With a hotfix on August 15, Blizzard is adjusting Diablo 4 . A strong build of the Sorceress, the “Lightning Spear” build could no longer handle the servers. A certain aspect of the build now deals more damage but occurs less frequently. One of the leading Sorceress players says he has lost half of his damage.
What kind of build is this? The build is called “Lightning Spear Sorcerer”; it only became possible in Season 5 of Diablo 4.
With this build, you shoot lightning spears that bounce off yourself and enemies. They become stronger as they do so. At the same time, you use Frozen Orb to reset the cooldown on Lightning Spears.
The build was made possible because the legendary aspect “Splintering Energy” was revised with the current season.
Much fewer lightning bolts in Diablo 4
This is what Blizzard says: In hotfix 4 from August 15, the “Aspect of Splintering Energy” has specifically been changed (via blizzard). It could cause problems when used in conjunction with the Amulet “Shattered Winterglass”.
- Damage increases from 25-50% to 50-80%
- But Splintering Energy will now jump to additional enemies less frequently
- In a future update, this will also be noted in the tooltip description
Blizzard says:
In rare cases, this aspect together with the Amulet “Shattered Winterglass” could lead to issues with server performance. To address this, we are reducing the frequency with which it jumps to additional enemies and increasing the damage to compensate for this. Additionally, the amount of frozen orbs that can be thrown from summons when using “Shattered Winterglass” has been adjusted for these rare cases.
So the change specifically targets the strong synergy of the Lightning Spear build.
“I’ve lost 50% of my damage, lol”
What was the problem? The sheer number of spears flying around apparently causes lags and even server crashes, as PC Gamer reports.
One of the leading users of the build, Mekuna, tells PC Gamer: He has lost about 50% of his damage. He could previously kill trash enemies in 2-3 minutes; now it takes him 7 minutes.
Normal players shouldn’t notice this, but only when pushing the limits, one realizes it, he says.
Mekuna had achieved a world record with the build and completed the hardest dungeon in the game – just 24 hours before Blizzard nerfed the build. If you want to know how the Lightning Spear build works or are looking for new builds in Diablo 4 Season 5, you can find them here: Diablo 4 Season 5 Tier List: Best Builds for Every Class in Endgame
