IMHO the existing synergy needs a buff. Alot of people don’t skill the synergy because it’s so little gain, even guides for duals mostly recommend skipping the synergy.
A 3% bump to synergies would be a decent DPS buff going pure cold and folks using it for hybrid can still use it as a two skill wonder with mastery. Seems legit to me. They could use at least a reason to take a synergy as 2% does not cut it.
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I think Frozen Orb just need a 3% (maybe 4%) damage synergy, other than that it’s fine. It shouldn’t need many synergy, I see it as a skill for dual elemental sorceresses.
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Completely disagree. Frozen orb is at least usable, even if it’s not the strongest cold spell.
There are so many other skills and classes in the game that need buffs before sorc gets even more strength added to it.
They’ve already given sorc soooo many buffs in this patch that they didn’t even need just cause it feels nice: removed shared cool downs, buffed both nova abilities, buffed the cold armor abilities and thunderstorm. I agree with the hydra changes, because fire sorc actually did need help especially because hydra was totally worthless, so I’m good with that.
Cold sorc is already one of the most popular builds in the game and doesn’t need even more strength by buffing an already frequently used skill (which got buffed anyways by removing shared cooldowns)
This patch needs to focus on the classes that don’t see play, and the skills that don’t see play. Not a skill that already sees play often but isn’t dominant.
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Frankly Frozen Orb now allowing to spam Fireballs during its cast delay is totally fine.
Even as a complementary skill for hybrid sorc (0 points in synergies) Frozen Orb noticeably surpasses Blizzard only when you use it to deal with single target non-cold immunes, assuming that you know perfectly how to target with that skill to make it explode on chosen monster.
If you want to deal with larger packs (lets say 4+ monsters) from my experience using Blizzard and proper kiting provides higher multiple target DPS.
In ‘larger packs scenarios’ even the math is not on FO side. Let’s take interval of 4 seconds, decent gear like full Tal set and some skillers (+15 to cold tree in total, 105fcr).
Frozen Orb:
- Cast rate: 30 frames (1.2s)
- Animation time: 2s
- Number of full animations in 4s: ~3
- Number of ice bolts per full animation: 46
- Avarage cold damage per bolt (slvl:35): 602
- Total damage of all bolts in 4s: 346602 = 83076
Blizzard:
- Cast rate: 50 frames (2s)
- Animation time: 4s
- Number of full animations in 4s: 1.5
- Number of ice shards per full animation: 25
- Avarage cold damage per shard (slvl:35): 2037
- Total damage of all shards in 4s: 1.5252037 = 76387.5
As you can see total damage of unsynergized FO is just 10% higher assuming that every projectile hits, but from my observations in most scenarios about 30% of FO projectiles do not find its targets (even if you aim just in between two mobs packs). For Blizzard it really depends, but it’s much easier to reduce number of missed shards with proper kiting. In general the more dense mob pack is the more Blizzard takes advantage over FO… even as unsynergized, complementary skill for hybrid builds.
For second case lets add one maxed out synergy skill for each of them:
Blizzard - damage per shard: 3720, total damage in 4s: 139500
Frozen Orb - damage per bolt: 827, total damage in 4s: 114126
And in this scenario Blizzard also gets 2.3k damage Ice Blast (compared to 600 dmg Ice Bolt for FO) that you can cast during Blizz casting delay… so even for single target non-cold immunes it’s not looking good for Frozen Orb.
For those who suggest casting delay removal for Frozen Orb - it would simply increase dps almost 4 times (for 105 fcr it would be 3.13 casts per second instead of 0.83 casts/s), so I don’t think it’s a good idea. I agree that it could use some buff, so it could be noticably better complementary skill than blizzard for hybrid builds and less damaging but more versatile than blizz for full cold builds with FO as main skill.
My suggestions to reach this goal would be to:
- Add +5% per level Frost Nova synergy to Frozen Orb - this would make it like 4% more total damage than Blizz with 1 maxed synergy in hybrid builds (assuming that both skills have similiar ‘missed projectile rate’ when taking numerous ‘monster density scenarios’ into consideration).
- Add +5% per level Chilling Armor synergy to Frozen Orb - This skill fits as FO synergy cause it also uses ice bolts. Second synergy would open possibility for a full Cold build with FO as a primary skill. With two 5% synergies and some additinonal damage from Chilling Armor (only vs ranged targets) FO would be a bit closer to fully synergised Blizzard, but still not really close. Also it could make Chilling Armor viable as another source of cold damage for a full cold FO builds and taking into consideration its recent buff (which alone is not enough to make this skill worthwile) it might be benefitial to spend the rest of the points for Chilling Armor’s synergies to improve its overall damage output.
- For Frost Nova: remove 10% per level synergy from Blizzard and add 10% from Chilling Armor - this way we can make Frost Nova usable as a worthwile complementary skill to cast during Frozen Orb’s casting delays.
- Remove Ice Bolt synergy from Frozen Orb.
Since there is no shared casting delay anymore I would say that FO and Blizz should not have any synergies in common, cause using both these skills with maxed out synergies would be… gamebreaking.
In general I think it would be better to go for 2x 3% synergies for FO and its base damage increase, but as I already stated above: going this way after recent change to casting delays would make FO even stronger complementery skill in full Blizzard builds.
Important UPDATE: In fact Frozen Orb in its current state (even if we move synergy from Ice Bolt to something else) is still a big buff for 100% cold Blizzard builds, cause maxing FO as 5th skill (in addition to Blizz and its 3 synergies) gives you another high DPS (1.1k per bolt in DPS-oriented cold build) skill you can use together with Blizzard and also your Ice Blast is getting another +160% cold damage from Frozen Orb synergy. Spamming Blizz+FO+Iceblasts looks like a new, OP meta. I’ve just checked in on PTR.
So maybe it would be better for Blizz and Frozen Orb to share casting delay, like it used to be? Another solution would be to lower Frozen Orb base damage and increase bonus from its synergies (assuming it doesnt share any synergies with Blizz), but that would make it probably too weak as unsynergized skill for hybrid builds.
They can’t buff Frozen Orb now that Blizzard and Frozen Orb can be cast simultaneously (global cooldowns removed)… The cold sorc is already S-Tier, buffing frozen orb and letting it be cast at the same time as blizzard will just make pure cold sorcs too overpowered…
If you really wanted to buff Frozen Orb, they would need to de-couple the synergies between Blizzard and Frozen Orb so they are more mutually exclusive…
In other words, remove the Icebolt synergy (common to both Blizzard and FO) and give FO a separate synergy with Frost Nova for example…
You can’t make Frozen Orb a top-tier damage skill when it already shares synergies with Blizzard - It just pushes the Cold Sorc from S-Tier to being blatantly overpowered…
Personally, I think FO should stay as it is - be happy that global cooldowns have been removed and you can no spam frozen orbs in conjunction with other things like Hydras and Firewall - These changes are already a buff for Frozen orb and sorcs in general… Sorcs don’t need more buffs…
It could maybe use a few percentage points but not much. Tweak it in PTR, and if that makes it too powerful revert it back to prior orb. I mean it couldn’t hurt to see what happens if it were slightly tweaked.
In fact Frozen Orb in its current state (even if we move synergy from Ice Bolt to something else) is still a big buff for 100% cold Blizzard builds, cause maxing FO as 5th skill (in addition to Blizz and its 3 synergies) gives you another high DPS (1.1k per bolt in DPS-oriented cold build) skill you can use together with Blizzard and also your Ice Blast is getting another +160% cold damage from Frozen Orb synergy. Spamming Blizz+FO+Iceblasts looks like a new, OP meta. I’ve just checked in on PTR.
So maybe it would be better for Blizz and Frozen Orb to share casting delay, like it used to be? Another solution would be to lower Frozen Orb base damage and increase bonus from its synergies (assuming it doesnt share any synergies with Blizz), but that would make it probably too weak as unsynergized skill for hybrid builds.
Yeah you can weave frozen orb and blizzard now. It’s largely irrelevant which is stronger for a pure cold sorceress because you can cast them both.
Frozen orb will still be the preferred skill for hybrid builds.
All is good.
Old School Game Snob just posted a nice video showing how Frozen Orb and Blizzard can be combined to make a very nice, powerful new build for sorceress: INSANE 2.4 Blizzard Orb Sorc No Cast Delay in Diablo 2 Resurrected / D2R - YouTube
Here is my take to make Frozen Orb more competitive vs. Blizzard…
- Frozen Orb - increase Ice Bolt synergy from 2% to 4% per level
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They’re not competing anymore…they work together in an even more op build. Any buffs to % in ice bolt for FO needs to be taken from blizzard.
Not agree with you, cause it will hurt es orb build in pvp
How is weakening blizzard hurting ES orb in pvp? I’m suggesting no buffs or nerfs at all, so nothing changes for orbers in pvp.
maybe I misunderstood your post that synergy should be taken to Fo from ice bolt. I’am not native.
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Frozen Orb is probably the baseline I think build power should be at. Anything stronger can use a nerf and anything weaker a buff.
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I’m sorry, but this would be absurd…
I think now that global cooldowns are gone, any scope that used to exist to buff frozen orb (or hydra for that matter) is now gone… There is no scope left to buff these “secondary” skills… Unless they nerf Blizzard (and meteor or fireball?) to compensate and keep the total damage out-put the same…
FO - Blizzard - Hydra - Meteor - Firewall are all inter-linked now, and players will combine the most powerful combinations of those skills that they can to maximize their damage output… These are not separate builds any more and need to be viewed as a group when considering balance…
The sorceress is a “Piano Player” class now - This is a new fact of life… 
I think the Devs are doing the right thing by not buffing sorceress skills further and hope it stay this way 
P.S I have been testing these builds and combining these skills together does feel very powerful - no buffs needed
This is a video I made of what I call the No Cooldown Spamalotress:
Patch 2.4 No Cooldown Spamalotress Hydra-Meteor-Blizz-Orb Sorceress - P1 Hell Cow Run - YouTube
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I also think Blizzard needs a decent nerf as it is too powerful while buffing Frozen Orb.
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To me, it seems like people who suggest FO buffs…never ever play other classes or builds.
Play any melee class or Bowama, Magezon, Necro, Druid, whatever…and then compare.
FO is insanely strong for 20 skill points. With one synergy it becomes extremely good for only 40 skill points. Since it also has Cold mastery (level 27 should be aimed at) too…!
Other classes and builds are SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO weak in comparison to Freezing Orb. Yet, sorc players want this gap to constantly increase further.
Hell, 95% of people play Sorc at ladder start. Not only because of teleport, but also because she is damn strong too.
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