A bliz sorc with 1 point in static field and a decent merc can still get through most anything without infinity. Little bit of positioning and tele micro and you're good
Infinity doesn't break cold immune so that doesn't matter just a few more points in cold mastery and you get plenty of extra skill points for that and insight does alot more dmg then infinity for cold immune you actually have to kill like lord de sies in cs
@@mikesousa4733 I think what he means is they don't have a decent merc either, which is why they need the dual spec. I know this was the case for me when I played through hell solo, chaos kicked my butt repeatedly until I respecced into orb wall. but also, I hadn't built up the static field + tele micro skill at that point. now I can easily farm chaos sanctuary with insight on the merc.
@@dom9568 I don't think that was his point. People usually duel spec to get around monsters immune to their primary element. When you duel spec your kill speed suffers a lot, especially on higher player numbers. Using an infinity in the video negates that slow kill speed. Phil actually made a video a few weeks ago if him clearing cows with the orb/wall build and no infinity and it didn't work well at all.
i think these videos would be better if merc didnt have infinity. "average" offline players trying out these builds likely havent found those kinds of HR's.
Love your content but agree here. Especially if one of the key differentiators that you lead with is that cold only sorc cant deal with immunities. Infinity makes this less relevant for average non infinity players. Keep up the great content!
Yeah I agree but for another reason. People usually mix elements because they don't have an infinity yet and need a way to kill monsters immune to their primary element, there's no other reason to duel spec. Using an infinity on a duel elemental build seems weird and sub optimal.
Before I got my Infinity and thus switched to lightning, I tried running straight blizz, meteor-blizz (rarely used meteor- fireball was killing most things before the meteor even landed) and meteor-forb (again, used fireball mostly) Out of all 3, especially without infinity, meteor-forb felt the best to me. Opened up so many more farming options than straight blizzard. Often times rivaled or even beat it in killing speed in most places... Except cows. It's hard to beat blizzard for clearing cows lol
I’m actually Chain and Orb for the areas I farm and I love it. Chain just goes so far and is easy peasy lazy reaches everything screens away and I don’t have to worry. For the colds the orb close damage range makes quick work with somewhat low investment. I don’t even use infinity on that sorc. I run three sorcs built all different ways but I find that build so good for long endurance due to how low involvement it is. Sometimes I’ll even mix it up with charged bolt for fun since that shit will fill a screen so damn fast and devilkin fall over anyhow. I have ran plenty of the other builds and some of my sorcs still are that way but I like how u can spam CL in between FO’s. After u learn to tele-stomp archer packs the right way it’s beautiful.
Same here. Chain and Orb clears every area in the game while also rockin between 400 and 500% MF. I love to use Insight for QoL over Infinity, so it has to be hybrid and CL / Orb is the best and most fun one imho. Firewall on the other hand isnt a fun to use skill at all.
Are you reading my mind dude?!? Literally the other day I watched your video on farming chaos for runes and BOOM I got my first Lo rune. Was thinking of re-specing my blizz sorc and now this video. Keep it up my guy.
I was using fireorb before I knew it was bugged. But once it was nerfed killing bosses was just better with orb only spam. I switched to orb lighting sorc and that is not to bad. I still use frozen orb on bosses but lighting is very good for anything cold immune. I don't have a griffons(?) Or use any facets or deaths fathom yet but it works. lighting works better with orb after the nerf to firewall. The best part about orb lighting is you can send out a orb and spam lighting right after and it will hit at the same time. The frozen orb firewall acts like it is on the same cool down.
Hi Phil, I was the one that asked about a cold sorc build in Chat yesterday, just finished watching this video and it’s exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your continue effort to share your thoughts and insight into D2R game play.
I farm most of the time by myself in mp so mix elements it is, it scales good p 1-5 . I can drop some mf and throw bunch of skillers on her but I like how it is. For p8 I use my summoner necro, about 200mf but lvl48 skellys and 42 summons+ beast rune word do the job. I think that when ladder was announced less people are playing.
yeep, most of them stopped farming and are doing extra shifts at work to be out of work for 2 weeks once ladder starts :P (most of people who loved D2:LoD back in 2000's are now... working people)
I prefer the FB/orb combo over FW any day, the AoE dmg of FB really makes a difference, especially with cold immune mob packs... I'm also a little surprised by the dmg output Phil has on his orb. My sorc, lvl 93, decently geared (not fully) does around 650 orb dmg, fully geared (with cold skillers) it might even reach a few hundred points higher edit: FB dmg is around 4k btw...
Woah Phil! On your Bliz spec you could be doing more dps if you put those remaining points in Frozen Orb to boost your Ice blast's synergy bonus. Also, for the players who don't have Infinity, one point in static field is really helpful for softening the cold immunes so your merc can finish them off easier. A budget bliz sorc with 1 point in static should still be able to do countess runs as long as your merc can deal half decent dmg.
