Chain Lightning Sorcerer: Leveling Guide

Overview

This Sorcerer lightning build in Diablo 4 centers around the use of Chain Lightning and Unstable Currents to deal the bulk of its damage with a good mix utility and survivability. During the early stages of the game, this build will rely on Arc Lash to deal damage. As we will not have enough mana to cast CL at 100+ mana without aspects such as Aspect of Umbral. Most of the aspects that you will want for this build are available as dungeon clear rewards instead of drops which eliminates the need to farm the aspects we want for this build.

Before you reach level 15 to unlock your first enchantment, this build may struggle to deal enough damage to clear AoE content efficiently. However, when we have access to our enchantments, we can easily solve our AoE issues by slotting in Fireball for the early game. Later down the line, you will want to consider replacing Fireball with Fire Bolt to help with mana generation and have good Burning uptime to trigger the effects of Devouring Blaze.

Skills and Playstyle

Skills Overview

Teleport: Your main mobility skill and later on, with Shimmering Teleport unlocked, it becomes a great source of Damage Reduction. With enough Cooldown Reduction, you can almost have a 100% uptime on the Damage Reduction provided by this skill.

Ice Armor: Ice Armor provides us with the utility we need with its Enhanced upgrade for Mana Regeneration. It also Synergizes well with certain Aspects, such as Aspect of Fortune and Conceited Aspect.  

Frost Nova: While the game classifies this as a Defensive skill, we will mostly be using this as an offensive skill to apply Vulnerable and Frozen onto enemies. This is especially important in this build, since we do not have a way to apply Vulnerable in AoE content.  

Unstable Currents: Our main source of Burst damage and main way of dealing with a strong pack of Elites or Bosses. Unstable Currents scales well with Attack Speed to be able cast of skills during its duration. 

Arc Lash: Arc Lash will be our main source of damage in the early game, as we will most likely not have enough mana to spam Chain Lightning until the mid-late game. You can consider replacing this skill for Flame Shield in the mid-late game for the additional Utility it provides. 

Chain Lightning: The bread and butter of this build and our main source of damage when Unstable Currents is not available. While this skill on paper may seem like it may do a decent amount of AoE damage. It is mainly used for Bosses, as Chain Lightning can bounce onto you and the boss multiple times.

Flame Shield: Flame shield is mainly taken for the additional defensive utility to recover from Crowd Control skills and regenerate HP if Shimmering Flame Shield is taken. If you are playing Hardcore, we recommend taking having a slotting in FS for enchantments to provide a safety net. You can also consider going for Mystical FS instead if you find yourself having mana issues when playing this build.

Skill Point Allocation

Below is the recommended skill progression for this Sorcerer lightning leveling build in Diablo 4. However don’t be afraid to experiment with your playstyle, use the table below as a guideline. Note: the table does not account for Renown progression.

Enchantments

Enchantment is a mechanic unique to the Sorcerer. It allows you to select a skill to add an additional effect to it. Enchanted skills can trigger regardless if they are equipped to your skill bar, such as Ice Blades (Summon an Ice Blade for every 20-second cooldown used). This system adds a variety of options to your skill builds; however, it is important to note that you may only select 2 skills to be enchanted. The first slot unlocks at level 15, then the second at level 30.

More details about Enchantment system can be found here.

Fireball: Your main source of AoE damage until you have access to more mana generation and your second enchantment slot.

Fire Bolt: This skill replaces Fireball on our first enchantment slot in the mid-late game to ensure that enemies always have Burning applied to them. This enchantment synergizes well with Devouring Blaze for additional Critical Strike Damage and Fiery Surge for Mana Regeneration.

Ice Blades: We will mainly be using Ice Blades as an alternative for Frost Bolt when we are not going up against AoE or mobbing content. Ice Blades allows us to have a consistent uptime on being able to trigger Vulnerable onto enemies whenever we use skills that have a cooldown. 

Frost Bolt: We will mainly use Frost Bolt as an alternative for Ice Blades when not fighting bosses or in single-target content. Additionally, since Chill is considered a CC ability, this synergizes well with Aspect of Umbral to generate consistent mana when going up against mobs of enemies. 

Playstyle and Rotation

Teleport 🡺 Frost Nova 🡺 Ice Armor 🡺 Unstable Currents 🡺 Chain LIghtning/Arc Lash

The playstyle and skill rotation of a Sorcerer Chain Lightning leveling build in Diablo 4 is simple and straightforward. During the early stages of this build, you will have to prioritize getting close to enemies by either teleporting onto them or walking up to them. From here, you will cast Arc Lash and Chain Lightning when you have enough mana to do so. 

The combo starts with you teleporting onto a pack of enemies, then casting Frost Nova to apply Frozen and Vulnerable to all enemies caught in its range. From here, you will either use Chain Lightning or Arc Lash to clear the wave, or if there are a few strong elites in the pack, use Unstable Current to make quick work of them.

