Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Guide
Welcome to the Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Guide! This build is a favorite among Sorcerers for getting started in the Endgame because it starts strong from the leveling process and stays strong as it progresses.
The source of your damage is Glacial, which creates Ice Spikes in the area of your Blizzard. Lightning Spear will apply Vulnerable to groups of enemies. Ice Blades will apply Vulnerable to single targets and provide cooldown reduction. All of your Conjuration Skills will increase your damage and Mana regeneration with Conjuration Mastery. Unstable Currents will produce extra conjurations with our shock skills, Teleport Enchantment can also trigger extra conjurations. Familiars summoned by Unstable Currents are currently always Fire, allowing you to burn easily.
Your Defensive Skills are powerful and make staying alive easier. Flame Shield provides Immune for a few seconds which is invaluable for avoiding dangerous stacks in Pits along with providing Unstoppable. Ice Armor will provide a large Barrier and a damage increase from Storm Swell, it will also provide Unstoppable and damage reduction with Snowveiled.
Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop is a large part of our gameplay until acquiring Ring of Starless Skies, requiring us to stack our three different elemental skills and then rotate two of them to maintain the stacks. Make sure to cast one of each element at the start of combat. Enlightenment will also require you to rotate two different elements to maintain your bonuses, Teleport Enchantment will make this easy.
Blizzard Sorcerer is an easy build that starts strong and scales well. It's damage will ramp up in an area over time and is best against low mobility single targets. It has great defensive tools and constantly crowd controls everything that gets near. Let's jump in and see what it's all about!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Sorcerer Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Season Theme
Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:
- Seething Opal of Equipment
- Seething Opal of Gold
- Seething Opal of Materials
- Seething Opal of Torment
- Seething Opal of Socketables
Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Blizzard is your primary damage skill but produces it's damage through Glacial rather than the main skill ranks. You can cast Blizzard to blanket an area with Ice Spikes and lure enemies into it.
- Familiar will provide stacks of Conjuration Mastery and burn enemies with Enhanced Familiar. You won't summon the Familiars manually, instead they are created by Unstable Currents.
- Lightning Spear applies Vulnerable to groups of enemies and stuns to help stagger bosses and crowd control enemies before they can react.
- Ice Blades applies Vulnerable to single targets and also reduces the cooldown of your skills with Summoned Ice Blades.
- Flame Shield makes you Immune for a few seconds, a powerful mechanic to avoid any damage and also provides Unstoppable, you can use this to avoid dangerous stacks from Pit bosses. You will also need to use it for your Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop Pyromancy Skill until you acquire Ring of Starless Skies.
- Teleport is taken for the Enchantment and provides damage reduction thanks to Shimmering Teleport. The Enchantment will stack your Enlightenment when rotating with Blizzard.
- Ice Armor provides a large Barrier along with damage bonuses from Storm Swell, while Ice Armor is active you can reduce it's cooldown by spending more Mana thanks to Shimmering Ice Armor but with Harlequin Crest you can easily take the damage increase with Mystical Ice Armor.
- Unstable Currents will provide attack speed along with a chance to summon a Familiar or Lightning Spear every time you cast your Teleport Enchantment. Casting Lightning Spear also has a chance to summon a Familiar while Unstable Currents is active. You will need to use your Teleport Enchantment to evade through enemies, this will reset your Unstable Currents cooldown with Flickerstep.
Skill Rotation
- Start with Ice Armor to activate Storm Swell and cast Blizzard in your path or on enemies as you approach while using Teleport Enchantment to stack Enlightenment.
- Cast Unstable Currents and maintain it by using your Teleport Enchantment to activate Flickerstep by evading through enemies while you cast Blizzard.
- Cast Lightning Spear and Ice Blades when available.
- Once you stack Enlightenment, make sure to focus on casting Blizzard until you need to stack it again or move.
- (On Bosses) Keep an eye on the stagger bar and prepare to nuke right when it fills as many of our damage modifiers rely on crowd controls.
Sorcerer Enchantments
Teleport provides amazing mobility along with stacking Enlightenment.
Ice Blades provides extra conjurations for Conjuration Mastery stacking, increasing your damage and mana regeneration.
Fire Bolt can be used for faster application of burning while speedfarming without needing to maintain Unstable Currents.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our in our full Sorcerer Enchantment Guide.