while I agree with you I also think that there are some other considerations to making your decision on what to build if you are planning on going solo. first off relying on the merc to do any meaningful damage to cold immunes early on is a no-go, especially now that we cant bug him; I have a feeling most mercs are going to spend most of the first couple days/weeks of ladder in town. second, there is additional utility in running warmth as a synergy to wall, namely that you are going to be less reliant on Insight for mana; not having as high of insight uptime is going to be a big change for D2R season 1. To me this is the most apparent when you are under-geared and are slamming pots to just tele along, and doesn't start to get better till you have a shako. The last thing is the natural progression of skills and difficulty in the game. In nightmare FO is the clear choice for clearing and then transitions seamlessly into the FO/FW build without a respec. It allows you to face hell ancients and clear the required immunities in CS and the Throneroom without worrying about your merc getting clapped. It also gives an advantage in the 60's of easy Hell Andy clears while the bliz spec is still ramping up the synergies. If you plan on running with a group the other players can make up for any immunity issues and going single element is the clear choice for the increase in power; Blizzard will probably be best assuming your groups aren't 70%+ cold sorcs like it was during D2R ladder launch. I farm with bliz on live because it is faster than any hybrid spec and my merc is strong enough to pop De Seis (without Infinity). But for me, clearing the game solo, the utility offered by the FO/FW spec outweighs the kill speed loss on cows and bosses. My current plan for Ladder is to run the dual spec to Andy for my initial gear, then clear the game and swap to bliz to do my endgame farming, however 2.4 could change that entirely. 2.4 very well may bring some major changes to how the sorc functions and I am pretty well convinced that FW is getting a Buff after all the outcry we heard when it got nerfed post-launch. The other major consideration is the Nova changes for 2.4. Nova is already a decent spec to run at 105fcr on live, and with some synergies it will increase the likelihood that monsters go into hit recovery which will make it far safer to run. Nova is comparable with Blizzard on cows, the proposed synergy of static is very strong in groups, and Hell Countess being Cold and Fire immune are all pretty compelling arguments for running Nova for early Hell farming (ignoring bosses). We very well may see Nova/FW builds being a top contender come Ladder launch and I am definitely keeping a chose eye on both skills as they iterate changes through the beta.
This is solid thinking. Alot depends on the 2.4. Don't forget new level 85 areas and Blizzard has admitted to shortcomings with the majority of fire skills in hell (mentioned Hydra in particular for sorc). That leads me to believe fire will be getting some boosts and that the new areas might be locations with fewer fire immunes.
It depends on what Emilio has. If he has the GigaChad beat down stick do whatever you want. If Emilio is broke save the headache and dual spec. I mean realistically though the three most common places you’re going to farm on a sorc is Andy, Ancient Tunnels and Myph. So none of this matters 😂
I would like to see the same video without infinity and players4 vs p8 just for reference how effective it really is as I usually play on 4-8 depending on what I’m doing.
Glacial spike imo is better than ice blast for the aoe freeze. Its so much safer and helps keep your merc alive in scary places like WSK, chaos, and cows. Its a bit less dmg but the utility is so much better.
@@MountFer3 ok then maybe i'm too hectic but my fire walls went everywhere but not where i want them to Have better results with leaning back and let chain lightning do it's Job
@@Luke-tg9jy everything on console is auto aim. The enemy name plate you see is the direction/spot you are targeting and will cast the spell. This makes spells like frozen orb, lighting really strong because the auto aim to an enemy. So orb is always hitting in the centre of the orb (more damage). It makes blizzard and meteor not as strong because you can’t place them where you want. Why orb/F wall is so strong on console. Orb is much better blizzard (on low players) for console. Things like a chaos run. Orb clears everything and the cold immunes are oblivion knights which are casters. So you move you direction until on of their name tags lights up and cast firewall. Then stand in it and die. You can move you position so you hit multiple at the same time. Doesn’t take much practice. Firewall is the secondary skill though. Orb is your main attack.
Ever since the Fire Wall 'nerf' that fixed it's damage, I went to Orb+Fire Ball. I only play SSF online so only players 1 but being able to farm a variety of content and areas without much trouble definitely keeps me from getting bored as easy.. I farm Countess, Pits, Andariel, Ancient Tunnels, Summoner, Lower Kurast, Travincal, Mephisto, Diablo, Pindleskin, Eldritch+Shenk, Thresh Socket, Nihlathak, and Baal. Pretty much go through the entire game from A1-A5 and keeps me from getting bored of doing only Cold friendly areas
hi phil your video inspired me to start a game single player and i messed up my sorc with a orb wall and now im stuck it is my first single player and its already like lvl 70 hell and i used all of my 3 restat is there a mod or something i can have a tokken ? because im stuck in a3
Merc with Eth Reaper’s on Blizzard Sorc with a few points into Nova and 1pt light mastery takes out skeltons in throne and merc easily handles other immunes quickly. A row of mana is all I need. Another benefit is cold + decrepify and physical immune breaking.
Imo you are playing the orb+wall wrong. First you pop the firewall next to you (right or left) so it extends into the mobs approaching. And after that you just orb away, not one or the other. The way I often play is put two firewalls on either side of me so they both go into the mobs ahead, orb, static, static, static, orb, orb, orb... stuff dies rather quickly then. With the new quick cast bar its rather easy to play this style.
Early on with low gear I go pure Blizz to get Andy and Mef hell, after you get some items Orb Wall is more flexible and more fun to play. You can do chaos, baal and prettt much all 85lvl locations. I always respec from blizz to orb wall after week or two after ladder reset
Should have added all key runs, and baal though. Most of the places you chose didn’t have cold immunes. Obviously the stronger cold wins. Most average players don’t have a godly merc either.
on multiplayer (so i can play only at player 1) i had a firewall-orb sorcress, wich i respec'd after patch 2.4. Now i use a frozen orb - firaball/meteor sorcress. i have no infinity and i can melt anything on my way on hell, clean all area 85 areas, do baalruns and everything alone. frozen orb + fireball and meteor is the way!
