TL;DR:if there’s any Sorc players out there that don’t use guides and are steamrolling through T4 and are actually enjoying themselves, let’s hear your success story.
I’ve always mained Sorc/Wiz in all Diablo games, I just like blowing up from a distance. But with each season I only notice it getting worse.
I make do with whatever drops and I try to make the best of it. I never touch those stupid so-called guides because making guides for a game that is built around RNG is stupid. They can make all the stupid guides to hit a quad-quad-quadrillion crits they want, but they’re worth less than toilet paper if 99.99999999% of drops are pure , especially in T4.
This season I decided to try a new class (Barb) and I ended up steamrolling through T4 within a couple of weeks. Again, no guides touched whatsoever. I just buffed Earthquakes to the possible max with glyphs, tempering & the Earthquake rune, and all I had to do was literally walk around and watch everything die behind me.
So then I decided to go back to Eternal since there’s no reason left for continuing to play season, and pick up my OG main pre-S6 Sorc. the gear on it is less than stellar thanks to that disgusting Loot patch & paragon changes, so I just reset the entire toon.
Thought about trying to take advantage of the Tal Rasha ring again so I had to choose as many elements as I could…and within 5 minutes I closed the game in disgust. Sorc skills SUCK. Sorc passives SUCK. Everything about Sorc SUCKS.
They ruined Frozen Orb and Familiar several patches ago, Lightning Spear has always sucked a$$ in my eyes because it’s just NOT fun to use that crap, and 99% of everything else is the same crap they copy/pasted from D2. same old
So what is left to play in Sorc? Ball Lightning? just lol. Meteor…well it’s got far more potential in D3 than in D4 because at least in D3 you can change its element and extended functionality. but here I’m stuck with a non-ancestral Starfall that gives me +7 to Meteor and a charge cooldown of 3 (the lowest possible). which completely rules out using Shako because its base of +4 to all skills is not masterworkable.
I’m running pit 100 with 6 minutes left, highest I’ve ever gotten . Always ran incinerate build before this season and could hardly do t4 content
Helm perdition
Chest shroud
Gloves shredding blades double temper on LS dmg
Pants orange herld, armor and total armor
Boots rakanoths
Staff splintering energy,dmg,and 2 crit dmg,have 50% LS double dmg, wish I got double temper in that
Amulet conceited,Int,dmg,inner flame ga, total armor and LS dmg
Ring1 talrasha 3 ga
Ring 2 starless
Runes set 1 Cir/Que
Runes set 2 Tam/Ceh
Skills
2 in fire bolt
3 in elem dom
1 in devastation
1 in flame shield
3 for teleport to mystical
3 glass cannon
3 energy focus
3 ice blades to roaring
3 primordial binding
1 align
3 protection
7 lightning spear to invoked
3 inner flames
3 ball lightning to wizards
1 static discharge
1 shocking impact
3 invigorating conduit
3 permafrost
3 icy touch
2 hoarfrost
7 in unstable
1 coursing currents
3 electrocution
1 in convulsion
3 evocation
3 elemental syn
Then enlightenment
Glyphs
Conjurer lvl 100 with elemental summoner
Destruction lvl 100 main board
Elementalist lvl 100, in frigid fate
Invocation lvl 100 infundamental release
Tactician lvl 100 in searing heat
Have 269 paragon , no max splintering energy aspect either
Is based off other builds but not a full copy, it is button smashing which I wish we did not have to do, all t4 content is a joke really. Lair bosses die with in 10 seconds
Witch powers and gems
Abyssal resonance
Shaken soul
Purging touch
Grow
Decay aug
Doom orb
Witching hour
Killing wind
Toadling wish
I do agree that Sorc needs a re-design. Too many things broken, no synergy between skills and elements, the gimmicks (Crackling Energy and Ice Spike) are useless, enchantments are not worth it, and so on and so on…
But what can I say, I am a mage in my soul, just can’t play with another classes (didn’t tried SB yet).
About the success of the class, there is a perspective thing at play here.
I use Incinerate (no guides), fought my way through out the torment levels. Reaching torment 4 was difficult, but I did it. I got stronger and now I can one-shot most enemies (steamrolling as you said it).
My “power level” was earned. I did every part of content the game has to offer. Upgraded my gear and build little by little. I got to Pit 97. And this was the most fun I ever had in a ARPG. So yeah, I consider this a very successful history.
Pit 150 was supposed to be unachievable. Glyphs level 100 are like level 99 in Diablo 2, nice if you get there, but not necessary. Torment 4 is the highest difficulty and should offer a challenge to the player. With this in mind the Sorc (and apparently the SB) is the closest to the goal Blizzard envisioned.
