How the engine works
Firewall's Ring of Fire upgrade turns the wall into a ring with a 12-second cooldown. While you stand inside it, every direct hit from a Pyromancy skill applies Firewall's Burning to the enemy. So you put everything into Firewall and almost never cast it. The five-piece Tal Rasha's Threefold Way charm set casts your Mastery skills for you, Firewall included, once every 6 seconds for each element. Your job is to keep hitting from inside the ring. Charged Bolts with the Burn Through upgrade counts as a Pyromancy skill and fires 5 bolts a cast, and each bolt adds a stack of the burn. Only the number of hits matters, not how hard they land. Step outside the ring and your damage stops.
Who it's for
Players who want the strongest Sorcerer build and don't mind a rotation with rules. It clears every kind of endgame content, it is very tanky and its area damage is excellent, but it is not a fast mover.
- Rating
- S-Tier
- Difficulty
- Hard — stay in the ring
- Key stat
- Damage Over Time multiplier
- Must have
- All five Tal Rasha's Threefold Way charms
The bar
This is the standard bar. Firewall has all the ranks but is only your safety net, because the charm set casts it for you. Meteor, Blizzard and Ball Lightning each get one point and their upgrades but stay off the bar, since the set casts those too.
Rank 1 with Weaken, Cast Speed and Burn Through. Burn Through makes it a Pyromancy skill that costs 30 Mana. Each cast releases 5 bolts, and each bolt applies a stack of Firewall's burn while you stand in the ring. Use it at melee range so every bolt lands.
Hold — constantlyRank 15 with Ring of Fire, Damage Bonus and Cost Reduction. Most rings come from your charm set. Cast this one by hand only when you have run out of rings or need one under you at a new pack.
Press — safety netRank 15 with Charge, Bonus Effect and Fast As Lightning. It is your Shock skill. It sets off the Shock part of the charm set, Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop and the Fundamental Release board. Once every 5 to 10 seconds is enough.
Press — every few secondsRank 6 with Cooldown Reduction, Healing and Frigid Hydra. Each Hydra attack takes 0.3 seconds off a random cooldown and heals 1% of your maximum Life per hit. Frigid Hydra makes it your Frost skill for the charm set.
Keep it upRank 1 with Blaze, Ferocity and Movement Speed. Blaze turns it into a short Pyromancy dash that spends 1 stack of Overpower to refund its own cooldown. Make sure your set or Meteor Enchantment has given you Overpower first, or it goes on cooldown.
Press — with OverpowerRank 15 with Permafrost, Cooldown Reduction, and Duration Bonus and Barrier. Your main defence. Keep it active as much as you can.
Keep it upPassives
The Season 15 Sorcerer tree has no Key Passive. Every point goes into skill ranks, up to 15, and three upgrade picks per skill. Put one point plus upgrades into the three off-bar Mastery skills: Meteor with Overpower, Immobilize and Air Burst, for Overpower stacks and extra hits. Blizzard with Exposure, Seek and Duration Bonus, and Barrier, for Vulnerable and a little Barrier. Ball Lightning with Crackling Energy, Implosion and Ferocity. Implosion makes it a Pyromancy skill, so its hits apply the burn too.
Enchantments
Run Meteor and Hydra. The Hydra Enchantment spawns a 5-headed Hydra for 10 seconds after you spend 200 Mana, which takes you from 3 Hydra heads to 8 and greatly increases the cooldown reduction and healing they give. The Meteor Enchantment gives your cast skills up to a 20% Lucky Hit chance to drop a Meteor. This build has high Lucky Hit and each Meteor hits 7 times, so it is real damage, and it also feeds Overpower to Teleport. Your other Enchantment can be anything you like, as long as it is a fire skill, so that the Enchantment Master board gives you Fire damage.
| Pick | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Meteor | Lucky Hit: cast skills have up to a 20% chance to drop a Meteor that hits 7 times. Damage, more burn stacks and Overpower for Teleport. |
| Hydra | After you spend 200 Mana a 5-headed Hydra spawns for 10 seconds. More heads means more cooldown reduction and more healing. |
| Flame Shield (option) | Swap it in for Hydra if you keep dying to the occasional one-shot. |
| Teleport (option) | Your Evade becomes a Teleport. This is the speed-farming choice. |
| Firewall (avoid) | It looks right but Burning has a very poor Lucky Hit chance, so it rarely triggers, and when it does the wall tends to appear off to one side. |
What to wear
The charm set is what makes the build work. The uniques make it stronger and tougher, and none of them is needed to start. A two-handed staff is the weapon.
