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Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Guide

Season 6 - Season of HatredLeveling

Last Updated:October 10, 2024|Change Log

Welcome to the Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Guide, a fast paced frost machine gun! Ice Shards Leveling can be slow to start but comes together for a very fun build.

You can get started without aspects but you benefit from unlocking Piercing Cold, which allows your Ice Shards to pierce enemies. Ice Shards will make enemies Vulnerable with Destructive Ice Shards and will ricochet thanks to Enhanced Ice Shards. You will get plenty of support from your Conjurations Skills. Hydra will summon a turret to attack enemies, you can summon up to two. Familiar summons different elements based on the last skill used and follows you, cast it after Hydra to burn enemies around you thanks to Enhanced Familiar.

Ice Shards Sorcerer has great Defensive Skills as well. Teleport gives mobility and acts as an Unstoppable which breaks crowd control. Ice Armor gives a large Barrier and if you spend the time to unlock Snowveiled it will also make you Unstoppable. Frost Nova crowd controls by afflicting them with Frozen, it will also make enemies Vulnerable with Mystical Frost Nova which increases all damage the enemies will take. Ice Shards Enchantment will make Frost Nova a powerful offensive tool that should be used whenever available.

Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling is more challenging and also uses Enlightenment which requires you to rotate different elements for a massive buff. Hydra will make it easy to stack Enlightenment. You will need positioning to pierce enemies with Piercing Cold while you set up your Conjurations. Use your Defensive Skills as needed to stay alive or reposition. An Aspect that makes leveling easier for any build is Elemental Constellation which comes in the first Season Journey cache, as you cast any Skill you will charge up a powerful dagger on your shoulder that pierces in a narrow area for massive damage, this damage increases the more you cast similar elements.

This guide teaches you all about how to reach the endgame in Diablo 4 with Ice Shards Sorcerer. Let's get started!

Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Setup
Note

This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Sorcerer Guides section!

Pros
  • Scales Well
  • Engaging Playstyle
  • Vulnerable Application
Cons
  • Positioning
  • Area Coverage
  • Aspects Desired

Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.

Season Theme

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

  • Seething Opal of Equipment
  • Seething Opal of Gold
  • Seething Opal of Materials
  • Seething Opal of Torment
  • Seething Opal of Socketables

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.

Skills & Gameplay

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

Starting Skills

To start off you have to put two points into Basic Skills to unlock the other sections. Spark is your choice to restore Mana and give critical strike chance with Glinting Spark but you can replace it soon. Next you unlock Ice Shards to be your main damage and use Destructive Ice Shards for Vulnerable application. You can move on once you unlock Defensive Skills.

Defensive Skills

Teleport will provide mobility to get into the action faster, it also provides an Unstoppable on cast which allows you to break crowd control. Ice Armor gives us a large Barrier for when taking damage can't be avoided. If you decide to unlock Snowveiled then Ice Armor can provide an extra Unstoppable. Frost Nova provides crowd control and enables the ricochet from Enhanced Ice Shards. You will need one point in Fireball for your Fireball Enchantment at level 15. You can move on once you unlock Conjuration Skills.

Conjuration Skills

Hydra will provide damage as a turret that has good range, you can summon up to two. Familiar will provide damage and Enhanced Familiar gives a special effect based on which element was previously cast, you will want to focus on using Familiar after a fire skill for the burning damage with great area coverage. You can also remove Spark from your Skill Bar and replace Glinting Spark with Mystical Frost Nova to apply Vulnerable to enemies hit by Frost Nova. You can move on once you unlock Mastery Skills.

Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Skills

Enchantments

At level 15, you unlock the Sorcerer Enchantments class mechanic. Finish this Priority Quest as soon as possible to get Fireball Enchantment. Any enemy that dies will explode with a Fireball, providing a chain reaction that destroys weaker enemies and sometimes elites if they are surrounded by weaker enemies.

Mastery Skills

You don't take any skills here but will grab some passives from previous categories. Take Protection passive to provide additional barriers on all skills that have a cooldown. You also take ranks in Ice Shards. You can move on once you unlock Ultimate Skills.

Ultimate Skills

You don't take any ultimate skills for this build but you should prioritize getting the Warmth passive. This will heal you for each enemy burning around you and allows you to save Healing Potions for important moments. You also take Glass Cannon and ranks to Ice Shards. You can move on once you unlock your Key Passive.

Key Passive

Enlightenment is your key passive. This will give additional damage, Mana regeneration, and attack speed. It requires you to rotate between different elements to gain stacks until you become Enlightened. The buff will last 10 seconds, during this time you will do not need to rotate your elements and instead can focus on dealing as much damage as your Mana allows. Once the buff falls off, you should go back to rotating between different elements.

Priority Passives

You prioritize passives that will have a more direct impact. You take Conjuration Mastery, Permafrost, and Hoarfrost for extra damage. Pick up Mana Shield and Icy Veil for extra defense. Grab Frigid Breeze, Snap Freeze, and Evocation for extra utility.

Final Journey to 60

Your final passives will include Elemental Synergies, Icy Touch, Hoarfrost, ranks to Frost Nova, Shimmering Ice Armor and Shimmering Teleport. You can change your order of passives if you feel the desire to, focusing on all damage before grabbing extra defense.

Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently. 

