~Enchantress Guide for Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction V1.11 ~By Stephen ~Version 1.2 Copyright Information: This guide was credit by Stephenp1983, and can not be copied or distrusted in any way. I only give permission for it to be shown on Gamefaqs and its affiliate sites. This guide is for personal use of this site's users and visitors. Use of this guide in any way that I have not stated above is prohibited and is a violation of copyright. So basically do not copy my work without my permission, it's against the law. Table of Contents I. Introduction and Version History. II. Questions and Answers III. Skill Point Placement IV. Types of Builds V. Stat Point Placement VI. Item Setups VII. Charm/Inventory Setup VIII. Mercenary Setup IX. Things you should know X. Uses XI. Contributors XII. Contact Information and Final Thought I. Introduction ################### Alright to start off, this is my first attempt at a guide. I thought I would make one for an enchantress because it's honestly a very under appreciated build that is very helpful throughout the game. There are many things you can do with an Enchantress, but I'll get into that later on in the guide. Version History: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ V 1.0 – Created the guide and posted in on the forum for review. V 1.1 – Added Contributors, Mercenary Setup, Charm/Inventory Setup, Corrected numbering in Things you should know and added to this section. V 1.2 - Rejected! so, I sent it to kirbix for review II. Questions and Answers ############################ Q: So what is an Enchantress anyway? A: Basically, it is a sorceress class character that uses the skill enchant to add melee fire damage to herself, her mercenary, her party members, and their minions. Q: How can I use my enchantress? A: You can use it as a support only character, enchanting your party members, or you can use it on yourself to become a solo fighting force. Q: How much damage does it add? A: It really depends on your level of enchant, or course it adds more to you because you use fire mastery. A good Enchantress will add over 5000 melee fire damage to each party member. I have broken 6000 with mine. This is only to your party members though. I can enchant myself and with fire mastery I break 30k melee damage GG! Q: When can you use enchant? A: You can enchant yourself, your mercenary and other player's minions while standing in town. To enchant other players you must party with them and step outside of town. If you attempt to enchant other players while inside town it will cause you to initiate the trade window with them. Q: How long does enchant last? A: Well again that depends on the level of enchant. A good enchant should be over 20 minutes. Q: So does enchant add to elemental or casters damage like hurricane or fireball. A: No only melee Q: What types of melee will enchant work with. A: Any attack that uses a weapon like a sword or axe. It also works with bows, which is very useful. (I'll get into that later). Q: What type of weapon should an enchantress use? A: An enchantress can use a variety of weapons depending on her build, I'll get into the weapons more in the items set up, but basically depending on the build she can use any melee type weapon, or even a bow. III. Skill Placement ####################### Well honestly there are several routes you can go, because there are different types of enchantresses. I will type the setup for the three that I think are the most popular. But first I will go over your three main skills than you use in every one of the builds. Here are your three main skills, in which every enchant build you should max these. WARMTH ~~~~~~~~ This is enchants only true synergy. It will regenerate your mana at a higher than normal rate, and is useful in so many ways. It helps with the high cost of mana at high levels when enchanting multiple characters and minions. It also allows you to regenerate your mana from teleporting around quickly. Finally its helps tremendously on the Energy shield version of this build. . My warmth level was at 45 with plus skills and it regenerated my mana at a 558 percent increase OMG :) You need to max this FIRE MASTERY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This isn't a true synergy to enchant but rather a passive bonus to any fire skill. Points into this will increase the percent to fire damage. Again at level 45 my fire mastery was at around 338 percent. The awesome thing about fire mastery is that the damage it adds to enchant sticks. You need to max this as well. ENCHANT ~~~~~~~~~~ Here is the backbone of our build, Enchant. Of course were going to max this if we didn't we wouldn't be an enchantress now would we. The rest of your points depend on the type of Enchantress you are building, see below. IV. Types of Builds ####################### Alright as stated above there are three main enchantress builds that I will go over. All of these builds you will want to max the above skills as well as the ones I list belong depending on the build. Alright here we go. CASTER ENCHANTRESS: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ This is the build that I used for my first enchantress, and it turned out kind of bad lol. The reason was I didn't have a mercenary (I tend not to with any char because it's too much trouble keeping alive) and I had no way of dealing