Welcome to our Diablo 4 Chain Lightning Sorcerer Build for Endgame. This build is as aesthetically pleasing as it powerful. With nearly unlimited chain lightning casts, insane cooldown reduction and powerful single target and AoE potential, the Chain Lightning Sorcerer is one of the most enjoyable Sorcerer builds to play in Season 1. In this article we will give you the info needed to re-create this build! This guide will cover the Skill Tree, Aspects, Paragon Board, Glyphs and everything you need to run the Blizzard Sorcerer build!
Pros
- Excellent Burst Damage.
- Exceptional visuals.
- Great Mobility and Fast Dungeon Clearing.
- Lots of Crowd Control.
Cons
- Squishy.
- Requires good Cooldown Management and Movement.
- Minimal Defensive Skills.
Skill Tree and Paragon Board
Board Order and Glyphs
- 1.) Starting Board – Elementalist: Flat damage increase for all elemental types, great source of extra damage.
- 2.) Static Surge – Exploit: Allows us to stack significant amounts of damage to Stunned Enemies, which will happen often through the use of our passive Convulsions as well as Lightning Spear.
- 3.) Frigid Fate – Tactician: Using this board will gives us increased Vulnerable Damage to assist in bursting down Elites.
- 4.) Burning Instinct – Destruction: Our use of the Fireball Enchantment unlocks the ability to use this board. With it comes potent buffs to Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Burning and additional Damage to Burning Enemies.
- 5.) Enchantment – Control: Increases to Non-Physical damage. Simply put, more DPS.
- 6.) Elemental Summoner – Flamefeeder: Additional increases to Non-Physical damage.
Glyph Leveling Priority
Below you will find the important Rare Glyphs for the Whirlwind Barbarian. Make note, you should upgrade each Glyph to level 15 first, and then push them to max.
- 1.) Tactician
- 2.) Exploit
- 3.) Destruction
- 4.) Elementalist
- 5.) Control
- 6.) Flamefeeder
Enchantment Slots
Sorcerer’s unique class mechanic grants us the ability to slot two Non-Ultimate Skills into Enchantment Slots where they gain potent passive bonuses.
Slot Fire Bolt into the second Enchantment Slot. This will apply Burning to enemies, which enables the use of the Devouring Blaze passive, as well as other Burning related Affixes and Paragon nodes. Do not equip Fire Bolt on action bar.
Slot Chain Lightning into the second Enchantment Slot. This will give us free casts of Chain Lightning and increase are overall DPS.
Season One: Malignant Hearts
The Seasonal Affix tied to Season One will add a huge boost to all builds in Diablo 4. This will provide you essentially bonus gem slots that will add unique effects which may provide massive damage, defensive, or utility boosts. For more information on this, please refer to our Season 1 Malignant Hearts Guide
Below you will find the suggested Malignant Hearts for this build:
Recommended
- The Barber (Wrathful, Super): Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2.0 – 4.0 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.
- Tal’Rasha (Vicious, Offensive): For each unique element you deal damage with, you deal 7-12% increased damage for 3-10 seconds.
- The Picana (Vicious, Offensive): Critical Strikes electrically charge the enemy for 0.75-2.50 seconds, causing lightning to arc between them and any other charged enemies dealing 68-136 Lightning damage.
Optional
- Revenge (Brutal, Defensive): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to Nearby enemies.
- Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive): You gain 45%-65% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20%-25% less damage.
- Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive): After taking Elemental damage, gain 20%-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
- The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive): Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost 68-51 Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal 10-20% increased damage.
- Determination (Devious, Utility): Resource draining effects are 40-50% less effective. In addition, gain 3.0-8.0% increased Resource Generation.
Legendary Aspects & Gearing
Below is a list of Aspects we use and recommend for this Blizzard Sorcerer Build. The Aspects are in order starting from the most to least important.
Required
These Aspects act as the core of the build and allow it to function. These will ALWAYS be needed.
- Unbroken Tether (Offensive)
- Recharging (Resource)
Recommended
These Aspects are suggested for improving damage output or overall defensiveness. Some of these may be interchanged with other preferences or in the case of obtaining a Unique drop.
