D4 Sorcerer Class Basics Guide | Should I Play Sorcerer?

This guide has two main purposes! One: Learn all about the basics of the Diablo 4's Sorcerer Class. Two: Help you answer, "Should I choose, or try out Sorcerer" in D4. Hopefully by the end of this, you'll be more informed about the Sorcerer class, as well as make a more informed decision if you wish to play one!

While this started out to be two separate guides, I ultimately combined them since they seemed served the same purpose...

Diablo 4 Sorcerer Overview

Here, I TRY to describe Sorcerer at a very high level. A summary of Sorcerer in D4, in a nutshell...

Sorcerer is the "magic user" class. I assume that comes as no surprise! One of the OG classes, easily compared to D1 and D2's Sorcs, or D3's Wizard. If you've played almost any RPG (or game in general) you'll know the archetype well. D4's Sorcerer will not disappoint if you wanna sling spells.

Well while that's great, the next question would be, "What kind of magic?". In D4 Sorcerers command the powers of Fire, Shock, and Cold magic.

Their playstyle is heavily focused on "safe" long range spellcasting, and keeping it that way. Compared to all the other classes, Sorc would be the most skewed towards ranged gameplay.

Sorcerer Key Passives

Each class has a variety of Key Passives that somehow push you towards a certain build archetype. They are incredibly powerful passives for a single point, and can be build defining. Knowing about the Sorcerer Key Passives might give you further info about the class, and if you should try the class out.

Combustion
Burn effects hurt more for each unique source of burn it's suffering from. If there are 3 or more unique burns - double the bonus.

Esu's Ferocity
Fire Critical Strike Damage is buffed versus enemies above 50% life, and Critical Strike Chance is buffed against enemies below that. Killing an enemy with a crit grants you both bonuses against all enemies for 3s.

Vyr's Mastery
Close enemies take more damage from Shock skills, and you take less damage from them. Critical Strikes increase these bonuses for 3s.

Overflowing Energy
Crackling Energy hits 1 additional enemy, and each time it hits reduce your Shock cooldowns by 0.1s (0.25s against Elites).

Avalanche
Frost skills have a SMALL chance make your next Ice Shards, Frozen Orb, or Blizzard to consume no mana and deal bonust damage. Double the chances versus Vulnerable enemies.

Shatter
After Freeze expires, enemies explode for a large percent of the damage you dealt to then while they were frozen.

As you can imagine, the Sorc key passives are clearly separated by the types of magic. 2 for Shock, 2 for Fire, and 2 for Frost. Generally speaking your build will eventually heavily focus on one of these magic types.

Sorcerer Unique Class Systems

Each class has their own "thing". These Class Systems are unique to the Sorcerer, and may help you gain more insights on wether you should play one.

Enchantment

Every single one of the Sorcerer's skills have a corresponding Enchantment. You can slot any LEARNED skill into your Enchantment slots to gain its benefits. These are like extra "mini key passives". For example, my favorite, Fireball as an Enchantment triggers a Fireball whenever on-kill. Imagine the chain reaction!

Note that these can easily be swapped around for certain encounters. While that Fireball enchantment sucks for single target (boss fights), you can quickly change it up. Adds a very welcome aspect of flexibility without respeccing.

Sorcs can have up to 2 Enchantments active, and you do not lose access to using a skill if you do have it as an Enchantment as well.

Other little mechanics

Crackling Energy Some Shock Skills and Passives generate Crackling Energy. These little balls of lightning can be picked up and stored. When you're near an enemy, they slowly get consumed for a "conduit" like effect zapping nearby enemies.

Burning Is basically their unique Fire damage based DoT. This is also a huge aspect of Fire-based specs. Burning is heavily supported by passives, aspects, and skills.

Chilling / Freezing All Cold damage done by Sorc chills, and any further Cold damage may Freeze the target. Both halves of this Cold Debuff package are also naturally very supported by skills, aspects, and passives.

Shock + Stun / other effects Each element has their little subtheme, and aside from Crackling Energy, Shock damage causes all sorts of "short circuiting". Stun is the main one, but this one is the most chaotic. Again, there's enough aspects, passives, and skills that support this.

Outro & Summary

Well, that's all I can muster for an overview / summary of Diablo 4's Sorcerer, for now at least!

Some important related links for D4 Sorcerer:

Obviously, there's still a lot more to Sorcerer, but I hope you gained some more knowledge here. I'll definitely add more as time goes by! And if you're here to answer if you should choose a Sorcerer, with luck you've made your decision!

Some other related reading:

Wanna know more about classes? See: All classes overview - What class to play?
Find out each and every way you can Customize your Build and Character in D4!