lightning sorcy questions

[deathknight 55]

first i need to now what i should use 4 primary lightning(L) more dmg or chain lightning(CL) less dmg hits more times?
second i want to know if u shoot CL at 1 monster does it hit them 10 times or how ever many times it hits or just once?

[deathknight 55]

will someone plz help me out arg

[TheKillerBob]

More dmg I would go for!

[TheWizKid]

no lit sorc at all

[deathknight 55]

light sorcs r good in hell not much monsters immune

[Shanon]

Normal lightning will work if it and lighting mastery are maxed. You will just need to line yourself up a bit to get hits when there is a large group of monsters. Having blizzard or metor to back you up when you encounter a large group would be a good idea.

[deathknight 55]

but then im not doing max dmg on my lightning

[TheWizKid]

thats why u do a double tree

[deathknight 55]

double tree sorcs suck

[Sigma]

Back in ladder reset 2, after the synergy patch I made a HC ladder lightning sorc. I got to lvl 45 and died from a trapped waypoint (about a week's worth of work gone...) I never used nova, but it seemed too weak. So here is my tale and advice.

Anyways one thing to remember about lightning, not CL, is it will go through all monsters (in a fat line). So if there are 8 monsters more of less in a line (its one fat bolt of lightning, they can be far apart) it'll strike them all for the 1-x dmg. I went 2/3 lightning, lightning. The dmg does get to be crazy because the mastery is 50% and then +12%/lvl (vs fire of like 30% + 7% or something, stats off the top of my head). Then later on in the game after you reach lvl 20 of lightning it will grow exponentially (8%) based on the 3 synergies it will take. Of course fire and ice have their great bonuses and will grow similarly. One thing about lightning sorc, because the spells take a bit longer to cast, +casting speed is much more effective. Frames reduce from 16->14 with 10% faster.

Personally, I was deeply disappointed with CL; it will ricochet off an enemy and hit another up to the number of targets. Unless you get it up to about lvl 40 or so, it is almost better to let the lightning just arc through the enemies in a straight line apposed to bouncing off one enemy (or not at all if there is only 1 enemy, and it didn't do tag backs. It will go in a triangle shape if there are 3 enemies though). By lvl 20 it will only bounce 9 times, so best case scenario is there is a triangle of enemies and each gets hit 3 times. Another thing I hate about CL is when it targets an enemy far away apposed to a close one, the enemy often can move out of the way before the lightning gets there (funny... last time I checked, lightning was faster than me) and will go off into the distance and you just wasted about 2x mana apposed to a regular bolt.

I don't know if it is normal to reach lvl 45 on HC ladder in about a week, but I liked the way that lightning went through rows and rows of enemies, slaying a huge number (in act 3 I could kill close to 8 fetishes per cast of regular lightning). I even had more life than mana (du'h its HC), so my killing speed should have been reduced drastically compared to a softcore character. I'd drink mana potions like a monkey (base skill lvl 8 warmth). Well thats my story. The best thing to remember with lightning is to play to use strategy (like Hydra sorc, or WCIII).


For HC players out there, Durial is best fought in a group with someone above lvl 40(well du'h), letting you move forward to slay Meph by yourself or similary. I had a slight disadvantage, not having a higher lvl character to drop items into my sorc because I stopped playing D2 a while ago, but am playing with the idea of playing it again. I had about 80% resist lightning (meph and diablo were do-able) and 90% (97.5% after short duration) resist poison (Durial on NM wasn't too hard) made the bosses much easier.



Below is a great site for pre planning characters, it almost 100% right, I dislike the people who run the site, but the character planner is good. http://www.d2items.com/skills.php

[deathknight 55]

your link dont work

o now it does sorry

thats not really awnsering my question its just a buntch of stuff i ether know or dont need to know

[Sigma]

Maxing lightning is good if you don't mind doing some fancy footwork and playing more as a Ninja/Sorc (no fightning, just ninja dodge techniques and all that stuff) Remember one thing to keep in mind for choosing is mana cost and dmg/sec. I don't like nova because it doesn't get very powerful anymore. Remember CL only has a 4% synergy bonus and regular lightning has an 8%. To go 100% lightning something I found I liked, that didn't do much for me in the long run was the thunder storm spell. It was just nice to have that little extra attack every now and then.

So anyways, Put most of your points on Lightning, you can spend like 5 or so on CL, the synergy will be about the same by lvl 50. I never really put points into charged bolt - I was going to wait untill like lvl 75 or so to start that, but then again my HC died from evil unguarded waypoints! Anyways I already answered the part about CL being a dissappointment. It will only bounce back if there are 2 other monsters close by to hit, and the monsters should move slower than lightning (still funny... How is it that lightning can be so slow... How does my computer ever boot?) Anyways there is the answer to your two questions - CL will bounce instead of charging through the enemies and doesn't do tag backs.

1) Primary lightning should be lightning - best for bosses.
2) CL instead of going through the targets ricochets and is rarely helpful.

That should be clearer, I hope... Any other questions? I'd like to get my rating up on these forums, but I'm just not that helpful.

[Azaezel]

I think light sorcs are pointless.

most things on hell are lighting immune because they're lighting enchanted + the dmg is in fire and cold. so why bother ?

[Silver Ice]

lightning is also good for a countess bot, and anyway lightning does more damage the fireball or blizzard (or so i hear)

[defaultstring2]

it does more dmg but it is a wide range

[deathknight 55]

my light sorc is very good i maxed L CL LM and im maxing N and SB now he all ready doing great dmg

[ZooKeeper]

Lightning sorcs are popular duelers. Lightning is somewhat harder to dodge than fireball and it does alot more dammage than blizzard.

[Sigma]

my light sorc is very good i maxed L CL LM and im maxing N and SB now he all ready doing great dmg

I'm very proud of you Deathknight 55. You are a flaming, glorious becon of divine light unto thy critics. You make me proud, you make the Diablo gods proud, you make Sorc's everywhere proud! I approve of your self determination to follow through with your plan despite all the persecution (I hope I spelled that correct) you've endured.

[Silver Ice]

Lightning sorcs are popular duelers. Lightning is somewhat harder to dodge than fireball and it does alot more dammage than blizzard.

yeah who can dodge something that goes in a straight line as opposed to blizzard that surrounds you.