D2R 2.7 Best Sorc Build: S-Tier Lightning Nova Sorceress Build Guide in Season 4

D2R 2.7 Best Sorc Build: S-Tier Lightning Nova Sorceress Build Guide in Season 4

5/18/2023 6:16:45 PM

The Next Hit Delay changes in the 2.7 patch of Diablo 2 Resurrected make some S Tier Builds even better in Season 4, such as the Double Nova Sorceress! In this guide, we will break down how to set up the best sorc build in D2R ladder season 4.

D2R 2.7 Best Lightning Nova Soc Build

D2R 2.7 Lightning Nova Sorceress Build

With all the changes that came in from patch 2.7 and the next hit delay, the community realized something very simple and it was that Nova really didn't benefit from the changes at all, except in multiplayer scenarios where previously you were losing more damage because other people with next hit delay skills were hitting them some of the time. But there was no way to beat the next hit delay timer on Nova Sorceress because even at the 200 FCR breakpoint, nothing is different - you can't cast faster than the next hit delay allows. So we'll go over the gear, stats, skills, and mercenary that we pick and try to explain the mechanism that we're basically getting ahead of a base Nova sorceress and then just show you a bunch of gameplay where this thing absolutely crushes players 8 difficulties just like a regular Nova sorceress would.

The pacifist sorceress who uses the chance to cast Nova when struck is now stronger than it was previously because you can reach greater than 100% chance to cast Nova When Struck if you have that affix on a bunch of different pieces of gear - that means that every single time a monster hit you, you would cast a level 5 Nova, so if you threw on all the synergies and you made sure that it was like an energy Shield build, you could run around and trigger a ton of Nova and that's what you just saw with the cows now. Since each trigger of the skill from our D2R gear counts as its own cast that means that if five monsters hit you simultaneously five novas go out, and since they made it next hit delay only applied to a single cast of a skill as opposed to the skill in general all five novas can now hit the target simultaneously. Now on players 1 to 3 as you just noticed, a level 5 Nova does decent damage, on player 1 you can actually just sit there and do absolutely nothing at all completely go AFK, and with every monster that triggers hitting, you will eventually die to the nova proxy. But what if you played a Nova sorceress where you also were 100% chance to cast Nova when struck, and the damage on the skill isn't the important part although it's decent. It's how the game interacts with monster regeneration and the overall ability to output damage per frame, that this build really starts to shine.

Best D2R Nova Sorceress Build Setup

So now let's go over how to set up the build:

Gear

For the gear for single player, we will use the Infinity and Griffon's Eye, and then the rest of the gears are all cast or crafted for us to get the biggest amounts of Mana, regenerate Mana, in maximum Mana, as well as Mana per kill that are available on gear that can roll with a chance to cast Nova when struck. And just remember you do need Nova on every other piece of gear that you're wearing to reach a 98% chance to cast Nova When Struck or trial intents and purposes is 100%, and then the rest of the stats that you can get on the gear is actually kind of interesting for how it can Shore up issues with your resistances, faster cast rate, magic find, etc.

Weapons - Infinity Scythe. We are using a Memory staff for the Energy Shield pre-buff, it's not super important but it saves us a couple of extra points that can then be put into Thunder Storm for slightly better single Target damage output, it's just nice to have another kind of passive option for damage on the build.
Helm - Griffon's Eye with Facet
Gloves - Caster crafted gauntlets with Nova When Struck, Mana, Regenerate Mana, Lightning Resist, Mana After Each Kill, and Magic Find
Armor - So we went with a safety breastplate to be able to get that damage reduction which is really good on an Energy Shield sorceress but this could also be a Caster crafted, it can actually be any of the crafted armors depending on what look you're going for they all have valuable stats on them that would let you move stats around on other gear pieces, but again the chance to cast Nova when struck two sockets to be able to put facets into it additional mana and then poison length reduction which is really important on an energy Shield Nova sorcerers.

