Frozen Orb Sorc Build -D2R 2.6

Build Introduction

The Frozen Orb Sorc is one of the best ladder starter and magic finding builds. It's very efficient even in budget gear and has great single target and area damage. The only weakness of the build are monsters with cold immunity, which often remains even if you have a mercenary with Infinity runeword. Against cold immune monsters you will have to rely on your mercenary's damage. However if you want to farm bosses like Mephisto or Andariel, the Cow Level, or enjoy magic finding and ultra fast teleportation, this is definitely a build you should. Did I mention it can reach 1000% MF?!

Related Guides

Mercenary Guide | Magic Find Guide | Charms Guide | Quest Rewards Guide | Hardcore Guide | Levelling Guide | Secret Cow Level Guide | Restating and Skilling Guide | Item Upgrade Guide | Cube Recipe Guide |

Gameplay

Attacking skills:

Your primary attacking skill is Frozen Orb. Against cold immune monsters, you will have to rely on your Merc's physical damage. Teleporting on an enemy monster brings your merc with you, so it can almost instantly kill them, but be careful not to take too much damage. I also suggest using Static Field as a secondary attacking skill. It's mainly useful against bosses, or monsters with high life as it reduces 25% of their remaining life with each casting, but you can use it against immunes too.

Movement: The obvious choice for movement is teleportation. While you run, your block chance is reduced, so walking instead of running is a much safer option for movement outside the town. In high faster cast rate gear your character will teleport very quickly, the breakpoints we aim for are 63% FCR (9 frame), 105 FCR (8 frame) and 200 FCR (7 frame).

Survivability: As with any other sorceress build, survivability is not it's strength. However Cold Sorcs are the most defensive amongst any sorc build. You can have a high level Shiver Armor and Energy Shield, which increases your defense and damage absorption greatly. Make sure to always have them casted before going out of town. 75% of all resistances on hell are strongly suggested! As with any other build, having a Call to Arms as a switch weapon and casting Battle Orders almost doubles your life and mana, and greatly improves your survival chances. On Hardcore try to aim for 50% physical damage reduction (Stormshield and Verdungo belt is recommended), and you can also try wearing a Guardian Angel armor to have 90% all resistances. Wearing a Raven Frost ring is also very useful, as it provides you with Cannot Be Frozen quality.

Party and Solo play: Soloing the whole game is very difficult, as there are many cold immune monsters, but if you have a very strong mercenary and enough patience for him to get rid of immunes, it is doable. In proper gear your teleportation will be lightning fast, so if you play in a party you can quickly get your teammates to Bosses. Frozen Orb deals a great amount of area damage, and is efficient against single targets too, so you will definitely be one of the party's best attacking members. The only place that will give you a lot of hardship even in the best possible gear is Uber Tristram, so you will have to rely on party members to get your Hellfire Torch.

Magic Find: The Frozen Orb Sorc is amazing at magic finding! Even in MF gear it's very efficient, has decent survivability and huge damage output. If you want to farm Mephisto, Andariel, or the Cow level, this is probably the best build for it, while it can have an insanely high, 1000% Magic find!

Stats

Strength: Put just enough points on it to be able to wear your gear.

Dexterity: Put just enough points on it to be able to wear your gear.

Vitality: Put all remaining points on it.

Energy: Don't put any points on it.

Skills

• 20 points on Frozen Orb + 1 point on prerequisite skills
• 20 point on Cold Mastery
• 1 point on Static Field
• 1 point on Teleport +1 point on prerequisites
• 20 point on Energy Shield
• 1 point on Chilling Armor
• 20 point on Shiver Armor
• Put the remaining points on Warmth

Breakpoints - Check out our Sorceress Breakpoints guide.

Items, Gearing

The listed items are organized by slots.

• The usefulness rating of an item is based on how good it is for farming.
• The price rating reflects the cost of the item (cheaper ones are available after ladder starts as budget options), higher price ratings reflect exponentially higher cost for an item.
• Magic Find ratings are added to items that are good options for MFing.

Adding sockets and improving your items

• If you complete the act5 quest Siege on Harrogath, Larzuk will grant extra socket/sockets to your items. Use the quest to add sockets to your gear and put useful jewels, runes or gems in your item sockets.
• You can also upgrade your unique items from normal to exceptional quality and from exceptional to elite by using Horadric Cube recipes. After upgrading, your armor pieces will have more defense, and your weapon pieces will have more damage. The downside of upgrading is the increased strength/dexterity requirements.
• To increase your cold damage, put +5/-5 Cold Rainbow Facets in your item sockets.

