Best second skill for an orber?

[Technomancer]

Ok, I'm spinning my wheels waiting for the ladder reset and was thinking about my first char to get my treasure horde started. I never really liked fishymancers after lvl 50 or so, so I have normally gone meteorb. Now, I love orb, but meteor just always gets on my nerves with the delayed attack. Fireball is ok I guess. I've gone full Blizz before, and don't like it much better than Meteor.

So, my question is, what do you think would be a good second skill instead? I'm debating a hydra/orb (never played hydra), firewall/orb, cl/orb, or nova orb. Obviously, hydra and cl have heavy synergy reqs, but firewall and nova don't. I'm considering maxing ice bolt for orb, but that's optional. Is nova even feasible without infinity? If I went Nova, I could either max ice bolt or t-storm. I'm interested in Hydra too, but I'm concerned about a spam spell since if I go fireball, I wouldn't have any syns in that. Orb/firewall would also leave me without a spam spell.

I don't know, I was just curious about other peoples' thoughts and experiences... thanks.

[MoonUnit]

Could always go tstorm/orb. :D

Nova/orb sounds... decent.

Max Ice Bolt, Orb, Light Mastery, Tstorm/Nova and some in Cold Mastery. Good to go. :)

[VeeSe]

Could always go tstorm/orb. :D

Nova/orb sounds... decent.

Max Ice Bolt, Orb, Light Mastery, Tstorm/Nova and some in Cold Mastery. Good to go. :)

orb/nova does look pretty good, if nova does decent dmg maxed out with light mastery. Personally, when I'm orbing vs non cold immunes, I find it so hard to spam spells in that one second in between, since I like to cast and move to avoid things. If i'm standing still, I can maybe get 1 fireball off in between orbs, and that just doesn't sound that like that much extra, so most of the time if I'm focusing on orb I'm just spamming orb hard by itself

[sirpoopsalot]

Even with only ~40 points into the fire tree, Fireball is more reliable than Nova with poor gear.

But if you can count on +12 (or more) skills - not necessarily easy to plan for at the start of ladder - then Nova's superior area of effect will start to surpass Fireball.

20 FO
~15 CM
~10+ Ice Bolt
20 Fireball
20 Firebolt
1 FM, teleport, static & prereq's

... a very solid starter build. You could substitute Nova/LM for the points in Fireball/Firebolt too.


I don't like pairing Firewall with Orb. Even though they're both strong with only a few points, having two timered spells really isn't an enjoyable experience, in my opinion.

I haven't played enough with Hydra to comment on it, but I'd think it would be similar to Fireball - maybe a touch weaker, but definitely safer as a trade off. If you wanted to play HC, this might be an option worth exploring.

CL/L are ok, but pretty generic... basically a slightly more item-dependent Meteorb. If you're looking for a lightning skill in that vein, I'd prefer Charged Bolt instead.

Don't do Thunderstorm for a backup attack. Unless you want to focus on PvP a lot, then it might actually be a decent idea.

Energy Shield can work for PvP or boss hunting, but obviously it leaves you without (much of) a backup attack.

[Technomancer]

Yeah, I'm a little hesitant to go with 2 timered spells, but since Orb can hit everywhere, it's not a total loss. I've actually never made a CL/L Sorc (well, I started to once), but I was always put off by the 1 min damage. I like the idea of a Nova/Orb Sorc, but I'm a little concerned about the cost/damage ratio of Nova. I was only thinking T-Storm if I was already maxing Mastery for another skill. Hmm, since Nova adds to Lightning, I wonder if that might be a good single enemy skill. Something like:

20 Nova
20 Lightning
20 LM
20 FO
1-7 CM
the rest in Ice Bolt

I know you can't really argue with the damage output of Fireball or Meteor, that's why it's so popular. I'd eventually end up running bosses like Meph, so a moat-able spell wouldn't be bad either. So many options!

If I can ever get an Infinity, I might try a Hydra/Nova build, but that's neither here nor there...

[sirpoopsalot]

You could do it, and it'll be viable, but I don't see the point of combining Nova with Lightning. Nova will be stronger against packs, and FO will likely surpass the 60-point Lightning against single targets.

[droid]

CL/FO is probably my favorite build of all classes, maybe Bowazon comes close, but CL/FO rules. Its just so fast and versatile, and has a really high top-end potential

Depends what you want to do with it, though. Meteorb is better suited for bossrunning and MFing since A) FB is an awesome single-target killer, and B) Tal Set dovetails in so well with such good MF

CL/FO does better in general: for quickly clearing areas ie Pits and Cows, for keyrunning (CL clears out all those annoying Ice Boars or whatever from offscreen, so handy), pretty much anywhere you're facing packs instead of bosses, because you have two anti-crowd, fire-and-forget type spells. Lightning also works excellently vs single targets, though not quite as well as a Meteorber's FB+Meteor.

The top end gear is a little more pricey (CoH, Harlequins or probably Griffons, Arach, HotO, Maras or +2 Sorc ammy instead of Tal set) but I think its still more versatile and more fun.

I have a Meteorber too, so I'm not completely biased :)

Keep in mind FI is the most common immunity in Hell mode, too...

[sirpoopsalot]

Keep in mind FI is the most common immunity in Hell mode, too...

Actually, it's cold immunes. Not by a big margin compared to FI's though.

*hides*

[Technomancer]

I was just thinking Lightning for single cold immunes, like Countess. More damage for less mana. Obviously for act bosses, orb away!

Lightning tree would get around the most immunes, but the thing that gives me pause about it is that there seems to be an assumed gear requirement. Maybe CL would be a better than Nova since it gets synergies. Oh well, I suppose about any of these ideas would work well to certain degree. I guess I'll pick one setup to start, then when I get some gear, make up a new one using another combination.

[droid]

Nova is more gear reliant. CL will work fine with your usual midlevel sorc setup (Vipers, Spirit, Occy, etc.)

CL/Lightning/Lightning is a pretty good chain to use on bosses too

[stephan]

I didn't like ~60 point CL with medium gear at all. Nova is OKish as long as you can put monsters in hit recovery.

On a budget there is really nothing that comes close to FB.