Paragon & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Use the slider to see the progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.
Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Paragon
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
- Stalagmite will be used in the early Endgame but will be replaced once enough critical strike chance can be attained in the Pit variant.
To Level 15
- Winter
- Tactician
- Stalagmite
- Destruction
- Elementalist
- Unleash
To Level 46
- Destruction
- Winter
- Tactician
- Elementalist
- Stalagmite
- Unleash
There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Runes
You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Blizzard Sorcerer focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Cem + Ohm provides extra damage and Tam + Gar will provide additional critical strike chance.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Lith + Kry will group enemies for Pit pushing, dropping the Tam + Gar since Heir of Perdition will provide plenty of critical strike chance.
- Tam + Wat and Xol + Ohm. This combination works well for a defensive setup.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees:
Hired: Subo
- Subo is a great choice for casual gameplay thanks to his passive Seeker that reveals enemies and objects, this is a nice quality of life addition and also gives some Mana sustain. Grab Wire Trap along with Ready At Hand for some mobility. Next you pick Cover Fire with the damage increase from Opening Fire.
- Raheir is a great alternative if you don't mind dropping the maphack, Valiance is an amazing defensive tool that will prevent damage from large hits along with give you Unstoppable. Take Ground Slam and grab Raheir's Aegis for extra defense. Next you want Bastion with Inspiration. Valiance is a very powerful mechanic for pushing more difficult content or playing on Hardcore.
Reinforcement: Raheir
- Raheir will potentially save your character with his reinforcement Bastion. Setting this to trigger on Injured can keep you going in difficult encounters.
- Varyana is a great alternative to Raheir if you are either using Raheir as your hired or if you just want some extra damage. Bloodthirst will give some extra attack speed and you can set it on any attack.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Blizzard Sorcerer to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 35%+ Cooldown Reduction
- 40%+ Attack Speed
- 40%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 2000+ Intelligence
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 3,500+ Life
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Blizzard Sorcerer, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Blizzard Sorcerer from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
- Early on in your progression, focus on Armor & Resistances to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% all Res and it's recommended to keep both capped (1000 Armor, 70+ Res) at all times. As you unlock higher power gear, masterworking levels and more Paragon points, you naturally scale your character into the higher difficulties and can start replacing some of these rolls with offensive or utility stats.
- Cooldown reduction is a priority when we get started to maintain our Vulnerable uptime with Lightning Spear and Ice Blades.
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
- As you upgrade your gear to Ancestrals with more masterworking levels and reach higher paragon, you can focus more and more on replacing Armor & Resistance rolls with better stats, but ensure to stay capped at 1000 Armor and 70%+ Resistances for the difficulty you're currently in.
- Flickerstep will help reset your Unstable Currents along with reducing your Teleport cooldown.
- Godslayer Crown will provide cooldown reduction and additional burst on elites.
- Blue Rose improves your Ice Spikes significantly and will be used for all variants.
- Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop will provide cooldown reduction and damage.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
- Shroud of False Death has amazing offensive and defensive bonuses to make it an easy choice for most gameplay.
- Ring of Starless Skies provides great damage and drastically reduces your Mana cost.
- Harlequin Crest is used for quality of life thanks to massive cooldown reduction.
This Speedfarming variant optimizes the build for easy activities like Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons and lower Pit Tiers after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
- Raiment of the Infinite can help group enemies quickly at the cost of defenses compared to Shroud of False Death.
This setup optimizes the build to push the highest possible Tiers in The Pit after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
- Heir of Perdition is used to maximize our offense at the cost of cooldown reduction and defense.
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
What can I do to improve survivability?
How can I trigger Unstoppable?
Which adjustments should I make on Hardcore?
Mechanics
Ice Spikes
Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop
Enlightenment
Attack Speed Caps
Stagger
Video Guide
Summary
The Blizzard Sorcerer is an easy to play and powerful Endgame build but will require some luck to find a good Glacial aspect.
- Maintain Enlightenment easily with Blizzard and Teleport Enchantment.
- Lure enemies into your Blizzard stack and try to keep bosses from moving too much by staying close.
- Use Unstable Currents to produce additional conjurations, increasing your damage and mana regeneration. Maintain it by evading through enemies with Teleport.
Credits
Written by pandaglassjaw