Skills[edit]
Most sorceresses, regardless of build, will want at least a single point in Warmth and a single point in Teleport, along with the prerequisite Telekinesis.
Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor can also be effective in combination with one of the builds below: a single point with some skills bonuses may give a useful bonus to your character and potentially make surviving quite a bit easier.
The other skills that obviously work well together are any form of elemental damage, along with its applicable Mastery. Cold Mastery works differently from the other two, as it reduces resistance rather than raising attack, and generally only needs a few points to function near max capacity.
Characters[edit]
Despite the large number of skills available to the Sorceress, only a few are viable as primary attacks. Sorceress characters can do extremely high damage, but unless a hybrid build is used their damage will all be of a single elemental type and the character will have no way to deal with immunity at all in solo play. The character also has very low life and defense, making staying alive a huge problem. Most of these characters, therefore, are only viable for group play. Gameplay and item needs for elemental sorceresses are generally very similar.
Lightning[edit]
The lightning sorceress invests full points into Lightning, Chain Lightning, Lightning Mastery, and the other applicable synergies. The synergies work together very well along with mastery, and this character can do massive amounts of damage extremely quickly with the right equipment with either Chain Lightning or plain Lightning skills. Since the character does only lightning damage, however, she will be completely unable to deal with lightning immunity.
Meteor[edit]
A meteor sorceress, as the name implies, uses Meteor for most of its damage. Meteor does the highest damage of any skill, once combined with Fire Mastery and synergies Fire Bolt and Fire Ball. Fire Ball is also synergized in this setup, and since it is a much faster attack it can be set on the primary skill while Meteor is the secondary attack skill. Again, since the character does only fire damage, she will be completely unable to deal with fire immunity.
Blizzard[edit]
Blizzard is the only cold skill that has enough synergies to be viable as a solo skill. With a fair few points in Cold Mastery and a lot of points in the Blizzard synergies, a lot of damage is possible. This skill does less damage than either fire or lightning primary skills, except against monsters with high resistance. It still has just as much trouble with immunity though.
Frozen Orb[edit]
An orb sorceress is a hybrid that invests in both Frozen Orb and either Meteor ("meteorb") or Lightning ("lightning orb") skills. Frozen Orb once maxed out is quite strong even without synergies; a few points in Cold Mastery is all that's needed to make this skill strong throughout Nightmare with just 25-30 points investment. Putting the remaining skill points (about 65-70 by level 88) into either the Lightning or Meteor builds above gives a second skill that will quickly become stronger than the Frozen Orb attack. This character does less damage than any single-element character, but is the only one that's really viable in solo play as she has a backup skill to deal with immunity in Hell.
Other[edit]
Other elemental builds may run with Hydra, Frozen Orb (alone), or any other skill or combination for attacking. These are not likely to be viable in Hell though as the amount of damage done by other skills simply isn't high enough.
Another challenging build is playing with Energy Shield as a primary (defensive) skill, with Telekinesis supplementing it to reduce damage taken. Here the sorceress either fights as a melee character or puts the remaining points into an elemental attack, relying on energy shield and items to block all damage. This is only viable with a very large amount of skills bonuses.