Dropping 1 or 2 static fields will increase your clear speed by a significant amount. Esp with waves 4 and 5 for the Throne Room. This is a good habit to get into for any Sorc as eventually you'll be doing player 8. Otherwise, great guide and looks like a fun build. Can't deny that boss clear speed.
Does static field work more than once on the same group of mobs? OR does it only work once? Because when I cast it the effect only shows on mobs once no matter how many times I cast.
I really want to thank you for this video ! I actually kill bosses quicker than with my blizz spec AND immunities are now basically irrelevant. I can farm nihlatak in 10 seconds it's insane man!
@@fizzybeard7291 blizzard definately has more pure damage when immunes are non-existant, therefore cow level would be cleared faster with a blizz sorc but for myself, i run countess, andy, summoner, trav, meph, chaos and nihlatak so in that run i come across A LOT of immunes and it becomes alot faster with that hybrid build :) personnally for farming i find this a lot more useful and made significantly more profit that way ! To each their own, it depends what and where you farm :)
Great overall build :). But your starting gear asa "new person is way too expensive; to start with. I still don't have a shako I end up just buying everything w real money to enjoy shitz
Thank you so much for making this video. My blizz sorc was eventually stuck and all those areas of immunity was making life miserable. The versatility of this build is thru the roof, and good old FW just brings back so much memories. Please continue updating this build as we progress!
Man I follow you, dbrunski, and lama. I really appreciate your vids showing an actual attainable setup. lamas guides on icy veins are brutal and littered with gear no average player will get and dbrunski has also fallen victim to streamer privilege literally saying in his last video thanks to help from others he could make his last build.... TLDR: Thanks for making builds that the average player can make or work towards, nice seeing a sorc build that doesnt "require" infinity.
@@rainbird2002 Agree, the icy-veins guides seem like quickly put together obvious stuff, the guided walkthroughs are super detailed and excellent. They also focus on solo play instead of players 8, so even the skill choices appear different from the icey-veins builds.
All the builds on Icy vein have a "gear page" with a "budget build". Those budget builds use items that you will most likely get before the ones showed on the main page of the build. Those GG items that you see on the main page should be seen as an objective, what you want to get to "complete" your build. The budget build on the other hand should be seen as an entry-step to farm for better gear. That is how I played as an average player and it worked perfectly. Aim for the budget build first.
@@MrM4xwell Obviously the gear list on the page isn't bad, but the solo self-found guided playthrough videos of 12-16 hours are way more useful and also fun to play along with. I would recommend those.
One thing to consider, if you're in melee range, you're not using orb optimally. For most damage output, you want the orb to explode on your enemy. If you're face tanking, it's exploding well past them. Doesn't seem to matter for solo, but if you move to higher content, you'll probably feel it. Great guide though! I used to use a fb/orb build, but lacking all my skillers and good gear, it just wasn't cutting it. This will work right away, like it alot!
Rocking this build for two weeks now and it is just a blast! Especially for console, it is so much better with targeting the monsters than blizzard. It’s more fun to play, because positioning does matter more. Btw I like that 1 point into static as well. After casting an orb I usually do 1-2 static and when the orb hits, the enemy is already a good amount down in health. Just love the build, finally a content creator mentions it
Just tried this build with my 91 full tal's sorc and it's pretty solid. Every sorc build has pros/cons and this build definitely melts bosses and those really strong cold immunes. I don't know if it's much better than regular orb/fireball/meteor since frozen orb and firewall share cooldown and you have no spammable to increase dps. Pure blizzard still feels the strongest (pre infinity) but a hybrid build does open up some new farming opportunities and it's fun to try out something new. I especially liked doing Nilithak with firewall, but wall is really awkward to use against most fast/small monsters so this build does take some practice. It especially sucks since you can't put firewall on left click also.
Well, Considering it doesn't cost much to max ORB. It leaves room for other skill to try. Hybrid can be done properly though. Either way, with infinity on your merc, you're good.
Happy to see the orb wall build getting more limelight, that build had help me farm my enigma quickly as it can grind all lvl85 areas even like pits and wordstone keep easily! I just disagree with the less 1 point in static field, I often use that when farming on players 7-8 to soften the fire immune enemies like infector and lister before hitting with orb. Without it, will take a huge amount of time, running around to down them with orb alone. This build also farms nilahtak very quickly than a blizz sorc for keys of destruction....
I was running straight blizzard sorc and I can confirm that switching to this method with Full Tals armor that this combo melts bosses. Plus I'm not scared of cold immunes anymore. However, the only down side is that you can't use orb right after casting firewall, so be aware of that.
Thank you for the info. My sorc is stuck in hell and I tried the hydra/orb and it works but my sorc was lacking gear. So I started ladder and my Boner necro has done a great job at finding stuff for my normal characters. I have a full set of tal's that is waiting for ladder to finnish so I can boost my sorc and I got a free Storm Shield. A guy joined my game ran to his stash and dropped a Stormshield Monarch and left.... Lucky me I guess So you confirming that tals will work now I want ladder to finnish so I can try grind with her for my enigma
This is the build I'm running with!!! I feel very comfortable using her, this opens up so much more farming options for me, I started this sorc with blizzard build and quickly realized my options are really limited, after I switched to orb/firewall I could farm most areas of the game. The bonus for having high warmth level is that I can get rid of insight to switch to higher dmg weapons on my merc.
I think because people not realize how powerful Firewall are in D2R, in Original D2 Firewall is pretty mediocre, but some how (still dunno if it bug or they fix or buffed it) the Firewall dmg tick in D2R are insanely fast make it so powerful. There is a video of a chinese player compare side by side Firewall with same equip to kill Diablo in both Original D2 and D2R, and the D2R Diablo die so fast compare to the original D2.
@@khanhbonmat I heard it might have something to do with how the tick damage works combined with the higher frame rate in d2r. Either way I hope they dont change it I always loved firewall but never used it cuz it use to be so underwhelming in LOD
Great guide! I respeced to it today after getting burnt out on blizz sorc and I loved it! I feel like the cold immunes now fear me, and I appreciate that. Couple things: Worth noting that orb is a WAY better skill than blizz when playing on a controller. Much more suited and more satisfying. I wasn’t sure what to make of how many cold mastery points to put in. Data point I found helpful: a venom lord (which are plentiful in Chaos sanctuary) have 50% cold resist, so while it isn’t necessary, there’s utility in taking cold mastery all the way to -150
I always played Orbwall sorc for years now, since I always had more fun with orb than blizzard and thought to myself that I wanted to be able to do all content with a orbbuild. In D2R on the ohterhand it feels like Firewall makes so much damage compared to LOD, which really made it so much more viable. My all time favorite build except the Tesladin with 2 dreams.
I have actually been playing Frozen Orb/Firewall since about a month before D2R was released. I honestly dislike Blizzard and I wanted to play something different from fireball all day. I personally noticed a slight buff to the skill after D2R came out as well, so I have been doing this combo ever since. Personally, my skill distribution is a bit different because I use this to farm hell meph/andy/keys VERY quickly, so I only put 10 hard points in ice bolt and those points go into firewall synergies. I also don't use SS or have max block for my setup because I don't farm content that needs it, going for spirit/tal's set for max mf and silly fast boss kills. It involves tradeoffs, sure, but I have had spectacular results with it. With my setup, frozen orb is the one that is used for immunities and such.
I use energy shield and do less damage, but feel waaay safer in full Tals. My fire wall isn't even remotely close to maxed, but it's bugged or something and does at least triple the damage it should. I feel like it's overkill to do 50k dps in players 1 difficulty.
ya i agree, i dont really like blizzard too, it feels to ''cloudy''. You dont really have the feeling where you have cast it, and then it just rains down on the enemiess very slowly. but i hate the fact that firewall and orb share the same cooldown. in my brain i just dislike this too :p what about going Firewall with Nova? i have still seen some good dps nova builds. and nova also needs only 40 hard points. throw down the firewall, stand near it and cast novas. @Coooley, then probably max block is a good idea!!! (although i love blockin anyhow too :P )
Wow.. telekinesis to pin mobs is huge. Thanks for sharing this tip! I've been doing it wrong haha. It's such a PITA seeing boss mobs run away in CS when my merc gets decrepified.
@@BigWhyte1130 Absolutely. I also find myself using it on cold immunes in Baal's Throne Room, or just in general on other cold immune mobs too. Very useful.
I love how you broke down the masteries - what % to hit with cold etc. I feel like you could even use a wizspike for a budget weapon until you could farm runes for a Hoto even. Had no idea that Gerkes was a alternative for SS. You know your shit Cooley I will admit. All your guides I've followed have completely shut shit down once geared and leveled man. Look forward to the great future content! Keep up the hard work man 💪
Cash I am currently using Wizdpike + Spirit and it's perfect for the build. I can get up to like 350-400% mf with it. I can also get up to 600% mf with skulders and weapon swap to Ali baba and Rhyme
@@Coooley what do you think about a blizzard and chain lightning sorc? Seems like you should be able to cast chain lightning 2-3 times at least before the timer runs out and you are able to cast blizzard again. Since bliz hits harder (and longer) than orb even if you don't max synergies and only use the same # hard points that you would with an orb-CL build.
@@Nyxius22 no need to go that high on MF though, after 250% the diminishing returns is so heavy that its almost pointless to go higher. 600% MF is only like 2% extra chance to find a unique as opposed to 250
@@GamingWITHsKeLeToR actually to go from 250 to 600 it's an unique effective 20.78% increased chance, if you look at the wiki page it gives a good breakdown of how much you get for each successive 50% mf. So it does taper off but still adds cumulative. So you are gaining less for each 50% but still gaining. Also the kill times with Firewall or a Blizz sorc are still really fast. To each their own, some prefer more skill points for more damage, some prefer more tankiness, some prefer more mf. Overall I think they are all viable.
I really like your videos showing relatively budget builds that can cover a lot of diverse ground, such as your assassin trap build. Switching between skills also keeps the game "spicy". Kudos.
Your videos are way more down to earth for the average player, dbrunski and Lama can't compete. Between this and the early game trap sin, builds are dope af.
I play a Java and a friend brings this Orb/Wall Sorc - imagine that synergy :) Nice vid, prolly my starter if we finally get a ladder. Loved Orb over Blizzard already 20 years ago and I am so glad it's finally getting meta as it looks
My Sorc is level 60 right now and after respec'ing from Blizzard to Orb and finishing that, I wanted to get a secondary fire skill and chose fire wall...but I was not expecting THIS level of insanity from the fire skills! That is impressive, thank you for the video!
Nice video! I played this spec for a while and it was great at everything but the only thing I can add is you'll miss the damage Blizzard gives you in open places like cows. Hybrid is def the way to go as a 2nd respec to take care of hell. Will be using this for sure in the ladder.
It's true that larger groups of enemies favor blizzard, mostly because orb spikes don't pierce. Orb is a lot easier to use though. You can set it to your primary skill and use fw on right click. On dangerous enemies being able to cast around corners works wonderfully. Like for clearing ghosts on Baal runs. I find it sped up both baal and chaos runs for me. But blizzard is nice, plus with blizzard glacial spike freezes for rediculous amounts of time.
I really like this build as it is more versatile. I notice myself having to course correct which skill since I previously just spammed Blizzard/Ice Blast/Bolt & now I have to consider resistance. One thing I did slightly different was to put 1 into Static Field, and have thought about 1 into Frozen Armor until I can work out FCR > 106% & Block 75%.
So I just tried this new build on my level 89 sorcerer, and it is confirmed, this spec melts bosses and is good crowd control. I currently use Frost Orb as my primary spell, and I Firewall as my secondary spell for melting bosses with the mercenary tanking during this process. My of spec is Magic Find and Teleportation incase I need to retreat. Two things you must know, don't get close to the bosses because you are now much squishier without the Mana Shield, and you are at a higher risk of getting killed instantly. And secondly, you need to work on gearing your mercenary to take big hits from bosses because he will be your tank in solo situations. One final thing to further note, it is increasingly more difficult to teleport to Baal without mana shield in place when you are in a 8 man group with this play style.
