Even though experimentation is pretty viable in Diablo 4, there are certain builds that are better than the rest.
Part of our complete Diablo 4 class guide.
While not necessarily the strongest build for Sorcerer depending on your gear, Ice Shards builds currently dominate the Sorcerer metagame. This build will focus on inflicting a ton of AoE damage with the help of Frost Nova and Ice Shards, as well as adding a lot of fire DOT to enemies around you. If instead, you’re looking for the best Diablo 4 Sorcerer leveling build, check out my other article and get geared up for leveling! So let me show you one of the best Sorcerer builds for endgame.
Main Skills
These will be your main damage and tanking skills. You can experiment with others but generally these are the ones you should be going for.
Firebolt
We won’t actually use Firebolt, but it will be one of our core Enchantments. It will deal a fire DOT to any enemy hit by any of our damage skills. And since Ice Shards deals multiple instances of damage with every cast, that DOT will keep stacking.
Ice Shards
The main damage skill that we will be using and should definitely place 5 skill points into. You should upgrade the skill to Enhanced Ice Shards and Destructive Ice Shards in order for them to ricochet and make your enemies Vulnerable. You will also be using Ice Shards as your other Enchantment slot, since this is what truly makes this build tick. Everytime an enemy is frozen around you, automatic Ice Shards will shoot at each of them. Combined with some of your Aspects this will quickly melt everything around you.
Teleport
One of the most used skills in any Sorcerer build, Teleport should also receive 5 skill points as well as the Enhanced and Shimmering upgrades. Generally you’ll be using it to jump into a pack of enemies so you can use your Frost Nova, but every so often it can also be used to quickly get out of danger.
Ice Armor
One of our core defensive skills, Ice Armor should be popped whenever you feel like you’re about to take damage. One skill point should be enough, since the stat increase with each additional skill point isn’t really worth it in the long run.
Frost Nova
Another very important part of this build, Frost Nova is the most consistent way of freezing packs of enemies to make short work of them with Ice Shards. Only one skill point is needed with two more to access the Enhanced and Shimmering upgrades.
Flame Shield
This is your get out of jail free card since it makes you fully immune for two seconds which is more than enough to dodge roll or teleport out of danger. A single skill point should be enough with another one to get the Enhanced upgrade which will also increase your movement speed while Flame Shield is up.
Inferno
Last but not least we have our Ultimate skill that will help us bunch up enemies so we can freeze them with Frost Nova. This will also ensure that Ice Shards will pass through all of them at the same time while also ricocheting for a ton of damage. One skill point is all that is needed as well as an extra point to get the Prime upgrade which will repeatedly pull enemies in range to the center, ensuring that they won’t be going anywhere.
Passive Skills
Most of the passives that will be using will increase your tanking capabilities since Sorcerers are rather squishy, with only a few that will also increase your damage output.
Devastation
Only one skill point will be added to this passive, giving you an additional three mana points. Since resource generation will be your main problem when using this build, any upgrade to your mana pool is better than nothing.
Elemental Dominance
After adding three skill points to this passive, it will increase the damage of your Core skills, namely Ice Shards by 9% when cast above 50 mana.
Elemental Attunement
One point in this passive will give your character a 5% chance to reset one of your Defensive skills cooldown. Keep in mind though that this effect has an internal cooldown of 10 seconds.
Align the Elements
We’ll only be adding one point to this passive so we can access the other passives tied to it. For every second you haven’t taken damage from an Elite you’ll get 1% damage reduction against them, up to 40%.
Mana Shield
Three skill points should definitely be taken in this passive, which will give you 15% Damage Reduction everytime you spend 100 mana. This effect will only last for 5 seconds though, so don’t count on it for prolonged periods of time.
Protection
Another defensive passive, Protection will give you 30% of your Max Life as a Barrier that lasts for 2 seconds. Since we need all the defense we can get, three points should definitely go into this passive.
Precision Magic
Another passive that will require three skill points, Precision Magic will give you a 15% increase in your Lucky Hit chance.
Inner Flames
One point is enough for this passive that will net you a 3% increase to your Pyromancy skills when Healthy.
Devouring Blaze
Since enemies will constantly be burning due to our Firebolt enchantment, it’s imperative we add three points to this passive. Devouring Blaze will allow us to deal 30% more Crit Damage against burning enemies. If those enemies are also immobilized the bonus will increase to 75%.
Permafrost / Icy Touch / Hoarfrost / Frigid Breeze
All four of these passives are tied together and will need three skills points added to each of them. Permafrost will allow us to deal 15% more damage to Elites while Icy Touch will deal 12% more cold damage to Vulnerable enemies. Hoarfrost increases our damage towards Chilled enemies by 9% and Frozen enemies by 18%. Since we already have Lucky Hit chance increases from our other passives, Frigid Breeze is also very important. It gives our Lucky Hits a 20% chance to generate 15 mana when dealing Cold damage to Vulnerable targets.
Key Passive – Avalanche
Definitely the Key Passive that works best with this build, Avalanche gives our Lucky Hits a 10% chance to make our next Ice Shards cast free while also dealing 40% increased damage. That chance will be doubled when used against a Vulnerable enemy
Aspects
The main Aspect you should be looking for to improve this build is Aspect of Piercing Cold. Since Ice Shards is our bread and butter, the fact that this Aspect enables them to pierce up to four enemies is great, even though each subsequent enemy hit will receive less damage. When you pair this up with the innate Ice Shards ability to ricochet between targets, Frozen enemies won’t even know what hit them.
Since mana generation will be a constant issue for this build, I highly recommend you get your hands on Prodigy’s Aspect as soon as possible. It will give us anywhere between 15 and 25 mana whenever we use a Cooldown. And since all our skills besides Ice Shards have a cooldown, it’s a decent source of extra mana.
Aspect of Control is also a must for this build, since it gives us between 25% and 35% extra damage to Immobilized, Stunned or Frozen enemies. This also works great when playing in a party, since other classes can also Immobilize or Stun enemies.
As far as defensive capabilities go, one of the best Aspects that you can easily get is Aspect of Binding Embers. This Aspect will let you move unhindered through enemies when Flame Shield is active, while also immobilizing any target you pass through.
Playstyle
Obviously, the focus of the build is to get into the thick of things with Teleport ideally and freeze as many enemies as possible with Frost Nova. Then you can simply spam Ice Shards as long as you have mana. When dealing with larger packs of enemies you can also use Inferno to bunch them up for a huge damage boost, but keep in mind that Inferno has a pretty long cooldown so use it wisely.
When our Freezing effect is over, definitely activate Ice Armour to get out of danger or even Flame Shield if dealing with multiple elites. Also keep in mind that Flame Shield can also break Crowd Control effects, which is a huge boon for the Sorcerer class since we don’t have any natural ways of getting the Unstoppable effect.
If you feel like your defensive capabilities are not working too great, you can make a simple change to the Ultimate that you use. Simply replace Inferno with Deep Freeze. While we won’t be able to bunch packs of enemies together, Deep Freeze is a great tanking skill that also deals a good amount of damage. The fact that it also freezes enemies around you when it ends means that you’ll get another chance to inflict a heap of damage with your Ice Shards skill.
