Ideas For The New Chain Lightning Sorcerer in Diablo 4

[@grelwing47]

One of the largest issues with Sorc is the fact that so much of its damage ends up being conditional or while having large downsides to circumvent. While I don't dislike solving problems as part of the game, Sorcerer is the only class who gets hammered with items that are [upside] + [downside]. While a class like Barb basically gets free multiplicative damage everywhere; a Sorc has uniques that say things like "lucky hit: on completion of the hokey pokey, your Frost Nova deals 10% more damage and gains 10% size; but disables your teleport for 3 hours."

[@abelgonzalez158]

Dmg still tied to cc buckets? Ffs...

[@rebelsoulja77]

dizs your tp for 3 hours LMFAO !

[@M.D.M.X]

Every time it currently orbits you should be changed into the actual explosions instead and have it orbit the targets that it chained to. So basically, when you cast CL it chains and orbits the targets before it returns with a 'charged payload' that explodes as a lighting nova around you each time it does, instead of only once at the end.

[@quintonhoffert6526]

Sorry for the double post. I suspect that CL cast twice not working with the pants is a bug that will be fixed with the full release. The S4 PTR had tons of bugs and almost all of them were fixed for the full release. I suspect that anything that looks like it should obviously work but doesn't is probably just bugged for the PTR and will be fixed in the full release.

[@adamnowicki1425]

On unrelated noteI just want to say I hate Tal Rasha's Loop, I want it to get Shephard aspect treatment, my reasoning: - you always have to have it, there is so much power in it you can't skip it, most builds take shadow/poison damage temper to get 4 stacks out of Loop - you have to sneak in all elements into your build, it's basically a must, sometimes it's only fire bolt enchantment, but you have to build with 3 elements in mind - I'd love to get Shephard aspect treatment - increase base damage of skills across the board and rework the item to do something else (maybe cast mastery skills of element you are using, with some CD, it would be similar to Tal Rasha set from D3), just don't put massive amount of damage on ring that forces you to play certain way

[@86617636]

Thank you Raxx

[@profssrfink8073]

Axial def needs some work along with the rest of the lightning damage. Helm not withstanding, can't stay alive in any way, and the damage tradeoff kills it again. Ill say it until Im blue in the face, all damage needs to be additive and easy to understand so we can scale from there and not rely on broken interactions for a build.

[@apocoplum2223]

Starless is awesome with it, every time CL drains mana it counts towards proccing Starless ability

[@quitwastinmytime]

Crackling Energy has to be the answer. They need to fix it anyway. Give us some Uniques to give Crackling Energy different functions: Damage, or Mana, or Lightning Damage etc like spawnnig Chain Lightning for every 20 picked up.

[@tonynguyen4136]

We really going to skip the fact that Barb and Rogue still get their infinite scaling Key Passives while Sorc got their single one on their paragon capped?

[@NephilimShaman]

Have been doing a Shred build since the release of the game, I can't clear the Tier 63 Pits in this season.

[@AlexandraSpeaks]

raxx the mana cost for each chain lightning returning increases for each active chain lightning these pants actually just hard cap your damage , the pants are the single most misguided unique i think has ever been put into a diablo game

[@justerugaming8323]

Why not just make it that if CL has no new enemy to target it will just expend all remaining chains on the current target creating a special shocking effect. This way more chains means both more AOE, and more damage against bosses (as mostley single target and more chains multiply the damage). Like why does it have to come back to the player again? This just slows down the single target damage output

[@kapiteinlulhaas7612]

Probably need some 50% damage reduction on paragon board aswell.

[@quitwastinmytime]

Yes we can : 4 quadrillion sounds like a nice round damage # to me. Also, ban anyone who has ever played Necro from playing Sorceress.

[@tasandmnm69]

Raxx 4 Blizz President 2024

[@mateuszjeziorski6745]

increase damage each time it bounces, or increase dmg based on the number of chains. the first one would means the aspects like "change to bounce" would be more viable. the second one would means it's even more worth to stack resource regen

[@healergirl28]

The skill already does this. It gains 3%[+] critical strike chance and 5%[x] increased damage on every bounce. (provided you take Greater Chain Lightning instead of Destructive Chain Lightning) And as I pointed out in another comment, it can chain back to you, so this works maybe the best on a single target where it can just repeatedly bounce between you and the target ramping up damage until it expires.

[@kwerboom]

I hope Blizzard does beef up the Chain Lightning Sorcerer. Chain Lightning goes from a S Tier build during leveling to a C/D Tier build that's worse than the Arc Lash Sorcerer. It's really sad. I built a Arc Lash/Chain Lightning hybrid build when D4 launched and it played terrible. Lightning is one of the coolest natural events to see during a storm and one of the most powerful forces on Earth. The Chain Lightning ability does look great, but is such weak sauce that its embarrassing.

