Melee Sorceress Build Guide D2R 2.6

Melee Sorceress Introduction

The melee sorceress is a meta build that's fun and interesting to play with. It relies on the Holy Shock aura and Lightning Mastery to deliver massive amounts of damage. In order to gain a level30 Holy Shock aura, she must wear dual Dream runewords. The rest of the gear is not cheaper either, a Grief and a Fortitude helps a lot with physical damage. Due to being super expensive, the build is not a viable ladder starter.

Playing with a Melee sorc is a quite unique experience. The build can farm any content in the game with decent speed, however there are more effective builds both for Magic Finding and for area farming with high monster density. However if you want to kill Hell Diablo in 3 hits, this is the right build for you.

The Melee Sorc obviously moves via teleportation, as that's by far the quickest way to move. Due to the lack of faster cast rate %, you won’t be able to compete with elemental damage dealing sorcs in Boss farming. The build’s attacks are not fast, as it uses normal attack, but anything that comes your way will only take one hit to kill. 

The build unfortunately has low magic finding potential, as it relies on its gear for delivering damage and its charms for damage/survivability boost, so there is no place for magic finding items. If you want to get rid of immune monsters, get a lightning Sunder charm.

Related Guides

Foh Paladin Build | Berserk Barbarian Build | Meteor Sorceress Build | Bow Sorceress Build

Gameplay

Attacking skills: You will be using normal attack as your attack skill. You will be able to one-hit anything that comes your way, as you will deal up to 50k dmg with one hit. Some of the damage is physical as you wear a grief, which is quite nice. You should also cast an enchant on yourself to boost your attack rating, as you will have low AR with the normal attack.

Movement: The obvious movement skill of choice is Teleport. You won't be able to reach decent breakpoints, so it is kind of pointless to try.

Survivability: Compared to other sorcs, the Melee Sorc has decent survivability, but compared to other melee builds it is very fragile. Make sure to have 75% all resistance on Hell. Some physical damage reduction also helps, so wear a Verdungo or a String of Ear belt. Have a Call to Arms runeword as your switch weapon, so you can cast Battle Orders on yourself. Your Frozen Armor and Energy shield will be maxed, which will boost your survivability immensely.

A fun part of the build is its defense mechanics. You will rely on Energy Shield to absorb the damage taken. With a maxed Telekinesis synergy, and a maxed Warmth skill, you will quickly regain mana and will be able to survive almost any situation.

Party and Solo play: Party play is fun with this build, since it delivers up to 50k dmg with a single hit. A player8 game will feel like player one. Due to having great survivability you can also be the teleporter of the party, members will be grateful for your presence. If you have an Infinity on your merc, the Conviction aura will benefit the whole party.

Magic Find: The build is not fit for magic finding. But if you still want to MF with it, you can reach about 400% MF at most.

Stats

Strength: Have 156 strength in total to be able to wear a Spirit Monarch as your switch weapon

Dexterity: Put just enough points on it to be able to wear a phase blade (136 dex)

Vitality: You can put a few points on it, but spare most of your stat points for Energy

Energy: Put all your remaining points on it

Skill Points

Fire Skill Tree:

• Max out Warmth
• Put a point on Enchant (or cast an enchant with Demon Limb)

Lightning Skill Tree:

• Max out Lightning Mastery
• Put a point on Energy Shield's prerequisites
• Max out Energy Shield
• Max out Telekinesis

Cold Skill Tree:

• Lastly, max out Frozen Armor

Melee Sorc Gearing Options

Helms

• Dream Runeword Helm ➤ An essential item to deal high lightning damage

Amulets

• Mara's Kaleidoscope ➤ The best choice for balanced defense and offense.
• Highlord's Wrath ➤ A decent option
• Metalgrid ➤ A nice attack rating and defense booster

Body Armors

• Fortitude Archon Plate ➤ A balanced option with both good offensive and defensive qualities
• Chains of Honor ➤ The best armor to improve resistances
• Skin of the Vipermagi ➤ An optimal choice if you need more FCR
• Tal Rasha's Guardianship ➤ A decent choice at early ladder, especially for Magic Find
• Skullder's Ire ➤ The best Magic Finding option.
• Stealth Runeword ➤ A good budget ladder starter.

