Blizzard versus Frozen Orb

[Taem]

Blizzard versus Frozen Orb

Prodded by some players in USWEST to use Blizzard over Frozen Orb, I did some testing on Blizzard versus Frozen Orb to see which one I thought was better and came up with some interesting results I thought I might share.

Blizzard General Information:
The Blizzard spell drops shards of ice down on your opponents. Its area of effect is a three-yard radius on screen (about two mouse pointers from your character in either direction). Each Blizzard lasts four (4) seconds. Once the monster exits the storm, a typical Blizzard cold length lasts about three seconds in Normal, two seconds in Nightmare, and one second in Hell . Blizzard has a casting delay of two (2) seconds.

Number Crunch: After repeated testing on Normal difficulty Anderial with a level 1 Blizzard, Blizzard scored an average of 2.5 attacks per storm. A level 20 Blizzard with synergies maxed does an average damage of 2,378. That amounts to 5,945 damage per cast, however because Blizzard can also be cast every two seconds over the same area, you will be effectively be doing (Total Damage x 2), or in this case 11,890 damage.

Blizzards Weak Points:
Blizzard has an apparent area of affect in a 3-yard radius. This means a very small number of creatures would be affected by your blizzard, which could lead to a lot more running or death. Frozen orb by contrast shoots ice bolts that pretty much cover ½ to ¾ an entire visible screen.

A level 20 Blizzard consumes 42 mana per cast. A level 20 Frozen Orb by contrast consumes 34 mana per cast. Over the course of 10 casts in a row – which is pretty common – Blizzard will consume 420 mana whereas Frozen Orb will consume 340 mana; 80 more points of mana! Those 80 points of mana do add up, but could be recovered in a single mana potion.

Frozen Orb General Information:
The spell Frozen orb shoots out shards of Ice Bolts in a straight line. Its maximum range seems to be a little further than past the edge of the screen. Frozen Orb has a variable cold length. Frozen Orb has a casting delay of two (2) seconds.

Number Crunch: After repeated testing in Act 4 and Act 5 of Normal difficulty, I surmised that an average of four 4-ice bolts strike a single target being aimed for per casting. Each Frozen Orb shoots four lairs of bolts about a half a second apart each with the final lair containing the most densely packed lair of bolts striking everything on in the area of effect multiple times (sometimes allowing up to 6 ice bolts to strike a single target). A level 20 Frozen Orb with synergies maxed out does an average of 376.5 damage per Ice Bolt. This amounts to 1,506 damage per casting.

Frozen Orb Weak Points:
Frozen Orb does a mediocre amount of damage overall. Against monsters in hell, it may take awhile to kill them if they have decent cold resist and that could result in your death.

Summation:
Obviously, Frozen Orb suffers from a serious lack of damage when compared to Blizzard, however it is easier to control and has a WAY longer cold length (27 seconds at level 20) making it a safe weapon to use in unexplored areas. It also affects more monsters because of its larger area of effect possibly doing a comparable amount of total damage to Blizzard because of the sheer amount of monsters affected.

After doing these test, I wouldn’t say one was better than the other, rather different in their own ways. I would recommend Frozen Orb if survival or relaxation is your goal. I would recommend Blizzard if destruction is your goal.

Thoughts and comments welcome!

[[wcip]Angel]

Wow! Thank you very much. That was very interesting read.

I have a frozen orb/fire ball/meteor/bolt/mastery-sorc myself. I think it's amazing how a lvl 20 skill (FO) sans synergies or mastery can stand up to a fully fledged meteor or fireball aided by synergies mastery. I haven't tried blizzard yet, but to me to the frozen orb seems very strong. When I hit lvl 30, a lvl 1 frozen orb was much more devastating than a volley of high lvl fireballs with synergies. If frozen orb suffers from a lack of punch, I'd hate to think what havoc blizzard can wreak. :)

Thanks for the guide, MEAT. :)

[Minionman]

Blizzard has an apparent area of affect in a 3-yard radius. This means a very small number of creatures would be affected by your blizzard, which could lead to a lot more running or death

Depending on what area the sorceress is in, this 3-yard radius can mean different amounts of monsters. In act 2 deserts with sand leapers and vultures, blizzard will be really weak, in act 1 with archers, it can hit 3 or 4 at the same time, in act 4 with doom knights or venom lords, one blizzard can cover almost a whole group.