Tried this build instead of my blizz sorc and I'm enjoying this so much rn. Opens up so much more areas to farm and although HP are much lower, I feel a lot tankier. Thanks for the video!
Yeah it's a pretty great combo. I prefer fw to meteor bc less points and no delay so 1 cast of fw kills cold immune doom knight casters in chaos sanc etc. Though maybe fireball might make sense since it doesn't interfere with orb casts. Havnt tried it though.
Pro tip concerning ability distribution for an orb-wall sorc: Frozen orb is perfectly viable in hell with just 20 in frozen orb and 1 in cold mastery. Use the extra points in the fire tree to max out fire wall, warmth, and fire mastery. I tried this build at D2r launch and was amazed at how well FO did with just this 21 point investment in the cold tree... and your firewall will do absolutely insane damage.
Amazing video, not just saying that, you helped a lot of people access new areas they couldn't before at the cost of a quick respec, (worst case scenario 2x respecs to go back if you dont like it). Quick question, why 5% FHR? Is it because you're max block so you don't need FHR? I feel like the 60% FHR breakpoint for with a 105% tele is my most comfortable zone, that lets me tele right after I'm hit instead of getting stuck in a possible flinchlock while spamming tele and full rejuvs. Thank you for the content, subbed and liked.
That is a really nice thing to say, man. Thank you! I thought more fhr would eventually be necessary, but I'm noticing that I don't really get stuck in mobs. It could be Max block or fhr frames might work differently in D2R. Maybe a combination of both!
@Coooley, I watched your video and respected as you've said. The result was truly amazing. I've been a lv. 83 sorceress fireball- Orb who was stuck on Hell Act 2 at Canyon of the Magi for sometime, unable to cope with the swarming demons. This firewall-Orb kills these demons so fast I kept laughing of how easy I could finally going through this act. I did make an adjusment by taking out 4 points to set up the Energy Shield (1- charge bolt, 1- lightning, 1- chain lightning, 1- energy shield). I need the shield to survive a bit longer for the firewall to work. I wrote this post because I think you deserve a good recommendation for this video. Thanks for the good work. 😊😊
@@Coooley, Also, I don't use Teleport to avoid facing the swarms either, I like to battle them directly for leveling up purpose. Imho, Teleporting to waypoints and cherry pick the bossses finishes the game faster but making it less challenging and boring. I know experient players like Mr LLama can go through this game in record time with level 65 sorceress by spamming TP, but I don't see the fun in it.
So, DONT put attributes in dex? Put them in vitality? I made this build without the design and only went vitality and what I need for my monarch spirit and I got 2 shotted alot
@@2-Corrupt when I just run through hell, I go without max block, you need a good fcr though. It’s a bit of glass canon without a gear, but it’s my favourite build to farm for a good gear. Just be careful with teleports and don’t take a fights with archers :) once you got the gear you can respec into more survivable build.
For leveling fire skills, it depends on the syngery % bonus, for what ratio you want between them and fire mastery. Gonna go into a bit of math here. Mastery gives 7% per point, BUT it multiplies with syngergie. So fireball has 14% per synergy. What means you want to put points into fireballs synergies until that 7% from firemastery is better. When is that? Well with 8 points, you are at 104% bonus from synergies, which makes the 7% from fire mastery a little over 14%, so better than a synergy point. Once you hit that line for whatever fire skill, you just trade points between synergies and fire mastery, it will basically get you there. Tldr, depending on which fire skill is your primary damage, the relationship is different. (my math might also be a bit off, but that was meant as just an example)
Also fortunately it is just fire and lightning masteries that work this way. Nothing else in the game is this rough. The closest thing would be skeletons and skeleton mastery BUT hard points in skeletons is just better for many reasons, so you just max that first.
I never played this build back in the day but I'm digging it now. Would usually rock fireball or meteor for my second element. Never even knew how powerful firewall is.
@n30n I thought he showed firewall damage D2R vs LoD in a previous video. Maybe it was a different content creator. But it was deleting bosses just as fast.
Nice to see a fellow maxblock enjoyer. I also really like (upped) Mosers for maxblock builds. The 2 sockets are nice flexibility to either get some phat resis or get in extra blockchance. Also requires much less str to wear than stormshield, which is quite the disadvantage of stormshield IMO Also char looks great. Tempted to give it a try myself.
I started doing orb/fireball just to clear hell asap solo. Then switched to the meta blizz sorc and absolutely hated that I could really only do ancient tunnels over and over and over again. Then I switched to this exact build without the block. I have drastically worse gear than in the video, but I'm still farming Chaos and Baal solo. It's sooooo much better for solo play then the meta group builds.
only do AT ? wut ? you can do andy/meph/pin/at at minimum ... even for chaos or baal, you just need to telestomp the little forst immu to kill them (mage in CS and little skeleton in the second ave for baal)
if you have a kinda well equiped emilio (I had one with gris armor for strength and shaels, tal mask and an eth cv insight) you can farm chaos probably a little faster than this build. The only cold immune (usually) is lord de seis, and emilio can take him down. Also there are the mages that you can ignore. In terms of killing bosses, blizz + static takes the same time against diablo and baal. But yeah, baal's second wave makes it not so profitable for blizz.
Hammerdin is no 1 char for farming...but for those that absolutly refuse to play hammerdin...orb//wall or lightning sorc are great pick.......Duriel Shield is the best armor you can give the Merc untill Fort runeword.....Helm wise..Guillaume Helm....and weapon wise obedience > insight...at least for Sorc its better than insight for pve(non-ES build)..40% cb...20-25% all resists...40% fhr.....guillaume helm give 30% fhr...35% cb and 15% deadly......total of 75% crushing blow is no joke(wipe out 10% of a mob healt per successful proc)....70% fhr enable him to hit nearly uninterupted..and deadly give him a chance to do twice as much dmg.......dmg wise(non-cb) they're about equal except that Insight HAS to highroll to be on par to Obedience dmg(5-6 critical 250-260% ED...AR wise also about equal for both...but insight dont provide resists,fhr or cb.....just for the fun of it Infinity > Doom(enable the use of a might aura merc use since it give the holy freeze aura) > botd > obedience > insight > scrapyard(rest of runewords)...best to worse Sorc merc weapons :P.....doom and botd are a waste of runes though for a sorc merc XD infinity shall take over not long after either is made XD
@@bllllood You have no life leech in that merc build with obedience+gface+duriels. If you're going to drop insight, it's better to grab a reaper's toll, especially if you can get it eth. It's less ED, but the decrepify more than makes up for it. And as an added advantage, with life leech on your weapon, you can actually wear kiras + guardian angel to be almost impervious to elemental damage. If you're using obedience, you want at least andys or tal mask (or even a crown of thieves) instead of gface. CB is great, but CB does nothing if your merc needs to guzzle rejuvs or die.
I started with this build but later discovered that with the same amount of point investments in blizzard/glacial spike produced more dps than frozen orb/ice bolt. So now I'm blizzard/firewall instead.
Exactly this. The clear speed with orb is just so much worse then blizzard it's not even a fair fight. Your merc will be killing cold immunes faster then you'll be killing the normal stuff....
People use frozen orb just because it only has one synergy for damage also the 500-700 damage tooltip isnt the whole dmg.While im also a bigger fan of blizzard id still prefer having FO instead of Blizzard cause Fire Wall is already an boss killer spell and FO feels way smoother for trash mobs. If you could invest more points into blizz synergies without sacrificing FW synergies yea maybe it wouldve been a better variant.
Daaaamn. Have been SUPER unlucky wirh my sorc and I was wondering how to advance in hell mode with her, with all the cold imm monsters. Decided to respecc frozen orb fire. Seen a lot of frozen orb FB builds but I thought FW would be better due to it's high dmg and aff with warmth. Guess I nailed it! 😁 Keep up the good work m8!
I just switched over to this from full blizzard and I'm loving being able to run Chaos, Baal, and Nihalathak. The only downside is the clear speed in Hell cows with Orb kinda sucks compared to blizzard.
i run an orb/wall sorc in full tals, and this build requires A LOT of +fire skills to run. instead max vita, and also take the points from pumping ice bolt and put them back into warmth/fire tree for mana regen and damage. this will give you a 12k firewall, static field, and also lets you drop insight on a merc for something else.
my thoughts exactly. im respecing now and imma go ur route. ty for comment. This is literally perfect. I was thinking i didnt want to max block, nor ice bolt. i have DC twice in cows so im literally done there until they fix hanging around in games after dc. besides blizz end game, i usally start as meteorb using fireball and orb primarily and i find it underwhelming sometimes.
@@Megatraum504 i wanted to love fireball/orb as well, but fireball damage is simply too low for the mana cost, and I've just never loved meteor because of the delay and low burn damage. My build should serve you well. It's the not the highest damage possible, but it offers plenty to get the job done efficiently with decent gear and you won't get slowed down with immunities. I only have +10 fireskills vs his +18. Good luck.
So now that "tick damage" such as firewall has been "corrected" with patch 2.3, what do you respec to? Or no respec at all and taking the sacrifice in clear speed?
@@roxxphatcox of course, but A, I like killing countess and nihilithak. And B, I just don't find blizzard fun personally. I wanna be able to go kill anything I want in a solo game. I have been trying a few different fire skills on top of forb such as meteor and tiny little itty-bitty baby fireballs and they are all about equally underwhelming, but can do the job. Blaze looks like it might be okay if you can control mob positioning well but I haven't tried. Going nova on top of forb looks okay as well, but I am leveling a second sorc to be pure nova, so I'm leaving nova out of my forb mf build.
Cooley i got to say this Orb Wall Sorc is just amazing. It basically brought me through everything and made my sorc a viable starter farm char. Later on i tested out Blizzard and Lightning Builds (while i like Light a lot for Keys and Exp farming) the Orb Wall feels just more comfortable in doing everything. This is ofcourse until i get Infinity on my Merc then i will retest again. Again THANK YOU so much for this build. Even though i watch also llama and dbrunski i didnt find anything close reliable early on.
For a new character to start a ladder, I personally feel that instead of distributing evenly between Fire Mastery and Warmth, you're better off just going 20 Fire Wall, 20 Warmth, 1 Fire Mastery. You actually get more damage this way than you would 20 Fire Mastery and 1 Warmth, and when minimizing points this way you still get a powerful Fire Wall while getting the very high mana regen of maxed out Warmth. This can help compensate for the struggle of keeping a mercenary with Insight alive before he's level 85 and geared up, as the extra mana regen greatly helps when teleporting without that Meditation aura. Also, I would strongly advise taking a point into Static Field for people killing Baal. Even in this video you could have killed Baal much quicker if you popped Static a few times in between the cooldown of your first and second Fire Wall; Fire Wall is on cooldown, so there's no reason not to cast Static during that time. I have quite a bit less skills on my gear, but I am able to get Baal down to less than half life by the time I'm able to cast my second Fire Wall. Before having good gear during a ladder, this is highly useful in also cutting down those double immune enemies for your mercenary to finish off, while also helping to compensate for a weaker Fire Wall against bosses. Lastly, once you do have good gear with lots of +skills, I have personally found Blizzard and Fire Wall to be a better combo. 20 into Fire Wall, 20 into Warmth, 1 into Fire Mastery, with 1 into Static, and then 20 into Blizzard, 20 into Ice Blast, and then Cold Mastery enough to try and hit that 135% before going for any other synergy. Or, if you like full Tal's set and have a good amount of skillers and a Torch, you can get by without any points into either mastery. That's plenty enough for a Fire Wall that melts cold immunes, and as mentioned above, popping Static during the Fire Wall cooldowns means it's going to melt bosses just as fast as in this video. You can also then have a powerful Ice Blast on your left-click, which can also be spammed while Fire Wall and Blizzard are on cooldown, for further increased single-target DPS that also freezes non-boss enemies.