[@user-kr9mh5oi1q]

but if the damage happened faster it won't look like they want it to. but the sorc does damage at distance so they don't get anything. yep they have to nerf everything sorc so they can run around and do nothing.AND they can teleport one time what more could they want

[@victorvfn]

If you want Blizzard to hire Raxx, leave your like here

[@pridemizzle1565]

That would mean less streaming tho

[@ShaadowOfLight]

@@pridemizzle1565 That would mean better game tho

[@mapron1]

@@ShaadowOfLight I more concerned that Raxx will have less enjoyment in life due to all corporate bullshit. You need to take into consideration that you barely can have passion in big corp.

[@mattb6646]

Why would they hire him? He works for free... all they gotta do is take some of his advice

[@jg3936]

That would mean he will be bias

[@KloKiller1]

I think blizzard will watch this vid, nerf sorc and buff barb

[@MrJeremydb91]

They make this so complicated but they were just fine giving barbs 8 300% damage rolls to bash plus 5000% crit damage lol

[@grippinglipsfishing5671]

Rob does se*ual favors to devs.

[@flowqi212]

I still think multiplicative Bash Cleave was a mistake that Blizzard almost admitted and fixed but then got scared and didn't. On PTR the damage has been divided by 5x now, very similar to Ball Lightning in S2 😅. 5000% crit btw is just the messed up tooltip number, the real value is around 1500%

[@nephram1702]

Blizzard will take a look at this and go cool nerf cdr, nerf telepirt, nerf resource generation. Cap atrack spoed, chc, chd. Buff bash

[@Mike-om4tv]

Biggest problem is sorc still hasnt gitten out of the damage on tuesdays mindset. Whoever is in charge of that class needs to eake up

[@SloppyAhnus]

Yep. I feel especially bad against bosses. Frozen orb runs out of mana so fast and it takes forever.

[@MikeSakaru]

@@klord-is9ft To be fair, Flameshield 100% needed nerfed and never should've been in the game like that in the first place. That being said, Sorc needs some VERY serious help in actual non-cheese builds before S5 release.

[@locky2127]

@@SloppyAhnus If you have the build fully set up you can never run out of mana.

[@NoobGamer-di1dw]

@@SloppyAhnusfrozen orb is pretty strong atm but it does take optimization I know people were clearing like 10-12 higher pit levels after the last patch this season, so it was actually buffed

[@bwing411]

@@SloppyAhnusnot to be rude man, but isn’t it more fun when it’s challenging? I’ve been having a blast with sorc so far, only level 66 mind you. But I see the lvl 100 experts basically 5 second killing everything - idk how that’s enjoyable at all.

[@Essemlol]

A lot of the problems with damage specifically vs barbs is simply the 4 weapons 2 of which is 2handers. It's too much extra raw stats that the sorc is missing. PLUS tempers, Bash can get like 1000% multiplicative damage on bash at the very high end from tempers. Sorcs cant even get a guaranteed 100% chance to cast an extra chain lightning. 1000% is the equivalent of 10 extra CL casts. So the disadvantage is simply too much to even try to recover.

[@HereForTheCupcakes]

This right here. Every barb main I’ve talked to refuses to admit they have far better scaling than EVERY single class. Had someone say “oh but necros and sorcs can get more cooldowns than other classes hurdurrr” like 20% cooldown can replace 3 whole weapons with 6 tempers and 3 aspects. And necros and sorcs can ONLY access that small bit of cooldown if they decide not to use a 2-hander. Meanwhile barbs can use two 2-handers?

[@Hjortur95]

bash additive as actually multiplicative?????? LOL

[@BanterousLemon]

I hope this class gets a tune up. I too am always pretty excited for it, seeing lightning scatter and destroy the screen. High pace, high damage, aoe and cool ass graphics. Hope they nail it

[@WhoMe-uk4vn]

My problem is that Blizzards take seems to be buffing one build for sorc. All other classes bar druid(for now at least) have multiple viable endgame builds. Blizzard instead of raising all sorc skills seems intent on forcing all sorc players to main the same build. No build diversity for different end game content like barb ww for speed and bash for bossing. Just feels bad man.

[@zyrtor1]

Exactly. It's always just one build for us, at it is usually Ice based. I was excited when they finally made a good fire build and meteor, but it is so weak, what is the point?

[@robertlefeaux]

​@@zyrtor1is it still ice shards? I'm already struggling with chain lightning at lvl 82 and need something new.

[@zyrtor1]

@@robertlefeaux I don't know what the best ice build is anymore. They nerfed blizzard for no good reason too. I heard ice shards isn't very good anymore but I don't care to find out until the sorc is addressed.

