Welcome to the Fire Bolt Sorcerer Specialized Build Guide! This build uses Flameweaver to turn Fire Bolt into a real damage skill. Unfortunately the way this item works makes the build quite clunky: first you have to place down Firewall, then shoot enemies with Fire Bolt and then you have to wait for them to die because you deal damage over time. On top of that, the damage only gets really high if you hit the same enemy with all 3 Fire Bolts right after they split. Effectively that means that this build is very single target oriented even if Fire Bolts can technically hit multiple enemies. This build is most suited for Bossing and slow push in high tier Pit. Speedfarming can be done thanks to Frosty Strides but because we invest a lot into Damage Over Time and don't build any Crit, it's not very strong.
Our Specialized Builds are lategame builds with specific requirements and purposes. In order to play them, you are expected to have a level 100 character and all of the listed items available. To get there, we recommend you use one of our existing lvl 50-100 Endgame Build Guides.
Paragon
Look below for the selected Paragon Boards, Paragon point allocation, and the correct Glyphs you should use for the Fire Bolt Sorcerer. Note: The Paragon Boards below are the final setup with no steps.
Level 21 Glyphs required: Elementalist, Destruction, Pyromaniac, Charged, Tactician, Exploit.
Season 4 - Loot Reborn
In Season 4, the Season Theme revolves around helping out the Iron Wolves. Compared to past themes, this one does not offer any borrowed power as the entire game has been redesigned with new itemization and crafting options, increasing player power substantially across the board. Instead, you can gather reputation similar to the Vampire Bounty Board from Season 2 to unlock rewards that supercharge your leveling journey to 100 with extra items, crafting materials and eventually even a Resplendent Spark to craft an uber unique.
We recommend to follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 4 guide for more information.
Gameplay
As you may have noticed, this build has less active skills than usual. That happens because we use Hectic and we want it to reduce the cooldown of our Flame Shield as often as possible. Adding any other cooldown skills to the empty slots doesn't improve our build enough to justify the increased Flame Shield cooldown. With only 4 buttons to worry about our gameplay is quite simple:
- Before you start playing the build go out of town and let some mobs damage you until you fall below 50% HP to activate Frosty Strides. Do not heal after that, it's even recommended to unbind your Potion so that you don't heal accidentally. If you go to full HP in the middle of a Pit run it's borderline impossible to get injured without dying.
- Spam Flame Shield at all times. You're supposed to have it up permanently, otherwise the build doesn't work.
- Use Evade Teleport to move. We still have our normal Teleport on the bar but it's only used when travelling. In combat you should never use it because it can steal a Hectic proc.
- Generally just spamming Evade Teleport is enough to kill small enemies with Frosty Strides. As long as you don't cast Firewall it shouldn't disrupt your Flame Shield resets because Teleport animation is very short.
- Against big enemies, place a Firewall and spam Fire Bolt. For optimal results, put your Firewall slightly in front of the Boss. If you put it directly on top, your Fire Bolts might go through the boss before splitting and your damage will be reduced by 80%. But at the same time your Firewall still needs to touch the Boss to activate Enhanced Firewall. If the Boss moves, you have to reposition or cast a new Firewall. Be careful to not spam too many Firewalls because when everything is on fire, your Fire Bolts will split immediately after you shoot them, and then you have to worry about being exactly right distance away from the Boss.
- Use your Firewall very sparingly. Its animation is almost twice as long as Fire Bolt, so your Flame Shield reset will fail if you use it too often.
Gear and Stat Requirements
Fire Bolt Sorcerer requires specific Aspects, Uniques, and Affixes on your gear to perform their primary function. Only deviate from the list below after you have fully learned the intended gameplay style and strategies.
- Legendary Aspects:
- Storm Swell
- Moonrise
- Rapid
- Frosty Strides
- Concussive Strikes
- Hectic
- Exploiter's
- Uniques:
- Flameweaver
- Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop
- Harlequin Crest (or Ghostwalker)
Recommended Stat Thresholds
- 2,000+ Intelligence
- 100% Chance to Cast Fire Bolt Twice
- Chance to Stun/Slow/Freeze (one of each)
- 20+ Total Ranks of Fire Bolt
- 30%+ Chance to make Enemy Vulnerable
- 40%+ Cooldown Reduction
- 5s+ total Flame Shield Duration
CDR and Flame Shield Duration thresholds outlined above ARE NOT OPTIONAL. The build will not work if you don't have at least that much!
