Out of all the classes Sorcerer is my favourite, it suits my playstyle but for the hell of me no matter how much: Cooldown Reduction > Mana Cost Reduction > Resource Generation i get (which can be very difficult to get) i always ending up kiting more than fighting…I’m either waiting for a cooldown or waiting for mana regen.
Not sure if this is how a class is meant to play…My wife said to me “That class reminds me of you, you go all at it for 2-3 seconds and then it’s over”…LMAO
p.s I play Ice Shards/Frost Nova/Ice Armor…granted I’m only level 52.
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This is the way of the Sorcerer.
My sorcerer is level 50, playing Arc Lash / Chain Lightning.
All I hear all day is “I’m out of Mana”, “I don’t have enough Mana for that”, “I’m out of Mana, again”
I swear his Tombstone will read:
Here lies XXXX
He had problems with Mana
Yes the mana starvation is a common issue and it moust likely wont solve itself before you have willpower on all your armors and weapon.
Ofc there is some aspects that might help. For me as a ice/Chain lightning wizz, I have Recharging Aspect that gives me mana every time chain lightning bounces and Prodigy’s Aspect that gives mana every time a skill starts its cooldown.
I’m not sure you should be kiting very much … round a pack of mobs up, defense, vulnerability, quick side dash and finish pack off … move to next pack.
Imagine a certain Damage type unable to make enemies vulnerable, and with no real burst damage option.
Couldnt be me.
(this is a joke, it is, in fact, me, playing lightning, who cant make enemies vulnerable and has no burst damage ultimate)
Not all want to play the meta; ice armor, frost nova, unstable currents.
For them the struggle is there, and shows that game is a long way from having multiple play styles.
I am not sure why you wouldn’t take a vulnerability skill - which in turn gives u burst dmg. Being Lightening or Flame etc doesn’t mean you only choose those skills with that element.
If you prefer to Kite, you build a tree accordingly, which I would expect needs to include some slows/freeze abilities to get a playable balance of synergies. It might not be a very strong build or close to Meta, however that doesn’t really matter if you don’t focus on levels. Most Lightening builds I have seen include Frost Nova for example … it doesn’t make them any less Lightening at their core. You might even discover a new Meta in the process 
I expect D4 will constantly force change the Meta through seasons.
It’s about class fantasy and what you want to do.
I want to be a ranged Lightning Sorc, but everything around Lightning, and everything about Vulnerability depends on being in melee range. It also means you spread the scaling of your abilities out, and end up with a crutch skill you wouldnt play if it didnt provide a core utility that noone considered accounting for in another build.
The most viable Lightning Builds are Arc Lash, which is already melee, so of course most viable Lightning Builds use Frost Nova, because they dont need any of the utility teleport provides, while ranged gameplay relies on teleport.
That is beside the fact that lightning is terribly melee focused, even though it has pretty fun ranged skills.
I dont want to be forced into playing a certain skill, simply because I have been told, or dictated, that core mechanics require me to do so.
It also removes my ability to gain more cooldown reduction from my Keystone skill by increasing my crackling energy procs per charge.
I think we are saying similar things – but class fantasy doesn’t necessarily lead to the most powerful build … you make the choice on what you prefer, or make a little bit of a compromise on the build
This isn’t a top 1% or even top 50% build discussion.
We’re not talking millisecond differences in killing the hardest boss, we’re talking about the ability to play the game without slogging through it.
Vulnerability is one of, if not the most, valuable mechanics in the game, and Wizard? Well he gets it from Frost, and that’s it.
It’s forced. It just is. Boni for damages to vulnerable enemies go significantly higher than crit damage. It goes higher than most modifiers, excluding maybe Basic/Core Skill mods. That is beside vulnerable already being a 20% mod in and off itself.
That is beside the fact that lightning relies on stun, which only fills stagger meter on bosses and therefore you need to force Unstable Currents to fit your Stun Window on any boss, underutilizing it, especially if you cant also time Frost Nova with it.
I have considered, since I already largely depend and play with Lightning Spear, to go frost nova and use Lightning Spear and Frost Novas Enchantments, together with the Aspect that increases double Lightning SPear chances.
I dont doubt it’ll be strong, but it doesnt change, that I feel like each element should have some self-reliant way to trigger vulnerability, even if just on lucky hit, since that seems to be a large factor in building a sorc anyway.
You’ve lost me now - I was trying to be supportive.
Diablo is more of a “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game … no class or build will universally be equivalent or static … next season Crit % could be the Meta thing and vulnerability could be the bottom of the pile.
They re-roll the dice each time so that you have something to chase.
That means literally nothing.
Unless they change core mechanics, every class, every build, can integrate crit into their build. Some are more build towards it, but it is a universal mechanic, that is extremely powerful.
But it doesnt change that crit is also fundamental mechanic, that each character has access to independent from their kit (unless they rely entirely on dotting (like Darkness Caster Necro)
Vulnerability will, at least foreseeably, always be a breakpoint mechanic.
I can’t imagine right now, how you could change the system, so that vulnerability loses it’s value entirely, since it simply stacks with the natural crit mechanic.
