The NEW Sorcerer in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred – Patch 2.0
Oct. 6, 2024The NEW Sorcerer in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred – Patch 2.0
In this Diablo 4 Sorcerer in Vessel of Hatred & Patch 2.0 article, I’ll be helping you understand how the Sorcerer Class is changing with Patch 2.0 which is releasing along side the Vessel of Hatred expansion on October 8th, and give you an easy overview of what to expect for your builds and Gameplay.
The short and sweet of it is that Patch 2.0 is adding a new Conjuration Skill and five passives, while diversifying how you play a Sorcerer in Diablo 4 by helping you pick between single element focus or elementalist approaches. Familiar and Enlightenment aim to incentivize multiple element players, while the other skills focus on surviveability, cooldown reduction, and single element damage.
Before we get into the specifics ofSorcererthough, let me tell you about some huge changes coming to the game itself. I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible, and we’ll have full detailed coverage of all these changes in a future video, but for now let me tell you about the most important ones.
First of all,max levelhas been reduced to60(from 100), and players will begin receivingParagon Pointsonce they reach this level. ThesePointscan be used by any level 60 character on your account. This not only means that you can gainParagon Pointsfor yourSorcererwhile playing on yourNecromancer, it also means that you will have an additional10 Skill Pointsto allocate into your build (from levels 51-60), for a total of69 Skill PointsinPatch 2.0, up from 59 before.
Additionally, stats likeArmor,Health, andDamagehave been drastically reduced in order to simplify the game and make mathing easier for players. This doesn’t result in a nerfing of your character, it’s more of a backend change that is reflected in new numbers in yourUI. Don’t freak out if you see your weapon no longer deals the same damage, it will still be as effective as it was before.
And lastly, thedifficulty systemofDiablo IVis changing, and there are now newTorment levelsalong with new difficulty levels, much like there were inDiablo III. Regulardifficulty levelswill be unlocked by advancing your character, butTorment levelswill need to be unlocked through anEnd Game activitycalledThe Pit of Artificers, which is much likeRiftsinDiablo 3, which are randomized dungeons essentially with aBossat the end. This shouldn’t change the way you play the game fundamentally, and hopefully allows players to customize their preferred difficulty a bit better.
In a game whereskill synergyis everything, the addition of a new skill can be really very impactful. For theSorcerer, our new active skill is called“Familiar”and it’s aConjuration skillwith3 chargesand a default12 second cooldown. Yourfamiliaris an entity made of the element of the last skill you cast, and it will float around to enemies and explode for40%of that element’s damage for8 seconds.
Since you can have up to6 familiars activeat a time, this is a very intriguing proposition for amulti-element build, as you could benefit from the elemental damage spread and get the benefits for each element:Firewill give94% burning damageover4 seconds,Coldwill apply15% chill, andLightningwill stun for1 second.
This skill can beEnhancedinto ignoring your previously cast skill and simply rotating through the elements, and giving you3% damage reductionwhen2 familiarsare active, or it can be used so that the active familiar gives you10% damageof that type (so for example, alightning familiarwould increase your lightning damage by10%).
While this new skill is aimed at makingElementalisttype builds more interesting, there can be some very unique applications if you are wanting to specialize in an element as well, so it can add new options to all playstyles.
TheFamiliar Enchantmentgives you a25% chanceto spawn a familiar of a matching element every time you summon any otherconjuration, so for example when you castHydrayou could get afire familiar. There are some really exciting synergies for this familiar andconjuration buildsthat I think will create a new way to play theSorcerer, and the first thing to pair it with is the newKey Passive.
The newpassive skillsare also very interesting and intend to make your gameplay faster and more versatile. The key passive is calledEnlightenmentand is, in my opinion, heavily geared towardmulti-element sorcerersand will be a fantastic mix forFamiliar Conjurers.
Enlightenment
This soundsconvoluted, so you need tomath this outto what it means for your gameplay. If youspam skillsand try to work on arotation, you can probably get the required stacks in aboutten seconds, and then you will enjoy10 secondsofEnlightened status, giving you50% uptimeof the buff. That status is most effective to mix up a spread offire,lightning, andcold damage buffsinto one bigger “Bonus Damage” pool, in addition to the bigattack speed,mana regen, anddamage increase.
However, given how the community generally approachessorc builds, it’s more likely we’re going to be seeing someautocastorexternal sourceused to build up a synergy with an item to maximize performance and obtain100% uptime, rather than focusing on the rotation mechanics of getting this buff and maintaining it. All in all, it’s an intriguing skill that I’ll have to see how it actually plays with theitemization. I will go more in-depth into how these new skills and gear all come together almost to give you abuildright away on the final section of this video so you can use the chapters to navigate there or keep reading to understand everything else first.
