Well, Frozen Orb is often overlooked in vanilla D2R due to how poor it compares to Blizzard in terms of damage output.
But in D2R Reimagined it not only got it's sole synergy buffed from 2% on vanilla to 5% on d2rr, but it also got it's casting delay reduced from 1 second to 0.6 seconds, making it way more powerful.
But enough chatter, let's get down to business.
To start, the skills.
- Max Frozen Orb - your main skill, no need to explain why
- Max Ice Bolt - your main and only synergy, same deal
- Max Frozen Armor - increases defense, freezes things that come in melee range and adds 1% physical damage reduced per hard point, vital for survivability
- Enough points hard+soft in Cold Mastery to reach -195% enemy cold resistance - D2RR does not have the penalty of cold mastery working at 1/5th the effectivenes, so we can get enemies to -100% cold res (sunder charm gets immunes to 95%, CM does the rest)
- Enough points hard+soft in Static Field to reach 20 yards range - SF is vital to cut enemy groups life, so life gets easier dealing with groups
- One point into Teleport - main mobility skill and what makes you superior in terms of speed versus the other classes
- One point into all the prerequisites (Telekinesis, Ice Blast, Frost Nova, Glacial Spike, Blizzard)
- The leftover points go all into Warmth - not only helps solve mana issues, but every hard point into Warmth gives life after each kill, very useful to survive
Statwise, is the same old story. Enough Strength and Dexterity for gear, the rest into Vitality.
Gear gets a bit complicated, but we have for all budgets.
First the ideal gear
- Head - 15% cold skill damage Nightwings Veil (unique Spired Helm) upgraded with +6 to cold skills and 4 cold facets
- Armor - 20% cold skill damage Iceskin (unique Ornate Plate) with 4 cold facets
- Weapon - 30% cold skill damage Death's Fathom (unique Dimensional Shard) upgraded with 5x +4/-4 cold upgrades and socketed with 3 cold facets
- Shield - 25% cold skill damage Chill of Winter (unique Heater) with 2 cold facets upgraded with 5x 6% all resistances
- Belt - 15% cold skill damage Embracing Hatred (set Battle Belt) upgraded with 3x 6/6 all attributes and resistances
- Boots - 15% cold skill damage Asheara's Slippers (unique Sharkskin Boots) upgraded with 3x +8% max mana and life
- Gloves - +1 to all skills, 20% FCR crafted glove upgraded with 3x +7% faster cast rate
- Amulet - +3 to Cold Skills, +5 to Frozen Orb rare amulet upgraded with 2x +1 to sorceress skills
- Rings - 2x +5 to Frozen Orb 10% FCR rings upgraded with 2x +8% FCR each
- Charms - Cold Super Sunder, Obsidian Torch, Black Soulstone, +2 @skills Queen's Call GC, +3 to Frozen Orb/+Cold skill damage LCs
As you can see, the gear is as optimized as it can get without getting into the realm of “gear that theoretically can spawn/be crafted”. Not even I got half the optimized gear, and still my FOrb Sorceress murders stuff easily.
