Diablo 4 Sorcerer Leveling Build: Season 1

Let’s get this out of the way: Diablo 4 can be rough for new players. This is especially the case for builds, as they can get very complicated, very quickly. Skills, Paragon points, Aspects, Stat priority, etc.

While complexity is an essential part of the Diablo experience, it can be intimidating. If you’re looking for a build guide that is simple yet effective, you’re in the right place.

A Sorcerer Leveling Guide Made Easy

Are you a new or returning player looking to create a powerful Sorcerer capable of bending the elements inside Diablo 4? Whilst the Sorcerer class can be daunting at first glance, this guide will help you get a Sorcerer leveling build that is fun, fast, and powerful. Whilst the Sorcerer’s endgame hasn’t always lived up to expectations, its leveling progression is one of, if not the best Class in Diablo 4 at that.

Best Season 2 Sorcerer Leveling Build: Chain Lightning

After the changes to several of the Sorcerer’s core skills, there is a clear winner for the best skill for levelling: Chain Lightning. It has great AoE and damage in the early beginning and only becomes stronger the more you build into it. On top of its potency, it is also very visually pleasing and fun to play.

How it works

Chain Lightning does what it says on the tin: You fire a chain of lightning that bounces between targets dealing damage to each target hit. It can also bounce off you making it good for single target damage.

This build focuses on building around Chain Lightning by selecting skills and talents that help you to fully utilise the power of Chain Lightning including mobility, survivability and mana regeneration.

What Skills to Choose

The very basic summary/roles of the key skills used in this build are as follows:

• Arc Lash – Mana Generator
• Chain Lightning – Main Damage Skill
• Teleport – Mobility
• Frost Nova – Crowd Control
• Currents – Extra DPS for Boss fights/large groups.

Skill Tree Points

It can be confusing debating where to spend your skill points which can be costly in both time and gold if you have to reset your tree often (we recommend you spend most of your time slaying and actually leveling up). Here is the easy-to-follow, no-hassle guide for where to put your skill points.

1 –  Use your initial Skill Points to unlock new abilities first

Skills to Unlock (in order):

• Arc Lash > Enhanced Arc Lash > Flickering Arc Lash
• Chain Lightning (x5) > Enhanced Chain Lightning > Greater Chain Lightning
• Teleport > Enhanced Teleport > Shimmering Teleport
• Frost Nova > Enhanced Frost Nova > Mystical Frost Nova
• Flame Shield > Enhanced Flame Shield > Shimmering Flame Shield
• Firebolt (for enchantment) > Enhanced Firebolt > Destructive Firebolt
• Unstable Currents > Prime Unstable Currents > Supreme Unstable Currents

2 – Need Points to unlock new nodes?

Remember: It is often better to get more skills and then go back to upgrade them. For example: the optimal strategy would be to get the base versions of Teleport > Frost Nova > Flame Shield and then go back to fully enhance them, starting with Frost Nova.

With the current skills points, it would be impossible to reach Unstable Currents, which is why we need to pick up some key passives that aid the build along the way. The best time to get these passives is when you are short of unlocking the next skill node.

3 – Build into your strengths with the right Passive Skills

Skills are essential, and in terms of damage and survivability, they are incredibly vital in the early game. But as you get more Skill Points, you’ll want to focus on Passive upgrades. These are the ones you should prioritize (in order):

• Glass Cannon (x3)
• Precision Magic (x3)
• Coursing Currents (x3)
• Static Discharge (x3)
• Invigorating Current (x3)
• Align the Elements (x1)
• Mana Shield (x3)
• Protection (x3)
• Electrocution (x3) (renown)
• Permafrost (x1) (renown)
• Hoarfrost (x3) (renown)
• Conduction (x3) (renown)

4 – Unlock your Key Passive as soon as possible

Since this build focuses on Chain Lightning and its shock damage, both of the shock-related key passives can work effectively with this build. Vyr’s Mastery is the better option for a leveling build, as the damage reduction and damage increase to close enemies are easier to utilize.

Overflowing Energy is the better option once you start to gain a decent crit rate allowing you to generate enough Crackling Energy for it to be worth taking over Vyr’s Mastery.

5 – Sorcerer Enchantments

When you reach level 15, you will unlock a quest that will grant your class its unique mechanic. For Sorcerer, this is the ability to use skills as enchantments. There are several great enchantments to use, but for this build, we will just focus on two.

• Fireball – When you kill an enemy, they explode in a Fireball for 50% of its damage.
• Chain Lightning – Chain Lightning automatically forms after spending 100 mana

Fireball adds to the AoE clearing potential as the extra explosion can help weaken surrounding enemies and can often cause chain reactions wiping out large groups. Having more Chain Lightning is always better, so this enchantment helps us to maintain a high uptime for our core skill for better DPS.

Best-in-Class Vampiric Powers

Vampiric Powers are the core gameplay loop of Season of Blud and trust me, they are the real deal, even more so than Season 1’s Malignant hearts. As always, some Powers are decent, others are gimmicky, but a few are absolutely busted, top-tier. You would be making a huge mistake by ignoring these.

These are the best-in-slot Vampiric Powers you need:

• Prey on the Weak: You deal 16% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Enemies are Vulnerable while affected by a Vampiric Curse from your other Vampiric Powers.
• Metamorphosis: When you Evade you turn into a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 4.0 seconds. Enemies along your path take 160 – 240 [160%] Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse.
• Moonrise: Hitting an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4.0% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gaining 160.0% Basic Skill damage and 15.0% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
• Hemomancy: Your attacks deal 80.0% of your Maximum Life as Physical damage to nearby enemies. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.

These are stronger than most Aspects out there, do not pass on the opportunity to significantly improve your build.

Best Sorcerer Aspects to chase

Now that your Sorcerer is starting to take shape, it’s time to take it to the next level by using the right Aspects. For this build, there are two main Sorcerer aspects to look out for.

These aspects synergize extremely well with both the build and each other. The Recharging Aspect is easy to acquire, as it can be found in the Zenith dungeon. It helps provide more sustainability and makes resource management significantly easier. Whilst Aspect of the Unbroken Tether is a random drop, it is extremely potent when combined with the Recharging Aspect for even more mana regeneration, so keep an eye out for it.

🛑 Remember: Non-codex aspects can only be imprinted once, so it is worth saving them for later on, as when you are leveling you are constantly finding better gear, which might waste aspects.

Gear

Whilst having the best gear is important it can become a time waste when you are leveling. You will constantly be finding new gear, most of which will be at a higher power when leveling so it’s better not to waste time min-maxing your armor. To sum up the main points for gear:

• Try to use the highest-power weapon at all times, as this will give you the most damage. Remember to check whether a staff or wand/dagger combo is better by quickly comparing them.
• Don’t waste materials upgrading gear unless you are getting ready to challenge the capstone dungeon. Only do 1-2 upgrades otherwise, as this saves resources.
• Gloves with +2 ranks to Chain Lightning can be better than higher-power gloves without them. However, if the power gap gets too big it’s worth swapping them out.

While leveling in Diablo 4, you want to spend less time looking at your inventory and more time farming!

Perfecting your build

Once you reach level 50/beat the first capstone dungeon, you won’t need a leveling build anymore. World Tier 3 is a big step up, and you will want to start building towards your endgame build. You will need to focus more on armor affixes, stats, and your paragon board. Uniques can also drop, which can drastically change your build.

We’ll put together an endgame Sorcerer build soon, but in the meantime, these resources are here to help you:

• Best Sorcerer Uniques
• How to target farm Wands
• Necromancer Leveling Build