Ur definitely a noob at D2 , this guy has been with the best from the community for a long time .. many flaws with ur strategy only good if u have no wealth. Take to jsp for some advice if u have time.
@@Nyx_793 There are no flaws with the strategy, as I have run it with far inferior gear with faster Baal kill times. There is literally zero reason not to have Static for the reason I mentioned. Being able to shave off literally half of Baal's health while Fire Wall is on cooldown after the first cast cannot be anything less than the optimal strategy. This is going to increase your kill times for a one point skill investment far more than a single extra point into Warmth or Fire Mastery will. The reason I specified Static for Baal in particular is that shaving just a second or two off of Baal kills is much more important than other bosses. An extra second against Baal can be the difference between downing him, versus him teleporting away and you having to chase after him. This can be especially annoying if you need to stack Blizzards/Fire Walls on him again. It's not a MASSIVE drop in kill time, but if you're running Baal hundreds or even thousands of times, a few extra seconds of kill time adds up. And I mean what I said about not even needing points into Mastery when you're geared. Tal's set isn't even optimal skill point gain, but if you have full Tal's and a Spirit you'll get +8 to all skills. Tal's weapon adds up to +2 to Cold Mastery, which learns you the skill for free. You're already at +10 into Cold Mastery without a single point. Now add 2 SOJs, an Anni, a Torch, and 5x skillers, and you're sitting at +21 into Cold Mastery with zero points invested. You're already sitting at -120% enemy cold resist without needing a single point. If you're also using a 5/5 cold facet in your weapon, chest and helm, you're hitting the optimal -135% without a single skill point into Cold Mastery. If you don't even need a point into Cold Mastery, there's zero reason for you not to grab a point into Static. You won't also have 5x skillers for fire, but you will get an extra +1 from Magefists, so you'd be sitting at +17 Fire Mastery without a single point investment. You'd only need 20 into Fire Wall, 20 into Warmth, 20 into Blizzard, 20 into Ice Blast, and then the rest of your points into either increasing your Fire Wall with more Fire Mastery, or getting more Blizzard and Ice Blast damage by adding to Ice Bolt synergy. Personally I'd go for the ice synergy, as the extra speed at which Blizzard will wipe out mobs is ridiculous compared to the little bit of extra clear time on bosses you'll get from Fire Wall, but both are viable based on preference. Also keep in mind though that since a 35% Spirit with Magefists gets Tal's set to the 105% FCR breakpoint, the Ice Blast itself is also great damage with the Ice Bolt synergy, and will be your primary left-click skill. And it's silly to point out a lack of wealth when we're talking about a ladder reset character. At the start of the ladder NOBODY has wealth. People can have forum gold, but it's not worth squat until people have farmed enough to actually put stuff onto the market, which isn't necessarily happening on day 1 of reset. Even the wealthiest players are going to have to go into bidding frenzies just to get a Shako at that point.
@@joocebocks8610 point is , it's very weak ideas unless you have no gear even then just a pure Blizz build would do much better at such low wealth ... Trust me I don't even have to waste time to explain. I mean really the debate should end at "20 points into warmth" LOL
GG Coooley. Good to see the build is progressing. My HC FW sorc is still cooking :) Thanks again for the inspiration from your original FW build in Beta mate. (BTW Where's the dad jokes ?)
Just on a sidenote: Regarding the comparison between the spells' damage values, "Frozen Orb actually dealing more dmg" is even so more true due to the difference between Cold & Fire Mastery. Fire Mastery (aswell as Lightning) is a flat damage multiplier, which is calculated into the spells damage (therefore Firewall getting that already calculated into its damage), while Cold Mastery reduces the enemies resistance (up to -100 Cold resistance). *=> It's gonna be up to ~1400 per Bolt from Frozen Orb.* _(IF the Cold Mastery fully reduces the enemy's resistance down to -100)_ *... and of course the gain from multiple hits of the same cast (especially for aimed pinpoint casts).*
Great video man , I may give it a try once I get a sorc torch. But a point to make with full tals set, magefist and a 35FCR spirit you can attain the 105 FCR and have 250+ MF. Also it boost nicely both of the masteries for cold and fire.
I don‘t think that +3 rule is optimal when it comes to your talent point distribution, as it depends on factors like + fire damage on your gear and especially +skills, since that affects the damage bonus from your mastery, but not your synergy.
@@acronis536 yes, synergies only are affected by "raw" hard points into the skills. Fire mastery on the other hand isn't a synergy but is a damage multiplier so it gains benefits from +skills. Therefore, it's usually more beneficial if you have a lot of +skills to put points into warmth instead of fire mastery.
Everytime i see people with a weird build that "works" they have literally +15-18 extra skills, if you use this with only +2-3 to skills, not gonna work like this not even close.
It's not nearly as good as the mid-game gear he's using in this video, but I was still able to do chaos with day 3-ish gear pretty comfortably. If firewall doesn't change before ladder, this is the build I'll be playing 110%. (+2 skills, max res, max block, SS, 100 mf)
most meta builds work solo with 2x spirit, lore/2skills helm, stealth/vmagi, magefist/frostburns, random skills ammy, and a decent merc geared up by a day of meph/countess farming. rest of gear can be whatever. blizz/lite nova, nova/firewall, nova/enchant, orb/wall, etc. but you are correct that these meta builds become very strong with your best in slots and skillers. some builds crutch on tals set for the set bonuses and facets, furthering "non-budget" optimization. i would advise full vita build over max block until endgame gear is acquired. select ES addition if u have a good memory staff on switch, but i wouldnt invest in ES either until endgame gear or at least decent gearing options. nova/wall is a good alternative for countess/summoner/andy/meph, but more risky playstyle while on a gear budget(+6-8 @skills) equal to orb/wall. nova/wall also lacks a leftclick attack.. which might feel clunky if you arent used to it.
Been using Bliz and wall. It works well but blizzard requires so many more points in synergies that FW is a lot lower. Also orb can be cast around corners better. Plan to re roll soon. Though I do like using energy shield.
I use energy shield with wall and orb, I just put 1 point in fire wall mastery and warmth, max orb and senrgy and max energy sheild and teleknises for synergy and put all points in enrgy vs. vitality paired with gerkes or gladiators Bane you become nearly invincible in most areas, downside fire wall isn't as powerful but does get the job done just not as fast.
This build requires mana gear like frost burns and 2 soj's min. gear that has mana and to max mana as this is essentially life wizard spike silk weaves shako maras the sheild and body Armour has different options but you need to have damage and magic reduced by gear in at least one piece preferably both as it makes you more invincible, damage reduced percentage is also good as well as max res and to max res. i am still playing with my build to make it better, and have things to try mainly shield and body armour combinations and merc loadout for support.
This is a very powerful spec. I have been farming players 3 difficulty chaos with orb/wall, and she is just very solid. She can run baal, but it is kind of annoying, and I like to split the experience gain with some other characters. I did put a decent death's fathom and coh on her, so she is a little blingy, but she was doing fine before that. I use 5 fire skillers and 1 cold. I was transitioning to full cold, but I feel like giving up 1K damage on firewall is not worth gaining about 35 on blizzard.
I feel like all the gear he has on is extremely counter productive while being a sorc. I use the same talents +1 skill into static field and +1 Frozen Armor. I have never been max block and I do not die unless something really odd happens. The counter productive portion comes from not having a ton of MF gear, other than him using a Shako. My Sorc has around 600MF and I'm sure that his sorc isn't even half that. Yes, there is DR with MF and the sweet spot is 250MF-350MF but if you're playing single player or solo ladder. Adding more MF beats out all this tank stuff. Just my thoughts. However: I will say, this is a very informative video and I like how he goes into explaining the +3 point difference into the fire skills to maximize damage.
Orb and firewall was always a thing though. Or maybe im so old that old builds have been forgotten. Either way, its a great solo farm build. Don't need so many skill points for dmg, but enough to deal with both immunes.
Interesting on the synergies with firewall and fire mastery! I've been playing this for a while now, but I have to play with max Warmth it's the only way I feel comfortable dropping Insight for Obedience 🤣 I also use Spirit over going max block...I just don't care about max block and don't find it super useful how I play.
I was thinking about the obedience and insight swap too!! Dude how do you like it this way? I’m curious about the 2.5k difference in damage he mentions and I want to try it with blizzard!
@@Trikster1v honestly!! I’m blizzard spec lvl 89 right now with points in tele/telekenisis/static(7 points) as well. I can kill everything in the game - merc handles cold immunities well. However, I have 13 points left over with a bonus of +9 to skills outside of cold skills. I’m debating to put these points in Fire or lightning.. or just maximize blizzard damage.. But this fire wall is tempting!!
@@mikespidle3360 stop lying. Your merc AI is annoying as hell and your kill speed on cold immunes makes you want to gouge out your eye balls. Respec and stop crippling yourself.
@@Industrious420 haha that's too funny. It makes it easier when you can teleport merc hit the cold immunes. It's nice to obliterate everyone except cold immunes. It would be nice to kill everyone as fast
I think blizzard + firewall is the best, with a tanky and strong gear. You can maximize blizzard with synergies if you spend only a few points to cold mastery (my base is 5 now), and there are enough points left for firewall,you will still have enough damage to cold immunities anyway. At lvl91 I have 75% block, 45% damage reduction, maxed blizz with sinergies, only 10 points (base) for firewall now and 1 points to fire mastery and warmth. Best gear: high fathom, shako, 1 SOJ, 1 fcr ring, 1 fcr amu, magefist, arachnid, 15/x/15 ormus with +3 firewall or blizzard) with a shael for fhr breakpoint, stormshield with um, and thats all, good defense and still managing the fcr breakpoint.:) With this build i can deal a lot more damage, and becouse its a really tanky character, if I'm not killing everything with blizzard, its not a problem. I started this from your builds, and I'm learned a lot from them, so thank you!:)
i switch to this two build with a fully gear sorc (orb/fireball and orb/firewall). yeah it's fun for solo play in random area or to clean hell i guess but oh boy the damage is lackluster for cow compare to blizzard.
Nice vid! Gonna give this build a shot when I get home. Currently specced pure lightning and clear speeds are pretty good, but always gotta skip the immunes. Using 3-piece Tals, Torch, and other common sorc goodies, and based off of the calculator, I'll be sitting at nearly 11K firewall and 662 Orb with over 500% MF, no swapping needed. Should be good enough for some all-around farming.
I did a respec to this build under a week ago and I found that it's just perfect. It feels good, it's fast, you don't feel too mana starved. You showed it off with high end gear, but this is the best build I have come across to bridge the gap when you have no decent gear. Just get a shield with really good increased block rate and get your resistances and FCR up and MF over 200% on swap (I literally just have 3 P Topaz in a mask). Just start with Andy runs. Pop in, clear mobs with Orb, kite Andy away from main area to avoid mobs in the back or side. Have Merc tank, have FW ready on weapon swap, hit super potion on Merc so he doesn't die every run, hit W, wall twice, dead Andy. Hit w again for safety, collect, rinse, repeat. A Wizardspike is also a great semi-budget option (Andy does drop this).
I am running orb wall build myself but with different skill distribution. I am definitely trying this one. Thank you. Edit: that works great for me, I feel like a DPS tank lol
My orb/wall sorc uses occy, viper, spirit mon, chancies, shako, arach, 1 nagel and 1 10fcr ring, crap boots/ammy, and a druid torch ( just for the stats/res ) and can easily farm any area including baal, chaos, meph, andy, etc. Shako, occy, and arach take no time to get if you just spam farm meph for a few days.
