After going through a series of nerfs, the Sorcerer is slowly inching back to power, especially towards the endgame. With several elemental builds to choose from, our build of choice for the Diablo 4 Sorcerer’s endgame run is the Arc Lash build.
A guide to the Arc Lash Sorcerer build in Diablo 4
The Arc Lash build is one of the older Sorcerer builds created towards the start of Diablo 4. As time passed, better builds such as the Ball Lightning build slowly took over when it came to an endgame Lightning build. Regarding other elements, the Firewall build and the Blizzard build took over for Fire and Cold builds respectively, but there was no viable alternative to Ball Lightning.
That is until the Arc Lash build became popular again. With recent buffs, the Arc Lash skill, a Basic skill, becomes the center of this build, making it a powerful melee range Sorcerer build. Since Sorcerers aren’t the tankiest class, we also pick up several defensive skills to support this build, especially because you will mostly be fighting enemies in melee range.
Arc Lash releases a swipe of lightning upon cast, hitting all enemies in front of you. Every 10th swipe of Arc Lash also stuns all enemies that are hit by the attack. Like most skills, Arc Lash can be enhanced with one mandatory upgrade and two optional upgrades. These are the ones we choose.
- Enhanced Arc Lash: If Arc Lash lands a critical strike, the attack procs twice.
- Glinting Arc Lash: If Arc Lash hits a stunned enemy, your cooldowns are reduced.
Enhanced Arc Lash is perfect with high attack speed to constantly proc the double swipe effect on a critical strike. Not only does it offer high damage per second, but it also gets you to that sweet 10th swipe which, after acquiring Glinting Arc Lash, also reduces all your cooldowns when you hit stunned enemies with Arc Lash.
Next, we choose the remaining five skills for this build.
Arc Lash Sorcerer skill progression
When your build is finally ready, your six skill slots should consist of these abilities.
- Arc Lash: Your Basic skill and main skill of this build.
- Unstable Currents: A Lightning buff that triggers a Lightning Core, Conjuration, or Mastery skill each time you cast a Lightning skill.
We start off with our Ultimate skill of choice, Unstable Currents. Since this build isn’t going to be utilizing a Core skill, we pick up other skills that will make up for it. Unstable Currents is a perfect Ultimate ability to use in this build because of its buff that allows you to trigger a random Lightning skill whenever you cast Arc Lash. For this purpose, we will be working a few other skills into our build.
For additional Lightning skills, we will pick up and max out Ball Lightning and Charged Bolts to be used as damage skills with Unstable Currents. Getting Enhanced Ball Lightning will increase the spell’s damage rate based on your own attack speed while improving Charged Bolts grants bonus damage and outgoing damage reduction from the affected enemies.
As far as upgrades go, Ultimate skills have a linear upgrade path. We pick up Prime Unstable Currents for an increase in attack speed during the 10 seconds that Unstable Current is active. We follow that up with Supreme Unstable Currents to make our Crackling Energy pulse faster and cost no charges. The second upgrade is optional, so make sure you have skill points to spare.
- Teleport: You disappear and reappear at a target location, dealing damage upon arrival.
- Frost Nova: You release an icy pulse, freezing all enemies around you.
Now that our offense is sorted out, we work four defensive skills into our arsenal. The first of these skills is Teleport, a must-have skill for any Sorcerer that allows them to teleport a short distance, getting out of sticky situations. Enhanced Teleport grants a cooldown reduction effect while Shimmering Teleport grants damage reduction upon arrival.
Frost Nova is our second defensive skill. This skill releases a wave of frost that emits outwards from the Sorcerer, freezing every enemy hit. Enhanced Frost Nova grants you cooldown reduction on the skill each time you kill a frozen enemy (frozen by this skill) while Mystical Frost Nova additionally turns all frozen enemies Vulnerable. This effect duration is increased on bosses.
- Ice Armor: Creates a frozen barrier that absorbs a percent of your max life in damage.
- Flame Shield: Creates a flaming barrier that makes you immune to damage and burns surrounding enemies.
