Build Guide
2.6.4 gave a massive buff to LON sets, from 100% per piece to 750%!
In response, I devised a LON build around the concept of Frozen Orb, as I felt like it was more fun than meteor builds.
S17 gave LON the abilty to use 2 other rings instead of the LoN rings.
I like this build more than other frozen orb builds as you don't really have to stand around a lot (for 100% Damage from Endless Walk), and that you don't have to move and put enemies into slow time bubbles or go into archon. Also you don't have to be a few yards away to proc karini (useful when reviving).
D3Planner: https://www.d3planner.com/104537224
Playstyle:
Cast Energy Armor at start and when reviving.
Use Teleport both defensively and to move away to distance yourself for zei's and for power hungry (have to be 30 yards for 30% more damage)
Only use Black Hole before 1 second cold cycle. This is because the bonuses only lasts 5 seconds. It also has a long cooldown.
I recommend numlocking EB. Try to keep it at 4 stacks since its where most of your toughness comes from.
You mostly keep up the stacks with EB, shock pulse and frozen orb.
Below is the timing of casting what orbs to get the most damage from it.
Timing of regen (shock orbs) and frozen orbs:
Basic
This is the basic playstyle. As you can see, you spam frozen orb every 2 cycles. There is 3-4 secs to move around and regen your arcane power.
Intermediate
This is the Intermediate playstyle. There are 2 second regen time and 3 sec spamming sections besides cold cycle, which is full spam.
Advanced
Compared to the basic and intermediate ones, this fits 3 full 4 sec cycles of frozen orb spam with only 1 sec for regen.
I recommend using different styles depending on situation, like for example use advanced on RG and use a mix of intermediate and advanced when clearing.
These are just recommended playstyles, you don't necessarily have to follow it, play it however you want.
Some Build Thoughts:
Rings - AS vs Physical damage
For overall DPS, a good Physical Damage range is better but in terms of only the Frozen Orb ability, AS is better.
My interpretation of this is that AS is better due to the fact that you could fit more orbs in.
Helm - AS vs CHC
With AS, you can have more orbs that have a chance to proc aPoC
With CHC, the orbs have more chance to proc aPoC but you lose an orb or 2.
I would use CHC since it would (barely) make it more consistent.
Energy Armor - Force Armor vs Prismatic Armor
Force Armor can help you avoid getting 1 shot.
Prismatic Armor helps you to tank a bit more.
Personally I think Force Armor is only good at very high rifts but Prismatic Armor is better overall.
Illusory Boots - AR vs MS (they are both preset stats)
MS = 50-26 = 24 x 5 = 120/10 = 12 AR
AR = 120 AR
AR is definitely better in this case.
Boots - Illusory vs Ice Climbers
Illusory has bad preset rolls but allows more free movement.
Ice Climbers can roll good stats, has an extra primary stat and has freezing/immobilizing abilities.
When comparing, Ice Climbers have more toughness
This may seem hard to choose between but Illusory is better since in dense rifts if you get suddenly trapped and your TP is on cooldown, you can move away easier compared to Ice Climbers.
Tips:
You can move around you know. There is no Endless Walk set to have to worry about.
Try to have max arcane power before Cold Cycle starts then spam Frozen Orb during it.
Use Black Hole during last half/quarter of Arcane cycle.
Stack Physical/Fire resists and melee/ranged damage reduction whenever possible.
Since its a LON build, all gear must be ancient. Even using an ancient piece not even part of the build is better than the non-ancient (besides stuff like rings, weapon and orb of course)
Swamp Land Waders is gear only found on WD. Pauldrons and Illusory Boots is only found in bounties.
Gear Choices:
5th Hellfire Passive is Blur for 17% damage reduction
Helm: Andariel's Visage
This helm can also roll AS and Cold Damage% on it compared to other helms. An alternative item early stage would be Leoric's Crown.
Shoulders: Any
The shoulders you have on doesn't matter, but Pauldrons of the Skeleton King (via bounties) seems to be the one with the most benefit.
You can choose whether you want an Armor/Life% roll or a RCR roll.
Firebird shoulders auto rolls with RCR, so if you don't like bounties, you could get that instead until you get a good pauldrons.
Chest: Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit
Tal Rasha's chest has a free AS roll and more primary stats (4 over 3) than secondary.
Amulet: Hellfire Amulet
Not really other good ones besides Eye of Etilch (Blur Passive has more toughness than Eye of Etilch).
Recommended Abilities:
Unstable Anomaly - Cheat Death
Elemental Exposure - a must have damage bonus
Power Hungry - another good damage bonus
Cold Blooded - Damage bonus
Blur - Damage Reduction
Alternative Hellfire Abilities you can choose:
Astral Presence - Resource Regen
Prodigy - Resource Regen
Unwavering Will - Damage and defensive bonus (must be standing still).
Illusionist - More movement
Gloves: Frostburn
The only good gloves as it has cold damage.
Bracers: Strongarm Bracers
Really good for damage. Black Hole definitely procs it but not sure about other ablities.
Belt: Witching Hour
Can roll AS and CHD; a big damage boost.
Rings: Litany of the Undaunted and The Wailing Host.
Namesake of the build.
I recommend having one ring with AD and the other with AS
S17 Rings:
Halo of Karini: (swap Energy Armor with Storm Armor) for up to 80% damage reduction
and
Stone of Jordan: for more offensive (Recommend rolls are 20% Cold, CHC/CHD (depends on rolls) and Elite Damage)
or
Unity: for more defensive (need don't die and unity on templar)
Pants: Swamp Land Waders
Can roll elemental damage.
PSA: This only rolls on WD
Boots: Illusory Boots
Allows you to move freely better when TP is on CD. An alternative would be Ice Climbers.