Uniques
| Item | What it does | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Vision of the Firestorm | Helm. Firewall deals heavily increased damage, up to x130% at Mythic quality, and its size is overcapped by 100%. It also rolls Ranks to Firewall and Cooldown Reduction. Drops from Grigoire. | Core |
| Raiment of the Infinite | Chest. Teleport pulls Close enemies to you and gives you Damage Reduction for 8 seconds, 65% at Mythic quality. Teleport at least once every 8 seconds to keep it. Worth about 43% toughness as a Mythic. Drops from Bartuc. | Core |
| Drognan's Anguish | Ring. Casting Pyromancy skills Burns you for 5% of your maximum Life over 10 seconds, and you deal more Burning damage the more of your Life is Burning. About 21% damage as a Mythic. Drops from Andariel. | Core |
| Tibault's Will | Pants. x20–26% damage and 25 Primary Resource Regeneration (your Mana) while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. A small chance from any boss. If you feel too fragile, wear legendary pants with the Aspect of Disobedience instead. | Recommended |
| Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop | Sixth charm. Casting a Pyromancy, Shock or Frost skill increases your damage by x20–26% for 8 seconds, stacking once per element. Your bar casts all three. Drops from the Harbinger of Hatred. | Charm |
| Seal of the Diamond Mind | Mythic Seal. Set bonuses need one charm fewer. That lets you run four Threefold charms plus a three-piece Cauldron bonus in place of the Iridescent Loop. It is only about 15% stronger than a Mythic Loop, so treat it as a last upgrade. | Mythic |
| Orsivane | One-handed mace, or a charm. x25–32.5% damage for each Defensive skill not on your bar, and you gain that skill's Enchantment effect. A speed-farming option paired with the Duelist's Aspect for more attack speed and cooldown reduction. | Variant |
| Fists of Fate | Gloves. Your attacks randomly deal a wide range of their normal damage. Push variant only, and only as a Mythic. A normal pair is worthless here, and even the Mythic is only about 10% ahead of the alternatives. | Variant |
Before they drop
Until you own all five Threefold charms, don't take Ring of Fire at all. Its cooldown is too long without the set. Play the manual version instead: Firewall at rank 15 with the Wildfire upgrade, cast on everything, with Hydra, Inferno, Teleport with Wormhole, Ice Armor and Familiar on the bar and Fireball at rank 15 off the bar for its Enchantment. Wear legendaries with Arcane Ward on the helm, Disobedience on the chest, Armageddon on the gloves, Heavenly Strength on the pants, Shredding Blades on the boots, Conceited and Elemental Acuity on the rings, Lingering on the amulet and Untarnished Blaze on the staff. Use Poc + Qua and Cir + Mot as your runewords. This version levels you to 70 and carries you into the early Torment tiers.
