Unyielding Diablo 4 player proves Sorcerers aren’t as bad as you thought

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)

Diablo 4 Sorcerers might be the weakest class overall, but they can still gather enough power to push through some of the action RPG’s hardest dungeons.

Sorcerers have struggled to compete with Diablo 4’s other four classes in endgame activities since launch. They’re exceptional for quickly gaining levels up to 50, but struggle to survive the deadly enemies you encounter in the game’s highest World Tier difficulty settings.

With a little bit of luck and a huge amount of help from season 1’s powerful Malignant Heart gems, Sorcerers still have some bite to them.

"I solo cleared a tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon, at level 91... as a Sorcerer," wrote Reddit user Wunthr before explaining how they were able to survive enemies 63 levels higher than them.

At tier 100, enemies will kill you in one hit. And Nightmare Dungeons limit how many times you can die and revive yourself, so it's an impressive achievement for almost any class, let alone the one with the least amount of survivability. Wunthr was able to pull it off using the popular Blizzard Sorcerer build that relies on a Legendary aspect to deal the majority of its damage. They also have the Caged Heart of the Barber, a Malignant Heart gem that causes enemies to detonate for massive amounts of damage—which is so good it might be nerfed soon.

Unlike the other classes, Sorcerers have to inflict and maintain elemental status effects on enemies to deal meaningful damage, and they lack defensive benefits outside of skills like Ice Armor and Flame Shield. Sorcerers live on the edge of death and have to really work to kill enemies at a higher level than them. This is why many Diablo 4 players have deemed them the worst class, but just because they’re not as easy as the others, doesn’t mean they’re entirely inert.

Blizzard has promised to address the problems players have with Sorcerers in the upcoming 1.1 patch, and plan to discuss that in a stream on Friday. That could include freeing them from having to slot Fire Bolt as a passive Enchantment slot on every popular build, including Wunthr’s, and amplifying their defensive skill options, given that they are stuck wearing weak armor.

Wunthr, however lucky they were to grab every necessary item for their build, proves that being the worst class doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t achieve the same heights as the others. It just might be a lot harder to get there.

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He's done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He's interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.