Season 7 Firebolt Enchantment NEEDS TO STAY

Sorcerer
1

I watched a video on youtube regarding Season 7 and some upcoming changes. My opinion is the firebolt enchantment needs to continue to deal burning damage and here is my simple reason.

I would like to add that losing burning in a build is a massive nerf when it comes to the Paragon board and again is a STRONG reason I vote for keeping Firebolt Enchantment.

There are currently 4 ways to inflict burning damage for someone not running a fire build. One of those is Firebolt and is by far the most reliable and relevant one despite what a popular youtuber who is a Diablo partner seems to think. (no disrespect to him I think he just doesn’t realize how good firebolt is and his content is great)

  1. Firebolt Enchantment
  2. Meteor Enchantment
  3. Hydra Enchantment
  4. Familiar in various ways.

Hydra Enchantment works best for a Chain Lightning build because of the high amount of mana it can spew out combined also with the Meteor Enchantment as its a lucky hit. Familiar despite being used in a ton of builds to get fire damage for sorc’s in conjuration lightning spear builds I personally don’t opt to use mainly because you get way more damage having more familiars out of the same type than you do worrying about using one for burning damage.

It seems people pushing builds with sorc have missed the fact that for each familiar out you gain 10% dmg of its type for a potential of 60% dmg increase. While also they seem to also have missed that you don’t need to cycle 3 different elements to get the benefit from the new passive enlightenment. You can easily cycle between Cold and Lightning skills and gain 15 points per switch combined with Lightning Spear and Unstable Currents to get to you 100 points of Enlightenment while also being able to get out a potential 6 Familiars of a single element for an increase in dmg of a possible 60%. Leaving the only source that is reliable for burning damage being FIREBOLT ENCHANTMENT.

Alternatively the only access a Sorc will have when building is to actually throw in a fire skill like Hydra or Meteor in order to inflict burning damage. Or to run the Unique gloves that cast one of each type of familiar.

I seriously don’t think this is a good or healthy mechanic switch in the game.

Also I think its great that a new unique is being added finally for the off hand slot however I think its kind of limiting to be specifically for ball lightning.

It basically looks like next Season will be focused around Chain Lightning in order to get the Hydra enchantment locked in while gaining a bonus on ball lightning. That is basically one of the current top builds this season 6. Which essentially is going to kill building into Cold completely and nullify Frozen Orb. Which to be honest doesn’t seem to be anything new as Lightning Spear has been dominating along with Conjuration Mastery since S5.

Bringing up the second part of this. Changing Devouring Blaze?

That already seems hard enough to slip into a build reliably as Amulet in that slot with Conjuration Mastery are extremely rare so you’re really only getting 3 points into crit strike dmg plus 1 from the Chest passive. Losing 21% crit strike dmg for no reason seems like a poor move when it doesn’t even buff the already struggling fire mage. So unless I’m missing something in Incinerate or the pit pushing firebolt build doesn’t need a buff, this just seems like a bad decision also.

I’ll say this having options for cross pollination of builds is desirable. Being pigeon holed is not.

Realistically how do I inflict burning while casting Frozen Orb without Firebolt Enchantment? Hydra won’t spawn enough to make an impact nor will Meteor so what you’re saying is I have to take a 20-50% damage reduction in order to cast a fire familiar.

It seems like Elemental Constellation and a pure Conjuration build would take center stage as it would be better to build into burning and hit your shock and chill effects through enchantments due to the nerf. That or as stated earlier the typical Chain Lightning/Ball Lightning.

Open to thoughts and opinions anyways.

My current build due simply to gear is Frozen Orb/Conjuration focusing on Cold and Lightning dmg. I do not utilize any fire spells to cycle my rotation for Enlightenment as stated above for a specific reason.

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3

Farm up a Tyraels and you won’t have to bother with defences ever again

4

Yeah. but you lose shroud or Raiment (depending on the meta) With tyrials you lose more damage than the benefits of defense (which is the sorcs main issues) Asa class we are constantly forced to choose between damage and defense. Most classes can reach this through the paragon and some easy gear choices, %armor and a ga roll on pants/gloves will solve the Armor. With frozen Orb/Lightning spear, you can solve your res too.

But that’s one build currently due to the LS uncalled for nerf. (the argument about server health seems pretty disingenuous coming from a billion dollar company fr.)

