Hailstorm Sorcerer Build for Diablo IV [B Tier Grade]

Hailstorm Sorcerer BUILD for Diablo IV [B Tier Grade]

(Call forth a Hailstorm and cover the battlefield with Glacial Icicles, let your foes feel the power of Cold )

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Diablo IV launched on June 6th, 2023 for PC (Battle.Net), XBOX, & PlayStation) and I’ve had my fair share of playing and testing done. I’m already making full Builds/Theorycrafts that work for both ‘fresh-into-endgame’ characters as well as late endgame. I’ll evolve & keep them updated when we get major rebalance updates. This is one such build for the Sorcerer Class called Hailstorm.

I’ve also made spreadsheets for my builds (see the links below) that have shortlisted the active and passive skills + legendary aspect + unique item + gems & sockets + suggested stat rolls + paragon boards that work well with the build which you can use to tinker. Alternatively, I’ve added build calculator links (mostly needed for the paragons)

This build will be updated when needed.

Video Version:

Skill Trees

Below you’ll see ONLY the Active & Passive skills that were selected for this build. For additional skills that can be taken + alternative skill options, you can check my RDY-4-Launch Builds spreadsheet on this link. This build (Hailstorm) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.

Minor Destruction / Basic Skill (Resource Generator/Builder) (Required Points: 0 )

  • (active) Fire Bolt – Hurl a flaming bolt, dealing 10.00% (X – ?) damage and Burning for 40.00% (X-?) over 8 seconds.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 20% | Damage: Fire ; Tags: Basic, Pyromancy
    Enchantment Effect Direct damage from Skills applies up to an additional 23% (X – ?) Burning damage over 8 seconds.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Fire Bolt Fire Bolt pierces Burning enemies
    • (2nd upgrade) Flickering Fire Bolt Fire Bolt generates 2 Mana when hitting a Burning enemy.

Major Destruction / Core Skill(s) (Resource Spender) (Required Points: 2 )

  • (active) Frozen Orb Unleash an orb that Chills for 34% and expels piercing shards dealing a total of 32% (X- ?) damage. Upon expiration, Frozen Orb explodes, dealing 29% (X- ?) damage. and Chilling enemies for 9%.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 20%
    Mana Cost: 40 | Damage: Cold ; Tags: Core, Frost
    Enchantment Effect When you cast a Non-Basic Skill, you have a 20% chance to launch a Frozen Orb at a Nearby enemy.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Frozen Orb When cast above 50 Mana, Frozen Orb’s explosion damage is increased by 30% (multiplicative).
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Greater Frozen Orb Frozen Orb’s explosion has a 30% chance to make all enemies hit Vulnerable for 2 seconds. Frozen Orb always makes Frozen enemies Vulnerable.
  • (passive) did not pick any Core passives to save points

Defensive Skills (Required Points: 6 )

  • (active – ONLY put 1 point here) Teleport Transform into lightning becoming Unstoppable and surging to the target location dealing 25% (X -?) damage around you upon arrival.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 40%
    Cooldown: 11 | Damage: Lightning ; Tags: Defensive, Shock
    Enchantment Effect: Evade is replaced with a short range Teleport on a 17.0 second Cooldown.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Teleport Teleport’s cooldown is decreased by 0.5 seconds per enemy hit, up to 3 seconds.
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Shimmering Teleport After Teleporting, you gain 30% Damage Reduction for 5 seconds.
  • (active – ONLY put 1 point here) Frost Nova Unleash a torrent of frost, Freezing enemies around you for 2 seconds. Cooldown: 15 Tags: Defensive, Frost
    Enchantment Effect Lucky Hit: Your Conjuration Skills have a 30% chance to unleash a Frost Nova when hitting enemies.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Frost Nova Killing enemies Frozen by Frost Nova reduces its Cooldown by 2 seconds, up to 6 seconds per cast.
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Mystical Frost Nova Frost Nova makes enemies Vulnerable for 4 seconds, increased to 8 seconds against Bosses.
  • (active – ONLY put 1 point here) Flame Shield Engulf yourself in flames for 2 seconds, Burning nearby enemies for 23% (X) damage per second. While Flame Shield is active, you are Immune.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 50%
    Cooldown: 20 | Damage: Fire ; Tags: Defensive, Pyromancy
    Enchantment Effect: Flame Shield automatically activates when you take fatal damage. Can only happen once every 120 seconds.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Flame Shield Flame Shield grants 25% Movement Speed while active.
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Shimmering Flame Shield Flame Shield Heals you for 50% of your missing Life.
  • (passive) Elemental Attunement Elemental Critical Strikes have a 5%/10%/15% chance to reset the Cooldown of one of your Defensive Skills. Can only happen once every 10 seconds.
  • (passive) did not pick any other Defensive passives to save points

