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Diablo 4’snewly reworked Legendary Aspect Splintering Energyhas made the Lightning Spear Sorcerer viable just in time for Season 5. Players can now fight the Infernal Hordes with this blast of a build and watch enemies explode under the power of their Critical Hits. However, the build is item dependent and finicky, meaning it’s tough to get right without a guide.
Keep reading to learn the ideal Skill Tree, Paragon Board configuration, Enchantments, and items to play this powerful Lightning Spear Sorcerer Endgame Build.
Pros & Cons Of The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The Lightning Spear Sorcerer is now viable inDiablo 4due to the rework of theSplintering Energy Aspect. This aspect greatly increases the ratio of total damage value (shown on the stats bar) done by each Lightning Spear from 16% to 85-110%. As a result, the Lightning Spear ability can easily carry the build’s late game damage — provided it is off of cooldown frequently enough. As a bonus, the abilityrequires nearly no Mana to cast, making generation a low priority. However, players will want to use a different leveling build, such as theChain Lightning Leveling Sorcerer.
Skill Tree For The Lightning Spear Sorcerer In Diablo 4
The Lightning Spear Sorcerer’s Skill tree is quite bizarre, in that points are frequently invested into abilities that won’t be on the Hotbar — this is because of Enchantment Slot priority and the need to buff various abilities thatUnstable Currentswill cast.
Basic Abilities Node
Players should put2 points into Firebolt. This will primarily be used for its enchantment ability (all direct damage causes burning).
Core Abilities Node
The Core Ability of this build isFrozen Orb. However, onlyone pointwill be allocated here, as it is being used only to proc Fractured Winterglass' passive ability. Charged Bolts is taken only to improve their cast during Unstable Currents, but it doesn’t get assigned to the Hotbar.
Defensive Skills
Like many Sorcerer builds, the Lightning Spear Sorcerer takes three Defensive skills.
Conjuration Skills Node
This is where the lion’s share of the build’s points will be spent — picking up themain damage dealerand maximizing five passive abilities.
Players will notice this build only puts one point into Lightning Spear. This is because further points will not substantially affect damage output — the skill’s damage numbers will come from Critical Strikes using the Splintering Energy Aspect.
Mastery Skills Node
No active abilities receive points invested here — only some passives to improve damage and survivability.
Ultimate Skills Node
This is the next key power spike of the build, where Unstable Currents is unlocked. Unstable Currents is used to getfree casts of Lightning Spearand reduce ability cooldowns.
Key Passives Node
Overflowing Energy is the Key Passive of choice for the Lightning Spear Sorcerer. This passive allows the build toreduce active cooldownsby the amount ofCrackling Energygenerated, which can help offset the overall long cooldowns in the build.
Enchantments For The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The Sorcerer Enchantmentsof this build, surprisingly, don’t include any of the abilities found on the Hotbar. Instead, one slot is invested into the basic abilityFirebolt, and the other is given toIce Blades.
Firebolt is chosen as an enchantment because it applies burning to enemies directly damaged by the player. This will produce DoT effects on many enemies while Lightning Spear bounces around, or Frozen Orb goes off, which will in turn activate the Critical Strike Chance buff fromDevouring Blaze.
On the flip side, Ice Blades' enchantment effect automatically spawns the ability foreach 40 seconds of cooldownsexpended by the player. Due to this build’s heavy cooldown focus, this will happen quite frequently, resulting in many Ice Blades being active during extended combat encounters. This is excellent news, because the ability has been upgraded with Summoned Ice Blades, meaning it will reduce the cooldown of all abilities each time Ice Blades hit a Vulnerable enemy.
The Paragon Board Of The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
TheParagon Boardused in this Sorcerer build closely matches that used by the Chain Lightning Build due to its similar priorities. The boards and Glyphs will appear in the following order:
** These board/glyph groupings can be switched, depending on which board seems most desirable to the player, as they are both connected to the fourth board (Frigid Fate).
Glyphs Leveling Priorities
The Glyphs ofhighest leveling priority in this build are Destruction, Unleash, Flamefeeder, and Exploit.For best results, level all glyphs in two passes (in the following order):
Conjurer
Itemization In The Late Game For Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The most important stats for this build fall into two categories: damage stats and defensive stats. The highest priority damage stats are:
Meanwhile, the following will provide most of the player’s defensive stats:
Max Health and Intelligence are not a waste in this build, so don’t disqualify items with these affixes. However, items providing ranks of Lightning Spear and other active abilities are absolute garbage in this set up.
Best Gems To Socket
This build benefits fromRubies socketed into all Armor Piecesto increase Max Life,Skulls in the Jewelryto increase Armor, andEmeralds in the weaponfor Critical Strike Damage.
Tempering Priorities
Tempering priorities for the Lightning Spear Sorcerer focus onCritical Hit,Lightning Spear Cooldown Reduction, and ranks ofWarmth. This means that players will want to Temper the following manuals whenever possible (in the following priority order):
Aspect Imprinting And BiS Unique Items
This build is very gear dependent, with little flexibility. All unique pieces included in the build will have an alternative Legendary to use until they are found, but this is a stopgap and not an interchangable replacement.
or
Aspect of Frozen Orbit
Mythic Unique Farming
While no Mythic Uniques are required for this build to function, it does benefit from theHarlequin CrestandTyrael’s Might. Players lucky enough to have such items at their disposal should not hesitate to use them in the build, discarding other gear pieces in the same slot.
