Even if Blizzard fixes the Ball Lightning Core tag issue, the mobility nerf is still a major hit to the build, and having that taken away mid season feels bad. If the season started with this nerf its one thing, but having it changed mid season just feels bad.

Blizzard also put a lot of effort into building hype for the new expansion, the new season, and the new mechanics. A lot of casual players came back because of that hype, and many of them chose Sorc because it looked fast, powerful, and exciting.

Now, two weeks into the season, after people already invested time, mats, and gear into the build, the mobility loop gets heavily nerfed.

That feels bad.

Blizzard has said before that they do not want to nerf builds mid season unless something is truly breaking the game. I do not think fast teleport was breaking the game. It was fun. It made farming feel smooth. It gave the Sorc a strong identity this season.

Even if the Ball Lightning Core tag is a bug and gets fixed quickly, the mobility part still seems gone. And for many players, that was a major part of why the build felt so good.

Also, we are currently in the middle of the short double Whisper cache event. Until this is fixed or clarified, a lot of casual Sorc players simply cannot enjoy the event with the build they were working toward.

Blizzard, please fix the Ball Lightning tag ASAP, but also reconsider the mobility nerf.

I see a ton of posts on here about being "stuck" in T3, 6, 8, etc. Every class can smoothly progress on your first character to at minimum Torment 10 this way. You don't have Paragon levels/gear/mats to do all of the things streamers advertise as the "best" method for "x." The game is easier than ever to gear and progress, but it's also more complicated than ever how all of these systems work together.

Note: This isn't the most optimized way to progress an alt, this is for new and returning players overwhelmed by all of the mechanics.

Torment 1 - 4 (Paragon 1-100)

• Look up a guide on your favorite build site, Maxroll/Mobalytics/etc.
• Look for a Starter Variant targeted for fresh 70s.
• Copy Skills/Paragon/Talismans/Mercenaries.
• Look at the stats required on your gear and put Aspects on the best ones you can find.
• This gear will be replaced many times, so don't worry about Masterworking/Tempering/Socketing during this phase.
• Start looking for your 2-Set or 3-Set Charm bonus. Save all Unique Charms for crafting later.
• Grind Warplan rewards and level up activities. Try to chain multiple in the same plan.
• My favorite activities to focus early are Pits and Helltides. The rewards pay off later.
• If you still need aspects, farm NMDs and Helltides. It's a numbers game and these have activities drop items from chests/elites/etc. UC/Infernal Hordes only drop rewards at the end of the activity.
• The trader in the Merc hideout sells aspect caches for coins after Level 10 with a Merc. This can help speed up the aspect grind.
• If you focused Pits, get Glyphs for your build to 25.
• Once you can do the Pit 25 at 3 minutes or less it's safe to push Torment levels.
• Suggest using an early game loot filter for your build. This will help identify valuable items and speed up farming.

Torment 6 (Paragon 50-150)

• Keep looking for better gear and grind Warplan activities. Start transitioning to Mid/Endgame variant based on gear.
• For the Paragon board it's better to sprawl across the boards as quickly as possible while following the guide. The general priority of nodes are Legendary >Glyph slots > Legendary > Rare > Glyph Radius stats to 40+> Stats. You don't need every Rare node on the way to filling out your boards.
• Farm Lair Bosses for Uniques. Requires Lair Keys and Greater Lair Keys from Warplans and other activities. These stats are random now, so you'll likely need multiple drops before a decent one show up. You do not need a perfectly rolled unique to progress. Most uniques are inherently powerful and allow build synergy with just 1-2 good stats on it to get started.
• Should have the Charm 5-Set by now. Start Cube rerolling them for stats suggested. Focus on the offensive stat. The 2nd stat is defensive/utility and not required. (This isn't always in the 2nd slot) Use the Craft Unique Charm recipe with those Unique Charms you saved earlier.
• Grind required Glyphs to 51+.
• Start Tempering items. These can GA. Roll a few times for a decent roll. DO NOT GAMBA FOR GA TEMPERS. You will quickly run out of souls and gold on ilvl 900 items.
• Start Socketing. You probably have some useful Runes and Gems in weapons and jewelry are very useful.
• If you find item level 900 items for the slots that use uniques, and you have some Enhanced Primordial Dust, you can start using the "Upgrade to Unique" recipe. DO NOT USE THIS RECIPE ON ILVL 850 ITEMS. DO NOT REROLL GAMBA FOR LEGENDARY GEAR. You don't have the dust yet to effectively do this unless you know what you are doing. The only exception I would recommend is removing affix on Blue gear to gamble Uniques for the rare or annoying ones like Astaroth/Bartuc.
• Once you can do the Pit 60 at 3 minutes or less it's safe to push Torment levels.

