So yeah, just about 1900%.
2 Likes
whatever is needed to make Arcane Orb balanced and efficient, maybe even meta without being OP.
Was just confirming FO dmg. But I agree with you. Also agree with statements above, piercing addition could be awesomeā¦
1 Like
After nerfing Frozen Orb it still should be the strongest rune, IF all of the three components hit, which would require proper positioning and aiming, so that there is a higher skill sealing to it then for other runes.
That rewards high skilled players but lower skill players are not totally underpowered when the runes are closer together in power.
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To throw around some approximate numbers out that work decently:
Arcane Orb - unruned
- 450% Weapon Damage as Arcane Damage
- 15 Yards Detonation Radius
- Costs 30 Arcane Power
Arcane Orb - Arcane Nova (replaces Obliteration)
- 450% Weapon Damage as Arcane Damage
- 20-25 Yards Detonation Radius (detonates on impact)
- Costs 30 Arcane Power
Arcane Orb - Arcane Impact (replaces Arcane Orbit)
- 500% Weapon Damage as Arcane Damage
- 15 Yards Detonation Radius
- Detonates at the targeted location
- Costs 25 Arcane Power
Arcane Orb - Ball Lightning (replaces Spark)
- Emanates x Chain Lightnings per Second at nearby enemies.
- ~80-110% Weapon Damage per Lightning Hit (one enemy can be hit by several Lightnings) as Lightning Damage
- Detonates into a Nova of Charged Bolts which has a 15 Yards Detonation Radius after it traveled x Yards.
- Costs 30 Arcane Power
Arcane Orb - Fireball (replaces Scorch)
- 540% Weapon Damage as Fire Damage
- 15 Yards Detonation Radius (detonates on impact with an enemy or object)
- Costs 30 Arcane Power
Frozen Orb
- Ice Shards AoE: 125% Weapon Damage (enemies can only be hit once by the ice shards, just as it worked in the old version)
- Orb: 225% Weapon Damage
- Orb Explosion: 250% Weapon Damage
- Total Damage (if all three components hit): 600% Weapon Damage as Cold Damage
- Costs 30 Arcane Power
That works decently.
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Frozen Orb is still be the highest hitting option, but you have to position yourself correctly, keep the right distance to the main target/s and aim correctly to get the highest damage out of it.
That makes it the best and most rewarding option for skilled players, but the other options are not far behind and still viable.
It is like with the āFull Broadsideā and the āArsenalā runes on Multishot, where āFull Broadsideā is better for the higher skilled players, while āArsenalā is easier to use because of the additional target seeking missiles, but has a slightly lower damage potential in the hands of a skilled player.
To make up for the loss of damage from Frozen Orb, Wizardspike, Unstable Scepter and eventually Triumvirate had to be buffed as well.
Hm.
I honestly think the damage shouldnāt be buffed back to FO level through existing items. Like, honestly, forcing players to refarm all their Arcane Orb gear at once is seriously annoying. Iād prefer the other runes to be beefed up so that they are more in line with FO.
Butā¦ there would be a different way. Iām not too excited about removing Arcane Orbit. But there is a way to do that and still keep it and also buff damage back. All in one go. Now Iām looking at you, āMoonlight Wardāā¦ how about we make this one an Arcane Orb item and make Arcane Orbit an extra effect through this item. It could look like this:
Moonlight Ward:
Casting Arcane Orb now also creates 4 Arcane Orbs that orbit you, exploding for 265% weapon damage when enemies get close. The Orbsā element is copied from your Arcane Orb rune. Recasting Arcane Orb pushes existing Orbs to a farther Orbit that can hold up to 16 (?) Orbs, with excess Orbs exploding immediately. Increases the damage of Arcane Orb by XXX%. [Wizard only]
2 Likes
I understand that, but it wouldnāt be the first time that players had to do that.
It happened with many other legendaries before, like this patch it will happen with the Bombadiers Rucksack which will give 200% additional Cluster Arrow Damage.
Yeah, that certainly is a way to do it.
Then Arcane Orb would be one of the few Skills that get buffed by 4 Legendaries.
The only other one that comes to my mind is Blessed Hammer (or was it Blessed Shield?).
Alternatively, if it doesnāt require you to refarm the item, Triumvirate could now stack 5 or 6 times (or more) instead of just 3 times, which would also be a buff.
Donāt forget Hydra and Energy Twister (thanks to blizzard making some of the worst wizard changes ever at the time).
2 Likes
Something else worth pointing out: while Frozen Orb explodes for the tooltip weapon damage and then shards/pierces for almost that amount again (so it deals about double the tooltip weapon damage when landed properly), if Iām not mistaken Spark zaps for half itās tooltip weapon damage and explodes for the other half.