There other generalpassivesare probably a lot easier to apply.Evocation, for example, is a new skill that reduces all cooldowns by4,8, and12%– this is always welcome withsorc buildsthat want to spam specificOP ultimate.
Next up isEnergy Focus, that generates a6 second barrierfor a very small percentage of yourMax lifeevery second up to30%, for so long as you don’t lose health. I’m quite confident this one will fit right in with the kind of crazy numbers we’ve been seeing forchain lightning mythical.
Another newdefensive skillisDampen Layer, that gives you2,4, and6% damage reductionwhile you have an active barrier, most likely to be mixed with the previous passive to maximizesorc survivability.
And lastly there’sElemental Synergies, which makesFrost,Shock, andPyromancy Skillsdeal1/2/3% increased damagefor each Skill you have equipped of their type. This is mostly beneficial to specializedsingle-element builds, that can be quite a rarity in themeta world(although I personally really like them!).
Thesorcerer classhas changed a lot since release, so if you’re areturning sorcererit’s very likely that thebuildyou were using is no longer viable and you need to reconsider yourskill allocationandgear. There has been a huge amount of changes, ranging from minimal to massive, to eachelemental specialization.
As a quick example,Flickering Arc Lashused to give you6% movement speedfor5 secondsper enemy hit, up to18%. It was a skill focused on building the “move fast” lightning sorcerer that would run, stun, and increase itsattack speedanddamagefrom those buffs. This playstyle has been mostlyreworked, and this skill now has a completely different effect, granting5 manaif your swipe hits at least one enemy, or you hit3 or more enemiesor aboss; the next swipe also deals50% more damage.
It would be pointless and long to run you through the entire laundry list ofskill changesfrom launch to today, so the highlights for the returning sorcerer are mainly thatIce is outas meta, being probably the mostnerfed elemental linegiven its extensive overuse during the first months of the game.Hydra sorcsalso went out of fashion for a while, and right now the sorc meta is all aboutchain lightning,lightning orbs, orfireball. The reason for this is not always the changes to skills, but that theitemizationmakes synergies of these elements and castings skewed, and you end up benefiting a lot more from these specific items reacting to each other than you do from trying to work with theskill treesthemselves.
Fast forward to the changes being made to the current game byPatch 2(the expansion), and you can see there are some attempts torebalancelightning and fire, encouragemulti-elemental builds, and improve some of the lesser-used skills on the fire and lightning lines. There are zero changes toiceandfrost skills, so that tells you a lot about where the devs are in terms ofice shards spam.
Since there have been many subtle changes to skills over the year the game has been out, my recommendation for anyreturning playerwith a big gap in updates is to have a look at ourbuild selectionand pick something built around skills, easily obtainable items, andparagon boardsfirst, as the many builds that you see doing a trillionDPSrequire an investment of time to develop that would probably get in the way of you enjoying the normalexpansion contentand will probably be different by the time you get to itsendgame.
In2.0, players will also now only be able to equip5 Paragon Boardsat a time, including yourbase board, so you cannot just ninja through a board for onenodeand out really quickly, and instead, players will need to utilize their boards wisely. However, eachClasshas gained a newBoard, for a total of9 Boards(up from8), and someRareandLegendary Nodeshave changed. And on top of that, players can now earn a total of300 Paragon Points(up from200), which should allow for a seriouspower increaseacross allBuilds.
Glyphshave also seen a significant change. They now no longer improve viaexperience, but instead level up by completing levels ofThe Pit of Artificersand trying to improve them at the end, again much likeDiablo III. The higher level ofPityou complete, the higher chance you have of improving yourGlyph. Glyphs also now go up tolevel 100, further expanding their power, and the higher level they are, the more difficult it becomes to improve them without going to higher and higher levels inThe Pit of Artificers.
The new Sorcerer Paragon Board is the “Fundamental Release” board. Now this is VERY interesting to me because when it was first shown with the 2.0 Patch notes, thelegendary nodewas very different than it is during the PTR. This means that the sorcerer optimization is still in flux, and developers want to encourage multi-elemental play, but are running into problems as they also need to add things that everyone can be tempted to use.