[@gatsusagara6637]

You hit the nail right on the head with sorcerers on a whole Rax. I made 3 different elemental sorc in season 4, brought them into the ptr and try to figure out what's wrong with them and I've come to similar conclusions. Conditional Damage and Lack of Multiplicative Damage: The Sorcerer class suffers from a heavy reliance on conditional damage and lacks multiplicative damage sources in both the skill tree and the Paragon board. Vulnerable Mechanics: Unlike Barbarians and Rogues, Sorcerers need to apply vulnerable status first, which requires additional effort and time, particularly against bosses. Resource and Cooldown Reliance: Sorcerer builds are very resource-hungry and cooldown-reliant but do not offer commensurate damage output to justify these dependencies. Defensive Weakness: The class has low defense and HP, functioning as a glass cannon without the high damage output typically associated with that playstyle. AoE and Single Target Damage: Sorcerers lack effective single target damage and struggle with AoE damage without crowd control due to the conditional nature of their damage. Class Identity and Nerfs: The class's strengths have been nerfed while its weaknesses are magnified, making it less viable overall. This class needs to have the enchantment slots updated so they will do something useful.

[@thenorfire900]

I feel this too is spot on. The only thing I"d like to add from findings is X in just about anything is either wrong or misleading like 500x on teleport is actually x5 or slapping an elements aspect or vulnerable that have like 25x or 30x and only gives an additive bonus of like 50 to 70 points in element damage types. Sorc and Druid is so out of date it's no wonder so many people left in season 1 just from trying to make their own build planner turn into garbo doing hundo dps.

[@henrynguyen4315]

The enchantment system needs a rework - it requires us to invest skill points in to make them effective and possibly aspects and we are already limited as is with skill point allocation and aspects.

[@LastAphelion]

And why is it other classes get the glyph to make everything vulnerable the first time you damage it but sorc the one that needs vuln to do damage... isn't allowed

[@Mrxlongshot]

honestly they should just make the chain lightning not even drain mana and just pop on certain bounces no point of making a drain effect when at that point in the endgame you'll be resourcing so high its not gonna hinder you just creates a problem for the system to trigger the explosion

[@stressfree420]

They just need to rework sorc from the ground up. The enchantment system is lack luster and the paragon board is a dumpster fire.

[@xfcarcache8771]

They should allow sorcs to equip a staff and allow for extra aspect and stats.

[@dawidzawartka3608]

if u look at sorc while carring a staff it always keep it in one hand no matter what u do so why you aren allowed to equip focus in the other hand ?

[@chris0nelson]

Please advocate to bring fractured winterglass back to full power so sorcs have more than one s-tier build

[@playhere-gu2lz]

They also need to let druid and sorc use one handed and off hand with the staff.

[@StraightEdgeSC2]

The only thing they need is to remove the mana drain per active chain lightning. Until then we'll just have to wait patiently for our current 2 ou 3 CL to exlpodes while running around bosses for ever.

[@Trblmkr07]

agree Raxx, but it's not just chain lightning, it's all of the builds that need help. I've said it before, if you can take a medicore Barb build or Necro and do pit 100, you should be able to for all classes. Bizz should easily be able to figure this out and make it work. The problem seems they are only catering to those that scream the loudest. Hopefully, with you bringing this to their attention, Sorc will finally get some much needed love. I love playing my Sorc and loved my BL build, it truely felt powerful, until they nerfed it, and now I can't even play it because I know what it felt like as a season vs eternal, 1/2 of what it was doing... is not going to cut it.

[@Weaver_Games]

Sorcerer in general needs a full rework, not just chain lightning. I'm done with the class forever if I see one more meta build where where you need to stand in melee range

[@DennisHaney]

It would be epic if those dolls would report how much dmg/s they took of the various kinds every time they reset. It is so hard to figure out of some small change in your config actually makes a change

[@michelfigueiredo3848]

CL was always my favorite sorc build, plz, just make it FUN and PIT VIABLE.

[@nothing55rk]

I figured out how to fix Sorc... Play a different game that actually understands casters game play.. I'm tired of blizz and the BS that this game has for casters..

[@Katie-hb8iq]

As a Sorc main, I hope Blizzard takes this feedback you so wonderfully made for us seriously and actually improves the class. They also need to fix the shields too because those suck in the PTR as well, Raxx. I just want them to stop screwing Sorceresses. It just feels like they don't actually play them or think they are good because the leveling experience is fast. Diablo 4 feels very unbalanced to the point of being extremely brittle/fragile. They need someone on the team who thinks like you do. I really liked the stuff you said on your stream yesterday as well.

[@teapea8184]

I think giving Sorcs 7% more CDR and reducing Teleport CD by 3 seconds would be a great start. Then maybe add a damage scaling mechanic into Ice Barrier that makes it bigger 🤔 and make Hectic back to 4 seconds now that they nerfed Flame Shield for the rest of the people not abusing immortal sorc. Then possibly give a 100% damage increase on every skill and change protection to stack and extend the duration of the shield.

[@Lucyller]

Chain lightning is really my favorite spell in the game, I really they can fix and make it (more) viable than what it is currently...

[@NeCoNLive]

Buff Sorc!

[@aaronbandy6808]

If you're really looking for a multiplier, then yes make the extra casts work with the pants, AND scale the damage of subsequent casts by the number of ACTIVE chain lightnings!!! 🎉 Also with the wider range of weapons sorcerers can use, why not give them an extra staff weapon slot to take advantage of the CC damage and of course more tempers. I think all classes should have at least a two hand and two one handed slots.