Conjuration Skills (Required Points: 11 ) Not Taking any Active summons

  • (active)
    • (1st upgrade)
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2)
  • (passive – ONLY 1 point here) Align the Elements You gain 5%/10%/15% Damage reduction against Elites for each second you don’t take damage from any of these sources, up to 50%.  
    • (1st upgrade) Mana Shield did NOT take this one
    • (2nd upgrade – TOP TIER PASSIVE & MUST HAVE) Protection Using a cooldown grants 10%/20%/30% of your maximum Life as a Barrier for 5 seconds.
  • (passive) Precision Magic Your Lucky Hit Effect Chance is increased by up to 5%/10%/15%.
  • (passive) did not pick any more Conjuration passives to save points

Mastery Skills (Required Points: 16 ) Not taking an Active Mastery skill

  • (active) Blizzard Summon a frigid blizzard that deals 120% (X) damage and continually Chills enemies for 18% over 8 seconds.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 35%
    Mana Cost: 40 | Damage: Cold ; Tags: Mastery, Frost
    Enchantment Effect Every 15 seconds, a Blizzard forms over you and follows you for 6 seconds.
    • (1st upgrade) Enhanced Blizzard Blizzard deals 25% (multiplicative) increased damage to Frozen enemies.
    • (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Mage’s Blizzard – When cast above 50 Mana, Blizzard’s duration is increased by 4 seconds.
  • (passive) Ice Veil Your Barriers have a +5%/+10%/+15% increased duration. (Barriers absorb damage from all sources up to a specified amount.)
    • (upgrade) Snap Freeze Lucky Hit: Frost Skills have a 3%/6%/9% chance to instantly Freeze.
    • (upgrade) Cold front While you have a Barrier active, you apply 8%/16%/24% (multiplicative) more Chill.

Ultimate Skills (Required Points: 23 )

  • (active) Deep Freeze Encase yourself in ice, becoming Immune for 4 seconds, continually dealing 13% damage, and Chilling enemies for 20%. When Deep Freeze expires, it deals an additional 100% damage. Casting Deep Freeze again ends the effect early.
    Lucky Hit Chance: 5%
    Cooldown: 60 | Damage: Cold ; Tags: Ultimate, Frost
    • (1st upgrade) Prime Deep Freeze When Deep Freeze ends, gain 10% of your Base Life as a Barrier for 6 seconds for each enemy you Froze while it was active.
    • (2nd upgrade) Supreme Deep Freeze When Deep Freeze ends, your Non-Ultimate Cooldowns are reduced by 50%.
  • (passive) Permafrost Frost Skills deal 5%/10%/15% (multiplicative) increased damage to Elites.
    • (upgrade) Icy Touch You deal 4%/8%/12% (multiplicative) increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.
    • (upgrade) Hoarfrost You deal 3%/6%/9% (multiplicative) increased damage to Chilled enemies, and 6%/12%/18% (multiplicative) increased damage to Frozen enemies.
    • (upgrade) Frigid Breeze Lucky Hit: Cold Damage against Vulnerable enemies has a 20%/40%/60% chance to generate 5 Mana.

Specializations (Required Points: 33 )

  • (passive) Avalanche Lucky Hit: Your Frost Skills have up to a 10% chance to make your next Ice Shards, Frozen Orb, or Blizzard consume no Mana and deal 40% (multiplicative) increased damage. Chance is doubled against Vulnerable enemies.

Enchantment (Class Mechanic):

I’d recommend mix-and matching two of the following Enchantments (you’ll need at least 1 point invested or from gear in the skills):

  • My MUST HAVE Picks
    • Frozen Orb – Whenever you cast a non-basic skill, you have a 20% chance to launch a Frozen Orb at a nearby enemy. NOTE that you’ll need to invest 3 points into it and its first & second Upgrades to get the most out of this. Ideally getting some extra ranks from gear will help too but is not as important. The skill points allocation has accounted for this so no need to worry about downgrading anything. This is my ideal pick for Slot 1 @ lvl 15
    • Blizzard Every 15 seconds, a Blizzard forms over you and follows you for 6 seconds. This is my ideal pick for Slot 2 @ lvl 30
  • Good to use For Mobbing AoE & DPS:
    • Fireball – When you kill an enemy, they explode in a Fireball for 50% of its damage. NOTE that you’ll need to invest 2 points into it and its first Upgrade to get the most out of this. Ideally getting some extra ranks from gear will help too but is not as important. The skill points allocation has accounted for 3 points (1+1+1) into Frozen Orb & its upgrades so no need to worry about downgrading other things just use those points… UNLESS you decide to use two core skill enchantments. Very good to use for leveling in the early first 30-40 levels.
      • Ice ShardsIce Shards automatically conjure and fly toward Frozen enemies. NOTE that you’ll need to invest 3 points into it and its first & second Upgrades to get the most out of this. Ideally getting some extra ranks from gear will help too but is not as important. The skill points allocation has accounted for 3 points (1+1+1) into Frozen Orb & its upgrades so no need to worry about downgrading other things just use those points… UNLESS you decide to use two core skill enchantments. Very good to use for leveling in the early first 30-40 levels.

