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Will Diablo 4 Patch 1.1.1 Save Sorcerers?
Diablo IV
Publié
07/08/2023 à 09:00
par
Tharid
Some topics in the Diablo community will always spark controversy - Stash space, drop rates, itemization, and the in-game Shop have all been hot topics burning their way through circles of Wanderers since Diablo 4 launched. We've got our own opinions: read on to find out more about our take on the upcoming Sorcerer tuning in Diablo 4!
We're one day away from Patch 1.1.1, better known as the emergency patch that tries to fix at least some issues of the Sorcerer class in Diablo 4. We took a thorough look at the upcoming changes and how they will change the Sorcerer meta and its underlying problems.
Diablo 4 Patch Notes: Patch 1.1.1
Éclair de feu
- Changed to: Fire Bolt generates 2 Mana when hitting an enemy.
As rightly stated by the developers, this change removes the modifier's Burning condition and thus lets
Éclair de feu
generate Mana always and on every first hit. In practice, this won't have a massive impact on Fire Sorc gameplay thanks to great Mana regeneration passives available in the mid and late stages of character progression.
Boule de feu
- Changed to: Casting Fireball increases its radius by 50%.
- Changed to: Fireball's Critical Strike Damage is increased by 20%. This bonus is increased to 30% if Fireball hits 3 or more enemies.
Chaleur ardente
Changed to: Casting Fireball or Meteor increases your Critical Strike Chance by 5% for 5 seconds, up to 15%.
Aspect des trois sortilèges
Changed to: Increased the Critical Strike Damage of Meteor and Fireball by 20%-40%. Double this bonus against Healthy enemies.
Gants de l’Illuminateur
Damage penalty reduced from 65-55% to 43-35%.
Damage to Stunned affix replaced with Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Resource.
Reduced the distance offset per bounce range from 3 to 2.5.
This should make it easier to hit close enemies with Fireball.
The removal of 's distance condition beautifully plays into the boring fact that most Sorcerer builds heavily rely on close combat due to hard-casting Frost Nova, so staying away from your enemies and increasing
Boule de feu
damage only slight still would result in less Vulnerable uptime and overall less damage. Adding a flat 10% Critical Damage to will also increase the skill's single target damage potential.
The changes to
Chaleur ardente
and
Gants de l’Illuminateur
further promote
Boule de feu
gameplay.
Chaleur ardente
has been one of the more lackluster Legendary Paragon nodes - with the change, uptime of the 15% Critical Strike Chance buff should be significantly higher.
At first, the changes made to
Gants de l’Illuminateur
sound good, but we're still unsure if it will make it into an endgame Fireball BiS gear list before seeing the actual changes in terms of on-hit behavior and damage translation.
Regarding damage potential, the change to
Aspect des trois sortilèges
sounds the most promising for
Boule de feu
enjoyers. Getting up to 80% Critical Strike Damage for just simply using your main skill sounds incredible in theory.
Chaîne d’éclairs
- Changed to: Each time Chain Lightning bounces, it deals 5% increased damage for its duration.
- Changed to: Chance to form Crackling Energy increased from 25% to 30%.
Aspect de rechargement
Changed to: Each time Chain Lightning bounces, you gain 1.5-3 Mana.
Aspect du lien intact
Bonus Chain Lightning bounces increased from 2 to 4.
In terms of Skill changes, the
Chaîne d’éclairs
buffs with Patch 1.1.1 sound the most exciting - but why?
First off, the change is absolutely massive. Right now, "next hit damage" only increases after
Chaîne d’éclairs
has hit you as a player. While the intention sounds great in single-target damage theory, the fact that the damage increase only happen when one of the five possible bounces is "wasted" on yourself felt very underwhelming. Not only does the upcoming change solve that issue - it also introduces damage scaling with up to 25% increased damage on the fifth
Chaîne d’éclairs
bounce. In comparison, the buff to is relatively small but still very much welcomed.
