In the very long past I used to play Frozen Orb Sorceress, nwoadays everyone seems to be talking about Blizzard. What is the best to spend points on? My main spell was/is Fireball, keeping FO/Blizzard for the Fire Immunes.
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Frozen Orb is great for players1 and some hybrid builds due to the low investment it requires to be “decent enough”. But in higher player games it’s barely gonna tickle enemies (when blizz would chunk them down), and of course it has that delayed cast (as opposed to how it used to be you could spam it). Blizz fireball and FO fireball are both completely good/strong/viable hybrid build for a sorc to go, just depends on your preference and what you’re doing.
Frozen orb is a great spammer skill that pairs well with a Fireball/Meteor build. Full tals with 3x 5/5 fire facets… Mmmm.
Blizzard is the strongest build, if you do a hybrid your better off with Frozen Orb because Blizzard needs a lot of points in synergy to become that strong and points you spend on Blizzard you can’t spend on Fireball or its synergies (or either of the masteries).
So Blizzard/FB hybrid would have to little damage in either or both spells to actually be strong.
Personally I think hybrid is more fun and I like Orb-Wall, but it targets awkward so not everyone would enjoy it I guess.
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Want something non-meta and awesome? Max Frozen Orb and as much Lightning as your level allows.
Works for countess, pits, AT, Chaos, Baal… Andy and Meph still get owned by kiting them with Orb. Opens up doors and is alot more fun than standard Cold/Fire.
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I run 15 Frozen Orb X Cold Mastery
20 Lightning
20 Chain lightning
20 Lightning Mastery
Y Charged Bolt
…Chain Lightning spam wrecks Nihilatak, and with Tal Set, Nature’s Peace, and a decent enough Frozen Orb, Nihilathak’s Tomb Vipers are no threat;
Nature’s Peace takes a lot away from the bugged physical melee attacks in the poison clounds.
It’s is incredibly powerful and can MF Mephisto with Frozen Orb easily enough if you kite him, and you can farm Chaos Sanctuary if you’ve got a torch or enough skillers, or a couple of lightning facets.
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You can stretch her to doing the key runs in 3 player games without infinity with torch and a couple of skillers, even with full tal’s.
I run her as my all-around MF and key sorceress right now.
She is not as effective on Chaos Sanctuary as a Blizzard sorceress, but she can do Countess, Andariel, Summoner, and the arcane sanctuary for runes, Mephisto, Chaos Sanctuary if you’re feeling spicy, Shenk and Eldritch, then Nihilathak – allowing you to quit the scariest part of the run if it goes wrong, without interfering with the rest of the run.
You can easily toss in ancient tunnels while you’re in act 2.
Cows is not fun.
Chaos sanctuary Venom Lords are annoying, and Frozen Orb is stronger than lightning versus them unless you start getting really big bonuses to lightning from somewhere.
Use lightning to clear out Oblivion Knights and mages, then Frozen Orb for the Storm Casters and Venom Lords.
It’s not extremely effective, but it can be done, seal popping adviced.
Then, another option is 20 Frozen Orb X Cold Mastery
20 Meteor 20 Fireball Y Fire Mastery
Put up a huge bonfire at the base of Baal’s throne and you can melt Baal pretty easily, and can moat trick Mephisto, and you can actually effectively kill the council members near Meph as well.
A normal run would be Andariel, Mephisto’s council, Mephisto, then Baal.
Chaos Sanctuary isn’t fun with Lower Resists and all the cold immune mages.
Cows can be done if you solo, and in singleplayer, you can do higher player runs and just set up a giant bonfire you lead cows into if you lose your merc, though that’s more of a thing you do because you ARE a Meteorb sorceress, and not because it’s more effective than Blizzard.
Then there’s Blizzard sorceress.
You do ancient tunnels.
Then you may do Andariel, Mephisto’s council, Mephisto, and Chaos Sanctuary is easy enough if your merc is strong or you invest slightly into fire for the mages, Baal is a breeze, and you can do Hell cows with more players than just yourself easily.
It’s more chill than the other builds, no pun intended, as you just right click and monsters not immune to cold melts.
High level Ice Blast or Glacial Spike freezes monsters for 7+ seconds even in hell, which is just plain funny, and makes the build super-safe, and allows you to save your merc by freezing threats.
Blizzard is also extremely more effective at all the mentioned bosses, and only lacks versatility beyond these bosses because low level fireball, or no fireball, makes killing other stuff ineffective. But you can just skip immune stuff and rely on melting everything else in other areas, like River of Flame and Worldstone Keep.
She can do Nihilathak, by focusing Nihilathak and ignoring the minions, teleporting in for any worthwhile loot, in softcore.
