Diablo 2 Resurrected: Ladder Season 9 & Fire Sorceress

D2R Ladder 9 has been going for a while now. Blizzard didn't make any changes (AGAIN), but at least they're on a stable 3 month restart for each season. The state of balance still needs some fixing, especially for mosaic assassin. There's also a bunch of quality of life they initially promised but abandoned in favor of Lilith 1 (the 4th best Diablo). Hopefully they can get a couple people working on this game soon so they can either fix some things, or open it up to modding.

Once again I went with a build I've never played before, which is weird because it's such a good build. Fireball Sorc! This is by far the best leveling build in the game, and with the Fire Sunder Charm, it actually does very well in the end game. I could safely farm everything but ubers with this build.

Credit: Activision/Blizzard

There's multiple build guides on icy-veins, maxroll, and wowhead, plus some other sites and youtube videos. Most of these builds center around fire in 2 ways, fireball/meteor or fireball/hydra. I went with fireball/meteor and kind of regretted it. If I didn't waste a couple respecs to make some gear work, I would've gone with something in-between these 2 builds. 

Meteor is almost completely useless other than increasing fireball's damage as a synergy, but I would've put my extra points into hydra as a slight DPS boost to my fireball damage. Having to cast meteor is slow, clunky, interrupts your fireball spam, and misses enemies half the time. I'd rather toss out some hydras then fireball spam.

For leveling through normal and nightmare make yourself a Leaf runeword in a 2 open socket (2os) white staff that has +fireball on it. You can spam A1 normal games until Akara has one in her inventory. Once you have the bases and runes to switch to dual spirit then you can make that switch before finally swapping in deep end game to either full tal rasha's or eschuta's + phoenix + flickering flame. I went full tal rasha's set and it was shredding TZ farms in every zone but those higher runewords would deal even more damage.

As usual, ensure you put enough points in strength and dexterity to equip your gear as you go, and don't lose track of the attributes your items are giving you because you could end up trying to swap gear and suddenly can't equip it because you're replacing something with strength on it. You can also max out your block to 75% by upgrading dex more if you wish, but I never do.

Leveling/Budget Gear: 

• Helms: I start with whatever I find then transfer to 2os helmet for Nadir (Nef+Tir) then to Lore (Ort+Sol), Peasant's crown or any circlet with +sorc skills is fine too. 

• Chest: Use whatever you can find until you get a 2 open socket base to build Stealth (Tal+Eth). I always run Stealth while leveling any class, while continually upgrading it as I find new bases.  Spirit Shroud, Viper Magi, or regular Skullder's will do just fine for early end game.
• Weapons: Use Leaf (Tir+Ral) in a 2os white staff with +fireball (and any other useful skills). When you get a 4os Monarch, 4os crystal/broad sword, and the runes necessary, switch to dual spirit. This will carry you to the end game.
• Shield: Use any shield as you level but you'll want to switch to Spirit (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) as soon as you get a Monarch. Prior to that you can make Rhyme (Shael+Eth) if you want since 2os shields are easy to find. 
• Gloves: Any gloves with defense, life, resists will do while leveling. Once you you can afford it you'll want any cast speed gloves. You'll want to transition to Magefists once you find or can afford them.
• Belt: Always try to to upgrade belts early and often from 4 to 6 to 9 to 12 potion slots. Eventually you'll want to use the Tal Rasha belt and upgrade it for more defense. If you swap away from Tal's in the end game then Arachnid's is best in slot.
• Boots: run/walk speed, life, resists are always what you want on boots when leveling. Aldur's is best in slot due to the high fire resist, which you'll need once you get a fire sunder. There's also plenty of yellows that can roll with good stats, including run/walk, life, resists, and MF%.
• Jewelry: Rings and amulets wear whatever you can find while leveling. Prioritize life, resists, mana, attributes, and cast speed. MF doesn't hurt either. You'll always want +sorc skills or +fire skills on your amulet. 
• Charms: Same as any end game you want annihilus, torch, and gheed's. Skillers are nice as well but not mandatory. While leveling I usually try to utilize charms with FHR, life, all resist, fire resist, or MF% but I usually only carry 1-3 GC's and a 3-4 SC's at all times for extra defense. 
• Fire sunder will be mandatory from Hell onwards. You'll want to stack fire resist as much as possible to offset it.

Attributes: As always enough points into strength to equip gear and optionally dexterity to hit max block (75% chance when you hover over defense in your character sheet). Then put all the rest in vitality. 

Ultimately you will need 156 strength from your attributes + items to equip monarch.

Skills (end game): 

• Cold - 1 point in frozen armor. Have this skill up at all times.
• Lightning - 1 point static field, 1 point telekenisis, 1 point teleport. Use static field to bring bosses down below half quickly. Use teleport to get around easily and safely (turn on walk instead of run so you have defense while teleporting)
• Fire - 1 point in warmth then max out fire bolt, fire ball, meteor, and fire mastery. Put all remaining points into Hydra or Inferno.
• Do Inferno if you want to max out Meteor damage but you can use Hydra if you want more consistent DPS.

Merc: 

You have to use an A1 or A2 merc with insight (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) runeword (bow or polearm) because you will be mana starved for a long time, especially with teleport spamming.

Ethereal items are always best for mercs because they can't lose durability and will come with higher stats. However, you can utilize non-eth until you find or afford better. Always itemize yourself first over your merc. 

A2 Merc: Holy Freeze (good survivability) or Might (good damage) are best mercenaries to use.

Merc Weapon - You want your merc to use insight until you can afford to switch to Infinity (Ber+Mal+Ber+Ist).

Merc Helm - start with Nadir or any good rare/unique until you find something like Andariel's Visage, Crown of Thieves, Stealskull, or an eth elite 3os base to build the new runeword Bulwark (Shael+Io+Sol). 

Merc Chest: use anything with good defensive stats until you find a good base to make Smoke (Nef+Lum). Then use that until you find an elite ethereal base to make Treachery (Shael+Thul+Lem) until you can afford to make a Fortitude (El+Sol+Dol+Lo). Duriel's shell is another good budget chest option and is what I used until I made treachery. Note that once you get Fortitude or CoH you should still equip Treachery until fade procs then swap it out (only necessary for harder content like ubers or harder TZ). 

Keeping your mercenary alive is key so use your teleport to get him away if he's about to get surrounded or is dying.

Generic D2R Playthrough Guides: 

For playthrough, magic finding, and trading guides please look at my past blog posts. They are largely unchanged but I suggest you fine tune a few things that go with this build and this ladder theme. 

Fire Sorc Gameplay:

Cast your Frozen Armor and keep it up at all times. 

Use your teleport to get around. Run/walk is for noobs.

Use Fireball for most of your attacks.  

Keep your merc healed and use teleport to get him out of trouble. 

Use Static on bosses to get their health low to start the fights. 

Drop Meteor (or Hydra) to start each fight so they add to your fire ball DPS.

Overall this is an S-tier leveling build (normal/nightmare) and A-tier end game build once you have the sunder and gear.