Yeah it’s nice having the way the build was meant to be played, but at the expense of other builds and some sort of diversity, considering FB is already doing so well. If it had 200% cold damage, hydra’s would compete with FB and you’d just pick the style you like.
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So a suggestion for a build to become competitive for GR pushing (Frozen Orb, Typhon Hydra) should be deferred to keep alive an inefficient speed farming build (Flame blades) huh? That’s very selfless of you.
Don’t forget Frozen Orb! 
Well yea, but I don’t think it can compete even if it did get 200%.
Sure LoD Frozen Orb can. It can do at least 140 on live with 5k paragons. A 200% increased multiplier means about 7 tiers higher than that.
Going to check the LB then. I’ve only ever seen twister.
EDIT: Checked around a bit. Seen a 130 hydra LoD on NS and a 127 Orb LoD on seasons. The orb LoD has around 20k int and 2k paragon, extremely good gear. Only missing 13% damage from his offhand. 3k paragon might get them to 135 if they are pushing SUPER hard. Maybe a reverse archon would work?
Top 2 top clears for LoD Wizard in S23 were wiped. If you had checked last week, the second place was a 140 with Shimizu Frozen Orb.
Ah ok. So a no crit orb? Honestly, I don’t really understand how people play that build. It’s terribly difficult imo.
It’s not as difficult as it looks, since your shields are strong enough to keep you alive even at low health. The tricky part is avoiding all the health globes, which entails dropping pick-up radius as well 
It sounds as if you like Frozen Orb. I do too!
I’m not sure why you are so focused on getting Wizardspike revised to cold specific skills though.
It is true we have a large number of builds that use the cold element; Frozen Orb, Vyr Cold Chantodo, TV Frost Hydra, however:
Why press for balancing builds via a seasonal theme item that we know will be VOIDED once the season ends?
Simply argue that these builds are underperforming as is noted by the new leaderboard filters in S23 (a season without a theme no less), and
Press for adjustments to the items, set bonuses, or skills that the builds use, so that they are more competitive in later seasons.
Cute coming from a player who loves Frozen orb so much and is catering for buffs to only cold based builds.
We all may enjoy certain builds more than other wizards do, and we want those builds to see the love they deserve.
What about the other runes of Arcane Orb? Orbit, Spark: These are really unique runes that I would love to see balanced and return as builds, alongside Frozen orb.
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Hi, the reason is that I’m taking another factor into consideration: the likelihood that Blizz will make the requested changes in the first place. That’s why I wrote earlier:
Of course I’d like Triumvirate/Unstable Scepter/regular Wizardspike to be buffed too. I’d like it more than if they touched up ethereal Wizardspike. But I’d rather my suggestions have a chance to be heard, given how focused they are on ethereals to the exclusion of everything else right now.
That would be nice to see the other runes in play. I remember when the S12 patch first came out people tested Arcane Orbit before settling into Frozen Orb. But again, the problem is that you’d have to convince Blizz to buff the damage on that rune, a tall order.
Just as Venaliter did I’m choosing to ignore the Firebird hater for now, because that’s all it would really do is limit the top build as the way Wizardspike is now due to Frozen Orbs 3 cycle attacks (shards, projectile then double explosion) it’s uptime for 200% damage is actually pretty good so changing it to 200% cold wouldn’t do much for it and limit everything else.
Don’t get me wrong, just as you and others I want to see more variety and use besides FB MI everything (well besides for speed solos because you know manual blades speeding 115 @ 3 minutes doesn’t sound inefficient to me!) and it probably should to toned down next patch, the MI part anyway, but just as you had stated there will be a time and a place to balance the set/builds and that certainly needs to be after a temporary seasonal theme buff. Agreed completely.
As for subject of my OP I think they’ve done a good job listening to our feedback and adding those things I originally brought up were lacking with our Ethereals…they now have roles where 1 choice isn’t completely superior to the other. All 3 will be used, and that was the point…not to buff a particular build. Could they be better? Ofc, but with 2 weeks we have to take what we can get.
Besides just because something is behind solo, doesn’t mean it’s automatically behind for groups. Because if I’m looking at the numbers of DMO FO Reverse Archon, this seems really damn good to me and likely much superior to Firebird 2H for 4 meta with zdps at the top ends, doesn’t mean it will be meta as I don’t know what the others classes group set ups are rocking with. Remember Firebird’s doesn’t proc AD, so multiply this dps number by 5 and hard to see even FB:MI compete. Which is the point…Ethereals did catch up the laggers here:
https://maxroll.gg/d3planner-ptr/207436717
Could be wrong, and that’s okay I’m not always right here or always have a better solution, that’s why we discuss things, just saying doesn’t look so bad to me! I’m sure the top pros will come up with something better.
P.S. Most of this not directed at you Cratic, just replying through you lol.
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