this is a build I have never tried before. With the sorc being my prefered class I figured a fresh ladder was the time to do it. At the minute she is at level 64 and on the hunt for a gear upgrade. I`ll update as she progresses.

I should start by saying this is a guide to how I have personally set her up and played her and she is playing with a dedicated party. She is also a pure staff sorc, she wont use a shield and orb at all for a nice change. Staffs have been improved (how much I'm not sure but I want to try it out anyway)

So lets kick off with her stats. To begin with I put 12 in strength, dexterity wont be touched at all on this build as she wont be using a shield so wont need dex to block. 15 went into energy so I could cast for long enough without running out of mana, the rest went into vitality. As she leveled I added another 15 strength by level 25 then did not touch it again. Every other stat point went into vitality.

Next is the skills. At level 1 I got fire bolt and leveled it untill level 6 at level 6 I added 1 to warmth then pumped fire bolt until Level 12 when I got fire ball. As act one went on the damage (and mana cost) went up at a steady pace, at level 24 I got 1 into telekenisis and after radament she aquired teleport. then I added to fireball until level 28. At 28 I got meteor and what fantastic skill it is. Its a change from my usual sorceress skills that I dont really have to aim. using it on the high life enemys (uniques) and letting the splash damage deal with the others. Add in fireball and its a winning formula.
from here she continued adding to meteor until it had about 15 hard points in it, obviously getting fire mastery at 36 but leaving it at 1 hard point. I added around 15 hard points into meteor then finished maxing fireball, then meteor and finally firebolt. and then adding to mastery.

Now for the equip.
I was really struggling for mana once I started leveling fireball. So I used a 3 socket quilted armour and added a flawless saphire I managed to cube up and 2 chipped saphires. This, along with a 2 chipped saphire cap (remember she is untwinked). This took my mana to a decent amount so she could cast fireball until each mob was dead. i was lucky and managed to gather 2 tir runes by the black marsh and a 2 fireball 1 warmth staff with 3 sockets. I added my 2 tir runes to the staff and saved the last socket for later when I could gather another tir rune. With 24 mana per kill she didn't need to use many mana pots except for bosses. Once she hit act 2 she was using the same staff along with an angelic ring, rare 10fcr + mana ring and an fcr amulet with just over 20 life on it. Arcanas helm, My saphire armour and helm, a pair of fantastic resist heavy boots with 7 strength! a nice resist/life/mana belt and triple resist leather gloves. gather every charm you can as you will need some with resists. they helped me alot since I dont use a shield.
By the time I had got up to the lost city waypoint and cleared the viper temple I had an arcannas staff. This was fantastic as I already had the helm to go along with it. This helped me out with mana and fcr. The weapon also had 3 sockets that I added tir runes too. I had changed my helm to a tarnhelm by then and upgraded my armour to an all resists rare with a normal saphire and a flawed saphire. My amulet was now an eye of etlitch and I had changed my rare ring to a 20fcr 20 odd light res 15 mana 3 mana per kill ring too. this equip seen me into act 3 without to many problems. act 3 was much the same equip. I found arcannas amulet and magefists from mithya that was pretty much my only gear change in act 3. once I hit act 4 things continued as usual, same equipment untill I made it to the river of flame waypoint. taintbreeder dropped arcanas armour and I was able to complete the set. (was over the moon). This set has some great low caster mods, aswell as nice resist boost and pdr/mdr and alot more mana. After doing the hellforge (well my group did as I was useless for that fight) I got myself a couple of perfect ameths and crafted a caster craft belt for more fcr (16%) and mana, mana regen and some resists.
This was my gear untill act 5. I found a pair of infernostrides in act 5 for a nice -10% enemy fire resists.
Later I was able to get myself 2 sorceress skills rings with strength and resists by trading for my soul. This is pretty much her setup as she is now.

