Dec 2022 Update: the
D2R 2.4 patch improved Nova and Thunder Storm in various ways, including adding Static Field as a lightning damage synergy to each.
Static Field
At a fixed cost of nine mana, Static Field gives instant lightning damage to every enemy in its range. At skill level one, the range is ten terrain tiles (just over three yards); each additional skill level adds two terrain tiles (two-thirds of a yard) to the area-of-effect's radius, so at skill level eight it reaches the same range as the Nova or Frost Nova spells (eight yards), or at level 20, the range reaches almost everything visible on the screen (sixteen yards).
The actual lightning damage inflicted is a portion of the enemy's remaining life. An unharmed monster loses 25% of its full health; but a second Static Field only reduces 25% of its remaining health. (Some arithmetic: 75% health remaining, times 25%, equals 18.75%, so the second Static Field reduces less than 19% of whatever was the monster's original full health.) A monster with lightning resistance will lose less than 25% of its health per SF cast; but on the other hand, a Lower Resist curse or a Conviction Aura may make some monsters lose
more than 25% health per cast.
By itself, Static Field won't actually defeat a monster. In normal difficulty, a sorceress may spam Static Field as fast as her faster-cast-rate gear allows, and eventually monsters will be reduced to approximately one or two hit point left. After that, SF has no further effect, and some other source of damage is necessary to actually finish off the monster. In nightmare difficulty, monsters become immune to SF after losing two-thirds of their maximum hit points, and in hell difficulty, SF has no effect on monsters after they have lost just half of their maximum life. Regardless of these nightmare/hell limitations, almost every sorceress allocates a point to this skill, because In just four or five fast casts, a sorceress in hell can usually cut in half the time needed to deplete the other half of a tough boss monster's life. With a mercenary that causes crushing blow damage, I have even witnessed a hell act boss lose half of its life after only one or two SF casts, thanks to the mercenary's simultaneous crushing blows. (Note: classic and earlier LoD patch versions didn't have the 33% in NM / 50% in Hell life limitations. At least three sorceresses that maxed Static Field were playing these, such as Queen
Ceto by purplelocust,
UltimateBadness by HoosierDaddy, or
Joan by galtwish.)
Here are some quotes by other intrepid players that maxed (or nearly maxed) Static Field.
- NagisaFurukawa wrote about berserk melee fighter Shion: "With her high level Static Field, she could whittle entire screen fulls of monsters (provided they weren't LI) down to half, and then take them out in a single passing blow or two."
- Melee enchantress Summertime by TopHatCat64: "Fire immunes obviously slowed things down a bit, but the combination of Static Field, my merc, and my small amount of crushing blow kept the steam-roller moving at reasonable pace."
- Ranged enchantress MissTaken by Crawlingdeadman: "Static Field is great! I know, no one is surprised by this statement. As a one point wonder there are hardly any skills better in the game. As a 20 point wonder it's even better."
- The witty hyperbole in Nightfish's write-up of his Nova/Frozen Orb project Alustriel still makes me smile: "The main idea using nova is to spam static a little first. This highlights the opposition and hits basically everything that's in the same act as she was."
A couple of elite unique weapons (Schaefer's Hammer and Stormlash) and one runeword (Crescent Moon) have chances to cast Static Field on striking.
Dec 2022 Update: maxed Static Field is a core feature of
teddeeboy's 1.07-patch 99er
LeilaTheIceQueen.
Nova
Almost every skill and item with lightning damage exhibits a very big variance: maximum lightning damage grows relatively high, but minimum damage stays at just one hit point. Three sorceress' lightning skills buck this trend and feature higher minimum lightning damage values per cast. Nova seems the most popular of these three.