Finally started leveling a sorc, blizzard pisses me off so much more than hammerdin, the blizz will be right on top of a mob standing still but will completely miss, im boutta respect to Orb just for the reliability 😤
@@aristonmain Yeah I read that after I specced thankfully Its worked up to hell, i tried putting points in firewall but it's not good enough to kill the elite in the den of evil so im def gonna respec now or keep farming nightmare im lvl 52 rn 😩
@@ComfortablyDumb42069 I just got to Hell for the first time and it took me ~10 minutes to kill the zombies with cold immunity with Firewall in the Den of Evil XD XD XD it was so awkward
I was orb/fire wall but changed to 20/20 Blizzard/Ice Blast and 20/20 Firebolt/Fireball and can farm any location or boss with just insight merc. I think Blizz is way more effective than Orb since it hits everyone in the area and you can cast other stuff in between. Orbs ice bolts dont pierce so you only hit 1st line of mobs. Orb more effective on scattered enemies tho.
Is Baal Wave 2 and Nihlatak too much of a pain to do it with the Blizz? Use a Orb/Ball for Token/Key Farming and Mfing in Tunnels. The Blizz would be so much better in DPS i know but is my Char still able to to what i need it for? Thanks for your answers!
I use bliz to deal with everything outside of Countess. The slowdowns are just De Seis in CS, and the skellies in wave 2, but you basically just static them and let the merc deal. you do however need to have a pretty decent merc or it will take forever. Mine is rocking a Eth CV insight and a Treach in an Eth Lac plate and he does alright. I have seen some people do full bliz, 1 CM and use the remaining points in Nova just to have something clickable but I ended up dumping in FO for clearing trash in Norm/NM during rushes and the boosted IB damage. about 70% of the time Nihl isn't cold immune, so if you drop a bliz on him he dies without getting a chance to do a CE, but I do have to reroll games he rolls CI. Its not too bad though because he is about 20 seconds away from the WP at 105% FCR.
I do a blizzard fireball hybrid. My merc deals about 3k damage with eth insight andys and treachery while my blizzard is close to 6k and my fireball is 2k. I only use fireball against immunes, otherwise I just use ice blast cuz it does about 2.6k.
I tried orb/wall but my merc wasn't able to stay alive long enough for wall to kill all the enemies. Im really not a fan of wall being in a straight line i guess
I hope they give everyone a free respec when the balance patch goes live. A lot of people are going to want to change builds if they change much at all.
Before I had infinity I used to switch specs because of bordem, I found that orb lightning can be good if you have decent+skill gear. I wish they didn't nerf firewall. It was imo the only good fire spell.
With infinity, max fireball + max warmth is a lot of fun. Amazing for cows and clearing all of durance level 3, also mausoleum. You just keep fireball on main and tele for secondary skill, the easiest class to play for me so far.
@@vitalsteve1 I'm pretty sure the issue is in the calculation. Warmth influences the base damage of wall, so it is multiplicative with FM, where FM is just additive. I don't know the calculation but that's what I have understood it as. Also synergies only benefit from hard points, while mastery benefits from +Skills so there may be more value in the hard points being skewed towards warmth as +skills increases. Math...
you dont skip cold immunes with blizzard sorc... you telestomp them... And you can easliy do Eldrich and Shenk with bliz... you just static and merc kills them in like 10 secs total.
With worse gear, go for Orb/Firewall. It allows you to take out cold immune monsters faster, and orb can clean up the rest. With better gear, go Blizzard. Blizzard will melt 90% of the enemies, and if your gear is good enough, your merc will dominate the rest, and you will survive much better against cold immune monsters. Edit: he casually finds a 4 soc eth thresher lol
orb + wall for non-expansion. Blizz + Glacial spike (crowd control) with strong merc to clear content without need for infinity. Otherwise just go Lightning with infinity merc.
I feel this comparison is just like comparing an hammerdin with an hybrid charge/zealer. Orb isn't that good imo. Did some research myself and ended up with blizz/fb mf sorc. 40points in blizzard+synergies does more damage then into orb+synergies. Also the AoE is much better. In the end it all comes down to playstyle preference. Effective in restricted areas, or a little bit slower and able to do almost every mf location.
I think after the nerf, orb/wall is only good in the early acts, after that the damage starts lacking when facing high density areas. The cooldown on both skills is mainly the reason in my experience.
infinity sux, gotta telebomb w/ merc if merc hit target then removes the immunity... better max cold mastery and run area w/ less C.I. and insight for infinite mana w/ ES way quicker... GREAT info and video nevertheless, infinity is only worth using if u wield it in my opinion (dual nova gg sorc)
Sure looks like you had your mind made up before you did the video. You probably play blizzard so you should take into consideration the ideas of an orb wall sorc for skill distribution. You might be surprised with a little tweeking of the skills.
Great video, interesting topic! If I may, I have a question regarding Forge quest. Do you know if the character level has an impact on the chance to drop an higher rune when doing the forge? I mean if I do the forge quest at Hell with a character level = 70 vs a character level = 85, is there a difference?
with your 20 remaining pts on a high lvl blizz sorc… 1pt warmth, 1 pt fire mastery n rest into firewall just to kill cold immunes. So you get the best of both worlds, the massive blizz dam to clear out everything and the firewall is strong enough to kill the cold immune oblivion knights in chaos (and firewall is also enough to kill the cold skele mages of baal wave 2). Orb + fire skill hybrids are obsolete cause orb damage is iust too trash even with nightwing and fathom to buff the orb damage. Maybe acti-blizzard could UP the synergy % number and also just the base damage of orb to make it more competitive :).
Fire wall useless now that they "fixed it". Impossible to cast effectively where you need it. Seems to be even more difficult on console than I remember it being on PC. Console leaves much to be desired.
