orb or bliz

[Streetproject]

Quick question.... for meph runs, what is better..

Frozen Orb?
Blizzard?

can I hear some comments and why? Thank you very very much. :clap:

[Ethercastle]

Blizzard is good, it can take out enemies fast because of its power, but a longer delay time than orb.

Orb is good, its weaker than blizzard but still owns and covers a large radius, plus a short delay time.

I would go with orb, but thats me.

[Humphrey]

Blizzard. It does more damage, and you can use the moat trick. If you try the moat trick with frozen orb you could wake up monsters you want to leave.

[Streetproject]

Blizzard. It does more damage, and you can use the moat trick. If you try the moat trick with frozen orb you could wake up monsters you want to leave.

Moat trick?!?!!?

[Humphrey]

There's a guide in the stickies, but I'll try to explain.

On entering Durance 3, tele to the bottom right of the area directly to the north west of you (not into the little room place, the area before that).
From there, walk carefully left until you have attracted the monsters there. Lead them onto the area directly beside the moat (the top right of it).
Then tele to the bit in the middle of the moat, then to the other side of the moat (don't go too far down, you'll wake the vampires at the bottom).
You should be compleatly undisturbed, so tele up to meph, static him if you like, tele back across to the bottom left side of the moat. Move back until you can still see meph but he isn't attacking you (just before the steps IIRC).
Then kill him with the attack of your choice! Meteor or blizzard work best here I think.

btw you don't want a merc with you for this, he'll run off and wake the monsters.

[Streetproject]

so...

Bliz = 1 vote,
Orb = 1.5 votes(i put .5 in, cuz I personally like it)

Golly, so much talk about it, idk what to do??!?!?!

[RealmOftheWolf]

Blizzard OWNZ Meph much better than orb

[RetroStar]

Blizzard no doubt. Blizzard's spray of dmg takes too long to kill meph.

[Streetproject]

Blizzard no doubt. Blizzard's spray of dmg takes too long to kill meph.

Wait, you are saying you vote for blizzard, but you are also saying that it takes a while to kill meph.... so, you are saying it is good, then right after, saying it is bad... i am confuzed. :(

[Ehlert]

he meant orb for the spray

[Epsilon Eyez]

I like Orb better but it doesn't make good use of Moat Trick. For that, Blizzard totally wins.

[Streetproject]

I like Orb better but it doesn't make good use of Moat Trick. For that, Blizzard totally wins.


What If I don't want to do moat. What if I also want to do rushes, will orb be good for rushing?

[Humphrey]

Orb if you don't want to do moat. Also with orb you can go dual-element as it needs no synergies (only cold mastery, don't bother with ice bolt, IMO the points are better spent in the other tree). If you are going to go pure cold sorc then you'll be maxing blizz anyway so you'll have both skills anyway.

[KTang]

I personally don't use the moat trick on my blizzard sorc, with stormshield + high cold res + absorb (snowclash) I just tank meph head on, he usually drops before I do :)

KT

[Epsilon Eyez]

What If I don't want to do moat. What if I also want to do rushes, will orb be good for rushing?

If you don't do moat trick, Orb is good, you just have to hit the general direction of Meph. Of course, I do think that Blizzard is probably the second most effective skill for Meph running, even without moat trick.

Orb is good for rushing because its quick at dispatching large groups of monsters, requires low aiming, and the ability to hybrid with other skills makes it better for all-purpose rushing.

Pure Blizzard sorcs most likely kill the act bosses faster, but Orb is better if you also want to clear the Den and do other quests real quickly without having to face problems concerning immunes.

[sasja]

Top gear and lots of experience -> Orb
Less than perfect gear OR not top-tuned orb skills -> Blizzard

I must say that I'd go with Blizzard any day, if you're making a dedicated Meph runner - it's safer, easier and you can stack more mf gear on a Blizz sorc than on an orber without losing significant killing speed. Orb in the hands of a real artist (who can keep him in the sweet spot every orb) with top gear does take Meph down faster than anything else, though.

[KTang]

Thinking about trying to make a pure Orb sorc. Will be used for boss running and hopefully do baal runs too. But since its one tree and cold immunity being one of teh most common, that'll be a difficult task indeed. I want to maximize the orb damage, so I can't go meteorb really. 2% from icebolt may seem a little bit, but imagine when you have plenty of skills!

Arachnid - 1
Fanthom/Ocu/Hoto - 3
Shako/Veil - 2
Viper - 1 , coh/enigma - 2
Amu - 3
Rings - 1-2, i use 1 to average.
Storm or spirit, spirit if you want to maximize damage. - 2

4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14. Thats 34 orb already. Then get some more skills, say Torch. 37. Anni, 38. 5~ cold charms, 43.

43 Orb with +40% damage from icebolt 20 seems pretty sexy to me :)

Theres no Orb sorc guides, but its pretty straight forward I see :) I want to adabt to the Orb sorc to manage immunities, but personally I don't see the problem of a pure orb sorc....

KT

[Streetproject]

...Besides, i see orb as being a LOT more fun to use. I remember making an assassin, all i built her for was purely fun, at least 1 on each skill :-P

[McCain123]

You menioned rushing. Here Orb is a clear winner in normal and nm.

If you want to mf in hell ( Mephisto ) go for Blizzard.

If you plan to go dual elemental go Orb, as Blizzard needs synergies.

Single element Blizzard will be stronger in Hell.

Hope that helped.