The Diablo 4 Ice Shards build for the Sorcerer class is becoming a popular and effective way to clear high-tier nightmare dungeons and other endgame content. If you put the right amount of points into skills, find the right aspects for items, and select the right paragon boards and glyphs, you can continue to fire Ice Shards almost continuously. This build relies heavily on Lucky Hit to generate mana and is rather offensive by default, but you can tweak some skills here and there to better suit your playstyle. Here’s a breakdown of the best endgame Sorcerer build using Ice Shards.
Best Diablo 4 Ice Shards build for Sorcerer
The following are the skills, aspects, and paragon glyphs you need to create what we believe to be the best Diablo 4 Ice Shards build:
- Fire Bolt (1 or 2 ranks) – This is specifically for the Enhancement Effect
- Ice Shards (5 or more) + Enhanced Ice Shards (1) + Destructive Ice Shards (1)
- Flame Shield (1) + Enhanced Flame Shield (1) + Shimmering Flame Shield (1)
- Teleport (1) + Enhanced Teleport (1) + Shimmering Teleport (1)
- Ice Armor (1)
- Frost Nova (5 or more) + Enhanced Frost Nova (1) + Mystical Frost Nova (1)
- Elemental Attunement (1)
- Precision Magic (3)
- Align the Elements (1) + Mana Shield (3) + Protection (3)
- Icy Veil (1) + Snap Freeze (3)
- Inner Flames (1) + Devouring Blaze (3)
- Deep Freeze (1) + Prime Deep Freeze (1) + Supreme Deep Freeze (1)
- Permafrost (3) + Hoarfrost (3) + Icy Touch (3) + Frigid Breeze (3)
- Avalanche (1)
- Weapon Aspect 1 – Ice Shards pierce [3-4] times, dealing [25-20]% less damage per subsequent enemy hits.
- Weapon Aspect 2 – The Avalanche Key Passive now applies to 1 additional cast.
- Amulet Aspect – Core or Mastery skills cast at or above 100 Mana gain a [30-60]% increased Critical Strike Chance.
- Ring Aspect 1 – You deal [25-35]% more damage to Immobilized, Stunned, or Frozen enemies.
- Ring Aspect 2 – You deal [11-20]% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies while you have a Barrier.
- Helm Aspect – Frost Nova gains an additional Charge but the Cooldown per charge is increased by [40-30]%.
- Gloves Aspect – Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by [15-25]% for 5 seconds. (You can also replace this with the Frostburn unique gloves.)
- Boots Aspect – Lucky Hit: When you hit a Crowd Controlled enemy, there is up to a [30-50]% chance for that Crowd Control effect to spread to another unaffected enemy.
- Raiment of the Infinite (Unique Chest Armor) – After using Teleport, Close enemies are Pulled to you and Stunned for [2.0 – 3.0] seconds, but Teleport’s Cooldown is increased by 20%.
- Iceheart Brais (Unique Pants) – Enemies that die while Frozen have a [11-20]% chance to unleash a Frost Nova.
- Paragon Boards – Burning Instinct (don’t need node), Frigid Fate (need node), Icefall (need node), Enchantment Master (need node)
- Paragon Glyphs for Glyph Sockets – Destruction, Exploit, Tactician, Elementalist, Control
As far as gear and the paragon board are concerned, you need to prioritize any increases to Lucky Hit chance, Mana Cost reduction, Cooldown reduction, additional item ranks in Frost Nova or Ice Shards, Crit chance, Vulnerable damage, and Intelligence. Hopefully, you’ll find equipment that will cover some, if not all, of these bullet points, with the help of the Occultist to get rid of traits you don’t want and add those you do.
The main passive that makes this Ice Shards build work is Frigid Breeze, which at rank 3 has a 20% chance to restore 15 mana whenever you deal cold damage to Vulnerable enemies. Some of the other passives and abilities make it easy to make enemies Vulnerable, and with multiple ice shards per cast, you’ll likely regenerate the mana you need to use Ice Shards repeatedly.
The overall effect has you fire Ice Shards pretty much at whim while they bounce all over the map and kill every monster in sight. Make sure that you use Ice Shards on Frozen enemies in the midst of combat to proc passives even further.
One important note to consider is Avalanche, which you may want to replace with Shatter for high-tier dungeons. Shatter will give Frozen enemies a chance to explode, making large packs easier to defeat. For easier dungeons, you can put points into Blizzard instead, which will usually clear mobs without you needing to do much else.
