Sorry for the meme title, but I think the situation demands it. We all know that orbiting node got struck by a nerf bat pretty hard, which was hardly unexpected, of course. I never liked the orbiting build – recast orb => walk => things die in your wake – it’s way too passive for my liking.
So, I’ve been pondering my orb for quite some time, you might say. (even before the patch). I promise I’ll stop now.
So, orbiting is cool and all, but there are these two nodes:
- Manacharged
- Overcharged Detonation
So I thought it could mean a decent synergy with high-mana setup, e.g, the one involving the Fractured Crown.
It’s obviously not a secret that Fractured Crown builds are naturally quite tanky. But now you can have the DPS too!
Build links (lastepochtools):
- Rare items, T5 affixes
- My actual gear, some exalts: ZA8w06o6
- Arena build (Focus replaced with Flame Ward: KQb5pDAM
(had to remove the last 2 links due to new user’s restriction, feel free to use codes)
video
- Cold Sorc, Empowered Mono + Boss - YouTube
- Cold Sorc, Arena 200-220 - YouTube
- Cold Sorc, Dummy DPS - YouTube
SKILLS
There’s a lot of synergies in this build.
- Main interaction, is, of course, between huge mana pool provided by Fractured Crown and other + mana items and between Static Orb nodes Manacharged and Overcharged Detonation. Both these nodes stack which results in HUGE damage multipliers, giving you juicy 400-700k crits (on dummy). What’s funny, is that these multipliers also apply to small orbs, which means you can reliably hit up to 2-3M per Orb
- Then Glacier is a main source of mana regen (and secondary damage source), with nodes that return % mana on crit and on kill
- Ice Barrage is a jack-of-all-trades, providing solid trash clear, huge global cold damage buff and pretty good frontal projectile block.
- Teleport is teleport, of course. The only mandatory node is “1 free cast after TP”.
- Focus is self-explanatory. You need Null Profusion node, of course. You can play with overcharge % mana, but I don’t think it’s reliable. But it could work pretty cool for zerg-rushing some Mono bosses.
- Flame Ward (instead of Focus)-- is a must in >200 arena. Focus is not much help, since you mostly lose mana due to damage anyways (contrary to Monos). And you’ll have plenty of mobs to leech mana back with Glacier. I wouldn’t recommend taking it to Monos instead of Focus though, because otherwise you’ll struggle on tough solo targets (like Mono Bosses).
GEAR PRIORITIES
Well, you guessed it.
mana
Mana is your everything. As long as you have mana, you basically can't die. And the more you have it, the more damage you do. Therefore, mana is both your offensive and defensive stat. Otherwise:OFFENSIVE
- cold penetration
- spell damage
- cold damage
- spell crit
- armor shred
- crit multi
Crit multi you don’t need that much, since you already have a lot from Fractured Crown. Cast Speed does help too, but I’d say that the one you have from passives and idols is more than enough to keep you going.
DEFENSIVE
- capped res (ofc)
- crit avoidance
- endurance
- end. threshold
- HP
HP is still good, but you don’t need it that much (aside from chest piece), because you already have effectively large hp pool from mana shield. Remember, that even with 700+ mana and merely 1000 HP and ~60% conversion YOUR MANA WILL RUN OUT FASTER THAN HP. On the plus side – you are easy to heal with even little leech. And, of course, it makes endurance threshold incredibly effective.
OTHER
You can also add some Freeze Multi, if you want, as a secondary layer of defense. But that’s not necessary. I have Freeze Multi gear only because it rolled some god-like T7 affixes.
LEGENDARIES
I was thinking about this for a while but it seems like there are very few immediately obvious great choices (not considering 4 LP rolls, of course). And I’m absolutely positive you could do reasonably well without Legendaries whatsoever.
For 1-2 Legendary Potential (LP) I think it could be something like that:
- Fractured Crown – is the most obvious choice and would be absolutely fantastic even with 1 LP. The thing is, I honestly have no idea how it can be obtained in 0.8.4. And even if it could be obtained at all. And if it could – then could it roll LP?
- Prism Wraps – this is second most obvious choice. Common drop, could be great for any mage with 2+ LP. Especially with some juicy T7 affixes.
- Yulia’s Path – could be great even with 1 LP due to good native resistances, endurance, movespeed, healing. Heck, I probably wouldn’t mind even a normal version with good rolls. These boots are great!
- Tome of Elements – common drop and has effective level 20, so there’s a non-zero chance for high LP. Potentially could be great, depending on your merged exalted piece, otherwise don’t bother.
- Orian – could be absolutely godlike even with 1 LP (mostly due to 100+ mana). But I don’t even have the normal version, so… yeah.
- Urzil’s Pride – possible, with good LP. Mostly due to native mana.
GAMEPLAY TIPS
- The main idea is to put an Ice Barrage between you and mobs and then spam Glacier for mana conserve/regen. This way you are both protected from projectiles and are doing some good clears.
- You are allowed to free-cast your huge Static Orbs after TP, so don’t forget about it, when conserving. Usually 1 Orb is enough for most elites.
- Always keep an eye on your mana. If you out of mana – you die instantly. Until then you are invincible.
- Pre-cast Ice Barrier as a global Cold Damage buff before your burn phase on boss. 4 seconds of buff is more than enough to burn all your mana, and then you can go into a conserve mode.
- Don’t forget about Lightning Aegis from one of the Orb nodes. It doesn’t make you invincible, but can certainly help to survive some tough spots.
That’s my first build posted on this forum. Hope you like 