If you get 2 pieces of gear and can steamroll torment 4, then sorry to said it, but your build is broken and it should be nerfed. (Honestly, I walk away when I come across a Earthquake Barb, Cataclysm Druid or Blood Wave Necro. They take the fun away from the game)
Again, Sorc is broken in many ways and need fixes ASAP. But I don’t thing the power level is the biggest problem (it would had been nice to reached Pit 120 for the effort I gave, but lets go 1 step at time).
Like you said, most skills SUCKS. We need this re-design. So I get it when you say that going back to the clunky Sorc was awful after playing a fluid Barb build.
What is left? Pray that Blizz hear us and fix the mechanics of the class instead of just bumping up the numbers.
----> This is an honest question <-----
Why do people keep asking for the third enchantment slot?
All the builds I use have 1 or 2 slots to spare… Seriously, enchantments sucks. I could understand the request when people were force to pick Fire Bolt, but now I don’t get it (unless you want all the defensive enchantments)
Which builds would benefit from 3 slots?
Haha, yeah, I can understand that, but I always have the skill Teleport on the Left Trigger of the controller and I prefer the base dodge over the Teleport Enchant… it feels so weird and clunky teleporting with “B” and/or having 2 buttons to teleport. (I play on XBox)
Yeah I’ve asked myself the same question. Enchantments are so uselessly underpowered that having a third wouldn’t move the meter at all in terms of our power.
I sincerely hope that at the campfire we hear something about overhauling the enchantment system. I gave them a pass last season because of the expansion, but come on… We’ve got serious issues here.
Im rockin all giant congerations
utilizing crit hit chance and dmg
Hydras crit hit is fixed
Hydra 10 heads
Spamming chain lightning (or ball lightning) for max crackling energies thus maxing lightning spear dmg
(As well as spawning more LS from cracklin energies)
I practically have 6 of every congeration up… and all giant .
Everything melts in T4
No tala ring (ive made my own thats better)
No winterglass ( again… ive made a better one since im not using frozen orb).
Choose aspects that you want to synergize and prioritize…
I dont even play much and dont have any gear or glyphs maxed… so those who jave max stuff they will go further…
My max glyph is like 55 and i have a few GA.
Its just about creative synergies in your build… the more you can synergize the better…
The witchpowers synergies also help with this build so once thats gone who knows… ill try again cause i love my unique creative build ive put together.
Maybe someone else can enjoy it to now:)
…
The real problem is lack of a more in depth system to creatively synergize aspects.
(This goes for all classes)…
We can only utilize 4 aspects and need to be able to synergize different skill aspects together in creative ways.
i have many topics of systems to help improve this concept.
Teleport as enchant replaces evade. You can get legendary boots, tripple crit on tempered evade cooldown reduction (37.5%), have an extra aspect and a lucky hit chance for some kind of damage modifier at the same time. With 54% cooldown GA Shako and 3x crit tal ring, you can teleport nonstop, faster than any build in the game.
Well then , they a can improve and rebuild the enchantment mechanic while they are at it as well as a 3rd enchantment slot.
It doesnt have to be only the 3rd slot.
Because it’s something we had that was taken away for no reason whatsoever. Not only was the class never overperforming enough to warrant the removal of the third enchantment slot but the enchantments themselves aren’t particularly powerful to begin with so removing one slot was just adding insult to injury.
My Meteor build for one. I am locked into using the Ice Blades and Teleport enchantments. Not being able to use the Meteor enchantment (which is buffed by the Starfall Coronet) on a Meteor build feels weird. Ice Blades and Teleport are also pretty much the go to for most builds because of the CDR and the convenience. Teleport essentially replaced Firebolt and having the third slot back would open more build diversity.
Disclaimer: I did not tried to use Meteor yet, so I don’t know how important these things can be for the build. I also do not do Speed Farming or Pit Pushing, so those zero CD teleport setups and maximizing damage are not really useful for me.
I looked up the build from Maxroll and I would do some changes to it.
As I said earlier, I personally do not like the Teleport enchantment, so I would change it for the Meteor enchantment.
I would also change Enlightenment for Esu’s Ferocity. Enlightenment might have a higher damage, but for most T4 content I guess it will not matter. With Esu’s you could take out the IgniGar runeword (loss of 15% crit chance) and use ZanTon (+8 meteorites when casting Inferno)
Also some changes in the Witch Powers and Gens, needed to test some interactions. But I don’t like the Aura Specialization, I would go with Hex Specialization instead.
Some other small tweaks here and there.
Again, I do not know the build, but I would focus more on the fantasy of the build rather than damage or speed (like in Souls games where armor is about fashion and not defense). But each person plays the way they like and if you feel that you need the third slot to have the fun you want, then all I can do is respect your position.
up from a distance. But with each season I only notice it getting worse.