Formations are traditionally used in RTS games to keep your massive glob of troops from turning into a big line. More will arrive all at once. Or it's used to keep units with different speeds from out-pacing eachother.
I don't know if this is the case here, as I haven't played Multiwinia.
also
Stupid wizard. Every time I get into a good area in Nightmare (level 28 woohoo) I get hopelessly trapped by swarming melee buttholes and lose all my damn armor/accessories.
I finally broke down and did the item dupe trick to buy a bunch of elixers of Magic/Vitality/Dexterity/Strength, but it's not going to bring my Plentiful staff of Guardian back.
Diablo II, I am eyeing you with growing affection.
First, playing as a Sorc is FUCKING EASY in the late-game if you know what you're doing. Keep an escape route, pump up your Magic, and read lots of books. Raising your Strength is a good idea if you don't have Teleport and just can't keep out of melee range, so you can wear armor. +strength rings or something are necessary for wearing the heavy stuff. Get Mana Shield and Stone Curse. Use Fireball a lot- the damage listed in your spellbook is about half what it actually does.
Sorcs are so easy in Diablo I that it spawned the "Rule-Variants" scene when someone thinking up the idea of playing one naked, which wasn't really difficult. Then, someone else (namely Woody) went a step further and thought up the Beyond Naked Mage. Cursed items only. A BNM isn't really difficult either, to be honest, compared to some other Variants.
Second, Guardian is really not that great, even on a staff so it's free. Its damage is actually determined by the level of your Fire Bolt spell, so the spellbook is usually wrong. The three big damage spells you want are Fireball, Chain Lightning, and Flash. The spellbook's damage readout for Flash is also wrong; it does far more, but only use it on monsters below your character on the screen. Monsters above your character take about a tenth as much. I should note that in order to use Flash safely against Fire/Lightning immunes, you will need either Stone Curse or a whole lot of AC.
Useless spells are Flame Wave- which does much less damage than the spellbook says, vertical/horizontal Firewalls- they have gaps, and Inferno- again, does less damage. Blood Star, Bone Spirit and Elemental have accurate damage readouts in your spellbook. The BS spells are pretty crappy, but Elemental does have one interesting property. If you target something at the back of a pack of monsters, the Elemental will damage things as it runs through them. Kindof like Lightning.
Charged Bolt is surprisingly effective at high levels but unreliable against anything but a large group of mobs, which you should just use Chain Lightning against. Golems are immune to Archmage monsters, and can kill them easily. However, succubi will see them from all the way across the map and pop them pretty quick. Make sure your Mana Shield is level 1- it gets a 33% damage reduction at that level, but it goes
down quickly if you read more books.
So anyway, a Sorcerer with low AC will need to teleport away from stuff a lot, and use mana shield to soak up damage if he does get hit, and hope not to get stunlocked. One with high AC will still use mana shield, but will not need to worry *quite* as much about melee. Especially with a Fast Block shield or Fastest hit recovery. Also, why are you losing stuff? In Single Player, you have to load your old game. In Multiplayer, you can just res in town then go back and get your stuff. This is actually easiest as a Sorcerer, since they rely the least on equipment.
Finally, you are a giant wuss for duping elixirs. Giant. Wuss.
