The Sorcerer class in Diablo 4 received a number of significant buffs to its Shock skills, and if you want to blitz your way through Season 10, then this Crackling Energy/Chain Lightning build is for you.

Lightning builds were pretty decent in past seasons of Diablo 4, but the big buff to the Overflowing Energy capstone skill only made things better. This build may start off slow, but once you get the right gear and skills, it's going to pop off and carry you even into the higher Torment and Pit tiers.

diablo-4-season-10-barbarian-dust-devil-build
This S-Tier Diablo 4 Season 10 Build Only Requires Players to Exist

For Diablo 4 Season 10 players who want to get kills while barely lifting a finger, this top-tier build is ideal thanks to new seasonal mechanics.

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Best Chain Lightning Leveling Build for Sorcerers in Diablo 4

D4 Crackling Energy Sorcerer Leveling Build

Before anything else, it's important to note that Lightning skills rely a lot on both Lucky Hit and Critical Strike Chance. You likely won't have much of either of these stats when you start a fresh seasonal character, so the build will be weaker than what most players might expect.

Lightning builds in general tend to go fully online once players get ~25% crit chance through items, and you can expect to reach this point by around level 30. Because of this, we recommend either using an Incinerate build early on, or just play on Normal or Hard difficulty until you get good gear.

Active Skills

D4 Chain Lightning Skill Description

Skill

Notes

Glinting Spark (1/5)

Weave this in between Chain Lightning casts to regenerate Mana and increase your crit chance.

Destructive Chain Lightning (5/5)

Your main damage skill. With enough legendary Aspects, this skill will maintain your Mana on its own while dealing tons of damage along with your other DPS skills.

Mystical Teleport (1/5)

Mobility skill for faster mapping and emergency evades. The Mystical Upgrade will help you get and maintain Crackling Energy stacks. Later on, you may want to replace the upgrade with Shimmering, but only if you can constantly generate Crackling Energy through other means.

Shimmering Ice Armor (1/5)

Provides Barrier and Mana regeneration. Excellent survivability skill overall.

Invoked Lightning Spear (5/5)

Your secondary DPS skill that's also capable of generating plenty of Crackling Energy with the right passives/Aspects. Use it whenever it's not on cooldown.

Supreme Unstable Currents (5/5)

Fills the screen with Shock skills when active. Use this whenever there's a boss or a large Elite pack.

Spark is a deceptively strong Basic Skill. If you're planning on using this build right from the start, don't be afraid to rely on this skill more than Chain Lightning. Later on, once Chain Lightning becomes strong enough to deal big damage and trigger both crits and Lucky Hits, you'll only want to use Spark to regenerate Mana and maintain its crit chance bonus. You'll also need it for a Chaos Power (more on this later).

Passive Skills

D4 Overflowing Energy Season 10 Buff

Max out all of these passive skills (unless otherwise specified).

Overflowing Energy is the star of this show. It got buffed in Season 10 — apart from its original cooldown-reducing effect, it now also increases your Lightning Damage by a whopping x85%, and Crackling Energy will now hit 1 additional time. This will be your first major power spike, and with it, you'll be able to take on Expert difficulty (Penitent too, but only once you get the right gear).

Prioritize passive skills that increase your damage (Glass Cannon, Inner Flames, Elemental Dominance), then get all the Shock skill passives. If you don't have the minimum 25% crit chance stated earlier, max out Coursing Currents until you do.

For your Sorcerer Enchantments, use Spark to generate more Crackling Energy and Chain Lightning for even more Chain Lightning spam. You can replace the latter with Lightning Spear if you want more Crackling Energy.

