I’m a massive Frozen Orb PVP fan from the old D2 days, but we know Blizzard ending up taking over for PVE. Since the recent buffs, I wanted to try and swap to Frozen Orb for some testing. It really feels good to use animation wise, not as good as the D2’s but overall it just feels nice to use. If it could do the damage that say a Whirlwind does for Druid, then it could be so much fun. Overall it’s not even close to Ice Shards still, but I have to say that I’m having a lot of fun using it. Each time I play it, I tell myself “If this could be buffed up some more this could be one of the most fun builds in the game”
Edit - Also, another big part when swapping from Ice Shards to FO is that you lose Vulnerability up time. You just need to hit 1 cast of Ice Shards to get the enemy vulnerable (and they can pierce with the aspect) vs F) only getting a 30% chance to Vulnerable. Thing is, with the mana cost at 31 per cast on FO, you almost have to go Destructive FO to get the 5 mana per cast. Which removes the 30% completely. Overall, I’m still testing around but I don’t think there is any changes I can do to make this build for viable in true end game then Ice Shard atm.
It’s not. It costs way too much mana, does 3 times less damage than Ice Shards, only procs Vuln 30% of the time and you can’t aim it, because it’s a Controller mechanic.
It’s an OK support skill for Glacial, but as a pure damage skill, it’s absolute garbage.
3 Likes
its bad compared to shards… and there’s not a single usefull unique, for frostburn you have to sacrifice your +4 on gloves since that can only roll on gloves.
I use it as a single point freeze platform. 1-2 hits and things are either frozen or will be on the next ice shard cast. With the right aspects, it’s like a forward frost nova so you don’t have to get in melee or invest so much in defensive pops.
I am teaching myself to ignore the grenade aspect of the skill because it requires you to back-peddle to aim it. Not only does that slow down every dungeon, it’s quite fatiguing. The grenade does work quite well in the dungeon antechambers that lock you in and spawn hordes of mobs though.
Ok maybe I should’ve sad, it “could” be good with some changes lol. But you get what I meant. Honestly if they change the Vulnerability up time that would be a huge start. Mana cost will be an issues since you cannot use Greater FO then. I really wish they buff it because I personally think it’s soooo much more fun than Ice Shards
Frozen Orb is only “sort of okay” in builds that use it as a 1-point proc effect, and those builds aren’t really very good.
Frozen orb for some unknown reason has only 4% base Lucky hit chance, which is ludacris, when the main engine for mana should be hitting Lucky hits. Prodigy simply won’t be enough on bosses and Umbral won’t be enough against mobs. The speed you should be tossing Orbs in order to deal damage is too great. The only way I can see Sorc’s mana engine working with Frozen Orb is having all 3 mana aspects - Umbral, Prodigy and Avalange having 2 procs, which leaves little to no slots for damage, this completely bricking compared to Ice Shards, who doesn’t need any of them.
2 Likes
Agreed. Unfortunately I’ve gotten extremely bored with the game lately. The items in this game just don’t have any meaning to them. The only item for sorc that you can find in which you notice any difference is Raiment. Past that, you never feel any change. Really sucks man
You are a funny guy aren’t you?
That is a quote from you 2 days ago talking about how good frozen orb is and trying to convince people to use it, even if you knew I am right.
You also stated the argument Ice shards weren’t the strongest spell but glacier would out perform it. Maybe just stop giving people an advice in the first place would help more than talking bs all the time.
I don’t see any contradiction. Frozen orb on its own is garbage, but as Glacial support it’s OK. I think you should actually learn some more game knowledge about the class and its spells 
.
Frozen Orb should be functional without a aspect. It should work a lot more like D2 Frozen Orb. It should do respectable damage in transit and do another round of damage at the end with its explosion. The aspect should enhance its power, not change a garbage spell to an ok, but still incredibly clunky spell.
that’s my issue with the Blizzard aspect. It should enhance the blizzard spell, not turn a weak spell into a useable spell. Though to be fair, blizzard is a good utility spell and I think has reasons to use over an ultimate ability.
No you are just a talker, nothing more. You talk bs all day, glacial aspect is good for nm50 maybe 60 above that its useless since you don’t kill anyone with the dmg anymore. You need to stack like 10 blizzards to deal the same amount of 1 or 2 barrage of ice shards since those crit for almost 10 mio.
But I guess you figured that out yourself when you stop talking and actually play a 100 nm dungeon and don’t lie about your progress
Needs higher lucky hit chance… right now its WAY too low for the skill to be anything other than a sad memory of better diablo 2 days.
Sad thing is: if theyd just increase its lucky hit chance to something other than basically 0. It might actually be playable.
1 Like
Stop capping show me the videos where you deal 10 mio dmg with glacial on youtube or yourself.
No prove no fact you are a clown
Did you really just reply to a 4d old comment? xD
Yes well observed Sherlock and you still don’t manage to show any prove of glacier to be valuable in nm100. Lets go I am waiting
Where are your 10 mio crits to out perform Ice shards
This where I know you have never played a decent base Glacial, or probably even use it on a neckless, because somewhere you saw it on maxroll 