Meant to be a joke, but you all seem to be so defensive. So lemme tell ya something. Diablo being diablo = RNG game. Ive been running andy/dia/meph 24/7 for about 3 weeks. Im surprised but 0 good and wearable items dropped. 0 shako, 0 viper, 0 occy, no mara, no chancies, no wt, no arach. Just random stuff for merc that got eventually swapped. Stop pointing out to do something that this game is based on and obvious? (hardcore grind). And no. Ive been trying out different builds, MF's, etc. Been running cows for runes and literally got just 1HR that i dont even consider a HR. Zod. Please tell me more about "running couple of days to get same loot" 😂 haha. Right lol.
@@ulala901 if you run strictly meph or strictly andariel (sub 2 minute runs) for 3 weeks straight and get nothing viable, you're doing something wrong, or you need to make a new char because RNGesus doesn't like the one you're using 🤣
Well, i know what my Sorc Build is gonna be. I ran into a guy doing baals last night running this his fw damage was over 4k , just damn. Great info cool build Thanks for sharing , subbed!
Hey, Nice video. Been using Fireball/Frozen orb for quite some time and I admit, gonna try this build next reset. Biggest advantage is having teleport for "free".
Funny, I been using this build for since D2R came out.. I used Maxroll gg in order to min max the damage of Firewall just like your guy did. The calculations tab really lets you tinker around with not only different builds, but potential runewords that are not as common and people do not think of using. Good video as always though.
What ratio did you find best for fw damage. Ive played a bit with the planner and found that at lvl 82(with the plus skills gear on, no skillers or torch) is best to have warmth 6 plus higher than fm. I guess the best ratio changes when you have different variations of gear on.
@@stefancristiansteflic2720 so unlike what Coolie says in his video bout his sorc not being godly.. well she is definitely not run of the mill.. anyhow mine is level 86 at the moment and I have a total of +8 skills on cold side and +9 with magefists for fire and I found that keeping Fire Mastery 1 point above Warmth seems to yield the best results. Maybe his 3 point difference is better since he has +15 to cold and +19 to fire skills. Also, my cold mastery is at 15 for base investment keeping it at 130 percent with + skills. I do not use a Shako since I do not have a Tal Armor yet and I rather have the 3 piece bonus since it increases MF substantially. My 2 cents.
@@landom9080 I think is better to adjust the ratio taking in consideration the end game gear you will wear, like: oculus, skullders, shako, spirit, arachnid, plus 2 amulet, magefist (like plus 11/12 to cold/fire). Adjusting it for you current gear i dont know if its a good ideea. You should input all this into the planner and test. I found that is better to have 5/6 more into warmth than 3 more into fm. I think the ratio is very gear dependent.
I did this to start as well before I got infinity and went lightning, but start 20 warmth, 20 firewall, 1 fire mastery, then 20 ice bolt, 20 orb, etc... worked like a charm to get through hell. Also doesn't require much for gear. Get a 2 socket staff from act 2 wit firewall and warmth in it, turn that into a leaf runeword = instant profit.
Firewall is a lot weaker if you max out Warmth instead of Fire Mastery. The base of Firewall maxed out, with Mastery maxed, and Warmth at 1 is about 3491 dps. With 20 in Warmth, 20 Firewall, 1 Fire Mastery, the base damage is 2497 dps.
@@robertb67 I prefer maxing warmth to have almost infinite mana personally. I respec later to get that higher damage as you really don't need it until Hell, since firewall basically 1 shots everything through nightmare.
@@robertb67 when you combine max warmth with an insight on your A2 merc that has prayer aura you also have fast regeneration on your life which is a nice perk as well. The best part of D2 to me is that there's no one way to play it. Almost every build can be viable. I'll love this game forever.
@@robertb67 How/where are you calculating this? Using the D2 Maxroll calculator I'm finding the opposite seems to be the case, but only when +skills are factored in. Do you know why that is? Trying to wrap my mind around it lol
The formula for Mastery vs Warmth in Firewall's case is (Your +Skills - 7 = x. where x = warmth) Always have atleast 1 point in Fire Mastery before factoring in your + or - warmth. Ex: +10skills - 7 = +3 warmth (To start +1 Fire Mastery and +4 Warmth, then rotate +1 mastery +1 warmth till you are out of points) staying +2/3 at all times Ex2: +4skills - 7 = -3 warmth (To start +(1+1)2 Fire Mastery then rotate +1 mastery +1 warmth til you are out of points) stay -2/3 at all times
I have tested out this build a lot but for mfing I landed on blizzard wall. With blizzard you can stack them and kite the slow mobs around in it and it's strong enough to one shot mobs on chaos runs. Definitely give it a try way better than orb!
This is the build I’m using, the firewall can be a little frustrating but if you cast it and run circles they stack and take them out fast. Love my orb too
I'd like to see a direct comparison of orb/wall vs orb/fb. I've always respec into orb/fb once I find tals with my starting blizz setup and it farms every area with over 300 mf using tals/spirit setup. The only advantage I see with wall is it kills bosses faster.
Cooley! Great video. Awesome build. Been playing this solo and group! I opted for one for the one point wonder in static field! For cold and fire immune it’s nice!
got called for work stuff early and saw a new vid. super stoked. i was getting wrecked by lister in baal with this build but thats just because emilio likes taking dirt naps. eventually ill get a merc that survives :)
Currently using; War Travs, Shako, Occy, Maras, Skulders, Raven Frost, Nagles, Chance Guards, Spirit - Monarch, Swap - Call to Arms Swap - Spirit - Monarch Pure Blizzard build, can clear Chaos, Trav council, Meph, Meph council, Walk to Baal. In chaos I find it the hardest with the range doom knights but I telle stomp them with merc. Act 2 Might Crown of Thieves Obedience Eth Thresher Treachery Eth Husk This build I think would help me farm chaos faster but looking at your throne clear the blizzard build + merc does that faster. Baal kill would be slower though. I am playing MP on max 3-4 ppl in game. I am guessing the firewall build would be able to able to smash bosses at a higher player count.
I have been theory-crafting this build for the past couple weeks because of the train wreck that was D2R day 1. I cleared hell day 2 on a FO/FB but really struggled for damage in multiplayer games, and with 70% of players being cold sorcs games just stopped when a CI spawned. I started seeing FW builds so I tried out a Bliz/FW a week or 2 back, but Bliz and FW are on the same timer, so I was just standing around waiting for casts to come back up and doing bad boss damage. I put together my own build at 56 FO (10CM), 3 light (SF/TK/Tele), and the rest FW and it felt real good (20 FW, 10 warmth, and working on FM now). Most of the cold immune stuff I encounter basically turrets up in back and FW makes quick work of it all even with only a couple points in Fire mastery. Sleeper best feature is that with warmth so high you don't really need mana pots most of the time, especially if you run Frosties over Trangs/Magefist and get your FCR elsewhere. Then once your geared you can ditch the insight and go with a damage option on your merc. FO/FW is 100% the sorc spec I plan to use for D2R Ladder season 1, though the question is should I roll sorc at all...
I've been using a slightly different orbwall build for some days now and the results are great. I maxed out fire mastery though. I believe you gain 7% per level which is more than warmth. Cold mastery to around -100 %, rest to warmth. I use full tal set with full vita build and spirit and with BO i have 2300hp. It plays really good. I do have 20 15 torch and 16 15 anni though so i cant really comment how it performs with budget gear. For merc i use andy, forti ap and ebotd warpike for style. Anyways great guide keep it coming.
BlizzWall here, but I think FW would hybridise well with anything. My favorite part of this build is really that I can get Warmth to 20+ for unlimited power, it's so fun. I'm actually thinking of redirecting some FW synergy points into my cold tree though, as FW is already absurdly powerful without too much investment, and the diminishing returns aren't as useful as taking down fire immunes faster.
Dropping 1 or 2 static fields will increase your clear speed by a significant amount. Esp with waves 4 and 5 for the Throne Room. This is a good habit to get into for any Sorc as eventually you'll be doing player 8. Otherwise, great guide and looks like a fun build. Can't deny that boss clear speed.
Totally agree. GREAT TIP
I couldn't agree more
I was wondering why there's not a single point in static..
Ya. Static field is too op not to have.
Does static field work more than once on the same group of mobs? OR does it only work once? Because when I cast it the effect only shows on mobs once no matter how many times I cast.
I really want to thank you for this video ! I actually kill bosses quicker than with my blizz spec AND immunities are now basically irrelevant. I can farm nihlatak in 10 seconds it's insane man!
Would you say blizzard is stronger then orb firewall?
I read that wrong. So orb firewall is better than blizzard? How about the cow level?
@@fizzybeard7291 blizzard definately has more pure damage when immunes are non-existant, therefore cow level would be cleared faster with a blizz sorc but for myself, i run countess, andy, summoner, trav, meph, chaos and nihlatak so in that run i come across A LOT of immunes and it becomes alot faster with that hybrid build :) personnally for farming i find this a lot more useful and made significantly more profit that way ! To each their own, it depends what and where you farm :)
@@fizzybeard7291 bien dit francis haha!
Great overall build :). But your starting gear asa "new person is way too expensive; to start with. I still don't have a shako I end up just buying everything w real money to enjoy shitz
@@adamtajhassam9188 that’s the point of the game to farm your own gear
Thank you so much for making this video. My blizz sorc was eventually stuck and all those areas of immunity was making life miserable. The versatility of this build is thru the roof, and good old FW just brings back so much memories.
Please continue updating this build as we progress!
This "new" meta was the go-to build in 1.08 - 1.09 and also my build of choice :) pretty solid!
Yup, ran this build back in the day :)
Except now it's actually useful lol
do you think this build is viable with budget magic find gear?
@@jtubef8620 it was useful back then, until they released a patch that made it useless.
Decades later, D2R has restored its usefulness.
Can this build do Countess aswell?
Man I follow you, dbrunski, and lama. I really appreciate your vids showing an actual attainable setup. lamas guides on icy veins are brutal and littered with gear no average player will get and dbrunski has also fallen victim to streamer privilege literally saying in his last video thanks to help from others he could make his last build....
TLDR: Thanks for making builds that the average player can make or work towards, nice seeing a sorc build that doesnt "require" infinity.
Just watch the guided Playthroughs from MrLlama. He had Orb/Firewall nearly 2 years ago in his guide for playing self found through the game.
@@rainbird2002 Agree, the icy-veins guides seem like quickly put together obvious stuff, the guided walkthroughs are super detailed and excellent. They also focus on solo play instead of players 8, so even the skill choices appear different from the icey-veins builds.
All the builds on Icy vein have a "gear page" with a "budget build". Those budget builds use items that you will most likely get before the ones showed on the main page of the build.
Those GG items that you see on the main page should be seen as an objective, what you want to get to "complete" your build.
The budget build on the other hand should be seen as an entry-step to farm for better gear. That is how I played as an average player and it worked perfectly.
Aim for the budget build first.
@@MrM4xwell Obviously the gear list on the page isn't bad, but the solo self-found guided playthrough videos of 12-16 hours are way more useful and also fun to play along with. I would recommend those.
Same! I love all those guys. Throwing (iceman) for some great out of the box ideas too
One thing to consider, if you're in melee range, you're not using orb optimally. For most damage output, you want the orb to explode on your enemy. If you're face tanking, it's exploding well past them. Doesn't seem to matter for solo, but if you move to higher content, you'll probably feel it. Great guide though! I used to use a fb/orb build, but lacking all my skillers and good gear, it just wasn't cutting it. This will work right away, like it alot!
Rocking this build for two weeks now and it is just a blast! Especially for console, it is so much better with targeting the monsters than blizzard. It’s more fun to play, because positioning does matter more.
Btw I like that 1 point into static as well. After casting an orb I usually do 1-2 static and when the orb hits, the enemy is already a good amount down in health.
Just love the build, finally a content creator mentions it
@@goshu7009 I plug my controller in and have no issues! (Pc)
@@goshu7009 You do realize that on PC I can use any controller right? X Box, any PS controller, even Switch controllers can be used on pc.
I like to see how you're identifying every rare that drops, searching for that rare godly item.
