The sorceress is a pure magic user.  Her life and limb hang in the ability to turn that manna into powerful spells to freeze, burn, or shock foes into submission.  So close range combat should be avoided at all cost as 3 or more hits can spell doom for your sorceress.  Granted enemies are going to close the gap sometime or another so don’t forget to raise strength a little (drop a point in every level but no more than that). Outfit your sorceress with body armor (whatever she can wear) and have your focus on manna regeneration and resistances.  Since your going to avoid being hit physically the low hit points of this character even make spells dangerous so stock up on resistances big time.  Your sorceress doesn’t need to use the staff as one-handed class specific items abound in the game, which will allow you to use a shield (which isn’t a bad idea). Your focus is spell strength and resistances, not melee attack power.  I’ve never used it but a good defensive spell to have is manna shield which absorbs a percentage of damage received and applies it to manna instead of your hit points (if you use this bulk up on warmth and manna regeneration, you’ll need it).

Offense:

Save your points early on for the more powerful / useful spells.  Spells like Blaze, Meteor, firewall are good from the fire spells; Orb, Blizzard are good cold spells; and finally Chain lightning, Thunderstorm, Lightning mastery (passive) are good lightning spells.  Some spells have a waiting period before they can be used again so learn how each spell works (timing, and how it hits) so you can use it effectively. Finally don’t forget to put points into vitality, strength, and dexterity (to a point) as you’ll need the Hit points come act 5 when they’ll hit you with “Magical Maiden” which transfers the cost of your skills from your manna to your HIT POINTS.  For stat points your primary concern is energy, your secondary concern should be vitality. Early on your energy might be lower than most however your life point pool will be large enough to handle the "oh crap" situations long enough to either get out of there or kill the problem.

Crowd Control:

Use doorways, narrow channels to your advantage, and when going up against ranged attackers fire off a spell and move.  When you get them use fireball, meteor, firewall, lightning, and chain lightning, ice comet, and orb to attack whole groups at once.  Keep moving to avoid melee attacks and when you got to acts 2 and 5 take a good look at the mercenaries, as they’ll take the initiative and charge, attracting most of the attention away from you leaving you to fight the stragglers or hit the whole group at once.

Boss Strategy:

In acts 1 and 2 use blaze for the end level boss.  For act one run around the blood pool in the main room using blaze to leave a trail of fire behind you.  For act 2 use the same tactic but run around the perimeter of the room.  Both bosses will be happy to follow you through the fire and conveniently kill them selves.  For the other bosses, strengthen your resistances and use a hit and run tactic.

The other bosses use:

Act 3: Lightning, fire, Poison

Act 4: Fire Lightning

Act 5: Curses, Magic

Summoned/Hired: