Enchant Sorceress Guide

Attack* is your Primary Damage Skill. It applies the Fire Damage granted by Enchant. Attack applies the full measure of Enchant's Fire Damage to Demon Machine's explosive bolts, resulting in high Area of Effect (AoE) damage.

Static Field* is best used against Bosses and other high Life monsters (such as in High Player Count). 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.

* 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. Use it on yourself to apply these buffs to your ranged Attacks with Demon Machine. Enchant only applies to melee or ranged Physical attacks.

Fire Mastery* passively boosts the Fire Damage granted by Enchant.

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. Maxing this Skill on this build boosts the effectiveness of Energy Shield.

Energy Shield* is a temporary buff that redirects damage to your Mana pool instead of your Life (except Poison). While active, a percentage (based on this Skill's Level) of all received Damage results in a loss of Mana. Resistances do not apply to damage taken on Energy Shield. If you have 0 Mana in your Mana pool and receive additional damage, this buff expires and needs to be recast.

Chilling armor* increases your Defense rating and sends out Ice Bolts in response to ranged attacks.

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

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* 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) Items that grant +x to Skills/Fire Skills and/or +x% to Fire Skill Damage are equipped prior to casting Enchant to maximize its granted on-hit Fire Damage. (see the "Starter Support" and "Max Enchant" Build Variants).
2) Memory can be used to pre-buff Energy Shield to make the Enchant Sorceress tankier.

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.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

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 the Enchant Sorceress doesn't benefit much from the Physical Damage increase it provides. Equip him with Infinity to reduce enemy Resistances with its Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage. This Aura is also capable of breaking some Immunities, including Fire.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

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, and while on your + to Skills Weapon-Swap, cast Chilling Armor and Energy Shield. Then cast Enchant on both your Sorceress and your Mercenary (and on any melee or ranged Party members, Mercenaries, and/or minions if applicable). Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire.
• While still on your Faster Cast Rate-granting Weapon-Swap, Teleport to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.
• Upon encountering an Elite Pack, swap to Demon Machine and use Attack just outside the monsters' range.
• Upon clearing all Elites and their minions in the immediate area, swap back to your Weapon-Swap and cast Teleport until you encounter another Elite Pack.

Pre-buff/Support:

• Equip items granting +x to Skills/Fire Skills and/or x% to Fire Skill Damage (see the "Starter Support" and "Max Enchant" Build Variants) before casting Enchant on yourself, your Mercenary, and/or other Party members or minions. Re-equip your Bow Enchant Sorceress gear after.
• If playing a Support Enchant Sorceress, make public leveling games with The Secret Cow Level portal open and use Enchant on anyone that enters.

Immunities

• Flame Rift sets all Immune to Fire monsters to 95% Fire Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Fire Resistance to take effect (including Lower Resist and Conviction Aura from Infinity at 1/5th effectiveness).
• If not using Flame Rift, skip mobs that are still Fire Immune even after applying Conviction Aura from Infinity.

Late-Game

• Swap to Call to Arms and cast Battle Command 2 times and Battle Orders once.
• Position your Mercenary with Teleport so that the Conviction Aura from Infinity is applied to target mobs.

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 speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for the 105% FCR Breakpoint on Weapon-Swap. 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. Values for the recommended weapon are provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Demon Machine

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery is not required for survivability on this build. Early Breakpoints can be utilized, however.

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 Enchant Sorceress is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it. Beware of going just outside of town on a Support Enchant Sorceress! (easy target for PK)

Possible Gear Changes

• Crown of Ages improves the survivability of this build with additional Resistances and Damage Reduction.
• Memory can be used to pre-buff Energy Shield.
• Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming or Teleporting through an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.