The final two defensive skills are barrier skills with varying effects. Ice Armor is the purely defensive option, a barrier that absorbs the damage you take from enemies. Upgrading it with Enhanced Ice Armor also grants bonus Mana regeneration while Shimmering Ice Armor grants you a chance to freeze enemies that hit you while the skill is active.
On the other hand, Flame Shield is more of an offensive option. Not only does the skill create a damage-immunity barrier, but it also burns enemies that surround you. Enhanced Flame Shield also grants you increased movement speed to get you out of trouble while Shimmering Flame Shield heals you for 50 percent of your max life.
The next part of the build deals with passive abilities.
Arc Lash Sorcerer passives
Now that the active skills are sorted, we pick up passive skills that complement them. These passives are divided into one Key Passive and other secondary passives that make this build work.
- Potent Warding: You gain increased resistances every time you cast a non-Basic skill.
- Glass Cannon: You deal increased damage at the cost of taking more damage.
- Elemental Attunement: You gain a chance to reset the cooldown of a random Defensive skill each time you critically strike on attack. This effect triggers on a Lucky Hit.
- Precision Magic: Your Lucky Hit chance is increased.
- Align the Elements: You gain increasing damage reduction against Elites for every second you haven’t taken damage from them. This effect caps at 40 percent damage reduction.
- Protection: You gain a barrier for three seconds every time you use a cooldown.
- Conjuration Mastery: You deal increased damage for every active Conjuration spell.
- Coursing Currents: Your critical strike chance keeps increasing every time you hit an enemy with a Lightning skill. This effect resets after you land a critical strike.
- Electrocution: You take less damage from enemies that have been critically struck by your Lightning skills.
The last part of this section works on the Key Passive ability we will need.
- Vyr’s Mastery: You deal increased Lightning damage to and take less damage from close enemies. Additionally, landing a critical strike increases these bonuses.
Following this, we talk about the Sorcerer’s unique class mechanic.
Arc Lash Sorcerer Enchantments
Enchantment is the Sorcerer’s unique class mechanic. This feature unlocks after completing the Sorcerer’s class quest “Legacy of the Magi” at level 15 and grants them two bonus slots. These slots can contain any of the active skills you have leveled up and use them as passive skills instead. When you use them as passives, they have alternate abilities.
For the purposes of this build, these are the two skills we use as Enchantments.
- Fireball Enchantment: Killing an enemy causes them to explode in a Fireball for half damage.
- Ball Lightning Enchantment: Landing a critical strike has a chance to spawn a static Ball Lightning. This effect triggers on a Lucky Hit.
The final part of this build is the Aspects that we need for our gear in the endgame.
Arc Lash Sorcerer Aspects
Aspects are what we need to imbue our gear with to grant them additional effects, most of them class-specific, in battle. While a few Aspects work well with this build, these are the main Aspects.
- Rapid Aspect: You gain increased attack speed when casting a Basic skill.
- Gravitational Aspect: Your Ball Lightning deals increased damage and orbits around you.
- Aspect of Overwhelming Currents: Your Unstable Currents have a chance to cast an additional Lightning skill upon triggering.
The other Aspects help make this build shine in the endgame.
- Aspect of the Bounding Conduit: You gain increased movement speed after using Teleport.
- Aspect of Control: You deal increased damage to frozen, stunned, or immobilized enemies.
- Aspect of Fortune: Your Lucky Hit chance increases when you have an active barrier.
- Aspect of Disobedience: You gain increased armor every time you deal damage.
- Aspect of Might: You gain damage reduction every time you cast a Basic skill.
- Conceited Aspect: You deal increased damage when you have an active barrier.
- Snowveiled Aspect: You have increased armor and gain Unstoppable when Ice Armor is active.
- Storm Swell Aspect: You deal increased damage to Vulnerable enemies when you have an active barrier.
In addition to these Aspects, a certain unique amulet finishes up this build.
- Esadora’s Overflowing Cameo: Whenever you pick up Crackling Energy, there is a chance to release a Lightning Nova that deals bonus Lightning damage. The damage of the Lightning Nova is increased by 50 percent for every 100 Intelligence your Sorcerer has.
That’s everything you need to know to run a successful Arc Lash Sorcerer. To make it big in the Season of Blood, check out the best Vampiric Powers you will need for your Arc Lash Sorcerer.