Situationally, if you get stunned or take a large amount of damage, you can use Flame Shield to apply “Unstoppable” and provide healing to yourself. Additionally, if you have access to Aspect of Binding Embers paired with Aspect of Control, you can use Flame Shield offensively to immobilize enemies for an additional damage multiplier.

An important thing to note about this build is that it is important to be able to cast Chain Lightning at 100+ mana to gain the full benefit of Elementalist Aspect, which increases the Crit Strike Chance of Core or Mastery skills when cast at or above 100 mana.

It is also important to pick up Crackling Energy, as they are generated throughout the fight to help with mana generation and deal additional damage to enemies in its AoE. 

Aspects

Aspects are powerful buffs that are applied onto gear, which can completely change how a build is played. This allows players to have more flexibility when customizing their build. Additionally, at the Occultist, you will be able to access the Codex of Power, which allows you to apply Aspects onto gear. Aspects obtained from the Codex of Power can only be unlocked after clearing their specific dungeons.

Aspects for the Sorcerer Chain Lightning leveling build are quite flexible and are mostly available as rewards from Dungeons in Diablo 4. We have also listed down some Drop only Aspects to look out for in case you are able to get them early on. 

Note that Aspects listed below are arranged in no particular order.

Offensive Aspects

Elementalist Aspect: A great aspect that provides a large amount of Crit Chance (30-60% on Amulet) with this equipped, you will generally want to have some Maximum Mana Affixes and try to cast Chain Lightning at above 100 Mana. 

Location: Pallid Delve (Dry Steppes)

Recommended Slot: Amulet

Aspect of Control: A straightforward damage increase that can manually be triggered due to Frost Nova applying Frozen to enemies and has a decent uptime since Arc Lash is also able to apply Stun. 

Location: Sunken Library (Kehjistan)

Recommended Slot: Ring/2H Weapon

Accelerating Aspect: Mainly taken for Unstable Currents as it scales well with attack speed to deal more damage when spamming Chain Lightning during its duration. 

Location: Drop Only

Recommended Slot: Gloves 

Conceited Aspect:  Another straightforward damage increase that is applied when you have a barrier, this Aspect should have a relatively good uptime when paired with Ice Armor and Protection passive.

Location: Drop only

Recommended Slot: Ring/1H Weapon

Resource Aspects

Both Utility Aspects we recommend getting are mainly taken to help solve mana issues the Sorcerer has during the early game. 

Prodigy's Aspect: Since our Skill bar will be using a lot of skills that have cooldowns tied to them, this will be a great source of mana. 

Location: Witchwater (Hawezar)

Recommended Slot: Ring

Aspect of Umbral: Our main mana battery when paired with Frost Nova and Frost Bolt Enchantment

Location: Champion’s Demise (Dry Steppe)

Recommended Slot: Ring 

Defensive Aspects

Frost Blitz Aspect: This Aspect allows you to use Frost Nova more often if you have enough Cooldown Reduction to support it. This Aspect can have a bit more value in a Chain Lightning Build as we do not have a way to consistently apply Vulnerable onto a large group of enemies. 

Location: Drop only 

Recommended Slot: Any Armor Slot

Aspect of Disobedience: Your goto Defensive option during the early game as it is accessible at any stage of the game via dungeon clear reward. 

Location: Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)

Recommended Slot: Any Armor Slot

Aspect of the Protector: A situational but decent Defensive Aspect that provides a barrier to players when attacking an Elite, this Aspect also Synergizes well with Conceited Aspect. 

Location: Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)

Recommended Slot: Any Armor Slot

Item Stats

During the early game, we recommend not worrying about stats (affixes) too much, since you will be replacing gear often. Some affixes to look out for are Max Mana and Mana Cost Reduction since it synergizes well with Elementalist Aspect. Finally Cooldown reduction is another affix to look out for as most of our skills are cooldown heavy.

When choosing between a 1H + Offhand or 2H, it is important to know what your build needs. 1H + Offhand is mainly considered if you wish to have additional aspects put onto your build or more affix lines on your gear such as Cooldown Reduction, Mana Cost Reduction, Critical Strike Chance, and the higher base attack speed that comes with these types of weapons. However, you can also consider going for a 2H weapon as this build does not require several aspects to enable its usage and additionally 2H weapons also have a higher value on their affixes which helps increase your damage output

Conclusion

Overall, this Sorcerer Chain Lightning build is a simple and effective hybrid-melee build in Diablo 4 that provides the player with tons of survivability via Damage Reduction from Vyr’s Mastery with its aspect Mage Lord’s Aspect.

As for level 50+, this build may struggle to deal enough damage to clear out a group of elites or defeat bosses if Unstable Currents is not available. Because of this, we highly recommend investing in Cooldown Reduction as much as possible. Thankfully even at level 50+, the aspects used for this build do not deviate too much from the ones you have been using during levels 1 to 50.