Hardcore Frozen Orb/Fire Ball Sorceress; Socialism’s “Orb-it-aller”

[Havefaith]

This is of course as everyone else has mentioned a great build.

I played it untwinked, in hardcore until level 76 (I had a single +skill item). And I had solo'd every act and every baal run up until that point with very little trouble, and this is the first char I've ever gotten to hell untwinked that had absolutely no trouble clearing though once in hell. I played a max blocker - using twitchtroe/deflecting bone shield. I had found a wizard spike which probably made hell alot more tolerable. And my merc was armed to the bone with a low level insight and a guardian templar coat which I had off baal.

Then I got one shot by hell Szzarc :(



What I learned:
When your merc dies in one hit - Don't stand next to that mob

[jackthelad]

meteor also shreds hell meph, or anyone whos busy not paying attention

i like this build, the first one i made wasnt great as it had too much str [156 hard points]
i remade it, and it works well for rushing and general pvm

This is what I dont understand about this build. Why put 20pts in Fbolt when you could swap those 20 into meteor, for the same +14%dmg/lvl to Fball? At lvl20 meteor/lvl20 FB & lvl10 FM that gives you about 7k fire dmg for meteor, + area effect. For the packs of gloams above, a better tactic for me is cast a meteor in the middle of them while teleporting around them. They are ranged so dont move while the fire dmg burns 'em. I realise then this build would just be more or less a standard meteorber, but I have put 10 points into ice bolt to strengthen my orb but only 10 into FM. It would still be a FO/FB build, but just have a stronger back-up 3rd spell in meteor rather than fire bolt.

[MrGohl]

Jack,

My guess is that Socialism is just saving the 4 extra points needed to get Meteor, since hes not actually USING meteor for anything (he said it was just too slow). I kind of agree that meteor is a pain to play with and it may shred Mephisto, but you can kill mephis just fine with FO/static. I think its just a play style preference. I built a few Meteorb sorcs and always hated them in Hell, trying to kill things with meteor. But maybe I was supposed to be killing them with fireball all along? Obviously Meteor is better than firebolt as a skill, but this build doesn't really NEED a 3rd skill.

[jackthelad]

Jack,

My guess is that Socialism is just saving the 4 extra points needed to get Meteor, since hes not actually USING meteor for anything (he said it was just too slow). I kind of agree that meteor is a pain to play with and it may shred Mephisto, but you can kill mephis just fine with FO/static. I think its just a play style preference. I built a few Meteorb sorcs and always hated them in Hell, trying to kill things with meteor. But maybe I was supposed to be killing them with fireball all along? Obviously Meteor is better than firebolt as a skill, but this build doesn't really NEED a 3rd skill.

Why have points in the cold armours tho? Thats 2 points saved there, then 2 out of CM (with +skills, those 2 are pointless anyway IMO) & there you go, meteor. I think that hardly anyone uselss a meteober as meteor/FO, most people use it as FO/FB, using meteor for packs/bosses, as I do. I would suggest a merge of this build & a meteorber would be the most effective route-

Cold
20 orb
10 mastery
10 Ice bolt
4 pre-reqs

Lightning
1 teleport
1 pre-reqs

Fire
20 FB
20 Meteor
10 FM
4 pre-reqs

Only 100 points, done at an easily achievable 89. With an easy +5 all skills, it gives FB dmg of about 2,5k, meteor dmg of about 6k & about 400 orb dmg with -90% resistance from mastery. With this, you could solo hell with relative ease in a 1 player game, add in another 4 or 5 +skills, & 3, 4 or 5 player games become just a do-able.

As for not needing a 3rd skill, no, really you probably dont need a 3rd skill. But if you have 20 points to put into a synergy, why put it into a skill you will never use when you could, for the same synergy to the primary skill, put it into a very usefull skill that you could use if you needed to? Place your merc in a doorway, a load of cold immunes swarm up to him, meteor on him & fry them all without spamming FB. This works particularly well on countess runs, as all her minions are cold immunes. I also find that if I come across a pack of ranged attackers (such as gloams) casting a meteor in the middle of them, tele-ing away & then leaving the meteor to burn them for a while works much better than attempting to tele around spamming FO or FB, & is much safer too.

[manekineko]

I've made this sorc, gear and all (except those boots. definitely opted for war travs for the MF and to lighten the strength load for the spirit monarch), and I must say that it is fantastic. Everything easily dies using just fo and fb. I don't miss meteor at all. The setup allows for just enough survivability and speed to literally stand in front of meph (and many other enemies) and spam fb-fb-fb-fo-fb-fb-fb-fo until they're toast.

