NEW Frozen Orb\Blizzard Build

[Stephen]

Blizzard\Orb Guide 7\5\2009

Welcome to the Blizzard\Orb build. I hate reading long and tedious builds so I’ll make my introduction concise. I started this building thinking about the different strengths of the sorceress and found that blizzard and orb are both very strong skills that complement each other nicely. Blizzard is a timered skill which can be cast on enemies as frozen orb is spammed. Each has a shared synergy which would prevent total damage decrease as seen with other versatile builds such as meteorb and frozen orb\chain lighting sorcs. I wanted to make a build that was versatile as well as potent, and the frozen orb\blizzard combination fit the sorceress best. Now here are the skills. I based the skills on the +skills that would be gained from items and a level 88 sorc which seems like a pretty reasonable level to get to.

20 Blizzard
20 Frozen Orb
20 Ice Bolt
20 Glacial Spike
7 Cold Mastery( The points put in cold mastery could be interchanged with iceblast depending on your items)
7 Ice Blast
1 Frozen Armor
1 Shiver Armor
1 Warmth
1 Telekinesis
1 Static field
1 teleport

All items: +23 skills with 9 cold skill gcs
Now, these items are going to be very hard to get, but nevertheless I always love the challenge of trading and finding items on my own.

Nightwing's Veil
Spired Helm
Defense: 304-352 (Base Defense: 114-159)
Required Level: 67
Required Strength: 96
Durability: 40
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+2 To All Skills
+8-15% To Cold Skill Damage (varies)
+10-20 To Dexterity (varies)
+5-9 Cold Absorb (varies)
Half Freeze Duration
Requirements -50%
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)


Spirit 4 Socket Swords/Shields Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn
Shields
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense Vs. Missile
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana (varies)
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)
Attacker Takes Damage of 14


Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 119-138 (varies)(Base Defense: 55-62)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Durability: 12
16 Boxes
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
Slows Target By 10%
+1 To All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Increases Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11 Charges)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)


Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
+1 To All Skills
Increase Maximum Mana 25%*
Adds 1-12 Lightning Damage
+20 To Mana
(Spawns In Any Patch)


Mara's Kaleidoscope
Amulet
Required Level: 67
+2 To All Skills
All Resistances +20-30 (varies)
+5 To All Attributes
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

Sandstorm Trek
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 158-178 (varies)(Base Defense 56-65)
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 91
Durability: 14
Assassin Kick Damage: 60-110
+140-170% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+ (1 Per Character Level) +1-99 Maximum Stamina (Based On Character Level)
+10-15 To Strength (varies)
+10-15 To Vitality (varies)
50% Slower Stamina Drain
Poison Resist +40-70% (varies)
Repairs 1 Durability In 20 Seconds
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)


Death's Fathom
Dimensional Shard
One-Hand Damage: 30 To 53 (41.5 Avg)
Required Level: 73
Durability: 50
Base Weapon Speed: [10]
(Sorceress Only)
+3 To Sorceress Skill Levels
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+15-30% To Cold Skill Damage (varies)
Lightning Resist +25-40% (varies)
Fire Resist +25-40% (varies)

Well, excuse all my mistakes in math, but I tried to calculate the damage output of this sorceress with all this gear.
Frozen Orb: 1.2 k
Blizzard: 10k

Well, I hope you guys all try out this guide and tell me how it is. Please let me know of any changes\suggestions. Most importantly have fun!

[sirpoopsalot]

Sure they're both strong skills, but Blizzard can be very strong on its own, and some of its synergies (IceBlast & GlacialSpike) are a very nice compliments to that. I see little benefit to adding FO to a blizzard-build.

Likewise, a syergized Frozen Orb is strong enough that you'd have very little use for Blizzard.

So my question is why would you build two separate attacks within the same element?

In my opinion, why not just pick one and use your remaining skillpoints to other purposes? For example, the 20 points in FO could easily be used on a Blizzard synergy to make it even stronger (not necessary, but not a bad idea either) or to add a backup attack in Firewall for taking out cold immunes. To me both of these would have much more overall benefit than adding FO to a Blizzard build (or vice versa with even more extra points available for an FO build).