Lightning-orb is intensive and requires some amount of strategy without Infinity, and is capped at effectiveness for players 1-3. But you don’t swap skills often.
Meteorb is somewhat intensive, and requires more skill-swapping and focusing, throwing frozen orbs one direction and fireballs another, and while Frozen Orb doesn’t scale well for more than 1 player, Meteor does. Especially bonfires where you stack enough meteors to make the place white hot.
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Blizzard is the only build that can farm easily at higher player counts than 3, and is more chill than the other two builds.
Everything not immune to cold * is absolutely zero threat, even at players 7-8, because you just freeze them with Glacial Spike or Ice Blast.
- Apart from Dolls and Minotaurs in Baal’s throne room. They cannot be frozen, and cannot be reasoned with.
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Thanks for this elaborate post, much appreciated!
I have not ignore it, to the contrary I took my abandoned Fireball Sorceress from level 40 to level 52, solo, now starting Act 5 in Nightmare. Unfortunately it appears she has already burned 2/3 respecs and there is no possibility for another respec until Act I Hell 
What I have done also, I have made a level 85 Sorceress (SP, Hero Editor) wanting to try all the combinations of Fireball, Frozen Orb, Blizzard etc, and see what works and what not.
Once I see how I like her to be setup I will let you know.
Ha ha ha!
My first try was with level 85, Hell Countess. So I am clearing my way through the Tower levels, I have 20 Blizzard, 20 Ice Blast, 1 Cold Matery, +5 skills amulet. So I cannot say that either Blizzard or Ice Blast “melt” the mobs, but it is doable.
Then I arrive at the 5th level, yikes, two groups intermingled, Cold Immune (so I have to use the Fireball) and Fire Immune (so I have to use Blizzard/Ice Blast). Luckily I have made the merc immune to damage so he can tank while I am testing. Eventually I kill the two packs and go for the Countess, only to discover she is Cold+Fire Immune! Man oh man…
I play super non meta Hydra/ Orb. Orb for fire immunes and clearing packs quickly, hydra for bosses and slowrolling dangerous areas.
Cast Hydra at the edge of your screen and it will start attacking anything in range. if it’s not fire immune, it will die eventually.
I do, I love Hydra, slow and steady. But there are so many nice skills and too few skill points
I went a bit off script and did a blizzard / firewall sorc and I think it’s honestly working out pretty good. I personally found firewall better at dealing with most cold immunes as for whatever reason most of them I need to deal with frequently tend to just stand still. Eg blood lords, Hell Witches, Oblivion Knights don’t move a whole lot or tend to stand still to attack after their move. I was also running above the 105% FC breakpoint so fireball was shooting quite fast.
FW is definitely worse against things like Grotesques in the river of flame but I personally don’t spend much time farming there. Another downside is blizzard and FW share the same cooldown cast so you can’t switch between them too easily. Maybe it’s just a playstyle thing but hey whatever, as long as I’m enjoying the build.
I played with both skills a lot. Ignoring that FO is better for hybrid builds, the differences were primarily:
FO is much better at room clearing due do its wider effect area.
Blizzard is much better at killing things quickly, so it’s better for boss farming.
Personally, I would spec blizzard until I got enough +skill to do a hybrid fire/FO build, I was primarily farming bosses, or I was just going to farm Ancient Tunnels or something. But once you get a lot of +skill and want to farm stuff other than andy/meph/AT, etc., FO dual spec is the way to go. It allows you to do things like Pits and CS, and your fire skills will still be strong due to the low FO investment.
People like blizz because it’s generally the best way to start MFing as a Blizz sorc, since you’ll mostly be farming bosses and blizzard is very strong with minimal gear.
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Frozen Orb + Chain Lightning hybrid is what I am playing and I can solo anything worthwhile in the game very easily. Those occasional uniques who are immune to cold and lightning go down easily to my merc.
Frozen Orb base 20
Cold Mastery base 8
Chain Lightning base 20
Lightning Mastery base 20
Lightning base 19 (will be 20 in 1 more level)
I did put a point in Warmth, Shiver Armor, Energy Shield and Thunderstorm…but those are just personal preferences.
I may change if I ever make an Infinity, but for now, this works just fine for me.
Well, to be fair, I only use hydra and Orb. I don’t even use my max fireball.
Frozen Orb is more fun, therefore I go with Frozen Orb.
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orb is fun and easy. blizzard is hard to use and needs skill ( I personally suck with blizzard, wish i didnt). Blizzard can also technically miss. If you doing low player count games go orb.
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I have found the same, it misses when near edge of walls, edge of water etc