[Guest]

Frozen Orb makes many a character more viable. Requiring no synergies and only a few points in mastery, it is extremely effective, meaning you can easily make a dual tree sorc and only max one skill. I found my Frozen Orb/Fireball/Meteor Sorc AND my mono Cold Frozen Orb Sorc to both kill faster than my Mono Cold Blizzard sorc. The other two sorcs had better equipment though.

My main problem with blizzard is that it requires you to be mono cold to be viable.

[Brista]

Good analysis but I'd like to make some observations

Firstly you're comparing an 80 skill point Blizzard with a 40 skill point Orb.

Next damage per cast probably isn't the most useful benchmark. Damage over time is more useful. Converting your figures to damage per second we get:
Blizzard 2972.5
Orb 1506

Lastly you observed Blizzard's effectiveness using a large monster (Andariel). The spell will be a lot less effective against smaller monsters since fewer shards would hit. The same is true of Orb also but to a lesser extent. Orb's shards move so the relevant dimension of a monster is width. Wider monsters get hit more. Blizzard's shards however rain down so the relevant dimension is area. Area changes by a greater degree than width as monster size changes

Your research is very useful - I think you've proved a case for Blizzard being superior for certain roles, such as Meph running. I don't think your data establishes Blizzard as a superior spell for general play. Good work

[Taem]

I agree with what you wrote Brista. I personally use Orb because it's much more of a survival tool for me than Blizzard. When a crowd of monsters with 'extra fast' or 'frenzy' appears on my tail, Blizzard will do very little to help me!

I'd also like to make a correction regarding Blizzard Damage:

That amounts to 5,945 damage per cast, however because Blizzard can also be cast every two seconds over the same area, you will be effectively be doing (Total Damage x 2), or in this case 11,890 damage.

Strike the 11,890. I already doubled the damage with the 5,945 amount. That makes Blizzard even less attractive when paired up against Orb, IMO.

[Obi2Kenobi]

You also didn't need to multiply it by 2 to begin with. If one attack does 100 damage in one second, and can be cast every 4 seconds, that's 25 max damage per second (ignoring cast rate for ease of calculation). If another attack does 50 damage over four seconds, and can be cast every two seconds, that's still 25 damage per second.

[Trien]

Doesn't frozen orb also have its casting delay linked with the casting delays of other spells ... a bug/feature introduced in 1.10? I've started a lightning/cold sorceress not too long ago, having focused mainly on lightning skills so far, but having only put a single point into blizzard thus far, not having put a point into orb yet because I'm still thinking over this issue. One of my current playstyles involves casting blizzard, and then using lightning/chain lightning while I'm waiting for the casting delay on blizzard to run out. With orb, I would be unable to cast any spells (including, say, teleport) if I am understanding this correctly.

May still go with orb down the road though ... we'll see...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.

[adeyke]

All casting delays are linked. If you use any casting delay skill, you can't use any other casting delay skill until the timer runs out. This is not new.

[Minionman]

He seemed to be asking about non-timered spells with a bug, see the bit about using lightning spells between blizzards, and I don't think there's a bug like that. Otherwise, Adeyke has the right info.

[Guest]

I agree that frozen orb does mediocre damage, but with cold mastery at lvl 20 it lowers the monsters cold resistance by quite alot. Blizzard on the other hand, Does a crap load of damage and can kill monsters easily. But if you want a dueling sorc, frozen orb is more advisable because blizzard has a cooldown so it might not be able to hit an enemy which is moving alot. But if you ARE dueling, you can cast a blizzard on yourself so that when they get close to you, they must take serious damage (glacial spi2ke is sometimes used, but its usually a bad choice :P

[Archon_Wing]

I agree that frozen orb does mediocre damage, but with cold mastery at lvl 20 it lowers the monsters cold resistance by quite alot. Blizzard on the other hand, Does a crap load of damage and can kill monsters easily. But if you want a dueling sorc, frozen orb is more advisable because blizzard has a cooldown so it might not be able to hit an enemy which is moving alot. But if you ARE dueling, you can cast a blizzard on yourself so that when they get close to you, they must take serious damage (glacial spi2ke is sometimes used, but its usually a bad choice  :P
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Would you please check the date of posts before replying? I recomend you use common sense before entering an expired discussion. Once isn't a problem, but you're doing it way too much. ;)