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sezione · Trimis: 05/04/2014 00:12 Titlul subiectului: Build Sorceress PVP Energy Shield

This guide attempts to discuss the variations of the most effective types of dueling or PVP sorceresses that use Energy Shield. Although PVP sorceresses of all types are very common these days, building an effective sorceress that utilizes energy shield is a bit more challenging, yet will be far more rewarding.

Energy Shield Advantages:

- 70% - 95% of your damage is not taken away from life, instead it is removed from your quickly replenishing mana pool.

- With 20 actual skillpoints in telekinesis (+skill equipment does not help), you only lose 0.75 mana per every absorbed hit point.

- Max mana items are common, unlike +max health. With just a few items you can easily gain 4+ mana points for every stat point placed into energy. Items that provide +mana also go through this multiplier, even though mana boosts from +mana per level (Shako, Wizardspike) do not.

- How large of a hit can you take and still divert most of that damage to your mana pool? With a 2000 mana pool, up to 16000 damage can be diverted partially to mana before your energy shield collapes (due the 0.75 telekinesis and 1/6th Pvp divisions)

Disadvantages:

- Energy Shield is applied before resistance equipment and absorb. Huge elemental attacks will drain your mana pool far faster then anything else.

- Attacks such as poison and open wounds completely bypass energy shield and hit your health directly. And while poison can be reduced with +max resist items and poison length reduction, open wounds is completely unresistable other then by shield blocking.

- Resistance gear, Damage to mana, absorb gear, and damage reduce equipment is far less effective for an energy shield sorceress then for a regular sorceress.

- While you are almost invulnerable if you take damage slowly, damage that is hit at a very fast rate can collapse your energy shield before your mana can recover, which usually means near instant death.

- Synergy spells require most of your skillpoints, leaving very few points available for utility skills necessary for a PVP sorceress such as warmth, teleport, and energy shield. This guide however attempts to discuss ways to avoid these limitations.

Basic Stat points

Strength: Enough to wear all of your equipment.
Dexterity: Enough for 75% blocking with your shield. Yes, all PVP sorceresses need blocking.
Vitality: None (What do you think this is, a PVP character?)
Energy: Every spare stat point.

Skill Setups

I get asked this question very frequently: “Which is the best / strongest skill tree?” There is no answer to this question. They are all strong and effective when played by an experienced and skilled dueler, and each tree has it’s drawbacks and advantages. Unless you plan to duel in Clan Honor with a running sorceress, a teleporting sorceress will use a TON of mana. Every sorceress must dedicate skillpoints either into warmth or into teleport to avoid this problem. Blizzard may have accidentally set up the primary synergy spells properly for a change, because all three trees are somewhat equally balanced:

Assuming you plan to level your dueler to around level 89 (100 skillpoints):

Cold: 20 pts Orb, 20 pts Synergy, 20 pts Mastery, ~35 pts remaining

Fire: 20 pts Fireball, 40 pts Synergies, 20 pts Mastery, ~16 pts remaining
- Your fire skill charms also strengthen your +warmth, regenerating your mana pool more quickly)

Lightning: 20 pts Lightning, 60 pts Synergies, 20 pts mastery
- No points remaining unless you weaken your attack spells)
- Your lighting skill charms strengthen your energy shield, reduce mana cost of teleport, and give you a powerful 1 pt thunderstorm.

The Orb ES Sorceress

Frozen Orb: 20 pts
Cold Mastery: 20 pts
Ice Bolt: 1 pts
Other Cold pre-reqs: 4 pts

Energy Shield: 20 pts (max this last)
Telekinesis: 20 pts
Teleport: 1 pt only (if mana pool < 2500, increase this)
Other Lightning pre-reqs: 3 pts

Warmth: 1 pts (if mana pool > 2500, increase this)

This sorceress is fully viable with at least 10-15 skillpoints placed into Warmth and/or Teleport.

At lower skill levels, replacing coldskill charms for life/mana charms will greatly increase the defensive power of this sorceress. In addition, wearing more +% cold damage gear and substituting out coldskill charms for life/mana charms can often boost your defensive + offensive power further then coldskill charms by themselves do.

For 40% higher Orb damage, put only 1 pt into energy shield and drop all the saved skillpoints into Ice Bolts. If you don’t wear a lot of +% cold damage gear such as Nightwing’s, Death Fathoms, and Ormus’ Robes, this is a better skill choice.

