I found this just a little bit ago and thought I would place it here. This will allow me to book mark this for future reference.



Also gonna add in the lil bit about FO vs Blizzard

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There are 17 shards in the final "pop" at the end of a frozen orb. These 17 shards carry the listed damage in the LCS. It is these 17 shards that will do the killing for you and not the numerous that are released along its path. Basic comparason between 1 cast of FO versus 1 cast of blizzard on a single target. Both FO and Blizzard will be left un synergized for this example. This will demonstrate that for 1 more point, you can get a much better spell.

LvL20 Blizzard does 655 to 711 in damage per falling shard. Has a mana cost of 42. On a really good cast of blizzard, you will hit the enemy 2 maybe 3 times. For this example we will go with your elite skills and say you hit the critter 3 times in single cast of blizzard. Not importantly, it has a cold duration of 4 seconds which is penalized in NM as well as Hell.

LvL20 Frozen Orb does 262 to 267 in damage per shard. Has a mana cost of 34. On a really good cast of frozen orv, you will hit the enemy with 12 or 13 shards from the "pop" at the end as well as a few from the shards that fly out on the way there. Again, we are going to assume you are elite and say you hit the meanie with 16 shards total from one cast of Frozen orb. Also not importantly, frozen orb's cold druation at lvl 20 is 27 seconds.

So this critter we choose to shoot at. Lets say he has 2K life and 50% cold resists. Lets see how much damage he is actually going to take from each spell.

BLIZZARD
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3 x 683 ( average damage ) - 50% ( cold resists ) = 1024.5 [ blizzard would round this down and you would only do 1024 damage ]

FROZEN ORB
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16 x 264 ( average damage ) - 50% ( cold resists ) = 2112

OMG it is almost double in damage. We have not even factored in the cold mastery here. Now if you fully synergize blizzard, I will agree that it does loads more damage. HOWEVER, for making a durable/go anywhere sorc, choosing the cold spell is a no brainer.

Any ?'s just ask!

Yes, orb is powerfull spell and in my opinnion kinda underrated. However, like you said, fully synenergized blizzard will do alot more damage.

But FO is great for sorcs that use 2 elements. Like meteorb. It just works great, even with only few points in cold mastery, and this is why I like FO in pvm.

Also, blizz is kinda boring

I tried out a blizzard sorc and found the random hits to be rather lame. for me and my elite aiming skills, I would get 2 maybe 3 hits from one cast of blizzard. I also had 0 hits on a cast a few times as well. For me, this is unacceptable. I will always down play blizzard when comparing cold spells and always boast about getting the 17 shards to go off inside the critter to do max damage possible.

dammit! you should have foudn this before ladder reset and everyone was recommending a blizzard/firewall sorc build for MFing! AHHHH! No wonder I feel weak in hell.

I blame this all on you morpheus. You failed me.

i thought thats why fo is in almost every dual-element sorc....????????++++++++plus lol gtfo

I still happy morpheus find out..Very little late...

Hey, hey hey. I knew this info for quite a while and the FO / blizz comparason has been done by me many times over. I just wanted a post that I could bookmark so that I can use this as a quick answer.

I did not realize that you all were counting on me to inform you of everything! j/k.

Now go sit their exams for them

That would be fine, if they wanted to fail. I never graduated college and have no desire to go back. In this country, a college ( university ) degree does not garuntee you a job. Thank god for computer certifications though!

Oh Tha's why My Fo/Fire wall going greater than Blizz/Fire wall