Sorcerer Lighting vs Ice build

[Goomba]

Hello, I am at level 59. Playing world tier 3 and things have gotten pretty tough. It takes a long time to kill monsters, especially unique or enhanced health ones. I am still using the same build I started with. It includes arc lash, chain lightning, hydra, frost nova, unstable currents and teleport. I'm thinking I may need to get rid of hydra and possibly chain lightning for other lightning skills. I don't have ice armor or flame shield because they only last a few seconds. Is that even worth it? What should I replace my skills with?

Another option other than modifying my lightning build would be to do an ice shards build. I have one huge concern though. Isn't ice shards heavy on mana use? How would I even be effective when running out of mana all the time? How do I combat this?

What do you think? Modify lightning build or switch to ice? I really feel that my current build may be holding me back. Do sorcerers normally struggle at word tier 3 and up? I can't even imagine how hard this would be on world tier 4.

Also, I just got my first 2 nightmare dungeon sigils but am afraid I'll get crushed if I use it. Should I hang onto these until I change/update my build? I'm thinking it'd be a waste if I use them with my current build.

Thanks for the help.

 

[melianor]

Hello, I am at level 59. Playing world tier 3 and things have gotten pretty tough. It takes a long time to kill monsters, especially unique or enhanced health ones. I am still using the same build I started with. It includes arc lash, chain lightning, hydra, frost nova, unstable currents and teleport. I'm thinking I may need to get rid of hydra and possibly chain lightning for other lightning skills. I don't have ice armor or flame shield because they only last a few seconds. Is that even worth it? What should I replace my skills with?

Another option other than modifying my lightning build would be to do an ice shards build. I have one huge concern though. Isn't ice shards heavy on mana use? How would I even be effective when running out of mana all the time? How do I combat this?

What do you think? Modify lightning build or switch to ice? I really feel that my current build may be holding me back. Do sorcerers normally struggle at word tier 3 and up? I can't even imagine how hard this would be on world tier 4.

Also, I just got my first 2 nightmare dungeon sigils but am afraid I'll get crushed if I use it. Should I hang onto these until I change/update my build? I'm thinking it'd be a waste if I use them with my current build.

Thanks for the help.

Hey @Goomba ,

I have not played lightning too much yet. What I got from my ice sorceress build, which is a Ice Shards/Blizzard build, is that spreading the skills too widely did not play well. Focusing on 1 core and 1 mastery skill with some form of support in the defense department, maybe with an ultimate skill is the most I could fit in.

When I saw my damage dipping I started hunting for aspects either from legendaries or the aspects that you get in dungeons which are then added to the. Codex of Power. Those from Codex of Power are a bit less powerful then those that you find on legendaries, but a good start.

For your lighting build you would need to look at aspects that you can imprint that suite your play style. I found aspects on items to make all the difference.

Regarding Iceshards: Yes, its mana intense, which you can either fix with some aspects, extra mana on items and passive skills. For example on my current build I have an aspect that grants 3 mana for each crowd controlled enemy, which keeps giving as long as the enemy is crowd conrolled. Also my Frostbolt is speced to return mana. With a combination of aspect, skills and item affixes I am able to maintain enough mana. Later on at higher levels mana can also be compensated with other affixes like mana cost reduction. I also use Icearmor for protection and mana regeneration.

What you might want to try:

• Look for aspects that fit your playstyle with your lightning skills.
• Look for legendaries that add damage for the damage that your skills do, +mana, +intelligence, cooldown reduction, lucky hit(!)

Now that I mention it, I found lucky hit to help me with damage as well. With higher lucky hit chance all kind of crazy stuff can happen.
Making enemies vulnerable is a good damage boost, since vulnerable damage is +20% damage after all the other damage has been delt.

With my current iceshard/blizzard build there is no struggle at world tier 3 and world tier 4 which I just started looks safe too
I have seen lightning builds arond performing strong, so I think its more a matter of adjusting your build

Sorry for writing a lot. Most likely I missed something. So hit me up with any questions!

Cheers, Meli