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Lightning Spear Sorcerer screen.
Screenshot by The Escapist.

Best Diablo 4 Lightning Spear Sorcerer Endgame Build

Magical Yondu.

After the addition of Splintering Energy in Season 5, the Lightning Spear Sorcer became one of the best endgame builds in Diablo 4. This guide will cover everything you need to know about the build, including skills, key components, equipment, and skill rotations.

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Lightning Spear Sorcer Overview: How to Play the Build

Lightning Spears surrounding the sorcerer.
Screenshot by The Escapist.

Before getting into the fine details of this build, there are some keys that all players should know. The most important is that the Lightning Spear Sorcerer is entirely reliant on effective equipment. If you don’t have late-game gear at your disposal, this build will not work half as well as it’s supposed to. There are numerous factors that work in tandem with late-game gear to ensure the spears work. Below you can find the most important keys.

Lightning Spear Sorcerer Key Components:

  • Harlequin Crest Helm (Integral)
  • Tyrael’s Might Chest (Highly Recommended)
  • Fractured Winterglass Amulet (Mandatory)
  • Splintering Energy Aspect (Mandatory)
  • 1,700+ Critical Strike Damage
  • Nearly 100% Critical Strike Chance with boosts.
  • 50%+ Cooldown Reduction.

Both the Harlequin Crest and the Fractured Winterglass Amulet are integral items for this build. The crest ensures that we have plenty of damage across the board, and more importantly, it provides a ton of cooldown reduction. Then the Fractured Winterglass boosts Conjuration damage and synergizes with Frozen Orb to reduce cooldown times on Conjurations. Without these items, the build falls flat in comparison to everything else in the highest tiers.

Two stats bring this build together: Cooldown reduction and Critical Strike Damage. Your goal is to have as many Lightning Spears flying around you as possible. When your build is in full effect, you can reach 40 conjurations active with no problems. But if you have low CDR, your damage is going to fall off a cliff. Fewer spears mean fewer Conjuration passives and less damage.

Critical Strike Damage is the other component here because of Splintering Energy. By itself, Lightning Spear doesn’t do incredible amounts of damage. Having a Splintering Energy Aspect on a two-handed staff means Critical Hits cause lightning to arc that deals 7,059 damage to the target and five other enemies. That number gets increased by your Critical Strike Damage number. So if I have 1,930 Critical Strike Damage, the Splintering Energy also gains that modifier.

Everything else in the building is used to bolster your health and the spears. I have been able to crush Tier 8 Infernal Hordes with the Lightning Spear Sorcerer by maintaining infinite Ice Armor and holding down my summoning button. With the right equipment, you should only need to cast a few Frozen Orbs before you hold down the spears button to gain infinite damage. Defense is used in between. Then you become an unkillable Conjurer surrounded by ice and lighting.

Lightning Spear Sorcerer Skill Points

Lightning Spear skill tree.
Screenshot by The Escapist.

All the equipment on this build is going to provide plenty of usable skills in the tree. However, we still need to hone in on what’s important for our 58 points. I spent hours on my own Lightning Spear build until I eventually melded what I knew with the build from Maxroll. Nearly any build you find for this Sorcerer setup will have the same skill fundamentals and the equipment is where you see the most deviation. Regardless, all of the skills are below.

  • Fire Bolt (Basic) – 2 Points
  • Frozen Orb (Core) – 1 Point
  • Charged Bolts (Core) – 1 Point
    • Enhanced Charged Bolts
    • Destructive Charged Bolts
  • Flame Shield (Defensive) – 1 Point
  • Teleport (Defensive) – 3 Points
    • Enhanced Teleport
    • Shimmering Teleport
  • Elemental Attunement (Passive) – 1 Point
  • Glass Cannon (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Ice Armor (Defensive) – 1 Point
    • Enhanced Ice Armor
    • Shimmering Ice Armor
  • Ice Blades (Conjuration) – 1 Point
    • Enhanced Ice Blades
    • Summoned Ice Blades
  • Precision Magic (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Conjuration Mastery (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Lightning Spear (Conjuration) – 1 Point
    • Enhanced Lightning Spear
    • Invoked Lightning Spear
  • Align the Elements (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Mana Shield (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Protection (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Icy Veil (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Inner Flames (Passive) – 1 Point
  • Devouring Blaze (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Static Discharge (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Unstable Currents (Ultimate) – 1 Point
    • Prime Unstable Currents
    • Supreme Unstable Currents
  • Coursing Currents (Passive) – 1 Point
  • Electrocution (Passive) – 3 Points
  • Overflowing Energy (Key Passive) – 1 Point

Numerous skills on the tree are cast as a result of items like Fractured Winterglass or abilities like Unstable Currents. Even with the Harlequin Crest, nearly all of the skills for the Sorcerer become available. So it’s important to have the right skillbar setup before moving ahead.

