So I’ve seen all these insane wave 400+ Black Hole/Meteor guides, and decided to roll my own such sorc.
I decided to make it ward-based, but quickly realized that Exsanguinous is useless without 100 INT or so, basically level 70+ crafted gear. I already had a whole page of unique/set items collected by my necro, so here’s an item build I concocted:
Helm: Calamity (150% ignite, 40% fire damage)
Jewelry: Invoker’s set
set bonus: 500 elemental protection
Ring1: The Invoker’s Static Touch +13 spell lightning damage,
Ring2: The Invoker’s Scorching Grasp +50% ignite, +50% fire DoT
Amulet: The Invoker’s Frozen Heart ~30% crit chance, 10% less cold damage taken
Weapon: The only crafted item in the build, use wand with highest base spell damage bonus; If there was a unique Prophecy Wand, I’d use it for memes regardless of mods.
important affixes: crit chance, void protection (important as we dont have any on other gear)
optional affixes: spell/elemental/fire damage, cast speed, mana, mana regen…
Chest: Prism Wraps 30% less elemental damage taken, 30% increased elemental damage, 30% leech with elemental crits
We need health leech to survive, and we don’t have slot for Bleeding Heart, so definitely going max crit build.
Shield: Rahyehs Light +100 Health 15% Increased Fire Damage
Belt: Isadora’s Tomb Binding 300 armor, 15% cast speed
Gloves: Isadora’s Gravechill cast speed base, 20 health, 12 cold damage with spells
Boots: Eterra’s Path - 35%-ish movement speed, creates vines and entangling roots in your path
Vines serve as decoys and Roots are almost like a free Black Hole.
Relic: Soulfire +60 Health, +160% ignite, 60% increased fire damage if you have killed an enemy recently
So defense-wise there’s 500 elemental protection, a lot of health, no void though, so definitely craft some on the wand.
Offense, a decent amount of increased fire damage and a lot of ignite.
During leveling I used Lightning Blast until I got all Sorcerer skills. Specced for +2 targets, Mortal Capacitor & Cloud Answer.
It comboed well with Stormtide unique boots
Some thoughts on skills:
Meteor:
I may be wrong here, but I decided to go with “the more hits the better” route here, and specced my Meteor into 7 meteors with shrapnel (the logic here is that you get 7 times more shrapnel, but “less damage” from meteor nodes should not affect shrapnel damage, at least that’s what it states in the tooltip).
I’m not set on this route though and will try different Meteor setups for sure. 1 big meteor or several without shrapnel, also crit nodes.
Fire Shield: global ignite chance, max duration, rest optional. I went for aura, to finish off weak/damaged chasers.
Teleport: there are many different setups, but bottom-center nodes are best to max first.
Black Hole: I decided not to go for 200 mana node, I feel like I might accidentally cast it for full price every so often, being a player of a pretty mediocre skill. I maxed blind chance instead, and it seems to help. Bouncing enemies almost always miss me.
Focus: 9 points to max mana regen, then ward if you care about it.
leveling build (crit health-based):
Mage:
scholar 8/8
elementalist 2/8
mage flurry 5/5
knowledge of destruction 5/10
Sorcerer:
Calculated Destruction: 8/8
Arcane Momentum 5/5
Wisdom 10/10
Mana Shell 2/8
Rapid Casting 5/5
Arcane Obliteration 10/10
Mark of Brilliance & Promise of Power sound great on tooltip, but appear to be bugged right now.
Mark averages at 10% increased damage per point, and Promise at 14% per point, but they seem to not give charges as of now.
Dragon Mage 10/10 (Black Hole counts as Cold Spell)
Mage:
knowledge of destruction up to 10/10
…