Even magic items depending, man. Mageplates for LLD, Circlets, Druid helms, lots can be GG Magic items. Just super rare.
@@your_eulogy2688 Jmod too
@@user-ik2zr1cx1u Still looking for that 10fcr 15allres ring?
Only pkers do this :P
Depending on what you find, you may actually be able to trade for any high rune (really, any of them). So why not, right?...
Remember when Firewall was a powerful spell? The Butcher remembers.
aaah fresh meta!
This was a 10/10 guide for a low gear sorc. Will be using on reset.
well it was a geared sorc guide on a low gear sorc haha
On re... what??
@@rtynyks4195 he doesn’t know what he’s talking about lol, there is no reset
@@ancientseed2607 respec*
@@norberttelles1453 ohh my bad, I apologize.
Just tried this build with my 91 full tal's sorc and it's pretty solid. Every sorc build has pros/cons and this build definitely melts bosses and those really strong cold immunes. I don't know if it's much better than regular orb/fireball/meteor since frozen orb and firewall share cooldown and you have no spammable to increase dps. Pure blizzard still feels the strongest (pre infinity) but a hybrid build does open up some new farming opportunities and it's fun to try out something new. I especially liked doing Nilithak with firewall, but wall is really awkward to use against most fast/small monsters so this build does take some practice. It especially sucks since you can't put firewall on left click also.
Well, Considering it doesn't cost much to max ORB. It leaves room for other skill to try. Hybrid can be done properly though. Either way, with infinity on your merc, you're good.
Coming back with the upcoming Patch 2.4, Firewall and Orb no longer share cooldowns, you can even alternate spamming between the two for DPS.
Happy to see the orb wall build getting more limelight, that build had help me farm my enigma quickly as it can grind all lvl85 areas even like pits and wordstone keep easily! I just disagree with the less 1 point in static field, I often use that when farming on players 7-8 to soften the fire immune enemies like infector and lister before hitting with orb. Without it, will take a huge amount of time, running around to down them with orb alone. This build also farms nilahtak very quickly than a blizz sorc for keys of destruction....
I was running straight blizzard sorc and I can confirm that switching to this method with Full Tals armor that this combo melts bosses. Plus I'm not scared of cold immunes anymore. However, the only down side is that you can't use orb right after casting firewall, so be aware of that.
Thank you for the info. My sorc is stuck in hell and I tried the hydra/orb and it works but my sorc was lacking gear. So I started ladder and my Boner necro has done a great job at finding stuff for my normal characters.
I have a full set of tal's that is waiting for ladder to finnish so I can boost my sorc and I got a free Storm Shield. A guy joined my game ran to his stash and dropped a Stormshield Monarch and left.... Lucky me I guess
So you confirming that tals will work now I want ladder to finnish so I can try grind with her for my enigma
This is the build I'm running with!!! I feel very comfortable using her, this opens up so much more farming options for me, I started this sorc with blizzard build and quickly realized my options are really limited, after I switched to orb/firewall I could farm most areas of the game. The bonus for having high warmth level is that I can get rid of insight to switch to higher dmg weapons on my merc.
I used this build from the start to gear up my characters. I'm surprised everyone isn't using it because its so good.
I used this build when there was Diablo 2 not LoD)))
Firewall is kinda crap for leveling and Orb not as strong as Blizzard for initial boss farming.
I think because people not realize how powerful Firewall are in D2R, in Original D2 Firewall is pretty mediocre, but some how (still dunno if it bug or they fix or buffed it) the Firewall dmg tick in D2R are insanely fast make it so powerful. There is a video of a chinese player compare side by side Firewall with same equip to kill Diablo in both Original D2 and D2R, and the D2R Diablo die so fast compare to the original D2.
@@khanhbonmat I heard it might have something to do with how the tick damage works combined with the higher frame rate in d2r. Either way I hope they dont change it I always loved firewall but never used it cuz it use to be so underwhelming in LOD
@@ElMofo9 to bad hydra doesn't get more love :( wish it was viable lol..such a fun skill
Great guide! I respeced to it today after getting burnt out on blizz sorc and I loved it! I feel like the cold immunes now fear me, and I appreciate that. Couple things:
Worth noting that orb is a WAY better skill than blizz when playing on a controller. Much more suited and more satisfying.
I wasn’t sure what to make of how many cold mastery points to put in. Data point I found helpful: a venom lord (which are plentiful in Chaos sanctuary) have 50% cold resist, so while it isn’t necessary, there’s utility in taking cold mastery all the way to -150
I always played Orbwall sorc for years now, since I always had more fun with orb than blizzard and thought to myself that I wanted to be able to do all content with a orbbuild. In D2R on the ohterhand it feels like Firewall makes so much damage compared to LOD, which really made it so much more viable. My all time favorite build except the Tesladin with 2 dreams.
Tesladins are for oligarchs 😂
@@Meylek13 haha, thats true!🤣
Defently much easier to aquire on battlnet than on singelplayer though xD
I have actually been playing Frozen Orb/Firewall since about a month before D2R was released. I honestly dislike Blizzard and I wanted to play something different from fireball all day. I personally noticed a slight buff to the skill after D2R came out as well, so I have been doing this combo ever since.
Personally, my skill distribution is a bit different because I use this to farm hell meph/andy/keys VERY quickly, so I only put 10 hard points in ice bolt and those points go into firewall synergies. I also don't use SS or have max block for my setup because I don't farm content that needs it, going for spirit/tal's set for max mf and silly fast boss kills. It involves tradeoffs, sure, but I have had spectacular results with it. With my setup, frozen orb is the one that is used for immunities and such.
Interesting adaptation to the areas you farm! Knowing how to do that is important.
seems like this build needs a beefier merc
I use energy shield and do less damage, but feel waaay safer in full Tals.
My fire wall isn't even remotely close to maxed, but it's bugged or something and does at least triple the damage it should.
I feel like it's overkill to do 50k dps in players 1 difficulty.
ya i agree, i dont really like blizzard too, it feels to ''cloudy''. You dont really have the feeling where you have cast it, and then it just rains down on the enemiess very slowly. but i hate the fact that firewall and orb share the same cooldown. in my brain i just dislike this too :p what about going Firewall with Nova? i have still seen some good dps nova builds. and nova also needs only 40 hard points. throw down the firewall, stand near it and cast novas. @Coooley, then probably max block is a good idea!!! (although i love blockin anyhow too :P )
Are you using no ss in sc or hc
Wow.. telekinesis to pin mobs is huge. Thanks for sharing this tip! I've been doing it wrong haha. It's such a PITA seeing boss mobs run away in CS when my merc gets decrepified.
i feel like this is aimed at lord de seis, i find myself yelling at my screen when he does that lol
@@BigWhyte1130 Absolutely. I also find myself using it on cold immunes in Baal's Throne Room, or just in general on other cold immune mobs too. Very useful.
I've been Orb/Wall for awhile, never found Ice Bolt super worth it, nice video.
I love how you broke down the masteries - what % to hit with cold etc.
I feel like you could even use a wizspike for a budget weapon until you could farm runes for a Hoto even.
Had no idea that Gerkes was a alternative for SS.
You know your shit Cooley I will admit.
All your guides I've followed have completely shut shit down once geared and leveled man.
Look forward to the great future content!
Keep up the hard work man 💪
I appreciate you, Cash!! Glad you're enjoyin' it, brother
Cash I am currently using Wizdpike + Spirit and it's perfect for the build. I can get up to like 350-400% mf with it. I can also get up to 600% mf with skulders and weapon swap to Ali baba and Rhyme
@@Coooley what do you think about a blizzard and chain lightning sorc? Seems like you should be able to cast chain lightning 2-3 times at least before the timer runs out and you are able to cast blizzard again. Since bliz hits harder (and longer) than orb even if you don't max synergies and only use the same # hard points that you would with an orb-CL build.
@@Nyxius22 no need to go that high on MF though, after 250% the diminishing returns is so heavy that its almost pointless to go higher. 600% MF is only like 2% extra chance to find a unique as opposed to 250
@@GamingWITHsKeLeToR actually to go from 250 to 600 it's an unique effective 20.78% increased chance, if you look at the wiki page it gives a good breakdown of how much you get for each successive 50% mf. So it does taper off but still adds cumulative. So you are gaining less for each 50% but still gaining. Also the kill times with Firewall or a Blizz sorc are still really fast. To each their own, some prefer more skill points for more damage, some prefer more tankiness, some prefer more mf. Overall I think they are all viable.
I really like your videos showing relatively budget builds that can cover a lot of diverse ground, such as your assassin trap build. Switching between skills also keeps the game "spicy". Kudos.
one of my favorite builds! Two of the most iconic spells from d1 and d2
Yes! This is actually an /old/ meta build. Very popular pre 1.10 patch
Your videos are way more down to earth for the average player, dbrunski and Lama can't compete. Between this and the early game trap sin, builds are dope af.
I play a Java and a friend brings this Orb/Wall Sorc - imagine that synergy :)
Nice vid, prolly my starter if we finally get a ladder. Loved Orb over Blizzard already 20 years ago and I am so glad it's finally getting meta as it looks
Ladder.. Lol
My Sorc is level 60 right now and after respec'ing from Blizzard to Orb and finishing that, I wanted to get a secondary fire skill and chose fire wall...but I was not expecting THIS level of insanity from the fire skills! That is impressive, thank you for the video!
Nice video! I played this spec for a while and it was great at everything but the only thing I can add is you'll miss the damage Blizzard gives you in open places like cows. Hybrid is def the way to go as a 2nd respec to take care of hell. Will be using this for sure in the ladder.
It's true that larger groups of enemies favor blizzard, mostly because orb spikes don't pierce. Orb is a lot easier to use though. You can set it to your primary skill and use fw on right click. On dangerous enemies being able to cast around corners works wonderfully. Like for clearing ghosts on Baal runs. I find it sped up both baal and chaos runs for me. But blizzard is nice, plus with blizzard glacial spike freezes for rediculous amounts of time.
I really like this build as it is more versatile. I notice myself having to course correct which skill since I previously just spammed Blizzard/Ice Blast/Bolt & now I have to consider resistance. One thing I did slightly different was to put 1 into Static Field, and have thought about 1 into Frozen Armor until I can work out FCR > 106% & Block 75%.
So I just tried this new build on my level 89 sorcerer, and it is confirmed, this spec melts bosses and is good crowd control. I currently use Frost Orb as my primary spell, and I Firewall as my secondary spell for melting bosses with the mercenary tanking during this process. My of spec is Magic Find and Teleportation incase I need to retreat. Two things you must know, don't get close to the bosses because you are now much squishier without the Mana Shield, and you are at a higher risk of getting killed instantly. And secondly, you need to work on gearing your mercenary to take big hits from bosses because he will be your tank in solo situations. One final thing to further note, it is increasingly more difficult to teleport to Baal without mana shield in place when you are in a 8 man group with this play style.
What armor for your merc ?
Tried this build instead of my blizz sorc and I'm enjoying this so much rn. Opens up so much more areas to farm and although HP are much lower, I feel a lot tankier. Thanks for the video!
I was totally going to try this! Orb doesn't take many skills points to be effective and neither does firewall
Yeah it's a pretty great combo. I prefer fw to meteor bc less points and no delay so 1 cast of fw kills cold immune doom knight casters in chaos sanc etc. Though maybe fireball might make sense since it doesn't interfere with orb casts. Havnt tried it though.
Wasn't a fan. Swapped to Nova/ES for key running. Got my bliz sorc for bosses. Now to save for enigma so I can play my poison necro properly
Pro tip concerning ability distribution for an orb-wall sorc: Frozen orb is perfectly viable in hell with just 20 in frozen orb and 1 in cold mastery. Use the extra points in the fire tree to max out fire wall, warmth, and fire mastery. I tried this build at D2r launch and was amazed at how well FO did with just this 21 point investment in the cold tree... and your firewall will do absolutely insane damage.
