Update:I have just watched the RageGamingVideos video on YouTube titled “Diablo 4 - New Season 6 Sorcerer is BROKEN… - New Best Builds After 100 Hours in Vessel of Hatred!” and it gave me a bit of hope for the Sorc class in general. It still sounds like we’re going to need to completely rework things if you’re running LS though. Pure LS Sorc is definitely dead / no longer viable. I was already running a hybrid Orb + LS build using Axial Conduit and Chain Lightning as well, so I feel like I may be able to rework my build more easily than most others will. I won’t know until I actually try it on Monday evening when it releases here, after figuring out the gear and paragon board situations. At least it sounds like Sorc in general should still be very viable. I’m still not thrilled about the way that they went about this nerf but it is what it is and we’ll see what comes of it soon.
The devs are absolutely out of their minds with these sorc nerfs in the upcoming patch. Reducing max lightning spears to 12, making splintering energy have a pretty significant time delay between damage hits, removing the affix to cast multiple spears, and locking the cooldown reduction from frozen orb so that we can’t masterwork it.
These nerfs combined are massive overkill. I agree that lightning spear needed a nerf but these changes have completely killed the build off. It’s going to be totally useless in end game now. As soon as this patch drops my sorc is going to be impossible to play through higher end content.
There are other classes with relatively comparable end game builds that weren’t even touched and you chose to just completely nuke spear sorc. This feels like season 2 all over again, you guys apparently don’t learn.
Spear limit should be 20, not 12. Cooldown affix on winterglass shouldn’t have been touched. Splintering energy effect shouldn’t be based on a time delay. Temper with chance to cast multiple spears should have been left alone.
Replacing the spear double cast temper with double damage isn’t helpful. Damage scales with the number of conjurations out because of conjuration mastery and then multiplicative damage effects take effect on that. 12 spears is a joke for end game content. Double damage on 1000 percent less damage than we could do before is pretty well useless. Not to mention that splintering doesn’t do damage based on lightning spear’s damage output, making the double damage temper even more useless since it only affects the base spear damage, which is low.
Whoever did these nerfs has probably never played a proper end game spear build. They don’t appear to have a grasp on the interactions between the various systems at all.
Sorcerers are glass cannons. Our defensive weakness (weakest of any class) is supposed to be offset by our high damage output.
I sorta understand the Fractured Winterglass i don’t think it was intended to work they way ppl turning it into a LC cooldown when the the unique was meant to be a FO build. I would been happier if they had kept it masterwork able, but change it to frost skill cd. Would have fit the theme of the unique.
I also wonder if limiting the skill was to help with lag problem it was causing the server. Still sorc is still in a decent place with multiple build options, while necro lack diverse strong build options, and will see if barb buff helped at all.
It’s so dumb. You would think they would want to nerf it in an intelligent manner to keep the build at least playable in the interest of build diversity as they introduce other builds. Instead they nuke it so bad that it’s gone. Total lack of common sense.
Agreed. It was a major turnoff for me with that FOMO strategy. “Keep things fresh”.
Not a popular thought but I wish theyd just turn everything into additive dmg. Keep vuln as multiplicitive like how ED% was in D2 and balance the game.
The worst part is that this actually nerfs multiple sorc builds. Almost all of the meta S5 sorc builds used conjuration mastery to scale damage. Not to mention the fact that some builds like chain lightning were simply lighting spear builds with a chain lightning flavor.
Not sure what build sorcs are supposed to play in S6.
be it 20 or 12 LS, once the rogue throw that shade totem out, all the LS will attack the totem that later emits the damage at -70% efficiency to the surrounding enemies.
I’ve already complained enough. Now I guess it’s a wait and see of how LS plays. I’m honestly getting bored of them constantly screwing around with builds.
I really wish they would get there act together.
I can already tell that it’s going to play like total dog crap. The spear cap at 12 alone makes it useless damagewise. With only 12 spears you would be lucky if you could finish a T7 run, and that’s without even factoring in the other nerfs.
As always… Blizzard doesn’t nerf, they are killing builds completely.
It’s by far not the first time that this happens.
My guess: Will be buffed again in s7.
My chain lightning build with spears and axial conduit and triple passive amulet dint get more than about 6 spears with lightning spear enchant but they did tons of damage and I could solo torments or do tier 8. Not as easy as full spear but it was good.
Maybe we can salvage it somehow but it looks bleak and my build had about 300B in items to do it and was half chain lightning so
I’m not sure if this is something they’d admit, it’s so embarrassing it would be an indicator of poor staffing.
The ‘FOMO’ explanation doesn’t go far enough, the devs have given innumerable indications they don’t understand their systems & interactions. Can’t be an elaborate skit.
I wonder if Team XBOX sits in on some dev meetings, or if it’s hands-off so long as revenue quotas are met.
