Diablo 4: Is the Mage-Lord’s Aspect Good or Not? - Lightning Sorcerer Key Passives Deep Analysis

I got drops of the Mage Lord's Aspect recently. And I did a couple of testings to see if it is a good aspect in general. Let’s find out! 

Mage-Lord’s Aspect 

First, a bit of context on the Aspect itself.

The Mage-Lord’s Aspect offers a up to 9% Damage Reduction if there is one enemy in close distance and up to 27% Damage Reduction if there are three or more enemies.

Also, we will need to use the key passive Vyr’s Mastery to be able to enjoy the benefits. 

One note is that, it offers Damage Reduction, not Damage Reduction to close enemies. This means that if I am surrounded by 3 or more enemies, I get the 27% Damage Reduction from distant enemies, too. 

Close Enemy Definition 

Second, there could still be confusions: What does “Close Enemy” mean? How close does this “Close” here refer to? 

There are two common things to visualize the close distance:

One, the range of the Frost Nova skill. It shows the full range of the close distance definition. Or two, the Stormbane’s Wrath from the nightmare dungeon also shows the full range of the close distance.

Vyr’s Mastery Deepdive 

Now, we understand the Mage-Lord’s Aspect and the close distance definition. The Mage-Lord’s Aspect also requires the key passive Vyr’s Mastery. Let’s take a look at what we can get from this key passive.

First, the Vyr’s Mastery increases 15% damage to Shock Skills. And since Critical Strike is fairly often, we can treat it as a flat bonus of 15%*125% =18.75% damage boost to Shock Skills.

But it only adds damage to Shock Skills, meaning that it won’t add damage to the Crackling energy, as it is not a Shock Skill. And it doesn’t increase damage to Frozen Orb or Hydra. So, if you are running hybrid builds through Chain Lightning, Frozen Orb and Hydra, it would not be that juicy as it appears.

Second, the Vyr’s Mastery offers a 20% Damage Reduction to close enemies. And since Critical Strike is fairly often too, we can treat it as a flat bonus of 20%*125% =25% Damage Reduction. 25% Damage Reduction is a lot, it is as powerful as a defensive aspect already, like the Everliving or the Snow Guard.

One thing is that it is specifically to close enemies. That, unlike the general Damage Reduction from the Mage-Lord’s Aspect, it won’t offer Damage Reduction for distant enemies.

So in high tiers, I got one shot from distant enemies too, even with the Vyr’s Mastery.

Mage Lord + Vyr’s Mastery 

So, what does it mean to have both Mage Lord and Vyr’s Mastery?

I switched one non-defensive aspect to the Mage Lord, trying to test how much tankier I can be. From my testings, if I am fighting against enemies 30 levels higher, it does feel much easier to facetank 3 hits from them.

Ironically, I die a lot from this Death Pulse nightmare dungeon affix. Because enemies are gone that I don’t have the 27% damage reduction anymore. And if there is just a single enemy with a big hit, I still die before I have full disobedience stacks.

For T90+, I am still not tanky enough that I can shut my brain off and jump into groups without dying. And the Skeleton Corpse Archer is still the worst nightmare. I still need to use Diablo 4 Gold to buy a lot of armor to increase my tankiness.

Comparison with the Overflowing Energy 

What if we use the other Key Passive, the Overflowing Energy? 

Let’s go over the Overflowing Energy first. It reduces Shock Skill Cooldowns from the crackling energy. So, only Shock Skills, no Cooldown Reduction to Ice Armor or Flame Shield. 

Let’s look at what it means for each Shock Skill. 

First, Teleport. You can see that with the overflowing energy, the Teleport Cooldown is largely decreased, and sometimes you can even cast one teleport every 1 or 2 seconds. 

As we usually run the shimmering teleport, it will be a consistent 30% Damage Reduction. And since we run the Protection skill, it also means more Barrier for further tankiness.

Plus, with the Conceited Aspect, it means more damage, too. And with the Raiment unique, more Teleport means more Stun. 

So, more Crowd Control damage amplifier uptime for further damage and less damage from monsters too as they are Crowd Controlled that they would not attack at all. If we have enough damage, enemies are taken down even before they can deal damage.

Last, much more Teleports means we can teleport to safer places more often, avoiding tons of damage, too 

Second, same for the Lightning Spear, where the Cooldown goes down extremely fast. So, more stun for further damage and more Crowd Control that you can take enemies down before they can attack you, which would not need damage reduction.

And third, the Ultimate Unstable Currents. I collected a few data on the actual Ultimate Cooldowns with the two key passives. With the Vyr’s Mastery, it is 52s and with the Overflowing Energy, it is 31s. So, the Overflowing Energy kind of doubles the Ultimate uptime for further damage boost. 

Also, in my opinion, this is better than the flat 18.75% damage boost from the Vyr’s Mastery as it offers a burst window to take down hard to deal Elites during the Crowd Control period, which will make the fight safer, too. The best defense is a good offense.

Conclusions 

In summary, if you like super casual play style, the Mage-Lord's Aspect plus the Vyr’s Mastery is the way to go for a pure Lightning build like a pure Chain Lightning build as it gives decent damage boost and decent damage reduction. It makes facetanking enemies within 20 levels higher much easier.

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If you enjoy pressing buttons, twice as much Ultimate for burst windows, crowd control monsters and dodge monster attacks through skills, the Overflowing Energy will be your best pal. It is universally good and useful in T100 nightmare dungeons, too.