Wizard Nerf to Frozen Orb

[Niku]

I changed to a fire spec centres around wave of force.

[Djuntas]

This is kind of off-topic, but does conflag's dot stack with itself? I assume it does, since you're using it?

Yes, conflag stacks. Go test it on ghom torment6 etc, and be amased. Hope Blizzard dosen't nerf it =/

Only tried one kill and he died inn less than 1½ min.

[Hellfury]

Disintegrate spec with a fuckton of arcane bonus damage is hillarious. with the volatility rune, you'll see one mob die only to explode for 20 mill dmg to everything around it.
Arcane Hydra if you need to kite, 1.2m aoe bolts from each head.
And of course you can put Archon on your bars and melt a away 800m-1b health away from a mob in 20 seconds.

It's also far more easy on the arcane power usage than i.e. an orb build. I don't even have AP generators on my bars anymore.

This! I have ~70% arcane damge and ~65% desintegrate damage, things just go puff

I been collecting gear to switch to frost but with the Frozen Ray not Noob orb once I get the source that makes it pierce, Frost Ray with the "black cold" rune gona be hilarious.

[Spiralphoenix]

I don't know how you couldn't notice it.

I thought the same thing when I first started, but it only took 30 min or so of playing to realize it had been hit pretty hard. It's nowhere near as good as it was. Things I cleared with ease before take significantly more time. But in some ways I'm glad, it encouraged me to try something new. Saw no reason to switch before, it was just really powerful.

[Hellfury]

Which requires a lot of gear, frozen orb doesn't.

and that was one of the probleams, the gerar threshold was too low and that what made alot of ppl jump the wz bandwagon, some specs are just as good but require some more elaborated stat sinergies.

[haliber]

Disintegrate spec with a fuckton of arcane bonus damage is hillarious. with the volatility rune, you'll see one mob die only to explode for 20 mill dmg to everything around it.
Arcane Hydra if you need to kite, 1.2m aoe bolts from each head.
And of course you can put Archon on your bars and melt a away 800m-1b health away from a mob in 20 seconds.

It's also far more easy on the arcane power usage than i.e. an orb build. I don't even have AP generators on my bars anymore.

I concur,

I use electrocute with arcane dynamo for my Disintegrate+Archon spec - currently crit ticks for 30m with just Disintegrate.
I don't think I could play anything else at all.

[Hubbl3]

and that was one of the probleams, the gerar threshold was too low and that what made alot of ppl jump the wz bandwagon, some specs are just as good but require some more elaborated stat sinergies.

The thing that makes frost orb superior even at high gear level is the cast and forget mechanic (imo). I've played a firesorc, a arcane sorc with arcane torrent and one with desintegrate while having high elemental damage bonus and skill damage bonus. And while I was able to clear everything just fine the orb feels just better. You don't have to stand around and it has no build up time. Letting everything explode with a arcane torrent cascade is really nice, but when the monster density gets lower it just don't feels good anymore. You stand more around than you kill stuff, imo.

[Spiralphoenix]

The thing that makes frost orb superior even at high gear level is the cast and forget mechanic (imo). I've played a firesorc, a arcane sorc with arcane torrent and one with desintegrate while having high elemental damage bonus and skill damage bonus. And while I was able to clear everything just fine the orb feels just better. You don't have to stand around and it has no build up time. Letting everything explode with a arcane torrent cascade is really nice, but when the monster density gets lower it just don't feels good anymore. You stand more around than you kill stuff, imo.

I agree on this. Playing arcane torrent lately, frozen orb is a far more mobile playstyle. Arcane torrent is strong but it's an adjustment channeling all the time compared to cast->move->cast->move->repeat of frozen orb.

[Varabently]

It really was too powerful. I mean I was melting stuff in T1/T2 and my gear isn't that great. I am trying out a disintegrate build now since that's what I actually like. Fro-Orb was fun and powerful, but it really was broken.

[Lilly32]

Disintegrate spec with a fuckton of arcane bonus damage is hillarious. with the volatility rune, you'll see one mob die only to explode for 20 mill dmg to everything around it.
Arcane Hydra if you need to kite, 1.2m aoe bolts from each head.
And of course you can put Archon on your bars and melt a away 800m-1b health away from a mob in 20 seconds.

It's also far more easy on the arcane power usage than i.e. an orb build. I don't even have AP generators on my bars anymore.

yea I have 110% Disintegrate Damage its pretty awesome. Although I still have to use a generator because I reforged off my AP on crit for 20% more Disintegrate damage on helm+source

[Failmuffins]

I used the fix as an excuse to move away from my level up/early gearing Frozen Orb build to play a melee fire Wizard with Maximus.

Frozen Orb is a great build thanks to its independence from gear (other than stacking some bonus frost + arcane orb damage), and it wasn't nerfed too hard with the patch, but there are more fun and tailored builds out there once you start to acquire a few legendaries with interesting effects. I like how they didn't neuter the build completely, but just brought it into line a little more with other builds.

[Dezerte]

Radius is noticeably smaller, but it's still a solid skill in my book.

[Deleted]

Classical Blizzard. Look at spreadsheets, target most used skill, nerf.

[Jaylock]

Classical Blizzard. Look at spreadsheets, target most used skill, nerf.

This.

It sucks especially since im a complete cold build Wiz with +cold damage on almost all my gear, and + arcane orb damage. Now i have to completely re-gear my character if I want to go a different build.

[Hubbl3]

This.

It sucks especially since im a complete cold build Wiz with +cold damage on almost all my gear, and + arcane orb damage. Now i have to completely re-gear my character if I want to go a different build.

You had always to regear your character if you were stacked with +damage affixes and wanted to try another spec... and orb is just fine now.

[Faesroll]

This.

It sucks especially since im a complete cold build Wiz with +cold damage on almost all my gear, and + arcane orb damage. Now i have to completely re-gear my character if I want to go a different build.

So instead of overpowered, orb is now "balanced" and suddenly it's no more fun to play?

[Varabently]

So instead of overpowered, orb is now "balanced" and suddenly it's no more fun to play?

Well for me at least, Frozen Orb was the only spec I'd played at level 70, so it didn't feel overpowered to me. I had nothing to compare it to. Once they nerfed it though, I realized that it really WAS only a fun spec because it was so good. I don't think it's so crazy to think that a spec is only fun because its overpowered.

It did feel a bit like cheating though, so I don't mind the nerf. The good thing about it being balanced is I don't feel like I have to play that spec. Before it was SO good that I didn't see any reason to try anything else. Now I can roam around and stuff different stuff.

[zoomgpally]

So instead of overpowered, orb is now "balanced" and suddenly it's no more fun to play?

Some people only like overpowered.

I'll keep playing my frozen orb build, only one that felt comfortable to me.

[Kuanti]

Frozen orb is still viable and still the most used build

[Splatter]

Frozen orb is still viable and still the most used build

I tried out a heap of other builds last night, went back to frozen orb :/ Most of my gear is +electrocute or +arcane orb. Would like to try RoF with piercing but I lack the offhand to do it Currently using electrocute with the sparks on crit glyph. My weapon causes stuff hit by lightning to turn into electric pulses. So much lightning damage and aoe damage. I only really use Frorb for the slows or on big clusters of mobs for a quick clear.