Edit Guide

Black Hole Ignite Sorcerer Build Guide

Posted by warmachine237 on October 29, 2024
Last updated on November 13, 2024

Overview

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This is my first attempt at a build guide, please bear with me.

Black Hole is just such a fundamentally cool skill to play, but it just doesnt feel as strong compared to everything else sorcerer has to offer (*cough* static orb *cough*). The only saving grace with black hole is it has one of the best scaling damage nodes in any skill. Heat Wave 5/5 makes your uncapped fire resistance apply to your chance to Ignite with black hole at 10 times the value. Meaning if you had 75% fire resistance you apply 7.5 ignite a second. However since its uncapped fire resistance, we can scale it to the moon. We can reach well above 300% fire resistance on moderate investment hitting 30+ stacks of ignite per second. That may not seem a lot, but black hole also comes with so many raw damage multipliers that it actually works quite well.

We also scale ignite duration to nearly 5 seconds or so with sorcerers Chronomancy 8/8. So in short we have a bunch of Ignites on a target which last twice as long. If only we didnt have to wait forever for the damage to kick in. Cue Enchant Weapon. This skill comes with one of the most broken nodes for any ignite build. Conflagrate 1/1 makes us instantly deal the damage of all Ignites on nearby enemies. Thats cool, but it gets better, since we can get Searing Conflagration 4/4 to basically triple the damage of our ignites on bosses.

The main issue with this build is Black Hole has a long cooldown that we cannot just spam between packs, maybe once in 2 packs. So we need to find other ways of clearing monoliths. This build goes with Flame Rush as our preferred traversal skill, which can clear quite well with Rune Ember and also casts Volcanic Orb for us. This way, whenever we dash we are also doing damage to everything near us and this dash is on a cooldown of 2 seconds or even less with enough sources of cooldown recovery speed. Since we stack fire resistance anyway for Heat Wave 5/5 we can also get double value from Blazing Flux 3/3. We also have some cooldown recovery from Recollection 5/5 and we can stack more on our belt and boots. We also use Spreading Flames as a clear tool, which we have easy access to thanks to Inferno 8/8 and Firestarter's Torch

For defenses we have a good chunk of HP and a steady stream of ward from Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros and Lunar Protection 3/3. If we drop below 70% HP, we have Reactive Ward 6/6 to give us just absurd amounts of ward once every 6 seconds.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Fairly Tanky

Very Mobile

Primary clear skill is our traversal skill

Satisfying Ignite Pop

Cons

Damage over time build, may have to backtrack for loot

Flame Rush can be annoying sometimes

May not face tank beyond 300c

We dont get our primary skill combo until level 70 or so

Our skills are all cooldown based. Need to get used to skill rotations.

Gameplay / Mechanics

Primary idea of this build is to stack as much fire resistance as possible to make Black Hole stack as many ignites as possible from Heat Wave 5/5. This is our main single target skill. Once we stack enough ignites on the boss, we can activate Enchant Weapon to instantly pop all stacks of ignite on them for 3x damage due to Searing Conflagration 4/4.

For clear we use the Rune Ember from Ember Wake 1/1 on our Flame Rush combined with Volcanic Orb which we also cast with Flame rush using Magma Starter 1/1.

With enough ignite chance and Spreading Flames most enemies should die very quickly with each cast of Flame Rush. Against tanky monsters you can either manually cast Black Hole or Volcanic Orb.

We also have a substantial amount of less damage taken from Flame Rush with the in built 40% less damage taken while channeling and another 12% from Runic Eclipse 2/3 both of which linger on us for a second or so even after we finish channeling with Celestial Guidance 2/3 so make sure to keep flame rushing every few seconds.

Skills

Passives

Stat Priorities

Equipment

Focus on getting SuffixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed on boots and belt.

Try to get PrefixMana Regeneration on your jewellery. This will make flame rush clear smoother without having to wait a lot.

PrefixLevel of Black Hole is crucial. If you dont have +4, you can drop Scattered 1/1 and Weakened Reality 1/3. Try to get at least +2 to black hole on your relic.

When in doubt get SuffixFire Resistance this goes very hard for our ignites thanks to Heat Wave 5/5

Idols

We are just looking for PrefixFire Penetration with Ignite on our idols. Ideally with suffixes like SuffixHealth or SuffixFire Resistance. You can use these to also fill some gaps in resistances from gear. Really only care about fire penetration.

You can go for Throne of Ambition on paper this sounds ok, not sure how many stacks we can keep up since we are mostly focused on using Black Hole which doesnt hit. You could just use Flame Rush off cooldown to generate stacks, but its not something that should be a priority. Just focus on dodging mechanics. The damage is probably not worth the hassle.

Blessings

Timeline
Blessings
Ending the Storm
Fall of the Outcasts

Any

The Stolen Lance

Any

Blood, Frost, and Death

Any

Fall of the Empire

Any

The Last Ruin

Any

Build Variants

Leveling

Get your hands on a Firestarter's Torch you can equip this from the first town and its your primary weapon all the way through. Calamity is a very good leveling item even into early monoliths until you have your final end game helmet.

Level with Fireball or Elemental Nova upto you. I prefer fireball since it comes with a good chunk of chance to apply Spreading Flames which will hard carry clear in the early acts. Get Flame Ward for your 2nd specialisation.

Once you have ascended put your first 5 points into rune master tree, to unlock Flame Rush which you should get right around the time you unlock your 3rd specialisation slot. You can then unequip Fireball and spec into Volcanic Orb rushing for the mana efficiency nodes.

From here you just keep going until you unlock black hole, you wont have anything to specialise at level 35, since we dont unlock Black Hole until 50 and we wont have Enchant Weapon until 70. Get comforatble with Flame Rush, thats going to do the most heavy lifting for a very long time. If you want you can just casually spec into some defensive skill like Snap Freeze or even spec into Focus/Mana Strike to solve some early leveling mana issues.

Endgame

Use Flame Rush from pack to pack in monoliths. Drop Black Hole for tanky monsters like nemesis or exiled mages or other bosses.

Priority of upgrades for your build should be as below

After this you can just add life/Fire res to your uniques.

Make sure you cap your SuffixArmor and Reduced Bonus Damage from Crits from your boots and one other affix.

FAQ

Video

Changelog

  • Added Fiery Dragon shoes. Changed LP on Firestarter to mana cost.
  • Spell check
  • Build Guide was published

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