Legendary aspects
| Aspect | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| Untarnished Blaze | Staff. While Healthy, your Pyromancy skills deal heavily increased damage, and it rolls highest on a staff. The safe default, with no condition you will notice in play. |
| Writhing | Gloves. Enemies take more Damage Over Time for every second they have been affected by one, up to 10 seconds. It reaches roughly a 1.9x multiplier on a fight that lasts. |
| Conceited | Ring. Up to x60% damage while you have a Barrier. Ice Armor keeps one up almost all the time. |
| Lingering | Amulet. Your Mastery skills deal more damage every second they are active, up to x45%. Firewall is a Mastery skill. |
| Overheating | Amulet, second aspect. Slain Burning enemies have a 10% chance to grant Overpower, and your Fire damage is increased by up to x30%. The Overpower feeds Teleport's Blaze upgrade. |
| Shredding Blades | Boots. Conjuration damage makes enemies Vulnerable for 4 seconds and you deal up to x20% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. Hydra and Familiar are Conjurations, so this is how you apply Vulnerable. |
| Elemental Acuity | Ring, early on. The best Mana aspect for the manual version. Prodigy's and Vulpine's are both fine replacements. |
| Ancient Flame | Amulet, push variant only. Pyromancy skills with a cooldown deal more damage per second of cooldown they incurred. It only works when you cast every Firewall by hand, and it makes Cooldown Reduction bad for you. |
Ring of Fire needs the full charm set
Without all five Tal Rasha's Threefold Way charms, Ring of Fire's 12-second cooldown leaves you standing in nothing. Keep Wildfire and cast Firewall by hand until the fifth charm drops, then respec in one go.
Stats, gems and paragon
Roll and masterwork toward these, in this order.
| # | Stat | Where you roll it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Damage Over Time multiplier | Staff (greater affix, masterwork it), gloves, rings, amulet. Burning DoT as the gloves temper. |
| 2 | Vulnerable damage multiplier | Gloves and amulet (masterwork it), rings. Worth more per point than DoT once your DoT total is high. |
| 3 | Fire or All Damage multiplier | Gloves, amulet, staff and rings. Take Fire on gloves and amulet, because it rolls higher than All Damage. |
| 4 | Ranks to Firewall | Boots, masterworked, and Vision of the Firestorm. Firewall ranks are the only skill ranks that matter. +3 All Skills on the amulet also lifts Ice Armor. |
| 5 | Cooldown Reduction | Helm, plus tempers on rings and amulet, plus one or two more rolls on gloves or jewellery. |
| 6 | Attack Speed | Staff temper, gloves, rings and amulet. More casts means more bolts and more burn stacks. |
| 7 | Intelligence and Maximum Life | Chest and pants (masterwork Intelligence), staff and boots. Maximum Life as the temper on helm, chest and pants. |
| 8 | Armour and All Resistance | Chest, pants and boots. |
Hard targets
Multiplier balance: spread your masterworks so that (100% + total DoT multiplier) to (100% + total Vulnerable multiplier) sits near 15:7. Ice Armor: with Duration Bonus and Barrier, rank 17 gives a Barrier worth 99% of your maximum Life and rank 18 reaches the 100% limit. A +3 All Skills amulet gets you there. Cooldown Reduction: one or two rolls beyond the helm and the jewellery tempers. Critical Strike: ignore it completely, because the Splinter of Hellfire removes it. Armour and resistances have no cap. They are ratings with diminishing returns that approach 90% reduction, and 25,000 Armour is about 75% at level 70, so more always helps a little. The attack-speed breakpoints you may have seen, with 93.50 as the top one, belong to the Meteor-holding push variant described under the rotation. They do not apply to this bar.
Tempering & masterworking
Tempers: Attack Speed on the staff, Burning Damage Over Time on the gloves, Movement Speed on the boots, Maximum Life on helm, chest and pants, and Cooldown Reduction on both rings and the amulet. Masterwork toward the greater affix on each piece: DoT multiplier on the staff and rings, Vulnerable multiplier on the gloves and amulet, Ranks to Firewall on the boots, Cooldown Reduction on Vision of the Firestorm, and Intelligence on chest and pants.
Gems, runewords & Splinters
- Talisman set: five Tal Rasha's Threefold Way charms, the ones named "of the Threefold". Two pieces trigger a Mastery skill when you damage enemies: Frost skills trigger Blizzard, Pyromancy skills trigger Meteor and Shock skills trigger Ball Lightning, each element on a 6-second cooldown. Three pieces give 30% All Resistance per element for 12 seconds. Five pieces unleash all your Mastery skills on every trigger, Firewall included, and give a different element 100% increased damage for 12 seconds, stacking twice. On each charm look for Ranks to Pyromancy or Core Skills plus a single resistance.
