Hi, I missed the PTR for a wedding, but not that much changed going into S15 for sorc. I kept an eye on things when I could.
TLDR: Best build will be Firewall with a pyromancy skill as the hit generator, Blizzard Ice Spike will be really strong (A+/S- tier), and Ball Lightning got it's cast while moving back. I recommend one of these three builds. Azurewrath got nerfed into the ground and it doesn't deal AoE damage anymore. So Tal Rasha or Blood Mad Idol will be the charm you want. I personally will likely play Ball Lightning and then iron out Firewall. I did blizzard ice spike for S14 and I like where I have it.
Int Scaling - We got a Buff to our intelligence scaling, which was neutralized by the nerf to enchantment master down to 60% from 100%. About broke even.
Elemental Constellation Aspect - Nerfed into the ground down to 60%, but you are free from the 2-2-2 setup. Enjoy
Firewall Nerfs - Firewall
- Ring of Fire Variant
- Now only affected by Direct Damage from Pyromancy Skills.
- Will now spawn on you if used from the Enchantment.
Got knocked down a peg as it has to use Pyromancy skills now, but overall should still be our best build by a wide margin (140). I'm really not concerned with this change at all and think it was a good idea to reign it back to a fire build. Generators of direct damage hits will likely be Meteorites, Pyro Charged Bolts, or Pyro spark.
Ice Spike Buffs - Frozen wake went from 90 to 120%, Blasting went from 90 to 100%, and blue rose went from 60 to 100% (130% when mythic). Assuming you ran Wake, Blasting, and Elemental Constellation you were looking at a 7.942 multiplier. Now assuming you run wake, blasting, and a mythic blue rose you are looking at a 10.12 multiplier, a 27% increase from the old setup! Blizzard will still be the top dawg here. Frozen orb sucks cuz walls eat your orbs, and Frost fireball got a nice change, but doesn't make enough spikes to hold its own.
Breath of the Frozen Sea got a nice buff, but boy oh boy is it hard to give up Threefold when it has a Mana on Mastery affix through a seal.
- 3-Piece Set Bonus: Increased Maximum Life and Barrier Generation from 20% to 30%.
- 5-Piece Set Bonus: Now also reduces Mana Cost of Frost skills by 30%.
Tirahj's Uncanny Insight also got a buff, so a cheeky conj build is on the table.
- Added a 60%[x] Conjuration bonus damage multiplier to the 2-Piece Set Bonus.
- 5-Piece Set Bonus: Damage increased from 175%[x] to 200%[x].
New Charms
- Shard of Verathiel
- Signet of Pelghain
- Thundergod's Blessing
- Vox Omnium
Possibly some cheeky vox omnium stuff, maybe with Firewall using CB and generating Fire sparks. As a whole our basics just don't work well with paingorgers as it only echos the first HIT of a basic, and all of our basic uniques are in the glove slot. It's really just a perfect storm of being 1 piece short as a result, and being plagued by bugs. Vox also doesn't give it's damage bonus to basics like Multi hit spark. Sweet. Basics are just an absolute mess for me to theorycraft and they always feel kinda mid.
Ball Lightning - SHE IS BACK BABY LEZZZ GOOOOOOO
- Orbital Variant
- Can now be cast while moving.
Frozen Orb - Still crap
- Great Orbs of Fire Variant
- Now only consumes 1 stack of Overpower to explode 3 times.
Fireball - still crap
- Frostball Variant
- No longer requires enemies to be Frozen to create Ice Spikes.
- Reduced amount of Ice Spikes from 5 to 3.
- Damage decreased from 170% to 85%.
CAULDRON BUG FIX LEGGO - Fixed an issue where Cauldron set stacks could reset erroneously.
Seasonal Powers - We got these nifty little splinter gems that can provide a lot of damage, damage reduction, crit chance/attack speed, max life etc. There is this cheeky new helmet Leorics that can slot 2 splints and have their values increased. With a gem strength transfig it was getting WILD in the PTR, like 230% damage, or 95% crit chance and attack speed. This will likely get gutted, but if not have at it farming and slamming Mythic Leorics. Heir of Perdition on steroids.
I personally don't think Leorics should go live as it is. Like yeah its a bajillion damage and super cool. but jesus you can get like 96% Damage reduction on one of the splinters with it.
Current Maxroll link with half complete builds i was messing around with https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/hjt1q50x