with fire immunes. If you get to hell look around and a good majority of your monster are fire immunes. So you're just out of luck without a mercenary. FIREBALL ~~~~~~~~~~~ One of the most popular fire sorceress skills. Its fireball not explanation needed here. The idea of using fire ball is to add a ranged attack along with your melee one. It seems like good idea, but the damage your fire ball does isn't that great and you must deal with all of hell's fire immunes. MAX THIS SKILL METEOR ~~~~~~~~~~~ We've all seen meteor being spammed in Baal games, again no explanation needed. We put around 11 points into here because its synergy to fireball and again we already have fire mastery already maxed. Meteor is needed to give fireball enough damage to be decent. PUT AROUND 11 POINTS HERE or ALL REMAINING ONES. ENERGY SHIELD / TELEKINESIS MELEE ENCHANTRESS @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I have never made one of these, but have considered it many times. With this build you use energy shield and telekinesis as a damage reducer. If you're not familiar with how these two skills work then consult a guide, because honestly it's really confusing. I will try to explain it more below. The beauty behind this build is that with energy shield on your damage gets taken from your mana. With high level warmth your mana is regenerated at high levels. This makes it so you're almost invincible. TELEKINESIS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You must put points into this skill first. You will need at least 16 into it. Basically, telekinesis is a hidden synergy to energy shield. It reduces the amount of mana you loose from being hit while having energy shield on. For example with 0 into telekinesis for every 1 point damage you take you loose 2 points from your mana, or 200 percent. So at level 16 you're taking 1:1 damage. At level 20 for every 1 point damage you only loose .75 mana. So it's like a 25 percent DR. ENERGY SHIELD ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This skill takes the damage you receive and reduces it from your mana instead of your health. With this build you'll want to put most points into energy because that's really your life line. You should put 1 point to begin with, and after maxing or 16 into telekinesis put all remaining points into Energy Shield. DUAL DREAM MELEE ENCHANTRESS: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I am about to rebuild my enchantress with this build, it seems the most fun and it creates a huge damage output. This build uses helm and shield runeword dream to stack Holy shock, and add lots of lightning damage. (I've heard of players hitting over 100k melee damage with this build) LIGHTNING MASTERY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Same as fire mastery except with lightning. You max this because you're using two dreams whose holy shock aura's stack. Basically, you have a level 30 holy shock and lightning mastery greatly increase the damage added by holy shock. You should max this skill. With this build you will have points left over; you can choose to put points into Energy shield and Telekinesis, one of the cold armors, or lighting itself sort of like the fire caster build. It's really up to you but I recommend the additional points into Energy shield and Telekinesis. IV. Stat Point Placement ############################### This should be pretty basic. This is the same for most builds. With energy shield you have a couple of various however, so I will list the variations as well. NORMAL Build Stat Placement: Strength: Enough for your gear, it shouldn't be too much because you'll have an anni and torch charm to boost your attributes. Dexterity: Either none or enough for max block. I never use max block because I like more into vitality. If you're a support only character I wouldn't put any points here but if your melee I would consider it. Vitality: Every extra point Energy: None like most builds. With your high level warmth your mana will be regenerating at such a high level you won't need any. +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ ENERGY SHIELD Build Stat Placement: Strength: Same as above enough for your gear. Dexterity: Again same as above none or enough for max block. Vitality: About a 100 more or less it's up to you. You want a little here because if you run out of mana your dead without it. Energy: Everything you can spare since this is basically your health. VI. Item Setups ###################### This will vary greatly depending on the build you choose from above. Also with an enchantress you will have an additional prebuff item setup. This is more than just your CTA and Lidless on switch. A good enchantress will have a whole additional setup to maximize her enchant damage. This is annoying sometimes changing out gear, but it's a must if you want to make your enchantress the best she can be. PREBUFF Setup: I will list the best choice first and other choices afterwards. Weapon 1 ~~~~~~~~~~ Rare magic enchant orb with 6 to enchant, a 6 enchant leaf, Eschutas orb. (Note the first item is very rare I've only seen 2 on battle.net, I have one. The second leaf is fairly easy to get. I got one for two SOJS a couple of days ago. Last is easy to get). Weapon 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~ CTA to cast battle orders Shield 1 ~~~~~~~~~~ Either a spirit shield for the 2 to skills or a 5/5 faceted lidless Shield 2 ~~~~~~~~~~ Same as above without the facet. A spirit or a lidless if you can't get a spirit Armor ~~~~~~~~~ Plus 3 enchant 5/5 faceted 20 fire skill damage Ormus Helm ~~~~~~~~~ Plus 3 to fire skills circlet 2 open sockets with two 5/5 fire facets. Gloves ~~~~~~~~~~ Magefist is you're only choice and easy to get. Use these for the plus to fire skills. Boots ~~~~~~~~~~ You won't change these up I use Sandstorm treks, but you could use some rare duped boots with resist. Belt ~~~~~~ Arachnids for the plus skills. Rings ~~~~~~ Two sojs. Amulet ~~~~~~~ Plus 3 to fire skills amulet. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ OPTIONAL Prebuff: You can also use a 9 energy shield staff if you're an Energy shield sorceress. Also you can use a beast to transform into a bear after your initial prebuff. A lot of enchantress use beast because in bear form you attack faster and have more life and defense. Now that is for the prebuff. You will use this setup no matter what build you choose. After you prebuff throw this gear in your stash. CASTER Item Setup: Weapon ~~~~~~~~~ Three to fire skills Eschutas 5/5 faceted Shield ~~~~~~~ 5/5 facet lidless or spirit. Armor ~~~~~~~ You can keep the enchant ormus on or replace it with a COH for resist. Helm ~~~~~~ Shako it your best bet in my opinion. You can experiment around with other helms but shako is the best. Gloves ~~~~~~~ Keep your magefist on. Boots ~~~~~~~ Same as above keep the treks on. Belt ~~~~~~ And again I'd just keep your arachnids on for faster cast rate and the plus to skills. Rings ~~~~~~~ Two sojs are perfect here keep them on. Amulet ~~~~~~~~ Either a Mara's for resist or a rare duped amulet. ENERGY SHIELD Item Setup @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ With the energy shield setup you're more than likely going to be a melee enchantress so take that into mind with the following item placements. Weapon ~~~~~~~~ I use a 4x socketed Griswold's caddy. I use this because it will have 120 increase attack speed and in bear form reach the fourth frame. Another option is a 5 shaeled 1 eth phase blade. This weapon will hit the same frame but also have -25 to target's defense with the eth. I use Gris because I don't like to get max block and put points into dexterity. Another option is passion rune word is a phase or bezerker axe. This rune word gives you the skills zeal and berserker, nice but unfortunately you can't use while in bear form. Shield ~~~~~~~~ I would use a storm shield here for the resist and most importantly the damage reduction. Put a -15 requirement jewel in here to reduce the strength requirement. I also think a Phoenix Monarch would work here as well. It adds a lot to your physical damage and has -23 to enemy fire resist. I have never tried it, so it's just a thought. Armor ~~~~~~~~ For this build I'd probably wear a dusk Chains of Honor. It gives you plus two to skills and tons of resist; you really can't go wrong with it. Helm ~~~~~~~~ I'd probably again go with a Shako. Plus 2 to skills, life and mana you can't go wrong. Don't use a Crown of ages for the damage reduction because you'll have almost enough with a storm shield. Gloves ~~~~~~~~ Since you are melee I would go with dracul's grasp for the life leech and life tap. Also it adds a bonus to your strength which is a plus. Boots ~~~~~~~~ I'd just stock with treks, but you could put on some gore riders for the deadly strike, crushing blow etc. It would help your physical damage but the majority of your damage comes from fire so this is pretty useless. Belt ~~~~~~~~ Two options here, you could keep the arachnids or what I would do is switch it out with a Verdungo's. Dungo's gives you a lot of vitality which is good since most of your points are in energy. Also it has damage reduction which with storm shield will help you hit the 50 percent damage cap. Rings ~~~~~~~~ You can go with sojs for the increase percent of mana, or B.K. rings for the life and life leech. I would go with the sojs because you already have them and you need as much mana as you can get since it is your life. Amulet ~~~~~~~~ Stay with your rare duped amulets or your Mara's here. High lord's is useless because deadly strike doesn't affect fire damage and you won't need the increase attack speed from it. DUAL DREAM Item Setup: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Weapon ~~~~~~~~ Again I would use either a Gris weapon or a 5 shaeled 1 eth phase blade. Another option is passion rune word is a phase or berserker axe. This rune word gives you the skills zeal and berserker, nice but unfortunately you can't use while in bear form.. Shield ~~~~~~~~ Alright there is no choice here. You are a dual dream enchantress, so you're going to have to use a shield with the dream rune word. I would recommend a monarch if your going for max block or a large shield if you're not because of its low strength. Armor ~~~~~~~~ I would choose chains of honor here as well. It's a great armor you can't go wrong. Helm ~~~~~~~~ Again you're a dream enchantress you must use the rune word dream in your helm. I use a dream tiara, but you can use whatever. Some people use Diadems, bone helms, or Crowns. Gloves ~~~~~~~~ I would use Drac's here again for the reason stated above. Boots ~~~~~~~~ Treks are the way to go unless you can afford rare dupes. Belt ~~~~~~~~ I'd probably