The original proposition for this board was:
The current Legendary node is instead:
Rare Nodes
In general, this board is standard with quite a few magic nodes and a versatile glyph slots that has both dex and magic around to give you options for the most popular glyphs. However looking at it simply before considering gear, this board is not really game changing for the sorc and it will simply be another optional tool in diversification arsenal, as the sorc continues to be a very gear-based class. That said, I can see this specific board working well with the new skills, as its encouraging multi-element builds.
Remember that theCodex of Powerwas changed inSeason 4, and now storesLegendary Aspectsof the highest roll you’ve obtained for that particularAspect. You can also use theCodex of Poweras many times as you want on items provided you have thegoldandmaterials. If you have not played in a while, you should probably head over to yourstorageto pull items you’ve been saving for a rainy day, andSalvagemany of them as soon as possible at theBlacksmithin order to unlock higher rolls at theCodex of Powerand free up space.
There have been some changes to three specificSorcerer Aspects, and they are rather straightforward. The first is aiming to balance barriers and narrow the use of this aspect toIce Armorand encourage freezing. The second is changing howburning damageis dealt over time, and the third one is simply makingArmageddonbetter, which is good news for me because I do love me an infinitemeteor build.
Storm Swell Aspect
Aspect of Engulfing Flames
Aspect of Armageddon
Unique Items
Existing uniques Items have also been changed to match the new and improved “cast a skill of x damage” rather than “deal x damage type”. Tal Rasha for example will now synergize with the new key passive a lot better. Axial Conduit seems to be completely reworked, and Gloves of the Illuminator got a grammar fix.
Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop
Axial Conduit
Gloves of the Illuminator
The new Legendary Aspects, Mythics and Uniques for the sorcerer have me quite excited to experience the new sorcerer. There are three known aspects for Sorcerer as follows:
Legendary Aspects
Aspect of Charged Flash– Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Elemental Constellation– Offensive Aspect
Aspect of Overheating– Offensive Aspect
Since the sorcerer’s 2.0 flavor seems to be all about elemental mixups, I think Elemental Constellation is the most intriguing of the additions, particularly when we think about how this may interact with a min-maxed multielement conjuration build that is constantly spamming summons of all three elements. The unique item added with 2.0 is also focused on the Familiar, and will make those builds even more powerful.
Unique Item
Sidhe’s Bindings– Unique Gloves
If you are reading so far and a super-conjuration build is already brewing up in your head, you’re not alone!
Mythic Items & Runewords
In addition to everything you’ve seen so far, there are of course new mythic items and the all-new Runewords that will create new and intriguing combinations with whatever extra gear there’s yet to uncover in the game. Runewords themselves are deserving of their own video so we’ll have something explaining this in-depth closer to launch. For now let’s just put it out there that this is also an important part of your sorc-building and will probably change how you approach gameplay in general.
TheSorcererhas always been one of my favoriteDiabloclasses to play, and I even tried remaking the classicfireandfrozen orbthematic builds fromD2during ourD4launch coverage. If you are like me and you like experimenting with specialized builds and want to get the most out of a theme, these changes bring a very fresh approach tosorcererbuilding if we are willing to commit to theConjurationschool & go all out withelemental variety.
It would seem the easiest way to optimize around the newKey Passivewould be to pair it with theFamiliar Enchantmentand create a conjuration-focusedsorcerer, doing a multi-element chain of summons that keep spawning familiars and giving you all those bonuses, while usingaspectsto boostHydraand conjurations in general. Think of something likeSpark+Hydraspam that triggers cold orbs for a3-element rotationleading to100% uptime(and this synergizes very well with theparagon board legendaryif we optimize for it).
Now to that we can add the newlegendary aspectto summonelemental daggersand add theunique glovesto further boost familiar damage, and you have a theoretical powerhouse ofelemental mayhemthat should allow you to play a much more versatilesorcererthan any we’ve done before.
This is a very good thing for the class, as we seem to be stuck going from one element to the next and focusing on one single skill to pop crazy damage, but it would be fantastic to seefire,frost, andlightninglive up to their max potential in one-to-rule-them-all type of build.
So that rounds up our introduction to theSorcerer 2.0. I’m very excited to jump into the newexpansionand see just how different mysorcerercan be, and I will be starting withConjurationbut surely exploring other maybe less obvious but equally exciting builds that the new content can bring. As always, you can find our builds on the blog atfextralife.comand make full use of our interactive map andwikito keep track of where to get all items! We’ve already been working, and theexpansion contentis shaping up nicely.
Will you be playing asorcerer? Or are you going to be going full on intoSpiritborn? Let us know in the comments below.
Fexelea
MMO raider by day and guide writer by night, Fex enjoys multiplatform gaming, good books and animes, and streaming with a cold beer.
