okay then, I have a question. If you have a 10 FO/CM 1, then you can't have a 20 FO/CM 1 at the same time cause they are the same thing. plus you need 20 CM because it also effects amount you do dmg with your SA. Furthermore, it's a waste of time to put 20 pts into FO cause after 10 pts., you won't get much difference in dmg. you would be best in saving those points for later if you need them elsewhere or if not you can put them into Fire Skills and add on Meteor or Hydra attacks for emenies that are resistant to Ice and Lightning.

Oh and the reason why I said 100-150 to energy is because not everyone can get the best mana rejuv and bonuses on the first time playing. Remember there are newbies in the forums to so not everyone will know exactly how much to put in on there first time. But hey, if less than 100 works for you, then all the power to ya.

Why to max TS? If TS kills the bonus wont be added. A good mf sorc is on my opinion FO/1CM + Nova/LM

Get Max block. No point into energy. ES is crap... it burns your energy. Get Thundergods + maxed res. Meph wont almost do any dmg to you.

Maxing CM is NOT recommended. While maxing FO is ABSOLUTE recommended. The higher CM goes upp in skill , the lower the percent will be. Anyway you get a high lvl CM from your items.
FO on high lvl do very great dmg.

Then rest on the lightning skills. The remaining put it on def skills or some points into CM.

And sorc items is very cheap... generaly the main ppl here who are playing Diablo II is not totaly noobs. And since the last dupewave im sure they can get some free items.

Oh btw how many orbs are meph required from Your char before he dies? Tell me why FO is not on maxing again. Not good dmg?

LvL 10 FO = 134-139
LvL 20 FO = 262-267
LvL 30 FO = 414-419

So why is after 10pts on FO bad?

And why fire skills? The three main places is Meph/Cow/Pindle
FO kills Meph fast and Nova kills Cows and Pindle fast.
Your a mfer not alround sorc.

What's SA ><'', Shivering Armor?

I know I can't have 10FO/1CM and 20FO/1CM, I was comparing the two...

For PvM, 20CM is never needed. As you said, any sorc will have enough +skills...with +14 skills, level 1 CM and level 20 CM doesn't differ by that much (PvM wise).
Level 15 CM = 80% Pierces.
Level 34 CM = 93% Pierces. <--19 more skill pts.

And since it is Vs. Meph, and Meph only has 25% Cold resistance. So maxing CM for Meph isn't a good idea. Maxing FO would be much better for it increases the damage significantly.

If I'm to build a Tri-elemental sorc, I'd Max FO/1CM, Max TS, Max Hydra and then stack on LM and FM. (I have one tri sorc actually. ^_^) But for pure Meph runner (Which is what this topic is about~) Maxing Orb would help to kill faster.

TS would help, true, but there was a talk about TS negates MF? So if Meph is killed the TS (last hit), the MF will not be applied. However I am not sure if the bug is fixed or not. (Need confirmation on it~)

TS is a good skill I admit. Cast it, and it hits quite often. Sometiems it has double strikes. (Seems like the higher the level, the more often the doubling.)

But a sorc can max TS/LM and FO in a build....that's what I want to say.

Okay, the reason why I say some into fire skills is for when you get done with lvling all the rest you can use the fire up against Hell Cow King. I have ran into him at times were he is immune to both ice and lightning. It's just good to have some fire ability if you need it is all. as for the ice maxing, it's quite simple. remember that when you get all the other stuff your min item skill bonus will add on +8 to +14 bringing any 10pt. skill to 18pts.-23/24pts. no real big difference so it doesn't matter. If you wanna add more points, then do it if you like. but it beats spending all your points into one thing and find out you could have used it more in another.

The energy shield is still good tho. Granted it takes away from your mana, but then what would be the point of putting +4 to warmth and boosting it up to 8-14pts thru items when you aren't going to use it???? Most ppl out there go for lidless shields against meph, believe me, so did I. But I found that combining a rhyme luna shield and tals armor, plus charms can really boost your resist def. rhyme shield alone has 25% resist to all, plus tals armor can put up some good resistance too. with this I easily maxed out my cold and lightning resist and that's all you really need against meph.

As for my orb attack count, I never really counted it. it doesn't matter to me. As long as meph dies and I am alive, what's the prob? The only real times he kills me is on really laggy days, and there is nothing I can do about that.

As for the question of weither when you use LS on meph for MF, I only have this to say. I think it would be pointless if LS didn't allow the addition of MF finding to it. I mean even if you do make it less powerful and your FO more, there is still a chance that lightning will kill him first. In fact most of the monsters in hell are more resistant to ice than lightning.

But I degress. We could be arguing about this for a long time, then it all get changed with the new 1.10v patch. IF the rumors are true about the new patch making it harder for spellcasters, then we may have to think up all new setups anyways.

My meph sorc doesn't do anything but...leech in cow games and kill meph. ^_^
And...my Meph sorc maxed Orb/Meteor/FM, point in Energy shield, teleport, but no TS/LM.

Doesn't really matter, as long as the sorc can kill meph in a short time, it's good~

my sorc is good in cow, pindle, meph and rush games. maybe not so good at rushing but it does the job. I am working on making a good necro next. I don't know why but I seem to be picking the worst chars and seening if I can do something to make them better than any other walkthru speciality char. Oh well!:S

just use orb and static..

My meph sorc has only one skill point in static , but ive found that if you use static until meph is down to half , it makes the runs a lot faster , it also requires a lot less orbs. As for energy shield , sometimes it really poses as a handicap , one hit with his little ice/lightning ball and it takes a huge chunk out of your mana
(given you shouldn't be hit by those ). I've also found that the act 3 hireling s, make a huge difference in how fast the runs go , if you have they're res maxed out , they will stand there , and take all of mephs attacks , and their health doesn't budge , and meph doesn't even bother to target you, (use them if you want to go full mf and don't want to have to worry about equiping yourself with resistance equip).

there really isn't such a handy-cap with mana sshield vs. meph's lightning/ice attacks when you use small lightning and ice resist charms. A good luna rhyme shield is a good thing too. it's a nice combo.