stay with arachnids here because you don't have the damage reduction from storm shield to make verdungo's worth it. Rings ~~~~~~~~ Either sojs or Bk's. You can use bk's here because you don't need the mana boost from sojs. This is because you're a vitality build, not an energy one. Either one is good, it doesn't make that much difference. Amulet ~~~~~~~~ Rare dupe or Mara's is your best choice again. That concludes the item setup. Like I said depending on your build your setup will be slightly different. Your prebuff setup is always the same, and depends on how much you can afford. VII. Charm/Inventory Setup: ############################### Your charms and what you have in your inventory is pretty standard, but can vary depending on your build. So again I will list what I think is the best inventory set up for each particular build. CASTER Inventory Setup: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ You should have 9 fire grand charms. Some with life, faster hit recovery, or plain if that's all you can get. ( I use plain because I'm too lazy to care about breakpoints, bad on my part) Best Annilus Small charm you can afford Best Torch you can afford. The rest of your inventory is optional I would probably use 20 life 5 all resist small charms for the rest of your inventory. ENERGY SHIELD Inventory Setup: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ For highest possible enchant you will want again 9 fire grand charms. For a higher level energy shield you would want to replace the fire grand charms with lightning grand charms. Again Best anni and torch that you can afford. The last piece of your inventory is vital to an energy shield sorceress or so I hear (Never made one). You should use bugged 70 mana 15 life small charms. This is because your mana is like your life in this build. Be careful as most of these small charms are duped and unpermed. So be careful when trading. DUAL DREAM Inventory Setup: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The correct way for this build to work is to have 9 lightning grand charms in your inventory. This will add massive damage to holy shock and allow you to reach the insane damages that I talked about earlier. Personal I choose to keep my fire grand charms because I liked being more of a party player, and I loose enchant damage when I substitute lightning grand charms. My way is incorrect but that's what I like to do so oh well. For massive damage use the light grand charms. HMM best anni and torch? Of course it's like this is every build. As far as small charms its up to you, again I'd do 20/5's or 70/15's, but be careful and aware of dupes. VIII. Mercenary Setup: ########################## Alright there are two main mercenary setups that I will discuss. The first one will probably be the best choice for someone wanting to fully utilize their enchantress. The second is more for fun and what I'm planning to do on my remade enchantress. Remember that eth items don't loose durability on your mercenary, so you should always use them. First choice is a act 2 holy freeze Mercenary with the following gear: Helm ~~~~~~~~ Really it's up to you a lot of people use a dream helm, but there are so many choices here. I like an eth Andy's for the life leech and other useful mods. Weapon ~~~~~~~~ The pretty obvious choice here is an eth infinity in some polearm. I think a cryptic axe is the best choice, but it's really up to you and what you can find. The reason you should use this weapon is because of the conviction aura that it gives your mercenary. This will lower all your enemy's resist and make your enchantress much more effective. Armor ~~~~~~~~ Again a few choices, but I think the best is an eth fortitude for the added damage. You could also use an eth stone, or other armor of your choice. @@@@@@@@@@@@ Second Mercenary choice is a Act 1 Rogue mercenary. You may ask why in the world you would want to use one of these. Well it's simple; enchant them and equip them with some nice gear, teleport around and watch the fire arrow flow. Helm ~~~~~~~~ I would use a 120 enhanced damage 40 increased attack speed tiara. It would be nice if you could get one with life or another good mod. This will add speed and physical damage to your Rogue. Weapon ~~~~~~~~ An 08 or regular wind force is the best choice here. Socket it with a 40/15 jewel. Remember a wind force is a better choice than a faith for your mercenary. Armor ~~~~~~~~ Again use an eth fortitude for the added damage and life. This setup will give you a pretty godly bow mercenary that will spam tons of fire arrows at your opponent. IX. Things you should know: ############################## I've included this section because honestly there are certain things about enchant that aren't obvious and you really should know them to full understand how enchant works. Nothing really complicated but good stuff to know 1. ~~~~~~~~ One confusing thing about enchant is that in the skill description it says that ranged attack or bows that are enchanted only do 1/3 the damaged of a regular sword melee weapon. Well this is false. A ranged bow enchanted will do the same damage as a Zeal paladin enchanted. 