- Aspect of Control (Offensive)
- Conceited Aspect (Offensive)
- Elementalist’s Aspect (Offensive)
- Edgemaster’s Aspect (Offensive)
- Aspect of Disobedience (Defensive)
- Frostblitz Aspect (Defensive)
- Exploiter’s Aspect (Utility)
- Aspect of Shared Misery (Utility)
Optional
- Accelerating Aspect (Offensive)
- Storm Swell Aspect (Offensive)
Aspect Slots
Note that Aspects are limited to specific gear slots. Use the list below to decide where to put your aspects. This build does not restrict you, but note some unique items may require you to adjust accordingly:
- Offensive – Amulets, Gloves, Ring, Weapons
- Defensive – Amulets, Chest, Helm, Legs
- Mobility – Amulets, Boots
- Resource – Rings
- Utility – Amulets, Boots, Chest, Gloves, Helm
Suggested Aspect Slots
| Item Slot | Aspect |
| Helm | Frostblitz |
| Chest | Shared Misery (Swap to Raiment of the Infinite Unique when found) |
| Gloves | Edgemaster’s |
| Pants | Disobedience |
| Boots | Exploiter’s (Optional: Esu’s Heirloom Unique) |
| Wand | Control |
| Focus | Elementalist’s |
| Amulet | Unbroken Tether |
| Ring #1 | Recharging |
| Ring #2 | Conceited |
Unique Items
There are no uniques that are specifically required to make this build work. That said, the Raiment of the Infinite will add significant damage and mobility to this build, allowing for incredibly quick dungeon clears.
- Chest: Raiment of the Infinite Unique Effect (Required): After using Teleport, Close enemies are Pulled to you and Stunned for [2.0-3.0] seconds, but Teleport’s Cooldown is increased by 20%.
- Boots: Esu’s Heirloom (Optional): Your Critical Strike Chance is increased by [20-30]% of your Movement Speed bonus.
Stat Priority and Gems
| Item | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Helm | Cooldown Reduction | Maximum Mana | Armor | Maximum Life | Crowd Control Duration |
| Chest | Armor | Damage Reduction from Burning enemies | Damage Reduction from Close enemies | Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies | Maximum Life |
| Gloves | + Ranks of Chain Lightning | Critical Strike Chance | Attack Speed | Lightning Critical Strike Damage | Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Resource |
| Pants | Armor | Damage Reduction from Burning enemies | Damage Reduction from Close enemies | Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies | Maximum Life |
| Boots | Mana Cost Reduction | + Ranks of Frost Nova | Movement Speed | + Ranks of Teleport | Intelligence |
| Amulet | Cooldown Reduction | Mana Cost Reduction | + Ranks to Devouring Blaze | + Ranks to Defensive Skills | Damage Reduction |
| Ring x 2 | Critical Strike Damage | Critical Strike Chance | Vulnerable Damage | Lightning Critical Strike Damage | Maximum Mana |
| Wand | Weapon Damage | Vulnerable Damage | Critical Strike Damage | Lightning Critical Strike Damage | Damage to Stunned Enemies |
| Focus | Weapon Damage | Cooldown Reduction | Mana Cost Reduction | Critical Strike Chance | Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Resource |
How To Play Chain Lightning Sorcerer
The Chain Lightning Sorcerer is an easy build to play. The key to successfully using this build is to optimize your movement in a way to stay out of reach of the enemy, while occasionally dipping into packs to apply Vulnerable. Through the use of Overflowing Energy we will be constantly reducing the cooldowns of all of our abilities. This will give us a ton of mobility by resetting Teleport constantly, as well as excellent Crowd Control from spamming Lightning Spear.
General
- Initiate by using Teleport (if you have Raiment of the Infinite) to stun enemies. Otherwise use Lightning Spear as your opening ability.
- Cast Frost Nova to apply Vulnerable to all enemies in range.
- Repeatedly use Chain Lightning.
- Save Flame Shield for times when Crowd Controlled or close to death.
- Use Unstable Currents on challenging Elites and Bosses. Feel free to use this ability relatively often, as the Overflowing Energy passive will greatly decrease it’s cooldown.
Bosses
The rotation will remain relatively the same as listed above. Make sure to save Unstable Currents for the stagger phase. Because of all of the innate Crowd Control in this build, we will be able to stagger Bosses quickly, and we want to do as much burst damage as we can during that phase.
Conclusion
This concludes our Diablo 4 Chain Lightning Sorcerer Build! For more information on Diablo 4, including Class Builds and Guides, be sure to check out our Diablo 4 home page!