This is what I'm planning:

20 Energy Shield
20 Telekinesis
20 Warmth
20 Enchant

Rest split between hydra and/or fire mastery

Stats wise thinking about 100 str, 50 dex, 100 vit and rest into energy

Gear should provide lots of mana and mana leech so mainly casters crafted with sapphires for mana amethysts for ias, and either diamonds or skulls on shield. Also power belt and either blood or holy or safety ammy.

Prayer merc with "Insight" seems the obvious choice too.

I'm not sure about stats and gear that is just what I could think of quickly.
This also has to be viable for HC play so that's why I invested heavy into defense.

Any advice would be great.

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You'll need more damage I'd say. Maxing chant and it's synergies+mastery should be a must for a melee sorc.

If you're really serious about going melee (most Chant sorcs use exploding arrows or Multishot), then consider this setup (I haven't seen it on the realm yet)

Up to level 80:
20 pt Warmth, TK, Enchant, IceBolt
1 pt EnergyShield, FMastery, CMastery

You'd want to place points in chunks, so 20 Enchant as soon as you can, 10 TK until about level 45, 10 Warmth until about level 45, and at least 10 IceBolt by level 65. After 65, just place the points however you feel like.

At level 65, you have to have a "Wonder" flail ready for you. Before then, you're just a regular Enchantress. If you really want to do melee before this point, then consider making the "Insight" weapon for yourself (in a scepter or flail) and using a Multi rogue like most other chantesses.

Use Diamonds in all your hat and armor (4-socketed crafts work very well) to prevent damage from trash, so 1 point EnergyShield (try to keep it below 50% dmg to mana) or else you'll just end up killing your mana bulb needlessly.

The "Wonder" flail will allow your build to uniquely abuse the level 50 Blizz/FOrb on attack (ARating won't even matter). For cold immunues, you'll still have Enchant to deal damage.

Your gear should still focus on +Fire skills and such, since the only benefit your cold-aspect would have received is another 5% Cold Mastery. If you get too many +Sorc skills, then your energy shield might become needlessly high, and you'll run out of mana constantly (not that it'll matter, since you'll still be very resiliant to trash due to diamonds, but with low EnergyShield, you'll be immune). You could use charges of low level EngeryShield via a staff on switch, but that's usually annoying to do. If you're taking damage, then improve your diamonds or dr/mdr. If you're still taking damage, then improve the EnergyShield redirection a little bit, but you should be shooting for a mana bulb that's about 50 times your level. Maxing you block and block speed is critical to maintaining your mana bulb, same with your defence (Saphire crafted armor with diamonds is great for lower levels).

The build will still have trouble with ARating, but that's always a problem for melee sorcs. You'll have to collect some AR charms and such as you play. Also, melee sorcs don't have much SkillED outside of their stats, so leaching is never really an option for them (Might merc isn't really much help in this aspect). If you're dead-set on going the leach route, then "Wonder" won't work, since those weapons have no enhanced damage.

This build probably won't excel in the late game (A3 Hell and beyond), but since you're making a melee sorc, I'm guessing you'd just like a good time.

Very appreciated information there, but I plan for an all out melee so no ice bolt, I'm going with frozen armor instead. I'm thinking of "Passion" or "Chaos" for oskills midgame cause I really don't plan going with normal attack. Would Holy Gloves on merc solve my AR problem? I can't do much further research right now, got a friends meet up.

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You realize that the IceBolt isn't for casting right? It's just to synergize the procs on "Wonder".

If you're genuinely set on using Passion's Zeal to somehow generate physical damage and leach, then that sounds fun too. Ask Zevix for any advice, since he made a sorc similar to that recently. "Chaos" isn't a reasonable weapon though, since the durability in daggers is very low, and the range is only 1. Similarly, you should make your "Passion" in a sword of at least range 2, so that you don't get nailed by the Zeal auto-aim glitch (Zeal selects targets at range 2, so you'll auto-miss targets outside of range 1 (daggers, wands, etc)).

If you've got "Wonder" then you should really consider the 10-20 points into IceBolt. It seems a shame to waste a decent damage second-element attack for just a few skill points. I'll admit that you won't be proccing the blizzards and such as fast as a Convictor, so you'll still be a little bit of a guinea pig.

Either way, you might still consider using Saphire-crafted armor (or at least a ring) for the FrozenArmor on struck. It will save you quite a few points. I suppose if your skill spread allows you to sink in 20 points to FArmor though, you may as well, but just consider the diminishing returns of defence, it might not be worth it to sink in all 20 points right away. Saphire crafts also give some Attack Rating, albeit not much.

Didn't really realize that on the ice bolt, but I didn't like the idea of being like a Convictor, that's not the point of the build, I'd just like to know if I got the stats right so I can put the build to use.

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Ok whatever I'm going with 100 str, 50 dex and split between vit and eng

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jesus, 100 str. 70 at the very most. even a zeal paladin can get away with 20 str max.

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I never bother with maximizing my stats, so I didn't bother to post. I think of the few people who actually design (rather than blindly following a build) their characters around maxing vita, very few have bothered making a melee tank sorc. This means you're not going to get fast answers (just consider the melee-necro thread, or the "Character Ideas" thread).

My understanding of the stat placement is only guidelines:
1) Decide what your gear is going to be throughout the game, and place str/dex appropriately. HU's higher drop rate makes your ideal gear an eventuality (although low-level stuff is hard to find since only a few people keep it around).
2) If you're really going to pump EnergyShield, then you'll need every scrap of mana you can get, so you'll genuinely need to pump energy a lot, collect Mana GCs, use Saphires in gear instad of Diamonds, you must get a BO oSkill, etc.

I'm not pumping ES but I won't be dismissing all of the +skills gear either so 60-75% ES is realistic with 1 point in it but I will still need life for the rest of the damage, I'll see what gear I can get along and also, what are the breakpoints for a sorc? From what I see it's a little different in HU since you can get to 2 frames with a some kinds of druid.

P.S. Would anyone like to hear the afterthoughts?

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That info is all at http://blue.arimyth.com

To get the most from your energy shield you need as big a mana bulb as you can get. Mana regen is based on the size of your mana bulb. If you have 1k mana and are recovering a full bulb in 20 secs you are recovering 50 mana per second. If you keep the same amount of regen and raise your mana to 10k you will be recovering 500 mana per second.

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