I spent all of Diablo 4’s second season melting through monsters as a sorceress standing inside rotating orbs of lightning. Instead of casting spells at a safe distance, Ball Lightning sorcerers brought the magic with them. All it took was a little setup time to get the orbs flowing and then you could carve through dungeons faster than any other class. It was the best build by far and Blizzard made the surprising decision to let it slide for the season before getting nerfed.
Four more seasons have passed and Ball Lightning hasn’t returned to the throne, but that’s hopefully about to change. Blizzard is dumping buckets of buffs onto the skill for season 7, potentially bringing back one of the most popular builds in Diablo 4.
There are two flavors of Ball Lighting you can choose from depending on which new unique off-hand weapon you use. Only one of them activates the same neurons as season 2 did for me, and that is Okun’s Catalyst.
This Unique off-hand weapon corrals lightning orbs that’d usually fly toward monsters and makes them orbit you instead. It also adds a small quality-of-life bonus by letting you cast them while moving. With enough mana and movement speed, your character should become the electrified blender that I so fondly remember.
On top of that, Blizzard has reworked all the damage bonuses you can tie to the skill. Not only can you make it deal a whole lot more damage than before, you can make it pull enemies toward you, solving one of its major weaknesses. From there, you just need to avoid getting popped by picking up some defensive shields and you should be tearing things apart just like old times.
Much has changed about Diablo 4 since season 2, so Ball Lightning might not look as absurdly broken compared to the strength of the other classes these days, but it should be one of the sorcerers’ best builds. Few other classes can beat the power of a build where you just spam teleport and jump from monster pack to monster pack. And with the spiritborn losing their ability to deal trillions of damage, the top meta spot will once again be fair game for everyone else.
We’ll know how it stacks up once players get their hands on the season 7 public test realm, which starts on December 3. Over the course of the week it’s live, you can test out all the new items and seasonal witchcraft powers. Maybe someone will figure out how to make a build around all the exploding frogs you can summon.
Diablo 4 season 7 will go live on January 21.
