Diablo 4: Lightning Spear Sorcerer Endgame Build Guide
Diablo 4'snewly reworked Legendary Aspect Splintering Energy has made the Lightning Spear Sorcerer viable just in time for Season 5. Players can now fight the Infernal Hordes with this blast of a build and watch enemies explode under the power of their Critical Hits. However, the build is item-dependent and finicky, meaning it's tough to get right without a guide.
Keep reading to learn the ideal Skill Tree, Paragon Board configuration, Enchantments, and items to play this powerful Lightning Spear Sorcerer Endgame Build.
Pros & Cons Of The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The Lightning Spear Sorcerer is now viable in Diablo 4 due to the rework of the Splintering Energy Aspect. This aspect greatly increases the ratio of total damage value (shown on the stats bar) done by each Lightning Spear from 16% to 85-110%. As a result, the Lightning Spear ability can easily carry the build's late-game damage — provided it is off of cooldown frequently enough. As a bonus, the ability requires nearly no Mana to cast, making generation a low priority. However, players will want to use a different leveling build, such as the Chain Lightning Leveling Sorcerer.
Skill Tree For The Lightning Spear Sorcerer In Diablo 4
The Lightning Spear Sorcerer's Skill tree is quite bizarre, in that points are frequently invested into abilities that won't be on the Hotbar — this is because of Enchantment Slot priority and the need to buff various abilities that Unstable Currents will cast.
Basic Abilities Node
Players should put 2 points into Firebolt. This will primarily be used for its enchantment ability (all direct damage causes burning).
Core Abilities Node
The Core Ability of this build is Frozen Orb. However, only one point will be allocated here, as it is being used only to process Fractured Winterglass's passive ability. Charged Bolts is taken only to improve their cast during Unstable Currents, but it doesn't get assigned to the Hotbar.
Frozen Orb (1/5)
Charged Bolts (1/5)
Enhanced Charged Bolts
Destructive Charged Bolts
Defensive Skills
Like many Sorcerer builds, the Lightning Spear Sorcerer takes three Defensive skills.
Flame Shield (1/5)
Teleport (3/5)
Enhanced Teleport
Shimmering Teleport
Ice Armor (3/5)
Enhanced Ice Armor
Shimmering Ice Armor
Glass Cannon (3/3)
Elemental Attunement (1/3)
Conjuration Skills Node
This is where the lion's share of the build's points will be spent — picking up the main damage dealer and maximizing five passive abilities.
Ice Blades (1/5)
Enhanced Ice Blades
Summoned Ice Blades
Lightning Spear (1/5)
Enhanced Lightning Spear
Invoked Lightning Spear
Players will notice this build only puts one point into Lightning Spear. This is because further points will not substantially affect damage output — the skill's damage numbers will come from Critical Strikes using the Splintering Energy Aspect.
Mastery Skills Node
No active abilities receive points invested here — only some passives to improve damage and survivability.
Icy Veil (3/3)
Inner Flames (1/3)
Devouring Blaze (3/3)
Static Discharge (3/3)
Ultimate Skills Node
This is the next key power spike of the build, where Unstable Currents is unlocked. Unstable Currents are used to get free casts of Lightning Spear and reduce ability cooldowns.
Unstable Currents
Prime Unstable Currents
Supreme Unstable Currents
Coursing Currents (1/3)
Electrocution (3/3)
Key Passives Node
Overflowing Energy is the Key Passive of choice for the Lightning Spear Sorcerer. This passive allows the build to reduce active cooldowns by the amount of Crackling Energy generated, which can help offset the overall long cooldowns in the build.
Enchantments For The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
Surprisingly, the Sorcerer Enchantments of this build don't include any of the abilities found on the Hotbar. Instead, one slot is invested into the basic ability of Firebolt, and the other is given to Ice Blades.
