Sorc builds in 1.1

Mage
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So, I’m new to Sorc. I didn’t play them in 1.0, only played Necro and Marksman so far in the first cycle, so I’m not familiar with their specifics. I’ll be honest, I’m intentionally going into this partially blind because I enjoy trying to figure out the characters and builds to a degree and not knowing all the uniques ahead of time so they can still blow my mind when they drop for the first time. So I didn’t read the patch notes, I don’t know any of the new items or changes to the class, not like it would matter since I never played one yet to compare it to.

That being said… in the limited research I did when trying to choose a class and mastery and ultimately landed on Sorc, I’m still not sure which elemental direction or skills I wanna focus. what are people’s opinions on the various skill focuses Sorc has available in 1.1? I’m not trying to go for meta, just curious if Sorc builds could be compared like, in terms of Fun vs Strong vs Tanky vs Fast etc. how would you personally rank them?

Historically I prefer lightning builds on mage/sorc classes, with Fire coming in second. I really love spells that auto-target enemies like chain lightnings or arcane missile-style with lots of little enemy-seeking hits. I have also rly enjoyed disintegrate on wiz in D3. But I read that lightning besides Static Orb might be a bit weak at the moment, while Glacier is great now and may be the most end-game viable, but at initial glance, Meteor seems like it could have higher damage potential.

What are all your thoughts on Sorc builds in 1.1? I’m down to play something that may be the most fun to play even if it’s a bit weaker, just as long as it’s not trash. I don’t want to struggle but I also admittedly got a bit bored with how super passive Necro was last season (yet amazingly effective and still was super fun to build).

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In 1.0 I ran a spreading flames fireball / meteor sorc (with fire aura for any situations I’m in danger or need more burst, mana strike for mana recovery, and black hole primarily for extra dps on big and relatively immobile targets like bosses (also good for arena waves etc for what it’s worth). It worked great, it was very powerful and was easily my second most powerful class and a blast to play.

I’m likely going to keep rolling with that build in 1.1, as it was strictly buffed in multiple different ways. Early game spreading flames will kill whole screens of enemies before you even see them if you pump it up enough, and late game smashing stuff with meteors is a ton of fun.

Of note fireball, meteor and fire aura can all be converted to lightning, and there’s a more damage node for meteor if it does non-fire damage to support it. But you need to use a set staff for that and I don’t love sets in this game, plus the fire penetration from the craterborn buff from meteor doesn’t convert, which is why I personally didn’t do it. Still, could be good times if you’re into it.

Non meteor builds, there’s all sorts of options out there. Biggest thing for Sorc is you want a big spenders which dumps mana for huge damage and takes advantage of the Sorc mastery (50+ mana cost preferred), a spammable ability which deals well with trash mobs, and a mana recovery tool, regardless of what the rest of your build looks like. Any spells look particularly intriguing to you as build around primary abilities?

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Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed response, I super appreciate it. I was lucky enough to get that unique Torch to drop last night which has already been inspiring some stuff…

I know I def want teleport without a doubt, even with the new evade. I was checking out Glacier cause dang that was rly super strong but Disintegrate is crazy strong already too. Both are rly fun, though over the years I’ve been shying away a little more from channeling builds that you can’t move while casting because it really slows down the flow and also puts you at more risk for damage.

Now, I saw Fireball had some skill pts for adding a bunch of additional projectiles and one to make them target enemies so that could be fun. I think I may try to figure out what options there are for auto-targetting across other spells.

4

Let’s see… this is off the top of my head, so I may be incorrect.

  • Static Orb got a damage nerf, but very likely still deletes bosses instantly.
  • Surge charge-up and nuke was pretty OP and also didn’t change.
  • Lightning Meteor worked quite well in 1.0. It got buffed with other high manacost Sorcerers in 1.1.
  • Spark Charge spam builds had very little changes.
  • Mana Strike proc builds stayed the same as before.
  • Lightning Blast (without Spark Charges) received a nerf to Closed Circuit, so you can’t use it as a singular skill to both clear maps and kill bosses anymore. But Lightning Blast is used in proc based builds, spark charge builds and Runic Invocation builds, so in general it also lives a pretty good life :wink:
  • Lightning Runic Invocation also works. I haven’t played RM myself, and I skipped the two hour long video of one that I saw … but it was 1000c, so it works :sweat_smile:
  • Glyph of Domination build is also a thing, but again, haven’t played RM, refer to YT videos.
  • Lightning Frost Claw can generate a ton of Ward, but on its own the damage is weak.
  • Lightning Fireball got Lightning Shred in 1.1, so maybe it could be a thing now?
  • Disintegrate got some changes in 1.1, but I still wouldn’t touch it with a 10ft long pole :smiley:
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5

Thank you for all those details on various lightning builds and fire combos. I love how the skills in Last Epoch have so much room to be changed to alternate damage types or adding additional tags to benefit from. It creates so many interesting build options… Plus I love how it changes the appearance of the skills too. I’ll prob try to find some videos for these so I can see a showcase of how they appear to get an idea of what I may enjoy.

