Thoughts on Sorcerer at Level 93

Sorcerer
1

I know there has been a lot of discussion/complaining about sorcs, but after playing tonight I thought I would throw in my 2 cents. I have a Level 93 ice shard sorc. 4.7k damage, 5k armor, 8.4k life, 30.6% CDR. I’m using 4x Level 21 glyphs on my paragon board. I play solo and run mostly NM dungeons 3-4 levels above me. Just for some reference.

I am not a content creator with thousands of hours to pour into the game. I’m just a regular player with average-ish skill playing a little here and there when I can. Obviously there has been a fair amount of time invested (relative to my available time) to get to Level 93. Some thoughts on the class and gameplay after playing tonight:

  • Ice shard sorc gameplay is fun, but in bursts. There is a lot of down time waiting for cooldowns and mana to regen between fights, even with all available CDR and resource regen that I have come across on usable gear. Running through a NM dungeon is a start and stop affair. I’m envious of the classes that can flow through a dungeon smashing things.
  • The specific rotation of abilities for ice shard is not forgiving when you mess up, or suddenly agro a pack of enemies off screen when Frost Nova and Blizzard are down. I’m fine with the challenge, except that it seems some other classes don’t require such a properly executed rotation of abilities to be viable. It’s like I’m punished for doing more.
  • Feeling helpless when mana is out and/or cooldowns are down is sometimes comically frustrating, especially when sorc is so dependent on CONDITIONAL damage and status effects to kill things. Staring at an enemy or running in a circle around them because you can’t kill them for X more seconds is so bad. There are times I’ve frost nova’d or ulted a single small spider or skeleton out of frustration just to kill them and move on.
  • For the above reasons, I rarely do events. The waves are perfectly timed to make sure I’m out of cooldowns and mana when the more difficult enemies arrive. Again, I’m fine with a challenge, but a 1 minute event with 20 seconds of running around in a circle trying not to die to finish it just isn’t fun. Especially when there is effectively no reward.
  • I rarely click on shrines for two reasons. 1) cursed shrines are way more trouble than they are worth, and can be difficult to deal with for the same reason as events. By the time I’m done with the enemies I don’t even want or need the shrine, it just made things worse. 2) Even the good shrines like Blast Wave can throw off my rotation of skills, and I’ll suddenly find myself flat footed around enemies when the effect suddenly ends. I’d rather just play normally instead of click on a shrine.
  • I rarely click on chests for similar reasons to shrines. On the odd occasion that I do click on one, of course it’s going to be cursed, and the rewards in chests are rarely worth the hassle and lost time.
  • The Butcher is just annoying at this point. I could kill him without much trouble around Level 50-60s, but no longer. It’s faster to just die and despawn him so I can continue with the dungeon.
  • Many of the affixes on NM sigils are so oppressive and un-fun it’s not even funny. I immediately salvage things like Lightning Storm and Stormbane’s Wrath now. Enemy DR to cold damage is lovely for an ice shard sorc, as is resource burn from ranged. :slight_smile:
  • Thankfully though we get lots of sigil powder to re-roll sigils that are more fun to play, right? right?? Nope. Powder is limited enough that you eventually have to accept doing bad dungeons with bad affixes or you will be out of sigils pretty quick.
  • I think you can summarize many of the above points by saying that a fair amount of the content in Diablo 4 end game is annoying, un-rewarding and un-fun enough that it’s best avoided when possible.
  • All of the above problems are made worse by the fact that my character has gotten weaker and weaker as I have leveled up into the 80s and 90s, despite efforts to optimize my build along the way as best as I can. I’m not looking forward to leveling up now, it just makes things worse due to the scaling enemies. That’s not how leveling should feel. We all know how fragile sorcs feel at high levels so I’m not going to re-itterate those points.
  • I rarely get better gear now from drops, it’s been like that since level 80 or so. Itemization complaints are well known and I’m not going to re-iterate those points.
  • Bonus: The skeleton corpse bows that can charge up and fire completely off screen and one shot you are so much fun.

I like Diablo 4 and I’m looking forward to season 1. I will eventually get this character to Level 100. I am going to try a different class each season, starting with Rogue in S1. If there is a silver lining maybe it’s that I got the weakest class out of the way first. I appreciate the hard work of the team and I hope they make some aspects of the game better in the near future.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

12 Likes
2

I pretty much skip events too. It’s one of the big drawbacks of Sorcs, and why I think we need Greater Aspects that higher higher roll possibilities, especially on defensives. That would allow some faster resets on the cooldowns and more survivability in those multi-wave attacks.

1 Like
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I love the class, going to keep playing it through seasons I bet forever. The new stuff in season 1 is cool.

4

I feel the same. I am level 90 and I feel like things took a turn for the worse. I am pure ice shards, all I am going to do now is swap to a more survivable based blizzard spec, and grind to 100 to beat lilith, then I am done with Sorc until they fix its issues. Probably will play a druid in S1

2 Likes
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  • I feel likes sorcerers are not distant range class. The camera always zoom at me that’s why i must to fight in close range. I think Blizzard want us to see cosmetic closely that they want to sell cosmetics.
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  • Since vulnerable is super strong damage boots. We are forced to use Frost nova to vulnerable enemies. and yes , i must fight in close range again. Only ice shard builds can work well because it’s can do vulnerable itself. (Fire and Lightning builds can play but forced to use Frost Nova)
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  • Exploit glyhp SHOULD be the same Barb , Rouge , Druid. Let’s us can vulneruable enemies with any skills. That’s make more builds can work.
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I’m here with you on that . Still dunno why they made vuln such a powerful multiplayer and then let out sorc and necro from the second bonus of exploit. Leaving them(i mean i don’t really know about necro) but i do know for sorc that having exploit like the other three would be alredy something huge. For reference i’m Just levelling up a barb right now and with the second bonus from exploit It feels so good to play

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You realise Sorc is broke long before 100. I mean at level 90 you would think you would be pumped to hit 100 and embrace all that power. 90-100 is just grind for the sake of grind because your committed now.

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All what power? 40 more Paragon points? Gear which is incrementally very slightly better than your level 90 gear?

You have to like playing in order to grind from 90 to 100. Because there isnt a “goal” there to achieve at the end of that grind. The grind IS the goal.

9

While Sorc has its issues, if you are only playing nm dungeons a few levels above you, you can change your build easily and perform well without waiting on CD’s. If geared properly, you shouldn’t have mana issues most of the time. Sometimes you run oom with bad RNG, but it’s not every pack.

Ad blizzard in your build for chill. It will cc and eventually freeze mobs. You can play ice shards at range while waiting on frost nova cd. It’s not as high damage, but for +3 level nm, that should still obliterate most trash.