- There are two ways to build the talisman. Threefold lays your rings for you and adds resistances, which is what makes this bar work. Five pieces of Habacalva's Cauldron give more raw damage: Heat stacks of 7% Pyromancy damage up to 15 times, then free Pyromancy casts and x200% damage at full Heat. But then you must cast every Firewall by hand. Take Threefold for everything except dedicated Tower and Pit pushing.
- Seal: a Legendary Seal with +1 Charm Slot comes first, so you can add a sixth charm. Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop goes in that slot.
- Soul Splinters: Abyssal Splinter of Hellfire (x50% damage, and the lost Critical Strike Chance costs you nothing), Abyssal Splinter of Pain (25% Damage Reduction for 30% Movement Speed) and Abyssal Splinter of the Black Soulstone (2.5% damage per soul, up to 200). Start with Hellfire and the Black Soulstone and add Pain when you have a third socket.
- Gems: Ruby in the weapon for the Fire damage multiplier, Topaz in the pants for Intelligence.
- Runewords: Neo + Ohm, which avoids health damage for 2 seconds while fighting and triggers a War Cry for 7.5% damage, and Igni + Mot for Dark Shroud shadows. For speed farming swap Ohm for Jah to get an extra Teleport.
Paragon
Five boards, and take the legendary node on all of them. Start board with Tactician. Enchantment Master with Reinforced. Fundamental Release with Pyromaniac. Burning Instinct with Flamefeeder. Frigid Fate with Adept. Burning Instinct gives x90% Burning damage, Frigid Fate x60% to Vulnerable enemies, Enchantment Master x60% with your two Enchantment elements when they differ and x75% when they match, and Fundamental Release up to x90% when you cast all three elements, which this bar does. There is a second option for the third board: Static Surge in place of Fundamental Release, still with Pyromaniac. Fundamental Release is the better fit here because Charged Bolts, Familiar and Frigid Hydra keep all three stacks running. Level glyphs evenly in steps: 25, then 50, then 100, then 150.
| Glyph | Where and why |
|---|---|
| Tactician | Start board. |
| Reinforced | Enchantment Master board. Toughness. The push variant swaps it for Elementalist and goes fully offensive. |
| Pyromaniac | Fundamental Release board. |
| Flamefeeder | Burning Instinct board. |
| Adept | Frigid Fate board. |
Mercenary
Hire Subo. He reveals the map, and his Molotov with Scorched Earth makes enemies take x30% more Damage Over Time from you for 3 seconds. Give him Molotov, Scorched Earth, Snipe and Incendiary Bolt. Take Raheir as reinforcement with Bastion set to trigger when you are Injured: he takes 90% of the damage aimed at you for 5 seconds and makes you Unstoppable for a second, on a 30-second cooldown. That Unstoppable also switches on Tibault's Will. The other way to run it is Raheir hired with Varyana's Bloodthirst as reinforcement for 10% Attack Speed. Subo and Raheir is the better pair for this bar.
From fresh 70 to finished
The build changes shape once. Before the charm set you cast Firewall by hand. After it, you change most of your skills in one respec.
Firewall with Wildfire at rank 15, cast on everything. Inferno holds enemies inside the walls. Use Hydra on single targets or when you need healing, and Familiar for packs. Enchantments are Fireball and Teleport, cycled as Teleport, Evade, Teleport, Teleport. You need a Mana aspect or Resource Regeneration rolls. Elemental Acuity is the best one.
When you reach the Enchantment Master node, swap the Teleport Enchantment for Firewall to get the extra Fire damage. This applies to the manual version only.
Vision of the Firestorm from Grigoire, Drognan's Anguish from Andariel and Raiment of the Infinite from Bartuc. All three already help the manual version. Collect Threefold charms as they drop, but wait for all five before relying on the set.
Respec to the bar on this page: Ring of Fire on Firewall, Charged Bolts with Burn Through, one point each in Meteor, Blizzard and Ball Lightning, and the Meteor and Hydra Enchantments. Add a +1 Charm Slot Seal and Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop from the Harbinger of Hatred, then Tibault's Will.
