Which is stronger... 20 skill points in Frozen Orb or in Blizzard?

[granitejaw]

Yes, yes, very old topic XD But everyone talks about synergies, and I don't really care for them. So...
20 points in Frozen Orb OR 20 points in Blizzard? (NO synergy talk! :jig:)

If it matters, my style is to have a bunch of enemies chasing me until there's a lot of them on the screen and then I attack. So I'm leaning towards Blizzard, but I would like to find out which is stronger anyway :jig:

Side question: I thought synergies were only in LoD? I have DII classic v1.03...

[Arkansaw]

Hmmm I think Orb works pretty well too for your style.
Blizzard definitely has much higher damage than Orb at level 20, but it is a lot more situational than Orb and harder to use against fast moving monsters

[Akse]

Frozen orb is better.. each shard deals that ~280 dmg, so depending on how many hits its better or worse :). Also you can aim a lot better with orb and get a lot more monsters freezed at the same time with 1 cast.

Classic v1.03 ? Then you can cast without delays.. which makes the freezing thing pointless since you can freeze as much as u want at the same time because you can cast as much as u have mana.

So before lod blizz used to be the low gear choice and many times the hardcore players choice. Frozen orb for quality gear. Orb requires about 60 mana per cast and blizzard was about 4x. When you cast a lot of blizzard it tends to block the view.
Anyways in 1.03 orb does like 100 dmg / shard, don't remember how much blizzard did. But when you can cast as much as you like orb shards fly in massive amounths doing definately as much damage as blizzard can.

But with 1.03 you probably play in single player so you don't need to start with tweaking (static orb static orb static orb) and you can just kill with your main spell. In that case blizzard could be better if you want good damage with lower mana cost. But frozen orb is definately visually better and more fun to play with :)