At the moment, sorceresses are considered the weakest class in Diablo 4, sharing the spot at best with druids. This could change in the upcoming Season 5. During testing, experts have already found some improvements, including a new Legendary that could significantly enhance sorceresses.
What kind of item is this?
- The Aspect of Sly Steps is a new defensive Legendary set to appear in Season 5.
- The item is available for all classes. With the Legendary, you activate a defensive, deceptive, or macabre skill as soon as you lose 50% of your maximum health. The effect ignores cooldowns but can only occur every 45-30 seconds.
- Expert wudijo analyzed the aspect and believes: Sorceresses will particularly benefit from it. They will receive a significant nerf in Season 5 and will become even weaker, as they are already considered extremely weak.
Here you can find all information about the release and content of Season 5.
What makes Sly Steps so strong? The effect is applied before you even take damage, meaning: The defensive skill activates as soon as the damage hits and directly counters it.
Sorceresses have the Flame Shield, which makes them temporarily immortal. This means they can activate the Legendary particularly easily. Since you become immortal through the Flame Shield, you ignore a one-shot attempt.
Moreover – which is probably even more important – with the Legendary and the right build, you might be able to forgo Frost Armor. This allows you, according to wudijo, to take other skills and build entirely new builds that were not previously possible (via YouTube).
For example, you could create a “Full Glasscanon” build with hardly any health points and yet never die. Sorceresses have always had the problem of being able to use fewer skills than other classes because 3 of their spell slots are blocked by Teleport, Flame Shield, and Frost Armor – otherwise they cannot survive. This could now change.
Season 5 will be the last season of Diablo 4 before the first expansion Vessel of Hatred. Here is the intro to the DLC:
“Can quickly become game-breaking”
However, the expert warns that such effects can quickly lead to new builds undermining entire mechanics.
With Sly Steps, you essentially have a “Cheat Death” effect. These abilities are generally passive and have a significantly longer cooldown than 30 seconds. This is especially a problem for the Hardcore mode:
As a Hardcore enthusiast, I’m not particularly happy about this. I’ve played a lot of Sorc in Hardcore and felt ‘okay’ there overall, but I also had a bit more fear than with other classes. So here it might be okay to have such an effect.
However, I want to caution Blizzard to be careful with such effects. This can quickly become game-breaking. […] We don’t want to see Cheat Deaths everywhere again.
Overall, the expert seems quite satisfied with the state of sorceresses in Season 5. As wudijo explains, other classes can also benefit from the Legendary, although not as well. Due to their low health points and strong defensive skills, it is easier for sorceresses to activate the effect.
Meanwhile, the testing for Season 5 has concluded, and something may change about the Legendary and the class itself before the launch in August. In the meantime, there will be new information about the upcoming expansion and the class Spiritborn. Both wudijo and we at MeinMMO will be able to review it in advance: Diablo 4 showcases the new class, inviting a host of experts to test it beforehand
