Diablo II: Lightning Sorceress Skill Layout

A Lightning Sorceress is exactly what it sounds like, a sorceress who uses only lightning skills to deal damage to her enemies. As a result her damage output is staggering but she has real difficulties dealing with Lightning Immune (LI) monsters. The skill setup is as follows:

Charged Bolt - 3
Warmth - 1
Static Field - 1

At level six the character has to main skills, Charged Bolt and Static Field. In Normal difficulty SF can reduce a monster's life to a sliver, so it is used quite often for just this reason. CB is tough to aim and rather mana intensive, so used sparingly. As a result the character will still be using a staff to physically hurt her enemies for the first several levels.

Lightning - 1
Charged Bolt - 9

At level twelve Lightning becomes available. At this point CB is more effective due to the larger amount of bolts that are released. It also deals more damage than Lightning so while it is very mana intensive CB is the skill of choice against large packs, with the stragglers deal with by a few staff hits.

Charged Bolt - 10
Lightning - 5
Chain Lightning - 1

At level eighteen Chain Lightning becomes available. This is the ultimate crowd control for this build, especially against packs that spread out as they attack, Flayers for example. Lightning is also becoming a more viable attack skill with the added points. Mana will remain a problem here so solitary monsters are still dealt with by the staff, while the character will be drinking mana potions constantly.

Telekinesis - 1
Teleport - 1
Chain Lightning - 6

At level twenty-four Teleport becomes available. At lower levels it isn't used too much, however does allow the character to reposition the mercenary as needed or pull him/her out of trouble at a moments notice.

Lightning - 10
Lightning Mastery - 1

At level thirty both Lightning and Chain Lightning have become viable skills, even with the large mana consumption. They are dealing enough damage that only a few hits are needed to eliminate any monsters, so while mana potions are in constant need the character isn't running out of mana every few seconds.

Chain Lightning - 10
Lightning Mastery - 20

Lightning Mastery is maximized first as it helps both of the main skills, Lightning and Chain Lightning, at the same time. This is completed by level fifty, which correlates to the first act or two of Nightmare difficulty.

Lightning - 20

At level fifty-nine Lightning is completed. This will be used as the main skill versus bosses as well as closely grouped monster packs. In the end this skill's damage will be about twice as great as Chain Lightning so in many circumstances is the skill of choice.

Chain Lightning - 20

At level sixty-seven Chain Lightning is finished and the two main skills for this build are fully charged. Chain Lightning is used in circumstances where the monsters are spread out and a single Lightning burst wouldn't damage more than 1-2 at a time. Instead of dealing with monsters one at a time this skill will target all of them at once, assuming they are within the same line-of-sight.

Frost Nova - 1
Frozen Armor - 1
Nova - 1
Thunder Storm - 1

At level seventy-one a few utility skills become available. up to this point Lighting Immune monsters have been few and far between, but all of that changes in Hell difficulty. As a result Frost Nova is utilized to chill and slow down the LI hordes while the mercenary deals with them one at a time. It won't do much damage, but that is fine since the chilling effect is the intent of the skill. Thunder Storm is another utility skill that won't do a great deal of damage but is useful enough to invest a single skill point. Thunder Storm randomly targets monsters so it won't be used to eliminate a wanderer. Instead it is useful as a early warning system when monsters become near as well as a way to put the weaker monsters (fallen, flayers) into hit recovery. Frozen Armor is used purely to chill monsters that get within melee range of the character. They should be slowed enough to allow the character to exit hit recovery mode and then either run or teleport to safety.

Charged Bolt - 20

At level seventy-nine a synergy for both Lightning and Chain Lightning is completed and this build's damage is pretty much completed. All that is left is to put the remaining points into Nova, which is another synergy for the lightning skills.

Final Skill Distribution:

Charged Bolt - 20
Lightning - 20
Chain Lightning - 20
Lightning Mastery - 20
Thunder Storm - 1
Teleport - 1
Warmth - 1
Frozen Armor - 1
Frost Nova - 1
Nova - rest