[@C4Services]

Everything with Sorc is lacking. It does not scale damage like other classes. Something is off with Sorc damage scaling and they need to address it ASAP

[@Syncopation24]

While they're at it, could they address the fact most builds are forced to take 3 or more defensive skills? It severely limits build options when you're so restricted by survivability before you even start. The whole 'sorc class fantasy is to be fragile' concept should just be thrown out. Put them on par, make sure they can't be the tankiest, call it good.

[@abelgonzalez158]

​@@vzwson4995 wasn't it a glitch build?

[@juckjeckel]

@@vzwson4995 every class can clear 200 on the ptr with the broken unique helm, it doesn't mean anything

[@C4Services]

@@vzwson4995 it was a bug in the game 😆

[@C4Services]

@@vzwson4995 in PTR using a bug with the helmet 😆

[@kupwav]

Save the Sorceress!!!

[@armorvil]

Save the Sorceress, save the World

[@armorvil]

Do you think they want players to compensate the lack of damage and mana regen by running around all over the place to grab Crackling Energy during fights? I hate CE (you want to dodge attacks, not act like pacman in a hard battle. Plus its range is lousy) but that may be Blizzard's logic. I think it's time they added some legendary power that makes CE automatically go to you and makes it long-range, even if it does so slowly. That or rework CE altogether, the concept is nice on paper (picking up stuff that deals damage) but on practice it's pretty bad. Chain Lightning allows me to stay at a safe distance from the mobs so no, I'm not going to get in their faces and take hits to grab these things, thank you. Moving around also hurts your DPS because you can't throw CL while running.

[@isnith]

Rax, thank you for this analysis. I've been also testing the new CL build (but not as extensively as you), and it definitely is in the wrong place right now. It has a potential to be the "hey! this feels great!" build for sorcs, but instead ends up being a version where you have to invest a lot of clicks for very little outcome. Crown of Lucion is too strong generally, and having to rely on it to have the Chain Lightning Sorc work would be a terrible practice. Hope Blizz will address your feedback.

[@Jdiroe]

The could simply add damage to under performing core skills and add dashes like lunging strike has to pulverize and shred baseline. Additionally I think the need to consider allowing Druid to either imprint an additional affix on 2H weapons or allow you to carry a totem in off hand when wielding a 2H handed weapon(I mean when your in town the Druid has the totem on its back when equipped). The legendary nodes on paragon and spirit boons need a rework too

[@olegulanovskiy1792]

Problem is that sorcs got 1 OP build (bugged) like blizzard with doudle dipping, ball lightning with broken at.speed or shatter-firebolt and every other build is so far away from that op build. Why we cant have at least one good fire build , one good lighting build and one good frost? And answer is obvious - buff barbs. Current class balance is so BAD. And I want to remind that the game has pvp zones😅

[@ominic]

sneak to Blizzard HQ and secretly rename Sorc to Barb for all the future buffs suggestions Chance to bounce should synergize with multiplicative dmg increase for each bounce

[@blazedehart2748]

It should 100% bounce and your rolls should increase its bounces. Have it guaranteed 1 bounce and can roll up to 5ish.

[@Torguish]

I definitely think that addinga sort of damage amp for each bounce which doesn't reset when thechain lighting orbits you would be awesome.

[@ToadstedCroaks]

Even Team: "Finally. After all those painstaking months we overhauled the game, added new mechanics, and everyone seems to be enjoying what we did. That feels SO GOOD." Odd Team: "So ... don't be mad, but ... "

[@Torguish]

I don't understand why the procs shouldn't work with uniques / aspects. What, they would be OP? Because that sure as shit aint it. Most of these would not make anything overpowered. Would they be more fun and would making builds more fun? Definitely. Also i think the 66 mana could, COULD be fine IF the drain would happen over a longer period of time.

[@MagisterMagnificum]

Even with the most skewed build it's not possible to get damage out of this build, which is funny because it works exactly the same for all sorc builds... >_>

[@Rapunzel879]

The Sorcerer class is an embarrassment. Blizzard is terrified of allowing sorcerers to do damage. They could easily solve the damage issue by allowing the Aspect of Control to stack more times, like they accidentally did in the eternal realm. They don't want to. They don't want sorcerer players to have fun. Thankfully, the endgame content is boring AF regardless of the class. That's why I'm switching to POE2 the minute it comes out.

[@TheEmlou]

I would like to see two changes to this item. First instead of the chain lightnings "expiring" if you don't have enough mana, they should explode instead. Second, the chain lightnings should gain that flat damage each time they loop around you, which becomes a stacking effect. So if they loop around you once the explosion is 20k, twice it becomes 40k and so on. This will add a lot more base damage to each explosion, and it will remove the wasted chain lightnings that just expire, therefore gaining more overall DPS.

[@philosocrates]

Sad that Blizzard cant do this themselves and use you streamers as unpaid labor. They should pay some of you for using the PTR.