Chaos Powers

D4 Advanced Techniques Chaos Perk

Season 10's Chaos Powers offer players new ways to augment their builds. All Chaos Powers in Diablo 4 provide some sort of combat-related bonus, and for this build in particular, we'll be using the following:

  • Explosive Combinations: Casting a Basic Skill increases your damage for 5 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
  • Accelerating Chaos: On Lucky Hit, you have a chance to create a Chaotic Burst on the enemy, dealing massive damage. When a Chaotic Burst hits, a random active cooldown is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
  • Advanced Techniques: Base Core Skill ranks increase their respective skills' Mana costs by 10%, but their damage is also further increased.
  • Chaos Unleashed: Killing an enemy or damaging a boss generates 2 and 5 stacks of Chaos respectively. Reaching 100 stacks unleashes a salvo of Chaotic Bursts, dealing up to 500% damage based on your strongest damage type. Chaotic Bursts gain increased Critical Strike Chance and deal increased damage.

Advanced Techniques will significantly increase the damage and Mana cost of Chain Lightning. If you're having trouble sustaining your Mana with this Chaos Perk active, swap it for Erupting Chaos.

Gear and Stat Priorities

D4 Crackling Energy Sorcerer build weapon

As you're leveling up with this Diablo 4 Sorcerer leveling build, keep an eye out for items with the following stats:

  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Damage
  • Intelligence
  • Lucky Hit Chance
  • Chance to Restore Resource on Lucky Hit
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Defenses (Armor, Life, Resistances)
  • Mana Per Second

Visit the nearest Blacksmith and Temper your gear for more Damage and, if possible, anything that improves the effectiveness of your Shock skills. Tempering is essential if you want to play on higher difficulty levels.

Use Emeralds on your weapons for more crit damage, Topazes on your armor for more damage, and either the CirGar or CirLum Runewords for more crit chance or Mana regen respectively.

Legendary Aspects

D4 Lightning Rod Aspect

Item

Aspect

Helmet

Aspect Of The Protector

Chest

Aspect Of Disobedience

Gloves

Aspect Of Splintering Energy

Pants

Aspect Of The Deflecting Barrier

Boots

Aspect Of the Bounding Conduit

Amulet

Aspect Of Abundant Energy

Rings

1H Weapon

Lightning Rod Aspect

Offhand

Aspect Of the Unbroken Tether

This is what your legendary Aspect setup should look like once you hit level 50 or so. Unfortunately, this Diablo 4 Sorcerer leveling build is also very reliant on Aspects. If you're having trouble farming legendaries to get the right Aspects, consider using these alternatives:

Paragon Boards

D4 Ceaseless Conduit Legendary Node

We won't be going in-depth with Paragon Board building since this is a leveling build. However, we will stress how important the Charged Glyph is for pushing those early Torment and Pit tiers. Attach this to your starting board and get as much Intelligence as you can within the Glyph's radius.

Next, attach the Ceaseless Conduit board and make a beeline for the Legendary Node — this will massively increase your damage while Crackling Energy is active. After that, head toward the Glyph node and insert Destruction for better crits.

As you level up, consider using the following:

  • Fundamental Release with Conjurer
  • Static Surge with Enchanter
  • Enchantment Master with Eliminator

As always, plan your Paragon Board path based on what your character needs. Take defensive nodes if you're dying too often, and get offensive nodes if you feel like you need more damage.

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Diablo 4
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9 /10
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Released
June 5, 2023
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WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info

ESRB
Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
Developer(s)
Blizzard
Publisher(s)
Blizzard
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op
Cross-Platform Play
All platforms
Cross Save
All platforms
Prequel(s)
Diablo 3
Franchise
Diablo
Number of Players
1-2 players
Steam Deck Compatibility
Verified
PC Release Date
June 5, 2023
Xbox Series X|S Release Date
June 5, 2023
PS5 Release Date
June 5, 2023
Genre(s)
Action RPG, Hack and Slash
OpenCritic Rating
Mighty
Local Co-Op Support
1-2 players (console only)
How Long To Beat
26 Hours
X|S Optimized
Yes
File Size Xbox Series
158.25 GB
PS Plus Availability
N/A