OMG you are extremely pedantic and miss the point. I just used Crit as a quick example (obviously not a good choice) … but just like seasons in D3 they can through the release of completely new amour sets that change mechanics or put a completely different emphasis on existing skills to massively alter the play style of a class and its meta.
This is one of the ways that Blizz tries to kept things fresh from season to season. I am not say they will and thus is just one option … the point is that they have loads of options to re-roll the dice , which also fits in with their idea of Battle Pass and seasons.
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Yea nah wolf, dont bother giving him attention.
He won’t budge even the tiniest little bit on his viewpoint. Unless he gets that exactly his as he absolutly 100% wants it to be to be big endgame viable, he won’t be happy.
Funnily enough in his other thread, i even got the idea for a crackling energy more ranged focused lightning sorc build. Still did have to make some concessions …like bringing frost nova for some reliable cc, but in the end, i arrived at a perfectly viable build for running nightmare dungeons with mobs about 20 lvls above me and few to no issues while going through.
I really don’t know what the guy expects… like being some kind of ultra-longrange sniper, killing the boss of a dungeon from the spawn with his range? It’s a bloody arpg dungeon crawler, we are always at best maybe 5 steps away from the monsters.
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Say you have never played another ARPG without saying you never played another ARPG.
What I meant was, that it’s simply wrong to say “In ARPG Dungeon Crawlers you are never more than x away”
To be ranged is a class fantasy and feature in any RPG, and to discard people wanting to play at range is discarding a whole section of players, who dont like to play everything in close range.
And the other point, still, is that as it stand right now, and I dont care about what seasons to come are going to do, the only way for sorcs to get vulnerability is to play with at least 1 frost skill, and that frost skill is always melee range, unless you use it’s enchantment to get a Lucky Hit x 30% chance to cast it on Conjuration hit.
Maybe my idea of “game design” is wrong, but if you force all builds for a class to invest into a “must have” active skill, when you have limited capacity to invest into skills, to have one of the most effective debuffs in the game, that’s bad design.
and with that I am going to leave it here. We clearly have no common ground to base our discussion on.
This is were you haven’t been listening and are overly rigid. Various people have said you can have a ranged playstyle, but to achieve improved viability you need to also chose a few of the short range debuffing skills and use them in such a way to support a ranged style. There are no RPG’s in which a ranged char has zero short range skills. FYI there are NO Sorc melee skills in D4 - only Basic, Core, Defense, Conjuration, Mastery, Ultimate and Passive. You pre-judge and hold on to preconceived notations that are not valid and prevent you been flexible. That’s a terrible way to start a new game.
Your Loss
1.) If Ranged is only Viable by having to go melee to apply the most viable buffs in the game, it’s not ranged anymore.
2.) There are absolutely RPGs, and I’d say almost all of them, where “Ranged” means you play at Range all the time. YOu said you come from MMOs, I too have played some of them. I am yet to see one, where ranged DPS have to spec into some melee utility for PvE content.
3.) Are you mad? Melee means short range my dude. Arc Lash is Melee, Spark is Ranged. Frost Nova is at best mid range, Charged Bolt is most effective in Melee, Chain Lightning is, at least supposed to be, a ranged tool.
The reason I am “not flexible” is because i refuse to accept that Blizzard gets to decide key skills simply by only applying the most valuable debuff to one skill in an entire classes kit.
And if you accept that, cool, I think it’s shitty design.
Edit:
And just in case you dont understand:
I acknowledge, that this is probably the only viable way, but that doesnt mean I have to accept or like that fact. Apart from this though, there are a few more problems with Lightning as a standalone build.
For example, that it doesnt get any defensive layer. No Barrier, no Fortify, no Damage reduction. Your main defensive layer is stun, which against Bosses means you stack Stagger faster, but that doesnt reduce damage at all. Additionally Elites just become unstoppable after x seconds of CC.
The whole game is build towards Killspeed but at the same time has the proclaimed goal of “not wanting D3 Damage numbers”
There is a reason, they never buff skills, only nerf, and only ever nerf what is currently top performing.
[“RhodosGuard-2860, post:19, topic:5211”]
1.) If Ranged is only Viable by having to go melee to apply the most viable buffs in the game, it’s not ranged anymore.
Disagree - Ranged is a loosely defined play-style, it does not have to mean 100% of time and that all short ranged skills are excluded
2.) There are absolutely RPGs, and I’d say almost all of them, where “Ranged” means you play at Range all the time. YOu said you come from MMOs, I too have played some of them. I am yet to see one, where ranged DPS have to spec into some melee utility for PvE content.
Legolas in Lord of the Rings (Book, Movie and MMO) , World of Warcraft (Hunters) and even Robin Hood used melee ranged and skills.
3.) Are you mad? Melee means short range my dude. Arc Lash is Melee, Spark is Ranged. Frost Nova is at best mid range, Charged Bolt is most effective in Melee, Chain Lightning is, at least supposed to be, a ranged tool.
Melee - means "Hand to Hand" and a physical attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melee , but I get that you mean short ranged ... I use term melee range, rather than just melee.
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I think you have created your own definition and playstyle, combined with inflexibility to bend even a little bit, boxed yourself into a corner.