[@GBurnYa]

Theyll just nerf it before it goes live anyways. They only care about barb being OP and making Rob happy

[@devo9699]

I’d like sorcerer to be stronger but I never want to see ball lightning style again. 1 lightning build that is the only viable endgame farmer. Fuck. No.

[@BootedTech]

Where is the massive physical damage builds, for those who just want smash and bash without having to worry about abilities and resources.

[@TwentyInchBurial]

why not "x% of chaining x aditional times and does 30% increased damage", stuff like that

[@theoriginaleo]

Whoever is working on sorc is completely clueless and trying to overcomplicate every single item instead of making them good. It’s also half funny half sad how I did not see the new staff that fires basic skills being acknowledged by anyone yet due to how pathetic it is

[@ericswanson411]

I had a though on how to solve the single target damage with CL. Going with your idea on lowering the resource cost change to 4 mana per bounce. Then after it procs the explosion have the explosion electrify the target and continue to zap it for 5 seconds dealing 300% of the damage dealt as lightning damage.

[@TimCristy]

Yes, it needs ramping mana cost and exponentially ramping damage. That way for mobs you can send out several low cost ones and for bosses a single one that you try to support for as many bounces as possible to get to astronomical damage.

[@brandonk99ign]

I think the main issue with CL is its damage itself. The damage that it can do itself (prior to pants) was abysmal to begin with. It does significantly less overall dmg than even FO does on live and it received no buffs for S5. They need to boost the dmg or give it that each chain increases the dmg by 20% so that it makes the 'chaining' aspects more appealing. If we can get 20 chains on it, then it'd be crazy dmg but it's only a chance. so it won't be tooooo strong.

[@aaaa-gp2oc]

kinda sucks to do this much work for blizzard for free. Kripp developed d3 for blizzard for free now rax is developing d4 for free

[@ArmofirsArmy]

Sorc Main 4 Lyfe 🧙‍♂️

[@thatblindtekkenwarrior1177]

The problem with sorcerer is simple. The class is too popular all the casuals play it and don't really care about the class balance. So because it never goes down in popularity, they nerf it to encourage people to play other classes. Which they don't because sorcerers have the most flashy effects.

[@blrrich1051]

this is pretty accurate

[@JoblessBuhdda]

I absolutely agree that it’s the most popular. But I am in no way casual and sorcerer is my main so it’s not just casuals that play it.

[@NoobMasterSSS]

They need more flashy builds. People love flashy shit. Why don’t these people understand this? (Blizzard)

[@KrayZieTyler]

As a sorc main, I quit playing Sorc because of how bad it is.

[@thatblindtekkenwarrior1177]

@@KrayZieTyler as a Sorc Main, I don't play any of the other classes. I am not a casual player, but I'm not one of the hardest blasters in the game either. I understand that sorcerer is the worst class. However, as long as i don't play any of the other classes, I will never feel like it is weak. It's only when you've got something to compare it to, that you feel underpowered.

[@MrJeremydb91]

Buffing barb would help sorc

[@philipstacey4523]

Hey Raxx, I was thinking that the huge mana draw of an axial conduit build could work nicely with Banished Lords; the idea being we put out as many chain lightings as we can handle to keep the explosion but also so the 275 resource spend trigger is met really quickly. Doombringer brings a lot of HP to the table for the overpowers even if we cant get fortify; the added benefit being ice armour and other barriers become a lot more powerful and the higher HP pool allow us to survive. The other benefit of Banished Lords is the ranks to core skills. Combining this with the plus to all core skills on the new unique helm, and a good roll to plus all cores on the gloves we can get a lot of damage from the frozen orb enchantment and (in conjunction with convulsions) the charged bolts enchantment. Ive also included the boot aspect which brings in enemies, so when we overpower, we dont need to move around much to pick up the physical damage orbs. Without doombringer, the build could utilise any of the sorc offensive multipliers. Keen for your thoughts.

[@philipstacey4523]

It would reward a high max mana and high mana regen build.

[@SamYz007]

Main Sorc, and its fun. but not as fun as one shotting things like other classes.

[@Syrion84]

Why Blizzard doesn't hire you and pay you a ton of money to QA D4 is beyond me. You would make the game so much better and fix all these issues prior to launches.

[@Weaver_Games]

Blizzard salaries are notoriously low

[@ceniux1022]

i want meteor sorc buffs i feel like im dropping pebbles on enemies heads

[@ValinLenoir]

I tried to make an Arc Lash CL build on the PTR, using the new sword Shard of Verathiel, and even with some RCD to spam AL more, and Resource Generation to help in general, I couldn't keep going forever. I think it's neat in concept, but it's just hard to keep everything going without "perfect" gear and tempering and masterworking. The idea was to mimic the Arc Lash Ball Lightning hybrid builds from S2.

[@Rahru]

Sorcs (and Druids) need significant reworks to buff them (they've tried to straight up buff them and it's always been far from enough) and Barbs need to be brought all the way back to earth. There's no way to balance the game and the classes if both of those don't happen.

