Popular's PvP Frozen Orb Sorceress

[Popular]

Popular's PvP Frozen Orb Sorceress
Designed for the Diablo II Lord of Destruction 1.11b Patch

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Statistics
3. Skills
4. Equipment / Inventory
5. Mercenary
6. FCR & FHR Tables/Breakpoints
7. Dueling Strategies


Introduction
When built correctly, frozen orb sorceresses can be some of the most effective dueling subclasses in the game of Diablo II. However, if not built correctly, a frozen orb sorceress can easily be killed in a typical duel. Following this guide will hopefully allow you to build what I have found to be a
highly effective sorceress guide.

Statistics
Strength: 0 (Enough to wear your gear)
--> On my sorceress I have put no points into strength because the gear I possess has enough strength modifiers to wear all of my other gear

Dexterity: 0
--> Fairly self explanatory. Dexterity is not necessary to a casting class, and you have no need for max block as a frozen orb sorceress.

Vitality & Energy:
--> The ratio of vitality to energy should be 1:4 -- as a frozen orb sorceress you will have energy shield at 95% absorb, and thus your mana will act as your life, you should still, however, have a decent amount of sustainable life to take minor hits of damage.

Skills

Cold Skill Tree
--> Ice Bolt: 20
--> Frozen Armor: 1
--> Shiver Armor: 1
--> Ice Blast: 1
--> Glacial Spike: 1
--> Frost Nova: 1
--> Blizzard: 1
--> Frozen Orb: 20
--> Cold Mastery: 20

Lightning Skill Tree
--> Charged Bolt: 1
--> Lightning: 1
--> Chain Lightning: 1
--> Telekinesis: 20
--> Teleport: 1
--> Energy Shield: Remaining Points

Fire Skill Tree
--> Warmth: 1

Equipment/Inventory
Armor: Chains of Honor Archon Plate
--> You may choose an enigma for the helpful strength bonus, however, know that your sorceress is in dire need of the +65 resistance bonus that a Chains of Honor armor gives.

Helm: Perfect Nightwing's Veil Spired Helm (Socketed with a 5/-5 Cold Die Facet)
--> Harlequin Crest Shako is also an acceptable variation to Nightwing's if you cannot afford it. With the perfect cold die facet Nightwing's Veil adds +20% to Cold Skill damage.

Amulet: Armageddon Fletch Amulet
--> NOTE: This item is often duped, which is a risk you must be willing to take. This amulet adds +2 to sorceress skill levels, +20% Faster Cast Rate, +18 Strength, +55 Life, +59 Mana, +23 All Resistances. Another acceptable amulet is a Mara's Kaleidescope Amulet.

Weapon A: %28-30 Cold Skill Damage Death's Fathom (Socketed with a 5/-5 Cold Level-Up Facet)
--> Perfect is not necessary for a frozen orb sorceress. The amount of damage difference between 28 and 30 is miniscule, and it is not worth paying for perfect when you get something nearly as good for cheaper. Heart of the Oak flail is also an acceptable weapon.

Shield A: Perfect Spirit Monarch
--> No acceptions. You need this shield to be successful, and it is very cheap to obtain.

Weapon B: +6 Battle Orders Call to Arms Flail
--> Gives a nice life and mana bonus, +1 all skills too, so make sure to BO and BC before you precast your energy shield.

Shield B: Any Spirit Monarch
--> Best skill bonus for Call to Arms

Weapon C (Keep In Stash): +3 Energy Shield Memory Staff (+9 to Energy Shield Total)
--> This staff will be used to precast energy shield, so that y-ou don't have to devote all your skill points to it.

Rings: 2x Stones of Jordan
--> +1 to Skills and a nice mana bonus.

Belt: Arachnid's Spiderweb Mesh
--> +1 to Skills and a great +10% Faster Cast Rate.

Gloves: Magefist Gauntlets
--> Faster Cast Rate, +1 to Warmth, and a nice mana regeneration bonus.

