I’m super excited to share this Charged Bolts Build in Diablo 4 Season 2. It’s my favorite Lightning Sorcerer build right now. It has the best visuals and sound effects of any Sorcerer build, it’s like fireworks going off everywhere, I named the build Fireworks.
This build actually has decent damaged too, it can fly in a T100 and defeat T100 boss in about 13 seconds. It can also deal enough damage to skip all of Uber Lilith’s mechanics.
My favorite thing about it is that it can fight mobs at both close and long range, and farm Diablo 4 Gold efficiently. Plus, it doesn’t even require aiming because the new Staff of Lam Esen update is so enjoyable to run the build.
Season 2 Charged Bolts Buffs
In reality, however, Charged Bolts were not competitive before Season 2. Aspect of Piercing Static has been updated so that it now works effectively. So we still have good damage against single targets like elites and bosses.
Also, Staff of Lam Esen also received a stat buff. Lucky Hit resource regeneration solves most of the mana issues in previous Charged Bolts builds.
The aspect here improves the practicality of the build, so that we don’t need to target all monsters and Diablo 4 items. Because half of Charged Bolts will automatically chase all monsters. Combined with Aspect of Piercing Static, Charged Bolts can pierce every monster and deal massive AOE damage.
Meanwhile, Enhanced Charged Bolts passive will also trigger Lightning Nova AOE damage, pushing AOE damage from huge to insane.
We also ran Ball Lightning Enchantment in this build. In situations where the critical hit chance is high, we trigger the full-screen static Ball Lightning, since the base Lucky Hit Chance of Charged Bolts is quite good. This is another insane source of AOE and single target damage.
Infinite Mana
The biggest problem with Charged Bolts before Season 2 was the lack of mana and Duriel Mats, especially against a single target. But we have more mana restoration tools now.
- Invigorating Conduit: Each time you pick up Crackling Energy, you can recover 12 mana points.
- Static Surge Legendary Node: After casting some Charged Bolts, we can restore 10% of our maximum mana.
- Conceited Choker Amulet: We can get 20% Mana Cost Reduction stat, which is the priority of the amulet.
- Esu’s Heirloom: This not only increases our critical hit chance, but also reduces mana cost by an additional 10%.
- Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop: Get Resource Generation stat.
- Staff of Lam Esen: Resource Generation Lucky Hit, which can reduce the problem of insufficient mana.
If you still find all the above mana issues. I recommend you invest more Diablo 4 Gold in another ring to boost its Resource Generation stat, or use Resource Generation Lucky Hit on the glove.
Skill Tree
For Skill Tree, we put 5 points on Charged Bolts. Of course I recommend choosing Passive to apply 25% damage reduction. This will make it easier for us to face T100.
We use Firebolt Enchantment with Devouring Blaze to burn synergy. There is also Ball Lightning Enchantment, which can use Ball Lightning’s Overpowered Damage in Season 2.
I put points into this Lightning Spear to stun monsters everywhere. And place 1 point on Ice Blades to trigger a layer of Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop’s cold damage.
Gear
For equipment setup, you can simply change your gloves to ones with high Crit Chance, 4 ranks of Charged Bolts, Attack Speed and Aspect of Piercing Static. Then switch the weapon to Staff of Lam Esen and you’re ready.
I tested running T100 without Staff of Lam Esen. To be honest, it wasn’t all that enjoyable for me. Because we need to get close to the monsters to crush them. Sometimes we may face mana issues with a single elite due to the loss of a Resource Generation Lucky Hit stat. Therefore, I recommend that you only try this build after getting Staff of Lam Esen.
The other important thing is to get high Crit Chance in all 3 positions. Crit Chance is very important for this build to work effectively. Get 3% Armor stats from these 4 locations, so we can easily get 13k Armor to face T100 monsters.
You can also get a Fire/Poison/Shadow Resistance from Helm, Chest Armor or Pants. Or we can also get one of the three types of rings with 12% Resistance and save a stat so that we get more defensive stats.
