Firewall Sorcerer Endgame Guide
Welcome to the Firewall Sorcerer Endgame Guide! This build strives to set the world on fire, focusing on scaling our burning damage and lighting it up with Firewall.
You will mainly be casting Firewall, a lot of them, combined with Ice Blades for Vulnerable on single targets along with Frost Nova for Vulnerable on groups of enemies. You have all of the defensive skills at your disposal which should make surviving easier. Flame Shield makes you Immune for a few seconds which is invaluable for avoiding dangerous stacks in Pits along with providing Unstoppable, which will break active crowd control. 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 to maintain the stacks. With enough cooldown reduction this will be much easier to manage and as long as there are enemies for your Ice Blades to hit then it should maintain your Concentration and Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop.
Firewall Sorcerer is a favorite because of it's ease of access without many specific unique or legendary items. Most of our damage will come from general multipliers along with the burning focused Engulfing Flames. 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
- Firewall is our primary damage skill. This creates a line of burning damage on the ground. You can stack these and lure enemies into them. They will continue to take damage for a few seconds after leaving the burning area thanks to Mage's Firewall, this allows you room to kite enemies around the Firewall.
- Ice Blades is our primary support skill. This provides cooldown reduction to itself and other skills with Enhancements. It will also provide Vulnerable application on single targets. Conjuration Mastery provides a stacking damage, Mana regereration, and movement speed buff for each conjuration you have active.
- Frost Nova applies Vulnerable to groups of enemies. It will also freeze the enemies and activate conditional damage bonuses with Hoarfrost and Storm Swell.
- Teleport provides mobility to escape dangerous ground explosions and hordes of enemies cornering you. You can also use it often to get into the action and it provides Unstoppable to break crowd control if you are caught.
- Flame Shield makes you Immune for a few seconds, a mechanic to avoid any damage and also provides Unstoppable to break crowd control, you can use this to avoid dangerous stacks from Pit bosses.
- 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
- Teleport at the start of combat for your Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop stack. Use Ice Armor as you begin casting Firewall near yourself or the enemy. Frost Nova nearby enemies and cast Ice Blades when available. You will need to stagger your frost spells to maintain your Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop stacks and weave them between your Firewall casts.
- (On Elites & Bosses) Consider saving Flame Shield for dangerous moments to avoid death or deadly stacks from Pit bosses. Otherwise use it whenever available to activate Ice Blades Enchantment.
- (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
Firewall is our first Enchantment. This will give us some extra damage with a lucky hit chance to summon additional Firewalls.
Ice Blades is our second Enchantment. This will provide cooldown reduction and Vulnerable application.
Teleport is a useful Enchantment for adding more mobility to your gameplay at the cost of damage. Replace Firewall 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 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.
Firewall 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
To Level 15
- Elementalist
- Exploit
- Tactician
- Unleash
- Pyromaniac
To Level 46
- Elementalist
- Tactician
- Unleash
- Pyromaniac
- Exploit
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 Firewall Sorcerer Endgame build 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 and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
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 Molotov along with Scorched Earth to boost your damage over time. Next you pick Snipe along with Incendiary Bolt to trigger the Scorched Earth as well.
- 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 Firewall 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
- 40%+ Cooldown Reduction
- 30%+ Attack Speed
- 50%+ Pyromancy Attack Speed
- 2000+ Intelligence
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 3,500+ Life
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Firewall 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 Firewall 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 Frost Nova 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.
- Raiment of the Infinite provides a unique crowd control that stuns and pulls enemies into your Teleport location. This can trap you on enemies but if you stay moving as you Teleport then you can usually escape the trap, if you do find yourself trapped remember to evade to escape.
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.
- Heir of Perdition provides a massive damage increase at the cost of 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
- Teleport Enchantment is the primary focus of our Speedfarming set which will replace our 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 your Teleport 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.
- Raiment of the Infinite returns to squeeze out extra damage at the cost of defense for a more serious push. This setup takes the ranks to Glass Cannon literally and requires avoiding damage more than our other setups.
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
Firewall
Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop
Attack Speed Caps
Stagger
Video Guide
Summary
The Firewall Sorcerer is an arsonist's dream, creating burning destruction. With plenty of defensive tools you will find it easy to play this build. Firewall excels at leveling and falls off later in the Endgame but it is a great starting point for accessing more powerful builds.
- Start with Teleport and Frost Nova to apply Vulnerable and light up the enemies with Firewall.
- Lure ranged into your Firewall with good kiting or instead bring the Firewall to them.
- Use your Ice Blades when available for more damage and cooldown reduction, along with reliable Vulnerable on bosses.
- Maintain your Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop stacks while you watch the world burn.
Credits
Written by pandaglassjaw