Blizzard Sorcerer Endgame Guide
Last Updated:October 6, 2024|Change Log|FAQ
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. You will mainly be casting Blizzard, combined with Hydra to rotate for your key passive Enlightenment. Lightning Spear will apply Vulnerable to groups of enemies. Ice Blades will apply Vulnerable to single targets and provide cooldown reduction.
Your Defensive Skills are powerful and make staying alive easier, however you drop Flame Shield for portions of our gameplay for more Conjurations, you can consider Flame Shield over Ice Blades but keep points in Summoned Ice Blades for your Ice Blades Enchantment. Teleport will allow you to reposition for damage or defense along with providing Unstoppable. Ice Armor will provide a large Barrier and a damage increase thanks to Storm Swell.
Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop is a large part of our gameplay, requiring us to stack our three different elements and then rotate two of them to maintain the stacks. With enough cooldown reduction this will be much easier to manage. Enlightenment will also require you to rotate two different elements to maintain your bonuses.
Blizzard Sorcerer is a very easy build that starts strong and scales well. It has some of the best defenses thanks to Snowguard's 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.
- Hydra is your primary support skill, you use this in rotation with your Blizzard to maintain your stacks of Enlightenment and Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop.
- 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.
- Teleport provides mobility to reposition and also makes you Unstoppable to break crowd control if you are caught. It also provides damage reduction thanks to Shimmering Teleport.
- 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.
Skill Rotation
- Cast Ice Armor and then rotate Hydra with Blizzard in your path or on enemies as you approach to stack Enlightenment. Cast Lightning Spear and Ice Blades. Use cooldowns as they become available for Ice Blades Enchantment. Once Enlightened focus on casting Blizzard and only cast Hydra to maintain Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop. You will need to cast Hydra within 5 seconds of Blizzard to maintain Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop.
- (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
Fire Bolt is your first Enchantment. This will give you some burning application to all of your direct damage, allowing you to benefit from conditional damage reduction and damage bonuses from paragon and Devouring Blaze.
Ice Blades is your second Enchantment. This will summon Ice Blades after using enough skill with cooldowns. This helps with Vulnerable, cooldown reduction, and Conjuration Mastery stacks.
Teleport is a useful Enchantment for adding more mobility to your gameplay at the cost of damage. Replace Ice Blades Enchantment if you're setting up the Speedfarming variant or simply have more fun with extra mobility.
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 with your Mythic set.
To Level 15
- Destruction
- Tactician
- Stalagmite
- Flamefeeder
- Unleash
- Elementalist
To Level 46
- Destruction
- Tactician
- Elementalist
- Unleash
- Flamefeeder
- Stalagmite
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
- Tam + Wat for additional damage reduction combined with Xol + Ohm for additional damage.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Use Topaz Gems for additional damage.
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.
- Godslayer Crown will help stack enemies with it's unique effect for an easier burst on groups.
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
- Tyrael's Might make it much easier to hit your Resistance caps, even in high Torment difficulties. This allows you to min/max the setup further for example by removing such Paragon nodes and putting them into more damage.
- Ring of Starless Skies provides great damage and drastically reduces our Mana cost.
- Harlequin Crest provides massive cooldown reduction while also having good defenses. This will be preferred until you have great gear to switch to Heir of Perdition for Pit Pushing.
- Tibault's Will can be used with an armor roll on boots. This will provide some extra damage after going Unstoppable and the Damage Reduction while Unstoppable can have constant uptime with Metamorphosis.
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
- Teleport Enchantment is the primary focus of our Speedfarming set which will replace your evade with a shorter range teleport that doesn't provide Unstoppable.
- Flickerstep will provide a massive 2.5 second evade cooldown reduction for each skill cast. This will reset our Teleport Enchantment at an accelerated rate. You put extra ranks into Teleport to help the cooldown reduction as well.
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
- When fighting monsters in high tiers of the Pit, remember that after crowd controlling elites for 5 seconds, they become Unstoppable for 8 seconds. This may be the right moment to start kiting them around because your damage done goes way down and they can freely retaliate.
- Heir of Perdition is used to maximize our offense with great critical strike chance and a massive multiplier.
- Shroud of False Death will provide a large damage increase while still giving some defense and extra utility. You will lose some defense compared to Tyrael's Might and will need good gameplay to stay alive in the highest Pits.
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 that starts strong and scales well. Keeping Vulnerable applied and stacking as much cooldown reduction as you can will be your key to success.
- Easily stack Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop and Enlightenment with Blizzard and Hydra.
- Use your cooldowns often for Ice Blades Enchantment and Vulnerable.
- Lure enemies into your Blizzard stack and try to keep bosses from moving too much by staying close.
Credits
Written by pandaglassjaw