Fireball / Meteor ES Sorceress

Warmth: 1+ pts (increase this rather then +teleport for mana regen)
Firebolt: 20 pts
Fire Ball: 20 pts
Fire Mastery: 1-20 pts (max this last)
Other Fire pre-reqs: 4 pts

Telekinesis: 20 pts

With fully powered fireball/bolt/meteor at level 93, this Sorceress perhaps one of the most powerful duelers available for Clan Honor or public dueling.

Don’t forget to set a hotkey for both Firebolt and Meteor when dueling. Firebolt does nearly as much damage as Fireball, and is always the best spell to use when your mana pool drops to below half due to it’s extremely small mana usage. Meteor can be used not so much as an offensive spell but as a tactical deferent, similar to Hydra, which forces your opponent(s) to avoid certain areas of the screen.

With Enigma armor or a +3 Teleport Ormus, combined with a Memory or Warpspear Staff, this sorceress can save 5 skillpoints normally used for teleport, energy shield, and it’s three pre-requisites. If you plan to use Call to Arms on your weapon switch and duel with this sorceress in public games, go ahead and put at least 1 pt into each of those skills, and leave Fire Mastery for the last skill to max.

Lightning/Chain Lightning ES Sorceress

Warmth: 1 pts (increase this rather then +teleport for mana regen)

Telekinesis: 20 pts
Lightning: 20 pts
Chain Lightning: 20 pts
Lightning Mastery: 20 pts
Energy Shield: 1 pt
Thunderstorm: 1 pt
Charged Bolt: 1-20 pts (max this last)
Other Lightning pre-reqs: 3 pts

Viable at level 76, this sorceress will keep increasing in damage until at level 95 when charged bolt is maxed. If anyone actually levels from level 95 to 99, the last 4 skillpoints can be placed into Nova for further damage.

When dueling your primary attack skill is obviously Lightning, however Chain Lightning is handy to have hotkeyed for team duels or the occasional opponent who uses minions. The low minimum damage is a real annoyance at times, but the benefits of a piercing attack plus the fun of chain lightning in many duels far outweighs the disadvantages.

Warmth

Increased Mana regeneration / Warmth decreases the time required to regenerate your mana pool from empty to full by a set amount:

0% inc regen: 2 minutes
100% inc regen: 1 minute
200% inc regen: 40 seconds.
300% inc regen: 30 seconds.
400% inc regen: 24 seconds.
500% inc regen: 20 seconds.

Obviously with a mana pool twice the size, you'll regenerate twice as much mana per second. Since all characters have an base 100% mana regeneration, 300(400%) increased regen is twice as much as 100(200%), and 500(600%) is twice as much as 200(300%).

What's the point of diverting all the damage you take to your mana pool if your mana pool does not regenerate? Mana gets drained almost inconsequentially for magic damage and physical damage, but typical elemental damage will simply floor it. There are two approaches to take to solve this problem:

1 pt warmth, +11 skills = 162% mana regen from warmth, 15% from ormus = 177% regen
2000 mana pool = 45.8 mana regen per second
3000 mana pool = 68.8 mana regen per second

20 pts warmth, +11 skills = 390% mana regen from warmth, 15% from ormus = 405% regen
2000 mana pool = 83.3 mana regen per second
3000 mana pool = 125 mana regen per second

Teleport

Adding points into teleport decreases the mana cost you spend on teleportation from 24 (1 skill point) down to 1 (24 skillpoints). Since you are teleporting at 9 frame (2.78 casts per sec) or 8 frame (3.13 casts per second), the typical player with +11 skills will be using typically 12x2.78=33 or 12x3.13=37 mana points per second.

So at a constant teleport rate you are gaining X mana per second from warmth and your mana pool and losing 33-37 mana per sec from teleport. Now if you increase your +teleport to level 24, then you are only losing 2-3 mana per second, right? Wrong!