And the
Chaîne d’éclairs
buffs keep coming in the Aspects section:
Aspect du lien intact
receives a whopping 100% increase to a maximum of 4 additional bounces which will do wonders to the skill's clearing potential. The corresponding
Aspect de rechargement
change makes sense to keep Mana regeneration for upcoming builds around
Chaîne d’éclairs
in check while removing the silly "off you" condition.
Virtuosité de Vyr
Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%.
New Aspect - Mage-Lord's Aspect
Increase Vyr's Mastery Key Passive's Damage Reduction by 6-9% for each Close enemy, up to 18-27%.
Ever since Diablo 4's release,
Virtuosité de Vyr
has been a pretty mediocre Keystone passive choice for most Lightning Sorcerers, so a relative 50% damage bonus increase is certainly a good first step. The addition of the brand-new Mage-Lord's Aspect, however, will have great impact on all Lightning builds using
Virtuosité de Vyr
with up to 47% Damage Reduction against 3 or more close enemies. In fact, this new aspect could definitely replace
Habit de l’Infini
, especially in higher Nightmare dungeon tiers, to add incredible amounts of defense thanks to a well-rolled rare chest combined with Mage-Lords Aspect.
Férocité d’Esu
Additional functionality: Both bonuses are also granted for 3 seconds when hitting a Boss with a Critical Strike.
Combustion
Changed to: Your Burning effects deal x20% increased damage, plus an additional x2% increased damage per unique source of Burning you have applied to the enemy.
Aspect du serpent
Changed to: You may have 1 additional Hydra active, and Hydra's duration is increased by 14-24%. This now also affects Hydra's Enchantment Effect.
Aspect de conflagration
Bonus Burning damage increased from 20-30% to 20-40%.
Aspect du brasier ardent
Bonus Burning damage increased from 30-40% to 60-80%.
Aspect du marche-flammes
Bonus Movement Speed duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
Aspect incendiaire
Changed to: Lucky Hit: Damage from your Pyromancy skills has up to a 12-17% chance to restore 10 Mana.
The changes to both Fire-related Keystone passives will make a massive difference for virtually every Fire Sorc build out there.
Férocité d’Esu
proccing both buffs on boss critical hits will tremendously help with single-target issues, while new 20% damage base of
Combustion
alone will make a lot of Burning-related Fire builds much more viable in the long run - especially if the wonderful Barber Malignant Heart will be no more after Season 1.
The Fire-related aspect changes outside of
Boule de feu
sound great in theory but shouldn't add too much actual value in the short run:
Hydra duration was never an issue, Incinerate won't suddenly take off as a main skill because of a mere 10% Burning Damage increase, and more Bonus Burning damage from
Aspect du brasier ardent
will only make the only existing good Fire Sorc build (also known as Conjuration Hydra Sorc) better.
Regarding the utility aspect changes for Fire, both buffs to
Aspect du marche-flammes
and
Aspect incendiaire
are undoubtedly lovely but won't change Fire gameplay whatsoever.
Aspect de gravité
Changed to: Ball Lightning orbits around you and deals 15-25% increased damage.
Aspect chargé
Bonus Movement Speed duration increased from 4 to 8 seconds.
Aspect de conduction bondissante
Bonus Movement Speed increased from 20-25% to 25-30%.
Conduction incessante
Increased Crackling Energy's damage from 2% to 3% per 20 Intelligence the player has.
While we don't really care about the removal of Blizzard's "kiss curse" approach to
Aspect du serpent
, we certainly welcome the same removal for
Aspect de gravité
. This will turn
Sphère foudroyante
into one of the best main skills for all Lightning Sorcerers and be a serious contender against Chain Lightning.
The three other Lightning-related changes coming with the new patch put the archetype more in line with other build choices in the Fire and Frost departments while focussing even more on movement speed bonuses. The 50% buff to
Conduction incessante
will definitely add more value to builds that revolve around Crackling Energy synergy.