Boots: Perfect Marrowwalks
--> +20 Strength Bonus, and mana bonus.

Inventory:
--> 9x Chilling Grand Charms with +6 Strength/+45 to Life
--> Perfect Sorceress Hellfire Torch
--> 20/20/x Annhilus Small Charm (I have 19/19/5 and it works for me)
--> Mana/Life Small Charms

Stash:
--> 9x Shocking Grand Charms with +6 to Strength Mods (for precasting Energy Shield)*

*You may not need all of these in the end, but this is just for 80's range dueling.

Mercenary
Choose an Act 2 mercenary from Nightmare mode with preferably a holy freeze aura. This will aid you in duels when teleing around. Your mercenary should wear an eth Insight Colossus Voulge, an eth Andariel's visage and an eth Fortitude armor.


FCR, FBR & FHR Frames

FHR Frames
0% 15
5% 14
9% 13
14% 12
20% 11
30% 10
42% 9
60% 8
86% 7
142% 6
280% 5
1480% 4

FCR Frames
0% 13
9% 12
20% 11
37% 10
63% 9
105% 8
200% 7

FBR Frames
0% 9
7% 8
15% 7
27% 6
48% 5
86% 4
200% 3
4680% 2

Dueling Strategies

Hammer Paladins (Difficult):
If you're luck you'll be dueling an unexperienced hammerdin, which will must likely mean he will be hiding in a "shield" of circling hammers. Lure him out by quick casting blizzard over him, this will distract him and give you chance to cast a few orbs that will hit him directly. However, if you're dueling an experienced hammerdin, the best advice I can give you is to try and prevent them from teleing onto you and casting their hammers by using the same strategy. The truth is, if it's a decent hammerdin, one or two hammers will kill you.

Smiter Paladins (Easy):
Smiter Paladins are fairly simple to beat. Because they are melee the big challenge for them will be to actually catch you and then deal successful blows to your character. The basic strategy for smiter paladins is to teleport around then and not let them catch you, while, at the same time, hitting them with successive frozen orbs.

Zeal Paladins (Medium):
Zeal Paladins are much like smiter paladins in the sense that they first need to catch up to you before they can even do a point of damage. However, most zeal paladins will use charge or teleport to catch you so you must work even harder to avoid taking melee damage from these guys. Teleport in a wide circle around them and cast frozen orbs into the middle.

Javalin Amazons (Medium):
The real problem with dueling a javazon is that their attacks are difficult to avoid. My advice for dueling a javazon is to teleport in a square at four different points. This way their attacks will most likely miss you seeing as they have an arc of about 160 degrees. At every other point fire a frozen orb towards the center of the square.

Bow Amazons (Difficult):
If you ever come up against a bowazon, be prepared. Most bowazons designed for PvP can kill you quite easily. The real problem with them is avoiding multiple shots and guided arrows. If an amazon is half-decent their guided arrow will deal a significant amount of damage. The best way to take on a bowazon is to take one or two hits from guided arrows while firing successive frozen orbs. If you teleport far enough away from the arrow it will no longer seek you and your safe to come back for another try.

Note on Amazons in General:
If you are legit dueling you will not have to worry about this, but 'Slow Missile' is a very popular move against casters if you are not dueling in a tournament (most tournament/clan duels outlaw this spell). If you are hit with this spell you will have to either teleport around until it wears off or get in close to the attacker and shoot your orb directly at them from almost point blank distance.

Trap Assassins (Medium):
If you are facing a decent trap assassin, you will have to be ready to avoid traps. The strategy for most trap assassins is to set up their traps then teleport around them to avoid enemy shots. Follow the assassin, avoiding her traps and try to lead her away from them by casting blizzard over them. If an assassin strays to far from her traps they will collapse and you'll be free to fire a bunch of of frozen orbs in their direction.