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I haven’t played a super ton yet, I think I’m only around lvl 60 but after I got into Monoliths, I was hitting kind of a wall where it felt like the Glacier builds I had tested out just were feeling not fun. Glacier / Teleport / Ice Barrage / Flame Ward / Arcane Ascendance is currently what I’m using, basically the build from TheCurse. I have tested some things out but maybe Mage just isn’t for me in this game, I just feel like I’m not really having as much fun with it.

Everything has been extremely easy so far, though I can still die pretty fast if I’m not paying attention so that does keep it a little interesting. It is fairly fun movement-wise because I have high mvt speed and teleport, so I’m pretty fast which I love.

I don’t like the Glacier 3 blast bcs it takes just a little too long for the 3rd strike to hit, but the two blast, while it’s a lot faster and I like it, it also feels like, I don’t know, too easy. Like it feels like I’m just doing basically one attack over and over… and over and over… and it’s just a massive AoE blast. I have a ton of mana, and the two blast costs hardly any, so I can just spam it. But it’s boring.

I almost feel like I would enjoy Frost Claw more, I may try to switch, but I didn’t really see any fun homing skills in any of the trees like I was hoping for. Ice Barrage like, kind of does, but it’s just a single click and it goes until it’s done, and I don’t like how it’s locked in a single direction. I wish it was like, a free-movement channeled skill, like I could toggle it on and off, or actively change the direction of it while moving. like, it DOES add strategy, similar to Glacier, in that I have to consider my positioning in relation to the enemies. But everything dies in like 1 hit so most of the time I cast it feels pointless anyway. Especially since Glacier takes them out in 1 hit so I don’t even need to have Ice Barrage just continuing to shoot nothing. This is gonna sound stupid probably but Disintegrate was more fun as a skill, but again, less fun because have to stop to shoot and can’t move while doing it. Same problem in D4 actually, though it looks like PoE 2 is going to separate movement and channeling so you can aim and fire freely in any direction while still moving separately.

I don’t know how to even describe exactly what my issue with everything is, but I actually had way more fun playing Necro before and loving the synergy between all the different minions and the elements they could do and all the different ways they could summon and surprisingly it felt WAY more dynamic than this build, despite the minions themselves doing the damage. I still had exploding zombies for a casting attack so I wasn’t just no-clicking (I tried running without that and it was so ugh).

But yeah in general, I think it just kind of feels kind of weird to have all my strength in a single uninteresting attack, with my other skills basically just to further buff my defense, mvt, or damage of the one attack. Same reason I ended up not enjoying the Wraith Lord though when I tried that on Necro. I prefer having more dynamic, multi-attack builds where each is viable for different purposes and reasons,. Maybe it’s a sorc thing, since its whole gimmick is basically doing more damage with big mana attacks. Maybe I should’ve done Runemaster or even Spellblade.

7

You can use the Fading Echoes node to fix that.

Just because your guide says to use Glacier and Ice Barrage, doesn’t mean you cannot use anything else y’know?

Free movement channeled skills are Warpath and Ghostflame for example. There are some non-channeled too, like Maelstorm and Judgement specced into aura.

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Thank you for the feedback. To clarify, I’m not committed to build guides, it honestly takes a lot of fun out of the whole thing. I just haven’t had a ton of time to familiarize myself with the class well enough to figure out all the connections btwn the skills. I hadn’t noticed the fading echoes node before switching glacier to 2 blast, so I didn’t consider it necessary at the time but didn’t think about it being used in the 3 blast version again… It is intriguing, though I think I’d miss the range a little bit. The two blast is doing fine for the damage and stuff anyway, as far as Glacier goes so that hasn’t been an issue for me since I switched to 2 blast. It’s just more of an issue with the skill as a whole, I think.

But yeah I’m thinking about switching to some other builds entirely and just abandoning ice altogether, but that’s just taking me back to trying to figure out if those other mage skills would be better suited for RM or SB instead of sorc. But if I were gonna just roll a new character at this point, I’d prob just try a different class altogether. I haven’t played Warlock or any Sentinel yet so both of those abilities you mentioned seem fun and I appreciate some free-mvt channeled abilities exist in the game.

But I think as far as Sorc goes, I think I may give in and check out all the uniques to see if anything seems interesting otherwise swap to meteor before I put the mastery aside. Am I wrong in thinking that Frost Claw seems better for SB or RM?