Diablo 4 has significantly buffed Sorcerers in the Season of the Infernal Hordes. Their Uniques are stronger, many Legendary Aspects have been enhanced, Paragon nodes have doubled in effectiveness, and the Intelligence stat received a scaling buff. As a result, Sorcerers are now in a solid position for endgame content.

No build exemplifies this improvement better than the Frozen Orb combined with Lightning Spear, a popular setup for endgame Sorcerer mains and Diablo content creators. In this guide, we will cover how to create the Frozen Orb Sorcerer build, detailing everything from the skill tree to optimized Aspects and item tempering.

Build Overview

This Frozen Orb build is designed to transform the battlefield into a blinding snowstorm. The key strategy is to build your character for attack speed and mana regeneration, allowing you to spawn dozens of Frozen Orb projectiles within seconds. These Frozen Orbs explode and create numerous conjurations, significantly boosting your damage and mana sustain. Casting Frozen Orb for a few seconds results in a small army of conjurations at your command.

Key Gear:

Fractured Winterglass: This Unique amulet is essential for the build, providing the synergy needed between Frozen Orb and conjurations. You can target farm this amulet from Lord Zir.

Mana Regeneration Gear: Cheap Diablo 4 Items with "+Mana per Second" affixes are crucial to sustain your mana.

Core Skills:

Frozen Orb: The core skill of the build, spawning an icy projectile that explodes after traveling a short distance. Enhanced by Aspect of Frozen Orbit, each Frozen Orb explosion reduces conjuration cooldowns, making it a powerful skill for both offense and defense.

Lightning Spear: This conjuration skill is used whenever off cooldown. Enhanced and Invoked upgrades allow for multiple Lightning Spears, which can stun enemies and deal critical damage, especially when combined with the reworked Splintering Energy Aspect.

Skills and Passives

Main Skills:

Frozen Orb (Enhanced, Destructive): Spawns projectiles that explode, creating conjurations and sustaining mana.

Lightning Spear (Enhanced, Invoked): Conjures multiple Lightning Spears that stun enemies, crucial for staggering bosses.

Utility Skills:

Teleport: For mobility and repositioning.

Ice Armor: Provides Barrier, your main source of defense.

Flame Shield: Protects against one-hit mechanics, especially useful in higher-tier content.

Optional Skill:

Ice Blades: Helps with cooldown reduction, useful when starting out.

Unstable Currents: Grants a 25% attack speed buff, especially effective with the Orange Herald Aspect for 100% uptime in boss fights.

Important Passives:

Conjuration Mastery: Increases damage, movement speed, and mana regeneration per active conjuration.

Devouring Blaze: Grants multiplicative critical damage.

Permafrost, Hoarfrost, Icy Touch: Buff Frozen Orb and cold damage.

Frigid Breeze: Provides mana sustain during leveling.

Capstone: Esu's Ferocity for attack speed or Vyr's Mastery for overall damage boost with Mythic Uniques.

Paragon Board

The Paragon Board for this build includes seven Glyphs and eight boards. Focus on Frigid Fate, Icefall, and Glyphs' secondary effects to maximize damage output. Conjurer and Control Glyphs are particularly effective, with Conjurer extending conjuration duration and Control providing a damage multiplier while enemies are stunned.

How to Fix Your Mana Sustain

Mana sustain can be a challenge with this build. Use Diablo 4 items with "+Mana per Second" affixes to boost your base mana generation. Aim for at least +7 mana per second, upgrading to +10 as you progress. This, combined with Conjuration Mastery, can significantly increase your mana regeneration, making the build more fluid.

Scaling Attack Speed and Critical Chance

Focus on attack speed and critical chance to maximize your damage output:

Attack Speed: Look for attack speed affixes on gloves and rings, and use Aspect of Ancient Flame for a 50% boost.

Critical Chance: Use Esu's Heirloom for a 40% critical strike chance at capped movement speed. Additional affixes on your gear should push your critical chance to 70-85%, with Lightning Spear covering the rest.

Leveling the Build

Start as a Firewall Sorcerer while leveling through World Tiers 1-3, pairing Firewall with Hydra for single-target DPS. Focus on obtaining Fractured Winterglass, either from the seasonal reward track, farming Lord Zir, or trading with other players. Once you have the amulet and some mana regeneration gear, switch to the Frozen Orb build. Aim for Critical Damage, Frozen Orb multicast, and high Life stats on your gear.

Endgame Progression

At Level 100, respec your Paragon Board and start farming Nightmare Dungeons to level up your Glyphs. With well-tempered gear and optimized stats, you should be able to tackle Tormented Bosses and start min-maxing the build for higher content.

This guide should help you set up a powerful Frozen Orb Sorcerer build in Diablo 4, taking full advantage of the buffs introduced in the Season of the Infernal Hordes.