For this example, throw Frozen Orb into the calculation. The casting delay for Orb is 1 second, which means that whenever you cast orb, you are stuck in one place for 0.5 seconds before you're allowed to cast again. Assuming a high +skill class of orb, Orb takes about 43 damage, and if you teleport typically three times before casting orb again, you're looking at the following comparisons:

Mana use per second = mana / time. (add up mana cost of orb + 3 teleports divided by întreg time)

8 fps Level 12 Teleport (mana cost 13): (43+13+13+13 / 0.5+0.32+0.32+0.32) = 82/1.46 = 56.2
8 fps Level 24 Teleport (mana cost 1): (43+1+1+1 / 0.5+0.32+0.32+0.32) = 46/1.46 = 31.5

Level 24 / 8 fps Teleport = 24.7 gain of mana per second

9 fps Level 12 Teleport (mana cost 13): (43+13+13+13 / 0.5+0.36+0.36+0.36) = 82/1.58 = 51.9
9 fps Level 24 Teleport (mana cost 1): (43+1+1+1 / 0.5+0.36+0.36+0.36) = 46/1.58 = 29.1

Level 24 / 9 fps Teleport = 22.8 gain of mana per second.

Now if you spent 12 extra skillpoints and placed them into warmth, you could increase your typical mana regeneration rate with 1 warmth+11 = 12 warmth (175%) to about 12+11 = 23 warmth (300%) which translates a gain of the following:

1000 mana: 22.9 to 33.3 (a gain of 10.4 mana per sec)
1500 mana: 34.4 to 50.0 (a gain of 15.6 mana per sec)
2000 mana: 45.8 to 66.7 (a gain of 20.9 mana per sec)
2500 mana: 57.3 to 83.3 (a gain of 26.0 mana per sec)
3000 mana: 68.8 to 100 (a gain of 31.2 mana per sec)

Conclusion:

1) If you have 2500 mana or more, you will gain more mana per second by placing all extra skillpoints into Warmth, and leaving teleport at level 1 (and letting +skills increase it)

2) If you have less then 2500 mana, you will gain more mana per second by placing all extra skillpoints into Teleport until Teleport reaches level +24 (1 mana per cast), and then any extra points beyond that into warmth.

Remember if you teleport much more then you shot orb, then teleport becomes more valuable. If you stand around and don't teleport, or teleport very slowly occasionally, then warmth becomes slightly more valuable then teleport. This is primarily true for Fire and Lightning Sorceresses who are required by their skills to play more defensively.

Equipment

The primary goal of your equipment is meet several requirements for a PVP sorceress. Faster Hit Recovery of 42%/60%/86%, Teleport/Fire/cast rate of 37%/63%/105%, or a Lightning cast of 52%/78%/117% should always be kept in mind when using a particular set of gear. Outside of these requirements favor gear with max mana, +skills, +stats, and +resists whenever possible, in that order.

Helm #1: Harlequin Crest (50 str req)
(+2 skills 1-148 life based on clvl, 1-148 mana based on clvl, 10% DR)

This is the typical caster helm, but since mana based on clvl doesn't get multiplied by the mana bonus of items like Frostburn or Sojs anymore, this helm really isn't the only option for the sorceress anymore. Poor players with plain skill charms should definitely still use this helm of course.

Helm #2: Nightwing's Veil (96 str req)
(+2 skills, 8-15% cold damage, 10-20 dex)

If you are using fairly good charms on a cold sorcerses and already have easily 700-800 plenar life without Shako, this is a better helm overall. The 15% cold damage boost is a sizable increase in actual orb damage.

Helm #3: Griffon’s Eye Diadem (Ladder Only)
(+1 skills, 25% cast rate, -15-20% enemy lightning resists, 10-15% lightning damage)

The % lightning damage modifier on this circlet is a complete joke for the Sorceress, as it simply adds on to your existing lightning mastery, resulting in maybe 1-2% more actual damage. The enemy lightning resistance mod is nice when dueling newbies who don’t stack any lightning resists, but the real draw to this circlet is it’s 25% cast rate, extremely useful for reaching the 117% cast rate needed to reach 12 fps casting for lightning/chain lightning.

Amulet #1: Tal Rasha's Amulet (+2 sorc skills, +50 life, +42 mana, 33% lightning res)

An overall deplin amulet for the sorceress if you have enough +cast rate gear. Good boost of both life and mana, and the lighting resist may help slighly reduce life damage (but not energy shield/mana damage) from lightning sources.

Amulet #2: Rare/Crafted +2 Sorceress skills
(with possible mods of +stats, +10-20% cast rate +poison resists, +replenish life, +life, -DR, -MDR, +mana, +damage to mana)

Typically can provide the best possible set of features. Generally look for an amulet with cast rate and good general +stats if you don't find something you particularly like better.

Amulet #3: Mara's Amulet (+2 skills, +5 all stats, 20-30% all resists)

A good choice only if you use Call to Arms for your weapon switch. +2 Sorceress skill amulets will not boost the level of battle orders you get from CTA, but this amulet will.

