A Sorcerer Built for Lightning Makes No Sense... PTR 2.0

General Discussion PC
1

I’ve read the changes coming to the Sorcerer class in the new season and on PTR 2.0. It seems like this class is winning the “worst DPS class” competition… How can they add affixes like +x% on double DPS multipliers for ice and fire, while leaving lightning with something like x% chance for an additional hit? To quote:

Pyromancy Augments

  • +X% Chance for Fire Bolt Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Fireball Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Meteor to do Double Damage

Pyromancy Augments - Fiery

  • +X% Chance for Incinerate to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Firewall to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Meteorites to do Double Damage

Frozen Augments - Frozen

  • +X% Chance for Blizzard to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Ice Spike to do Double Damage
  • +X% Chance for Deep Freeze to do Double Damage

And now for comparison, the lightning spells received:

Shock Augments - Discharge

  • +X% Chance for Teleport to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Arc Lash to Swipe Twice
  • +X% Chance for Charged Bolts Projectiles to Cast Twice

Shock Augments - Surge

  • +X% Chance for Spark Projectiles to Cast Twice
  • +X% Chance for Chain Lightning to Hit Twice
  • +X% Chance for Ball Lightning Projectiles to Cast Twice

Thank you for showing such love for fire and ice sorcerers! Seriously, I won’t even mention that all the new changes are just DPS boosts for fire or ice. Removing the passive skill for burning as a “global multiple DPS” and replacing it with “fire DPS” is not only a blow to lightning but also to ice, although ice did get some other great changes and DPS multipliers… And lightning? It seems to be hated by whoever designs and balances these characters since Season 2! I’ll test my build on PTR, but if it drastically falls behind what we currently have, I’ll be applying for a refund on the DLC. Enough is enough! And let’s not even mention the whole slew of changes for aspects and uniques for fire and ice, while lightning remains unplayable and unchanged. Maybe just remove these spells altogether?

Dear designers… Please take a closer look at the aspects and unique items for lightning spells and tell me how they overlap with each other. How many of them provide multiple DPS, a DPS boost, and can any of them exist independently without, for example, a lucky hit or a combination with another element? The enchantment for lightning is practically the same for every build: “Fire arrow/armor” + “Frozen Orb” for two reasons: to get the full bonus from the unique ring Rasha and for the multiple bonus from burning (which is currently being changed to a fire-only bonus). After your changes, we’re getting about a -2.3x multiple DPS… So if currently (oh dear) my build hits 25 million with one hit (and that’s when I have crit + overwhelm), now it will hit 9 million :)…

I don’t know who came up with these changes, but they must have a phobia and be afraid of lightning since they seem to hate this type of sorcerer so much. But if my beliefs are confirmed on PTR, seriously… I’m applying for a refund because these are not the balance changes I want. Where two elements get a 2x multiple DPS + a ton of other combinations, ultimately getting 4.5-5x (550-600% more) multiple DPS, and the second already weak element gets -3x (400% less DPS) total multiple DPS less, but it can hit 2x xD… So tell me, is 2x9 better than 1x25???

Edit:Tell me, what’s the point of “+X% Chance for Charged Bolts Projectiles to Cast Twice”? Please, I would like the person who designed this, along with the person who designed the unique staff for this spell, to explain to me if it’s my logic that’s flawed or yours.

So, a staff with 4x Greater Affixes and maximum enhancement of 12/12 gives us around (on average, without the bonus every 4 temperings) 900+ Intelligence, 140+% chance for double cast bolts, 99+% cost reduction, and 10+ levels of the spell. Additionally, we only have a 40-80% chance to activate the unique ability that makes the spell follow a target and just 300% longer spell duration. The only affix that works here and gives us extra DPS is the affix that allows Charged Bolts to pierce targets (which is great) but… at the cost of multiple DPS, because the DPS is reduced by up to 30%. And this is the only option where this build gets DPS. However, with the spell enhancement of “if 3 charged bolts from the same spell cast hit the same enemy, causing an explosion that deals x DPS,” it only activates once per spell use (regardless of whether 2 or 100 enemies are hit by 3 different bolts, the DPS that would activate the enhancement only works on 1 enemy, and it doesn’t activate for the others).

Aside from that, the spell has built-in attack speed. For example, 1 bolt has 5 projectiles, and we have 5 enemies. Each bolt hits each of the 5 enemies once. If now bolt #1 hits enemy #1 and moves towards enemy #2, enemy #2 does not receive DPS from this bolt (because its attack is on cooldown). Bolt #1, moving to enemy #3, deals damage again, but not to enemy #4, but it does deal damage to enemy #5. Moreover, enemy #3 was the first to receive damage from 3 different bolts from the same spell cast, triggering the spell enhancement bonus. Enemies 1 and 5 also received damage from 3 bolts, but the game does not activate the enhanced ability for them.

