I’ve started my play through as sorcerer as it seems it will be the most fun (as there appears to be no non-magic skills for warrior or rogue). However, as expected the beginning is very rough. I can make it through a couple screens of enemies before I have to return to town and slowly walk between NPCs to restore my health and mana and dump all my gold into potions to make a little more incremental progress.

I imagine it will get better, but does anyone have any early game sorcerer tips for a more enjoyable time?

I am enjoying the dungeon crawler aspect but the slow stumble back to town to resource manage is a bit bleak.

Thanks!

All classes have a unique skill, which costs no mana, cannot be acquired in any other way, and is internally handled mostly like a spell. Warriors get Repair Item. Rogues get Disarm Trap. Sorcerers get Recharge Staff. Of these, only the Rogue's Disarm Trap is useful long term. Repair Item permanently[1] reduces the durability of the repaired item. Recharge Staff permanently reduces the total charges of the staff. Disarm Trap has a comparatively minor downside: it might fail, and the trap would trigger anyway, leaving you no worse than if you did not try to disarm it.

From your description so far, I think you are likely picking bigger and more dangerous battles than you should. Move slowly. That may mean advancing one tile, waiting to see if anything reacts, then advancing another tile. Try not to activate any more enemies at once than necessary. When they activate, let them approach you and try to strike them as they arrive. If too many wake up at once, retreat to a chokepoint to force them to face you in smaller numbers. For particularly hard-hitting enemies, use your native Firebolt spell (costs mana) or the staff-provided Charged Bolt (costs recharges at Adria) to kill them before they get in range. Watch how enemies move, and try to avoid wasting shots.

[1] A Hidden Shrine can fix this. However, that's tedious, so it's more cost effective to take the gold hit of paying Griswold to repair the item than to take the time hit of finding a Hidden Shrine to undo the durability loss.

for lower levels I always liked "herding" large packs of monsters by kiting around them and then spamming charged bolt. This works quite nicely in those large rooms in the church...

Aside from that spam spells, buy mana potions, recharge your starting staves until they are useless etc...

i have played with sorceror fairly well. you need to use a sword initially. bow is more or less useless because of his slow firing speed but, swords and shields work well.

Why in the world you would want to use sword and shield as sorcerer? Sorcerer is the only of the 3 heroes which can play on lvl 13-16 (Zone 4) on hell without -80 light radius and standard items and to do it fast. You will use only staff +2 spell lvl/30 magic or king staff of haste/+30 magic or +2 spell lvl/apocalypse. You never ever need a sword and shield with a sorcerer. A rouge needs a sword and shield and -80 light radius on zone 4 on hell because you can's use a bow there for example.

Anyway on low levels a sorcerer you need to collect gold and buy books - fireball, chain lightning and to have potions and active mana shield. Before that spells you have charged bolt and firebolt. Sorcerer is the easy class in Diablo.

i use one handed weapon and shield ONLY IF they have good +magic bonus for only spell learning from books of too high magic requarement (at a time), all other time i use bow , prefearably with better damage or +hit for not waisting magic on less dangeruos enemies (slow/stucked behind something/moving predictably). and reserve "blasters" and "toasters" ;) for when need arises. its always nice to say "freeze while i carve something usefull out of you" to butcher by using stone curse on it.

I'm currently playing as a sorcerer, currently on dungeon 11 and about 8 hrs of playtime. Sorcerer is fun af, also hard af. They die so fast. I put all the lvl up stats to magic tho, nothing else haha. Hope you have fun !

Diablo begun the long action RPG tradition of charecters who are primarily magic users having a really rough time in the early levels. Most are not quite as bad as Diablo, but in most of the action RPG I have played sourcerers anve a roughter time in the lower levels then the fighters or rogues.
You might want to try the monk in Hellfire who is basically a viaration on the classic D and D cleric. he is designed to use both weapons and magic a lot more then the Sorcerer is.

I prefer a Dreamflange (+30 magic, +50 mana, +50% resist magic, +1 spell levels, +20% light radius (Jarulf's Guide, page 31, section 3.5.1)) and a good +statistic shield. Losing one spell level at the top end barely matters, since the few spells that don't cap out at lower levels are already so powerful at spell level 16 that getting spell level 17 has little effect. If you really miss the extra spell levels, adding a Naj's Light Plate and Thinking Cap will get you +3 spell levels between them.

