Is Sorcerer supposed to feel weak at lvl 30?

[A Cute Kitty]

I don't know why, but when I look at my big fire spells like firewall that claim to do 1k-ish damage, and enemies only take at most 80-ish damage a tick; or when fireball claims to do +450 damage yet enemies only take like 200 damage I feel lied too. It seems like I'm forced to run frost spells, purely because the vulnerable status effect is so darn useful.

[TyresTyco]

Yeah fire sorc isn't it at low lvls. If you want to be semi useful do ice. If you want to be good go chain lightning.. if you want to be broken OP go ball lightning (only with it's aspect and some better mana regen stuff) even with iceball in the enchantment table and a codex umbral aspect it works.

Blizzard isnt good in balancing the classes and their builds. There are only a couple pretty good ones.. a couple absolutely broken OP.. but the most builds are pretty garbage.

[Terror]

yep fire sorc is still complete garbage

i recommend switching to lightning if you want to remain sane

and yeah frost nova is a must on every build

[Rohji]

I play full fire mage with passives for buring over time no critic and i dont complain dont know how it gona be on higher world tier

[马文蕾不再爱我]

Yes, it is that way.
Later when you will have your gear with all spells and stuff you will feel the real power.
But go for ice better. You will need maybe some dude who will help you out a bit, solo it will last a while.

[Jimmy James]

I play a fire sorc and do alright but I'm only level 52.

Slot firewall as your skill buff (default key is S) so any burning damage can trigger 2 more firewalls. The second one is not as important. I use the additional burn damage one. The firewall one is must have in my opinion because:

If you Find an amulet or other gear that lets you spawn 2 hydras and slot the skill that makes them do burn damage. You'll be popping additional firewalls everywhere.

I have incinerate, hydra, inferno, and teleport slotted. Max everything but teleport, just need one point in it.

Find the dungeon weapon buff that gives a bonus to incinerate and stick it on a good roll every once in a while. At a certain point you'll have plenty of salvaged legendary weapon mats.

Skills pick burning damage and mana regen. Get the inferno skill that groups enemies together.

Gear should have fire, core, int, conjuration, mastery, Pyro and plus levels to any of the skills you use. Don't stress over it too much at this point cause you'll be swapping pieces often.

I get to a group, pop hydras, lay one firewall down, stand still, and channel incinerate and it all just melts away.

Teleport makes a nice emergency skill if you get stunlocked or trapped. It's not necessary but I use it enough to keep it there.

This is only world level 2 though so i may need to change things up when I finish the campaign. It's fun at least up to this point.

Good luck.

[Coldhands]

I started a Sorcerer for Season 2, and can confirm, Ball Lightning is a banger. There's an aspect that makes it orbit around your character and do more damage, and I pretty much just cast that and then focus on picking up Crackling Energy drops it creates to refill mana and keep casting.
But be careful of the shrines that let you cast for free for a short period, because I've cast so many Ball Lightnings at once my game crashed. : p

[Trip]

I started a fire sorcerer for S2, a well thought out build using aspects and affixes to good effect. Got to level 35, then quit it and started a rogue.

I slapped together a penetrating shot build and was doing more damage at lvl 20 then my sorcerer with a fraction of the work and effort.

Something up with burn damage.

If you want a 'burn' build you go ice and slap on the fire bolt enchant...

[Coldhands]

^I haven't tried burn yet, but for some builds, the performance difference between leveling with early game gear, and max skill points with endgame gear can be extreme.
Also, don't forget it's super easy to refund all your skill points and rebuild into a whole different setup on a whim.

[Hefutoxin]

I ran Fire Sorc at launch and Season 1.

Fire has two main ways to play: Burn and Crit.
Burn is defensive. You aren't going to 1-shot the entire screen. You will, however, facetank everything while it burns to death. It excels at mana regen, damage reduction, and healing.

Fire Crit has extra sources of increased Crit damage. To reap the benefits of it, you need to have a high crit chance. You don't get that at lower levels.

Neither is going to be a Meta build this season.

[Eantas]

I'm at lvl 26 fire mage. My basic attacks do more damage that a maxed out fireball. I was wondering if the only one that felt fire mage weakness. Meteor and hydra are the only skills that seem to have any use in this class.

[Tyberi]

if you want to have extremely fun and effective fireball sorc build:
mix unique staff that let you throw multiple fireballs at once + unique gloves that makes fireballs bounce instead of fly forward and explode every bounce

on the other hand at 30 lvl you simply should respec and try something else every time you feel your build doesn't suits you. at this point you constantly rotate your gear and you're not forced by your gear to stick to your build so try this, try that, find your playstyle.

my season starter was chain lightning with firebolt enchant + hydras, overall I tried to focus on boosting DoT damage and was suprised how well it actually worked for most content, beat Duriel with that. couldn't beat Lilith.

now I'm running something else but I feel this season is so easy due to vampiric powers and balancing they did I can imagine most builds you can think of are viable for doing most content except maybe Lilith.
it was noticable harder to make your build comes online at season 1 or pre-season

[Eantas]

I switched to lightinng mage withought unique items and oh dear me did it feel like night and day. Fire mage is not loved. Lighting in comparison felt OP

[😎Astran😾]

Sorc is extremely weak until you get ball lightning build up and running. Or at least ice spikes-splinters-whatever build.

What helps a lot is the seasonal vampire power which strike enemies for 40-80% health every 4 seconds. Also hydra and firewalls may revitalize the gameplay until you collect all the items for certain build.