Weapons

• Grief Phase Blade ➤ The highest damage weapon choice.
• 6 Socket Phase blade with 6*Lightning Facet
• Any other high attack speed weapon

Shields

• Dream Runeword Troll Nest ➤ Another essential item to deal high lightning damage

Switch Weapons

• Call to Arms ➤ Almost doubles survivability with Battle Orders, every build needs a CTA.

Switch Shields

• Spirit Monarch ➤ Boosts Call to Arms' Battle Orders and Battle Command

Rings

• Raven Frost ➤ Great for survivability and attack rating boost

Gloves

• Dracul's Grasp ➤ Helps with life sustenance, plus open wounds damage

Belts

• Verdungo's Hearty Cord ➤ Great defensive belt
• String of Ears ➤ Another great defensive belt
• Nightsmoke ➤ A decent budget ladder starter.

Boots

• Triple resist 30% FRW boots ➤ The best choice for survivability
• Sandstorm Trek ➤ One of the best choices for survivability, especially if ethereal.
• Waterwalk ➤ Another great choice for survivability
• Gore Rider ➤ The best choice for damage

Charms

• Annihilus ➤ A must have item for every build.
• Sorceress Hellfire Torch ➤ Another must have item.
• Lightning Sunder charm ➤ Another must have item to remove immunities
• +1 to Lightning skills grand charm ➤ If you can afford it, try to have them with +life. +FHR
• + All resistances small charm ➤ If you can afford it, try to have them with +life.
• + Life small charm ➤ If you can afford it, try to have them with +mana.
• + Lightning resist small charms ➤ They help to compensate for the fire Sunder charm

Sockets/Jewels

• Lightning Rainbow Facet ➤ The best choice for damage boosting.
• Ist rune ➤ The best choice for Magic Finding.
• Um rune ➤ Use it for allresist boosting if needed.
• Ort Rune ➤ Use it to boost fire resist
• Perfect Diamond ➤ Can use it instead of Um runes in shields and helms.

Mercenary

Have an Act2 mercenary with Holy Freeze aura for crowd control.

Ethereal items don't lose durability if your mercenary wears them, so having ethereal item bases for each gear slot is preferred due to the increased defense on armor items and increased damage on weapons. In many instances ethereal items that are great for mercenaries will be much more expensive than non-ethereal ones.

Mercenary gear:

Helm

• Any 3 socketed helm with 3 perfect diamond ➤ increase mercenary resistances and survivability
• Tal Rasha's set helm ➤ a decent choice
• Vampire Gaze unique helm ➤ another decent choice
• Guillame's face set helm - usefulness ➤ only use it with high merc defensive abilities
• Andariel's Visage unique helm ➤ the best helm choice

Weapon

• Insight runeword ➤ provides meditation aura so you never run out of mana
• Bonehew unique weapon ➤ simply a good choice
• Tomb Reaver unique weapon ➤ the highest damage choice
• The Reaper's Toll unique weapon ➤ great for both offense and defense
• Infinity runeword ➤ the best choice for offense

Body Armor

• Treachery runeword ➤ great for both defense and offense, a budget choice
• Fortitude runeword ➤ the best choice for both defense and offense

Best Melee Sorc Gear

Dream runeword Diadem ▬ Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet ▬ Fortitude runeword Archon Plate ▬ Grief Phase Blade weapon ▬ Dream Troll Nest shield ▬ Call to Arms Switch Weapon ▬ Spirit Monarch Switch Shield ▬ Dual Raven Frost Rings ▬ Dracul's Grasp gloves ▬ String of Ears belt ▬ Gore Rider boots ▬ Annihilus ▬ Sorc Hellfire Torch ▬ Lightning Sunder charm ▬ +1 Fire or Lightning Skills, +Life, + Fire resist and +Mana Charms ▬ +5/-5 Fire Rainbow Facet Item Sockets

If you'd rather skip farming you can quickly buy gear at Rpgstash's D2R Store.