Sorcerer Enchantments

Fireball is our first Enchantment. This will provide addition clear speed, destroying weaker enemies quickly so you can keep moving. The weaker enemies will sometimes shotgun Elites, overall this is a very powerful Enchantment for leveling but will rarely be used in the Endgame.

Ice Shards is our second Enchantment. This will summon Ice Shards to fly at nearby Frozen enemies and will also ricochet to improve your area coverage thanks to Enhanced Ice Shards.

Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Enchantments

Unlocking Enchantments

Once you reach level 15, you have to complete a short quest line starting west of Nevesk, Fractured Peaks. A Priority Quest leads you there to seek out Mordarin. You will enter a dungeon to find a quest item and then finish a short encounter in a nearby shack.

Learn more details in our full Sorcerer Enchantment Guide.

Gear & Stat Priorities

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

To get started with the Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling build, always use your highest DPS Staff available for more damage. You can use one hand and offhand if they both have higher item power than your current Staff but will be less likely to find consistent upgrades for two items instead of one. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

1-60 Leveling
T1 Starter

Read more about itemization in our Beginner Articles about Damage, Defense and Stats.

Legendaries & Uniques

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

First Season Journey Cache

  • Elemental Constellation
    • This Aspect will easily carry any build through leveling and into the early Torment difficulties. To get started with this aspect you can simply cast Hydra instead of any leveling build's main skill for burst damage. After casting a skill you will form a dagger on your shoulder that will be empowered by each matching element that is Cast. If you get enough Mana sustain you can use other skills as well but Hydra or a Basic Skill will be easiest when you first find this item.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

  1. Piercing Cold

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

  1. Control
  2. Disobedience
  3. Snowveiled

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

  1. Elemental Constellation
  2. Shredding Blades
  3. Conceited
  4. Elemental Acuity
  5. Accelerating
  6. Storm Swell
  7. Concentration
  8. Everliving

What to Gamble

Offensive1h Weapon, Offhand
DefensiveHelm, Chest, Pants
Utility, MobilityBoots
ResourceRings

Great Uniques for this build

  1. Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop
  2. Esu's Heirloom
  3. Penitent Greaves

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

Build-defining Uniques

  1. Fractured Winterglass (enables Frozen Orb Endgame)
  2. Blue Rose (enables Blizzard Endgame)
  3. Gloves of the Illuminator (enables Fireball Endgame)
  4. Axial Conduit (enables Chain Lightning Endgame)

Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.

Runes

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling build focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

  • Tam + Wat for additional damage reduction combined with Xol + Ohm for additional damage.

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

  • Moni, Cem, Cir, and Poc are good options for Ritual Runes.
  • Ton, Tal, Gar, and Lum are good options for Invocation Runes.

Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.

Mercenaries

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired: Subo

  • Subo is a great choice for casual gameplay thanks to his passive Seeker that reveals enemies and objects, this is a nice quality of life addition and also gives some Mana sustain. Grab Wire Trap along with Ready At Hand for some mobility. Next you pick Cover Fire with the damage increase from Opening Fire.
  • Raheir is a great alternative if you don't mind dropping the maphack, Valiance is an amazing defensive tool that will prevent damage from large hits along with give you Unstoppable. Take Ground Slam and grab Raheir's Aegis for extra defense. Next you want Bastion with Inspiration. Valiance is a very powerful mechanic for pushing more difficult content or playing on Hardcore.

Reinforcement: Raheir

  • Raheir will potentially save your character with his reinforcement Bastion. Setting this to trigger on Injured can keep you going in difficult encounters.
  • Varyana is a great alternative to Raheir if you are either using Raheir as your hired or if you just want some extra damage. Bloodthirst will give some extra attack speed and you can set it on any attack.
Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Mercenaries

Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.

How To Level

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Campaign Leveling
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
Tips & Tricks
Speedrun Route

Campaign Leveling

  • For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
    • The Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
    • To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
    • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
      • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
    • After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
    • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.

Seasonal / Alt Leveling

  • Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
  • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
    • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
  • Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
  • From level 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
  • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
  • If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
  • Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.

Tips and Tricks

  • Don't Imprint Your Weapon
    • It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which will usually not be replaced as often as your Weapon.
  • Compare Your Items
    • Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
  • Choose an Easy Difficulty
    • Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
  • Use Your Materials
    • There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.

Speedrun Route

  • If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
  • This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
  • We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.

Endgame Transition

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

As you approach level 60 with the Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling build, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:

  • -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
  • -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Ice Shards Sorcerer Torment 1 Starter Setup

Paragon & Glyphs

!
Important

Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling Paragon
Tip

Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

To Level 15

  1. Flamefeeder
  2. Tactician
  3. Unleash
  4. Destruction
  5. Elementalist

To Level 46

  1. Destruction
  2. Tactician
  3. Unleash
  4. Elementalist
  5. Flamefeeder

There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.

Video Guide

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling

Coming soon.

Summary

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

The Ice Shards Sorcerer Leveling build is an engaging playstyle that can scale well into the Endgame. It comes together once you start getting later passive skills to help freeze enemies faster.

  • Freeze enemies and watch the Ice Shards ricochet everywhere.
  • Use Hydra for support and as a rotation for Enlightenment.
  • Crowd control enemies and use your defensive skills and cooldowns to stay alive.

Credits

Season 6 - Season of Hatred
Ice Shards Sorcerer

Written by pandaglassjaw

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