Typically we are using cure on our mercenary so it's a little bit less important but this at least gets us close to the zero percent poison length reduction meaning that poison is only applying for its normal length of time as opposed to double its rate.
Rings - Same ring on both sides, these are cast are crafted for the FCR, energy, Mana, regenerate Mana, and then we go with all res and Nova when struck on both of them.
Belt - A Caster crafted belt this should be a crafted belt color as opposed to the rare belt color, Nova When Struck, Mana, additional tri-res across the board, obviously here you could also put faster hit recovery if she didn't want to have it down in your charms, but try res is probably the best option here.
Boots - For Boots, Faster run/walk, Mana, lightning res, Nova when struck.
Amulet - For this amulet, it is absolutely disgusting, with +2 to sorceress skills, the FCR from the castercraft, 110 Mana, regen Mana, all res, and then Nova when struck.
Swap - On our swap, we're just using Call to Arms and Spirit is really important for our Energy Shield sorceress to get closer to that 3K Mana range that we would like to be at.
Charms - And then across the charms, this actually isn't even optimal, we would actually like to swap over a couple of these charms to Magic Find as opposed to Life since life is less important since we're on an Energy Shield build, but also get Crack of the Heavens, Hellfire Torch, Annihilus, life lightning skillers, and hit recovery lightning skillers to be at the 43 free faster hit recovery breakpoint.

Your mileage is absolutely going to vary if you try to set this up but I know that other people who love the Nova sorceress, especially the self-wield infinity nova sorceress, we're already really excited to try this out because in a lot of circumstances, it actually is slightly faster than a similar Nova sorceress since we're at the 63 FCR breakpoint.

Skills

Static Field: Max
Nova: Max
Lightning Mastery: Max
Telekinesis: Max
Energy Shield: Enough points
Thunder Storm: 1 Point
Warmth: 1 Point

For the skill tree, first of all, max out Static Field, Nova, and Lightning Mastery, and also maxing out telekinesis as a Synergy, then enough points into Energy Shield so that with memory staff and call to arms worth at 95 absorption rate which is the highest you can get on energy shield, and then additional points are really not important in any way shape or form. We do pick up one point to warmth for that extra little bit of Mana recovery, it's a lot less important if you're using an Insight mercenary but every bit helps. Then surprisingly, you don't even really want to pick up Frozen Armor, it is going to apply chill length to monsters in hell and that's going to decrease the rate at which they attack you and the rate at which they attack you is how quickly you can output additional novas while you yourself are casting static field or Nova, so we actually want to be getting hit as often as possible.

Mercenary

For the mercenary, we're using a prayer mercenary, so that we can get the triple dip of prayer from the meditation ore as well as the cleansing Aura

Cure - It basically solves all of our poison problems that you would normally have on an Energy Shield sorceress, as well as giving us additional healing from the prayer and that's also giving him additional healing from the prayer as well.
Insight Cryptic Axe - Use this for the meditation ore, for the double dip on the prayer, and also for the huge amount of Mana regen for our Energy Shield consumption.
Chains of Honor - The plus two to skills from Chains of Honor not only increases his prayer level for the base aura that he has, but it also increases the Synergy bonus both on cure and meditation since all of these auras on the Paladin actually benefit from soft points to prayer whereas most other skills only benefit from hard points as a Synergy.

Stats

For our stats, we put just enough strength in to be able to use a monarch on the swap, for the strength requirement and then everything else down into energy.

Lightning Nova Sorceress Gameplay

How this build typically performs? Jump in, static casting Nova every once while they attack us as well we get some free novas that's kind of what happens here.

Nova does a ton of damage and it's really powerful but it doesn't do damage on every single frame, it's just not able to do so. At 200 FCR, the fastest steady sorceress can actually put out damage is every seven frames, meaning that in between there are six frames where the monster is actively regenerating. The reason why this double Nova sorceress actually gets better damage output than your typical Nova sorceress is that you are interrupting their region on every frame where that extra Nova is spiking out from your character, and monsters hitting us multiple times are triggering multiple novas meaning that there are less and fewer spaces in between for them to be regenerating.

That's the double Nova sorceress, it's a sorceress that casts Nova even when she isn't casting Nova, and then when she does cast the Nova, she casts double the novas. It is actually a decent pacifist build if you do nothing else. And then once you actually build it out with a proper mercenary and actually use Infinity and attack yourself, you are somehow generating a better output than you would have expected.