While my Companion Druid was reasonably fun to play, the build I’ve been eyeing heavily has been the Fireball build. I’ve tried hybrid Fireball builds in the past where I’d mix Fireball with Meteor, using the Starfall Coronet and Gloves of the Illuminator. I started off with Chain Lightning but felt that it was simply too weak, especially on single target/bosses. So I tried switching to the newer Lightning Spear build but realized quickly that without enough CDR and the Fractured Winterglass amulet, the build just doesn’t take off. However, along the way I had found both a Starfall Coronet and Gloves of the Illuminator and swapped once again. Eventually, I managed to receive a Staff of Endless Rage which allowed me to respec (again!) and swap a few aspects to move into the Fireball build.
Right now, I’m having a figurative and literal blast playing the Fireball build. Chain Lightning was quite painful once I got into T3 and Lightning Spear really needs specific gear. But Fireball feels quite good. Meteor with Fireball worked to a lesser degree but would suffer from Meteor being on cooldown and Fireball being a resource hog. Without the massive area that the Staff of Endless Rage provides, the Gloves of the Illuminator just doesn’t give enough output to make the hybrid build competitive.
With both the Gloves of the Illuminator and Staff of Endless Rage, you effectively have a fast firing, large scale blast. In a way, this build reminds me of the Demon Hunter grenade build from Diablo 3 and the Hellcat Waistguard belt. I’m still not fully optimized but on top of those two uniques, I also am running a Godslayer Crown and Tal Rasha ring. Since I respec’d a few times, I had to restart my glyph leveling a few times. So I’m a little behind but the plan is to get the glyphs to level 15 then finish up leveling and run some bosses to get higher versions of those uniques.
Also, the higher end version of this build aims to use a Tyrael’s Might and Ring of Starless Skies (on top of a Crown of Lucion). So the plan is to first strive for a Tyrael’s Might then go for a Ring of Starless Skies (or Shako since that’s equally versatile). Most likely, I’ll have to craft these as I won’t have access to a group to do the Uber bosses. But I might try to just do the normal bosses since I’m used to those fights and have at least one boss killer (companion druid).
Compared to my Companion Druid, I would say this build is much better in terms of being well rounded. The AoE is very impressive and I can reasonably speed clear. Bossing generally isn’t too bad. The main thing is having enough distance to allow the balls to bounce. Even with close range, you can just spam Fireball and they should nuke a boss. The biggest issues are speed and defenses as with most sorcerer builds. Too much dependency on cooldown with Fire Shield, Ice Armor, Ice Blades, Teleport and Frost Nova as being the other non-spammable abilities. The only one that really matters is Ice Armor because you still won’t have a lot of damage reduction otherwise and will get chunked once Ice Armor stops. And though there was an adjustment to Ice Armor that supposedly allows for some post-effect damage reduction, the real solution was that the cooldown shouldn’t have been messed with in the first place.
I hate that Ice Blades is incorporated into this build because of Vulnerable. While I get that Tal Rasha’s ring and vulnerable are important parts to a sorcerer’s arsenal, the problem is that I detest the idea that I see this pattern over and over. There’s not a lot of flexibility in this build when it comes to gear because of the limited spaces for aspects. I know the developers are wary of increasing the number of slots but the alternative is to eliminate a bunch of dead aspects or consolidate more together. I still argue that a sorcerer should gain a main hand/offhand and two hander as a basis along with shoulders, belt and bracers to make use of more aspects. Otherwise, there should be a better way to get power from aspects like the vampire powers.
Overall, I’m generally pleased with this build. I might end up creating another sorcerer later because I’m tired of respec’ing along with just having the ability to gain another spark. For now, I’m going to continue to level and farm.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.