1 point in Cold Mastery is enough with top gear...+16 points from gear and charms(anni/torch)...17 total(-100% Cold resists).....add in Infinity and you get -185%(thats enough to pierce all of the cold resistance).....i accounted rings as mf rings but belt as Arach(for FCR AND Skill)......only go for 10 hard points into cold Mastery IF dont have infinity
20 cold mastery is overkill for most mobs. In hell most mobs have 0 rez to cold, so a -100 puts them to the max negative resistance (CM of 17 After +skills). The notable exceptions are if you are running mostly cows and bosses as Cows start with a base +50 and bosses run +50 to +75. A lot of players only put 1 in CM and then let their +skills take it from there as each point is only a 5% gain which is equivalent to a blizzard synergy (that you will always get use out of). If you are interested in trying out a new ES build I really like my Nova sorc and hopefully the 2.4 changes make it hit a lot harder. :D
The problem with sorc is blizzard is just OP. If you spend 40 points in blizzard vs the 40 points maxing out frozen orb the blizzard will do more dmg. And since the nerf firewall only does roughly 10% of the dmg it says it does. You even notice it in this video your blizzard kills way faster than firewall does even on Andariel. You essentially need infinity just to make firewall kill anything now you should try to use firewall without infinity if you want to be really depressed.
I don't like that he used an infinity for this. If you don't have the infinity then frozen orb and firewall is many times better just because you can't break the cold immunity enough to deal good cold damage.
At this level doesn't matter tbh. This comparison makes no sense. Same like comparing cars for 1mil$ while most people driving car worth 20-40k. Would like to see at 35-40lvl 55-60lvl.
Meteor and frozen orb are the best combo. Firewall is terrible. Though i suppose playing on pc would make a significant difference for aiming. On the ps4 it's definitely no bueno.
Orb+Wall is more an Exp build, or a build which you can try to use to beat the game itself... pure 1 elemental builds is basicaly build for farming or pvp... OFC you can farm with Orb + Wall.... my first ever cold sorc was orb sorc, it wasnt so fast at killing as blizz, but was more secure in general killing, especialy back in 2000s... and cows? i'll take orb over blizzard for farming cows...
Y r u using infinity on merc for this test wtf? Of course it's gonna skew towards FW coz infinity does nothing for cold and essentially dbling ur FW dps. Furthermore, once u can afford infinity, you'll just respec to light sorc coz almost no immunities anymore u can't break. These 2 builds are more for budget/league starting. Blizz > Hybrid if u farming non cold immune areas, especially cow, hybrid > blizzard for areas with immunities.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
If you are going to compare the two you need to realize the reason people go with orb and wall is because they don't have an infinity.
A bliz sorc with 1 point in static field and a decent merc can still get through most anything without infinity. Little bit of positioning and tele micro and you're good
Infinity doesn't break cold immune so that doesn't matter just a few more points in cold mastery and you get plenty of extra skill points for that and insight does alot more dmg then infinity for cold immune you actually have to kill like lord de sies in cs
@@mikesousa4733 I think what he means is they don't have a decent merc either, which is why they need the dual spec. I know this was the case for me when I played through hell solo, chaos kicked my butt repeatedly until I respecced into orb wall. but also, I hadn't built up the static field + tele micro skill at that point. now I can easily farm chaos sanctuary with insight on the merc.
@@dom9568 I don't think that was his point. People usually duel spec to get around monsters immune to their primary element. When you duel spec your kill speed suffers a lot, especially on higher player numbers. Using an infinity in the video negates that slow kill speed.
Phil actually made a video a few weeks ago if him clearing cows with the orb/wall build and no infinity and it didn't work well at all.
Yeah I hate these conclusions bases on gear you have to farm without that gear.
i think these videos would be better if merc didnt have infinity. "average" offline players trying out these builds likely havent found those kinds of HR's.
Love your content but agree here. Especially if one of the key differentiators that you lead with is that cold only sorc cant deal with immunities. Infinity makes this less relevant for average non infinity players. Keep up the great content!
orbwall build WITH infinity doesn't really make sense. the point of playing dual spec is to beat immunities UNTIL you get infinity.
Areed
Yeah I agree but for another reason. People usually mix elements because they don't have an infinity yet and need a way to kill monsters immune to their primary element, there's no other reason to duel spec. Using an infinity on a duel elemental build seems weird and sub optimal.
@@jonsteward6608 even obedience and smoke
Before I got my Infinity and thus switched to lightning, I tried running straight blizz, meteor-blizz (rarely used meteor- fireball was killing most things before the meteor even landed) and meteor-forb (again, used fireball mostly)
Out of all 3, especially without infinity, meteor-forb felt the best to me. Opened up so many more farming options than straight blizzard. Often times rivaled or even beat it in killing speed in most places... Except cows.
It's hard to beat blizzard for clearing cows lol
I’m actually Chain and Orb for the areas I farm and I love it. Chain just goes so far and is easy peasy lazy reaches everything screens away and I don’t have to worry. For the colds the orb close damage range makes quick work with somewhat low investment. I don’t even use infinity on that sorc. I run three sorcs built all different ways but I find that build so good for long endurance due to how low involvement it is. Sometimes I’ll even mix it up with charged bolt for fun since that shit will fill a screen so damn fast and devilkin fall over anyhow.
I have ran plenty of the other builds and some of my sorcs still are that way but I like how u can spam CL in between FO’s.
After u learn to tele-stomp archer packs the right way it’s beautiful.
Same here. Chain and Orb clears every area in the game while also rockin between 400 and 500% MF. I love to use Insight for QoL over Infinity, so it has to be hybrid and CL / Orb is the best and most fun one imho. Firewall on the other hand isnt a fun to use skill at all.
I thought same thing but over player 4 ur f'd
Do you use crescent moon for the lightning part?
@@MrPeperoni79 Nope. Just Oculus for MF or Hoto if mf is not your concern
Whew ready to spend a skill point (in the lvl70;s..) do you add to a Synergy of CL, or Light Mastery maxing first?
