Diablo 4 Sorceress Guide with Skills

Introduction

In Diablo 4, the Sorcerer class is a spellcaster that wields elemental spells and uses Enchantments to empower her skills further. They can harness the power of fire, ice and lightning to battle their enemies. The Sorcerer has crowd control skills through her cold abilities and is a mobile, but fragile character. The Sorceress’ mana pool powers their skills which is a familiar and expected mechanic. The size and regeneration of mana can be increased with gear enchantments and talents. Sorceress can only use certain weapons, these are Wands, Daggers and Staves. Classes additionally have one unique ability per class to dismount from their steed. The Sorceress uses a powerful Ice dismount ability to CC foes when activated. The Sorc is projected to be a popular starter as she promises high mobility and damage output to quickly play through content. Additionally she has versatile abilities and can provide CC for group adventures.

Sorcerer Stats

The stat distribution for a Sorc will depend on the effects you are looking to gain. Check this information below to help decide.

Primary Stats

Strength
Investing in strength has no effect for the Sorcerer whatsoever, do not invest in this unless gear requires it. This is in line with the role of Spellcaster.

Intelligence
Intelligence is the primary Sorceress stat. It increases Skill Damage, this scales at 10 points invested to 1% additional damage. Intelligence also directly increases your resistances to elemental damage.

Willpower
Will power is our magic finding and gear scoring option. It increases Resource Generation and has the added benefit of increasing your overpower damage as well as amplifying healing you receive from any source. Definitely a “specialist” stat. 

Dexterity
Dexterity looks to be an important attribute for the Sorceress for maximizing damage output. It contributes to critical strike damage and chance to evade, which wouldn’t usually prove important factors as a ranged mage, except spells can crit in D4. 

Sorceress Skills

The Sorceress has a unique class mechanic allowing them to enchant their skills for additional benefits to the skill. As the Sorceress levels, better tiers of skills will be available. Basic are as the name suggests, the weakest spells, while ultimate spells are very powerful but have long cooldowns and high mana costs. Decide your specialization using the information provided but remember, the game is subject to early balance changes so expect some builds to fall off as the game developers tinker with stats. 

Basic skills
These are low-damage abilities always available to the Sorcerer and which can be spammed at low levels. They are not expected to be utilized in the end game, but that may not be certain given no testing of late-game occured during the beta.

Frost Bolt
This spell deals damage and chills enemies. It can be enchanted or modified for further enhancements and is a great early cc spell to slow enemies.

Fire Bolt
Deals fire damage and burns enemies over time afterward. The starting fire damage spell that can be enhanced with more damage, more burn and even pierce.

Arc Lash
A lightning spell that provides some cc through a stun after you hit a certain number of swipes. This is the fastest spell of the 3 and can be enhanced with additional cooldown reduction or a move speed boost.

Spark (Shock)
A lightning spell that hits multiple enemies and can be enhanced further with additional damage. It can also grant you energy when you kill enemies.

Core skills cost mana and are powerful combat abilities unlocked after spending at least two skill points.These spells are much more effective than your basic spells but cost mana. As the name suggests, they are your core spells in the end–game, alongside ultimate abilities at longer intervals.

Sorcerer Core Skills

Ice Shards
Launches a number of shards dealing damage and freezing enemies. They can additionally be empowered to ricochet, and have various synergies with other spells. 

Frozen Orb
Unleash an orb that chills, pierces, deals damage, and explodes on expiration. Like its D2 Predecessor, this looks to be a powerful damage and cc ability with a large area of effect. Additional empowerments include increased damage, mana restoration, and passive orb spawns. 

Fireball
The core fire ability dealing big fire damage and exploding and doing radial damage. You can empower this further to explode enemies which die to do further AoE damage. 

Incinerate
A powerful standstill and fire away spell that requires channeling, but burns everything in a line. This is an interesting spell that can be enhanced to immobilize, reduce damage or even spawn hydras to do residual damage after you stop channeling.