Now, the enchantments: most lightning enchantments are not worth considering in a Charged Bolts build. With 99%+ cost reduction, our spell costs 0 mana, only activating passive abilities from the paragon board with each attack. However, an enchantment that requires x mana to activate is not reduced by cost reduction, and here’s where the cycle closes: your spell costs 0 mana, and you never activate the enchantment… The same goes for cooldown enchantments; with cooldown reduction, they activate less frequently…

That’s all from my observations. I hope someone from the design team reads this and draws some conclusions.

2

Yup they really seem to hate lightning sorc…it’s not like the only 2 meta build they ever had are ball lightning and lightning spear

3

Yes they nerf Ball lightning and now they nerf lightning spear. I play them both but who care. VoH comes with new Char and I try it. They nerf it only after 3 months so we can play with good builds for a while. After that we all can start to play PoE 2 in 2025 with different builds. D4 can remove hole Eternal and destroy seasons items and chars when it ends. D4 don’t need Ubers or bigger Stash or trading anymore. When there are only Season players they lost only half of us. Other games tanks Blizz.

Long live GGG.

4

its way to strong lighting spear all the sorcs kept saying for monthes nerf barb nerf barb now barb is worst class in the game sorc it way to strong its like lighting spear sorc its only class that can do effeciently hordes T8 lighting spear spear its like between 20 and 30% stronger then any other build in the game of course it needs to be nerfed

5

You must read 2.0 patch notes. We start allover again the hole game, don’t need to care buffs or nerfs. I really hope that they don’t ruin this. It is so BIG change in this game. Nobody couldn’t anticipate this. I enjoy my Uber LS awhile before PTR starts and we see what must gome.

6

conjuration its now capped to 30 most player did not even reach it only if you have like the best gear you can cap it out level it out they buffed splintering aspect to composate for it

7

But this is the only build that makes sense only with mythical items… And only if you managed to roll the perfect stats to the max… I’m not saying it’s the weakest; I’m talking about balance… Sorcerer has one meta skill, LS, which “lives” only thanks to the huge multiple DPS due to conjuration. And that’s all you have. The next one after that is Fireball. The rest of the spells make no sense and are practically useless, especially in T7+ hordes. Meanwhile, other classes, to varying degrees, can handle high-tier hordes. Barbarian can’t handle it? Well, I’ve seen that it’s the only class that doesn’t need any mythical gear to do T8, seriously? Compared to the Sorcerer who needs them and with perfect stats, to the Barbarian who does T8 hordes with just legendary items, yeah, he definitely deserved a nerf… Since he’s still crushing content… Try achieving the same without mythical gear as a Sorcerer. Good luck.

P.S.: Tell me one more thing, what really makes the Lightning Spear build effective? The Lightning Spear itself doesn’t deal as much damage as the fact that it provides a +multiple damage (which is clearly missing in pure lightning builds). Not to mention that the entire DPS and mechanics are based on Frozen Orb, which everyone seems to have forgotten when saying the meta is Lightning Spear… The lightning build alone doesn’t have enough power to be effective. Once again, Blizzard is misleading players because they promised a game where you could choose your favorite spell and play with it… For the Sorcerer, all we have are mechanics that contradict and exclude each other instead of complementing each other. The only synergy we really have is Lightning Spear + Frozen Orb.

8

thats not true barb needs 4 uber to do before that you cant even do t7 without tyreal might you can not even survive in the hordes t7 and t8 even with all the ubers barb struggles on t8 while rogue and sorc can farm between 900 and 1400 aether thats not balance same goes with in the highest pit clear its 158 for rogue and sorc while barb sits on 140 barb its worst class

9

Oh, it’s strange that someone managed to do it there. Add this to the YouTube link: watch?v=LAIvjRiEx8A. Meanwhile, I didn’t follow the meta and built a Charged Bolts build with mythical items, uniques with ga x 4, and legendary items with ga x 3, max crit rate at 100%, 1400% crit damage, around 1300% other % dmg (like vun, light and stun), around 3x multiple DPS, 40k HP + instant barrier, and I can barely do Tier 7. My strongest crit is 4 million when it should be around 20 million… Yet another season with broken multipliers for DPS or incorrect spell scaling. And if you want to talk about the meta, every class has a meta build that can clear everything… But not every class has many choices, and that’s the point here. The topic isn’t about whether the Sorcerer can handle it or not. It’s about the fact that a pure lightning build doesn’t work in any way, because Lightning Spear only works in combination with Frozen Orb and a unique amulet… If you have a similar opinion about the Barbarian, just write down what you don’t like. What I don’t like is that I can’t play with the spell I like, and to clear endgame content, I have to use a meta skill, which is not my goal in the game. I don’t play to copy what others do, just because it’s the only thing in the game that wrecks everything. That’s what I mean by balance. We have so few and poorly designed items in the game, so many mechanics that should create synergy, but all they do is exclude each other. The Sorcerer doesn’t just need balance; it needs a fix and a rework of the enchantments. Let’s not kid ourselves; everyone chooses the same ones, and the pool of enchantments worth picking is limited.