When it comes to raw damage, no Diablo 4 class does it better than the Sorcerer. As powerful as most elemental builds are, however, none are perhaps as adept at dealing damage per second (DPS) as the Ice Shards build. This is how you make a powerful endgame DPS Sorcerer build.
Ice Shards Sorcerer build guide in Diablo 4
Unlike most Sorcerer builds, the Ice Shards build is less conventional because of the way you play it. While most Ice Sorcerers choose to focus on classic Diablo 2 skills like Blizzard and Frozen Orb, an alternate playstyle for Ice Sorcerers brings Ice Shards to the forefront. While the skill is not the best at sustained damage, the damage per second of Ice Shards is one of the highest in the game.
Ice Shards is a Core skill that fires out a flurry of frozen projectiles at your enemies. The projectiles break upon impact, dealing damage. The damage dealt by this skill is further increased when you hit enemies that are already Frozen. To further improve this skill, we pick up Aspect of Piercing Cold later to allow Ice Shards to pierce through multiple enemies, improving its crowd control abilities.
As is with most skills in Diablo 4, Ice Shards can be upgraded with one mandatory upgrade and one of two optional upgrades. For this build, these are the choices we have gone with.
- Enhanced Ice Shards: The mandatory upgrade. Your Ice Shards have a chance to ricochet off enemies that are hit by the impact. Frozen enemies will always cause the projectiles to ricochet.
- Greater Ice Shards: As long as you have a Barrier active, your Ice Shards always receive the same bonuses as they would if they hit Frozen enemies.
Enhanced Ice Shards being the mandatory upgrade for this skill is perfect because they increase the damage potential and crowd control of this skill even further. The ricocheting projectiles also improve area coverage and, with more pierce potential, Ice Shards can clear screens of enemies.
Since our passives (that we select later) and our eventual gear will focus on Barriers, Greater Ice Shards can be used to their maximum potential. The guaranteed Frozen bonuses on this upgrade make it so that you are getting everything Ice Shards has to offer as long as you have a Barrier up.
Next, we choose the remaining five skills for this build.
Ice Shards Sorcerer skill progression
The remaining five abilities we select will complement our Ice Shards with defensive skills, allowing us to crowd-control enemies while keeping us safe from harm.
- Ice Shards: Our Core skill of choice and the basis of this build.
- Deep Freeze: The Ultimate skill of this build. You freeze yourself, turning immune while damaging and Chilling all enemies. Once the effect ends, you deal additional bonus damage.
Since this build doesn’t utilize any Basic skills, we start off with our Ultimate skill of choice. Deep Freeze is a defensive skill that encases you in ice for four seconds. During this period, you are immune to damage and deal damage per second to all enemies while Chilling them. After you thaw out, the shell explodes, dealing burst damage to all enemies.
The repeated Chill effects will leave enemies Frozen which is perfect for Prime Deep Freeze since it grants you a damage-blocking Barrier. This Barrier starts off at 10 percent of your max life and increases depending on how many enemies were Frozen during Deep Freeze. Supreme Deep Freeze takes it up a notch by resetting all of your non-Ultimate cooldowns once Deep Freeze ends.
- 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.
Teleport is a must-have skill in any Sorcerer build, the mobility from this skill is too good to ever pass up. Whenever you’re stuck in a dangerous situation, simply Teleport out of there. If you land near a bunch of enemies after teleporting, Enhanced Teleport will reduce the skill’s cooldown per enemy hit. Additionally, Shimmering Teleport will grant you damage reduction at your arrival location.
Frost Nova is a powerful defensive and crowd-control skill that releases a wave of frost. This wave pulses outwards from you and freezes every enemy that gets hit. You can keep up this assault consistently with Enhanced Frost Nova’s cooldown reduction each time you kill a Frozen enemy. This is helped by Mystical Frost Nova which also turns all Frozen enemies vulnerable.
- 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.
Since this build focuses a lot on barrier generation, we add Ice Armor into our arsenal. This barrier is purely defensive and absorbs all damage you take from enemies based on your max life. Enhanced Ice Armor grants you bonus Mana regeneration while the skill is active. Shimmering Ice Armor lets you freeze enemies that hit you during the active duration of Ice Armor.
The other barrier skill we pick up is Flame Shield, a fiery barrier that makes you immune to damage while it burns all enemies around you. This skill is perfect to use when your Deep Freeze is on cooldown, especially with Enhanced Flame Shield’s increased movement speed buff. If your health drops low, Shimmering Flame Shield will heal you for up to 50 percent of your max life.
Ice Shards Sorcerer passives
The passive skills we pick up for this build will synergize with the active skills we chose. They 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.
- Mana Shield: You gain damage reduction each time you spend 100 mana.
- Protection: You gain a barrier for three seconds every time you use a cooldown.
- Inner Flames: You deal increased Fire damage when you are healthy.
- Devouring Blaze: You deal increased critical strike damage to burning enemies. Additionally, this bonus is increased even further if the enemies are immobilized as well.
- Permafrost: You deal increased damage to Elites with Cold damage.
- Icy Touch: You deal increased damage to Vulnerable enemies with Cold damage.
- Hoarfrost: You deal increased damage to Chilled enemies. The bonus damage is doubled against Frozen enemies.
- Frigid Breeze: You generate Mana when you deal damage to Vulnerable enemies with Cold damage. This effect triggers on a Lucky Hit.
The last part of this section works on the Key Passive ability we will need.
- Avalanche: When you cast a Frost skill, you gain a chance to cast the next Ice Shards, Blizzard, or Frozen Orb for no cost and 40 percent increased damage. The damage bonus is doubled against Vulnerable enemies.
The next section deals with the Sorcerer’s unique class mechanic.
Ice Shards Sorcerer Enchantments
The Sorcerer’s unique class mechanic, Enchantment Slots, unlocks at level 15 once you complete the Sorcerer’s class quest titled “Legacy of the Magi.” This class mechanic grants the Sorcerer two bonus slots which can be equipped with active skills. These active skills grant bonus passive abilities that trigger every time you cast a spell. Depending on the passive, you can trigger unique effects.
For the purposes of this build, these are the two skills we use as Enchantments.
- Fire Bolt Enchantment: You deal additional burning damage to enemies when you cast a skill.
- Ice Shards Enchantment: Your Ice Shards conjure and fly toward Frozen enemies automatically.
The additional burning damage is great to have when you spam your Ice Shards, which will also passively spawn each time you freeze enemies.
The final part of this build is the Aspects that we need for our gear.
Ice Shards Sorcerer Aspects
Aspects are the final part of this build. These are bonuses you can imbue into your gear to gain additional effects equivalent to Legendary gear. These are the crucial Aspects of this build.
- Aspect of Frozen Memories: You gain an additional cast on your Avalanche Key Passive.
- Aspect of Piercing Cold: Your Ice Shards pierce through enemies multiple times, dealing less damage the more they splinter.
The rest of these Aspects round off this build.
- 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 Shared Misery: You gain a chance to spread a crowd-control effect to an unaffected enemy when you hit a crowd-controlled enemy.
- Conceited Aspect: You deal increased damage when you have an active barrier.
- Elementalist’s Aspect: You gain an increased critical strike chance when you cast a Core or Mastery skill while you are at or over 100 mana.
- Prodigy’s Aspect: You restore Mana every time you use a cooldown.
- 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.
That’s the end of the Ice Shards build. With season two now in full swing, check out the best Vampiric Powers you will need for your endgame builds.