I read up a lot because I was under the common misconception that partial tal rasha was better (replacing the staff and helm with shako and occy/other), but I'm officially a convert now. The full set is great!

[ScozZers]

I stayed away from Tals set. Mainly because I just rushed this char and plopped on most of the gear from my pure orber. See, this is basically an orber, it's just that it has the luxury of a hefty fireball when you really need it. For those, perplexed about the ommision of meteor and the 5 points in teleport, ... read the guide again. This sorc is to be played aggressively. I will quote:

Dual-tree builds keep you self-sufficient and efficient (if you read the Hardcore forum… you’d know I’m all about efficiency/aggressive playstyles …and that I’m Awesome [note: general descriptor and character name]). Meteor’s great, but too slow for me. I’ll prune the 4 skill points.

Kill stuff

Frozen Orb on left mouse button (but don’t use shift-click while spellspamming) – this never changes

For big-life mobs that stand up to you:
1) hold down the right mouse button (RMB) to cast Frozen Orb
2) without releasing RMB, hotkey to Fire Ball
3) wait for the 1-second-timer from Orb to expire, then without releasing RMB, hotkey to Frozen Orb
4) if enemy still exists, repeat ad nauseum from #2

Frozen Orb from slvl 1 becomes your primary attack; Fire Ball is just an afterthought for Cold Immunes and helping Orb (in between casts) destroy huge-life-enemies (whee 8-player Izual).

With infinicast Teleport (slvl high enough + mana pool large enough + regen rate fast enough to let me teleport indefinitely), I held down the RMB and never let go… I’d teleport in place while waiting for the group. Enemy pops on screen = hotkey to Frozen Orb, Glacial Spike if necessary, Fire Ball, Frozen Orb, etc—meanwhile, the RMB is still depressed from 10 minutes ago.

Not exactly something that lends itself to meteor. As for the 5 in teleport, well, if you don't play hardcore, then you don't need them. Pretty simple really. Having said that, it's nice to have that low cost tp if your insight merc dies and since those 5 points wouldn't make a huge difference elsewhere then why not have that nice buffer?
The point in the cold armour is great for areas like frigid highlands where you WILL encounter mass hard hitting ranged attacks and since you don't have block ....
Basically, you need to to think of this as an extension of the pure orber. If you want a meteorb, .... go build a meteorb.
My orb does just over 800 max without anything that adds to cold damage (except + skills ofc) and chews through screens of non cold immunes. My fireball is nicely effective at a bit under 5 k max (could get more but I use a 3 cold ammy), which at my current 105 fcr is more than enough (still gathering the gear to try a 200 fcr version - just crafted a 20fcr ammy tho so almost there ) to take down anything that might give me and my merc some trouble. It's also lovely to have on tower level 5 since, well obviously, it speeds things up greatly.
My current gear is:
Shako "ort"
Upped 35 res viper "Um" (50 res then)
3 cold/ 22 dr amulet
HotO (39 res)
Spirit monarch
Arachnid mesh
Dual sojs
Sandstorm treks
Magefists
Torch/anni
2 or 3 cold skillers (not needed but I had them).

Switch is CtA/Spirit and merc is the Prayer/Insight sort with blackhorns helm.

Level 88 at the moment and extra points have been going into ice bolt.
Due to the amount of + skills I knew I'd have, I only needed 1 point in cold mastery.
If souls really bother you (erm, they bother most people without max res and some sort of absorb btw..) then tele past/around them, go kill baal and then make another run where there might not be souls and you can go hog wild.
If you want to kill everything, every time, then stack lightning res rather than all res, since once all the other res's are near max or max then you don't really need any more. Lightning is the only element that that will one shot omgwtfpwn you, so protect against it. Also, souls are kinda double trouble in that they will gobble your mana too. Take steps to minimise the problems this might cause. A holy freeze merc would mostly likey be the top choice for wsk tbh, since you'll both have a much easier time against souls with his aura but then I've not used a holy freeze merc in a while, so don't take my word on that.
You shouldn't really have any problems with this build unless you're building from scratch as your first character - which would be like completely ignoring the guide in the first place. You do need a teensy bit of D2Wealth to get this one running nicely.
MrGohl - lose the visceratuant, gain a spirit

[Arkansaw]

Nice guide as always, but there's always a price to pay for aggressiveness: the user is expected to possess the necessary skill (if not itamz) to avoid mishaps with certain boss packs in the area of ultimate leveling.

[Socialism]

Wow. When did this thing get stickied?! Guess I've been away awhile.