Two popular late-game sorcerer builds were the artillery mage and the tank mage. Artillery focused on maximizing damage output. Tank focused on maximizing close-in survivability. A tank mage would often get good dexterity, and choose some sort of enchanted Full Plate Mail and a Fast Block shield (usually Stormshield, but sometimes Holy Defender). Tanks could survive being surrounded by high level monsters, and live long enough to teleport clear when the monster's delayed between attacks. Artillery mages couldn't survive being surrounded, but had the firepower to avoid being caught in close quarters and the mana to power crossing an entire level through repeated teleports.Although not fast, a rogue with a bow can be played even in Hell/Hell.

20 lvl spells are 20 lv spells. I don't know if it's ok to have such high lvl spells but for example if with sorc I clear hell/hell for x time then the time to clear it with warrior is something like X +~40% more and with rogue will be X +~60% time and I would not use a bow as it way too dangerous to do that. Even on lvl 16 I will prefer Infravision at -80%LR vs bow for advocats. And I will point out again that I will go on hell/hell with warrior & rouge only at -80%LR

Any item which has +LR is useless for me, especially on hell/hell. I use only items which had -LR. I have no idea why in the world you would want to make pointless teleports around the level to have the problems you are referring?

My hero levels are Sorc 43, Warrior 42 & Rouge 41 and have no problems to do hell/hell with a Sorc when I have huge huge problems to do that with a Warrior & Rouge. To be honest i don't remember to have died more then a single digit on hell/hell with a Sorc when I have no problems to die there with the other 2 heroes if they are not at -80% LR. I have cleared hell/hell with rouge with bow with no -LR but that's the time x 3 vs Sorc time and even more if I have an ugly level with succubus & lava maws. It's pointless obviously to lose so much time.

I don't see how -5 spell levels & sword and shield is more effective when I don't have any problems to start with on hell/hell with a Sorc.

The only thing which I see as effective for that build is to use it in when you play with a friend as it is impossible to use non stop fireballs and CL with someone else is with you. Then and only then that is a good choice.

My items for Sorc are - Naj’s Light Plate, Thinking Cap, Amulet - 55+/55+ mana/life, rings - ~30+ to all/harmony & zodiac +20, Staves - +2 spell lvl/30 magic; king staff of haste/+30 magic or +2 spell lvl/apocalypse. That's what I have, I am a legit player overall.

Yes, and level 1 spells are level 1 spells. What is the point of this tautology?

In the case of a Fireball, a clvl 40 caster can deal ~1120 damage with slvl 19 or ~1260 damage with slvl 20. Either one will easily kill fire-susceptible enemies. Neither one can one-hit or two-hit kill a Blood Knight, but both can three-hit kill a Blood Knight. So if you do not need an extra shot to kill the target, what value are you getting from that last slvl?

In the case of Chain Lightning, slvl 19 vs slvl 20 gets you one extra frame of duration for the lightning bolts, which will increase the damage slightly. However, your biggest problem with Chain Lightning will be gaps due to spell effect limits, and the gaps will impact both levels substantially. As I read the description of the spell, the extra slvl will not increase the number of bolts generated, and the per-frame damage is independent of slvl. I doubt one extra frame of damage will make the difference in whether a monster survives to need an additional shot.
Yes, of course non-sorcerers are slower. Using a bow is perfectly feasible though, if you manage monster activations carefully.
I would never make a pointless teleport, because by definition it would be pointless. I would however make useful teleports if it let me skip over enemies that were not worth my time to kill. If I'm going for maximum time efficiency for experience points, I want to engage only monsters that can be killed quickly with Fireball or Chain Lightning, and run past everything else. For that matter, if I want maximum experience, then I'm probably better off playing in Nightmare/Hell. The +15 mlvl boost in Nightmare is enough to keep monsters worthwhile until I start to approach clvl 40. Even after that, the increased speed of fighting weaker enemies with generally worse resistances might make the reduced experience a worthwhile trade. If I'm going for maximum time efficiency for items, I wouldn't be in Hell/Hell at all, because the drops in lower difficulty games are just as good, and the enemies are easier to kill.
So we have established that you aren't good at Warriors or makeup. Plenty of people have completed solo runs of Hell/Hell at clvl 30, as part of the 3@30 ritual.
Again, this sounds like a playstyle problem. Perhaps you activate too many monsters at once.
Pointless, but very possible. To pick an ideal area, you first need an objective. Are you playing for maximum experience per hour? The best items? The greatest challenge?
There are no items that reduce spell level by 5. I never said to use a sword/shield combination. I said to use a Dreamflange and enchanted shield, because you can get better bonuses that way than with an Arch-Angel's staff, and the practical consequences of the one slvl loss from using a Dreamflange is, in my opinion, more than offset by the stat bonuses. Although the Dreamflange is considered a Mace, you wield it for its specials, not for use as a melee weapon.
Yes, Chain Lightning is unpredictable, but Fireball is still very possible if you mind where your friends are.