So if you just compare the tooltips, it looks like Frozen Orb does 2.7x more damage than Spark. Except really Frozen Orb (when positioned properly) does ~5.4x more damage than Spark.
If nothing else, itās quite odd that Frozen Orb explodes for itās full weapon damage and deals additional damage from the shards/pierce, while Spark explodes for half itās weapon damage and zaps for half.
You could double the damage on Spark by giving it the same type of behavior (explodes for full tooltip damage and zaps for tooltip damage) as Frozen Orb. It would still be absolutely terrible in comparison to Frozen Orb, but at least it would be consistent.
1 Like
Right, indeedā¦
Serpent Sparker
The Magistrate
Fragment of Destiny
Winter Flurry
I agree that the current version of Winter Flurry does not fit its theme at all and is currently one of the less well designed Legendaries in the game. imo it should only buff Blizzard and give a chance to cast Frost Nova.
Yes, something like that.
It has 3 damage components:
Ā° the ice shards
Ā° the orb itself
Ā° the explosion
Shard AoE: ~310%
Orb: 635%
Orb Explosion: 950%
for a Total of ~1900% Weapon Damage if all three of them hit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo3Wizards/comments/7cqc8x/frozen_orb_mechanics/
1 Like
Yesā¦ but not all those once. If they would revise runes the way you suggested and then apply buffs like you mentioned, to all of Scepter, Wizzy and Triumvirateā¦ that means that to get FO back to what it was before, youād need to scrap all your current items and farm new ones - or your FO will feel heavily nerfed. Because normally you wonāt loose in terms of power when they buff an item. In fact, your item remains an perfoms as before and a new found one will be an upgrade for you. This is was I meant.
1 Like
Ah, I see.
Then I would ask the question: āIs it worth it?ā.
I would say āYes it isā.
It may not be good (for non-seasonal players) at the beginning, but it would be really, really good and healthy for the Wizard in the long run, because suddenly you had 5 viable Arcane Orb runes instead of just 1.
Iām not saying anything against the rune do-over as-is. Itās just the approach I disagree on. Reworking and buffing the other runes would be due, not nerfing the only viable one at the cost of invalidating several items in one go.
Yeah, but then yu would have the issue of Arcane Orb being significantly more powerful during the levelling process and while playing certain builds- compared to other skills.
For example, Disintegrate is already by far the strongest Wizard skill (when you donāt factor in any legendaries or sets), and even if you nerf all legendaries that support it, it still remains the best skill leaving not much choice during levelling and for certain builds.
You know what I mean?
Buffing all Arcane Orb runes would make other Wizard skill less viable.
If there is a Wizard Skill that should be buffed even on a base level, it is Blizzard.
who caresā¦ leveling to 70 is like what? Maybe 0.001% of your playtime even in a season, well unless you are a masochist or play hardcore and die too much 
Well, that might just be me and a few others, but I am one of those that actually like to play the game a lot this way by simply leveling up new characters without any of the legendaries that buff a skill by xxx%, because during that levelling process you just have a lot more diversityā¦
ā¦then delete the char and do it again.
It might be a niche way to play the game, but I do that relatively often, because I enjoy the increased diversity while still having some sort of goal to look forward to (reaching level 70).
If we were talking about nearly any other game besides Diablo 3, I would agree to try to help preserve the leveling process (Hell even lengthen and/or improve it). However, since Diablo 3 itself does so much to allow players to speed through the leveling process, just so they can reach level 70, I donāt think think the leveling process should have much influence on balancing adjustments in general.
1 Like
Iām aware. And the info was already posted in this thread, so I was trying to succinctly summarize it in a sentence without having to type it out again 
If youāll notice, my statement mentioned both that 1) there is shard, piece, and explosion damage, and 2) that the total is double the tooltip damage (i.e. ~1900% = ~2*950%). Nothing I said was inconsistent with the mechanics you posted! That wasnāt an accident
2 Likes
I definitely see that point and I may be in the minority of people that has that opinion, so if this were a democracy, I would probably be outvoted.
And I am also not trying to convince everyone in a notorious way to share my opinion.
I just personally would prefer to have FO nerfed and the legendaries buffed.
The only two other counter arguments that I have is that
1 - by that same merit āno one also cares about non-seasonalā, so you could just refarm your Arcane Orb items in the next season that releases with the patch anyway.
2 - it would be detrimental for the experience of new players if Arcane Orb is vastly overpowered compared to other Wizard skills in their first playthrough. I know, not many new players are coming to D3 these days, but still a few still come.
Yeah, it is okay. It was not meant as an attack or critique. 
I was just not aware that you just wanted to summarize it / emphasize it to make it stand out more. So thanks for that, even if I misunderstood it a bit.
1 Like
Be happy that this is a Theocracy where we have to pray that the gods listen.
Or something like that
1 Like
Ha, that is a good one 
Letās believe then that they are hearing us