Amulet #4: +3 Skill Tree magic amulet with +100 life

Weapon #1: Death's Fathom (+3 skills, 20% cast rate, 15-30% cold skill damage, fire/light resists)

For a cold sorceress this orb just has too much going for it. The 30% cold skill damage that a perfect one would give you is similar to placing an additional 15 skillpoints into the Ice Bolt Synergy, and it actually gives you 30% more real damage to your cold spells.

Weapon #2: Heart of the Oak (+3 skills, 40% cast, 15% max mana, 30-40% res, 10 dex, 20 repl life

Combine the mana boost of wizardspike with nearly the same resistances and cast rate with a few nice bonuses and slap a +3 skill bonus to the front of it, and you get the famous Hoto. No other caster weapon comes even close, especially considering your need for mana, dexterity, and resistances, and the effectiveness of replenish life for an eshield sorc.

Alternate Weapon #1: Memory staff with a +3 Energy Shield Staff. (+9 energy shield buffing)

Use to reach as close as possible to level 40 energy shield (95%), or just use this staff to save 4-5 skillpoints that you could better spend elsewhere. It even has +skillpoints into static field which help those baal run games move faster.

Alternate Weapon #2: Call to Arms with a +1 skills shield. (Battle Orders)

Shield #1: Sanctuary Runeword Tower (64% block, 20% FHR, +20 dex, 7 MDR, 50-70 all resists)

The best overall hybrid semi-block, semi-resists, faster hit recovery shield. Highly underrated especially if you use body armor that provides no resistances. Use a Sanctuary Hyperion (64% block/127 str req) as an alternate shield to Stormshield if you go with a high strength / Clan Honor Sorceress.

Shield #2: Whistan's Guard (87% blocking)

Easiest way to get to 75% blocking with very little investment in strength and dexterity. The best possible shield for a high % eshield sorceress, as it frees up a ton of stat points to dump into energy. Shael this and you’ll reach the highest block rate possible for a sorceress, useful against Druids and other “stunning” physical attacks.

Shield #3: Lidless Wall (40% blocking, +1 skills, 10% max mana, 20% cast rate, +10 energy)

For all other non-physical duels, this is the typical shield of choice. Skills, 10% boost to your mana pool, cast rate, and a bit more energy. What's not to like?

Armor #1: Ormus's (10-15% cold dmg, +3 teleport or warmth, 20% cast, Regen Mana 10-15%)

The ultimate cold sorceress armor. +3 Warmth is equivalent for cold sorcs who have over 2500 mana. If you don’t use call to arms for battle orders, combining a +3 teleport ormus this with a memory staff will save you a few extra skillpoints.

Armor #2: Vipermagi (+1 skills, 30% cast, MDR 9-13, 20-35% all resists)

The magic damage reduce on this armor simply can not be ignored, especially for dueling hammerdins and other low damage elemental/magic sources. Other then that, this is an excellent cheap alternative that also maintains a great amount of cast rate. Keep in mind that the all resists does little more then keep your poison resists up, so watch for one with 13 mdr before bothering with the resistances.

Armor #3: Enigma (+2 skills, +0-74 strength, 5% max life, 8% DR, 15% damage to mana)

Another good alternative for boosting your stats and mana pool at the expense of a armor socket, a good boost of cold damage, and cast rate. The +2 skills is still quite nice, and by placing all strength points into mana, the +strength boost may increase your mana pool by around 250-300. Clan Honor sorceresses will appreciate the 45% r/w bonus this armor has as well.

With 10 base strength and a 20-stat anilihus charm, a 30-str Breastplate (avg defense 67) will boost your strength to 96 at level 88, just enough to wear Nightwing’s Veil. If you want to wear a –15% Stormshield (133 str req) and use no other +str gear, then place either 47 strength points to bring your base strength to 57, wear a Dusk Shroud Enigma (avg defense 414) and you’ll have 133 strength by level 75. The other good choice is to place 37 strength points to bring your base strength to 37, wear a Mage Plate Enigma (avg defense 243) and you’ll have 133 strength by level 89.