Lightning Spear Sorcerer Skillbar Setup in Diablo 4:

  • Skill 1: Flame Shield
  • Skill 2: Frozen Orb
  • Skill 3: Lightning Spear
  • Skill 4: Unstable Currents
  • Skill 5: Teleport
  • Skill 6: Ice Armor

Enchantments:

  • Fire Bolt
  • Ice Blades

Despite being off the main bar, enchantments like the Fire Bolt are going to provide a massive boost to damage through sheer passives. Most of the damage you deal with cause enemies to burn, and then we can use items and the Paragon Board to increase how much damage we do to burning enemies. Of course, you need to board to work in tandem with the skills.

Lightning Spear Sorcerer Paragon Board Glyphs and Nodes

Paragon Board for the sorcerer.
Screenshot by The Escapist.

With the skills ready to go, it’s time to get your Glyphs in order. Depending on what you’re missing as you place the Paragon Board together, you can change the route to your liking. However, there are some nodes and Glyphs that are mandatory for the build. You can find all the boards and Glyphs that you need here.

  • Starting Board
    • Elementalist (Glyph)
    • Elementalist (Node)
    • Elemental Balance (Node)
    • Erudite (Node)
  • Burning Instinct Board
    • Tactician (Glyph)
    • Smoldering Embers (Node)
    • Cinders (Node)
    • Safeguard (Node)
  • Enchantment Master Board
    • Unleash (Glyph)
    • Elementalist (Node)
    • Elemental Balance (Node)
    • Erudite (Node)
  • Frigid Fate Board
    • Charged (Glyph)
    • Weakness (Node)
    • Guarded Node (Node)
    • Frigid Fate (Legendary Node)
  • Elemental Summoner Board
    • Conjurer (Glyph)
    • Elemental Summoner (Legendary Node)
  • Ceaseless Conduit Board
    • Destruction (Glyph)
    • Galvanic Catalyst (Node)
  • Searing Heat Board
    • Exploit (Glyph)
  • Static Surge Board
    • Flamefeeder (Glyph)

Glyphs like Destruction or Elementalist can be prioritized first when you’re trying to level them up in Nightmare Dungeons. But you should be getting all of these to level 21 when you have the time. After all, the Lightning Spear Sorcerer in Diablo 4 is meant to be an end-game killer.

Lighting Spear Sorcerer Equipment and Affixes

Harlequin Crest on the Lightning Spear Sorcerer.
Screenshot by The Escapist.

The last part of your build is the equipment you have on your Sorcerer. Some builds will differ on whether they use items like the Raiment of the Infinite or Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop. After testing out different combinations, I ended up on a build that I felt was most effective. Below you can find all the items and their Affixes with bolding that indicates the most important stats for Masterworking.

Helm

  • Harlequin Crest
    • Maximum Life
    • Maximum Resource
    • Armor
    • Cooldown Reduction

Chest

  • Tyrael’s Might
    • Movement Speed
    • Maximum Resistance to All Elements
    • Resistance to All Elements
    • Damage Reduction

Gloves

  • Storm Swell (Aspect)
    • Attack Speed
    • Critical Strike Chance
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Critical Strike Damage (Temper)
    • Lighting Spear Lucky Hit Chance (Temper)

Pants

  • Tibault’s Will
    • All Stats
    • Maximum Life
    • Maximum Resource
    • Damage Reduction while Unstoppable

Boots

  • Esu’s Heirloom
    • Movement Speed
    • Movement Speed for 7 Seconds After Killing an Elite
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Resistance to All Elements

Staff (Weapon)

  • Splintering Energy (Aspect)
    • Intelligence
    • Maximum Life
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Critical Strike Damage (Temper)
    • Chance for a Second Lightning Spear When Cast

Amulet

  • Fractured Winterglass
    • Non-Physical Damage
    • Chance for Frozen Orb Projectiles to Cast Twice
    • Conjuration Cooldowns are Reduced when a Frozen Orb Explodes
    • Conjuration Mastery

Ring One

  • Frozen Orbit (Aspect)
    • Attack Speed
    • Critical Strike Chance
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Critical Strike Damage (Temper)
    • Lightning Spear Cooldown Reduction (Temper)

Ring Two

  • Tal Rasha’s Iridescent Loop
    • Lucky Hit Chance
    • Non-Physical Damage
    • Cooldown Reduction
    • Potent Warding

Once you have all of the items listed, you have the skeleton for your Lightning Spear Sorcerer in Diablo 4. From there, you need to keep searching for better versions of those items with Greater Affixes. Whether you are searching for a GA, or you are Masterworking, your goal is to get the best versions of the bolded Affixes in the list above. Soon enough, the Infernal Hordes will be a walk in the park.

And that’s all there is to the Lighting Spear Sorcerer.

Diablo 4 is available now on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.


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Author
Image of Dan Wenerowicz
Dan Wenerowicz
Dan Wenerowicz is a Staff Writer at The Escapist, where he helps lead the team's guides coverage of FPS and action games such as Call of Duty, Elden Ring, Diablo 4, and Black Myth: Wukong. He has a Bachelor's in Writing and has worked as a video game journalist for four years, having written and edited for such prominent outlets as Prima Games, Screen Rant, Sportskeeda, GINX TV, and Gfinity. His work has been read by millions of people, and his expertise has helped them better understand and complete video games.