The best Sorcerer builds for leveling in Diablo 4 season 1

Sorcerers are the magic-slinging wizards of Sanctuary in Diablo 4. But with each element they can harness bringing its own unique effect, it can be easy to get overwhelmed when trying to design a Sorcerer build. That’s where we come in, with our suggestions of the best Sorcerer builds for Diablo 4 season 1.

Sorcerers are capable of harnessing lightning to deal with crowds, ice to keep the hordes at bay, and fire to burn the demons of hell. But they’re also able to enchant their own spells with unique effects, intricately combining abilities for devastating results.

In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Sorcerer builds for season 1. If you need even more information on item affixes or other more complex ideas, we’ve been sure to link out to the more detailed versions of these builds, as well as where to find their original creators.

Best Sorcerer leveling build

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

This build is based off Lexyu’s Sorcerer leveling guide at IcyVeins, and is purely for leveling: i.e., allocating your 58 skill points between levels 1 and 50. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or which other Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original IcyVeins guide.

Best skills for leveling

This Sorcerer build guide is going to see you harness the awesome power of Lightning to speed through the leveling process. There are a few options for Core skills here, but we’re specifically going to be showing you Lexyu’s Chain Lightning variation. In this build, you’ll also use Frost Bolt, Teleport, Frost Nova, Lightning Spear, and Ice Armor.

Here are the best skills for a Sorcerer leveling build, organized by the exact order you should purchase them in — bearing in mind that some skills require you to allocate a number of skill points in the tree in order to unlock them. As such, you’ll need to unlock new skills before enhancing existing ones:

1. Frost Bolt / Enhanced Frost Bolt
2. Chain Lightning
3. Glinting Frost Bolt
4. Enhanced Chain Lightning / Greater Chain Lightning
5. Teleport
6. Frost Nova / Enhanced Frost Nova / Mystical Frost Nova
7. Chain Lightning (rank 2-5)
8. Fireball (rank 1 only for the Enchantment slot)
9. Lightning Spear
10. Glass Cannon (rank 1-3)
11. Devastation
12. Elemental Dominance (rank 1-3)
13. Coursing Currents (rank 1-3)
14. Elemental Attunement
15. Ice Armor / Enhanced Ice Armor / Shimmering Ice Armor
16. Enhanced Teleport / Shimmering Teleport
17. Enhanced Lightning Spear
18. Vyr’s Mastery
19. Invoked Lightning Spear / Lightning Spear (rank 2-5)
20. Frost Bolt (rank 2-5)
21. Conduction (rank 1-3)
22. Electrocution (rank 1-3)
23. Align the Elements
24. Protection (rank 1-3)
25. Icy Veil (rank 1-3)
26. Frost Nova (rank 2-3)

Best Enchantment setup for leveling

The Enchantment slot is key to a ton of your damage as a Sorcerer. You’ll gain two slots as you level, here’s which spell you want to put in each slot:

• Level 15: Fireball
• Level 30: Chain Lightning

Best Legendary Aspects for Sorcerer leveling build

When you first start your new character, complete these three dungeons first in order to collect their Aspects. Then place them on a piece of gear (ideally jewelry, when possible). Just keep in mind that you should replace these Legendaries with new versions using the imprint system every few levels.

• Recharging Aspect (Zenith in Fractured Peaks) — Each time Chain Lightning bounces off you, gain X Mana
• Aspect of Control (Sunken Library in Kehjistan) — You deal X% more damage to Immobilized, Stunned, or Frozen enemies
• Edgemaster’s Aspect (Oldstones dungeon in Scosglen) — Skills deal X% increased damage based on Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource

Sorcerer Season 1 endgame build — Blizzard

This build is based off of Northwar’s Blizzard endgame guide at MaxRoll.gg, and is a general endgame guide capable of finding success in all activities. This guide assumes that you’re over level 50, have access to all 58 skill points, and are making progress on your Paragon Boards. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or why these Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original MaxRoll guide.

Note: This build requires a Legendary Glacial Aspect in order to work. Most of your damage comes from this one Legendary power, which is a random drop, so you cannot add it to your Codex of Power by running a dungeon. If you’re considering ever trying this build, make sure to save all Glacial Aspects you find.

Best skill points for Sorcerer Blizzard endgame build

This build utilizes Blizzard as its main means of dealing damage — along with the Glacial Aspect. It also uses Deep Freeze, Frost Nova, Teleport, Ice Armor, and Flame Shield.

