Realm sorceresses, by and large, have been optimized to the nth degree. A handful of skills are such clear winners in the race for rapid and safe killing in large games that many players have bent their entire playing philosophy around these skills, and would be lost if they had to face opponents at full speed.

Speed is everything to the sorceress, particularly the solo sorceress. This class has no minions, no decoys, no means of affecting enemy AI, no direct crowd control. What the sorceress does have is the cold tree: you can decisively alter the balance of speed by freezing or chilling the enemy. This is immeasurably superior, tactically, to any speed boost for your own character, because you can slow down the pace of the entire fight. The chill penalty in higher difficulties effectively balances this out. In Hell you cannot rely on endless chilling from one spell. If you haven't specialized in the cold tree, you cannot rely on much chilling at all. However, those with high level glacial spike can spam the shots and keep any normal monsters locked in freeze mode. Those with high level blizzard can stack the spells for continual exposure. Those with high level frozen orb get an extended chill duration that buys them time to cast static field or to maneuver, aided by the extra area of effect (chill almost everything on screen in one shot, with minimal aiming, plus hit things off screen too, if you aim carefully) and the high damage, which makes a faster killer outright, and makes most effective "finisher" for cleaning up after SF use.

If you embrace the Fire Tree, then to some degree or other, you are rejecting the Cold Tree or Static Field, at least for that character. There simply aren't enough skill points to have it all, unless you keep all your skills at modest levels.

That's the beauty of the Fire Tree. Damage rates are high, but no single skill can be your everything. You either mix and match several skills, or at times you will suffer for lack of options.

You haven't quite lived, as a sorceress, until you've engaged the enemies of Hell difficulty at full speed. This is an unattractive option for Realm play, though, because it reduces your character's lag tolerance and lag resistance. You dramatically increase your exposure to risks, and you must master the fine art of mobility. Unfortunately, even standard latency rises to a dramatic threat level when everything is running at full speed. The fire tree has options for fighting from a distance, but except for blaze and hydra, they are difficult to employ. Unfortunately, if your only playing experience is online, then you are undoubtedly lag-shy to one degree or another. As such, you may have bent all your tactical resources to maintaining as much distance as possible at all times (the cookie-cutter sorceress with SF/Orb is the perfect example, using the two skills not only with the most damage, but the widest range and nonexistant aiming requirements). I do not disparage these skills, this character build, or this philosophy. They are clearly the most effective from both a survival and killing speed perspective. However, the only way I can see to master the fine art of mobility is to do so in a reliable environment. For me, that required me to play in single player. For some of you, who have the fastest, steadiest internet access, you may be able to do it online, or you may not.

I don't know if I can explain the details, but I will try. With my first Hot Babe, Hotfoot, I essentially applied Realm tactics to the single player environment. I maintained as much distance as I could. I made this work out well, and I mastered use of hydras in the bargain, but I shut myself out from a vital tactical engagement. In effect, I played scared. This was my first character into Hell Difficulty, and I still had a lot to learn about gauging threats. I made a lot of progess with Hotfoot, but in one sense, I also slowed down my progress by opting for the two skills that offered the most effective hands-off approach.

Lag is a blurring mechanism. The more you must suffer through, the more removed from the essence of the game you become. One might think that the best way to learn how to overcome lag is through exposure to lag, but I have found that this is true only up to a certain point. There are tactical treasures that cannot be mastered in the lag environment. I can't speak to what may or may not be possible for the fortunate ones with high speed. I don't have the experience with it first hand to be able to judge accurately just how much impact that minor amount of lag may have. However, from the perspective of dialup analog, I can tell you that it is just not possible to learn and master close combat at full speed through that much lag. This is not to say you can't succeed that way: only that you can't learn properly from it. Your feedback data is tainted by the lag. You can't see what is really going on on the server, so you get bad data regarding why a move did or did not work for you. Without a reliable feedback mechanism, you are left stuck in the blurred world of the Realm game, and you may never realize your full tactical potential.

The best example I can offer for the power of playing single player is, ironically, Lok. Like me, Lok thrills to the tactical intricacy of the blaze skill. Lok and I have had numerous disagreements about game philosophy, but from a purely tactical perspective, we have more in common with each other than any two other players, and we arrived there from opposite approaches. You can read Lok's excellent guide for paladins at the Lurker Lounge (navigate there from my Links page). Lok now disparages single player, but I believe it holds the roots of his success. Where I started with Realms, and abominable lag, mastering the art of playing from as much range as possible, Lok started with single player and moved later to Realms. He got to know the game as it really stands, without the blur of lag interfering with his perspective, and as such he laid a foundation for success, developing a tactical relationship with the game where he understood how his actions impacted the opponent. From there, he could add on lag tolerance, but the core of his understanding about the game is not blurred, so he is afforded the luxury of drawing a distinction between what he knows is really happening in the game, and what his client-side response appears to be showing him.

This is the core of tactical mobility.

Throughout the course of playing the Elemental Strike Team, I was also playing single player more and more, and learning how the game really works. With each passing month, my tactical efficiency and confidence rose dramatically. By the end of the EST, I could accomplish with a few clicks, a few steps, what I had once required a ton of open space and frantic distance-maintaining efforts to accomplish. The worst irony of all, is that it required lagless play in single player for me to develop a true comfort with lag play. I now know what is REALLY going on with the game, and I can respond to THAT, instead of responding to the approximation my client screen is showing me. My fear of lag is gone. My fear of the enemy is gone. I know, for the most part, when I am in real trouble or not.

The best reason for playing some single player is learning how to play the game. I look around at those posting tactical advice, and virtually all the useful advice is originating from players who play or have played both single player and Realms extensively. Without the Realms experience, you have no sense for the added difficulty of larger games, the problems of lag, or an appreciation for how thin the margin really is between you and death -- and you have no experience with combining skills in a coop situation. Without single player, or at least a very close approximation (thanks to stellar net connect) you can't develop a tactical sense for the game itself. You are stuck with the blur, held at arm's length from the core of the game, and your tactical precision will be limited by that blur. The more lag you suffer under, the farther away you are from the real game.

In my humble opinion, it REQUIRES both single and Realms to make a complete player. There are invaluable lessons about the game that can only be learned one place or the other, for gameplay in general, and for the Fire Tree in particular. The Fire Tree is the essence of ranged tactical gameplay. Of all the builds I have tried, the Hot Babe has been the most fun, the most tactically rich and engaging.

You can succeed with the Fire Tree with the Realm approach. You can maintain distance in most situations, even at full speed. However, there is a deeper entertainment to be found in engaging the enemy more directly, if your blur level is low enough to permit this. If you just want to dabble in the Fire Tree, you can do so with any sorceress. If you want to master the Fire Tree, I recommend that you play at least one such character in single player, to remove the blur, to enjoy the experience untainted. There are mods available for simulating larger games in single player, if that appeals to you. You need not lose the challenge of more robust enemies if you prefer to play that way. Lag will hold you back. If you have not played lag-free, you are missing a dimension to your game, whether you know it or not. And if you have extensive single player experience, you have an edge over those who have played only on Realms, whether you know it or not.

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