Early game I usually go for 3 attunement slots, raw infusion on melee weapons, and spell buffs/resins.

Mage starting gear is good, I learned to love the Mail Breaker. It has a low stamina cost and high critical damage.

https://d4builds.gg/builds/a4a90a9f-e40f-469a-a4ae-e34b5a19c2dc/?var=2 you can clear pit 100 with no mythics

Meteor sorc only needs 1 mythic (shroud). #2 to hydra but very fast once fully online

You can 1000% do hydra with no mythics needed. I was stomping to t4 with just non ancestral gear with that build. Yes, getting the mythics makes it a shit ton more powerful but it is NOT needed to blast through t4

You can look up the hydra starter build on mobolitics or d4 builds.

I am doing hydra atm. Its a hard jump from T2 to 3. Getting your runes and paragon up can make all the difference though - I am running no mythics

I had good luck with the ancestral version of this build without mythics.

https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/98800fe4-5cfe-47e5-a0ee-40611679b379/builds/6add37bc-8028-4f5c-9ccb-3229b5f6dbac?coreTab=assigned-skills&equipmentTab=aspects-and-uniques&variantTab=2

Maxroll.gg

Find a levelling build on maxroll, don't use too may skills at the same time. Enjoy the campaign!

Mobalytics has builds from Mekuna and Lurkin, who are top sorc build creators. Mekunas are mostly deep endgame, but I’d check Lurkins as he usually has starting builds, that only need legendaries to work.
When it comes to leveling builds I don’t see much difference at all.

D2 doesn't work that way. You'll also need a hammerdin, fury or ww barb. Frenzy druid. Fire frost and light sorc o e of each. You need to learn a stock market/ item trade system and values. Learn a new language. Look shit up twice because the most important thing is never told from the first time. Gear and stats don't make sense. Why tf am I putting points to str on a fucking sorc...? You got this bro. Simple.

BLIZZARD SORC CAN NEVER GO WRONG!! great even when cheap, quite Simple to use.

Do online non ladder, join "free here" games, lookup how rushes work, get rushed. Then play.

I'd suggest getting rushed to act 2 and buying a merc, then play a1. Only put 1 pt in warmth unless its a synergy.

depends how you want to enjoy it

if you prefer known build then just go to maxroll and follow leveling guide

if you want to explore things then just play. you will have it rough tho - game is from older times where gamers were not lazy mofos who expected everything handed on the silver platter so playing without knowledge is challenging - you are expected to learn what works and what doesnt

If you play offline you can add a line in the loader -enablerespec that will allow you to infinitely reallocate skill points and attributes along the way. You can then play sorc anyway you want as you get gear or want to try new skills.

If you havet played before enjoy the game first time through on the easiest difficulty. Most builds can pass players 1 difficulty on sorc even when terribly built.

My chain lightning sorc is the bomb. Everyone's doing LS. All you really need to get to T4 are axials. Godslayer and tal rashs's help. Mythics just make you stronger. Start running pit and level up the glyphs you need. You get the most xp in pits you can do in 3 minutes or so. To level glyphs try to do pit levels 10 pts above yours. Which give a 100% upgrade chance if you can. The glyphs are the same between the builds. They need to be at least 46 for T4. Running Lurkin's/Roxy's CL. Her skill tree and his paragon boards. Remember paragon is power. Meteor is also very good just not as fast. I feel the need for speed.

Frozen orb by Lurkin is nice. You only need a winterglass to produce spears. Later you can choose to switch to pure LS or not, since the winterglass build can do pit 100+. Focus on getting Sidhe bindings gloves with GA on primordial binding

I`m playing as a Frozen orb / Lightning spear on T4 just fine for now with no mythics and a non ga Winterglass

I reached Pit60 yesterday kinda comfortably. I probably still can`t solo the bosses, but overall it survives pretty well on T4.

Lightning Spear based on frozen orb with shattered winterglass should be a lower entry point in terms of gear.
Try Lurkins one from mobalytics.

chain lightning fireball via rox eternal

pit 90 is fully geared easy im guessing with boss power 95 should be doable

Yea, it works fine. I am in Torment 4 now (went up at Paragon 102), and it's pretty good.