2. ~~~~~~~~ This next piece of information is one of the most important and unknown things about enchant. Basically when an enchantress enchants herself and is using a melee weapon such as a sword or an axe, then her fire mastery is actually multiplied in twice instead of once. So to understand this, when an enchantress enchants herself the fire mastery is calculated at that time. It's again used after her enchant passively, so actually two times. The damage show on the character screen is the actual damage she does. All of this damage can be calculated by the following formula. Enchant base damage * Warmth synergy * Fire mastery at time of enchant * Fire mastery at time of striking or after enchant. 3. ~~~~~~~~ This next part goes along with what was stated above. The double fire mastery only works with melee weapons not ranged one such as bows. This is confusing because on the character screen it shows the damage as if it was multiplied by fire mastery twice but it's not. So to put it simply the damage you see after enchant on the character screen when using a bow is wrong. To find the correct damage use the following formula. Enchant base damage * Warmth synergy * Fire mastery at time of enchant 4. ~~~~~~~~ Fire mastery affects the damage on charms. For example a small charm with 1-3 fire damage is multiplied by the percent of fire mastery and then incorporated into the damage done. So this actually makes fire small charms useful, or at least the ones with higher damage. 5. ~~~~~~~~ Enchant is carried by explosive arrows and bolts, when fired by the enchantress or another character. This is not true when a mercenary fires an explosive arrow or bolt. This is useful because of bows that have an explosive arrow skill added on to them. Note that an explosion from an explosive arrow always hits, and if the arrow is physical and not magical it hits as well. So basically you're hitting your target twice, cool huh? 6. ~~~~~~~~ Although the character screen does not display the enchant damage for an assassins kick, enchant does work with them. If you don't believe me test it out yourself with a level 1 or so character and you'll see. 7. ~~~~~~~~ One thing you should note about enchanting your party members. That is only one of you has to be outside the town so either the players have to be outside and the sorc can enchant, or the sorc can go outside and enchant the party... (Helpful if you are playing in hardcore.) Well that's basically it for information you should know. I think this section will be very helpful to people new to the enchantress, and even people that have made them before. A lot of this stuff I didn't know myself at first but learned from reading other enchantress guides. X. Uses ########### There are several things you can do with an enchantress that make them such useful characters. I will list the main ones, if you have more ideas send them to me. 1. ~~~~~~~~ First of all this is a great party character. An enchantress will add around 5000 damage to her party as well as their minions. I often go into Baal games just to enchant people and hear their reactions. My enchant is at level 55, and I just wait for them so say OMG WHAT JUST HAPPENED, or awesome enchant. It's really great. 2. ~~~~~~~~ Like stated above you can enchant party members mercenaries and minions. For example a necromancer with 20 skeletons gets around 5k damage added to each of his army. That's a big help. 3. ~~~~~~~~ One of the funniest things an enchantress can do is enchant low level characters. This is very helpful when they are trying to level in the tomb area and cows. The low level character should buy a bow from a npc, and get enchanted. You'll be amazed with a level 1 character doing 5000 damage, it's insane. 4. ~~~~~~~~ Enchanting yourself duh. What is awesome about an enchantress is that they are unique and not your cookie cutter sorceress build. You're a melee sorceress swinging your sword and doing a ton of damage. XI. Credits #################### The Gamefaqs community as a whole for the feedback and criticism Mike Archer Lovefreakflonne Kirbix- "fixing" the errors in my guides layout. XII. Contact Information and Final Thought ############################################ You can contact me at swp1983@charter.net if you have any suggestions or have found corrections that should be made. If you have anything you would like to add to my guy please let me know and if I include it I will give you full credit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Let me finish by saying I hope you enjoy this guide and can put it to good use. Like I said before this is my first attempt at a guide, but I think it turned out pretty good. The enchantress is a unique character that you don't see that often, and that's why I think it's such an appealing character to make. I challenge everyone who hasn't made one to try it out, and I guarantee you'll have fun. Sure it's not the best solo or pvp character in the game but its one great party character and really useful and fun in so many ways. Right now my enchantress is a caster who I use now solely as a support character. When I finish my Diablo 2 run this time I intend to remake her into a dual dream enchantress. If you want to see my enchantress in action let me know, she is one of the top on battle.net having a Godly level 55 enchant and one of the Godliest enchant orb on battle.net If you want to see it let me know, I guarantee you won't find a better one. Well that's the end of my rant, again I hope you enjoyed the guide please send feedback. Copyright 2005 © Stephen (stephenp1983)