Rings: Sojs or 10% cast rate +life/mana/stats/resists

Gloves #1: Frostburn (40% mana boost)
Gloves #2: Death Hand (50% poison resists, 75% Poison length Reduce)
Gloves #3: Trang Oul’s (20% cast rate, 30% cold resists, +3 fireball and 15% mana regen with belt)
Gloves #4: Bloodfist (30% fhr, +40 life, not recommended unless no other FHR gear available)

Belt: Arachnid's Mesh (+1 skills, 5% max mana, 20% cast rate)
Belt #2: Trang’s Belt (91 str req, 5 repl, +25-50 mana, +66 life, +3 fireball and 15% mana regen with belt)
Belt #3: Thundergod’s Vigor (110 str req, +20 str, +20 vita, 10% max light res, 20 light absorb)
Belt #4: Verdungo’s (106 str req, +30-40 vitality, 10-15% damage reduce, 10-13 repl life, 10% FHR)
Belt #5: Crafted Caster (5-10% cast, 24% FHR, +20 strength, +60 life, +20 mana, +15 regen mana, +res)

Boots #1: Silkweave (10% max mana) - Huge boost to your mana pool
Boots #2: Sandstorm Trek (91 Str Req, 20% FHR, 40-70% poison resists, +10-15 Str, +10-15 Vita)
Boots #3: Hotspur (+15 life, 45% fire resist, 15% max fire resists)
Boots #4: Aldur’s (40% r/w, +50 life, 40-50% fire resists – good Clan Honor boots)

Sockets:

Fire and Lightning Facet jewels are totally useless to any sorceress who uses fire/lighting mastery. Instead of boosting damage by 5%, they instead simply add to your mastery damage. For example, a Lightning sorceress with level 35 Lightning Mastery (458%) will get a 1% boost in damage from a 5% lightning facet. –Enemy resists are useful up to the point where an intelligent enemy stacks a bit of additional resistance.

Cold facet jewels, on the other hand, are worth their weight in gold, as is any other +cold damage gear you may run across as they actually increase your spell damage by the percentage they state. Other good socketable items include Shael runes (20% FHR substitutes for 80 more life in charms), Sur runes (+5% mana or +50 mana in shields), and Um runes in shields (22% resist all).

Dueling Strategies

General:

Typically an Orb sorceresses has a huge tactical advantage with Frozen Orb that no other class can easily match: you don’t have to aim exactly to score strong hits on an opponent. Perfect aim still helps, as the riguros position where a frozen orb “bursts” will spray anywhere from 8-16 shards out on a hapless opponent, as opposed to the typical 1-3 shard hit otherwise. Because of the semantics of this spell, Orb sorceresses always excel when they are on the offensive. Too offensive and you let yourself run into your opponents attacks, but if you are not offensive enough, you let the other player control the duel.

The down side of Frozen orb was introduced with the 1.10 patch, namely the 1/2 period cast delay before untimed spells can be cast after a timed spell. In plain english, if a spell has a 1 second cast delay such as Frozen orb, you must wait a 1/2 second before you can teleport away or cast another untimed spell. If you wish to cast a timed spell such as another frozen orb, or hydra, or blizzard, you must wait a full second. What this results in is a split second delay after you cast an orb where you are “stuck in place”, just waiting for an assassin’s traps to chew you to pieces.

Fireball / Lightning Sorceresses do not suffer from this problem, but they also have to spend their time and efforts aiming and casting their spells directly. Unlike Orb, once a fireball or lightning bolt is cast, it speeds off the screen quickly so must be followed up by another cast immediately. For this reason fire/lightning sorceresses must play generally far more defensively then Cold sorceresses, and as a general rule should allow their opponents to come to them.

Amazons:

These former deadly foes of the sorceress class have been toned down quite a bit, and are usually quite easy to kill with their low vitality and low resistances. Guided arrow/multishot is a joke, as you’ll be able to tank hundreds of them, but beware of poison javalin and other lightning-based attacks as they can floor you quite rapidly, even though with a bit of practice they’re easy to avoid.

Keep them moving whenever possible with offensive spells hurled their way, keep them on the run and you should not have too much trouble with these characters.

Melee/ww/kick Assassins:

Non-trappers or hybrid assassins would be a complete pushover for a ES sorceress except for two things: Open Wounds and Venom. Death Hands/max poison resists/86%+ FHR helps, but nothing will stop open wounds. Fireball and Lightning sorceresses can play defensive and rely on a high rate of firepower to end these duels quickly, but Orb sorcs will have more of a problem. Try firing an orb away and then teleporting to the apex of the orb to taunt the assassin into dragon flighting on to your position. For hybrids, watch and avoid dropped traps as best as possible to avoid being stunned, even though most non-trappers will run out of mana long before they’re trap damage can get through your mana pool. Either way keep teleporting quickly, mix between offensive and defensive play, and try not to let your movements become predictable.

