

[JoeBruce]

I have not; I do have a level ~55 sorc, Lightning/Orb, who has energy shield. She's part of a team of 7, and I only just recently played her for the first time in a long time.

I just never used energy shield that much; and I haven't experimented with it in D2R, so I wouldn't know how to compare. I'll look at some guides or patch notes, but what is the short explanation on improvements to energy shield? I understand that it is essentially a "damage taken goes to mana" skill and what that means. I forget when it gets calculated into the taking-damage equation (i.e., before or after taking resistances into account—a change in that behavior would be a subtle but significant one).

 

[Helvete]

I just never used energy shield that much; and I haven't experimented with it in D2R, so I wouldn't know how to compare. I'll look at some guides or patch notes, but what is the short explanation on improvements to energy shield? I understand that it is essentially a "damage taken goes to mana" skill and what that means. I forget when it gets calculated into the taking-damage equation (i.e., before or after taking resistances into account—a change in that behavior would be a subtle but significant one).

Well, Energy Shield (ES from here on) is a bit tricky, but fear not!

There are a lot of advantages to ES, and a few disadvantages or outright liabilities. I'll list the liabilities first:
- Mana burn monsters are scary in D2R and lethal in LOD, where the mana burn bug still persists afaik.
- You need to invest skill points that do not help your damage, which in turn may be detrimental to run times.
- If you play sorcs without ES, and switch to one with ES, you may forget to cast it, resulting in near-death experience (NDE) if you are supremely lucky.
- Poison bypasses ES, as will Open Wounds (but only other players may inflict that status on you).
- Blood Mana curse can kill you if you're careless. Only a problem in some A5 areas.
- If playing LOD in patches pre-1.10, there may be different rules altogether, and no synergy.

Now to the advantages:
- Resistances, except poison, no longer has much meaning, as long as you can find some points of MDR (magic damage reduced by x)
- Being amped has no effect as long as you can find some points of PDR (damage reduced by x [hard value, not percentage])
- Hit recovery is no longer an issue if you have MDR and PDR, because your life will not take 1/12 or more damage in one hit.
- You will have a tremendous mana pool, and therefore tremendous regen.
- +life items no longer have much meaning either. Although good to have, they should have very low priority compared to items that help your mana, mana regen, MDR, PDR, Poison Resist, cast rate or +skills.

The damage calculation goes in this order, unless they changed something or unless I misremember something:

EDIT: Forgot about defense. I believe defense goes before all of the following:
1st - Blocking. Blocking an attack will result in a blocking animation, or animation skip. Other actions will be interrupted regardless.
2nd - Energy Shield. Yes, ES is the first line of defense, since no one in their right mind cares about block on non-paladins for pvm.
3rd - PDR/MDR - straight points, not the % ones which behave the same as resistances.
4th - Resists, including %physical damage reduced and that ONE item with %magic damage reduced. This step also includes negative values, such as can be found on Sunder Charms.
5th and 6th - Absorb. I cannot remember if straight points or %absorb goes first, but with ES, this is the last thing you should ever worry about.
Dishonorable mention: I cannot for the life of me remember where Bone Armor goes in this order. Shame on me.

As you can imagine, if a high level ES (95% is the cap at lvl 40) takes a hit of 1000 damage, only 50 damage will get past to the next step, which is PDR/MDR. Now, if you have Gladiator's Bane perfect, along with, say Gerke's Sanctuary perfect, that is something like 36 physical or 38 magical (including elemental, but not poison) damage reduced. Which leaves 12-14 damage.

Now, your resists kick in. However, even at its floor of -100%, you'll only be doubling that 12-14 damage, making for 24-28 damage to life. Out of 1000 damage initially. Now, where did the bulk of that damage go?

Your mana took the hit. And if you have a base level 1 Telekinesis (TK), that was a BIG hit, of close to 2000 mana lost. However, if you maxed TK, it would only mean 750 mana lost.

However, you do not plan on taking hits that often. You plan on tanking some hits, and if the mana gets low, teleport to safety. Best way to use the Nova skill in my opinion.

Gear you should be drooling over:
- +9 ES "Memory" staff for prebuff.
- Anything with large mana bonuses, such as Shako, Frostburns, big mana caster amulets, SoJs
- Insight merc. Make it a prayer merc for the synergy. Give him "Cure" rw helm for the triple synergy before you have enough skill points to make ES impenetrable. Also helps against poison.
- Call to Arms rw. Little more life. LOTS more mana. Another level of ES. Merc lives longer. What's not to like?
- Iron Pelt or Gladiators Bane for armor. Crafted Safety gear in general. Gerke's Sanctuary. Get to around 50 or 60 MDR and PDR and you will not take life damage at all, except for poison, or if you run out of mana.

Gear you should ignore:
- Anything that has big bonuses to life, FHR, FBR and resists, and not much else. Skip those tri-res boots and get 30FRW crafted caster or safety boots. Or silkweave, those are great. Or war travs for the MF.
- Anything with %damage reduced (except shako, because of the massive other bonuses).

I can probably paint the picture clearer, but this should be enough for a few tries. Maybe try softcore first.

EDIT 2: As you can imagine, a Sunder Charm is not an issue for a well planned ES sorc. Resists mean almost nothing. Take two, even.

 

[Swamigoon]

Are there any defensible reasons for an Energy Shield sorceress to leave mana at base level (the standard expectation with every other build) and pump vitality instead?

 

[Helvete]

Are there any defensible reasons for an Energy Shield sorceress to leave mana at base level (the standard expectation with every other build) and pump vitality instead?

No. Maxed TK gives you 25% damage reduction across the board except poison and open wounds. It's the other way around, you leave vitality at base, because you only get 2 points of life per point in vitality, but you also get 2 mana, which then again is amplified by %mana gear. Also, the higher the mana pool, the more mana regen. You simply can't do that with life; regen at insane rates with insight, warmth and mana regen items.