Is a Nova / Frozen orb build good?

The reason i ask is because i love frozen orb and nova does the two combined work?

Lets say

20-nova

20- light mastery

20- Frozen orb

20- Cold mastery



and rest in tele and pre ect ect.. and offcourse shiver or frozen armor.

This sorc would be for rushing and mf and countess run only.|||Nova is an excellent countess killer and FO is an excellent boss killer (I personally prefer it to Blizzard in most circumstances). However, getting the Nova to do decent damage in higher player games (i.e. if rushing multiple characters through hell) is fairly item dependent, and, with both skills being fairly close-proximity skills, this could lead to even more difficulty when rushing (if you can force hit-recovery with Nova consistently, however, this becomes a non-issue).

So, I'd say that, yes, FO/Nova can complete the tasks you desire fairly well, with rushing being my biggest concern. However, I must recommend my favorite sorceress build of all-time (even with Infinity, I love this girl, though she obviously would lag behind a full lite sorc at that point): The Blova! Full Tal's is the bare minimum I would recommend for her, but if you can manage that, you will have an excellent countess runner (Nova is my favorite countess killer), an excellent boss killer (especially at higher levels), and a stronger rusher, due to blizzard's full screen length. In single-player (legit), I had one that got to level 95 doing Baal runs on /p8 solo with no difficulty what-so-ever after I mastered her.|||Nova (without being fully synergized) is a fairly weak skill, and with only 40 pts in the light tree it's not going to be very effective. It may do ok for norm/nm, but in hell it's going to be more or less useless except vs low hp monsters.



If you want an dual tree build that utilizes orb, a meteorber is a more efficient killer.|||I wish they had synergized Nova with Thunder Storm. Even a 2% mutual syn would have given a new life to 2 underused spells. |||Hey people well i tried out the build with my sorc and so far it has worked out just fine great for countess run the nova clears the room in a sec..

And Frozen orb does nice dmg against meph and other act bosses. also rushed some people in hell so far so good



But she failed when trying to kill ancients at hell |||you dont need 20 points in CM.



I think you can try 1 point into CM and put some points into telekinessis and have a pretty nice staff for energy shield prebuff.|||You will need more than 1 pt in CM to utilize orb's potential. Even after all of your + skills gear is taken into effect, you likely won't even reach -100 res. I'd put 10-15 in CM and maybe invest the rest in your light tree.



With a dual-tree build your ES isn't going to be great so I wouldn't bother with it.|||My general rule of thumb is to get my CM to -125, as I find that to be the most efficient number without sacrificing synergies too much. Just look at the resistances of the bosses and Act V in general (especially Baal's chamber). With Nova (40 points) being your secondary-attack, there really is no reason to not pump CM a little.

Depending on your gear, I'd build her as follows:


Code:

1   Warmth
1   Static
1   TK
1   Teleport
20  Nova
20  LM
20  Ice Bolt
20  Frozen Orb
10+ CM (up to -175 if Meph is a main target)
4   Prereqs
---
98  Total (done at 87)

ES isn't necessary, and as Shaigon says, it will be rather weak. With Orb, the best modifier is definitely +CD%, with decent +skills. Death's Fathom, facets, Nightwings (though I strongly dislike that helm), and Full Tal's (my build recommendation, unless you have Death's Fathom + Griffon's Eye) all make a huge difference. Likewise for your Nova, you'll want -eLR to ensure stun lock, making Full Tal's, facets, and Griffon's Eye very, very attractive options.|||Nova is a weak skill even when fully syngeried. Only build a nova when when the sorc is holding infinity so you benefit from the -enemy light resist. And if you choose to build a nova build you would have to go 95% es and put all points into energy. Yes its one of those fancy builds.|||It really depends on your definition of weak. As a general mob killer, Nova is perfectly viable, and it is exceptionally well suited to countess, summoner, and, to a lesser extent, nihlathak runs. If you are using it as a boss killer, of course it's going to be too weak, which is where FO comes in.

Against mobs, all you have to concern yourself with is stun-lock. With a 105-FCR Nova is plenty fast enough to keep things at bay, assuming you can keep them locked. I find that -15eLR (from Tal's) is enough in most situations, even on /p8. I used the skill in SP (legit) to do /p8 Baal runs and never had much issue, even when I had to kill CI Lister.

As a 40-point backup/small-mob-killer/keyrunner, Nova is more than viable. Would Infinity make it stronger? Of course. But it isn't necessary.

Here's a video of maareek from the SPF doing a /p8 Baal run with his Blova (Blizzard+Nova) sorceress (the build in my first response): Link That's how you should use Nova. Let Blizzard (or FO in this case) do most of the work, and spam Nova when it makes sense.

As an aside, I'd probably prefer the FO/Nova build over a more typical FO/CL build for the situations described by the OP, mainly because a synergized/higher-CM FO will kill bosses significantly quicker than a FO/CL will, while still being sufficiently effective as a rusher/keyrunner.