Going to try this!!!
So only 1 in FRost nova, 1 in blizz, 20 in frozen orb and 1 cold mastery?
Also, do
You recommending putting pts in dexterity like he mentions?
Amazing video, not just saying that, you helped a lot of people access new areas they couldn't before at the cost of a quick respec, (worst case scenario 2x respecs to go back if you dont like it). Quick question, why 5% FHR? Is it because you're max block so you don't need FHR? I feel like the 60% FHR breakpoint for with a 105% tele is my most comfortable zone, that lets me tele right after I'm hit instead of getting stuck in a possible flinchlock while spamming tele and full rejuvs. Thank you for the content, subbed and liked.
That is a really nice thing to say, man. Thank you! I thought more fhr would eventually be necessary, but I'm noticing that I don't really get stuck in mobs. It could be Max block or fhr frames might work differently in D2R. Maybe a combination of both!
@Coooley,
I watched your video and respected as you've said. The result was truly amazing. I've been a lv. 83 sorceress fireball- Orb who was stuck on Hell Act 2 at Canyon of the Magi for sometime, unable to cope with the swarming demons. This firewall-Orb kills these demons so fast I kept laughing of how easy I could finally going through this act. I did make an adjusment by taking out 4 points to set up the Energy Shield (1- charge bolt, 1- lightning, 1- chain lightning, 1- energy shield). I need the shield to survive a bit longer for the firewall to work. I wrote this post because I think you deserve a good recommendation for this video. Thanks for the good work. 😊😊
Glad it worked well for you, brother! Thank you for coming back and letting me know!
@@Coooley,
Also, I don't use Teleport to avoid facing the swarms either, I like to battle them directly for leveling up purpose. Imho, Teleporting to waypoints and cherry pick the bossses finishes the game faster but making it less challenging and boring. I know experient players like Mr LLama can go through this game in record time with level 65 sorceress by spamming TP, but I don't see the fun in it.
“You’re gonna kinda of need enigma and… well nothing else really” is what you meant to say about hammerdins 😂
They're gear is cheap enough
I just modified my build using this guild and about to test it on Andy. Great guide!
always use this build for hell. It's cool that now I now how to distribute points on fire skills. Thanks, and yeah awesome content on this channel!
So, DONT put attributes in dex? Put them in vitality? I made this build without the design and only went vitality and what I need for my monarch spirit and I got 2 shotted alot
@@2-Corrupt when I just run through hell, I go without max block, you need a good fcr though. It’s a bit of glass canon without a gear, but it’s my favourite build to farm for a good gear. Just be careful with teleports and don’t take a fights with archers :) once you got the gear you can respec into more survivable build.
And yeah, I put some points at static field, it’s pointless for the farming but it’s so much help while levelling. Good luck brother!
For leveling fire skills, it depends on the syngery % bonus, for what ratio you want between them and fire mastery. Gonna go into a bit of math here. Mastery gives 7% per point, BUT it multiplies with syngergie. So fireball has 14% per synergy. What means you want to put points into fireballs synergies until that 7% from firemastery is better. When is that? Well with 8 points, you are at 104% bonus from synergies, which makes the 7% from fire mastery a little over 14%, so better than a synergy point. Once you hit that line for whatever fire skill, you just trade points between synergies and fire mastery, it will basically get you there.
Tldr, depending on which fire skill is your primary damage, the relationship is different. (my math might also be a bit off, but that was meant as just an example)
Also fortunately it is just fire and lightning masteries that work this way. Nothing else in the game is this rough. The closest thing would be skeletons and skeleton mastery BUT hard points in skeletons is just better for many reasons, so you just max that first.
I never played this build back in the day but I'm digging it now. Would usually rock fireball or meteor for my second element. Never even knew how powerful firewall is.
@n30n I thought he showed firewall damage D2R vs LoD in a previous video. Maybe it was a different content creator. But it was deleting bosses just as fast.
love watching all these videos that show these builds with all the best gear in the game every time, so not useful for most people not buying items
Nice to see a fellow maxblock enjoyer. I also really like (upped) Mosers for maxblock builds. The 2 sockets are nice flexibility to either get some phat resis or get in extra blockchance. Also requires much less str to wear than stormshield, which is quite the disadvantage of stormshield IMO
Also char looks great. Tempted to give it a try myself.
Yes but SS has damaged reduce % which will come in handy on any ES sorc. Max Block, Good DR, ES will make ur sorc GG
I started doing orb/fireball just to clear hell asap solo. Then switched to the meta blizz sorc and absolutely hated that I could really only do ancient tunnels over and over and over again. Then I switched to this exact build without the block. I have drastically worse gear than in the video, but I'm still farming Chaos and Baal solo. It's sooooo much better for solo play then the meta group builds.
only do AT ? wut ? you can do andy/meph/pin/at at minimum ... even for chaos or baal, you just need to telestomp the little forst immu to kill them (mage in CS and little skeleton in the second ave for baal)
@@plopcha you can do cows too!
if you have a kinda well equiped emilio (I had one with gris armor for strength and shaels, tal mask and an eth cv insight) you can farm chaos probably a little faster than this build. The only cold immune (usually) is lord de seis, and emilio can take him down. Also there are the mages that you can ignore. In terms of killing bosses, blizz + static takes the same time against diablo and baal. But yeah, baal's second wave makes it not so profitable for blizz.
Hammerdin is no 1 char for farming...but for those that absolutly refuse to play hammerdin...orb//wall or lightning sorc are great pick.......Duriel Shield is the best armor you can give the Merc untill Fort runeword.....Helm wise..Guillaume Helm....and weapon wise obedience > insight...at least for Sorc its better than insight for pve(non-ES build)..40% cb...20-25% all resists...40% fhr.....guillaume helm give 30% fhr...35% cb and 15% deadly......total of 75% crushing blow is no joke(wipe out 10% of a mob healt per successful proc)....70% fhr enable him to hit nearly uninterupted..and deadly give him a chance to do twice as much dmg.......dmg wise(non-cb) they're about equal except that Insight HAS to highroll to be on par to Obedience dmg(5-6 critical 250-260% ED...AR wise also about equal for both...but insight dont provide resists,fhr or cb.....just for the fun of it Infinity > Doom(enable the use of a might aura merc use since it give the holy freeze aura) > botd > obedience > insight > scrapyard(rest of runewords)...best to worse Sorc merc weapons :P.....doom and botd are a waste of runes though for a sorc merc XD infinity shall take over not long after either is made XD
@@bllllood You have no life leech in that merc build with obedience+gface+duriels. If you're going to drop insight, it's better to grab a reaper's toll, especially if you can get it eth. It's less ED, but the decrepify more than makes up for it. And as an added advantage, with life leech on your weapon, you can actually wear kiras + guardian angel to be almost impervious to elemental damage.
If you're using obedience, you want at least andys or tal mask (or even a crown of thieves) instead of gface. CB is great, but CB does nothing if your merc needs to guzzle rejuvs or die.
great guide! not like the other guys on youtube where they tell you to go get the best item in the game that takes 5 years
I started with this build but later discovered that with the same amount of point investments in blizzard/glacial spike produced more dps than frozen orb/ice bolt. So now I'm blizzard/firewall instead.
Exactly this. The clear speed with orb is just so much worse then blizzard it's not even a fair fight. Your merc will be killing cold immunes faster then you'll be killing the normal stuff....
How much of a dps difference we talking
People use frozen orb just because it only has one synergy for damage also the 500-700 damage tooltip isnt the whole dmg.While im also a bigger fan of blizzard id still prefer having FO instead of Blizzard cause Fire Wall is already an boss killer spell and FO feels way smoother for trash mobs.
If you could invest more points into blizz synergies without sacrificing FW synergies yea maybe it wouldve been a better variant.
I went with your recommendation on this build from one of your videos months ago and it hasn't done me wrong. Thanks!
Nice video 👌 Would have been nice to see how it does with “poor items”, for comparison
it works a treat mate. I'm only lvl 78 SSF HC with spirit RW gear and its fine. :)
@@nobass_stub1394 awesome, good to know
you just need decent items to farm hell meph. just tele past all the council, get in her face and drop the fire wall.
Daaaamn. Have been SUPER unlucky wirh my sorc and I was wondering how to advance in hell mode with her, with all the cold imm monsters. Decided to respecc frozen orb fire. Seen a lot of frozen orb FB builds but I thought FW would be better due to it's high dmg and aff with warmth. Guess I nailed it! 😁
Keep up the good work m8!
I just switched over to this from full blizzard and I'm loving being able to run Chaos, Baal, and Nihalathak. The only downside is the clear speed in Hell cows with Orb kinda sucks compared to blizzard.
Use firewall much faster
What Merc setup? Holy freeze would be good for fire wall?
It's probably worth keeping a pure blizz sorc for cows and hell meph runs, and then using either this or an orb+chainlight build for everything else.
@@theredscourge i was thinking of orb / chain lighting but didn't try. any good ? can't find any good guide on the net
+19 static field w +19 Nova takes down a whole heard in a blink. But, hey, stick to orb bud!
i run an orb/wall sorc in full tals, and this build requires A LOT of +fire skills to run. instead max vita, and also take the points from pumping ice bolt and put them back into warmth/fire tree for mana regen and damage. this will give you a 12k firewall, static field, and also lets you drop insight on a merc for something else.
my thoughts exactly. im respecing now and imma go ur route. ty for comment. This is literally perfect. I was thinking i didnt want to max block, nor ice bolt. i have DC twice in cows so im literally done there until they fix hanging around in games after dc. besides blizz end game, i usally start as meteorb using fireball and orb primarily and i find it underwhelming sometimes.
@@Megatraum504 i wanted to love fireball/orb as well, but fireball damage is simply too low for the mana cost, and I've just never loved meteor because of the delay and low burn damage. My build should serve you well. It's the not the highest damage possible, but it offers plenty to get the job done efficiently with decent gear and you won't get slowed down with immunities. I only have +10 fireskills vs his +18. Good luck.
So now that "tick damage" such as firewall has been "corrected" with patch 2.3, what do you respec to? Or no respec at all and taking the sacrifice in clear speed?
Blizzard
@@roxxphatcox of course, but A, I like killing countess and nihilithak. And B, I just don't find blizzard fun personally. I wanna be able to go kill anything I want in a solo game.
I have been trying a few different fire skills on top of forb such as meteor and tiny little itty-bitty baby fireballs and they are all about equally underwhelming, but can do the job. Blaze looks like it might be okay if you can control mob positioning well but I haven't tried. Going nova on top of forb looks okay as well, but I am leveling a second sorc to be pure nova, so I'm leaving nova out of my forb mf build.
dont we love blizzard when people find new builds and new ideas it has to be shut down
Cooley i got to say this Orb Wall Sorc is just amazing. It basically brought me through everything and made my sorc a viable starter farm char. Later on i tested out Blizzard and Lightning Builds (while i like Light a lot for Keys and Exp farming) the Orb Wall feels just more comfortable in doing everything.
This is ofcourse until i get Infinity on my Merc then i will retest again.
Again THANK YOU so much for this build.
Even though i watch also llama and dbrunski i didnt find anything close reliable early on.
For a new character to start a ladder, I personally feel that instead of distributing evenly between Fire Mastery and Warmth, you're better off just going 20 Fire Wall, 20 Warmth, 1 Fire Mastery. You actually get more damage this way than you would 20 Fire Mastery and 1 Warmth, and when minimizing points this way you still get a powerful Fire Wall while getting the very high mana regen of maxed out Warmth. This can help compensate for the struggle of keeping a mercenary with Insight alive before he's level 85 and geared up, as the extra mana regen greatly helps when teleporting without that Meditation aura.