Are you reading my mind dude?!? Literally the other day I watched your video on farming chaos for runes and BOOM I got my first Lo rune. Was thinking of re-specing my blizz sorc and now this video. Keep it up my guy.
FB/FW + orb for beating the game and blizzard for farming
I was using fireorb before I knew it was bugged. But once it was nerfed killing bosses was just better with orb only spam. I switched to orb lighting sorc and that is not to bad. I still use frozen orb on bosses but lighting is very good for anything cold immune. I don't have a griffons(?) Or use any facets or deaths fathom yet but it works. lighting works better with orb after the nerf to firewall. The best part about orb lighting is you can send out a orb and spam lighting right after and it will hit at the same time. The frozen orb firewall acts like it is on the same cool down.
Hi Phil, I was the one that asked about a cold sorc build in Chat yesterday, just finished watching this video and it’s exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your continue effort to share your thoughts and insight into D2R game play.
I farm most of the time by myself in mp so mix elements it is, it scales good p 1-5 . I can drop some mf and throw bunch of skillers on her but I like how it is. For p8 I use my summoner necro, about 200mf but lvl48 skellys and 42 summons+ beast rune word do the job. I think that when ladder was announced less people are playing.
yeep, most of them stopped farming and are doing extra shifts at work to be out of work for 2 weeks once ladder starts :P (most of people who loved D2:LoD back in 2000's are now... working people)
@@sytrostormlord3275 yes I'm one of those working people. :)
FW doesn't work that great anymore, FB is better to pair with orb tbh.
I prefer the FB/orb combo over FW any day, the AoE dmg of FB really makes a difference, especially with cold immune mob packs...
I'm also a little surprised by the dmg output Phil has on his orb. My sorc, lvl 93, decently geared (not fully) does around 650 orb dmg, fully geared (with cold skillers) it might even reach a few hundred points higher
edit: FB dmg is around 4k btw...
This my sorc is fireball frozen orb and has no issues even before infinity runeword was crafted for her merc.
I play Orb/Chain Lightning and I can easily and also fast farm every area in the game (except for ubers of course) with 440% MF
id be interested to hear your talent point build for this
Great video! I'm happy that no more gg blood amulets got poofed in the making of this video.
😆
For MF Sorc with no Infinity merc the best build is Lightning + Frozen Orb.
Amen to that.
Woah Phil! On your Bliz spec you could be doing more dps if you put those remaining points in Frozen Orb to boost your Ice blast's synergy bonus. Also, for the players who don't have Infinity, one point in static field is really helpful for softening the cold immunes so your merc can finish them off easier. A budget bliz sorc with 1 point in static should still be able to do countess runs as long as your merc can deal half decent dmg.
while I agree with you I also think that there are some other considerations to making your decision on what to build if you are planning on going solo.
first off relying on the merc to do any meaningful damage to cold immunes early on is a no-go, especially now that we cant bug him; I have a feeling most mercs are going to spend most of the first couple days/weeks of ladder in town.
second, there is additional utility in running warmth as a synergy to wall, namely that you are going to be less reliant on Insight for mana; not having as high of insight uptime is going to be a big change for D2R season 1. To me this is the most apparent when you are under-geared and are slamming pots to just tele along, and doesn't start to get better till you have a shako.
The last thing is the natural progression of skills and difficulty in the game. In nightmare FO is the clear choice for clearing and then transitions seamlessly into the FO/FW build without a respec. It allows you to face hell ancients and clear the required immunities in CS and the Throneroom without worrying about your merc getting clapped. It also gives an advantage in the 60's of easy Hell Andy clears while the bliz spec is still ramping up the synergies.
If you plan on running with a group the other players can make up for any immunity issues and going single element is the clear choice for the increase in power; Blizzard will probably be best assuming your groups aren't 70%+ cold sorcs like it was during D2R ladder launch.
I farm with bliz on live because it is faster than any hybrid spec and my merc is strong enough to pop De Seis (without Infinity). But for me, clearing the game solo, the utility offered by the FO/FW spec outweighs the kill speed loss on cows and bosses. My current plan for Ladder is to run the dual spec to Andy for my initial gear, then clear the game and swap to bliz to do my endgame farming, however 2.4 could change that entirely.
2.4 very well may bring some major changes to how the sorc functions and I am pretty well convinced that FW is getting a Buff after all the outcry we heard when it got nerfed post-launch. The other major consideration is the Nova changes for 2.4. Nova is already a decent spec to run at 105fcr on live, and with some synergies it will increase the likelihood that monsters go into hit recovery which will make it far safer to run. Nova is comparable with Blizzard on cows, the proposed synergy of static is very strong in groups, and Hell Countess being Cold and Fire immune are all pretty compelling arguments for running Nova for early Hell farming (ignoring bosses). We very well may see Nova/FW builds being a top contender come Ladder launch and I am definitely keeping a chose eye on both skills as they iterate changes through the beta.
This is solid thinking. Alot depends on the 2.4. Don't forget new level 85 areas and Blizzard has admitted to shortcomings with the majority of fire skills in hell (mentioned Hydra in particular for sorc). That leads me to believe fire will be getting some boosts and that the new areas might be locations with fewer fire immunes.
It depends on what Emilio has. If he has the GigaChad beat down stick do whatever you want. If Emilio is broke save the headache and dual spec. I mean realistically though the three most common places you’re going to farm on a sorc is Andy, Ancient Tunnels and Myph. So none of this matters 😂
I would like to see the same video without infinity and players4 vs p8 just for reference how effective it really is as I usually play on 4-8 depending on what I’m doing.
Love it! Currently making it hybrid blizball sorc
Glacial spike imo is better than ice blast for the aoe freeze. Its so much safer and helps keep your merc alive in scary places like WSK, chaos, and cows. Its a bit less dmg but the utility is so much better.