Unique Items

In Diablo IV we can equip more than one unique item at the same time (not so ‘unique’ if we can get decked out in full uniques I guess). It seems that the one unique per build idea that Uniques inherited from the Mythical gear they supposedly replaced was scrapped even before the closed beta tests. My top pick will be the following one but check below it & the notes under the Aspects list for more info:

Top Pick Unique for the Build

Harlequin Crest (Helm)

Gain [5-8%] Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +[2-4] Ranks to All Skills.

[0.245 – 0.455] Maximum Life
X% Cooldown Reduction
+[42 – 70]% Crafting Material Drop Rate
[14 – 28] All Stats

“This headdress was once worn by an assassin disguised as a court mage. Her treachery was unveiled, but not before she used its magic to curse the king’s entire lineage.” – The Fall of House Aston

Sockets & Gems

There are various possible good/viable choices for the gem slots. I’ve shortlisted what works by slot. I’d recommend picking one of those:

Weps: Amethyst is what this build needs more because DoT (Blizzard is DoT) doesn’t crit or overpwoer
Armor: Ruby or Topaz (dmg reduction is very needed in high tier NM dungeons).
Jewelry: Skull for Armor until they rework resistances. After the rework: Diamond unless you need specific resistance more than all.

XYZ Diamond (Requires Level XY)

• Weapon: +N% Ultimate Skill Damage
• Armor: +N% Barrier Generation
• Jewelry: N% Resistance to All Elements

+5%/+5%/+5% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)

XYZ Skull (Requires Level XY)

• Weapon: +N Life On Kill
• Armor: +N% Healing Received
• Jewelry: +N Armor

+13/+5%/+170 for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)

XYZ Amethyst (Requires Level XY)

• Weapon: +N% Damage Over Time
• Armor: N% Damage Taken Over Time Reduction
• Jewelry: N% Shadow Resistance

+5%/+8.2%/+14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)

XYZ Ruby (Requires Level XY)

• Weapon: +N% Overpower Damage

• Armor: +N% Maximum Life
• Jewelry: N% Fire Resistance

+15%/+5.5%/14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)

XYZ Topaz (Requires Level XY)

• Weapon: +N% Basic Skill Damage
• Armor: N% Damage Reduction While Control Impaired
• Jewelry: N% Lightning Resistance

+16.7%/8.2%/14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)

Legendary Aspects / Powers

I will only list the Legendary Aspects that have been selected for the build and the slots in which I advise putting those. For in-depth information you can check my RDY-4-Launch Builds spreadsheet on this link. This build (Hailstorm) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.

  • Helm: Aspect of The Protector / Harlequin Crest (see notes below)
  • Amulet: Aspect of The Unwavering
  • Chest: Frostblitz Aspect
  • Pants: Snowguard’s Aspect
  • Gloves: Aspect of Frozen Memories
  • Boots: Aspect of Fortune
  • Ring 1: Prodigy’s Aspect
  • Ring 2: Aspect of Frozen Orbit
  • Main Hand Weapon: Glacial Aspect
  • Off-hand Focus: Aspect of the Frozen Tundra
  • 2-H Weapon: I do NOT recommend using a 2h weapon as it would mean loosing a precious aspect and cooldown reduction + the wand’s lucky hit chance which helps with both dps and survivability for this build by procing defensive skill resets (which in turn also = mana generation). But if you use a 2hander then the one aspect to sacrifice from the build would be Aspect of Frozen Orbit. I’d also keep the Glacial Aspect imprinted on the 2h slot
NOTES: How to re-arrange if using any of the Uniques:

- For Harlequin Crest (Helm): Aspect of The Protector gets removed from the Helm slot to make room for the Unique Helm.

Paragon Boards:

Use the links below to check the paragon boards selected and the nodes I’ve taken. One link is for what the boards will look like at lvl 89 with 179 paragon points (so more paragon points will be obtained on the way to 100). The other link is what the boards will look like when fully maxed out (I left the last 1 point unspent) on paragon points.

Suggested Gear Rolls to look out for (NOT in order of priority):

I’ve shortlisted 36 different affixes that work well with the build of almost 300 total. I’ll highlight in Orange the ones I think should get higher priority. NOTE: I’ve added a new “Top Priority per Slot” list but left the old unsorted list below it.