Martial Arts/WW Assassins (Very Easy):
Some of the easiest characters I've ever dueled have been of this class. The damage that martial arts/ww assassins deal is minimal and easy to avoid. Just like other melee characters the best strategy is to make yourself "uncatchable" and just teleport around them while they try desperately to catch up with you.

Bone Necromancer (Medium):
Bone necromancers, if decent, are slightly difficult to beat if they are well-trained and well equipped. The best strategy is to lure them out to an area with reasonable blockades (such as a house or trees) and to fire orbs in their direction while their sad attempts to attack your are blocked by terrain obstacles.

Summon Necromancers (Easy):
The worst part about summoning necromancers are their golems. As long as you are able to constantly fire orbs from a distance you should be fine.

Whirlwind Barbarians (Easy-Medium):
It all depends on what the Barbarian is wearing. If he's a teleport/whirlwind Barbarian this will be slightly more difficult to beat. Luckily whirlwind is a very slow attack so simply estimate where he will end up after his attack and fire frozen orbs in that general direction.

Lightning Sorceresses (Medium):
Lightning Sorceresses are the easiest sorceress type you will face other than Blizzard. The best thing to do is to avoid their lightning attacks, which have a very small radius. Teleport around them in a circle and hit them right after they cast while they are recovering.

Fireball/Meteor Sorceresses (Difficult):
As many of you probably know, fireball/meteor sorceresses are some of the best character builds for PvP in the game. Dealing over 50k meteor damage in addition to over 20k fireball damage, the best idea is to have them chase you. Every so often fire a frozen orb back to her and hopefully catch her off guard. Other than that I do not have a whole lot of good strategy for beating fireball/meteor sorceresses.

Blizzard Sorceresses (Easy):
What's to say about blizzard sorceresses other than just to avoid their blizzards? Not much except for watch out for the glacial spikes which can do a very devent amount of damage.

Elemental Druids (Very Difficult):
These are the hardest characters you will come against in PvP combat. The best advice I can give you is to avoid getting in too close, especially in their hurricanes. Once on top of you, an elemental druid will kill you without question, so you simply have to avoid getting too close. Get a shot in whenever you can, but truth be told, you will most likely die every time you come up against an elemental druid.

Shapeshift Druids (Easy):
Shapeshift Druids should be treated the same way as other melee characters. Just do not get so close that they will have a chance to hit you and constantly fire orbs in their direction.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this extensive guide on the Player vs. Player Frozen Orb Sorceress guide. Good luck to all of you who decide to attempt this build.

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Special thanks to BloodAngel26 and FraterPeradurabo (www.blizzsector.co) for their incredibly helpful suggestions and advice on making this guide.

[A.D.]

Very very nice guide. I guess my only issue is with the amulet. Generally try to avoid relying on realm dupes for your character. And instead of mara's try to find a +2allskills 20fcr +str/energy +resists Rare ammy.
Also what BP's do your build hit? I don't think Orb shares the same breakpoints of all the other spells. And I wouldn't even bother listing the FBR frames.

Other than that everything looks good, I really like the in-depth PvP section. 9/10

[Popular]

The breakpoints for FCR on a orb sorceress refer to teleport. The only reason for bothering with higher FCR is so that you will be able to dodge attacks with teleport.

Note: Thanks to whoever sticky'd my guide. Much appreciated. :)

[XKazeCloudX]

Elemental Druids (Very Difficult):
These are the hardest characters you will come against in PvP combat. The best advice I can give you is to avoid getting in too close, especially in their hurricanes. Once on top of you, an elemental druid will kill you without question, so you simply have to avoid getting too close. Get a shot in whenever you can, but truth be told, you will most likely die every time you come up against an elemental druid.

haha i would suggest just keep teleing non stop and never even have the druid on YOUR screen. because once my druid sees you in my screen it wont let go.

very good. i really think the orb sorc is fun. that will make a many people create one.