PSA: This is only obtainable by doing bounties (act 2).
Weapon: Unstable Scepter
Gives 450% more arcane orb damage.
Orb: Orb of Infinite Depth or Triumvirate
Orb of Infinite Depth gives a smaller damage boost and gives a massive damage reduction boost.
Triumvirate gives a massive damage boost to arcane orb (400%).
Orb of Infinite Depth and Triumvirate is interchangeable (Triumvirate has a higher range so preferred in the cube).
Cube:
Shame of Delsere
Gives resource back faster so you can shoot it more often.
Convention of Elements
Gives a huge damage boost on rotation.
Gems:
Helm - Topaz for RCR
Chest/Pants - Topaz for more Int/Resist, Ruby/Emerald for more Armor
Weapon - Emerald for CHD
Bane of the Stricken for the RG
Bane of the Trapped for a big damage boost.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance for another damage boost and this is a ranged build so it would make sense.
Alternative Gear/Skills:
Signature Skills Alternatives (only if you have lightning damage on weapon):
Magic Missile (Conflagrate/Glacial Spike) - faster but procs less
Spectral Blades (Barrier Blades) - Gives you a shield but have to go into melee range.
Armor Alternatives:
Storm Armor (Power of the Storm) - reduces AP cost
Ice Armor (Crystallize) - Increases armor but have to go into melee range (inferior toughness to prismatic armor)
Energy Armor (Force Armor) - could be better in very high GRs
Passive Skills Alternatives:
Astral Presence - Resource Regen
Prodigy - Resource Regen
Unwavering Will - Damage and defensive bonus (must be standing still).
Illusionist - More movement
Ability Alternatives:
Teleport - Wormhole
Gem Alternatives
Esoteric Alteration (instead of Zei's) - more non-physical survivability
Alternative Gear Changes:
Twister Variant (Ranslor's Folly + Twister) - you get to group enemies better in return of losing damage bonuses from Black Hole.
Eye of Etilch - Good Toughness alternative until you find a good hellfire
Lacuni's Prowlers - more Attack Speed
Aquila Cuirass - 50% toughness for 50-75% uptime
Ice Climbers - Toughness in exchange for mobility
Storm Armor + Halo of Karini - 80% toughness
Update Log:
1.0 = Designed it as a meme build based around Shi Mizu
1.1 = Changed it to be more viable with Aqulia Caress
1.2 = Changed it to have more damage and consistency with Tal's Chest
2.0 = Made Major Changes to the build and gave it more detail.
These include:
Changing Twister to Explosive Blast
+ usable
+ better resource management
+ more freedom of what signature spell
+ more toughness
+ can use COE without dying often
- less teleporting.
- have to press EB often.
- sucking enemies in is harder.
- have to rely on good weapon range RNG.
2.1 = Minor Gear Adjustments
2.2 = Changed armor ability (thanks to BlaSDX for the suggestion), 1.5x more toughness
2.3 = Updated for Season 17
Aquila Cuirass ? Doesn't make sense to me, because you will struggle with ressources all the time, specially if you play without "The Shame of Delsere".
Looks like a pretty solid but a very squihsy unfinished build
I love the frozen orb builds, way more than the meteor ones.
This build looks interesting, did you tested it yet? Is it stronger than DMO?
Without augments I did lvl 99 greater with this build in S16:
https://www.d3planner.com/906725767
I like the high attack speed and cold dmg from your build and the fact, that I dont need these bubbles all the time, but without halo of karini what gives you enough thougness?
With the build I'm runing atm, the wizard has karini and endless walk set for thougness and I still find the build very squishy.
My english is pretty bad, sorry for that.
A suggestion: if you aren't using Halo of Karini, then I recommend not using Storm Armor. It doesn't give any toughness and reducing your spells by 3 AP doesn't really do much when Arcane Orb costs 30 and you can easily fill up your entire bar by casting shock pulse 2-3 times in under a second.
I recommend either Force Armor or Prismatic Armor for a huge toughness boost.
For reference, my playstyle of this frozen orb build is to spam DPS during on cold cycle.
My main concern was that during the 4 secs of cold cycle, you wouldn't be able to spam frozen orb throughout the entire 4 sec of the cycle (without power of the storm) and cut short near the end, losing like 1-3 orbs.
After a lot of testing without power of storm and with energy armor (-20 Max Arcane Power), I found out that it can actually last if you have enough crits (to proc aPoc), which means that it is more reliant on density (could be bad when trying to full DPS on RG).
There are both advantages and disadvantages with switching, but ultimately I think having more toughness is better, so its a good idea to switch storm armor to energy armor, although not sure which of those 2 runes are better in the long run.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Also, if you want a bit more toughness but the -20 AP is too much, use the [Energy Tap] rune, it gives +20 AP instead.
Oh, and here's a theorycrafting suggestion:
edit: while I'm at it, here's another possible variation:
The main point of EB and its orb in this build is for the damage reduction, as without it, you get very low toughness (around 5 times less)(which is basically 1 shot). It is also the fire part of the elemental exposure (could have fire damage on weapon but that would make it too hard to get a good weapon). Which is why I can't really recommend any other orb/ability combo.
Also with enough skill and luck, you can get 3-4 stacks for the majority of the time with good groups and timing of tps.
Crown of the Primus/Slow Time is more useful in DMO and it has a long cooldown without DMO (around 10s), which is why I wouldn't recommend Slow Time for this build. Having double aPoC and more Max AP would be nice but you get better benefits from Andariel's.
TL;DR OoID/EB is superior due to damage reduction benefits despite having possibly lower damage than other orbs/ablities
You cant use Tal Rasha piece and get the LoN bonus. The rings specifically say no other set pieces.
That's if the set bonus is activated (which requires 2+ of a set). The rings say set item bonus.