Hope you had fun trying out the Thor Lightning in Season 1 so far. If you don’t know what Thor Lightning is, it is a build that combines Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning.
I am going to cover the keys that will help you dominate the mid till endgame through the Thor Lightning, or actually Thor Nuke now.
Hearts To Use
First, for the Thor build, the best heart to use is The Barber heart.
Since the Lightning Sorcerer has a high crit chance, it basically converts all damage into AOE damage with a 40+% improvement. Therefore, the Chain Lightning becomes Chain Nuke.
One trick to bring The Barber to the next level is to begin a fight with Lightning Spear and Spamming Chain Lightning and raiment Teleport to pull all enemies into one spot. And finally, all monsters get deleted instantly. You’ll also get a lot of Diablo 4 Gold for it.
For the other two hearts, use Tal’Rasha for a 36% Global Damage boost and Revenge for 20% Tankier.
I did a thorough and complicated calculation for the Tempting Fate heart. And my conclusion is that it is not worthy as even in the most ideal case with the Elementalist’s Aspect. The damage improvement is around 20%, which is far from to the flat 30+% boost from Tal’Rasha. So, just don’t use it for now unless Blizzard updates it.
If you don’t have The Barber yet, use The Picana, which is a great AOE for further Damage, Cracking Energy and Mana. And if you don’t have any of the hearts. Don’t worry. You can read my other guide ‘How To Progress Fast In Diablo 4 Season 1? - 3 Must-Know Tips’ to get the best heart and XP farming locations and tips.
Gears & Aspects
Second, for gears, always focus on these defensive stats on Helm, Chest Armor, and Pants:
- Maximum Life
- % Total Armor
- Close Enemy Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction
Get plus Conjuration Mastery Passive and % Total Armor on Amulet.
Aspect wise, replace Recharging Aspect with Accelerating Aspect to get Attack Speed as conjuration benefits from Attack Speed. Especially Ice Blades, look at how fast my ult is back.
Below are all the gear and skills of this build:
Aspects:
- Aspect of Might (Helm)
- Raiment of the Infinite (Chest Armor)
- Accelerating Aspect (Gloves)
- Aspect of Disobedience (Pants)
- Exploiter’s Aspect (Boots)
- Conceited Aspect (Weapon)
- Elementalist’s Aspect (Amulet)
- Prodigy’s Aspect (Ring 1)
- Aspect of Control (Ring 2)
Gems: Emerald, Ruby, The Barber, Tal’Rasha, Revenge
Skills: Spark, Chain Lighting, Teleport, Ice Blades, Lighting Spear, Unstable Currents
Enchantments: Ice Blade, Ball Lightning
If you don’t have certain aspects, don’t worry, you can read ‘Diablo 4 Thor Tal’Rasha Summoner Sorcerer Build: Season 1 Sorcerer Build Guide’ because all aspects are dungeon unlockable and you can start from there. Or, You can take a look at the Diablo 4 Boosting Service on this site. Whether you encounter difficulties in fighting bosses or finding certain items, there will be professional players to help you solve them one by one.
Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 1 Patch 1.1.0a Update Notes! - All Fixes & Nerfs
Paragon Board
Third, for Paragon Board, use the Destruction Glyph for the 1st board Paragon Board as we have high Crit Chance and the 1st board has enough dexterity to unlock the 12% Global Bonus damage at Glyph Level 1.
Then, unlock the Enchantment Master board and walk to the Legendary Node as soon as possible that is extremely important for the build. Because all Cooldown Skills can generate 20% more Ice Blades where we will have on average 7 Conjurations at the same time. And with the plus 3 Rank Conjuration Mastery on Amulet, it is a 42% Global Damage Boost and even more to Cooldown Reduction on top of the Accelerating Aspect we just saw. And we also have more static Ball Lightning that are huge AOE sweepers.
Then, get the Rare Nodes for more Non-Physical Damage to greatly improve our “Damage to” bucket. And get the Elementalist Glyph since the 2nd board has enough Intelligence to unlock the 15% Global Damage Bonus.
Then, go up to unlock the Frigid Fate Board to get more Vulnerable Damage with the Tactician Glyph. And go right to the Static Surge board for more Crowd Control synergies with the Exploit Glyph to further improve Vulnerable Damage.
For upgrading glyphs, first upgrade the Destruction, then the Exploit, then the Tactician, and last the Elementalist.
Frost Nova Variant
If you are new to the Thor Lightning build, you may find using Frost Nova more comfortable as it instantly freezes all enemies around. It also works with the Thor Nuke build that I made a Frost Nova variant.
Just move 3 points from the Ball Lightning to Frost Nova, replace Ice Blades with Frost Nova on the Skill Bar and you are good to go. It has better Group Crowd Control so monsters get deleted while Crowd Controlled.
The minor downside is that a single elite or boss fight will take slightly more time. Also, get plus Frost Nova on the boots if you are going with this variant Ending.
Ending
Sorcerer is actually super fun to play in Season 1. But now, it feels just too powerful after using The Barber heart.
With the lowering Nightmare Dungeon difficulty in the recent patch, personally, I have a feeling that I can pass Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon even before Level 100. I hope Blizzard balances the Barber in the upcoming 1.1.1 or it might kill the game too quickly given that Season 1 will last for 3 months.