[@knightmare938]

Imo, barbs need to lose a weapon or two, I think that's a big issue, since they can basically have two strong aspects on the two handers and have it doubled, that can't be balanced between other classes, rogue is okay since it's a range weapon and two one handers, so either barb loses a two hander, or have other classes equip three weapons like rogue to bring it closer, I play minion necro, and with the change to scythes, I'd love to equip a two and one hand scythe with a focus.

[@darielsantana4381]

and my bash barb in the ptr was hitting for 11m a hit with no masterworking or tempering. they have to balance this thing much better

[@LightNovelEnthusiast]

Makuna put up a video showing chain lightning sorc dealing quadrillions of damage while you have a whole spreadsheet on how to make it better and why it's bad. I guess this is why we have a ptr.

[@Raxxanterax]

It’s the helmet which I mentioned in the beginning is going to get nerfed to oblivion, so I purposely didn’t use it. Any build for any class ever that does that much damage is guaranteed to get nerfed

[@andrewderringer3765]

Please buff fractured winterglass

[@lanceanderson8318]

Devs have favorite classes and it's not sorc

[@Fabi_1987]

Thank you!

[@IAMGOKUHEARMEROAR]

I just want the whole game to be better.

[@ChaoticPsyche01]

I wish the training room would give you highest damage hit and average DPS counters somewhere on the side of the screen.

[@ChaoticPsyche01]

also I want three or four rings on the sorcerer and a third enchantment

[@Roysphotos8]

I love chain lightening hope it becomes better

[@Alex-dn9hk]

One day I’ll tell my grandchildren about the Ball Lightning build. 😂❤️

[@fingers_7311]

Raxx testing CL......Does 55k damage :( Robb testing new builds Deathblow / Bash doing 400million damage. Why cant our CL hit for 40milion it WONT break the game!

[@MajorCooke2]

I made a build based around frost bolt in season 4, with Paingorger's gauntlet. Stronger than the fire bolt one. There's another unique for basic skills, in the new upcoming season, should help out.

[@tomtomkowski7653]

Barb: you do 140%[x] damage. That's it Other classes: you do 2%[x] damage if you didn't take a hit recently, the enemy is on your left side, it is a Saturday, and the enemy was not frozen for the last 3.65s but is vulnerable. Barblo IV.

[@tasandmnm69]

Raxx if/when you make a Druid video here are some of the issues Inhave come across and spoke to other Druids about. 1- Werewolf caster build (Tornado, LS) scaling without Thunderstruck and Shepherds. Even with them we would be hard pressed to do pit 110-120. 2) So many Uniques/aspects for build synergies or just to be functional leaves us missing out on a lot of damage. It would be so much better to have synergies that items like Tempest Roar/Vasilys provide in the skill tree or paragon, ie they should be a core part of the class. Some of the best Druid builds cannot use what has been the best item in the game since release because the build wouldnt function without Tempest Roar. 3) We have dedicated talents/gear/paragon for Poison and thorns yet neither are viable as we cannot scale the damage at all. 4) Which leads to skills that dramaticlaly under perform no matter what you do. Shred, Rabies, Lacerate, and with the nerf yoy can add Grizzlies Rage as literally nobody will ve uaing it in its new state. 5) It is NOT TOO LATE to change the new Cataclysm gloves into a different item type! We already have an AMAZING unique for Lightning builds in Unsung Ascetic Wraps, why in gods name did they have to make the new unique that would obviously be great in lightning builds take up the same slot that the only other Lightning Storm unique inhabits? They dont seem to make huge oversights like this with Barbs. It is already going to be very hard to scale Lightning Storm/Tornado.

[@LordNerfherder]

Arog developers are HORRIBLE at balancing the games. Despite having half a league of data. There are 50% of skills just absolutely dont work endgame. They CANNOT have been tested or compared to the other skills. 40% are subpar choices, objectively worse than the top skills. Usually jusr QoL or low damage. Then we have 10% of skills that are just broken. And then during the entire leagye they still ALWAYS fail to fix the bad skills. They sometimes nerf the top 10%. And often so hard that they are turned into an F tier skill. They both caused the issue, failed to resolve it but dont forget that they created the environment that caysed this to happen. The thousands of modifiers (many over 100%...) and millions of combinations. If most of these modifiers were smaller and global - this would be much easier. But if, just like in D3 things gives thousands of % dmg and there are so many modifiers and bonuses, it becomes hard to balance. And they created this situation. Typical arpg nonsense.

[@Endorsememe]

Raxx the hero we need.

[@TheInfidel_SlavaUA]

wtf is this season 5 gameplay, how fu.. lame is this dungeon delve wave fight as main mechanic of an entire season... WTF IS THIS???? Seriously this is TRASH.