For all the Console players: Dont pick fire wall, aiming with it is horrible, so is Meteor
I'd stick with blizz or lightning orb, works way better
I disagree. I find it really easy to use fire wall on console. I like the auto-aim of it.
@@MountFer3 ok then maybe i'm too hectic but my fire walls went everywhere but not where i want them to
Have better results with leaning back and let chain lightning do it's Job
@@MountFer3 How do you turn that on cuz I can't hit anything I actually want to
@@Randybobandy024 that's what I respec to as well
@@Luke-tg9jy everything on console is auto aim. The enemy name plate you see is the direction/spot you are targeting and will cast the spell.
This makes spells like frozen orb, lighting really strong because the auto aim to an enemy. So orb is always hitting in the centre of the orb (more damage).
It makes blizzard and meteor not as strong because you can’t place them where you want.
Why orb/F wall is so strong on console. Orb is much better blizzard (on low players) for console.
Things like a chaos run. Orb clears everything and the cold immunes are oblivion knights which are casters. So you move you direction until on of their name tags lights up and cast firewall. Then stand in it and die. You can move you position so you hit multiple at the same time. Doesn’t take much practice.
Firewall is the secondary skill though. Orb is your main attack.
Ever since the Fire Wall 'nerf' that fixed it's damage, I went to Orb+Fire Ball. I only play SSF online so only players 1 but being able to farm a variety of content and areas without much trouble definitely keeps me from getting bored as easy.. I farm Countess, Pits, Andariel, Ancient Tunnels, Summoner, Lower Kurast, Travincal, Mephisto, Diablo, Pindleskin, Eldritch+Shenk, Thresh Socket, Nihlathak, and Baal. Pretty much go through the entire game from A1-A5 and keeps me from getting bored of doing only Cold friendly areas
hi phil your video inspired me to start a game single player and i messed up my sorc with a orb wall and now im stuck it is my first single player and its already like lvl 70 hell and i used all of my 3 restat is there a mod or something i can have a tokken ? because im stuck in a3
got no gear my best item is a spirit sowrd got like 90% fcr and poor dmg
Merc with Eth Reaper’s on Blizzard Sorc with a few points into Nova and 1pt light mastery takes out skeltons in throne and merc easily handles other immunes quickly. A row of mana is all I need. Another benefit is cold + decrepify and physical immune breaking.
I felt the hell out of finding that 4os eth thresher on single player
Imo you are playing the orb+wall wrong. First you pop the firewall next to you (right or left) so it extends into the mobs approaching. And after that you just orb away, not one or the other. The way I often play is put two firewalls on either side of me so they both go into the mobs ahead, orb, static, static, static, orb, orb, orb... stuff dies rather quickly then. With the new quick cast bar its rather easy to play this style.
Early on with low gear I go pure Blizz to get Andy and Mef hell, after you get some items Orb Wall is more flexible and more fun to play. You can do chaos, baal and prettt much all 85lvl locations. I always respec from blizz to orb wall after week or two after ladder reset
Thanks for this, I just started Hell and was wondering how to respec my Sorc, Blizzard it is then. 😄
Should have added all key runs, and baal though. Most of the places you chose didn’t have cold immunes. Obviously the stronger cold wins. Most average players don’t have a godly merc either.
Blizzard better for sure for p8.... prefer orb in p1
Should have done pure Meteor vs Blizzard for Cows, Andy, Mephy, Ancient tunnels.
on multiplayer (so i can play only at player 1) i had a firewall-orb sorcress, wich i respec'd after patch 2.4. Now i use a frozen orb - firaball/meteor sorcress. i have no infinity and i can melt anything on my way on hell, clean all area 85 areas, do baalruns and everything alone. frozen orb + fireball and meteor is the way!
I orb firewall find very few areas that I can't clear, usually always get around immunities with fire and cold
Finally started leveling a sorc, blizzard pisses me off so much more than hammerdin, the blizz will be right on top of a mob standing still but will completely miss, im boutta respect to Orb just for the reliability 😤
Cuz you go orb first then respec to blizz. Cuz early game blizz sucks
@@aristonmain Yeah I read that after I specced thankfully Its worked up to hell, i tried putting points in firewall but it's not good enough to kill the elite in the den of evil so im def gonna respec now or keep farming nightmare im lvl 52 rn 😩
@@ComfortablyDumb42069 I just got to Hell for the first time and it took me ~10 minutes to kill the zombies with cold immunity with Firewall in the Den of Evil XD XD XD it was so awkward
I was orb/fire wall but changed to 20/20 Blizzard/Ice Blast and 20/20 Firebolt/Fireball and can farm any location or boss with just insight merc. I think Blizz is way more effective than Orb since it hits everyone in the area and you can cast other stuff in between. Orbs ice bolts dont pierce so you only hit 1st line of mobs. Orb more effective on scattered enemies tho.
Love to see the same comparison without Infinity, either way I enjoyed the video
Maybe with Insight instead of infinity.
isn't the point of playing orbwall build to go around immunities UNTIL you get infinity?
Is Baal Wave 2 and Nihlatak too much of a pain to do it with the Blizz? Use a Orb/Ball for Token/Key Farming and Mfing in Tunnels. The Blizz would be so much better in DPS i know but is my Char still able to to what i need it for? Thanks for your answers!
I use bliz to deal with everything outside of Countess. The slowdowns are just De Seis in CS, and the skellies in wave 2, but you basically just static them and let the merc deal. you do however need to have a pretty decent merc or it will take forever. Mine is rocking a Eth CV insight and a Treach in an Eth Lac plate and he does alright.
