LoD Frozen Orb Wizard Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Spectral Blade Barrier Blades Arcane Orb Frozen Orb 1 Arcane Torrent Flame Ward 2 Black Hole Spellsteal 3 Magic Weapon Deflection 4 Storm Armor Shocking Aspect
Passive Skills
Galvanizing Ward Elemental Exposure Power Hungry Blur

You will start runs with an activation of Storm Armor and Magic Weapon, both of which are to be kept up throughout the rift. Move around the rift, drawing monster aggro and stacking up your shields with Spectral Blade; once you build up a decent fight, stack monsters tightly together with Black Hole just before the Cold cycle of your Convention of Elements, channel Arcane Torrent for just a second to obtain the Deathwish buff and then toss out a Frozen Orb. Remember to alternate Frozen Orbs with brief tapping of Arcane Torrent to maximize the benefits of said buff.

The main damage dealer and namesake of the build is Arcane Orb Frozen Orb — a long range projectile attack that hurls a pulsating orb of frost, exploding at the end of its 40-yard travel distance. Do your best to internalize the length of the Frozen Orb shot to maximize the benefits of said detonation, as it is stronger than the piercing projectile while it is moving. Make a point to always cast Arcane Orb after you fully stack Triumvirate, especially if the Cold cycle of Convention of Elements is coming up.

To counteract the considerable Arcane Power spending of Frozen Orb — 30 AP per shot — you will be including a primary attack in the build, adding a resource generation angle to it through Arcane Power on Crit on gear (see this build's gear page for more information). You have a good number of viable primary attacks for the slot, including the protective Spectral Blade Barrier Blades (our general recommendation), the crowd control synergy of Magic Missile Glacial Spike, or the superior proc coefficient of Shock Pulse Piercing Orb.

In Season 22, you will still be able to add a channeling skill to the build to enjoy the benefits of Deathwish. The preferred skill for the purpose is the Wizard staple Arcane Torrent, along with the Flame Ward rune for additional protection.

Magic Weapon offers an attractive, long-lasting damage buff by default, which branches out even more nicely into defense via the rune Deflection — highly desirable in order to safeguard your Squirt's Necklace damage buff. Note that this protective effect is doubled via the worn Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, if you choose to wear it.

When pushing Greater Rifts, immediate repositioning will often be required — whether it is evading a bad affix or engaging fresh enemies. Early on in character progression, this slot can be temporarily taken by Teleport with the multiple casts of the Wormhole rune — a beginner-friendly choice. Later on, you will focus on microing your character's position and exerting stronger control over the enemy — this is done with Black Hole, also sporting a damage increase and reduction buff with the rune Spellsteal.

Rounding skills out, you will be adding Storm Armor to the build. With a fire-and-forget duration of 10 minutes and a negligible damage proc, it can be easily overlooked if not for the massive damage reduction properties of Halo of Karini (see this build's gear page for more information). You will be taking the rune Shocking Aspect for the superior uptime of the procs for the Karini buff. Alternatively, you can consider Scramble for the additional movement speed.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Added with similar reasoning to Magic Weapon Deflection (mainly Squirt's Necklace buff maintenance), Galvanizing Ward introduces a solid damage buffer that benefits from the doubled effectiveness via Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer. You will also be adding a second damage buffer in the form of the percentage-based damage decrease of Blur.

Elemental Exposure is taken to bolster your damage through your myriad of elemental damage sources. Notice that the passive bumps damage in 5% increments per element used; you fulfill the cold with Frozen Orb, lightning with Storm Armor, arcane with Barrier Blades, and fire with Flame Ward.

Finally, take Power Hungry — it is the mirror of Audacity, reworked into a multiplicative damage increase against enemies further than 30 yards. This passive synergizes excellently with the long range orientation of the build, based on the Frozen Orb mechanics.