D2R 2.5 Ladder Season 2 Sorceress Skill Changes - Top 9 Sorc Changes In Diablo 2 Resurrected Patch 2.5

D2R 2.5 Ladder Season 2 Sorceress Skill Changes - Top 9 Sorc Changes In Diablo 2 Resurrected Patch 2.5

8/18/2022 5:20:47 PM

Today, we're getting into 9 Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder Season 2 Sorceress (Sorc) skill changes. They need to nerf the cold spells tree, they need to nerf the lightning spells tree and they need to nerf the fire spells tree. For example, teleport makes it go backward, so you got to use weird rocket league logic to figure out how to do it. Static it should hurt the Sorceress, you want to hurt the demons, you hurt yourself too. There's a blizzard over there and you ain't got to put on warm clothes, these skills are ridiculous. Just nerf every Sorceress skill in the Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.5 Patch.

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D2R Patch 2.5 Sorceress Changes - Top 9 Sorc Skill Changes In Diablo 2 Resurrected Ladder Season 2

The truth is that we don't have to nerf the Sorceress for her to feel good walking into D2R 2.5 Patch. But there are a lot of places where we could take skills that the Sorceress currently has, bring them up to par or give them some kind of niche utility and legitimately diversify the build scape of the Sorceress. A lot of people like to think that everybody just kind of plays the Blizzard Sorceress to start the Season 2 Ladder in Diablo 2. And you're not wrong! The only thing though is that the Sorceress might have the most diverse field of viable solo and hybrid build trees out of any character in the game. She's a phenomenal character but maybe some of her skills could get a little bit of a touch-up, let's get into it!

1. Frost Nova

Better Damage Scaling

Starting in the cold tree, the first skill that really needs a little bit of something extra is frost nova. With the changes in 2.4 and the additional synergies to frost nova, it really looked like the skill was going to be a legitimate end-game build viable option, something similar to the regular lightning nova tree. What it comes down to though is that in the end game. Frost nova's scaling on end game gear even with best in the slot. Just does not compare to the other cold options that are available to her. Realistically it just needs slightly better scaling at the last tier of skill levels. So that if you are adding additional skill points past your 20 hard points, you're getting a bigger and bigger reward out of going fully supportive into the cold trade than the only other skill in the culture.

2. Ice Bolt/Fire Bolt

Additional Missiles & Shotgun

Looking at charge bolt which is realistically the only bolt skill that is used in the end-game version of any build. The reason why the charge bolt is is that it does the shotgun effect right. For both ice bolt and for firebolt in D2R Ladder Season 2 update, we'd like to see them get some type of scaling of additional missiles that would also shotgun. the cool thing about the bolts is that they are so low damage. Even if they were to shotgun, you would need to get much closer to your target to get the full effect out of it. So you're kind of taking the Sorceress out of her comfort zone which is being able to blast everything at max range and making her change up her play style a bit. If you're rewarding people for being more face tanky on a Sorceress, that's a really good direction for these skills to go in general.

3. Shiver/Chilling Armor

Increase Skill Damage Scaling

Shiver armor and chilling armor absolutely have a use. It's kind of sad that the only place where they really shine is in a pacifist hell run where you can't attack any monsters. These are kind of your best options. The problem with shiver armor in chilling armor is that they are 60 points build around defensive skills. So you need to max shiver armor and frozen armor and chilling armor. They have different utilities, the damage totals need to be brought to a point where putting 60 points into a skill tree actually gets you a benefit.

Change Synergies to Promote Different Play Styles

Either condensing their synergies or giving them synergies with some of the other skills in the tree rather than with each other. Maybe shiver armor would synergize with frost nova and ice bolts. So now you have this really tanky in your face close range type of cold Sorceress that we've never seen before. Maybe chilling armor would synergize with your glacial spike in your ice blast, so now it's a tool for you to have on a blizzard Sorceress just to increase your overall area damage considering blizzard is pretty condensed in where it applies its damage.

4. Thunder Storm

Reduce GFX Effect

Thunder storm is the only skill in the lightning tree that still needs something for it to really make sense to actually put 20 points. Thunder storm is a one-point wonder right now on a nova build. If you really don't want to get any additional utility, you can max it. The problem with thunder storm is that it destroys your eyes. If you've never cast thunder storm and then go to a place like endurance of hate or Tal Rasha's Tomb, then you may actually live to see a day where you never need glasses. But everybody else who actually uses thunder storm is going to go blind by the age of 40. So first let's just cut down that effect a little bit.

Rename to Lightning Storm

Secondly, it's a lightning storm it hits people with lightning bolts. The skill doesn't deal physical damage and it's not hitting people with the percussive blast of thunder which is just the sound that you hear when lightning strikes. Can we just call this lightning storm? It literally hits people with bolts of lightning summon a deadly thunder storm that strikes your enemies with bolts of lightning.

Additional Targets Hit per 10 Skill Points (Max 3)

However, the major problem with thunder storm is that it's a single target damage skill. On a nova build that has aoe, you would think it needs a single target skill. It only shoots a bolt of lightning down every two seconds, so it's not like you're going to sit there and wait for a thunder storm to kill a monster. We'd really love to see this hit multiple targets, maybe an additional target at 10 and then 2 additional targets at 20 skill points, or this actually plays into the thunder storm if we want to keep calling it that.