[Stephen]

Well i tried the meteorb build, and I felt like the killing power of fireball was not enough and there were way to many fire immunes that frozen orb could not kill in a reasonable time, and meteor was way to slow. I felt like i was spamming 6 frozen orbs just to kill a fire immune monster. With the same synergy(ice bolt) it complements both spells which is especially needed for frozen orb. I know immunities can be a problem that yet has to be conquered, but with infinity and cold mastery I hope most immunities will be broken?

In making a FO orb\ blizzard build, I felt that both spells could inflict serious amounts of damage with the spamming ability of FO and the timed spell of blizzard.

Would you think this build suits more of a pvp style since it would have a hard time dealing with some cold immune monsters in pvm??

[Stephen]

Also one more thing, with my experiences with multi element builds, I felt like each spell lost most of its killing power. But with this build, both spells maintain their high damage.

[naequs]

same here.
i dont get the point of your build.
for pve you could easily pick a second spell out of another tree to increase efficiency.
im playing a cbolt/fw sorc for instance, which is somehow exotic but works fine.
so whats yours for ?
+ thats nonsense for pvp coz youll need the points for, lets say ES

[Stephen]

haha ic that flaw. But i made it because it hard to catch people with blizzard. FO could be used to catch them, maybe in hit recovery or a frozen state. And blizzard could be used to spam massive damage. I made this build mainly to keep the damage of both main spells high. I felt like using different trees greatly affect the damage of my main spell. Blizzard alone is great but it has a small attack radius, but with the addition of frozen orb with a much more expansive attack, without much detriment to the damage of blizzard, would make pvping easier.

[stephan]

Also one more thing, with my experiences with multi element builds, I felt like each spell lost most of its killing power. But with this build, both spells maintain their high damage.
Your reasoning doesn't hold. Putting 20 points in FO hurts your Blizzard just as much putting them somewhere else. Putting 40 points towards Blizzard (Blizzard+Glacial) doesn't help FO at all.

If you put those 20 point in FW your Blizzard would do just as much and you'd be more versatile. If you put those 40 points towards Fireball or Nova your FO would do just as good and you are more versatile. Since there aren't any real situations where you absolutely need FO over Blizzard (or vice versa) to me it just seems you gave up versatility for really nothing.

[Ceramic Weasel]

I'm skeptical about the "spamming" ability of orb. Blizzard and FO run on the same timer. So when you cast Blizzard, your FO will be red just as long as the Blizzard skill, and vice versa. You can't spam Orbs between Blizzards like you can spam Fireballs.

Also, cold mastery does not break immunes and most cold immunes in Hell are too strong for Infinity to break on it's own.

[Stephen]

hey thanks guys for all your responses.
You guys made me think about my build and i will excuse it as a pvm build.
But as a pvp build, i still believe this build has merit. Because it is hard to catch other people in blizzard, the far ranged effect of FO can be used to catch enemies.

And about multielement sorcs, they do have versatility in pvm, but in pvp the advantage of using multielements is decreased.
In a multi element sorc that uses FO, this spell loses a lot of power because you wont be able to spend points on icebolt. In this build you can spend point on ice bolt because it synergises both spells.

[Stephen]

Also a reply to stephan, FO is just as important as blizzard in this build. So, in synergising blizzard, you are also synergizing FO. With other builds, if you synergize meteor\fireball, you are not increasing the effectiveness of either cold spell.

[stephan]

Also a reply to stephan, FO is just as important as blizzard in this build. So, in synergising blizzard, you are also synergizing FO. With other builds, if you synergize meteor\fireball, you are not increasing the effectiveness of either cold spell.
Again, if you put points in FO you are also not increasing effectiveness of Blizzard and if you put points in Blizzard and Glacial Spike you are also not increasing FO effectiveness. But since you acknowledge it is not a PvM build I'll shut up. PvP doesn't interest me.

[Kyrandia]

He probably means that putting points in Icebolt helps both Blizzard and FO. In that sense, saying "synergizing Blizzard = synergizing FO" is correct.

Since I don't PvP either I cannot comment on the usefulness of this build.