I don’t care what you all say, unless you are using ice shard, or arc lash builds, the sorcerer damage is very lacking in damage. I tried I really did. I sat there for hours trying multiple ways to make the sorcerer feel good without using ice shard or arc lash but the damage on all the other abilities are just so weak. I wanna use ice ord, or chain lighting. Hell the incinerate ability looks badass but they can’t do crap to anything. I remember back in d2 i ran around as a fire sorcerer casting fireballs with meteor, while summoning hydras. I wanted a build like that, but I guess I’ll have to wait for some balance patches, and hope the “fun” abilities get buffed cause I’m sorry but arc lash and ice shards are so boring to use. When I play a magic casting class I wanna be a aoe nuker not a single target melee. If you run ice shard might as well go bone necro who can do it better.
I built a meteor build. Its dependent on the legendary item for it but its been super fun.
Im running
Fire armor
The snake thing
Frozen nova
Ice armor
Fire bolt
Meteor
Fire bolt and fire ball for the passive
Im not having any issues but im only lv 47.
I haven’t messed with meteor yet but I’ll respec soon and try it out. But I think with meteor you gotta involve lucky hit % maybe. Get multiple meteors falling. I bet it’ll be decent, pop inferno ult first and then just call down 10 meteors in 4 seconds. I think you just haven’t played around enough yet, no one has
I took,frostbolt,blizzard,ice armor,teleport, hydra and deep freeze.
No problems.
I took chain lightning (7/5) and hydra (8/5) and both skills are incredibly underperforming.
Having BIG issues with lacking damage, even on world tier 1…
I’m lvl 36 and clearing stuff fast. For leveling I think firewall is prob best skill and def should be on skill bar. And then also the flame shield is pretty good for offense even, gives half health back and immunity. Spam the hell outta firewall. I think pvp is where the shock talents will be best
Okay… but this is not an excuse for blizzard to say sorc has 1 skill that is okay. Every skill should be viable. “Play your way” and so on… 
Yea agree. Doesn’t help that we can only choose 6 total skills including ult with min cd
It would be nice if that were the case but it seems even blizz wants to push us into a meta instead of giving us the choice of freedom.
Wait,did they heavily nerf sorc since the last beta?
Have the legy for 2nd hydra now, level 46 and the char makes less fun every minute I play…
Hydras - no dmg
Chain Lightning - no dmg
It’s disgusting.
I’m trying other classes, but I do agree with OP, the Sorcerer is just weak. I’ve been going through the abilities trying to find something that feels good. Has the D4 team played D3? D3 had issues in the beginning, but they were fixed. Why reinvent the wheel? Just add better tires!
Play style is too clunky, and there is a weird issue with the casting time between abilities. I get that we have a casting time, but more often I find myself frustrated at the simple delay between throwing a meteor and casting my basics. We need a retool here with a little more “AW YEA”? I want that satisfaction of the slaughter back.
My build is heavy on burn. I just had a legendary drop that adds meteor strikes when casting Inferno.
I’m able to burn down enemies relatively quickly.
Edit to original post/reply… After playing around with builds depending on what legendary drops, I’ve found a few builds that really do feel good and I’m quite happy/excited by what I’m playing now… I don’t want to post things on here as fear of the Blizz nerf hammer but there really is a few builds that feel good and have quite a bit survivability and overall DPS…
Keep hunting friends and things will eventually fit and feel good…
Yes I rolled sorc and I can confirm that ice shards is the only viable DPS. It does the most dmg in slot and costs less mp, all the other skills are too much mp to be good and do less dmg. The only good thing they changed since the server slam is hydra is less mp but seems they got a damage nerf too. Sorc is a joke right now. Also my gf plays necro and they said they nerfed them before launch but seems they actually got a big buff in dmg. Thinking of cutting my loss in playtime on my sorc and rolling rogue instead.
There a legendary that turns it to a metero shower. You need it to make it viable
I am finding the sorc fine. What I am getting tired of is having to face tank everything.
Nothing I have really kills things, it Only pisses them off. I use uh arc lash thing (5) lightning bolt, hydra (Sorry have memory issues, remembering is hard) teleport, and Ultimate. I don’t have enough room on the hot bar for all my spells.
the 15 seconds or so of godlike power with the ultimate in fun, since lightning will stun people and you can overpower them. It’s my boss button.
My augments are fireball + Ice storm.
I have mostly rare items upgraded as much as I can afford, A couple of legendary items (necklace you get + ring+ legs and boots.) Are legendary items random as well? with only unique items having set stats?
Try the firewall build ist very good also.
Can confirm Fire Wall is really strong.
Mana Regen and Firewalls procing other firewalls.
I 100% agree with OP, mage build is horrible in this game, and i do not know why. This mage runs out of mana with just 2 cast. Its actually quite laughable how poor his mana pool and regeneration rate are. This should not be an issue with an mage.
I also find alot of his loot drops are lacking. Drop rate for viable weapons is low in this game…it almost feels like they copied path of exile. I have gotten only one legendary in the game so far, and it did not drop from enemies, it came from a lucky random roll from the gypsy lady in town. The one that she gave me was pretty subpar…
When a game like this becomes a online experience like path of of exile, the gameplay ends up becoming a drag, wanting you to sink 100 hrs into it just to get a few legendaries. I kinda want to restart as Nercro now.