Diablo 4 has plenty of strange keywords in the class or specific classes. Crackling Energy is an interesting passive mechanic that will add extra DPS to lightning-themed builds and interact with legendaries. Here’s a closer look at the Crackling Energy in Diablo 4.
What is Crackling Energy in Diablo 4¶
(1 of 2) Your Crackling Orbs spawn on the floor from your shock-themed critical strikes.
Your Crackling Orbs spawn on the floor from your shock-themed critical strikes. (left), Picking up Crackling Orbs go into a bar above your skill bar, which you will use automatically in combat. (right)
Crackling Energy is a class mechanic exclusive to the Sorcerer class, which primarily interacts with the lightning skills. There are certain passives in some of the lightning skills, and some of the passives within the skill tree that affect the proc rate of these orbs of Crackling Energy. Such examples are the Destructive Chain Lightning talent, Teleport’s Mystical Teleport talent, and the two mastery tree passives called Static Discharge passive and Invigorating Conduit.
- Destructive Chain Lightning: When your Chain Lightning Crits, you have a 25% chance of spawning a Crackling Energy.
- Mystical Teleport: Crackling Energy hits two additional targets for four seconds after teleporting.
- Static Discharge: Lucky Hit: Critical strikes with shock spells have up to a 5-15% chance to form Crackling Energy.
- Invigorating Conduit: Upon absorbing Crackling Energy, you gain 4 mana.
Crackling Energy seems to spawn the most from using a critical strike-focused chain lightning build. When you take the Destructive Chain Lightning talent, you have a 25% chance to spawn a Crackling Energy every time your chain lightning bounce deals a crit. Combine this with the Static Discharge passive in the Mastery tree, and you get up to a 15% chance to spawn Static discharges whenever you crit with a shock spell in general. It means more chances to crit, and more chances to proc Crackling Energy on your foes.
When you spawn a Crackling Energy, you will find a very small orb of lighting near to where the enemy you crit stood. Walking over to the Orb will pick it up and place a special new bar above your skill menu. This will track the amount of Crackling Energy you have acquired. You can have a total of 12 Crackling Energies on your character at a given time.
When you collect a Crackling Energy Orb, it will automatically zap a few nearby enemies for a small amount of damage. These orbs automatically add extra cleave damage to your build and extra single-target damage.
It’s worth knowing that the damage these Crackling Energy DPS do is very low. However, there is some interesting synergy with other skills. For example, if you take the enchantment slot for the Lightning Spear, then each time your Cracking Energies deal damage, they have a chance to spawn Lightning Spears, which is a very strong lightning-themed skill. If you crit with this, then it’s more chances to spawn Crackling Energy and more chances to spawn more Lightning Spears. All in all, it is a fun RNG way to get a 7th skill in your build without having to press it and spend mana actively.
In terms of your legendaries, you have these:
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Charged Aspect: Collecting Crackling Energy increases your movement speed by 10% for 4 seconds. -
Aspect of Splintering Energy: Grants an 11% chance when you use Lightning Spear to cast another one. You get these via your random chances of casting Lightning Spear from your enchantment procs, so, it’s nice synergy for that. You can double up on lightning spears occasionally because you spend a few skill points in your Crackling Energy spawn chances.
So, you can run a lightning build, whether it’s our hydra crit-focused shock playstyle or a full lightning build. Either way, you can enhance your critical strikes to gain a feature with interactions with many other parts of the Sorc’s kit. The Crackling Energy will help you regain mana for more Chain Lightning spams, and proc your Lightning Spears. This concludes the general gameplay enhancements of the Diablo 4 Crackling Energy feature.
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