The Sorceror is the most difficult class to get off the ground. One can easily run out of health, mana, gold and be left with nothing better than deleting the character and starting another.

The strategy I've used many times is to play with utmost care while keeping costs down whenever possible.

Without the Mana to spam a spell or the Hit Chance to risk a miss at long range it's line up a target, one shot, one kill, at close range. Killing monsters with your staff is good but it will inevitably get you hurt and unlike the Warrior and Rogue the Sorceror gets no bonus to the effect of using a Health Potion so getting a Book of Healing is mandatory, but until you do, restrict the use of Healing Potions to keeping yourself alive while in combat. Out of combat and hurt you go to town and have Peppin Heal you. Firebolt is an effective skill for most of the Cathedral but once you step off Level 1 you'll run into targets that are resistant or immune to fire while being vulnerable to lightning or Holy Bolt, so Books of Charge Bolt and Holy Bolt are essential. For a long time the cost of potions represents a significant expense so you scrounge every level thoroughly for potions.

In short, I have the following preconditions for a Sorceror before they step onto Cathedral level 2. Armor - AC4 Skull Cap, AC13 Leather Armor, AC5 Buckler (once Strength reaches 25 this is replaced with an AC8 Small Shield). Weapon - Spiked Club (busting Barrels releases Skeletons and this is the best club for a Sorceror to be holding if he should take a swing at one). Spells - at least level 1 of the following, Healing, Charge Bolt, Holy Bolt.

In general these preconditions are met by playing level 1 of the Cathedral twice but can easily go several times more if the desired Books don't drop. Playing Level 1 twice will raise your Sorceror to Level 6, your mana pool will have increased considerably and the bonus to the use of Mana Potions will make small Mana Potions much more effective at restoring Mana.

A Sorceror isn't going to be happy until he also knows Lightning, Mana Shield and Stone Curse. This poses a serious problem as together the total cost to purchase one of each book exceeds the total gold one normally gets playing all 4 levels of the Cathedral (generally 20,000 gold). This is further complicated as it is likely Griswald will offer for sale something desirable that will add to both Magic and armor class.

My solution to this is each game I start after meeting the preconditions is played just one level deeper than the previous. This allows one to accumulate gold and shop for a game where Griswald has something desirable to purchase. That is to say one starts a new game checks Griswald for useful items and checks which quests are going to show up in the Cathedral. And continues to start new games until one shows up with those quests one wants to tackle. By the time one has played all the way to Cathedral lvl 4 the first time you'll have found or purchased a Book of Lightning, a Book of Mana Shield, and aquired some gear to enhance your total Magic Stat. In general I've found that the Sorceror can afford to purchase one item from Griswald while Shopping for a Game and still accumulate enough gold to make the desired Book purchases.

I like how this thread started as an innocent request for advice for a new player and turned into two nerds comparing e-peen. Never fails in CRPG land

other than my previous advice: restarting the game when you start to struggle might help. you retain your levels and equipment but, you start on a completely new dungeon. you will initially get too few spells to go magic only and too little gold to buy spell books. there is also enemies that is immune to fire bolt. you need a physical weapon as a backup.

Chain lightning seems very rare,
Is there a way to find it more often?

thx