This is the Sorted by Slot list of Top Priority Affixes/Rolls:

    • Helm:
      • Priority 1: Cooldown Reduction
      • Priority 2: Maximum Life
      • Priority 3: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats), Maximum Mana
      • Priority 4: Total Armor
    • Amulet:
      • Priority 1: Cooldown Reduction, +X Ranks of Mastery Skills, Movement Speed
      • Priority 2: Maximum Life, +X Ranks of a Passive you like, +X% Frost Skills Damage
      • Priority 3: +X% Damage, Damage Reduction from Close or Distant Enemies/While Injured,
      • Priority 4: Mana Cost Reduction
    • Chest:
      • Priority 1: Damage Reduction from Close/Distant Enemies
      • Priority 2: Maximum Life, + X% Damage
      • Priority 3: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats), Total Armor
      • Priority 4: Cold Damage, Frost Skill Damage
    • Pants:
      • Priority 1: +X Ranks of Blizzard, Damage Reduction from Close/Distant Enemies
      • Priority 2: Maximum Life, Damage Reduction while Injured
      • Priority 3: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats), Total Armor
      • Priority 4: Damage Reduction
    • Gloves:
      • Priority 1: + X ranks of Frozen Orb
      • Priority 2: Damage to Injured Enemies, Attack Speed
      • Priority 3: Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Restore +X% Primary Resource, Lucky Hit Chance
      • Priority 4: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats), Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% Chance to Heal +X Life
    • Boots:
      • Priority 1: Movement Speed, +4 Ranks of Frost Nova, Mana Cost Reduction
      • Priority 2: Damage Reduction while Injured
      • Priority 3: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats)
      • Priority 4: Dodge Chance Against Distant Enemies
    • Rings:
      • Priority 1: Damage to Injured Enemies, Vulnerable Damage, Damage to Close Enemies
      • Priority 2: Maximum Life, Damage Over Time
      • Priority 3: Cold Damage, Damage to Burning Enemies, Lucky Hit Chance
      • Priority 4: Damage to Frozen/Crowd Controlled Enemies
    • Main Hand Weapon: Apparently, weapons can NOT roll two types of Damage mods!!!
      • Priority 1: Vulnerable Damage, Damage to Close Enemies
      • Priority 2: Damage to Injured Enemies
      • Priority 3: Damage to Frozen/Crowd Controlled Enemies
      • Priority 4: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats)
    • Off-hand Focus:
      • Priority 1: Cooldown Reduction, Mana Cost Reduction
      • Priority 2: Lucky Hit Chance
      • Priority 3: Up to a 5% Chance to Restore +[7 – 14]% Primary Resource
      • Priority 4: Core Stats (Int, Dex, Wil, All Stats), Damage Reduction from Enemies that are Burning
    • 2-H Weapon: See the 1H Weapon Rolls List

This is the UNsorted by list of useful Affixes/Rolls:

+ X% Damage
Damage with Frost Skills
Damage with Mastery Skills (from paragons only)
Lucky Hit Chance
+ X Ranks to Mastery Skills
+ X Ranks to Blizzard/Frozen Orb/Frost Nova
+ Willpower, + Dexterity, + Strength
+ All Stats
+ Maximum Life
Mana Generation / Regeneration / On Kill
Resource/Mana Cost Reduction
Cooldown Reduction
Attack Speed
Cold Damage Bonus
Lucky Hit Chance with Cold Damage
Resistance to All Elements
Damage to Burning Enemies
+ % Cold Damage to Elites
+ % Damage for X Seconds After Killing an Elite
Damage Reduction for X Seconds After Killing an Elite
Damage Reduction from Elites
Damage Against Close Enemies
Damage Against Crowd Controlled Enemies
Vulnerable Damage
Damage Against Vulnerable Enemies
Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% chance to Restore +X% Primary Resource
Lucky Hit: Up to a 5% chance to Heal +X Life
Damage while Healthy
Barrier Generation
Lucky Hit Chance while you have a Barrier
Movement Speed
Higher Priority
Damage vs Injured Enemies
Lucky Hit: Up to a +X% Chance to Execute Injured Non-Elites
Critical Strike Chance Against Injured Enemies
Damage vs Healthy Enemies
Weapon Damage (not sure if there are any bonuses to that as rolls)
Lower Priority

Useful Links (Spreadsheets & more):

For all of my Diablo IV Post-Launch & RDY-4-Launch Theorycrafts/Builds: This Spreadsheet

For my Diablo IV Class Skill Trees (can be used as mini-calculator): This Spreadsheet

For all of my Diablo IV Pre-Launch Theorycrafts/Builds: This Spreadsheet

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This concludes the Hailstorm Sorcerer Build for Diablo IV. If you’re interested in the game below are links to the various platforms where one can buy it (you can just click the links to open a new tab):

PC (Battle.Net)

XBOX

PlayStation

Official Website