Charged Bolts
Charged bolt released bolts of lightning that deal damage in front of you as they move forward. They can be enhanced to stun, reduce damage, contain more bolts or even spawn novas on impact. Remember, you can hit the same target with multiple bolts by standing closer. 

Chain Lightning
Chain Lightning is a powerful lightning spells that will find new targets once it finds its first, creating a chain reaction. This is a powerful aoe ability for lightning sorceress and will likely see wide use. This was my favorite sorc core spell during the beta.

Sorcerer Defensive Skills
Defensive skills help the Sorcerer escape or protect themselves and are unlocked after spending six skill points. Defensive spells and especially teleport are crucial for survivability and in the case of teleport, mobility. D4 is expected to the one of the most powerful abilities in the game, but not without some means of reducing the very long cooldown.

Ice Armor
Creates a barrier that absorbs damage. It can be enhanced to freeze attackers.

Frost Nova
Frost nova is a fantastic utility spell when you’re in a bind, freezing enemies around you and making them open to attack. 

Flame Shield
A flaming shield that provides more offense than defense. Burn enemies that get close, increase your speed, and get some healing based on how much damage you’ve taken. 

Teleport (Shock)
It should be noted teleport has a long cooldown, but is powerful nonetheless. It offers you the ability to quickly reposition to avoid imminent danger, with the added benefit of doing damage when you land to enemies around you. 

Conjuration skills

These skills involve summoning energy-based creations and are available after spending 11 skill points. These creatures will supplement your damage output but do little in providing you meat shields.

Ice Blades
Creates Ice Blades which attack your enemies dealing damage and increasing your damage from other spells. These can be enchanted to spawn randomly when you kill enemies, or to have enhanced damage.

Hydra
Summon a fire hydra with 3 heads (more heads can be added with enchantments) that attacks and burns enemies.

Lightning Spear
A lightning spear that synergizes with your lightning and energy. It can be automatically summoned on strike.

Sorcerer Mastery Skills

Blizzard
A classic sorceress spell in the Diablo franchise and the signature cold spell summoning a powerful blizzard to CC and damage enemies. 

Meteor
Like blizzard, Meteor is a signature spell and summons a powerful meteor to decimate foes. 

Firewall
Creates a long wall of burning which provides powerful DPS to those that dare cross.

Ball Lightning
Launches a ball that damages all nearby enemies. 

Ultimate Skills (available after spending 23 skill points)

Deep Freeze
Encases yourself with an ice barrier that also deals damage to surrounding enemies and freezes them. A lifesaver in difficult situations and a great party cc tool 

Inferno
Summons a fire serpent that burns enemies and pulls them toward it, a powerful dps and cc tool.

Unstable Currents
This empowers your entire lightning skill tree and offers enhancements, increased speed and damage output and consumes no charges of energy. 

Enchantments
To earn your Enchantment ability, you need to travel to the end of the Fractured Peaks and meet with Mordarin. He will give you a quest to retrieve a book from a dungeon. Once you bring the book back to Mordarin and help him with a ritual, you will unlock your Enchantment slot.

Sorcerers have different Enchantments for each elemental skill tree (fire, frost, and lightning). For Fire Skills, some Enchantments include applying burning damage over time, summoning a serpent to Incinerate enemies, or spawning Fireballs when killing enemies. Frost Skill Enchantments include applying chill to skills, launching a Frozen Orb, or conjuring Ice Shards. For Lightning Skills, Enchantments include forming Crackling Energy, stunning enemies with Arc Lash, or releasing Charged Bolts when stunning enemies.

Aspects

Aspects in Diablo IV are powers that can be added to Rare or Legendary items, enhancing their capabilities. Sorcerers can obtain Aspects from two sources: the Codex of Power and Legendary items.

Conclusion

We hope this guide was helpful, stay tuned for more D4 Pre-launch guides, to help you decide your character or find other useful information!