Helm

• Lore runeword runeword -usefulness 4/10, price 1/10
• Peasant Crown unique helm - usefulness 5/10, price 2/10
• Tal Rasha's set helm - usefulness 7/10, price 2/10
• Harlequin Crest Shako unique helm - Usefulness 8/10, price 6/10, Magic Find 10/10
• Nightwing's Veil unique helm - Usefulness 10/10, price 6/10

Amulet

• Any amulet with +1-2 to sorceress skills or + % faster cast rate - usefulness 4/10, price 1/10
• Tal Rasha's set amulet - usefulness 7/10, price 6/10
• Mara's Kaleidoscope unique amulet - usefulness 10/10, price 7/10
• Magic amulet with 40-50% to magic find - price 5/10, Magic Find 10/10

Weapon

• Spirit Crystal Sword -usefulness 6/10, price 2/10
• Wizardspike unique weapon - usefulness 6/10, price 4/10
• Tal Rasha's set weapon - usefulness 6/10, price 3/10
• The Oculus unique weapon - usefulness 8/10, price 5/10
• Heart of the Oak runeword - usefulness 9/10, price 6/10
• Death's Fathom unique weapon - usefulness 10/10, price 6/10

Shield

• Moser's Blessed Circle unique shield - usefulness 4/10, price 2/10
• Lidless Wall - usefulness 5/10, price 2/10
• Stormshield - usefulness 8/10, price 4/10
• Spirit Monarch runeword - usefulness 8/10, price 2/10

Switch Weapon

• Call to Arms Runeword - usefulness 10/10, price 7/10
• 6*Ist crystal sword - magic find -10/10, switch when killing boss

Switch Shield

• Spirit Monarch - usefulness 10/10, price 2/10
• 4*Ist monarch - magic find 10/10, switch when killing boss

Body Armor

• Stealth runeword - usefulness 5/10, price 2/10
• Skin of the Vipermagi unique armor - usefulness 7/10, price 5/10
• Tal Rasha's set armor - usefulness 6/10, price 6/10
• Ormus's robe unique armor - usefulness 10/10, price 5/10
• Chains of Honor runeword - usefulness 10/10, price 8/10
• Skullder's Ire - usefulness 6/10, price 5/10, magic find 10/10

Belt

• Rare belt with +resistances and +life - usefulness 3/10, price 2/10
• Nightsmoke unique belt - usefulness 4/10, price 2/10
• Tal Rasha's set belt - usefulness 6/10, price 3/10
• Arachnid Mesh unique belt - usefulness 10/10, price 6/10
• Goldwrap unique belt - magic find 10/10, price 3/10

Rings

• Rare ring with +resistances and/or +life - usefulness 3/10, price 1/10
• Raven Frost unique ring - usefulness 8/10, price 4/10
• Bul Katho's Wedding Band - usefulness 8/10, price 6/10
• Stone of Jordan unique ring - usefulness 10/10, price 6/10
• Nagelring - magic find 9/10, price 3/10
• Magic rings with 40% MF - magic find 10/10, price 6/10

Gloves

• Magefist unique gloves - usefulness 10/10, price 3/10
• Trang Oul's set gloves - usefulness 8/10, price 3/10
• Frostburn unique gloves - usefulness 8/10, price 3/10
• Chance Guards unique gloves - magic find 10/10, price 3/10

Boots

• Rare boots with 30% faster run and walk, % to faster hit recovery - usefulness 5/10, price 2/10
• Sandstorm Trek unique boots - usefulness 7/10, price 4/10
• Waterwalk unique boots - usefulness 8/10, price 4/10
• War Traveler unique boots - usefulness 6/10, price 5/10, magic find 10/10

Charms

• Any charm with +skill, life, faster hit recovery or faster run and walk - usefulness 4/10, price 1/10
• Annihilus unique charm - usefulness 10/10, price 8/10
• Hellfire Torch unique charm - usefulness 10/10, price 6/10
• +1 Cold Skill Grand Charm - usefulness 7/10, price 4/10
• Magic grand charms with +1 to cold skills and +life, +faster hit recovery or +faster run and walk - usefulness 8-10/10, price 5-10/10
• Magic small charms with resistances and life - usefulness 8-10/10, price 6-9/10
• 7% to magic find magic small charms - magic find 10/10, price 3/10
• Gheed's fortune unique charm - magic find 10/10, price 4/10

Mercenary

Have a Normal Act2 Combat or Defensive Mercenary (Prayer or Defiance aura) to provide you with mana and life regeneration, or additional defense.

Ethereal items don't lose durability if your mercenary wears them, so having ethereal item bases for each gear slot is preferred due to their increased defense on armor items and increased damage on weapons. In many instances ethereal items that are great for mercenaries will be much more expensive than non-ethereal ones.

Mercenary gear:

Helm

• Any 3 socketed helm with 3 perfect diamond to increase mercenary resistances and survivability - usefulness 5/10, price 1/10
• Tal Rasha's set helm - usefulness 6/10, price 3/10
• Vampire Gaze unique helm - usefulness 7/10, price 4/10
• Guillame's face set helm - usefulness 8/10, price 4/10
• Andariel's Visage unique helm - usefulness 10/10, price 5/10

Weapon

• Insight runeword to provide you with meditation aura so you never run out of mana - preferably in elite base - usefulness 7/10, price 4/10
• Bonehew unique weapon - usefulness 5/10, price 4/10
• Tomb Reaver unique weapon - usefulness 6/10, price 5/10
• Reaper's Toll unique weapon - usefulness 8/10, price 6/10
• Infinity runeword - usefulness 7/10, price 8/10

Body Armor

• Treachery runeword - usefulness 9/10, price 4/10
• Fortitude - usefulness 10/10, price 7/10

Rpgstash.com will have D2R items in its Ladder selection already on day 1. We will be doing our best to let you buy 2.4 ladder items right at the beginning of the season including the new runewords, so you can climb the ladder rankings as fast as possible!

If you want to get the best items and runewords in the game, check out our D2R Store.