[@pitecusH]

You know what would actually make stacking extra chain lightning hits worthwile AND fix the single target damage issue? You could change / enhance some aspect (or maybe even the new pants) to say: "If chain lightning hits a single boss target, it instead deals all of its chain damage at once." So, you stacked, whatever, 11 times of chaining or some such? Meet the pit boss, he's alone, cast CL once and hit him for the combined damage of all the chaining potential in one go. Would it be overpowered? Maybe. Would it solve single target damage? Also a strong maybe. But it would be an INTERESTING mechanical change and potentially something that would finally make sense instead of making you weaker, or add another 3 conditions.

[@oledirty7942]

These pants aren't for a chain lightning build. I know it seems silly but it's much more useful buffing other things. The drain counts as spending so it refreshes ice armor cooldown, triggers new crown, spawns hydra if hydra is in enchant slot. Free uptime atk speed from accelerate core skill crit enchant. Hell of a lot of crackling energy if you want. Anything but trying to push CL damage. CL doesn't scale enough even when you shako +4, gloves +3 and new legs +3. So make a summon build or something else. I saw you using firebolt enchant. Use hydra instead and get 5 head hydras burning things. You can use hydra enchant and get three of them up no prob with CL mana per bounce enchant (recharge?). 🤷‍♂️ Cast hydra with extra head tempers. Chain lightning pants for new crown proc, atk speed buff, crackling energy spawns and ice armor refresh. Lightning spear in enchant slot with frost blades... going to go build this myself.

[@Wadafon]

1) Maybe I didn’t notice, but nothing was said about the attack speed and the work of the pants from them. 2) The mage's biggest damage booster is ice damage and damage to frozen targets, followed by burning damage. This doesn't suit us. 3) The character wants to increase the crit chance and crit damage, the easiest way to do this is with a new amulet, but in its current form, sorcerers cannot afford to add the “maximum amount of resources” affix if you increase the maximum mana and its regeneration. It turns out that we only have 3 nodes from the tree (a rational waste of paragon points) and a line on the new amulet. 4) The problem with crit damage is that, unlike any other damage acceleration vector, we spend 2 affixes at once on one mechanic (chance and crit power) on things without third-party multipliers. 5) The only source of damage that is available to us in lightning is now limited to 60%x is Crackling Energy. If we try to use this mechanic, a unique amulet for crit chance is no longer suitable for us, because there is a desire to use a unique amulet Esadora's. The problem with the amulet is its low chance of explosion - 15%, although it has a large multiplier. If this chance was 25%, and the passive skill affix was replaced with % intelligence, or a passive ability that gives Crackling Energy, it would be very playable. 6) We can use these pants in a hybrid build with Crackling Energy. Because we want to stand close to the monsters for a quick lightning jump and pants trigger. Since we don’t have the option to play with the Lightning Ball enchantment. After all, we need a damage multiplier from burning damage (enchantment from Fire Bolt). And the Lightning Chain enchantment still looks better than the Lightning Ball. Even the Lightning Spear looks better than the Lightning Ball. 7) In the game there is only 1 source of accelerating the speed of Crackling Energy triggering by 25% (2nd passive skill in the Lightning ultimate branch), which only interferes with synergies with this Crackling Energy skill, because we cannot constantly pick it up. This only raises more questions for developers. Instead, you could do something much more interesting, and instead of a passive skill for damage when stunning an enemy, you could add the speed of Crackling Energy triggering. Bottom line. We don't have as many sources of damage as other classes. The ones that exist are contradictory and not as effective. I hope the developers’ children will tell them how to make games after their next math lesson. Because it looks as if the developers themselves do not see the obvious mistakes in the concept on their part. They want an original constructor that synergizes in every possible way, but we only get an under-character. maxroll.gg/d4/planner/asmq20v1 This is what I came up with.

[@Spasti01]

@Raxxanterax please give the feedback to Diablo4 Dev Team, that they should change the NMD and PIT xp gain after finishing a dungeon on max level to gain gold instead. It's a complete waste of time if we get xp on maximum level 100. The change should be easily implemented and be like the gold gain for quests in WoW after getting max lvl.

[@AnatoleVGC]

Thank you for that. We don't have many voices speaking for sorcs. Now do that for the whole class, please lol

[@quintonhoffert6526]

