¶ Lloydss Nova Sorceress
¶ Why did I want to play Nova?
While crafting amulets for fun, I ended up crafting a crazy amulet for nova. I was not really planning on playing it so I went ahead and yolo corrupted it and it ended up on the 2nd best possible corruption(potentially even the best one) so I wen ahead and made a nova sorceress.
For reference this is the amulet I crafted. Item upgrades were +2 Sorceress skills and corruption was -5% resist and 10% FCR
¶ Before playing this build
Nova sorceress generally isn't considered a viable leveling build. This is because nova has a high mana cost, fairly low damage without good gear and terrible single target damage. I recommend leveling with another build then swapping to this when you amass a few of the critical pieces of gear.
¶ Build choices
This build has 2 main variant. A Life based variant and an Energy Shield + Mana based variant. I decided to go Energy Shield however, this build has a lot of skill you want to max out so going energy shield can be quite hard at the start. Luckily, the only thing you have to change is that you wont put any point in Energy Shield, leave Telekinesis at level 1 for teleport and max Thunder Storm instead. I recommend switching to Energy shield when you have enough + skill so that a 1 hardpoint Energy Shield hits as close to 95% absorption as possible.
¶ Skill Distribution
Max Nova and his synergies(Static Field and Lightning Mastery)
Put 1 point into Energy shield and all of its prerequisite and 1 point into Warmth in the fire tree for boosted mana regen
Max Telekinesis(Maxing Telekinesis makes Energy shield consume much less mana and is preferred to maxing energy shield especially late game since ES caps out at 95% absorption)
Put the remaining points into Thunderstorm
If going for the life based variant, skip Energy shield and Telekinesis and put points either in Warmth to help with mana sustain, in Thunder Storm to help finish lone monsters or in any Cold Armor of your choice to help with physical damage reduction.
¶ Sunder Charm
While Lightning is probably the least resisted element in the game, you will still encounter monsters that are immune. A sunder charm is not required but will come in handy for those situations.
¶ Stats distribution
For stat distribution, there are 3 potential variant available :
¶ Life based Variant
Strength : Enough for gear
Dex : 0
Vitality / Energy : Sorceress does not gain much life from points in vitality(2 per points of vitality) so you can either dump all in vitality or, if you have mana problems, share the remaining points about ⅔ in vitality and ⅓ in energy.
Do not forget that having more max mana will make mana regen better!
¶ Energy shield
Strength : Enough for gear
Dex : Enough for gear
Vitality : 0
Energy : Rest of the points
¶ Max Block variant
This variant is the same as energy shield one above but you put points in Dexterity to reach the 70% block cap. It is only recommended if your gear is already really good and you can get a lot of stats from charms etc… to reduce the attribute you have to put into strength to equip your gear.
You will need to keep putting points in dex as you level to keep the block cap. I had to go all the way to 165 dex at level 99 to get block cap from a monarch base block chance.
¶ Important Breakpoints
FCR : 9/20/37/63/105/200
You want a minimum of 105% faster cast rate but should aim for 200%. However, anything over 105% if you do not hit the 200% is useless and should be replaced for options giving more damage.
You can use the arrow on the right side of your Character page to see breakpoints for FBR and FHR. I personally didn't care about those since your EHP is so crazily high with a ES setup you can afford to take a few hits and have slower recovery frames.
¶ Gear
I will skip the early game gear as I do not recommend this build for early game/leveling
legend will be as such : Best > Better > Good
Weapon : Athena's Tirade > Daylight > Oculus/Heart of the Oak
Hoto is great to help you cap your resist and gives more FCR than occy making it a great option
Shield : Starlight > Spirit
Spirit is arguably the only option here since 35% FCR,55% FHR, loads of mana regen and great resists are hard to pass on but if you somehow manage to hit 200% FCR without it, Starlight becomes better
Helm : Griffon's Eye > Kingpin's Crown(AKA Shako) > any +2 sorc or +3 lightning circlet
Body Armor : Legacy of the Eternals > Vipermagi
Gloves : 20% fcr crafted gloves with any usefull stats(strength/resists/ max resists etc) / Magefists
Belt : Arachnid Mesh > Wisdom's Wrap / Kashya's Ward
If going for offense, Arach/Wisdom Wrap. If going for defenses Kashya's Ward (any belt with +1skill or +fcr that helps you hit the next breakpoint is also great here)
Boots : Lustwander > River Stalker / Stairway to Heaven
Stairway if your resists needs help, River if you are already capped and want some more defenses
Amulet : Crafted amulet with +3 all skill and +2 sorc base > Mara Kaleidoscope > Any +3 lightning magic amulet
I understand that getting the amulet I've shown above is insanely lucky but you can play this build with a simple Mara if you want to. You can also substitute the +2 sorc with a +3 Lightning Skills on the craft which would marginally be better.
Rings : Lvl 85 Stone of jordan > Lvl 29 Stone of jordan > Any +nova rings with any usefull stats / FCR ring to hit next breakpoint
Here there isnt much to say, SoJ's are so good that there isnt really anything that can replace them especially the lvl 85 one providing +2 all AND 15% FCR. It however is insanely rare and have yet to find one myself. I've been running with 2 regular Soj with one that was corrupted with %FCR to help hitting that next breakpoint.
Charms worth mentionning :
- Obsidian Beacon / Hellfire Torch : Obviously a great charm to have. This build however cannot clear ubers so you will need another character to kill the bosses for you. It is a great key farmer though.
- Black Soulstone / Annihilus : Another easy to include charm that goes in every build. Again, this build probably cannot clear uber diablo by itself.
- Queen's call : +1-2 skill, +15 resist. Enough said those are great stats for any build again and is a random drop.
- Life & Death : +1 skill and MF is great.
- Crack of the heaven : Lightning sunder is a good QoL but I've farmed a fair bit without one. It is not required just a great addition to the build.
- Skillers : Charms can be absolutely crazy in here.
Using a Grand Charm, a Zod, a unique jewel and a EL you can craft a charm with +1 all skill which can still roll +1 lightning which would be the BIS.
A Grand Charm + VEX + THUL + Rare Jewel + Sapphire will craft a skiller for a random sorceress tab and can be a great alternative for starting out if you have no skillers.
¶ Mercenary
If you don't have much in term of gear, I recommend a Act 1 merc with Insight in a bow, since you are constantly teleporting, your merc is almost never in danger.
When you can make your A2 merc survive, you should switch to him however.
Note that the mercenary in this is really not that strong since we barely do bossing on this build. I geared mine with Insight to be a mana battery since we dont need Infinity while using either Athena's Tirade or Daylight.
¶ Gear Upgrades
Gear upgrades are highly dependent on your gear, general priority list is this
FCR to hit next breakpoint > + skills > Resists > -% enemy lightning resistance > % max resistance > Anything else you see fit(MF is a great filler)
¶ Sockets
Facets, facets, even more facets, and if you still have sockets, put more facets.
Jokes aside, -% resistance is the best here since we already get super high % damage from Lightning Mastery. Don't be scared to cap your resists using runes and gems if youre not capped
¶ Exiting note
My current character hit 99 super fast and is still quite far from being BIS. My nova is currently level 66 and I do not have a single +1 skiller. Its damage is 13k to 16k and I will probably reach 20k+ with skillers eventually.
Reaching 200% FCR is often seen as too expensive but when you do reach it ohh god teleporting at 5 frames feels good.