I have seen some people do full bliz, 1 CM and use the remaining points in Nova just to have something clickable but I ended up dumping in FO for clearing trash in Norm/NM during rushes and the boosted IB damage.
about 70% of the time Nihl isn't cold immune, so if you drop a bliz on him he dies without getting a chance to do a CE, but I do have to reroll games he rolls CI. Its not too bad though because he is about 20 seconds away from the WP at 105% FCR.
Thank you for taking the Time to Help me Out! Gonna give it a try 😊
I do a blizzard fireball hybrid. My merc deals about 3k damage with eth insight andys and treachery while my blizzard is close to 6k and my fireball is 2k. I only use fireball against immunes, otherwise I just use ice blast cuz it does about 2.6k.
I tried orb/wall but my merc wasn't able to stay alive long enough for wall to kill all the enemies. Im really not a fan of wall being in a straight line i guess
Same I been using orb/fireball for years upon years. Non es it wrecks once you have right gears.
I’m just curious because you didn’t mention. Is that players 1?
I thought I did mention, but yes that's players 1.
He was mocking you because you said it annoyingly often
I hope they give everyone a free respec when the balance patch goes live. A lot of people are going to want to change builds if they change much at all.
Before I had infinity I used to switch specs because of bordem, I found that orb lightning can be good if you have decent+skill gear.
I wish they didn't nerf firewall. It was imo the only good fire spell.
With infinity, max fireball + max warmth is a lot of fun. Amazing for cows and clearing all of durance level 3, also mausoleum. You just keep fireball on main and tele for secondary skill, the easiest class to play for me so far.
If I remember correctly To maximize damage on FW you want 3 more points in warmth than you do fire mastery
this doesnt make any sense at all and i dont know why people keep sreading this.
warmth is +4
mastery is +7.
please stop
@@vitalsteve1 lol
@@vitalsteve1 I'm pretty sure the issue is in the calculation. Warmth influences the base damage of wall, so it is multiplicative with FM, where FM is just additive. I don't know the calculation but that's what I have understood it as.
Also synergies only benefit from hard points, while mastery benefits from +Skills so there may be more value in the hard points being skewed towards warmth as +skills increases.
Math...
@@bobnewkirk7003 yea i hadnt heard that, ill have to look into the actual calculations. thanks!
I've been trying to socket/find an eth 4os thresher forever! Just drops like no big deal...
I currently have blizz fwall, with blast as left click. Curious about maybe blizz fball, or orb lightnin.
Defiantly depends on what you farm. Single target, firewall melts, multi-target blizz is the place to be.
definitely*
you dont skip cold immunes with blizzard sorc... you telestomp them... And you can easliy do Eldrich and Shenk with bliz... you just static and merc kills them in like 10 secs total.
I run 1 into Orb enough in to cold mastery to get 150% and rest into chain lighting und bonuses for light.
With worse gear, go for Orb/Firewall. It allows you to take out cold immune monsters faster, and orb can clean up the rest.
With better gear, go Blizzard. Blizzard will melt 90% of the enemies, and if your gear is good enough, your merc will dominate the rest, and you will survive much better against cold immune monsters.
Edit: he casually finds a 4 soc eth thresher lol
orb + wall for non-expansion. Blizz + Glacial spike (crowd control) with strong merc to clear content without need for infinity. Otherwise just go Lightning with infinity merc.
I feel this comparison is just like comparing an hammerdin with an hybrid charge/zealer. Orb isn't that good imo. Did some research myself and ended up with blizz/fb mf sorc. 40points in blizzard+synergies does more damage then into orb+synergies. Also the AoE is much better. In the end it all comes down to playstyle preference. Effective in restricted areas, or a little bit slower and able to do almost every mf location.
Orb//Wall build is for solo play...Blizz is for group play
I think after the nerf, orb/wall is only good in the early acts, after that the damage starts lacking when facing high density areas. The cooldown on both skills is mainly the reason in my experience.
I am converted. Now when a video starts, I say "Let's get after iiiiit" Sweet Phil style.
Ik this was 2 yrs ago, but i tried it. Lol. Still wrecks. But i changed it to hydra frozen orb. That hydra is insane.
infinity sux, gotta telebomb w/ merc if merc hit target then removes the immunity... better max cold mastery and run area w/ less C.I. and insight for infinite mana w/ ES way quicker... GREAT info and video nevertheless, infinity is only worth using if u wield it in my opinion (dual nova gg sorc)
ps i agree you need to pay more attention w/ FO but maxed cold mastery is great it penetrate w/ non-C.I. better
Sure looks like you had your mind made up before you did the video. You probably play blizzard so you should take into consideration the ideas of an orb wall sorc for skill distribution. You might be surprised with a little tweeking of the skills.
Bad Equipment = Blizzard, Good Equipment = Frozen Orb. Frozen Orb just hits everything
Great video, interesting topic! If I may, I have a question regarding Forge quest. Do you know if the character level has an impact on the chance to drop an higher rune when doing the forge? I mean if I do the forge quest at Hell with a character level = 70 vs a character level = 85, is there a difference?
I have never heard that, so I do not believe your level has any difference on what drops from forge.
with your 20 remaining pts on a high lvl blizz sorc… 1pt warmth, 1 pt fire mastery n rest into firewall just to kill cold immunes.
So you get the best of both worlds, the massive blizz dam to clear out everything and the firewall is strong enough to kill the cold immune oblivion knights in chaos (and firewall is also enough to kill the cold skele mages of baal wave 2).
Orb + fire skill hybrids are obsolete cause orb damage is iust too trash even with nightwing and fathom to buff the orb damage. Maybe acti-blizzard could UP the synergy % number and also just the base damage of orb to make it more competitive :).