If you have Shako, Godslayer Crown or Tilbault’s Will, these will be great to wear. But I don’t recommend spending more Diablo 4 Gold on Raiment of the Infinite because we will lose too much survivability.
If you use a Unique, I recommend using an Aspect Of Disobedience and a Snowveiled Aspect to improve our Armor. If you use two Uniques, I recommend putting Aspect Of Disobedience on Amulet and using Snowveiled Aspect on Chest Armor to keep our Armor.
But I don’t recommend putting Aspect of Piercing Static on Amulet because it will make it difficult to switch to other builds.
Building a tank will also be difficult if you want to use powerful unique abilities, as it requires Aspect Of Disobedience on Amulet.
Before Acquiring Tal Rasha Ring
The new Tal Rasha Ring is a pretty big damage amplifier, which is great if you already have it. If you’re still on the way to get it, I recommend using a ring with a high Crit Chance and Resource Generation stat and Edgemaster’s Aspect.
I recommend using Domination Vampiric Power instead of Infection. Because the damage contribution of Infection Vampiric Power is quite low, it is only used to trigger a layer of Tal Rasha Ring’s poison damage.
Paragon Board
The most important thing in Paragon Board is to unlock Static Surge Legendary Node as soon as possible. Because it gives us mana regeneration and allows us to apply 100% Vulnerable uptime to all monsters.
We can also use Enchanter Glyph to increase our non-physical damage to non-Elites, Elites and Bosses. It combines with Frigid Fate Legendary Node to deal an additional 9% multiplied damage.
Also, we gain 5% additional Lightning Resistance and we take around 17% less lightning damage. This will help us survive better in T100 NM dungeons.
If you die a lot from using this build, you can replace Elementalist Glyph with a Reinforced Glyph to further reduce damage.
Vampiric Power
- Ravenous: It gives us 40+% bonus attack speed, brings a huge damage boost, and has great synergy with Ball Lightning.
- Anticipation: It helps us get ultimate skills with close to 0 cooldown, allowing for more damage and survivability.
- Accursed Touch: It deals massive AOE damage, further speeding up farming.
- Infection: It will trigger an additional layer of Tal Rasha Ring stacking poison damage. If you don’t have Tal Rasha Ring yet, use Domination instead.
- Prey on the Weak: When we apply 100% Vulnerable uptime to all monsters, we get another 16% multiplier damage boost.
Comparison with Ball Lightning
Fireworks definitely do less damage than Ball Lightning. You can see the differences between the two versions in this Uber Lilith combat comparison.
I prefer Fireworks builds, though, and I’m actually using Fireworks builds right now to farm T100 and Helltides. We can fight monsters at close or long range, allowing me to get rid of dangerous Elite affixes while keeping damage output high.
Charged Bolts’ passive skill also reduces damage by an additional 25%, making us more tanky.
What I really like about it is that I don’t have to aim at all. Staff of Lam Esen enables Charged Bolts to perform ranged attacks and automatically chase monsters.
Another good comparison is that we can complete waves 8-9 of this event while running this Fireworks build. When running a Ball Lightning build, I usually complete 6 waves. Because I have to run to different monsters to cause damage.
In Helltides, we could easily get 600 Cinders in 15 minutes, while Ball Lightning build usually took 17 minutes to get 600 Cinders.
Skill Rotation
There is no specific skill rotation in this build. We can fight enemies at close range or at a distance with great flexibility.
We can always pre-cast Lightning Spear to pre-stun the enemy. Ultimate is also free and we don’t need to save it. We can cast it whenever we are surrounded by mobs, keep pressing Charged Bolts and watch everything melt away in seconds.
Final Thoughts
I’m glad the developers introduced Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop, which makes it easier to get enough damage to run T100 and skip all of Uber Lilith’s mechanics.
Even if we have a super strong Ball Lightning build, builds like Charged Bolts or Chain Lightning can create more fireworks for map farming. Which Sorcerer build do you prefer? Have a nice day.