The sorcerer’s mastery tree has always been acknowledged as a glass cannon tree for relative lack of defense. But even for glass cannons it’s restrictive, and most importantly defense should be an option.
These rework ideas aim to solve both issues in a thematically fitting way, starting from the left side of the tree.
“Calculated Destruction” and “Brainstorm” are popular nodes and need no change.
“Mana shell” receives an 8 point bonus: You gain increased armour equal to 0.1% of your max mana. This is a 20-30% increase to armour for most mage builds that pick an average amount of mana!
“Lost Knowledge” now requires 5 points, adding 14 ward per point. This node is helpful for heavy hitters to gain a burst of defense while stuck in casting, but costs too much at the moment.
“Arcane Momentum” is a great node to support more spammy builds and needs no change.
“Wisdom” no longer grants intelligence. Instead, it adds “+2% of mana spent gained as ward” per point. Sorcerer barely has any ward to retain at the moment, intelligence rather belongs on the spellblade tree while this gives the sorcerer a valid source for small amounts of ward.
“Pyromancer/Cryomancer/Ceraunomancer” are combined into a node with “+6% increased elemental damage” and “+3% chance to apply elemental ailments” (Ignite with fire skills, shock with lightning skills, chill with cold skills). These nodes are a stark limitation for multi-elemental skills and the main purpose of this change is to increase build variety.
“Lavamancer/Chill to the Bone/Rift Bolt”: are combined into a node with “+3% elemental penetration” and “+0.3% elemental damage leech”. Same as above, this enables multi-element builds.
These changes make room for new nodes in this area of the tree!
NEW: node with 5 max points that grants “+5% mana regeneration” per point, but “spells cost +1 mana” per point. 5 point bonus: Gain 0.5% of your negative mana as base mana regeneration.
Mana is a controversial topic. It is meant to be a DPS-limiting resource, yet players don’t find it enjoyable to be out of mana for long durations. With the sorcerer being THE mana-based mastery, it is valid to try out a recovery method that doesn’t apply to sustained casting, but specifically to builds that manage to spend a large amount of mana quickly since those are the builds that force you to interact with the mana mechanic/limitation the most.
NEW: node with 10 max points and “2% of damage taken from mana before health” per point and +2 mana per point. This is one of the intended defense layers for sorcerers, but underrepresented in ways to acquire it.
NEW: Node with 1 max point that requires 5 points in the node above. “Gain a burst of mana when you take a melee hit (20 mana, 10 second cooldown)”.
“Whirling Snow” now also offers “20% freeze rate multiplier” per point to compensate for the merging of “Cryomancer” and the loss of value as the only chill source.
“Afterglow” is a node that I’ve never seen any feedback on. Write your opinion in a comment!
“Inferno” now has an 8 point bonus: “Ignited enemies grant 1 ward when they die”. Ward on kill is also underrepresented, mostly being found on a mage relic. And since builds using damage over time are much more vulnerable at high corruption anyways, this node adds some more sustain.
“Arcane Avalanche” now inflicts frozen enemies with 1 stack of frostbite.
“Crackling Precision”, “Arcane Obliteration” and “Distant Spark” are very popular nodes that need no changes.
“Arcane Insight” now grants “20% increased insight effect” per point and no longer grants intelligence. This node is popular, but a 1-point node for spammy builds since 5% chance are enough to keep the buff active for a decent percentage of time. With this change, it gives fewer passive benefits but packs all the intelligence benefits into the active buff at max points to give more reason to place 10 points here.
“Elixir of Knowledge” now grants ward equal to a percentage of your missing mana, rather than intelligence.
“Chronomancy”, “Spell Slinger”, “Elemental Ascendance”, “Dragon Mage/Breath” and “Warder” need no changes, with the multi-element nodes becoming more viable through changes earlier in this suggestion.
“Arcane Current” now grants “10% increased shock effect” per point to counteract the 50% stack nerf to shock.
“Recollection” and “Archmage” are popular nodes and need no change.
NEW: node connected to “Dragon Breath” with 1 max point. “Your ignite chance is doubled if you haven’t ignited recently”, “your shock chance is doubled if you haven’t shocked recently”, “your chill chance is doubled if you haven’t chilled recently”. This node makes ailments more accessible for slow-hitting builds in general, but especially for slow-hitting multi-elemental builds.
That’s all, those are the things I would change on the sorcerer’s mastery tree. It’s not a druid-tier rework, but all shortcomings aside the sorcerer is simply fun to play. He’s in a good spot, he just doesn’t really have any unique strengths which has been brought up frequently on the discord, so I tried my best to dig up these unique mechanics and give them a place on this tree.
Time for your opinions! Would you like to see these changes as well? Would you add any new nodes that I left out?
(Limitations of this post: I have no statistics to prove that nodes are popular, even the devs don’t have these metrics. I refer to what I’ve used and seen in build guides over my 493 hours of playtime, and more time on Lastepochtools 
. I have also only played 2 multi-element builds so far since they are still, despite my suggestions, harder to gear. But this way at least they won’t be at a skill point disadvantage 
)
