Sorceress Diablo 2 Class Guide

 

The Sorceress was one of the original 5 characters in Diablo 2 and is widely considered one of the strongest characters in the game.  With a wide variety of skills available, there is a huge amount of diversity in the builds that can be created with the class.  The Sorceress is a spell caster yielding the power of Fire, Cold and Lightning elements to her advantage to inflict huge amounts of damage upon her enemies which simply cannot be equalled.

 

The class is an excellent all-rounder, it is great for beginners in the game and makes it very easy to learn the game but also has some of the most powerful end game builds.  The Sorceress is the most popular starter character for new Ladder seasons due to her free access to the Teleport skill and the exceptional mobility this provides.  This mobility combined and the high damage output from her spells means she can farm the most lucrative areas in the game with ease and build up currency to invest into end game gear.

 

The following sections will take you through the skill trees available to the Sorceress and the most popular builds for each element.

 

Cold Spells

The Cold Spell tree uses the power of Cold and Ice to freeze her enemies and shatter them into pieces.  The Cold Sorceress is the most common build in the game (particularly early in a Ladder season) with the majority of players choosing to use the Blizzard skill which rains ice down on enemies dealing huge amounts of area damage.  An alternative to the Blizzard skill is Frozen Orb which releases a central orb in front of the Sorceress shooting ice in all directions damaging enemies.  The Cold Mastery skill is fundamental to any Cold build, reducing enemies Cold Resistance by huge amounts so that our skills deal maximum damage.

 

Lightning Skills

Lightning skills call on the power of electricity to deal huge amounts of damage.  The Lightning ability in this skill tree has the potential to deal over 50,000 damage in a single strike, the downside being that you are equally as likely to deal 1 damage…  A fully geared Lightning Sorceress has the fastest clear speed of any build in the game, however requires some of the most expensive and rare gear in the game.  An alternative to the conventional Lightning build is to use the Nova skill and there are multiple ways you can play this build – either with items similar to the Lightning build, or by wielding an Infinity yourself and getting up close and personal with your enemies.

 

Fire Skills

The final skill tree is for Fire skills, mastering the elemental power of Fire to blast enemies in your way.  There are two primary builds using Fire skills, these are Fire Ball and Hydra.  Fire Ball is the more common of the two builds and is very popular for both PvM and PvP gameplay, with high damage potential and splash damage it is a very solid build.  Hydra has recently become more popular with the latest game changes, the skill spawns Fire elemental Hydras that breath fire onto enemies burning them to dust.