Generally following my blueprint, which is very similar each season. I spec'd it out on the PTR here. The variants on the page has starter, mid-game, and late-game setups. One of the changes from the S8 official is the viability of the Enchantment master node, so that will replace Icefall board/node.

As a new L60 character, don't follow the paragon glyphs, just beeline to the Legendary Nodes; because the boosts are massive. Later on as you get toward P200 and have enough points to hit them both, you can re-arrange. So path immediately into Burning Instinct node (90%[x]), then back out to Enchantment master node (60%[x]), then back out to Fundamental Release node (60%[x]). These will be way more than the 10-15% of glyphs in the beginning (still level the glyphs, as you will slot them in much later).

Use Unleash for the first Glyph, this will help with the mana reduction (can replace when you eventually get starless skies). Also, use 2 points to hit the passives on Blizzard; I realized a few days ago this will give you 5-mana/s which helps early. And Torch, Pyromaniac, Flamefeeder in that order of priority on the second temp-board. I'll try to update the starter spec with those.

Tried incinerate. I capped at torment 2. I could maybe have pushed it to torment 3 if I went hardcore grinding for better gear and followed a sweaty guide, but I switched it frozen orb + Ls instead after I got a winterglass and it was definitely better. Currently at Torment 4.

I run a chain lightning build. I easily clear Pit 100 and can breeze through t4 just fine.

https://youtu.be/o9KQw5Un90g?feature=shared

Follow Roxy's guide ^ 👍

I run a lightening spear sorc in eternal (no seasonal powers) and I speed run Pit 90 in around 2 mins.

was doing meteor (dino destroyer build) on hc earlier this season. it’s not meta but it can get to t4.

I'm not really jiving with any of the meta ones tbh...

They all just seem to be using the same exact skills for half their bar to get Enlightenment and Tal stacks

Like if I'm larping as a Fire wizard, wearing all red colored armor, wanting to spam fireballs or cast meteors... why is a third of my skill bar Ice skills? Why are both my Enchantment slots taken up by an Ice and a Lightning skill?

Start every season with an ice shard sorc. They aren’t great at all, but I do it. After I’m High enough to have some gear, I’m partial to Andariel Visage Chain lightning build. Not Meta by any means, but is fun to play. Tanky when coupled with Tyraels Might… which is important as a Hardcore player.

I'm doing chain lightning but can't survive torment 4. It crushed basically till 3 or 4. I also haven't been able to get the proper gear though so probably part of it!

Lightening spear is the best build rn. Mekuna has the best setup and can be found on Mobalytics.

I started ice shard. Switch to fireball. Lightning spear next. It has been great. And easy to play.

If you play on console Ball lightning is the best build ever to exist.

I'm loving Okun's Ball Lightning, it's a menace

So I played around on the Season 5 PTR with Incinerate, and the 80% or so Burning Damage scaling I had lost (from ~120 down to 40% cap) translated to about a 40% loss on the TOOL TIP.

But I was able to recover that damage considering the +20% increase on Combustion, and swapping in 2 offensive glyphs to replace 2 defensive ones; since Flame Shield/Immunity uptime actually got improved.

So with that in mind, I'd consider the ~40% rollback in Burning Damage scaling to be worth/equivalent to about 20% Tool Tip damage (this is my assumption).

Put that together with the +20% INT scaling, plus the +15-20% Core scaling, and extra +40% Combustion scaling, I have a feeling we may be at around a 30-40% Damage increase over Season 4 with regard to Incinerate. This again, is my guess based on the numbers (from the recent notes) and my S5 PTR testing/experience.

I think it's a really good step in the right direction overall. They brought Barb down a bit, while pulling up the other classes including Sorc. So the gap between the two should be better. How much better, we'll see.

I will be following my Season 4 build spec as a reference in Season 5 initially, and will make adjustments as I play. But outside of some glyph swaps (which I did on the PTR) it's going to be very similar.

PS. Even with the change in Burning Instinct PTR Cap up to 80%, we still no longer need to stack any Crtical Strike Damage. We'll easily hit the cap via INT alone now.