So basically the game is unplayable on hell with my Lucia character. Please test around Sorceress on hell difficulty. Please copy my character and test.
You are playing online? Respec to blizzard, buy a cheap cold sunder charm for a few perfect gems, put 20 points into cold mastery and you are set. You can respec again to fire or lightning when you have farmed better gear.
You are playing offline? Go dual element (Frozen Orb+Fireball) and you are set. You can respec to a single element when you have farmed better gear.
In both cases, get an act 2 prayer merc, make him an insight polearm. This is a cheap, but highly effective runeword (RalTirTalSol). The hardest part here is to find a suitable base with 4 open sockets (thresher, cryptic axe, great poleaxe, giant thresher, colossus voulge, preferably ethereal/superior, but not necessary to begin with, a normal one will do fine). If you are playing ladder, make a cure helmet as well for your merc (ShaelIoTal in any 3 socket base with high defense).
Until you find one of those high-end bases, an exceptional base (Grim Scythe, Battle Scythe, Bill, Partizan) will be a temporary solution. You may farm them in nightmare cow level, chaos sanctuary or world stone tower.
For your gear, there is another cheap runeword: Spirit (TalThulOrtAmn). It can be placed in a 4 socket shield (monarch is the best base) or sword (crystal sword is best base). Make two of those and you can unleash hell. Keep in mind that you need 156 strength for the monarch shield.
If farming for bases, watch out for white non-superior or grey items. If you are lucky, you’ll find a grey one providing 4 sockets. White non-superior items can be socketed in your cube: Put the base in cube, add a perfect Amethyst, an Amn and a Ral rune, press the button and you will get 1-4 random sockets. Do this until you get your 4-socket polearm base.
If you are VERY lucky, you may find an non-socketed ethereal elite base (thresher etc.). Go to Larzuk (act 5 town) and use the “add sockets” quest on the item. You will get 4 guaranteed sockets there!
Skills and attributes:
When you got your insight merc, do a respec (Akara, act 1 town, once per difficulty). Put as many points into strength and dexterity needed for your gear. Don’t waste points here! Put all remaining points into vitality. Don’t put points into energy, you will not need them. Max out your damage skills and synergies and the respective mastery. Put 1 point into frozen armor, 1 point into static and 1 into warmth. If you have spare points, put them into energy shield AND max telekinesis.
A sorc is totally able to play hell, but you have to do it right. When you are doing it wrong, it’s not the games’ fault but yours. 
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the sorc is playable very good in hell. I play fire / ice with a high damage merc - its very good to play .
like the others say, you can blow all your points into one elemental and have lots of tricks up your sleeve that do lots of damage, but a large chunk of enemies are going to be unaffected. you can cover most of them with a merc. if you want to do everything efficiently by yourself while still completing hell you have to level more than one tree. no class will function efficiently leveling one skill tree only. its possible but always comes with obvious weaknesses. well covered class focuses on at least two trees
dont have to sweat it about synergies, all you really need to sweep through is some skills good for shaving down hp and some good for clearing crowds. no need to turn all your skills into overdrive. some enemies throughout all acts on hell are fragile and only have hp between 2000-4000 (fallen, fetish, stygian fury, etc) so even some simple aoe dealing around 200-400 damage they dont resist will be enough to take them out in a couple seconds. maxed out unsynergized fireball, glacial spike or chain lightning deals that kind of damage should immunities get in the way. it quickly improves putting a single point into elemental mastery and a few all skill tree boosters
Sorc one of the easiest to play and you have trouble at hell? just get high resistance and youll be fine. Never had any trouble unless I lacked the resistances.
I think i got into hell with mediocre gear and full chain lightning + 10 points in frozen orb.
You just need an anni and maybe full tal rasha but for that you need the levels, once i had full set, I was unkillable and so is my friend that followed me, it’s not the highest dmg but it’s unkillable and works against 3 elements not just one. no need for expensive gear or sokets, just full tal rasha