For my mercinary I went my usual act 2 prayer merc. I always use this mercinary on a sorceress as he will at some point be using insight. This means he gets double the heal from prayer and recovers my mana. Damage on him is not what I'm after. I can kill well enough for the both of us. I loaded him to the hilt with anything with life replenish. angelic rings, spare arcannas helm, snakecord belt, rare boots with resists and 8 replenish,nokozan amulet to get his resists up a bit and other goodies like this. With enough replenish and his prayer, he is a formidable meat shield. he recovers life at a crazy rate and is extremely durable. As he leveled (pretty fast as she clears at a good pace) I followed suit with replenish equip and now focusing on his resists as much as possible. Once I got an insight on him late into act 4 he was a fantastic addition to our party.
He is now sporting naj's helm with 2 tals and a ral in for resists. His resists were very low in nightmare and this buffed him alot. the rest of his equip is pretty much resist oriented as his prayer is developed alot more now. With the double heal he is pretty beefy with around 1.8k life unbuffed.

Now for my next stage. I'm looking for a +3 fireball or a +3 meteor staff to make flickering flame in and a vex rune to complete the runes i need for it.

flickering flame
Ral Dol Lum Vex
+3 to Fire Skills
Resist All +33%
+40% Faster Cast Rate
-20-25% to Enemy Fire Resists (varies)
+3 to Blaze (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Fire Wall (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Meteor (Sorceress Only)
+30 to Mana After Each Kill
+15-30 Fire Damage
+5% to Fire Skill Damage
+16 Life After Each Kill
+30 to Energy
+60 to Mana
12% Mana Stolen per Hit

Its an obvious choice as no staff can really compete with that at this stage.
I have 2 other equip routes I want to explore, both for diff situations
The disciple set will be used (If I can gather the rest of it) for solo farming. For team play, a viper armour/enlightenment runeword, 3 fire skills amulet, silkweaves, lavagouts (str allowing) and arachnids mesh. I want to try to craft a nice topaz crafted circlet with +3 fire skills. That will be hard to get I think.

My skills route is going as follows. I have only fire mastery left to max so after that I'll max telekenisis. By the time I have got around 12-13 points in it I should have some good caster equip and alot of mana from charms etc. so I'll use energy shield. its my favourate sorc skill by a long way as it gets stronger by boosting mana and it is a great early warning system. With an insight merc it makes you alot more sturdy too. My warmth level will be pretty high as my equip will be focused on fire skills so that will really boost my energy shields power. Also I'm using no shields so i`ll use the next best thing I have access too.

I`ll update this as I go along and try to provide some screenshots soon if I remember. Thanks for reading!

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Depending on how you end up feeling with things, this may be a decent build for an A5 Merc. The reason being is that A2 mercs are a little more cowardly and tend to run back to you and as a meteor girl you will want monsters to stay in the flames. A5 mercs have a much more aggressive AI and will stay further away from you more frequently in battle. This makes them a little more prone to dying, but if you get the hang of teleporting them back, you should do ok for the most part.

Mostly this is a "if you want to try something a little different" concept as A2 insight is probably the most powerful choice - it is just that this particular sorc build (by the nature of fire's dmg) tends to introduce an unusual chance to make an A5 merc more viable.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

I do love the act 5 merc, they can be seriously powerfull and i used one on javazons and holy fire paladins before. I am usualy with my group so tanking is not so important at the min, but it helps at times. I find if he moves i just teleport to the other side of my flames and bring the mob back into it. Things are usualy dead before it gets to that point at the min though

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The only thing I even like about A5 mercs are their great FHR. Otherwise I think A2 prayer beats them hands down in usefulness. Conversion is awesome for soloing trash, prayer to keep your bulb full(especially useful for ES builds), and they have the biggest selection of useful aura weapons to equip. In a boss fight I wouldn't want my merc tanking much anyway, so the less aggressive AI is an advantage to me.

I deff prefer a2 prayer merc on any sorc. you can teleport to save them if you need to and converts are fantastic (vs sszak, shenk and sarina especialy). An act 5 merc is good too but not for a sorceress im my experiance

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