Torment 8-10 (Paragon 150-225)

• Continue refining gear rolls with better stats.
• Grind Glyphs to 80-100+
• If not already, start using a loot filter or build one. The filter has a category for Codex Upgrades which is useful. These are extremely flexible to only show useful items you want speeding up farming. Many filters have a STRICT version to only look for valuable Ancestral or GA items at this point.
• Have 5-Set Charms, have Legendary Seal with +1 Slot, Unique Charm you need.
• Now is the time you can start Masterworking/Tempering. Gear won't be replaced nearly as quickly.
• You probably have a Mythic Tribute of Armaments by this point. Do these on the highest Torment you can speed run. The time is tight and easy to fail for some players.
• Speedrunning T10 is often more valuable than slogging through T12. It's a loot game and if it takes forever to kill in T12, you're probably better off in 10.

Probably some things I missed. Feel free to add. Remember guys, this isn't "the most efficient way to x, or best way to x." Can you cube before I recommended in T6? Can you grind Infernal Hordes instead of Helltides? Of course! Use good judgement based off your needs. The point is, none of these things are really REQUIRED until a certain point, because some mechanics and systems are inherently stronger than others and often overlooked.

Happy hunting guys!

Edit: Adjusted Paragon Board priority, suggested Loot Filter early in T1-4, updated T8 Loot Filter to STRICT, added Temper suggestion.
Edit 2: Added Merc Trader bullet in T1-4.
Edit 3: Typos and updated certain bullets for clarity.

Does anyone else feel like Sorc just got a pretty big nerf with that update that just happened today or is it just me? I feel like my blaze teleport is reaching its small cooldown after expending OP stacks a lot faster now, as well as UC having a small cooldown between uses now. I had it perfect with 100% uptime.

So many of the variants are just completely useless....Even those that aren't, can only really be used in one ultra specific way.

E.g. The "Behemoth" Hydra....What's the point?

A 15 second Cooldown, which by the way, makes it completely incompatible with two of the "Side upgrades" right away.

20x damage per head it is supposed to have....Which literally means that it does less damage than if it had a single additional head.....As after the base 3 heads, a 4th head clearly results in an additional 33x damage.

It's not just a simple case of balancing either, there's a lack of synergy, only enhanced by the fact that Set Items contain a disproportionate amount of damage compared to builds which don't align with Set items.

The infinite teleport nerf kind of just kills the build fun-wise, especially with how short our range is. I honestly would have preferred a tuning down of DPS if anything rather than this. Hopefully the big brains can figure out an alternative pathway to get us back to TP spam :(

Fixed issues affecting Meteor, Fireball, Chain Lightning, Ice Shards, Hydra, and related upgrades where damage, bonuses, or interactions did not function as described.

What exactly did they fix anyone noticed any fix?

So far I tested the Hydra and;

Behemoth Hydra still not interacting with Aspect of the Ancient Flame.

Also;

Now Ball Lightning does not reduce the cooldowns with the Aspect of the Orange Herald.(This was working before the patch).

I just noticed there is no 'Core' tag on the Ball Lightning. Did they changed it with this update? Other mastery skills still have the 'Core' tag.

Just started a new sorc last night and wanted to know if the new patch touched the blizzard build.

I’m currently sitting in t12, paragon 210 with Mekuna’s static field starter version, sort of halfway to his shockuna build. My issue is I have not gotten an El Druin yet. Believe me I have opened like 25 mythic caches and still no luck. Gotten basically every other mythic a few times..

Currently hitting for high 100 billions consistently while also hitting low trillions occasionally. I want to swap from a 2H staff to a sword and focus setup so I can use the constellation aspect again which I dropped in favor of a winterglass.

Is anyone here running the shockuna build without the el Druin sword? Do you just go for a GG sword with the usual stats you’d get on a staff + a GG focus?

Even the Ball Lightning build has Frost and Fire built into it, everywhere I look. I don't want those elements. I just want Shock. Does every powerful Sorc build require all 3 elements to succeed at high levels now? Why would they create that? That's the opposite of build diveristy if we have to use certain elements and skills to get deep into the game. It's nonsensical & frustrating.

Spent a good amount of time on husks and escalations over the past couple of days. Luck is not with me and I have not gotten one usable FWG with a decent CSDM on it.

Then it dawned on me that I should have had the war plan lair boss activity selected for Astaroth’s mutt to possibly spawn at the end of NMDs.

Has anyone had good luck with that spawning? Thinking of running like 20 escalations tonight with that selected…or I spend a few hours running Seer’s, sell some Horadric Gems and then just buy a decent 80-90b one from someone.

Thoughts?