Zeal Sorceress Guide

Zeal* is your Primary Damage Skill that is granted by Passion. It swings your weapon up to 5 times in quick succession. Your Character is stuck in its attack animation until the maximum number of swings have been completed. Zeal applies on-hit Lightning Damage from your Dream-granted Holy Shock.

Static Field* is great to use against bosses and other high Life monsters. Each cast uses Lightning Damage to lower nearby monster Life by 25% of their remaining Life. This Skill can reduce monsters' Life to 1 in Normal, 33% of total Life in Nightmare, and 50% in Hell.

Thunder Storm* strikes a nearby enemy with a bolt of Lightning every couple of seconds.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

Enchant* temporarily grants on-hit Fire Damage and Attack Rating to a target Character (including your own), Mercenary, or minion based on its Level. Use it on yourself to apply these buffs to your melee attacks.

Teleport* is an essential Sorceress Skill used for mobility. It repositions your Character and Mercenary to your cursor's position. Repeatedly cast it to cover long distances.

Telekinesis* allows you to use a Waypoint, enter a Portal, or pick up utility items (Potions, Scrolls, or Gold) from a distance.

Frozen Armor* increases your Defense rating and briefly Freezes enemies that strike your Sorceress. It doesn't work against ranged attacks.

Warmth* provides you with passive Mana Regeneration based on its Skill Level.

Energy Shield* is a temporary buff that redirects damage to your Mana pool instead of your Life. While active, a percentage (based on this Skill's Level) of all received Damage results in a loss of Mana. If you have 0 Mana in your Mana pool and receive additional damage, this buff expires and needs to be recast.
Note: This is an Optional Skill that is used on the Vs Physical Damage Build Variant (see "Build Variants" below)

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) These items are used for optional Enchant pre-buff on this build (especially useful versus Uber Bosses). Items that grant +x to Skills/Fire Skills and/or +x% to Fire Skill Damage can be equipped prior to casting Enchant to greatly boost its granted on-hit Fire Damage. Make sure that you have enough Strength to wear any or all of this gear if you choose to pre-buff Enchant. Re-equip the standard Zeal Sorceress gear after buffing.
2) Use Memory to pre-buff Energy Shield. This is especially useful on certain Build Variants (see "Build Variants" below).
3) Treachery is used for pre-buffing Fade for All Resistances, Curse Length Reduction, and Damage Reduction prior to taking down Uber Bosses.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Infinity, Holy Freeze

Use a Desert Mercenary with Holy Freeze Aura for its powerful Crowd Control. A Mercenary with Might Aura isn’t used since this build doesn't rely on the Mercenary's damage or benefit much from the Physical Damage increase it provides.
Equip him with Infinity to reduce enemy Resistances and Defense with its Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage. This Aura is also capable of breaking some Immunities, including both Lightning and Fire.

Gear Progression

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Cast Telekinesis on Waypoints to activate them, on Town Portals to get in or out of town, and on Red Portals to go through them. This allows you to travel through the game faster. Telekinesis can also be used to open chests and pop other clickables for loot.
• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms on Weapon-Swap. And while still on your + to Skills-granting Weapon-Swap, also cast Enchant (on yourself, your Mercenary, and any other Party members/Mercenaries if applicable), Frozen Armor, Thunder Storm, and Energy Shield (optional). Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire.
• While still on your Weapon-Swap (granting Faster Cast Rate), Teleport to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.
• Upon encountering an Elite Monster, swap to your main weapon loadout with Passion and use Teleport to "Telestomp" the Elite, jumping directly into the Elite Pack.
• Use Zeal until the Elite and its surrounding minions are dead.
• Whenever monsters in an immediate area have been slain, use Teleport to quickly relocate to nearby Elite Packs for smooth transitions.

For High Monster Density:

• When encountering high mob density with high Life (e.g. Baal Waves, High Player Count + any high density), first cast Static Field 1-3 times at close range before engaging with Zeal.

For Bosses:

• First cast Static Field 2-5 times in range of Act Bosses (such as Baal), Uber Bosses, or Diablo Clone in order to weaken them down to or near the 50% Life cap (in Hell). Then proceed to finish the Boss off with Zeal.

Immunities

• It is often best to skip Unique monsters that are Immune to both Lightning and Fire, or that are extremely hard to kill (combination of both high Lightning and Fire Resistance) even with Infinity equipped on your Mercenary.

Optional Pre-Buff

• Equip items granting +x to Skills/Fire Skills and/or +x% to Fire Skill Damage (see "Gear Options" above) before casting Enchant. Re-equip the standard Zeal Sorceress gear after. Pre-buffing Enchant greatly increases your on-hit Fire Damage and the duration of the Enchant buff. Even though this is not necessary/required, it makes a big difference when up against Lightning Immune or Lightning Resistant monsters. Pre-buffing Enchant is also especially impactful when preparing to kill Uber Bosses, particularly Uber Mephisto.

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• Max Level Areas - Having mobility, decent Magic Find, and insane hybrid Damage, the Zeal Sorceress efficiently farms nearly all Max Level Areas on any Player Count. The Pit, Ancient Tunnels, and Worldstone Keep are especially good Farming Spots for this build. Make sure to target Elite Packs.
• Ubers - The Zeal Sorceress is among the best builds for defeating the Uber Bosses and acquiring a Hellfire Torch. Dealing insanely high single target DPS (Damage Per Second), this build slaughters the Ubers with the proper setup and pre-buff (see the "Ubers" Build Variant below).

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate is not required for this build, but Breakpoints up through 63% FCR can be utilized. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon Bases have different IAS Breakpoints. Reach at least the 30% IAS Breakpoint on this build (65% IAS in most cases is recommended). Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Passion Phase Blade

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 60% FHR Breakpoint.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate is not required for survivability in this build, but reaching the 27% FHR Breakpoint with Guardian Angel helps with smoother gameplay.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Zeal Sorceress can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear and Skill Point allocation. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: The only truly good place to put % Damage Reduction on this build is the Belt slot. Either Verdungo's Hearty Cord or String of Ears does the trick. A Ber Rune in your Guardian Angel or Twitchthroe would also provide much needed Damage Reduction. All of these options would come at the expense of Attack Speed, which can be made up elsewhere in the build.
• Maximum Life/Mana: Because the Zeal Sorceress struggles to reach high % Damage Reduction, it is highly recommended (even more so than on most Hardcore builds) to use as many Life-granting Charms as possible. Life + Mana Charms are especially desirable for taking advantage of Energy Shield.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the Guardian Angel-granted maximum values of 90 each (190 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Boots, Jewelry, and Charms are ideal sources of Resistances on this build.
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming Worldstone Keep or Teleporting to the Throne of Destruction to avoid getting destroyed by the Burning Souls that often spawn there. With 90% Lightning Resistance made possible by Guardian Angel, however, Thundergod's Vigor is optional.

Skill Point Changes

• Put 1 Skill Point into Energy Shield. 1-Point Energy Shield provides a Hardcore Zeal Sorceress with great protection (particularly against Physical Damage) that can be recast at any time.
• Max out Telekinesis last instead of Thunder Storm to increase the effectiveness of Energy Shield. You can even sacrifice Skill Points in Teleport (normally for Mana cost reduction) in favor of more Points into Telekinesis.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.