Anyhow; everyone - thanks for your comments and whatnot. I'll answer what I can as briefly as I can.

I completely love your sarcastic approach to the way you made this guide.
Best thing I can honestly say I've read in along time Diablo related.

Sir, I admire your honesty and awesomeness. Thanks, and high five.

I hate Meteor too, but I just don't understand why you would want to sacrifice an option like this just to gain 12% extra Fireball damage. Could you explain this decision a bit further?

Also: 5 skill points in Teleport? Sure, you're saving mana, but... Why man, why?

Meteor does nothing for me that Fire Ball can't. The # of times that I've thought, "man, I could really use a good Meteor right about now" have numbered... 3. Or maybe 4. The "what if" scenarios just don't come up that frequently -- and when they do, they get solved by Fire Ball fast enough for me not to wish I'd have picked up a skill that I'd so very rarely ever use.

Teleportwise, anything that gets you closer to infinicast teleport is worth its weight in skill points. Especially if you're dumping Insight. I'm sure I had better reasons, but the two off the top of my head right now are: 1) safety vs. mana burn and 2) convenience.

which should be the main skill. Orb or fireball.

Orb, then Fire Ball.

I am considering switching out my Defiance merc for a Holy Freeze one.

This is fine for normal/nightmare, considering Defiance only shines when you're wearing beefy 700+ armor and no longer rely on walking/running. When you reach endgame, you'll see greatly improved merc survival with Defiance over HF (vs bosses).

just curious as to the advantages of bolt over meteor?

(see above)

Socialism talks about getting bored with it because its so overpowered. I want to believe him, and he didn't steer me wrong with the Budget Teleporting MF Hardcore Sorc, so I have faith. But.....

At what point am I going to start feeling overpowered?

The build's overpowered with regular runewords and blue/yellow items once you get the 'right' mix.

You're far too low at level 76 to be doing solo WSK runs; consider that your mercenary won't last long enough to be a distraction. Also, if you're knowingly going into gloam-heavy areas without mana burn immunity (read: infinicast) and stacked lightning resistance, nobody can help you. Don't rush! You're probably also not feeling overpowered because you're not casting frequently enough. I'll bet you're not fully blue-potioned-up... since a strong-enough Fire Ball should be putting gloams into hit recovery anyway...

meteor also shreds hell meph, or anyone whos busy not paying attention

i like this build, the first one i made wasnt great as it had too much str [156 hard points]
i remade it, and it works well for rushing and general pvm

Glad you're seeing success. I hate overdosing on stats, too.

When your merc dies in one hit - Don't stand next to that mob

Hah! Thanks for making my thread the one you have your first post in. Way to go! Looks like you learned your lesson; fire and forget - move on, forge ahead, improve! Good luck.

You shouldn't really have any problems with this build unless you're building from scratch as your first character - which would be like completely ignoring the guide in the first place. You do need a teensy bit of D2Wealth to get this one running nicely.
MrGohl - lose the visceratuant, gain a spirit

Scozzers, you're always a source of important insight and information. I do disagree with you on one point though -- the untwinked part. Cakewalk build, man, just cakewalk (as long as people aren't rushing/skipping stages of level progression)!

Nice guide as always, but there's always a price to pay for aggressiveness: the user is expected to possess the necessary skill (if not itamz) to avoid mishaps with certain boss packs in the area of ultimate leveling.

Shanks! The level of skill you describe isn't unique to this build; it's applicable to every (insert fragile character) out there. No guide can compensate for inexperience!



Edit: Someone made a note at some point about wasting skill points on Shiver Armor (or something to that effect). 700+ defense armor + Defiance + Shiver Armor = significantly safer than the alternative.

[Painman]

I like this guide. Short and sweet, speaks to the way I play a Sorc.

As I play SC, I'd personally forego the safety aspects and go all out for as much damage as possible; I'd also go for less CM and more raw Orb damage (synergy) as I enjoy area clear style MF more than Boss runs. I agree that 2% per lvl from Ice Bolt is not crappy. Orb can be a horrendous wrecking ball when it's given the power, and much more than 2% per lvl would be nuts.

Anyway... nice job.

[Arkansaw]

Yes, but since the thread title starts off with HC, it would be nice to see more tips on surviving the rigors of regular baal running. Right now it can easily pass off as a SC guide with multiple points in teleport (which is possibly not so significant by itself) and strict adherence to breakpoint targets.

Also, I suspect the points in Ice Bolt can be better spent elsewhere (ES/TK?) to improve survivability, which is the No. 1 HC concern. I fully understand the argument for a stronger Orb, but just want to make sure I'm not missing anything here.