Wizard DMO Frozen Orb Build

Last updated on Oct 23, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 17 comments

Welcome to our build guide for DMO Frozen Orb Wizard in Diablo 3. Here, you will learn everything you need to know to play this build at the highest level. This build is updated for Patch 2.7.8 and Season 33.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our follower guide, which contains detailed advice on choosing the skills and the gear of your companion.

1.

Introduction

Calling back to powers as ancient as the Sorceresses in Diablo II, the Frozen Orb Wizard emerges as one of the strongest builds in Patch 2.6.1. Using the powers of Delsere's Magnum Opus set, this build bends and slows time itself, while hurling devastating orbs of arctic destruction. This bursty, control-heavy spec is strictly oriented at Greater Rift progression.

2.

Quick Reference

2.1.

Skill Setup

The basic skill setup of the DMO Frozen Orb Wizard is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Spectral Blade Icon Spectral Blade Barrier Blades Barrier Blades Right Mouse Button Arcane Orb Icon Arcane Orb Frozen Orb Frozen Orb 1 Teleport Icon Teleport Wormhole Wormhole 2 Energy Twister Icon Energy Twister Wicked Wind Wicked Wind 3 Slow Time Icon Slow Time Time Warp Time Warp 4 Storm Armor Icon Storm Armor Shocking Aspect Shocking Aspect
Passive Skills
2.2.

Gear Setup

The required gear setup for the DMO Frozen Orb Wizard is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.

2.3.

Season 33 Theme — 4th Kanai Slot

With this Season's addition of a 4th slot in Kanai's Cube as a theme, your ideal setup will be:

2.3.1.

Altar of Rites

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

Altar of Rites Planner

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

2.4.

Legendary Gems

2.5.

Kanai's Cube

3.

How to Get This Build Going?

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the DMO set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystal Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breath Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Soul Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breath Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a DMO Frozen Orb Wizard, you should to the following.

  • Gather the full 6-piece DMO set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Pants, Gloves, Chest, and Helm. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
  • Gamble Off-hands or upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Wizard Sources for Triumvirate Triumvirate. This source will be a tremendous damage increases to the build.
  • Gamble or upgrade rare Belts for The Shame of Delsere The Shame of Delsere; attack speed is a major source of damage in the build, while resource stability will help you maintain skill spam and possible buffs like Aquila Cuirass Aquila Cuirass.
  • Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers for Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, a solid protective piece for the build. Gambling/upgrading rares in the Bracer slot can also net you other valuable pieces like Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers or Ranslor's Folly Ranslor's Folly.
  • Craft lvl 70 Wands at the Blacksmith and use the "upgrade rare" recipe to obtain Unstable Scepter Unstable Scepter, one of the biggest damage pieces in the Frozen Orb build. Gambling is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
  • Craft lvl 70 Daggers at the Blacksmith and use the "upgrade rare" recipe to obtain Wizardspike Wizardspike, the other cornerstone damage piece in the Frozen Orb build. Gambling is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
  • Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Cpt. Crimson, Aughild...) as described in the DMO Frozen Orb Wizard Gear page. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
  • While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; the Endless Walk set (The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose The Compass Rose), Convention of Elements Convention of Elements, Unity Unity, and Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace will all bring massive damage bumps to the build, with other standout pieces like Oculus Ring Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
4.

Changelog

  • 23 Oct. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
  • 23 Oct. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
  • 23 Oct. 2024 (this page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
  • 10 Jul. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Jul. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
  • 10 Jul. 2024 (this page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
  • 10 Apr. 2024 (this page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (gear page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (this page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (this page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 25.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (this page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 24.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 02 Apr. 2021 (gear page): Revised items and added follower recommendation.
  • 02 Apr. 2021 (skills page): Revised skill and passive lineup.
  • 02 Apr. 2021 (this page): Revised skills and items and added follower recommendation.
  • 20 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Revised item and Cube recommendations for Season 22.
  • 20 Nov. 2020 (skills page): Revised skill and passive recommendations for Season 22.
  • 20 Nov. 2020 (this page): Revised skill, item and Cube recommendations for Season 22.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (this page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Reviewed and approved for Season 18.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed and approved for Season 18.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 18.
  • 17 May 2019 (gear page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 May 2019 (skills page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 May 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
  • 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
  • 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
  • 12 Nov. 2017 (gear page): Revised the item selection to improve the endgame pushing potential of the build.
  • 12 Nov. 2017 (skills page): Revised the skill selection to improve the endgame pushing potential of the build.
  • 12 Nov. 2017 (this page): Revised the guide to improve the endgame pushing potential of the build.
  • 30 Oct. 2017 (this page): Guide added.
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