Diablo 4 is facing one of its most massive updates as the Season of the Construct approaches. Season 3 will bring various much-needed changes to the RPG, including extra stash space and a new pet. Some of the most game-changing tweaks coming from Blizzard with update 1.3.0 aren’t new features, but rather adjustments to Diablo 4’s most beloved classes.
If you main a sorcerer in Diablo 4, this statement rings especially true as one of the RPG‘s most powerful exploits is leaving when 1.3.0 drops. You know that handy dandy ball lightning Diablo 4 sorcerer build we’ve used against Uber Lilith shamelessly to avoid the fight’s hardest mechanics? It isn’t going to be around much longer, despite what Blizzard said in the past.
Back in October, as the Season of Blood was taking off, the team assured us that it was “glad players are having fun” with the overpowered builds and had “no plans” to nerf the skill. Many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief, but it seems the ball lightning’s overpowered damage isn’t going to be around much longer.
The Season of the Construct fixes the “issue,” although we may not see it as one. Blizzard explains that the skill is “dealing far more damage than intended,” but doesn’t precisely detail how Diablo 4 Season 3 will target the exploit. There’s another change coming to ball lightning that may be the answer, though.
The patch notes reveal that Blizzard is changing enhanced ball lightning to “have its attack rate increase with attack speed, up to 25%.” While this may seem like a confusing buff at first, look at the skill’s current specifics in-game to see how drastic the difference in damage is. It’s actually quite a significant nerf.
Currently, the skill’s damage rate is increased by a whopping 200% of your attack speed bonus. As extreme as this sounds, though, it’s important to note that the damage difference is only noticeable if you’re utilizing increased attack speed as a bonus since it depends on that and not your base attack speed.
The recent developer update showed some impressive Diablo 4 statistics like the RPG’s total monster kills globally and its most popular classes. It revealed that sorcerer, the long-reigning king of all in-game roles, was at the top beside necromancer as players’ most-chosen class. Considering the ball lightning nerf, we may see its popularity drop.
We have all of the sorcerer changes highlighted below, but Season 3 is much more than just these tweaks. From the pet Seneschal to the long-awaited introduction of leaderboards, the Season of the Construct may just be Diablo 4’s most exciting one yet.
Diablo 4 patch notes – 1.3.0 update – Friday, January 19, 2024
Here are all of the class changes coming to the sorcerer in Diablo 4 with Season 3. If you want to see the full-blown patch notes and adjustments affecting the other Diablo 4 classes, you’ll find them all over in Blizzard’s article along with the developer’s accompanying message.
Sorcerer
New items
- Starfall Coronet
- Meteor now has two charges and an 11 to six-second Charge Cooldown instead of a Mana cost and drops three additional meteors around the target.
- Meteor’s Enchantment effect and Enhanced Meteor drop one additional meteor.
- Meteor now has two charges and an 11 to six-second Charge Cooldown instead of a Mana cost and drops three additional meteors around the target.
- Aspect of Shredding Blades – Offensive
- Ice Blades’ chance to apply Vulnerable is increased by 20%+ and the Vulnerable duration is increased by four seconds.
- You gain 15–25%(x) Vulnerable Damage.
- Ice Blades’ chance to apply Vulnerable is increased by 20%+ and the Vulnerable duration is increased by four seconds.
Skills
- Ball Lightning
- Enhanced Ball Lightning changed to have its attack rate increase with attack speed, up to 25%.
- Fixed an issue where Ball Lightning was dealing far more damage than intended.
- Blizzard
- Mage’s Blizzard condition to be cast while over 50 mana has been removed.
- Lightning Spear
- Critical Strikes now apply Vulnerable for three seconds.
Paragon
- Searing Heat
- Fixed an issue where the Critical Strike Chance bonus was not properly applying.
- Critical Strike Chance bonus increased from plus ten percent to 12%.
- Elemental Summoner
- Conjuration damage bonus increased from times three percent to times five percent of the total amount of your Bonus Damage with Fire, Lightning, and Cold.
Item updates
- Offensive Aspect of Shattered Stars
- Meteorite damage has been changed to be 20–30% of the casted Meteor’s damage.
- Staff of Lam Esen
- Increased Charged Bolt chance to be attracted to enemies from 30–50% to 40–60%.
- Iceheart Brais
- Chance to unleash a Frost Nova when enemies die increased from 11–20% to 21–30%.
While you wait for all of these changes to drop with 1.3.o, you can browse through our overview of the best Diablo 4 builds to ensure that your time in Sanctuary is as pain-free as possible. Alternatively, take a look at the most optimized Diablo 4 settings to give yourself a quick FPS boost.
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