The Sorceresses in Diablo IV are glass cannons that use powerful AOE spells to bend the battlefield to their will. They have extremely useful passives such as immunity and regenerative spells to keep them alive long enough to decimate their foes.
Starting your adventure in Diablo IV with a bit of black magic? You’ve come to the right place. With so many Sorceress builds in Diablo IV to choose from, it can be confusing where to start. Take a look at the best builds in Diablo IV highlighted below to get started on the right foot… er, spell.
Having problems deciding on just one character class? Be sure to look at our ranking of all the classes in Diablo IV.
Key Takeaways for Sorceress Builds:
- The Snow Queen Build focuses on cold magic to slow down enemies and ultimately freeze them.
- The Storm Mage uses lightning magic for critical hits and big AOE spells.
- The Hydra Commander summons Hydras to deal continuous damage.
- Use the Serpentine Aspect for even more Hydra madness.
- Share your own build with other gamers on the Z League app.
The Snow Queen
What better way to counter the legions of hell than with a bit of freeze power? Cold magic allows the sorceress to create defensive buffs as well as slow down enemies. Some skills you should consider are Ice Shards, Frozen Orb, Ice Armor, Ice Blades, Blizzard, and Deep Freeze. Let’s take a look at the build in detail.
The objective is to create a sorceress that can freeze enemies quickly and then decimate them with other frost magic attacks that are effective against frozen enemies. If you spec your sorceress correctly, then you can quickly wipe out every enemy that comes your way before you even take a hit. Remember that casting most frost magic will chill enemies and slow them down. If enemies are repeatedly chilled, then they have a chance to be frozen. You will want to start by casting Ice Armor that creates a barrier around you for 6 seconds. While you are protected, you can either Teleport in or run into combat by first unleashing Frost Nova that will instantly freeze enemies around you. This is the point where you can deal the most damage so bring out your attacks that are effective against frozen enemies like Ice Shards, which can be upgraded to do 200% more damage to frozen targets.
As an extra tip, we recommend doing the quest that unlocks the Enchantment Slots that you can do at level 15, and you will gain a passive bonus that can be placed on your Ice Shards. This will allow your Ice Shards to be automatically conjured around frozen enemies allowing you to shatter foes without expending any mana!
The Storm Mage
If you’d rather focus on lightning magic, we also have you covered. Lightning magic focuses on critical hits making Chain Lightning the perfect spell. You can use the skill on a group or single enemies, and it will create a DPS spell that bounces between 6 targets (can be upgraded to 8) with each bounce being able to score a critical hit. We also recommend upgrading Chain Lightning to Destructive Chain Lightning which has a 25% chance to form a Crackling Energy which reduces the cooldowns for Shock Skills. When you are running low on mana you can rely on Arc Lash to deal close-range AOE to enemies using lightning swipes, which cost a good deal less than Chain Lightning. You may want to also invest in a few non-lightning spells to make the build even more powerful like Ice Armor, Teleport, and Frost Nova. Here is what a normal encounter might look like—cast ice armor, teleport in cause a bit of damage upon arrival, use frost nova to freeze enemies, and finish them off with chain lightning. We recommend also choosing the ultimate skill, Unstable Currents, which causes an extra attack when you cast lightning magic for 10 seconds.
The Hydra Commander
You may have already heard the rumors that the Hydra Sorceress build is OP, and you’d be correct. If you like game-breaking builds, then this is the one for you. The build will focus on the Hydra spell, forming an immobile fire hydra with 4 heads that does continuous damage per head. You can use the Serpentine Aspect, which is a Legendary Aspect found in loot drops, and will allow you to summon an additional hydra but the duration will be reduced by 23%. If you place the Aspect on a two-handed weapon like a staff, then you will gain 2 extra hydra heads. This build is a heavy damage build, so we also recommend using the Glass Cannon passive that allows the Sorceress to do 6% more damage but also increases incoming damage by 3%. To finish off the build, invest in the ultimate skill Inferno which summons a fiery serpent that constricts the area and burns enemies for 8 seconds. You can also upgrade it to Prime Inferno and enemies will be pulled into the center of the attack. You can use this to your advantage to stack hydras, frost magic, lightning magic, etc. in the Inferno damage zone to lay down heaps of hurt.
Be sure to check out our other build guides for the Barbarian, Necromancer, Rogue, and Druid.