Firebolt is chosen as an enchantment because it applies to burn to enemies directly damaged by the player. This will produce DoT effects on many enemies while Lightning Spear bounces around, or Frozen Orb goes off, which will in turn activate the Critical Strike Chance buff from Devouring Blaze.
On the flip side, Ice Blades' enchantment effect automatically spawns the ability for each 40 seconds of cooldowns expended by the player. Due to this build's heavy cooldown focus, this will happen quite frequently, resulting in many Ice Blades being active during extended combat encounters. This is excellent news because the ability has been upgraded with Summoned Ice Blades, meaning it will reduce the cooldown of all abilities each time Ice Blades hit a Vulnerable enemy.
The Paragon Board Of The Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The Paragon Board used in this Sorcerer build closely matches that used by the Chain Lightning Build due to its similar priorities. The boards and Glyphs will appear in the following order:
Starting Board - Elementalining Instinct - Tactician
Enchantment Master - Unleash
Frigid Fate - Charged
Ceaseless Conduit - Destruction
Elemental Summoner - Conjurer
Searing Heat - Exploit
Static Surge - Flamefeeder
These board/glyph groupings can be switched, depending on which board seems most desirable to the player, as they are both connected to the fourth board ( Frigid Fate ).
Glyphs Leveling Priorities
The Glyphs of highest leveling priority in this build are Destruction, Unleash, Flamefeeder, and Exploit. For best results, level all glyphs in two passes (in the following order):
Level 15 Order
Level 21 Order
Destruction
Destruction
Unleash
Flamefeeder
Exploit
Exploit
Flamefeeder
Elementalist
Elementalist
Unleash
Tactician
Tactician
Charged
Charged
Conjurer
Conjurer
Itemization In The Late Game For Lightning Spear Sorcerer
The most important stats for this build fall into two categories: damage stats and defensive stats. The highest priority damage stats are:
Cooldown Reduction ^ (more Unstable Currents Uptime, and more frequent Lightning Spears)
Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage
Meanwhile, the following will provide most of the player's defensive stats:
Cooldown Reduction ^ (for better Ice Armor Uptime)
Barrier Generation
Resistances (up to max 70%)
Armor
Max Health and Intelligence are not a waste in this build, so don't disqualify Diablo 4 items with these affixes. However, items providing ranks of Lightning Spear and other active abilities are absolute garbage in this setup.
Best Gems To Socket
This build benefits from Rubies socketed into all Armor Pieces to increase Max Life, Skulls in the Jewelry to increase Armor and Emeralds in the weapon for Critical Strike Damage.
Tempering Priorities
Tempering priorities for the Lightning Spear Sorcerer focus on Critical Hit, Lightning Spear Cooldown Reduction, and ranks of Warmth. This means that players will want to Temper the following manuals whenever possible (in the following priority order):
Conjuration Efficiency → Lightning Spear Cooldown Reduction
Pyromancy Endurance → Ranks of Warmth
Conjuration Fortune → Lightning Spear Lucky Hit Chance
Natural Motion → Evade Cooldown Reduction
Aspect Imprinting And BiS Unique Items
This build is very gear-dependent, with little flexibility. All unique pieces included in the build will have an alternative Legendary to use until they are found, but this is a stopgap and not an interchangeable replacement.
Item
Imprinted Aspect
Head
Snowveiled Aspect
Body
Aspect of Concentration
Gloves
Stormswell Aspect
Pants
Tibault's Will (Unique) or Everliving Aspect
Boots
Esu's Heirloom (Unique) or Aspect of Fortune
Weapon
An aspect of Splintering Energy
Amulet
Fractured Winterglass (Unique) or Aspect of Might
Ring Left
Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop (Unique) or Rapid Aspect
Ring Right
Aspect of Frozen Orbit
Mythic Unique Farming
While no Mythic Uniques are required for this build to function, it does benefit from the Harlequin Crest and Tyrael's Might. Players lucky enough to have such cheap Diablo 4 Items at their disposal should not hesitate to use them in the build, discarding other gear pieces in the same slot.