Now the budget options
- Helmet - Power of Ice (set war hat with +cold skill damage and -enemy cold res), Kingpin's Crown (set shako, basically good ol' Harlequin Crest but much more common), Runewords Lore (as cheap as it gets, as good as it gets) and Piety (+skills, fcr, energy, mana, @res)
- Weapon - Drehya's Globe (unique crystalline globe, stats is basically poor sorc's Death's Fathom), The Oculus, Runewords Thought (another poor sorc's Death's Fathom), Snowdrop (basically a cold Leaf Runeword), Daylight (Jah runes arent THAT rare) and Spirit (as OP as it gets, as cheap as it gets)
- Armor - Ghostly Chainmail (unique chain mail, cold skill damage, -enemy cold res), Celestial Revelation (unique plate mail, cold skill damage, fcr), good ol' Skin of the Vipermagi, Runewords Stealth, Voice (@res and cold skill damage), Revenge (skills, fcr, mana, mana regen, xp boost, life after each kill)
- Shield - Golgomere Shield (unique small shield), Wall of the Eyeless, Crest of Avalon (unique kite shield), good ol Moser's Blessed Circle, Lidless Wall, Runewords Chance, Ancient's Pledge, Revenge, Rhyme, Splendor, Voice, Spirit
- Belt - anything with mana, energy, life, resistances, stats, a good Rare Demonhide Sash for example
- Gloves - Chance Guards, Magefist, Frostburn, Healing Touch, Prismatic Gauntlet, Devil's Invocation, Lady of the Lake, +1 to cold skills gloves, a plain +Magic Find gloves
- Boots - Natalya's Boots, Sander's Boots, any boot with Magic Find or resistances or stats
- Amulet - +3 to Cold Skills is not hard to come by, +2 even, or something else with stats, resistances or mana
- Rings - +to Frozen Orb, FCR, Mana, Stats, All Skills
- Charms - Regular Cold Sunder will do until upgrading, regular cold skillers, stats, big mana/life, + to frozen orb, + to cold skill damage, + to FCR
This is mostly a framework of what could work, it is always recommended to farm before moving thru difficulties so you will end up with some of the pieces in the list. Remember that it is not set in stone (or ice in this case), you can use whatever you have at hand.
For your Mercenary, gear while not free, the good stuff is already budget enough. I am rocking an Act 2 Prayer mercenary.
- Helm - Runeword Fortitude in an ethereal base (lots of damage and survivability), Andariel's Visage with some Um and Ber runes socketed.
- Weapon - Runeword Insight. Non-negotiable, NEEDS at least level 15 Meditation to sustain your Teleport and Frozen Orb spam. Ideal base is an ethereal Cryptic Axe or War Pike (yes, with D2RR you can slap Insight on spears), but any 4 socket Polearm/Spear will do.
- Armor - Runewords Fortitude (my go-to choice), Treachery (Fade is OP), Hustle (attack speed and movement speed are good), Uniques Shaftstop, Corpsemourn, Tarrasque Hide, Duriel's Shell, Sets Griswold's Heart, Natalya's Shadow, Maadi's Spirit, anything with life, resistances, damage reduced
- Belt - Anything with Life leech like Set Wilheim's Pride, Uniques String of Ears, Nosferatu's Coil, a good Rare belt
- Gloves - Anything with Life leech, crushing blow, deadly strike, a good Rare or Crafted glove
- Boots - Anything with stats, resistances, faster hit recovery, a good Rare or Crafted boot
- Amulet - Anything with stats, resistances, life leech, cannot be frozen
- Rings - Anything with stats, resistances, life leech, cannot be frozen
Now for the leveling up process.
Fairly simple to be honest, for skills you start on Charged Bolt until you can use Nova at level 12, then respec into Nova/Static Field, then push Nova until level 30 where you can do the respec into Frozen Orb.
Pump Energy in the early levels, like all the points until level 15 into Energy since Nova seeps mana like crazy.
At level 12 gamble for a belt for extra mana potion slots, and a 2 open socket helmet, so you can slap 2 Tir runes for mana after each kill for sustainability.
At level 30 you can perfectly respec into Frozen Orb, and it WILL carry you on Players 8 all the way until you beat Nightmare.
Said level 30 respec goes as follows: 1 point into Warmth, Telekinesis, Teleport, Static Field, Frozen Armor, Cold Mastery, the prerequisites for Frozen Orb, Frozen Orb, and dump the rest into Ice Bolt.
As you level up, max Frozen Orb, then Ice Bolt, followed by enough points in Cold Mastery, then max Frozen Armor, get the 20 yard Static field and the rest on Warmth.
I lack quite a bit of the Optimized build and my FOrb Sorceress is handling Hell Terror zones in P5 with ease, P8 is a bit harder but still doable.
And that should be it. Any questions or anything else regarding this guide, ping @iconofsusan in the D2RR discord server.
Thanks for reading