Since you need all 58 points for this build, the order you select these skills in doesn’t matter as long as you have the pre-requisite points in the earlier Skill Tree tiers. Here is how you should spend your Skill Points for this build:

• Fire Bolt (rank 1-2)
• Enhanced Ice Shards (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Ice Shards
• Flame Shield / Enhanced Flame Shield / Shimmering Flame Shield
• Teleport (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Teleport / Shimmering Teleport
• Ice Armor / Enhanced Ice Armor
• Frost Nova (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Frost Nova / Mystical Frost Nova
• Glass Cannon (rank 1-3)
• Elemental Attunement
• Align the Elements
• Mana Shield (rank 1-3)
• Protection (rank 1-3)
• Blizzard / Enhanced Blizzard / Mage’s Blizzard
• Icy Veil
• Cold Front (rank 1-3)
• Deep Freeze / Prime Deep Freeze / Supreme Deep Freeze
• Permafrost (rank 1-3)
• Hoarfrost (rank 1-3)
• Icy Touch (rank 1-3)
• Shatter

Sorcerer Enhancements for Blizzard build

For this build, you’ll want to use these spells for your two Enchantment Slots:

Malignant Hearts for Sorcerer Blizzard build

Season 1 adds the new Malignant Hearts, which act as Legendary Gems for your jewelry. Each Heart comes with its own Legendary Power, which can alter your build significantly.

Northwar recommends these three Malignant Hearts:

• Caged Heart of Tal’Rasha
• Caged Heart of The Barber
• Caged Heart of Revenge

Legendary Powers and Uniques for Sorcerer Blizzard build

To make this build work, you’re going to need powerful Legendary Powers and Unique items to augment your build.

Northwar recommends these items:

• Helm: Frostblitz or Everliving
• Chest: Raiment of the Infinite (Unique) or Snowguard’s (dungeon drop)
• Gloves: Frozen Tundra or Piercing Cold (dungeon drop) or Conceited or Control (dungeon drop)
• Pants: Disobedience (dungeon drop)
• Boots: Ghostwalker (dungeon drop) or Binding Embers
• Weapon: Frozen Tundra or Piercing Cold (dungeon drop) or Conceited or Control (dungeon drop)
• Off-Hand: Frozen Tundra or Piercing Cold (dungeon drop) or Conceited or Control (dungeon drop)
• Amulet: Glacial — Mandatory
• Ring 1: Frozen Tundra or Piercing Cold (dungeon drop) or Conceited or Control (dungeon drop)
• Ring 2: Prodigy’s (dungeon drop)

Paragon Boards for Sorcerer Blizzard build

The Paragon Board system is very complex, and you’ll want to carefully pair your Glyphs with specific boards for your class:

1. Starter Board / Exploit Glyph
2. Icefall / Reinforced Glyph
3. Frigid Fate / Tactician Glyph
4. Enhancement Master / Frostbite Glyph
5. Burning Instinct / Destruction Glyph
6. Searing Heat / Exploit Glyph

You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:

1. Destruction
2. Frostbite
3. Control
4. Tactician
5. Reinforced
6. Exploit

You can path your own way through the Paragon Boards following these basic guidelines. However, for the best results, follow Northwar’s path exactly.

How to make a great Sorcerer build

Image: Blizzard/Activision via Polygon

Sorcerers are Diablo 4’s pure caster class, and use elemental magic to differentiate from the spells of the Druid and Necromancer. The Sorcerer has six Key Passives, but only three elements, which is what you’ll base your build around:

Lightning builds utilize Lightning skills to deal with large groups of enemies at once. When making a Lightning build, you’ll end up using the Overflowing Energy Key Passive or the Vyr’s Master Key Passive, depending on if you’re in melee range or not.

Ice builds specialize in slowing enemies down, making it easier to survive their attacks. Ice builds will take advantage of either the Avalanche Key Passive or the Shatter Key Passive, depending on how much your build relies on crowd control

Fire builds are all about big explosions and burning your enemies. For these builds, you’ll typically use either the Combustion Key Passive for burning enemies or the Esu’s Ferocity Key Passive for chunky critical strikes.

When making your own build for a Sorcerer, you’ll likely end up sticking to one element for your main damage sources. But that’s not the most important thing you need to remember. Sorcerers die very, very easily in Diablo 4, and they have the weakest defensive stats by far — however, they can deal a massive amount of damage when built correctly. If you don’t want to end up dead more often than not, make sure to invest heavily in defensive skills while making your way toward one of the six Key Passives we listed above.

Looking for other Diablo 4 builds? We have explainers on the Barbarian, Rogue, Druid, and Necromancer classes.

Update (July 20): This guide has been reworked to focus on the best Sorcerer leveling build for Diablo 4 season 1.

Update 2 (July 25): This guide now includes endgame Sorcerer builds for Diablo 4 season 1.