New Frozen Orb build on Maxroll

Can’t link it but you can find it, think it’s a new one apparently.

Is this going to be viable after the patch today? I want to play my first Sorc because they’re getting buffs.

Not REAL buffs, but yes they are getting buffed to fire and lightning builds.
Frost is going to be virtually untouched.
If you want to roll a sorc, I suggest leveling up with Chain Lightning, then if you want the best damage switch to Ice Shards once you get into WT4, but not before you have the aspects and some of the gear to make the switch.

frozen orb is only useful to help proc vulnerable for both fire and lightning build, most sorc today will respec to fire and lightning. we just too tired of playing ice build lol

Ok, I guess I will do Fire or Lightning then, it’s a shame because Frozen Orb is one of the most iconic abilities in the Diablo series.

It was.
Until this dev team thought they were smarter than everyone else and changed it.

D4’s frozen orb has none of the stuff we loved about it in D2. It takes a lot of mana, is slow, and doesn’t look as cool.

It’s great as an enchantment though, and a good way to apply vuln at range.

Well as WaPo article suggets, anyone that knew it was iconic was gone, and the kiddies took over and went another direction. That’s why incinerate is the KING of all sorc skills now, especially if you want to play Frozen Orb.

Here’s a link to the guide for those interested:

They have it listed as a C tier build, and as someone who has played Frozen Orb from the start, that sounds about right. It’s a fun build, and one that actually plays from ranged if you’re tired of the melee sorc builds. But, it’s not killing Uber Lilith, and it’s going to be slower in higher nightmare dungeons than stronger builds.

There are really only two changes in the patch the for this build. (Not including the minor survivability buffs, many of which this can’t capitalize on.) The Frozen Orb aspect is getting a modest buff. (Extra damage is good, but I don’t expect it to be a game changer.) And boss hitpoints are being buffed. Bosses are already this build’s main weakness, so ugh.

I’m running my FO build as pure cold. I’m sure that using Firebolt maths out better, but it just feels like it spreads the build to thin for my liking. (And having that enchantment slot freed up feels so good.)

It is interesting to see they are running without the Ice Shard enchant. On eternal, I was running Ice Shards and Teleport. In season, I’ve been doing Frozen Orb and Teleport, but I’m only level 57. I’d been assuming that I’d have to swap one of my enchants to Ice Shards at some point, but maybe the Frozen Orb enchant will hold up in end game. I like the feel of it better, so that’s encouraging.

I also noticed the lack of Piercing Cold aspect. I’m realizing some of my bias for that aspect may be coming from when I was running the Ice Shards enchant (where the aspect makes a huge difference for the AoE damage from the enchant.) But, in this build Ice Shards is really more single target focused, so I can see the aspect losing a lot of it’s power. (It doesn’t help single target damage at all.) Still, being able to single out a champion at the back of a pack with piercing shards can be useful. I may try running without it for a bit and see how it feels. (I could certainly use a free offensive aspect slot.)

For me regular Ice shards non raiment build from maxroll but with maxed Frozen orb + Frozen orb aspect works fine (take points from Nova etc.) . Also burning reduction instead of blaze on amulet.

You dont need Raiment instead 4 x defensive chest+pants and swap obedience for Everliving.
Frozen orb ench procs often and chills entire screen thus activating Everliving 25 % DR.
Also in Boss fight it allows for much better DMG than pure shards, as Shards ench is useless there, and also staggers quite fast.

It allows for a bit of ranged playstyle and I like Frozen orb sound/aesthetics.

I experimented a bit with Blizzard and Frozen Orb and it was decent. I was using Firebolt and Frozen Orb enchantments with Glacial, Tundra, Frozen Orbit, Control, Biting Cold and Shared Misery Aspects. This was pretty effective at keeping enemies burning, chilled/frozen and vulnerable. It was very strong against rooms full of enemies when you had time to cast a bunch of blizzards and get all the damage stacking. I found it suffered against single targets and bosses though. Ultimately, I went back to my Blizzard and Ice Shards hybrid build because I find it more fun to play.

The skill has the damage and the functionality. The issue it has is it goes through enemies and also has a medium range. If you are standing far from the enemies, it wont reach them. And if you are close, it will pass through, losing most of its damage. These issues could easily solved by making it stop at the first enemy it hits.

I think that would feel miserable. Imagine trying to kill any ranged mob that rezzes or spawns stuff. Or any dangerous ranged mob with less deadly melee stuff rushing you.

This is not true. Frozen Orb does more damage than Ice shards.

I have both maxed out in my build. You use ice shards to generate mana, you also use it inside suppressor bubbles, but uh, frozen orb does damage as it passes through and when it explodes, and makes everything vulnerable and applies massive amount of chill.

The aspect got a 10% buff, which increases the actual damage output by millions. Yall just aint using it right, I’ve been blowing up the game from the beginning with it, I’m now 93 and have beaten NM100 with it.

Not this garbage max roll build though…

The sorc legit didn’t need a buff, because I did the NM100 yesterday, but uh, the buff is fine I guess.

I’m not even using the DR nodes they buffed for survivability… Sorc isn’t squishy.

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to be fair, most build will be viable specially if u play on season. lvl 100 nm dungeon right now was lvl 70 dungeon. even pre patch CL and fire wall can easily do lvl 70. I’m just too tired of playing ice build after 2 months of doing none stop ice shard/blizzard lol.

This isn’t true exactly, it’s a cope. They nerfed vuln, crit strike damage, core skill damage, mainstat. The aggregate power level of NM100 is pretty much the same. First they nerfed you, then they nerfed the dungeons, it’s a wash, but better balanced. It’s possible to actually do them now without playing “don’t get hit” but the Internet seems to think you can’t get hit because sorcs are squishy, they asked for DR buffs running around with 4,000 life.

You need over 12k to do 100 tier dungeons.

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Ever since I posted the FO videos, I’ve enhanced the build to be even more ridiculous! There’s technology on mine that I don’t see in the Maxroll build (which was clearly inspired by mine as nobody was doing chain FO’s at the time I posted the videos). Another thing is that you can see he slotted in Fire skills and this is actually bad because as Frost, you’re stacking Cold damage. Deep Freeze does massive amounts of damage once you’re developed with decent +Cold dmg and aspect. You shouldn’t need to use Inferno as an “I win” button when Deep Freeze does that as well or better than. It’s pure frost or go home.

Laokin. Can you elaborate a bit on your build? I’m currently running Blizzard and Ice Shards hybrid. I tested Blizzard with Frozen Orb and liked it overall but found it weak against bosses and elites compared to shards.

Wukong. What’s the rationale behind skipping burning? You’re getting better damage increases with frozen, even though you have to forego Devouring Blaze? What are you using for enchantments? Shards and FO?

Similar to mine post above ?

Well. I’m running pure frost. I have +177.7% Cold damage atm @lv70. I don’t have that much for Burning. Putting a non-frost skill onto my bar means that I can’t take advantage of that bonus. I’m running the aspect that gives you increased damage to Frozen. Pure frost does not Immobilize. It chills and freezes. I get plenty of CHD from my gear and I’m running the glyph that gives CHD as well.

You know you can use firebolt enchantment to make everything burn and keep exactly what you currently have on your bars, right?