Also, I would strongly advise taking a point into Static Field for people killing Baal. Even in this video you could have killed Baal much quicker if you popped Static a few times in between the cooldown of your first and second Fire Wall; Fire Wall is on cooldown, so there's no reason not to cast Static during that time. I have quite a bit less skills on my gear, but I am able to get Baal down to less than half life by the time I'm able to cast my second Fire Wall. Before having good gear during a ladder, this is highly useful in also cutting down those double immune enemies for your mercenary to finish off, while also helping to compensate for a weaker Fire Wall against bosses.
Lastly, once you do have good gear with lots of +skills, I have personally found Blizzard and Fire Wall to be a better combo. 20 into Fire Wall, 20 into Warmth, 1 into Fire Mastery, with 1 into Static, and then 20 into Blizzard, 20 into Ice Blast, and then Cold Mastery enough to try and hit that 135% before going for any other synergy. Or, if you like full Tal's set and have a good amount of skillers and a Torch, you can get by without any points into either mastery. That's plenty enough for a Fire Wall that melts cold immunes, and as mentioned above, popping Static during the Fire Wall cooldowns means it's going to melt bosses just as fast as in this video. You can also then have a powerful Ice Blast on your left-click, which can also be spammed while Fire Wall and Blizzard are on cooldown, for further increased single-target DPS that also freezes non-boss enemies.
Ur definitely a noob at D2 , this guy has been with the best from the community for a long time .. many flaws with ur strategy only good if u have no wealth. Take to jsp for some advice if u have time.
Well put, this build with gear would definitely be stronger.
Agree with this, words of wisdom and experience playing with this build for quite alot, that static field is still a must have one point...
@@Nyx_793 There are no flaws with the strategy, as I have run it with far inferior gear with faster Baal kill times. There is literally zero reason not to have Static for the reason I mentioned. Being able to shave off literally half of Baal's health while Fire Wall is on cooldown after the first cast cannot be anything less than the optimal strategy. This is going to increase your kill times for a one point skill investment far more than a single extra point into Warmth or Fire Mastery will. The reason I specified Static for Baal in particular is that shaving just a second or two off of Baal kills is much more important than other bosses. An extra second against Baal can be the difference between downing him, versus him teleporting away and you having to chase after him. This can be especially annoying if you need to stack Blizzards/Fire Walls on him again. It's not a MASSIVE drop in kill time, but if you're running Baal hundreds or even thousands of times, a few extra seconds of kill time adds up.
And I mean what I said about not even needing points into Mastery when you're geared. Tal's set isn't even optimal skill point gain, but if you have full Tal's and a Spirit you'll get +8 to all skills. Tal's weapon adds up to +2 to Cold Mastery, which learns you the skill for free. You're already at +10 into Cold Mastery without a single point. Now add 2 SOJs, an Anni, a Torch, and 5x skillers, and you're sitting at +21 into Cold Mastery with zero points invested. You're already sitting at -120% enemy cold resist without needing a single point. If you're also using a 5/5 cold facet in your weapon, chest and helm, you're hitting the optimal -135% without a single skill point into Cold Mastery. If you don't even need a point into Cold Mastery, there's zero reason for you not to grab a point into Static.
You won't also have 5x skillers for fire, but you will get an extra +1 from Magefists, so you'd be sitting at +17 Fire Mastery without a single point investment. You'd only need 20 into Fire Wall, 20 into Warmth, 20 into Blizzard, 20 into Ice Blast, and then the rest of your points into either increasing your Fire Wall with more Fire Mastery, or getting more Blizzard and Ice Blast damage by adding to Ice Bolt synergy. Personally I'd go for the ice synergy, as the extra speed at which Blizzard will wipe out mobs is ridiculous compared to the little bit of extra clear time on bosses you'll get from Fire Wall, but both are viable based on preference. Also keep in mind though that since a 35% Spirit with Magefists gets Tal's set to the 105% FCR breakpoint, the Ice Blast itself is also great damage with the Ice Bolt synergy, and will be your primary left-click skill.
And it's silly to point out a lack of wealth when we're talking about a ladder reset character. At the start of the ladder NOBODY has wealth. People can have forum gold, but it's not worth squat until people have farmed enough to actually put stuff onto the market, which isn't necessarily happening on day 1 of reset. Even the wealthiest players are going to have to go into bidding frenzies just to get a Shako at that point.
@@joocebocks8610 point is , it's very weak ideas unless you have no gear even then just a pure Blizz build would do much better at such low wealth ... Trust me I don't even have to waste time to explain. I mean really the debate should end at "20 points into warmth" LOL
Gonna try this next sorc. Good to see people still loving this game! Glad my friends showed me this game!
Pro tip...if you right click firewall on a mob and hold it...when the mob moves the firewall will always be under it
Try that on ps5 bro lol
Glad people still make builds and videos on diablo 2 love the game and always will thanks for the build
GG Coooley. Good to see the build is progressing. My HC FW sorc is still cooking :) Thanks again for the inspiration from your original FW build in Beta mate. (BTW Where's the dad jokes ?)
Just on a sidenote: Regarding the comparison between the spells' damage values, "Frozen Orb actually dealing more dmg" is even so more true due to the difference between Cold & Fire Mastery. Fire Mastery (aswell as Lightning) is a flat damage multiplier, which is calculated into the spells damage (therefore Firewall getting that already calculated into its damage), while Cold Mastery reduces the enemies resistance (up to -100 Cold resistance).
*=> It's gonna be up to ~1400 per Bolt from Frozen Orb.* _(IF the Cold Mastery fully reduces the enemy's resistance down to -100)_
*... and of course the gain from multiple hits of the same cast (especially for aimed pinpoint casts).*
I've using a similar build for 2 or 3 weeks, but with more focus on fire wall and no points on orb synergy. It's great with mf gear.
This is currently my build and it's so fun and satisfying! Especially clearing mobs in act 1.
Blizz + Wall Sorc here. Have to try orb again.
I'm enjoying the blizz/firewall better. Blizz just staggers everything and I can sit off screen killing it all.
Great video man , I may give it a try once I get a sorc torch.
But a point to make with full tals set, magefist and a 35FCR spirit you can attain the 105 FCR and have 250+ MF.
Also it boost nicely both of the masteries for cold and fire.
I don‘t think that +3 rule is optimal when it comes to your talent point distribution, as it depends on factors like + fire damage on your gear and especially +skills, since that affects the damage bonus from your mastery, but not your synergy.
I discovered the same with a talent calculator. Way more damage maximizing fire mastery over warmth.
@@haiguyse "way more damage" 🤔
actually I noticed that +skills does not affect synergies, only raw points
@@acronis536 yes, synergies only are affected by "raw" hard points into the skills. Fire mastery on the other hand isn't a synergy but is a damage multiplier so it gains benefits from +skills. Therefore, it's usually more beneficial if you have a lot of +skills to put points into warmth instead of fire mastery.
I usually run an Orb-Baller... Just respec'd to orbwall because of you.... Good God it's a breath of fresh air with out quick firewall drops things.
Everytime i see people with a weird build that "works" they have literally +15-18 extra skills, if you use this with only +2-3 to skills, not gonna work like this not even close.
Your point? Barely any meta builds will work with only plus 2-3 skills.
If you only have a few +skills it will work, just slower. Firewall still does insane damage even if its lower level
It's not nearly as good as the mid-game gear he's using in this video, but I was still able to do chaos with day 3-ish gear pretty comfortably. If firewall doesn't change before ladder, this is the build I'll be playing 110%. (+2 skills, max res, max block, SS, 100 mf)
Get good
most meta builds work solo with 2x spirit, lore/2skills helm, stealth/vmagi, magefist/frostburns, random skills ammy, and a decent merc geared up by a day of meph/countess farming. rest of gear can be whatever. blizz/lite nova, nova/firewall, nova/enchant, orb/wall, etc. but you are correct that these meta builds become very strong with your best in slots and skillers. some builds crutch on tals set for the set bonuses and facets, furthering "non-budget" optimization. i would advise full vita build over max block until endgame gear is acquired. select ES addition if u have a good memory staff on switch, but i wouldnt invest in ES either until endgame gear or at least decent gearing options. nova/wall is a good alternative for countess/summoner/andy/meph, but more risky playstyle while on a gear budget(+6-8 @skills) equal to orb/wall. nova/wall also lacks a leftclick attack.. which might feel clunky if you arent used to it.
I ran out of steam on meteorb weeks ago. Just swapped over to this build and I'm back in the game! Thanks
Been using Bliz and wall. It works well but blizzard requires so many more points in synergies that FW is a lot lower. Also orb can be cast around corners better. Plan to re roll soon. Though I do like using energy shield.
I use energy shield with wall and orb, I just put 1 point in fire wall mastery and warmth, max orb and senrgy and max energy sheild and teleknises for synergy and put all points in enrgy vs. vitality paired with gerkes or gladiators Bane you become nearly invincible in most areas, downside fire wall isn't as powerful but does get the job done just not as fast.
This build requires mana gear like frost burns and 2 soj's min. gear that has mana and to max mana as this is essentially life wizard spike silk weaves shako maras the sheild and body Armour has different options but you need to have damage and magic reduced by gear in at least one piece preferably both as it makes you more invincible, damage reduced percentage is also good as well as max res and to max res. i am still playing with my build to make it better, and have things to try mainly shield and body armour combinations and merc loadout for support.
This is a very powerful spec. I have been farming players 3 difficulty chaos with orb/wall, and she is just very solid. She can run baal, but it is kind of annoying, and I like to split the experience gain with some other characters. I did put a decent death's fathom and coh on her, so she is a little blingy, but she was doing fine before that. I use 5 fire skillers and 1 cold. I was transitioning to full cold, but I feel like giving up 1K damage on firewall is not worth gaining about 35 on blizzard.
I feel like all the gear he has on is extremely counter productive while being a sorc. I use the same talents +1 skill into static field and +1 Frozen Armor. I have never been max block and I do not die unless something really odd happens. The counter productive portion comes from not having a ton of MF gear, other than him using a Shako.
My Sorc has around 600MF and I'm sure that his sorc isn't even half that. Yes, there is DR with MF and the sweet spot is 250MF-350MF but if you're playing single player or solo ladder. Adding more MF beats out all this tank stuff. Just my thoughts.
However: I will say, this is a very informative video and I like how he goes into explaining the +3 point difference into the fire skills to maximize damage.
Orb and firewall was always a thing though. Or maybe im so old that old builds have been forgotten. Either way, its a great solo farm build. Don't need so many skill points for dmg, but enough to deal with both immunes.
I ended up going blizzballer, very effective
I doubt it they both take so many points to be strong
Excellent build. Thanks for taking the time to make this!
Interesting on the synergies with firewall and fire mastery! I've been playing this for a while now, but I have to play with max Warmth it's the only way I feel comfortable dropping Insight for Obedience 🤣 I also use Spirit over going max block...I just don't care about max block and don't find it super useful how I play.
I was thinking about the obedience and insight swap too!! Dude how do you like it this way? I’m curious about the 2.5k difference in damage he mentions and I want to try it with blizzard!
@@Trikster1v honestly!! I’m blizzard spec lvl 89 right now with points in tele/telekenisis/static(7 points) as well.
I can kill everything in the game - merc handles cold immunities well.
However, I have 13 points left over with a bonus of +9 to skills outside of cold skills.
I’m debating to put these points in Fire or lightning.. or just maximize blizzard damage..
But this fire wall is tempting!!
@@mikespidle3360 stop lying. Your merc AI is annoying as hell and your kill speed on cold immunes makes you want to gouge out your eye balls. Respec and stop crippling yourself.