Deal Aoe Damage + Apply a Stun

Have the bolt deal damage and an aoe around it that also applies a stun. So now it kind of makes sense. A monster just got struck by a bolt of lightning and is being blasted by thunder, having it be disoriented makes sense in the theme of this skill.

5. Inferno

Change to Cone w/ Reduce Radius

In the fire tree, we have a very similar change for inferno that you've seen us recommend for wake of inferno and for arctic blast and this is the idea of having it apply in a smaller radius cone. So that monsters within the area of your inferno are all getting hit and you're more likely to be applying that damage to a target than you would previously. Right now where it just shoots out the jet of fire even at max level sitting there and targeting down monsters. Killing things with inferno just feels terrible. You're still being penalized by needing to stop and channel a skill or you're actually getting some kind of benefit out of it.

6. Blaze

Add Aura W & Enemy Fire Resistance

Blaze is actually an incredibly cool skill. The problem with blaze is that it generates underneath you and then you need to walk backward and hope that the monster walks into it. On top of that, while you do have the run walk buff while having the skill up, it feels like a lot of investment in apm to get a very small benefit out of it. Even if you fully maximize its synergies and its damage potential. So the first thing that we'd like to see is that blaze actually have an aura around you and that aura potentially reduces the monster's fire resistance. The idea that the Sorceress powers up with blaze and then for a short duration in the immediate area around her, you're going to be more effective and get more DPS out of your skills. This would also go a long way to help instigate the idea of a more forward-facing and in the midst of the commotion and the danger type of Sorceress play.

Apply Blaze Fires in Front of the Sorc

The other thing that we'd like to see for blaze just so that it actually can be used as a means of stacking a ton of damage onto a single target is that the blaze would generate in front of the Sorceress. So the idea here is that the fire is coming out from in front of her and as you run forward, it continues to generate in front of you rather than underneath and behind you. This way you could run up to a monster and the blaze would apply to where they are standing. Because right now blaze almost cannot be used on ranged monsters, so you have to like cast blaze, run around in a circle in front of some ranged monsters teleport away. But have them at the edge of the screen and then they would slowly walk into it and then they're dead. Why didn't you just cast a fireball in meteor or firewall for that matter?

7. Fire Wall

Increase Thickness

The skill is in a really good place, it just needs a little bit more for it to be more viable and to be more essential for a build-around skill. Firewall gains radius for its total wall length which is cool. The idea is that given infinite monsters in a line, you can hit more and more of them. Except for the screen in Diablo 2 and where monsters generate just isn't that big and there's no point to covering the entirety of it if monsters are only going to walk directly towards a funnel.

We'd also like to see the firewall get just a little bit thicker on additional skill levels. This means that it would be easier for you to include more monsters within its overall area of effect. When you're using it as a boss killing skill, if they're moving around especially, if you're like moat tricking Mephisto is more likely to be running through it at any given time. Because it's a very thin line of fire projectile that is actually able to deal damage.

8. Meteor

Decrease Time to Impact

For meteor, the only issue here is the length of time the meteor takes to actually crash into the ground. If you have a monster that isn't moving and you're just spam casting it, the regularity of falling meteors feels pretty good. When you're trying to stick and move and you have monster packs that are moving as well, timing that meteor fall time and its overall damage output really starts to get hindered by the fact that it takes so long for the meteor to crash. Timing it out roughly just playing around with some different times like 1.5 to 2 seconds for an actual drop time on the meteor feels a lot better than it does right now. 1.5 seconds might be a little bit too fast a little bit too much of a damage increase, but 2 seconds would feel a lot better.

9. Warmth

Add Replenish Life

The problem with warmth right now is that unless you're meeting with the skills in the left part of this tree, warmth is only a one-point wonder. It increases your mana recovery rate so you might as well put a point into it. The cool idea with warmth here, no pun intended would be to add on a bit of replenishing life as well. The idea that warmth just helps your wounds to heal a bit faster kind of fits into the theme. Sorceress is in the bottom tier that receives health from health potions.

Sorceress receives the least amount from healing potions and the most amount from mana potions. So warmth gives a little bit of replenished life that would then benefit from having additional plus skills on. It would just go a long way to kind of help her feel a little bit better in the early game and might incentivize people to put more points into it even in the later game especially if you're playing on hardcore or you're trying to really play that immortal Sorceress ideal. The skill right now is a must-include on every build but not anybody feels particularly good about putting the one point here.

Conclusions

Those are the only D2R 2.5 Ladder Season 2 Sorceress skills that really need any touch-up or could gain more utility to bring them up to par with the rest of the skills that the Sorceress has. Some Sorceress skills can receive a buff in Diablo 2 Resurrected 2.5 and it would make the overall gameplay experience healthier because we would get a different approach and different play style for the Sorceress. So that fewer people are incentivized to just play a Blizzard Sorc at the beginning of the Ladder farming mephisto.