Trap Assassins

Both fire and lightning trap assassins will be your worst opponents. Their trap damage can drop your mana pool quite fast and all they have to do is drop a few autoaiming traps on the ground and run away while you have the responsibility of having to chase them down and aim to do any damage. Orb sorceresses are in just as bad of a condition due to being paralyzed for the 1/2 second after firing an orb, which makes up for the advantage they receive from an “area-based spell”.

The best way to beat any trapper is to force them to duel offensively, to move towards you instead of you running into their field of traps. This gives you the opportunity to fire a few spells of your own towards an advancing target instead of wading through a field of traps to get at your opponent. Full resistances and full 86% FHR can not be stressed strongly enough. Sorceresses and human form druids share the worst hit recovery rate of any class, so don’t go out of your way to let your opponent mindblast you into paralysis.

Barbarian

With blocking, you’ll never run into a Barbarian you can’t beat. Maybe if you sit there and tank his wwinds without moving or firing, he might have a chance. Keep moving, keep dropping spells in his tracks, and he’ll drop, if not right away.

Wind Druids

Wind Druids are possibly the most frustrating duel you’ll ever see, outside maybe a defensive trap assassin. Chain Lightning or Frozen Orb will make short work of their minions, letting you hit them directly, but defensive constant recasting of Cyclone armor can keep a Druid at full health despite the number of hits you make on him. Fire sorceresses have a particularly difficult time against wind druids, and probably should simply pass on this duel, but Orb and Chain Lightning sorceresses stand a bit of a chance.

The goal of a Wind Druid is to teleport on top of you, stun you with physical minion hits, and cast cyclones on you until you die. Faster block rate, either a Shaeled Whistan’s or a Stormshield helps here, as well as a defensive teleport style. Let the druid teleport to where you were a second ago while firing back at him. Once you score a few direct hits, try to go on the offensive to kill him before he remembers to recast cyclone armor. If the druid constantly retreats and keeps his cyclone armor and minions maintained, this duel is often hopeless, if not still a bit of fun, similar to dueling against the “white ring” users of the 1.09 patch.

Melee / OtherDruids

Same as Barbarians, stay out of melee range of them and wear them down. You should generally have no problems with any other variants. Rabies druids can kill you if they get a single successful hit, unless you use an item with +max poison resists (Jade Tan Do Kris or Venom Ward will help), so don’t let them get close.

Necromancer

This is a very difficult matchup if the necromancer knows what he is doing. A high % eshield will help in this duel, but you’ll be in a better position then most opponents to deal with them. On average an eshield sorceress can tank such a high number of hits from a necromancer that you may get sloppy when dealing with them. Keep your teleport movements away from teeth “fields”, and never let the necromancer get off your map, which allows bone spirit/spear to become invisible.

Keep steady pressure on the necromancer if he doesn’t have incredibly high r/w or a huge mana pool and you may be able to run them out of mana. Don’t allow the necromancer to become completely defensive or he may be able to wear down your health slowly while dodging all your attacks.

Vs Poison Nova builds simply never go offensive. A single PN hit will get you to 1 hp nearly instantly, which is not a good idea. High life replenish helps here, but is not a perfect cure-all.

Charge / Smite / Zeal Paladins

Tank them, then kill them. Unless they happen to have a ton of passive resistance to your element, you shouldn’t have any problems.

FOH Paladins

FOH damage is quite slow in comparison to what you should be able to do. Go offensive and keep the paladin moving and dodging and you should be able to drop him before his attacks can drop your mana pool.

BH Paladins

Don’t watch your attacks, don’t watch your opponent, instead watch the hammers. A difficult and nasty duel if the paladin is defensive enough, either with charge + vigor or with teleport. Enough dodging and you should be able to get in enough lucky shots to drop your opponent.

Blizzard/Orb Sorceresses

Stack on cold resistances. Thul Kira’s, 30% CR Wizardspike, Trang’s Gloves, Sanctuary, etc can drop an opponents cold damage by a factor of 8X. After that offensively attack a blizzard sorceresses, but play defensively against an orb sorceress.

Fire / Lightning Sorceresses

If they are non-ES varieties, you can usually outlast them by a good margin. Just remember to play offensively with a high mana pool, defensive with a small mana pool.[b][/b]