@@Industrious420 haha that's too funny. It makes it easier when you can teleport merc hit the cold immunes. It's nice to obliterate everyone except cold immunes. It would be nice to kill everyone as fast
I think blizzard + firewall is the best, with a tanky and strong gear. You can maximize blizzard with synergies if you spend only a few points to cold mastery (my base is 5 now), and there are enough points left for firewall,you will still have enough damage to cold immunities anyway. At lvl91 I have 75% block, 45% damage reduction, maxed blizz with sinergies, only 10 points (base) for firewall now and 1 points to fire mastery and warmth. Best gear: high fathom, shako, 1 SOJ, 1 fcr ring, 1 fcr amu, magefist, arachnid, 15/x/15 ormus with +3 firewall or blizzard) with a shael for fhr breakpoint, stormshield with um, and thats all, good defense and still managing the fcr breakpoint.:) With this build i can deal a lot more damage, and becouse its a really tanky character, if I'm not killing everything with blizzard, its not a problem. I started this from your builds, and I'm learned a lot from them, so thank you!:)
i switch to this two build with a fully gear sorc (orb/fireball and orb/firewall). yeah it's fun for solo play in random area or to clean hell i guess but oh boy the damage is lackluster for cow compare to blizzard.
Thanks for the comment, i guess ill start a Javazon for cows and then change my sorc build to orb/firewall
I lure a lot of cow and then drop fw, it's good. I use holy freeze mer too.
@@Azthal Hi. I did exacly same. Orb / fire wall and Java for cows 😉
I used 18 years ago, u need static field too.. Good video
RIP firewall
Nice vid! Gonna give this build a shot when I get home. Currently specced pure lightning and clear speeds are pretty good, but always gotta skip the immunes. Using 3-piece Tals, Torch, and other common sorc goodies, and based off of the calculator, I'll be sitting at nearly 11K firewall and 662 Orb with over 500% MF, no swapping needed. Should be good enough for some all-around farming.
Wasn't that the most popular build before synergies?
It's neat to see it make a comeback
before syngergies in 1.09, the popular sorc was frozen orb, thunder storm, nova. throw an orb tele into mob hit 2-3 novas and repeat.
it was called "Cookie Cutter" sorc because everyone used it lol
I did a respec to this build under a week ago and I found that it's just perfect. It feels good, it's fast, you don't feel too mana starved. You showed it off with high end gear, but this is the best build I have come across to bridge the gap when you have no decent gear. Just get a shield with really good increased block rate and get your resistances and FCR up and MF over 200% on swap (I literally just have 3 P Topaz in a mask). Just start with Andy runs. Pop in, clear mobs with Orb, kite Andy away from main area to avoid mobs in the back or side. Have Merc tank, have FW ready on weapon swap, hit super potion on Merc so he doesn't die every run, hit W, wall twice, dead Andy. Hit w again for safety, collect, rinse, repeat.
A Wizardspike is also a great semi-budget option (Andy does drop this).
Does this work if you only have spirit shield :? And do i need to do something different since I've only got spirit..
I use Spirit on a HC sorc with the same build and only lvl 78.. It works a treat, you just need to be a little more careful. :)
@@nobass_stub1394 good to know. :)
if you want you can trade your spirit monarch for stormshield + something else, but I wouldn't recommend it for a MF character
@@GutoCmtt yeah no I'll just keep spirit and then be more active moving from mobs.
I am running orb wall build myself but with different skill distribution.
I am definitely trying this one. Thank you.
Edit: that works great for me, I feel like a DPS tank lol
Starts video with: "doesnt require the best gear"
proceeds to introduce arachs', 2x soj, shaco, etc...
Yeah because none of that is hard to get if you take the time to farm or trade....
My orb/wall sorc uses occy, viper, spirit mon, chancies, shako, arach, 1 nagel and 1 10fcr ring, crap boots/ammy, and a druid torch ( just for the stats/res ) and can easily farm any area including baal, chaos, meph, andy, etc. Shako, occy, and arach take no time to get if you just spam farm meph for a few days.
Meant to be a joke, but you all seem to be so defensive. So lemme tell ya something. Diablo being diablo = RNG game. Ive been running andy/dia/meph 24/7 for about 3 weeks. Im surprised but 0 good and wearable items dropped. 0 shako, 0 viper, 0 occy, no mara, no chancies, no wt, no arach. Just random stuff for merc that got eventually swapped. Stop pointing out to do something that this game is based on and obvious? (hardcore grind). And no. Ive been trying out different builds, MF's, etc. Been running cows for runes and literally got just 1HR that i dont even consider a HR. Zod. Please tell me more about "running couple of days to get same loot" 😂 haha. Right lol.
@@ulala901 if you run strictly meph or strictly andariel (sub 2 minute runs) for 3 weeks straight and get nothing viable, you're doing something wrong, or you need to make a new char because RNGesus doesn't like the one you're using 🤣
@@iAmErikTheRed you know i was even thinking about that LOL. Might actually try to do that. God knows lol
Well, i know what my Sorc Build is gonna be. I ran into a guy doing baals last night running this his fw damage was over 4k , just damn. Great info cool build Thanks for sharing , subbed!
Hey, Nice video. Been using Fireball/Frozen orb for quite some time and I admit, gonna try this build next reset. Biggest advantage is having teleport for "free".
RIP Orbwall... maybe you could make a video of what we could be re-specing into?
I was wondering when videos would come out on this. People were laughing at me for using Forb and Firewall lol. Thansk for vindicating me!
Funny, I been using this build for since D2R came out.. I used Maxroll gg in order to min max the damage of Firewall just like your guy did. The calculations tab really lets you tinker around with not only different builds, but potential runewords that are not as common and people do not think of using. Good video as always though.
What ratio did you find best for fw damage. Ive played a bit with the planner and found that at lvl 82(with the plus skills gear on, no skillers or torch) is best to have warmth 6 plus higher than fm. I guess the best ratio changes when you have different variations of gear on.
@@stefancristiansteflic2720 so unlike what Coolie says in his video bout his sorc not being godly.. well she is definitely not run of the mill.. anyhow mine is level 86 at the moment and I have a total of +8 skills on cold side and +9 with magefists for fire and I found that keeping Fire Mastery 1 point above Warmth seems to yield the best results. Maybe his 3 point difference is better since he has +15 to cold and +19 to fire skills. Also, my cold mastery is at 15 for base investment keeping it at 130 percent with + skills. I do not use a Shako since I do not have a Tal Armor yet and I rather have the 3 piece bonus since it increases MF substantially. My 2 cents.
@@landom9080 I think is better to adjust the ratio taking in consideration the end game gear you will wear, like: oculus, skullders, shako, spirit, arachnid, plus 2 amulet, magefist (like plus 11/12 to cold/fire). Adjusting it for you current gear i dont know if its a good ideea. You should input all this into the planner and test. I found that is better to have 5/6 more into warmth than 3 more into fm. I think the ratio is very gear dependent.
I did this to start as well before I got infinity and went lightning, but start 20 warmth, 20 firewall, 1 fire mastery, then 20 ice bolt, 20 orb, etc... worked like a charm to get through hell. Also doesn't require much for gear. Get a 2 socket staff from act 2 wit firewall and warmth in it, turn that into a leaf runeword = instant profit.
Firewall is a lot weaker if you max out Warmth instead of Fire Mastery. The base of Firewall maxed out, with Mastery maxed, and Warmth at 1 is about 3491 dps. With 20 in Warmth, 20 Firewall, 1 Fire Mastery, the base damage is 2497 dps.
@@robertb67 I prefer maxing warmth to have almost infinite mana personally. I respec later to get that higher damage as you really don't need it until Hell, since firewall basically 1 shots everything through nightmare.
@@iAmErikTheRed Cool, that makes sense. The utility of having infinite mana is nice.
@@robertb67 when you combine max warmth with an insight on your A2 merc that has prayer aura you also have fast regeneration on your life which is a nice perk as well. The best part of D2 to me is that there's no one way to play it. Almost every build can be viable. I'll love this game forever.
@@robertb67 How/where are you calculating this? Using the D2 Maxroll calculator I'm finding the opposite seems to be the case, but only when +skills are factored in. Do you know why that is? Trying to wrap my mind around it lol
The formula for Mastery vs Warmth in Firewall's case is (Your +Skills - 7 = x. where x = warmth)
Always have atleast 1 point in Fire Mastery before factoring in your + or - warmth.
Ex: +10skills - 7 = +3 warmth (To start +1 Fire Mastery and +4 Warmth, then rotate +1 mastery +1 warmth till you are out of points) staying +2/3 at all times
Ex2: +4skills - 7 = -3 warmth (To start +(1+1)2 Fire Mastery then rotate +1 mastery +1 warmth til you are out of points) stay -2/3 at all times
I have tested out this build a lot but for mfing I landed on blizzard wall. With blizzard you can stack them and kite the slow mobs around in it and it's strong enough to one shot mobs on chaos runs. Definitely give it a try way better than orb!
thanks. I always preferred blizz to orb.
this build feels really good with full tals and spirit shield
running a dstar on 1 ring makes you feel invincible running chaos
This is the build I’m using, the firewall can be a little frustrating but if you cast it and run circles they stack and take them out fast. Love my orb too
I'd like to see a direct comparison of orb/wall vs orb/fb. I've always respec into orb/fb once I find tals with my starting blizz setup and it farms every area with over 300 mf using tals/spirit setup. The only advantage I see with wall is it kills bosses faster.
Cooley! Great video. Awesome build. Been playing this solo and group! I opted for one for the one point wonder in static field! For cold and fire immune it’s nice!
got called for work stuff early and saw a new vid. super stoked. i was getting wrecked by lister in baal with this build but thats just because emilio likes taking dirt naps. eventually ill get a merc that survives :)
Currently using;
War Travs,
Shako,
Occy,
Maras,
Skulders,
Raven Frost,
Nagles,
Chance Guards,
Spirit - Monarch,
Swap - Call to Arms
Swap - Spirit - Monarch
Pure Blizzard build, can clear Chaos, Trav council, Meph, Meph council, Walk to Baal.
In chaos I find it the hardest with the range doom knights but I telle stomp them with merc.
Act 2 Might
Crown of Thieves
Obedience Eth Thresher
Treachery Eth Husk
This build I think would help me farm chaos faster but looking at your throne clear the blizzard build + merc does that faster.
Baal kill would be slower though.
I am playing MP on max 3-4 ppl in game. I am guessing the firewall build would be able to able to smash bosses at a higher player count.
I have been theory-crafting this build for the past couple weeks because of the train wreck that was D2R day 1. I cleared hell day 2 on a FO/FB but really struggled for damage in multiplayer games, and with 70% of players being cold sorcs games just stopped when a CI spawned.
I started seeing FW builds so I tried out a Bliz/FW a week or 2 back, but Bliz and FW are on the same timer, so I was just standing around waiting for casts to come back up and doing bad boss damage. I put together my own build at 56 FO (10CM), 3 light (SF/TK/Tele), and the rest FW and it felt real good (20 FW, 10 warmth, and working on FM now). Most of the cold immune stuff I encounter basically turrets up in back and FW makes quick work of it all even with only a couple points in Fire mastery. Sleeper best feature is that with warmth so high you don't really need mana pots most of the time, especially if you run Frosties over Trangs/Magefist and get your FCR elsewhere. Then once your geared you can ditch the insight and go with a damage option on your merc.
FO/FW is 100% the sorc spec I plan to use for D2R Ladder season 1, though the question is should I roll sorc at all...
I've been using a slightly different orbwall build for some days now and the results are great. I maxed out fire mastery though. I believe you gain 7% per level which is more than warmth. Cold mastery to around -100 %, rest to warmth. I use full tal set with full vita build and spirit and with BO i have 2300hp. It plays really good. I do have 20 15 torch and 16 15 anni though so i cant really comment how it performs with budget gear. For merc i use andy, forti ap and ebotd warpike for style. Anyways great guide keep it coming.
That thumbnail is insane !
Nice video as always !
Love your channel bro, easily the most underrated D2 youtuber out there today.
BlizzWall here, but I think FW would hybridise well with anything. My favorite part of this build is really that I can get Warmth to 20+ for unlimited power, it's so fun. I'm actually thinking of redirecting some FW synergy points into my cold tree though, as FW is already absurdly powerful without too much investment, and the diminishing returns aren't as useful as taking down fire immunes faster.