Best Diablo 4 Sorcerer build: Burning Meteor for damage and mobility

The skills and Aspects to grab early on.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Diablo 4 Barbarian build: Stay buffedDiablo 4 Rogue build: Need for bleedDiablo 4 Druid build: Air and weresDiablo 4 Necromancer build: Stay undead

ThebestDiablo 4sorcerer buildmight seem impossible to pin down when you consider how many directions you can take the class. That said, both Hydra and Chain Lightning are high-damage skills, which you’ll be using early on, and once you unlock your first enchantment slot, you’ll be easily mowing down enemies, even at lower levels.

As a ranged caster, you have less survivability in close-quarters combat, so the build below uses a buffed Teleport skill to help you get out of trouble quickly. You don’t have to stick to everything that’s suggested below either, as there is plenty of room for adjustment here if you want to buff your damage or survivability. More builds will be added to this guide once we’ve glimpsed more of the endgame. For now, though, here’s the best Diablo 4 sorcerer build for your leveling needs, as well as for fresh level 50s.

Burning Meteor Sorcerer build

Burning Meteor Sorcerer build

🔥You want strong AoE and DoT damage🔥You need a speedy way to escape dangerous foes🔥You enjoy scorching everything with fiery many-headed minions

The Burning Meteor sorcerer build is a pretty straightforward one. You’ll want to pull enemies together usingInfernothen Immobilize them with casts ofMeteor. You can then useFire BoltandHydrato catch any stragglers to make sure you set everything and everyone on fire. Having a point inFireballto activate its Enchantment is also a win, as enemies will explode for 50% of Fireball’s damage when they die. Burning meteor right enough. Best of all, you can simplyTeleportaway if you’ve had enough. Bye then!

Skills

Skills

Here are the six skills you’ll need for this build:

Passives and Enchantments

For Passives, you’ll want a point inInner Flamesto unlock the nodes behind it, which you should then max out.Devouring Blazeincreases your critical strike damage against Burning enemies, plus even further when they are Immobilized, whileCrippling Flamesgives a chance for your Pyromancy skills to Immobilize enemies.

Fiery Surgeincreases your Mana regeneration per Burning enemy killed, andEndless Pyrebuffs Burning damage the longer they remain Burning.Warmthis another good choice for more passive healing if you’re looking for somewhere to spend yourRenownpoints. There are other passives you can play around with which can help shore up any weaknesses you feel you might have, such as survivability or even more damage, but the ones I’ve listed above are a solid choice for this build.

For your first Enchantment, which unlocks at level 15, you needFireball. This makes enemies explode for 50% of Fireball’s damage when they die—and those explosions will soon add up on a busy battlefield. The second enchantment slot is a little more flexible, though I’d go withMeteor, giving it a chance to activate whenever you’re attacking.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

Aspects

Here are the six aspects that I recommend for this build:

The Legendary Aspects for this build are fairly straightforward. The six listed above are important to make this build work and as Aspect of Control is the most vital for damage, you should consider imprinting it on your staff to give it the 100% power boost. Aspect of Inner Calm, though it might sound dangerous, comes into play during your Inferno cast window, when you will be stood still for the duration, hard-casting Meteor. There are other potentially good Legendary Aspects you can play around with but those listed above are a solid starting point.

🔥Cast Hydrato create a fiery friend within range of the enemy or group you want to attack. Recast when it disappears.

🔥Activate Inferno,preferably on big groups of enemies, to pull them together.

🔥Cast Meteorrepeatedly for the duration of Inferno to take advantage of the mana-free casts and to Immobilize enemies.

🔥Cast Chain Lightningto deal with any remaining enemies.

🔥Cast Fire Boltto allow your mana to regenerate.

🔥Cast Meteoras mana allows outside of Inferno window to Immobilize enemies.

🔥Teleportas needed to escape immediate danger and deal lightning damage when you reappear.

Gems and Affix priority

For Paragon levels, I’ve gone with theSearing Heatboard for Meteor buffs, though Burning Instinct also looks like a solid option. TheAdeptGlyph is also a solid choice, giving increased damage to Meteor while the Additional bonus increases its impact radius significantly.

For optimal damage output, you should look for bonus damage againstCrowd ControlledorBurningenemies as every enemy you face is going to suffer from one, or both, of those debuffs. Defense-wise,damage reduction from enemies that are Burningis good to have on armor, as ismax evade chargeswhich can be found on boots. Extra ranks of your most used skills are also welcome.

Forgems,Amethysts, depending on their quality, will buff damage over time by 5-7% and grant the same damage reduction if used with armor pieces, andSapphireswill give between 7.5-10.5% crit damage increase against crowd-controlled enemies when applied to a weapon. Meanwhile, I’d suggest using your jewellery gem slots to round out your overall resistances.

Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she’s quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.

The best Dragon Age: Origins mods

How to romance Harding in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Today’s Wordle answer for Friday, November 8