Nova costs 15 mana at skill level one, plus one more mana point for each higher skill level. It has no casting delay timer, so a sorceress can keep fast-casting Novas until her mana runs out. Nova's expanding ring discharges lightning damage at all enemies within about eight yards of the caster. Its minimum and maximum lightning damage both get increasing returns with skill levels: 1-20 at skill level one (15 mana), 50-85 at level 9 (23 mana), 107-158 at level 17 (31 mana), 156-219 at level 23 (37 mana), 211-286 at level 29 (43 mana). It gets no synergy benefits; Lightning Mastery is the only skill that boosts Nova's lightning damage.
On the other hand, each point in Nova gives a synergy boost to Lightning and Chain Lightning. We have lots of dedicated lightning 99ers that maxed Nova, in part for this synergy:
Cyrax's
Chainlightning, elevenlang's
Lightning,
ffs'
HelpYourself, LD50's
Helina,
PhineasB's
Hiatus, Yng's
Sophie, Zaliquai's
Nemesis, and
ziambe's
Allegro. I was surprised to see so many players invest in Nova without maxing it, also generally doing so to boost those other lightning skills and to finish off stragglers.
A few single-tree lightning mages combined Nova for offense with Energy Shield for defense: Elfie's
Enlightening, purplelocust's
Magella, sirpoopsalot's
ES, and SunsetVIsta's
Kira. Another electric single-tree build,
Aythya_Collaris by bcoe, enjoyed pairing Nova with Charged Bolt.
Among the Cold/Lightning entries, I found at least a dozen Nova/Frozen Orb adventurers; Gahzban's
FroNo capably represents these. Several more complemented Novas with Blizzards, such as
Pb_pal's 99er
Eleanor.
Strix_Varia combined Glacial Spikes with Nova. Our Nova/Frost Nova builds were
Bob by jdkerr,
OOps by Jaedhann,
Supernova by MukTuk, and
SuperNova by Skinnyy, and
Aix_Sponsa by bcoe.
Some dual-tree Fire/Lightning Nova examples are Naranjadita's
Twilight Sparkle with Hydra, Arfurala's
FollowMe with Firewall, and Pucho's
Deanna and
PhineasB's
Sophie with Fireball.
BaalBusterIII and
RitaRepulsa by sirpoopsalot used Novas with Fireball and Firewall, respectively.
Lots of archmage tri-elementalists maxed Nova:
ESSoul by
Neksja,
Gieb_Vex by RobbyD, and
Aurora and
Sheherazade by EnerSense.
It's pretty easy to find or shop "of Nova" and "of Nova Shield" magic items that have chances to cast Nova on striking or when struck, respectively. Some unique items also have this effect, such as Warshrike elite thrown knives or Tiamat's Rebuke shield.
Thunder Storm
A sorceress spends 19 mana to initiate a Thunder Storm. For the duration of this skill, the summoned overhead storm takes turns cracking each enemy it finds nearby the sorceress. I'm not completely sure, but I think the radius is somewhere around ten yards (30 terrain tiles) from the sorceress' current position. At skill level one, each strike does 1-100 lightning damage, and the strikes happen every 4.4 seconds (110 animation frames) for up to 32 seconds. Each additional skill level adds at least ten lightning damage, eight seconds duration, and reduces the time between strikes by a few frames. Examples: 121-200 lightning damage, 128 second duration, and a 2-second strike interval at skill level thirteen; or 239-338 lightning damage, 216 second duration, and 1.5 seconds between zaps at level 24.
No synergies. The principal tools for boosing Thunder Storm's damage are the Lightning Mastery skill, and if available, various ways to reduce enemy lightning resistance and/or increase lightning skill damage, such as items, a Conviction aura, or a Lower Resist curse.
Thunder Storm is most effective when the sorceress is fighting one-on-one with an enemy, so that each successive lightning bolt always targets that lone monster. It's less effective when she is mobbed, because the lightning claps are dispersed over the crowd, cycling through each remaining enemy in turn.
We have five weather-manipulating sorceresses that maxed her Thunder Storm skill: Toppo's
Caillech, Colorless Green's
Isoce,
Vixen by Jaffa Tamarin,
Amber by PhineasB, and
Fate by NagisaFurukawa.
[Update: corrections, new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]