You can only equip one Mythic crafted in the Horadric Cube, so order matters. Raiment of the Infinite first for about 43% toughness, then Drognan's Anguish for 21% damage, Vision of the Firestorm for 15%, and Tibault's Will for 5%.
Glyphs to 150, greater affixes masterworked toward the 15:7 balance, and Seal of the Diamond Mind if one drops. Only now think about the separate speed-farming or push variants.
The rotation
Turn on Ice Armor, Teleport in and fire Charged Bolts at an enemy. The Pyromancy hit triggers the charm set and puts a Firewall under you.
Keep casting Charged Bolts for a couple of seconds and press nothing else. You are spacing the elements apart on purpose.
Summon Hydra. Frigid Hydra triggers the set again and gives you a second Firewall.
Wait two more seconds, then cast Familiar for the third trigger.
The three triggers now go off two seconds apart, each on its own 6-second cooldown. A Firewall lasts 2.7 seconds, so there is always a ring somewhere on screen as long as you keep casting and hitting. Stand in it, at melee range.
Teleport only when you hold an Overpower stack. If you reach the next pack before the set is ready, or you make a mistake, cast the Firewall on your bar. That is what it is for.
For Tower and Pit leaderboards only, there is a version that casts every Firewall by hand. The bar is Meteor, Teleport, Ice Armor, Firewall and Unstable Currents, with Flame Shield or Hydra in the last slot. You hold Meteor down, recast Firewall every 2.0 to 2.6 seconds, and use Unstable Currents on elite packs. It wears five Cauldron charms, Ancient Flame, the Splinter of Anguish and Blood-Mad Idol, and keeps Cooldown Reduction low. Meteor's cast speed moves in steps: above 79.50 attack speed is 24 frames, above 87.00 is 23, and above 93.50 is 22 frames, or 2.727 casts a second. Each step is worth a little over 4% damage. It is fragile and clumsy everywhere else, so don't farm in it.
On bosses
Nothing changes on a boss. Stagger the three elements the same way, stand at melee range so all 5 bolts land, and keep a Hydra out for the healing and cooldown reduction. Bosses move, so this is where the Firewall on your bar gets used most. If you play the speed-farming variant that spams Fire Bolt, bosses and very large packs are when you go back to Charged Bolts.
Strengths, weaknesses, mistakes
What it's good at
- Very tanky: Ice Armor, Raiment of the Infinite, the set's resistances and the Splinter of Pain all stack.
- Excellent area damage. Everything near the ring burns at once.
- The strongest Sorcerer build this season, with separate variants for speed farming and pushing.
- Smooth start. Manual Firewall is a good build from level 13 into early Torment, and the core uniques work in both versions.
Where it struggles
- Tricky to play. Your damage depends on where you stand and on staggering three triggers.
- It depends on a five-piece charm set, and plays as a different build until you have it.
- It can't go very fast. You fight in one spot.
- Step out of the ring and you deal no damage at all.
Mistakes that ruin it
- Leaving the ring. The burn is only applied by hits you make from inside it. Outside it you suddenly deal no damage.
- Firing all three elements at once. Each element has its own 6-second cooldown and a Firewall lasts 2.7 seconds. Space them two seconds apart or you get gaps with no ring.
- Taking Ring of Fire before you own the set. The 12-second cooldown is too long by itself. Stay on Wildfire until the fifth charm.
- Buffing the skills that do the hitting. Extra damage on Charged Bolts or Meteor does nothing for the burn. Only the number of hits counts. Standing in several rings at once doesn't add damage either.
- Teleporting without an Overpower stack. Blaze refunds its cooldown by spending Overpower. With none banked, Teleport goes on cooldown and Raiment's damage reduction can drop.
- Slotting the Firewall Enchantment. Burning has a terrible Lucky Hit chance, so it rarely triggers and the wall lands off to the side.
Not for you? The other Sorcerer builds: Ball Lightning · Blizzard.