Are Sorcerers worth playing in Diablo 4 Season 1 after patch 1.1.1?

After the initial set of Diablo 4 patch notes for its first season, the Season of the Malignant, many Sorcerer players were distraught with the many nerfs the class was being subjected to. However, we’ve since gotten a new set of patch notes, for patch 1.1.1, which releases August 8. From those two sets of notes, we can have a better glimpse at how the Sorcerer class will play in the coming season.

Initially, the community was in disarray since three of the major sources of damage for Sorcerers had been nerfed: damage to Vulnerable targets, damage to Crowd Controlled targets, and the Devouring Blaze passive, which, when combined with the Fire Bolt enchantment, made it so that you’d get an enormous boost to your critical hit chance.

However, they buffed Sorcerers in other places. Mastery skills in particular have been boosted: they’re basically “extra” Core skills now, with a lot more support from items — which means that builds that use skills like Fire Wall might find more ways to shine. And in the 1.1.1 notes, they also greatly improved how skills like Fire Bolt, Fireball, and Chain Lightning work.

Survivability took a hit in general, not just for Sorcerers — but Sorcerer was already the class that struggled the most with it, so they were set to struggle even more. One of the main ways to keep Sorcerers alive was the Aspect of Disobedience — and that got nerfed hard. However, survivability was increased in other places: the Align the Elements and Mana Shield defensive passives have been buffed. In addition, patch 1.1.1 added a lot of damage reduction for Sorcerers on their Paragon Nodes.

Although the initial patch definitely nerfed Sorcerers in many ways, both offensively and defensively, the following patch rebalanced things again to a more viable place. And that’s not even taking into account the power of Malignant Hearts, as well as the buffs to certain Legendary Powers, like Serpentine Aspect (which should make Hydra much more viable) and Frozen Orbit (a big boost to Frozen Orb), among others. In addition to all that, passives like Vyr’s Mastery and Esu’s Ferocity have been greatly improved.

All in all, the situation, which seemed bleak at first, looks far better for the upcoming August 8 patch. I admit that I was iffy about continuing to play the class at first, but the patch 1.1.1 notes have rekindled my confidence. The class looks like it will have many more viable endgame builds, with the many buffs to Fire and Lightning skills — Frost was already in a good place for the most part. So while my answer was different a couple weeks ago, at the moment I’d definitely recommend giving Sorcerers a try for Season 1.

Originally posted July 19, 2023. Updated August 3, 2023.