I'm going to say that I don't think the Sorcerer needs straight multipliers, what it really needs is less restrictive effect conditions. This is the same problem that plagues Enchantments: the effects the Sorcerer can get are quite powerful but the likelihood of getting those effects is very low. The other classes do, I think, tend to have slightly weaker potential effects on their aspects and uniques than the Sorcerer gets but they usually get those effects either all the time, or almost all the time. The Sorcerer doesn't necessarily need just a big whack of multiplicative damage, what it really needs is more consistency in being able to activate the powerful effects that it already has. For example, the Chain Lightning chaining thing. Chaining is actually quite powerful for CL because your bolts can chain to yourself if there are no other enemies to hit, so if your bolts are hitting a single boss and the chain effect activates you can potentially hit them 5 times with a single cast of CL. This is effectively a multiplier on its own: you aren't doing more damage but you're getting more hits, which naturally deals more damage. The problem is that 30% just isn't enough of a chance to activate very often, and while you can put it on an amulet or a two-hander you only get two of those and you might need those other slots for more important aspects or uniques. This is the same kind of problem that a lot of other things have. Proccing free Meteors whenever you deal damage is really strong, but a Lucky Hit 8% chance is so low that you can't rely on it, and you can't build around an unreliable source of damage because, knock on wood, it's unreliable. If the Chain Lightning chaining aspect just said "your Chain Lightning chains an additional 4 times" it would essentially function the same way as a straightforward multiplier, at least on bosses or other single targets, but would be more thematically interesting than just a generic "Chain Lightning deals 20-30% more damage." I didn't do too much testing with the Axial Conduit (it was PTR or Shadow of the Erdtree, and Shadow of the Erdtree won without much difficulty) but the little I did showed the same problem. When everything goes off as expected the effect is pretty good: your CL keeps chaining and eventually you get a big damage blast in addition to the continuous damage well past the point it would have stopped had you cast it normally. The real problem with it is that the damage of a single cast isn't good enough to kill anything and if you cast too many at a time you lose all of them and get nothing. I do actually like the "mini-game" aspect of the build where you want to manage how many CLs you keep active at a time, but the restriction is too heavy for what you end up getting out of it. In this case I think the effect should be buffed so that it feels really worth it to play the mini-game, and pushing your luck should be part of the fun rather than something that ends the fun. To that end, I like Raxx's idea of making Axial Conduit ramp but I'd approach it from a different direction. Raxx's idea is to make the drain start small and then ramp up, but I'd instead like to see each return juice the damage of both the next volley AND also the final explosion. The way I'd do it, instead of having an explosion based on a certain amount of mana being drained, I'd have it say "Chain Lightning alternates between orbiting you and seeking up to 3 enemies. When it returns it drains 6 Mana from you for each active Chain Lightning and empowers the damage and explosion damage of each Chain Lightning by 5% per Chain Lightning orbiting you, up to a cap of X%. If Chain Lightning would return to you but you don't have enough Mana for it to drain, each active Chain Lightning instead explodes for Y-Z Lightning damage." This idea maintains the mini-game but changes the rules. Currently Axial Conduit backloads all the damage, such that not only do you have to wait a really long time before you get the big damage proc, you can lose it all if you fail the mini-game. In my version, the damage keeps ramping the longer you keep your CLs active so you're incentivized to want to keep them active a long time so you can max out the damage multiplier. However, you're also going to want to push your luck because the big damage explosion ONLY happens when CL tries to drain Mana and fails. You could keep just 1-2 CLs active forever and get a big damage multiplier to them, but you'd lose out on the explosion damage entirely since it only happens when you run out of Mana. Instead you're incentivized to try to reach the damage cap and then overload your CLs so you get a ton of big damage explosions at once, all juiced up to the maximum damage multiplier. You could play it safe and just do one or two CLs and wait for the damage to cap out before casting a bunch and detonating them all, but that would take a really long time. In the middle of a boss fight you'd much rather have a lot of them going and hit the damage cap quickly before blowing them up, and that's going to incentivize you to push your luck in the mini-game and try to sustain as many casts as you possibly can to max out the damage multiplier as fast as possible and get as many explosions as possible. This version also solves the problem of the damage being low because even if you get too greedy and fail to reach the multiplier cap you still get as many big explosions as you have active CLs, so even if you fuck up and don't get the multiplier very high you'll still get a bunch of explosions. The best players, though, will have a good sense of their Mana regeneration capabilities and will be able to plan around sustaining a certain number of casts, and then unleashing hell at the precise moment the multiplier is maxed out and you have a good shot at the boss.

[@Ratdragon67]

I saw a video yesterday of a CL sorc melting p1 of lilith in like 15 seconds. I don't think it's as weak as everyone thinks. Now, was that close to perfect gear? Probably. It can still rip hardddd though. That being said, it needs a bump in power for the starter variant.

[@cat-astrophe8697]

Chain Lightning has this skill point thing that increases its damage by 10% whenever it bounces... but only up to 30% You could easily buff this build by increasing the cap of this. That would perfectly fit in with the build and give you a reason why it takes so long to deal its damage. If it wants to compete with barb they probably would need to uncap it and put it at like 2% or have it cap out at 100-200% I personally really dislike this build. I really hate that I have to count how many chain lightnings I have active at a time to not use too much mana and lose them all :( Its a weird form of skill expression that I am not a big fan of - I much prefer Frozen Orb and would really love to see a buff to that one to bring it up to par as well

[@tomtomkowski7653]

Stupid is that all CLs have the same pool. In theory, you could have 10 of them at the same time to drain 60 mana but nope, and once ALL of them will drain 66 mana then ALL are gone. The second problem is that this doesn't do damage (outside the bugged Crown of Lucion). As always... at the end of the day the only good class to play will be Barb and the rest of the classes will be nerfed to the ground.

[@groom84]

Raxx makes a Buff Barb vid, and 2 hours later we get a Blizz patch saying Barb WW got huge buff And Sorc is nerfed.