[FraterPerdurabo]

haha i would suggest just keep teleing non stop and never even have the druid on YOUR screen. because once my druid sees you in my screen it wont let go.

very good. i really think the orb sorc is fun. that will make a many people create one.

Orb sorcs don't stand a chance vs Wind Druids so I don't think it really matters

[hellsing293]

Belt: Arachnid's Spiderweb Mesh
--> +1 to Skills and a great +10% Faster Cast Rate.

not a big deal, just for if someone was gonna add up the total fcr of the gear for this build, arachnid's has 20fcr.

[Xx~WEEd~xX]

good guid but should a es orber use thunderstorm cuz i herd it stuns ur enemy but i havnt ever played with or against it?

[Loits]

Haha, i find it funny how barbarians are categorized as easy-medium, i guess my class has been runied in the public eyes by low skill noobs. :'( Anyway any bvc who knows what he is doing eats orb sorcs alive, one of the easiest classes to beat actually.

[Joshy]

Loits, my bvc on ladder wasn't exactly the best barb but he did good damage and also had 25k ar, I had a little experiment with a good es max block orb sorc once, I asked her to go out and I just wanted to see something, so I kept wwing and wwing her and she sat there for a good minute tanking wws I dont know what kind of shitty max block es orb sorcs you've dueled before but the best of them can tank like mad, the only way to kill gfg es max block sorcs is with ow you can't kill them with normal damage.

[Loits]

25k ar on a bvc = NOOB

Constantly whirling a es sorc = NOOB

Retard, if you had any knowledge about how to play a bvc or even build one as a matter of fact then you'd know that no barb should never try to constantly whirl a es sorc. It's common knowledge that ow wins this fight, my bvc even had a 2 shael, 3 um, 1 p emerald ba, instead of grief for these duels.


"wasn't exactly the best barb"

That's some funny shit right there.

[Joshy]

25k ar on a bvc = NOOB

Constantly whirling a es sorc = NOOB

Retard, if you had any knowledge about how to play a bvc or even build one as a matter of fact then you'd know that no barb should never try to constantly whirl a es sorc. It's common knowledge that ow wins this fight, my bvc even had a 2 shael, 3 um, 1 p emerald ba, instead of grief for these duels.


"wasn't exactly the best barb"

That's some funny shit right there.

I put on ar just to test if it would help or not and it didn't dumb **** and what you just said I mentioned in my post god retards these days, I said you can't kill them with normal damage you need ow, goodness someone needs there head checked you mentioned almost everything I did in my post. Head examination please. He had good items what I meant was I wasn't exactly skilled with him, p grief 3/15+/20s etc. Sheesh I'm not even going to argue with you anymore. A new dipshit to add to the ignore list.

[Loits]

I put on ar just to test if it would help or not and it didn't dumb **** and what you just said I mentioned in my post god retards these days, I said you can't kill them with normal damage you need ow, goodness someone needs there head checked you mentioned almost everything I did in my post. Head examination please. He had good items what I meant was I wasn't exactly skilled with him, p grief 3/15+/20s etc. Sheesh I'm not even going to argue with you anymore. A new dipshit to add to the ignore list.

Haha, you are funny. ^_^

[FraterPerdurabo]

Noobs, stop flaming or warn. Kthxbai.

[Xx~WEEd~xX]

25k ar on a bvc = NOOB

Constantly whirling a es sorc = NOOB

Retard, if you had any knowledge about how to play a bvc or even build one as a matter of fact then you'd know that no barb should never try to constantly whirl a es sorc. It's common knowledge that ow wins this fight, my bvc even had a 2 shael, 3 um, 1 p emerald ba, instead of grief for these duels.


"wasn't exactly the best barb"

That's some funny shit right there.

he said he was running a test and it sounds like the es sorc tanked aota dmg if he was constantly ww while she ws leting him.

ps i love ur picture though... lmao druid spanking barb

[clm369]

y do u max telekinisis before es? also should i bother with thunderstorm?