Fire wall useless now that they "fixed it". Impossible to cast effectively where you need it. Seems to be even more difficult on console than I remember it being on PC.
Console leaves much to be desired.
1 point in Cold Mastery is enough with top gear...+16 points from gear and charms(anni/torch)...17 total(-100% Cold resists).....add in Infinity and you get -185%(thats enough to pierce all of the cold resistance).....i accounted rings as mf rings but belt as Arach(for FCR AND Skill)......only go for 10 hard points into cold Mastery IF dont have infinity
Once you have an infy... go lightning Soso, Java, or a TrapSin, way faster and clears everything everywhere
If you have infinity then try a bolt orb , fun to play and can be easy done in a tals set with 400 plus mf max block and mega mana regen
I went 20 frozen orb, 20 icebolt, 20 cold mastery, 20 telekenisis and the rest in energy shield. Still trying to find stormshield. Immortal cold spec.
20 cold mastery is overkill for most mobs. In hell most mobs have 0 rez to cold, so a -100 puts them to the max negative resistance (CM of 17 After +skills). The notable exceptions are if you are running mostly cows and bosses as Cows start with a base +50 and bosses run +50 to +75. A lot of players only put 1 in CM and then let their +skills take it from there as each point is only a 5% gain which is equivalent to a blizzard synergy (that you will always get use out of).
If you are interested in trying out a new ES build I really like my Nova sorc and hopefully the 2.4 changes make it hit a lot harder. :D
Orb has the highest fun per second.
Immunities do suck, I normally go fireball and frozen orb. Seems to do ok.
I switched from wall orb to blizzard recently and now it's like playing the game on ez mode
Lightning ?
Still going orb firewall cause I might off my self if I play a blizz sorc for the 1000th time
The problem with sorc is blizzard is just OP. If you spend 40 points in blizzard vs the 40 points maxing out frozen orb the blizzard will do more dmg. And since the nerf firewall only does roughly 10% of the dmg it says it does. You even notice it in this video your blizzard kills way faster than firewall does even on Andariel. You essentially need infinity just to make firewall kill anything now you should try to use firewall without infinity if you want to be really depressed.
The best build is the one you have the most fun playing
For the noobs like myself, it's nice knowing what the meta builds are because as soon as I swapped I stopped dying every 2 seconds. XD
I'm honestly really like it I'm all in om light-orb
How toy kill Countess when you're on blizzard and orb?!?!?
Good merc only only option really. Cold sorc going at countess is not a great idea unless absolutely necessary.
@@SweetPhil For Runes this place it s verry cool
You should do this without infinity
I don't like that he used an infinity for this. If you don't have the infinity then frozen orb and firewall is many times better just because you can't break the cold immunity enough to deal good cold damage.
Having Infinity kinda defeats the purpose of going dual spec.
with infinity the question becomes redundant, no reason to run anything but lightning
Frozen orb Blizzard is what I run. Quick clearing.
At this level doesn't matter tbh. This comparison makes no sense. Same like comparing cars for 1mil$ while most people driving car worth 20-40k. Would like to see at 35-40lvl 55-60lvl.
light orb just works so much better for me...your mileage will vary, tho.
Meteor and frozen orb are the best combo. Firewall is terrible. Though i suppose playing on pc would make a significant difference for aiming. On the ps4 it's definitely no bueno.
They straight up need to fix the holy freeze and conviction aura graphics. They looked so much better in LOD honestly they look like shit now.
I play full lightning without an infinity.
Give the merc a Gface and a Reaperst. and he beat the shit out of the imunities.
Blizzard by far is better. Orb is only OK here due to infinity, otherwise it wouldn't be enough.
Orb+Wall is more an Exp build, or a build which you can try to use to beat the game itself... pure 1 elemental builds is basicaly build for farming or pvp...
OFC you can farm with Orb + Wall.... my first ever cold sorc was orb sorc, it wasnt so fast at killing as blizz, but was more secure in general killing, especialy back in 2000s... and cows? i'll take orb over blizzard for farming cows...
i switched from orb/fw to full blizz and its night and day. they really need to buff orb for it to even compete.
Orb is multi target tho
@@Randybobandy024 so is blizzrd....
@@vitalsteve1 but on a very small area, you cant tell me that you hit more Monsters at once with a Blizzard then an orb
@@Randybobandy024 depends if the mobs are moving or not...
@@vitalsteve1 which mobs aren't moving? Besides those dude ins act 4
The thing is they nerfed orb cast very hqrd
Y r u using infinity on merc for this test wtf? Of course it's gonna skew towards FW coz infinity does nothing for cold and essentially dbling ur FW dps. Furthermore, once u can afford infinity, you'll just respec to light sorc coz almost no immunities anymore u can't break. These 2 builds are more for budget/league starting. Blizz > Hybrid if u farming non cold immune areas, especially cow, hybrid > blizzard for areas with immunities.
blizz/ glacial spike is the way. gear your merc right, and you are good.
i just re spec to a orb fire ball and i like it
ice bolt is such a point waster, 2% damage increase is just not worth it, better to use those 19 skill points elsewhere.
Hydras/Orb sorcs >>>>>>>>>>>>> Those.
blizzard+lightning and i can do everithing what i want.. and nothing will stop mne.. slow yes.. but in time i kill it or merc will :D
Neither. Nova sorc my prefered atm. Can farm many places at lightning speed hehe
building a cold-lightning sorcerous.
Really cant beat tals set for bang for buck. And easily 400 mg ist socketed all tals with ss isted
Demonstrating a build on cows:
Casually drops eth 4 open sockets thresher lol
Run in circles for cows with wall
where is light orb :D i run it and it seems ok too :D
Inferno is the best skill ever.