Hail of Verglas
Still can’t kill a Torment 4 boss with Ice Shards unless one uses the bugged enlightenment key passive. All other key passives are useless. Lightning Spear build and enlightenment is still the only viable build if you want to kill bosses on Torment 4 or push pits. This season just sucks.
Bummer I was looking forward to trying it out, got a nice 3ga for it too 
the devs never play their own game.
skill damage is very lame in diablo 4.
even if you stack it up to 20 levels and add another 500%, it still performs worse than an Azurewrath + Frostburn.
well that sucks, im LS and wrecking in t4 but its the same ol s*** as before I was really looking to go Ice shards like back in S0. Blizz says sorc is in A good spot… come on this is why I quit early every season.
My incinerate sorc would like to have a word with you. I’m facerolling T4 and the only reason I haven’t cleared beyond a pit 70 yet is my glyphs are barely 40 and I’m only P206.
Is Incinerate that strong becuase of the boss powers that boost DOT?
Or just on its own?
Almost every sorc build wrecks t4. You have no idea.
The ice shards build I have still works better with Shako than Verglas. Trying to move around stats I lose from Shako but gain from Verglas makes me overall weaker in survivability and I don’t really see a damage increase that makes it worth it.
Even with the multiplier bonuses now from double frost enchantment master, avalanche, and using shivering for more consistent damage versus the aspect that only procced when frost armor was up, with the new difficulty scaling, I’ve still lost pit levels and the best I can say is I can now actually see tiny chip damage on T3 bosses when not vuln+staggered.
Useless.
Yep. I was going to try this build out this season, then read all the negative stuff about it and decided not to waste my time.
BLIZZ: EVERY cohesive build should be able to defeat EVERY boss on T4. That’s blizzard, fireball, incinerate, etc. And that’s just the sorcs. Do that for EVERY consistent build.
THEN put the hard/challenging/aspirational stuff beyond that.
if Verglas at 75% hit damage feels like a wet noodle, patching it to 100% is like letting you splash the noodle soup on the monster.
the confused monster just looks at you and says, “wtf?”
i am keeping my 100% Verglas for laughter where every time i open my chest and glance on it. 
Interesting. I just read this, changed to Avalanche key passive and aspect, killed a T4 boss and got back here to let you know. Have a nice day.
He’s suffering from severe skill issue and probably building +burning damage and +meteor size. I just did a quick T4 Varshan with Avalanche.
Yeah, basically, all builds must rely on Enlightenment passive to progress in T4+.
Bugged? Not sure about that one, but does it matter??? Just fkin use it, dude. Like wtf are you on about.
Nah, it’s useless on its own, but the boss power makes it rly strong: instead of randomly beaming with dance of knives or ww you can actually constantly hit the right target while channelling the death beam.
I can tell you from personal experience this isn’t true as I have killed most of them with Chain Lightning. IDK what the bug is with Enlightenment but if it involves the Familiar enchantment I didn’t have that equipped, or use any fire for that matter which I gather is being used in some CL builds now.
Similar experience with CL, thought maybe a bit weaker. Was getting close to clearing a 75, Glyphs low 60s I think and Paragon 210 or so. Not a single mythic though, only found Sellig and Tyrael’s which I can’t afford to equip as it would tank my armour.
T4 bosses actually require most builds to invest - level up glyphs, masterwork, get the right tempers, 200+ paragon, decent GAs. As it should be IMO, otherwise what’s the point in all those things?
And they don’t take that long… I work full time and have side hustles. Maybe play 2h per day. Sure it’s more than many but it’s not ‘no lifer’ realm. If I can get there in 2 weeks then the vast majority can do it in 2 months (assuming it’s a shortened season).
I’m at T4 and destroying bosses with ice shards. PIT 85. Of course I don’t kill with 10s like electric spear. But it doesn’t seem bad.
Pretty much. I’m running the death beam main… beast modifier (+50% chill) along with the 2 modifiers that increase DOT damage and give 30% vulnerable damage. Also running the war cry and frost nova runes with frost nova on my bar. I’m stacking CDR and have both my frost/flame shields at a sub 6 sec CD with Inferno at 9 sec.
End result is a tank mage flamethrower wreckfest with never ending frozen vulnerable mobs exploding in fire.
It’s working amazingly… and oddly enough none of the incinerate guides I’ve seen are using the beast modifier.
I killed the most difficult T4 Andariel with Firebolt with combustion passive, they are many builds can kill T4. You just need to know how to put a working build together by yourself
That’s weird, I can do any t4 content EASY with ice shards and I don’t even use enlightenment Have done pit up to 85, Can push high, but just got tired of this season.