2 Likes
5

The problem with Tyrael’s Might, he didn’t do anything interesting except increasing Survivability…

The Shroud, only Max Life / All Stats is interesting with the +1 To All Passive (Broken asf really)

Like said it before, you lost a Unique potential.

Mythic Unique is sometime a brake for some possible build. Even if a Mythic is really dope many times.

6

Fireball can do burning I think yes. I would have to double check. That said relying on fireball to explode on death isn’t reliable burning dmg as you gain damage against burning targets, target that wouldn’t be burning until after they die and explode to do AOE dmg to other mobs. So you would have burning on the last few mobs of a pack and wouldn’t have any one a boss unless you specifically cast a fireball which would then have to be on a skill rotation in your build taking the place of likely a frozen orb, chain lightning, iceshards, etc. So you’d have to run a full fireball build utilizing the staff which would then not have the new unique in it.

little off topic here in regard to doing burning dmg with builds not focused on fire dmg.

This specific area is in relation to the shatter key passive and its effect with fireball enchantment to do tons of damage to trash mobs. That build isn’t played by the majority of Diablo 4 players as its specifically used for Pit pushing and is a niche build that is not good for the vast majority of content.

1 Like
7

I’m fine if they change firebolt enchant but actually fix everything else wrong with the class. Everyone runs firebolt in non-burn builds cause it’s the last way left to make most sorc builds actually playable lol.

And for the love of god, give us an alternative to Tal Rasha’s already. I want to run mono element sorc.

8

I agree with the Tal-Rash point. Forces you into a tri build or at the very least a dual with Doombringer or Andariel’s.

I agree running a mono Element Sorcerer would be nice. It requires adding a passive similar to Conjuration Mastery to the other skills. Like a Mastery passive skill that buffs all dmg for each Mastery skill cast within X seconds then resets.

They need to incentivize people into playing the other skills over lightning spear by buffing Aspects and adding a unique passive skill selectively to the tree. Not to mention the Paragon board is hard to incentivize players to play a few when you can gain so much from lots. Lots of power comes from Paragon selection to and balancing that with the skill tree I imagine isn’t easy.

I think instead of changing Firebolt they should buff Hydra Enchant or Meteor Enchant or the Familiar to have it compete with Firebolt Enchant as a source of burning that isn’t OP. Also Firebolt enchant doesn’t add to Tal Rasha I believe so either that needs to be fixed and is not intended or they need a more reliable source of dmg from red that can be added to a build to stack Tal’s.

I also think by improving options to use in comparison to Firebolt it should be done similar with opposing skills through comparable gear, aspects, and skill tree.

Like I played Fireball build last season as it was my first season and then learned Conjuration Mastery was OP. Went conjuration and then Fireball gets bugged and does insane dmg.

The game as a whole seems to be lacking a large selection of gear and bosses and is being filled with mindless monotonous killing to make up for actual engaging activities that feel rewarding.

I will say gear farming was more rewarding this season but there is a ton of boring content in the game that just doesn’t feel like its doing anything for you. Mercenaries being one as I play with someone often and lose any Mercenary buffs.

I could go on and on but I’ve already gone off topic long enough.

I think next season the best build is going to be Ball Lightning based off campfire chat and current game mechanics.

9

All fire dmg should cause burning, and thats a hill I am willing to die on.

1 Like
10

The fastest way to apply burning is not Hydra, is firewall. You can free up defensive skill slots for fire, if you use the Aspect of Tenuous Destruction which give you 50% x dmg. You can get the shield with rune words. The only sacrifice is Teleport, as flameshield is already nerf in S5. You can add Tenuous Agility for mobility, or metamorphosis for another mobility + unstoppable.

You don’t need to slot in burning for many builds, as Damage Reduction from Burning Enemies has been changed to Damage Reduction While Healthy.

Conjuration Mastery is Primordial Binding.

You still can enjoy higher damage with Devouring Blaze if you play fire skill, it is buff instead. This is just about shifting meta, Esu Ferocity already changed not give bonus to none fire damage in S4. This firebolt change is expected and long overdue.

1 Like
11

I would agree with that. Problem with burning is it doesn’t crit. Not sure how it works with Vulnerable and Overpower either. It would make sense that anything fire should cause some amount of burning dmg.

12

Since they nerfed Tal Rasha and the enchantment don´t trigger it anymore, I don´t see any reason to use fire bolt as enchantment.

Currently I am using Ice Blades (or chain lighting) + Lighting Spear (just doing crackling energy damage can automatically spawn 4 or 5 LS).

2 Likes