LoD Frozen Orb Wizard Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing LoD Frozen Orb Wizard in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Active Skills |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Passive Skills |
Rotation
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.
Skills and Runes
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.
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.
Changelog
- 20 Nov. 2020: Guide added.
More Wizard Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
- Activision Blizzard Q4 2020 Earnings Call
- Will Blizzard Launch a New Title at BlizzConline?
- BlizzConLine 2021 Official Preview and Trailer
- BlizzConline Celebration Bundles in the Shop!
- The Darkening of Tristram Ends January 31st
- What to Expect from Blizzconline 2021? (Predictions)
- The New Battle.net Is Almost Here, Going Live in NA
- The Darkening of Tristram Returns January 3