Sorcerers are elemental masters. They command primal energies and lay waste to armies with tornados of fire, lightning, and ice. With the flick of a wrist, they make giants tremble. During our recent cover-story visit to Blizzard, we went hands-on with the game for two days. Here’s a quick overview of what we learned about the Sorceress class in that time.
Skills
Basic Attacks
- Lightning: Launch a bolt of lightning that deals damage and bounces to nearby enemies.
- Fire Bolt: Hurl a flaming bolt, dealing damage and burning enemies for a few seconds.
- Frost Bolt: Throw a bolt of frost at an enemy, dealing damage and chilling them. (shown)
- Arc Lash: Unleash arcing lightning that shocks enemies in front of you and then returns to you, restoring mana.
Major Destruction
- Charged Bolts: Release bolts of lightning that course along the ground in an erratic pattern.
- Fireball: Hurl a ball of fire that explodes on contact, dealing massive damage to nearby enemies. (shown)
- Ice Shards: Launch shards that deal damage. Deal more damage to frozen enemies.
- Incinerate: Channel a beam of fire, burning enemies. Damage increases each second.
- Chain Lightning: Unleash a bolt of lightning, dealing damage and jumping to nearby targets.
- Frozen Orb: Unleash an orb that chills and expels piercing shards for a total and then explodes into Frost bolts.
Defensive
- Flame Shield: Engulf yourself in flames for a few seconds, burning nearby enemies.
- Ice Armor: After not taking damage for a few seconds, ice accumulates on you, absorbing some damage.
- Blizzard: Summon a frigid blizzard that deals damage and chills enemies for a few seconds. (shown)
- Teleport: Transform into lightning, becoming Immune and surging to the target location.
Conjuration
- Frost Nova: Unleash a torrent of frost, Freezing nearby enemies.
- Lightning Spear: Conjure a cracking spear of lightning that seeks out enemies for a few seconds. (shown)
- Ice Blades: Conjure ice blades for a few seconds that rapidly slash enemies and chill them.
- Hydra: Summon a three headed hydra for a few seconds. Each head spits fire at nearby enemies.
Mastery
- Firewall: Create a wall of flames dealing big damage to enemies over time.
- Nova: Each time you spend a certain amount of mana, this passive ability unleashes a burst of lightning dealing damage.
- Meteor: Summon a meteor that strikes the target location, dealing damage and burning the ground for a few seconds. (shown)
Ultimate
- Deep Freeze: Encase yourself in ice, becoming Immune for a few seconds. For the duration, you emanate Chilling waves that deal damage and freeze longer than normal.
- Inferno: Ignite a roaring inferno that pulses in and out of the target area, burning enemies for a lot of damage over time.
- Conduit: You become lightning incarnate. While in this form, you are immune. Nearby enemies are continually shocked, and you can surge quickly between locations. (shown)
Talent Tree
- Align the Elements: The mana cost of your Mastery spells is reduced.
- Blaze of Glory: Fire critical strike damage is increased. In addition, burning enemies deal less damage to you.
- Burning Resonance: Damaging a burning enemy, has a chance to restore mana.
- Ceaseless Bolts: Lightning critical strikes increase your critical strike chance by a percent for a few seconds.
- Char to Ash: Fire damage is increased each second, up to a percent. This effect resets when you take damage.
- Chill to the Bone: Cold damage against Frozen enemies is increased by a percent.
- Cold Snap: You apply more chill effect.
- Conflagration: Your direct fire damage deals additional damage to burning targets.
- Convulsions: Lightning skills have a chance to stun enemies for a few seconds.
- Crackling Aura: Deal lightning damage to a random enemy every few seconds.
- Devastation: Critical strike chance is increased.
- Devouring Flames: Each source of burning on an enemy increases the direct damage of your fire spells.
- Elemental Attunement: Elemental critical strikes reduce the cooldown of your defensive skills.
- Endless Pyre: Burning effects deal additional damage for each second the target remains burning.
- Endless Winter: Critical strike chance against Chilled and Frozen enemies is increased by a percent, but your Chill effects no longer Freeze.
- Frostbite: Damage against Chilled enemies is increased by a percent.
- Hoarfrost: After casting Blizzard, your next cold skill deals more damage.
- Icy Touch: Cold damage is increased by a percent.
- Inexorable Reach: Your damage is increased against enemies outside of melee range.
- Lightning Mastery: Lightning damage is increased by a percentage against enemies within melee range.
- Numbing Cold: Chilled enemies deal less damage to you.
- Overcharge: Lightning critical strikes have a chance to release extra charge bolts.
- Potent Warding: Elemental damage and resistance are increased.
- Precision Magic: Your elemental damage increases over time up to a maximum percent. Attacking resets this effect.
- Shocking Strikes: Each time your lightning skills hit an enemy, they take increased damage for a few seconds, up to a percentage.
- Soulfire: Fire damage is increased after standing still for a few seconds. Moving cancels this effect.
- Stagger: Enemies deal less damage for a few seconds after being hit by your lightning skills.
For more on Diablo IV, be sure to check out our online coverage hub, which includes deeper dives into the Barbarian and Druid classes.