Optimized Late Game Setup
When your CDR goes above 50%, you can move Hectic from the Amulet to your Boots, put Moonrise on the Amulet and add Shredding Blades.
With even more CDR and Flame Shield duration you can also replace Rapid with Inner Calm for even more damage. Same principle applies to Fire Damage Over Time vs Pyromancy Attack Speed tempers: the former provides more DPS whereas the latter is helps you with Flame Shield resets when your CDR is not fully optimized.
You can also replace Chance to Make Vulnerable on the Ring with a damage roll. You can apply Vulnerable with Frosty Strides Frosty Strides so it's not strictly necessary. However, if you happen to heal or die you will suffer way more.
Super Optimized Ultra Late Game BiS Setup
This version of the build is meant to push as deep as possible into The Pit. There's nothing besides internet clout down there, but if you want to do nonetheless, this is the strongest Sorcerer build we have.
Even with 100% optimal gear this build comes very close to not being fully immortal. If you have any imperfect rolls/masterwork or missing Greater Affixes on CDR, Attack Speed or Flame Shield duration, you will have a gap in your Flame Shield!
Compared to our normal build there's few changes:
- Replace Exploiter's with Raiment of the Infinite.
- Move points from Crippling Flames and Mystical Flame Shield into Greater Fireball.
- Replace Fire Bolt Enchant with Fireball.
- Use Shatter Key Passive.
- Instead of Damage Over Time rolls and tempers get Vulnerable and Close Damage, because DoT bonuses do not apply to Shatter.
- Replace Pyromaniac with Torch.
- Instead of stacking different types of CC on your Utility Tempers, get 2x Chance to Freeze or 1x Freeze and 1x Freeze Duration.
- Stack enough Pyromancy Attack Speed to reach the 167.9%. Note: Going for Close Damage instead will make you deal significantly more damage but you will get Flame Shield gaps making this build extremely difficult to play.
- If you want to fully ebmrace Shatter playstyle and give up any hope of killing single target Bosses, replace Storm Swell with Shattered Aspect for more explosion damage.
Gameplay
This version of the build revolves around interaction between Shatter and Greater Fireball which lets you deal tremendous amounts of damage in the right circumstances.
- Find large amount of small monsters and group them on top of Elites or the Boss with Raiment of the Infinite.
- Place a Firewall underneath them and blast with Fire Bolt to apply DoT.
- When smallest enemies are about to die, shoot 2 or 3 Fireballs into them. (This is very risky to do because you slow down your Flame Shield reset but it greatly increases your damage, especially when there's not that many enemies around).
- If you do everything right monsters will explode in a frostfire chain reaction instantly killing any Elites caught inside.
- Frost Bolt on the bar is not really necessary because we get Cold damage from Shatter but it can be useful to get 3rd Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop before you kill any monsters.
It goes without saying that this variant of the build struggles greatly against Bosses because you can't Shatter them. Luckily, some of the Bosses (most notably Spritcaller of Frost) summon minions into the fight. Those minions can then be Frozen and used to do unspeakable things to the Boss. For best results, try to overlap Stagger with big Shatter detonation. We already removed all the passive CC except Freeze from the build and you can somewhat manipulate when Stagger happens by Teleporting more or less often with Raiment of the Infinite.
FAQ & Mechanics
Because Fire Bolt Sorcerer is a Specialized build, the obvious Mechanics or build interactions may not be clear to most first time players. Search below for the answers you need or come check me out live via the link at the top of the article for more information!
Why no skills?
Why don't you stack Crit Damage for Burning Instinct?
Why no Flamefeeder and Searing Heat?
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details that make the Fire Bolt Sorcerer work.
Stagger
Fire Bolt Attack Speed
Credits
Written by Northwar
Reviewed by wudijo
Shoutout to Mekuna for helping optimize the build