Aspect d’orbite gelée
Damage increased from 20-30% to 30-40%.
Aspect du voile de neige
Unstoppable duration increased from 2-3 seconds to 3-5 seconds. Additional functionality: Also grants 10% bonus Armor for 3-5 seconds.
Aspect du garde-neige
Changed to: While within your own Blizzard and for 3 seconds after leaving it, you take 20-25% less damage.
To absolutely noone's surprise, Frost Sorcs won't get a whole lot of buffs. However, a lot of Diablo 2 fans will love to see the buff to
Orbe gelé
, which has been seeing more and more play over the last few days, especially as an Enchantment choice.
The change to
Aspect du voile de neige
won't turn it into the Defensive aspect of choice but will add a lot of utility in the earlier stages of character progression.
Last but not least,
Aspect du garde-neige
buff honestly comes as a bit of a surprise since Blizzard Sorc has slowly turned into one of the most powerful Sorc builds in Season 1 - however, it obviously suffers from the same lack of defensive capabilities, so we take what we can get!
Aspect de concentration
Mana Regeneration increased from 20-30% to 40-50%.
Duration requirement to gain its benefit reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
Aspect de tempête grondante
Bonus damage increased from 11-20% to 21-30%.
We honestly like the change to
Aspect de concentration
a lot as it opens up other ways to increase Mana regeneration outside of
Aspect de l’ombre
and
Aspect de prodige
. By the way - the "not taken damage" part of this applies only to losing Health, so builds with high Barrier uptime will get even more out of this.
A lot of builds already use
Aspect de tempête grondante
as one of their BiS aspects, so this hefty buff comes as a surprise. However, it still is a very situational aspect that depends on both Vulnerable and Barrier uptime, so the buff won't be as influential compared to other gameplay-related buffs.
Renforcement
Damage reduction increased from 10% to 15%.
Territoire
Damage reduction increased from 10% to 15%.
Tutélaire
Damage reduction increased from 13% to 25%.
Dépositaire des flammes
Damage reduction increased from 4% to 5%.
Bonus damage reduction increased from 4% to 5%.
Braises fumantes
Damage reduction increased from 4% to 5%.
Bonus damage reduction from Burning enemies increased from 4% to 5%.
Garde
Damage reduction increased from 4% to 5%.
Bonus damage reduction from Vulnerable enemies increased from 4% to 5%.
Oppression
Bonus damage reduction from Vulnerable enemies increased from 4% to 5%.
Résilience à la foudre
Maximum Life bonus increased from 4% to 6%.
First off: We believe that these Paragon changes make a lot of sense. Fine-tuning only Burning- and Vulnerable-related defensive nodes is the way to go for a mid-season upgrade. Also, the damage reduction increases to
Renforcement
and
Territoire
in particular straight up buff 90% of all Sorc builds.
However, we'd have loved to see some much-needed changes to two major Paragon Board issues: First, Damage Reduction against Chilled enemies right now is almost useless - why not turn these into something else for the time being like general Damage Reduction or Armor? Second, the Resistance Issue - why not transform all Resistance bonuses on the Sorc board into Health and Armor bonuses? Maybe too much wishful thinking for now.
Overall, the Sorcerer changes coming with Patch 1.1.1 look fantastic - but only if you remember that we're discussing a mid-season patch. Compared to other classes, Sorcerers still rank dead last in terms of defensive capabilities purely because Resistances in Diablo 4 are underperforming compared to other defensive stats. We'd also love to see more meta-expanding changes to Core/Mastery skills and a solution to the "Want Vulnerable? Use Frost Nova!" dilemma. However, we want to emphasize that this emergency patch certainly feels like a first big step in the right direction to fix some of the core issues of the Sorcerer class in Diablo 4!
What are your thoughts about the upcoming Sorcerer changes? Do you think these tweaks are enough for now, or is the tuning too little, too late? Let us know in the comments below!
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