LoD Frozen Orb Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

This Frozen Orb Wizard build is based on the Legacy of Dreams power, which offers significant flexibility when it comes to item choice. Stat-wise, focus on pieces where Frozen Orb skill damage is a possible roll — helm, boots and source, as well as spreading Area Damage wherever possible.

The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer (and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry) method is the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem.

In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing your two best rolled rings and cubing the third between Convention of Elements, Unity, and Halo of Karini. Convention of Elements simply provides a massive damage increase during the Cold cycle of its rotation. Halo of Karini will greatly supplement your defenses, providing a massive damage reduction bonus for the modest requirement of keeping your Storm Armor active. Unity further reduces incoming damage when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for him (i.e. Enchanting Favor).

Aside from Halo of Karini, Squirt's Necklace will also incentivize you to keep your distance from enemies — it rewards the evasive playstyle of a Frozen Orb Wiz with a massive damage bonus, but also punishes the unwary with an amplification of damage taken. To encase you in at least a measure of protection before you lose that valuable DPS buff, you will be wearing the Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer for the doubled shield potency (consult this build's skills page to see where the shields should come from).

Swamp Land Waders notably require that you gamble them on a Witch Doctor alt, and then use them on your Wizard main; while the pants' legendary bonus will be entirely ignored, their unique ability to roll elemental damage (which you will reroll to Cold on your Wiz if necessary) is a great boon to the build.

Four more armor slots will be occupied by protective legendary powers, with the combo of Ice Climbers, Mantle of Channeling, Aquila Cuirass and Stone Gauntlets each bringing their own angle of value to the build. Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor in 50% increments as you get hit, but with a similarly stacking mobility penalty — a downside you will be completely negating with the unique property of Ice Climbers, which make you immune to immobilization effects. Mantle of Channeling is a build subtype staple, offering a substantial 25% damage increase to channeling specs, along with an equal amount of damage reduction while channeling. Aquila Cuirass is simply a defensive cornerstone, cutting incoming damage in half if you maintain above 90% of your resource.

The final two armor pieces will be dedicated to resource management. Your helm of choice should be Pride's Fall, an Act III bounty cache-specific legendary that rewards safe play and not getting hit with significant resource cost reduction. Introduced in Patch 2.4, The Shame of Delsere belt is an Arcane Power regeneration powerhouse that speeds up your signature spells by 50% and restores up to 12 AP per hit. This bonus will be vital in Greater Rift pushes in order to maintain the damage reduction of a worn Aquila Cuirass.

The mandatory weapon of the progression build is the Unstable Scepter, a legendary wand that not only increases Arcane Orb damage, but also has a unique property that detonates Arcane Orbs twice — effectively doubling the spec's damage output. Triumvirate is best-in-slot source for the progression Arcane Orb build, whose unique bonus stacks Frozen Orb damage in three increments, achieved by an easy triple attack from your primary attack.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Frozen Orb % bonus on both the helm, boots and source (maximum of 45%), Cold elemental damage on the amulet, wrists and pants (maximum of 60%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 500k+; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with at least one high roll in your setup (i.e. bracer).

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Intelligence.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Pride's Fall	Intelligence Socket Critical Hit Chance Arcane Orb % Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Mantle of Channeling	Intelligence Area Damage Armor Vitality
Torso	Aquila Cuirass	Intelligence 3 Sockets Vitality Armor Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Cold % Damage Life per Hit or Vitality Reduced Damage Melee Attacks (Secondary stat)
Hands	Stone Gauntlets	Intelligence (or Area Damage at high Paragon) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Area Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Waist	The Shame of Delsere	Intelligence Vitality Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Swamp Land Waders	Intelligence 2 Sockets Vitality Cold % Damage (if Swamp Land Waders) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Ice Climbers	Intelligence Arcane Orb % Damage Vitality Armor Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	Squirt's Necklace	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cold % Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Halo of Karini	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Convention of Elements (Best in Slot) Unity (Alternative)	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Weapon	Unstable Scepter	High Weapon Damage Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Intelligence Attack Speed Area Damage
Off-hand	Triumvirate	High Damage Range Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Arcane Orb % Damage Area Damage Arcane Power on Crit

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Investing into Max Arcane Power should not be necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Strength Vitality (up to personal preference) Maximum Arcane Power
Offense	Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed Cooldown Reduction
Defense	Armor Life % All Resistance Life Regeneration
Utility	Area Damage Life on Hit Resource Cost Reduction Globe Radius

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. Bane of the Trapped procs itself with the level 25 property and is procced by default by Frozen Orb, making it a natural inclusion in the build.

Bane of the Stricken builds up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and has a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians; this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Frozen Orb Wizards are no exception.

Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem, which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares ( The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Topazes as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Ruby, scaling the lacking Armor of an Intelligence-based character (Intelligence scales Resistances). There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. Since this build is free of CDR concerns, you can pick between Flawless Royal Amethyst for the extra health or Flawless Royal Topaz for the Resource Cost Reduction as befits your needs and playstyle. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Stricken Legacy of Dreams
Helm	Flawless Royal Topaz (RCR)
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Topaz (Damage) Flawless Royal Ruby (Toughness)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

The revised powers of Wizardspike make it a mandatory inclusion in a Frozen Orb build, albeit tucked away in the Cube. This unassuming dagger now provides both a proc-based chance to hurl an additional Frozen Orb, as well as a massive damage multiplier for the skill itself.

The Act 2 bounty cache legendary Illusory Boots bring unparalleled mobility by allowing you to pass freely through mobs and ignore enemy collision. This bonus is quite valuable in a build that struggles for mobility once it drops Teleport for high GRs. Note that this slot is interchangeable with Ice Climbers for your worn and cubed pieces depending on your better rolled item.

Your jewelry Cube slot will be occupied by your worst rolled item between Halo of Karini, Convention of Elements and Unity.

In Season 22, you are still able to take advantage of the damage buff while channeling from a cubed Deathwish.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.