BarricadeTTV's Hydra Frozen Orb Conjuration Sorcerer

BarricadeTTV comes to you with another powerful Sorcerer build. This build uses ice blade enchant to gain access to a ton of free cdr, granting more chances to activate frozen orb enchant. For further damage, Barricade uses Hyrda and ties in a number of aspects and powerful malignant hearts to put out massive aoe damage and cc while also keeping survivability in mind. Currently, Hydra damage scales with enemy level, taking the barber into account that means you can turn enemies into nukes that deal damage based on their level. When in higher tier nightmare dungeons this means you delete high level enemies with ease. If you enjoy teleporting into massive crowds and auto-procing a number of skills for massive free damage all while your cooldowns constantly reset then this is the build for you. Employing some skills that are not commonly used in the Sorc meta, Barricade has blazed a trail with his Hydra Frozen Orb Conjuration Sorcerer. Check out his build in our calculator Here!

Note: The video above covers Barricade's first rendition of the build, in the guide below we will go over his slightly changed Updated version of the build for Patch 1.1.1.

Skills

• Hydra: Barricade puts max points here and specs his armor to send additional points to this skill as it is a massive part of the build. Barricade specs for Summoned Hydra to gain additional burning damage. He uses the Serpentine Aspect to gain the ability to place 1 additional hydra.

  • Why Hydra is so strong: Currently, Hydra synergizes incredibly well with The Barber Malignant Heart in high-level content. Hydra's burn damage currently scales with monster level, so the higher and more deadly the monster, the more damage your Hydra does. Furthermore, with The Barber, all burn damage from Hydra counts as stored damage and then releases, applying to the target hit and nearby enemies. This means that no matter the enemy level, Hydra damage is going to melt, and if the enemies are stronger it is going to delete enemies when the Barber pops, making this build excel in high-tier nightmare dungeons. Check out the clip below to see this in action.

• Firebolt: Barricade puts two points here merely to gain access to the next section of the skill tree.
• Frozen Orb: Barricade puts two points here and specs into greater frozen orb for access to vulnerability. However, the focus here is on the Frozen Orb Enchantment, this has a 30% chance to launch frozen orb whenever you cast a non-basic skill. Since Barricade is spamming his non-basic skills he gets a ton of free chances to launch free frozen orbs for massive damage.
• Teleport: Barricade grabs shimmering teleport for the damage reduction, which pairs nicely with the all in playstyle used with Raiment of the Infinite (unique chest armor, stuns and pulls in enemies when you teleport).
• Flame Shield: Part of the updated build, this skill serves as a more powerful defensive option, Barricade grabs Shimmering Flame Shield for the increased healing and in turn higher defensive value.
• Frost Nova: Barricade grabs Mystical Frost Nova for the huge AOE access to vulnerability.
• Ice Blades: Barricade specs into Summoned Ice Blades and takes the Ice Blades Enchant which does a lot for this build. Ice blades grant a chance to make an enemy vulnerable, will reduce its own cooldown each time a vulnerable enemy is hit, and with Summoned Ice Blades, will apply that cooldown reduction to your other skills. The Ice Blades enchant automatically spawns a set of ice blades for every 40 seconds of cooldown spent. Between the massive AOE vulnerable with frost nova, and the cdr of Summoned Ice Blades you are able to take huge advantage of the ice blades enchant meaning free damage and cooldown reduction.
• Lightning Spear: This ability with its high CD helps to activate Ice Blade Enchant and of course does great damage and provides cc with Invoked Lightning Spear.

Gear Stat Priorities

• Helmet

  • Exploiter’s Aspect: This aspect plays well with all the CC in the build, especially Raiment of the Infinite, granting increased CC duration and increased damage to unstoppable enemies.
  • Stat Priority

    • Ranks of Hydra
    • Maximum Life
    • All Stats
    • Cooldown Reduction
• Chest: Unique Raiment of the Infinite: This unique is crucial to the build. The ability to pull in enemies and stun when using teleport allows you to jump and in use your full rotation while keeping large packs close together and locked down. This plays well with the massive aoe that the build puts out.
• Gloves

  • Serpentine Aspect: A critical aspect for the build this increases the hydra limit to 2 and increases hydra duration by 14-24%
  • Stat Priority

    • Ranks of Frozen Orb
    • Attack Speed
    • Critical Strike Chance
    • All Stats
• Pants

  • Aspect of Disobedience: A critical defensive aspect for any build this aspect grants a stack percent armor increase when damaging enemies.
  • Stat Priority

    • Maximum Life
    • Damage Reduction
    • Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
    • Damage Reduction while Injured
• Boots

  • Ghostwalker Aspect: When unstoppable and for 2 seconds after gain 10-25% increased movement speed and the ability to move freely through enemies. This aspect works incredibly well with teleport as it makes you unstoppable, when combined with Raiment which will pull in and stun enemies, the ability to ghost walk through the crowd is great in the event that you bite off more than you can chew.
  • Stat Priority

    • Movement Speed
    • Ranks of Teleport
    • Ranks of Frost Nova
    • All Stats
• Amulet

  • Aspect of Control: Increased damage to immobilized, stunned, or frozen enemies. A great choice with this build since you are constantly freezing, immobilizing, and stunning with all your ice skills and Raiment.
  • Stat Priority

    • Ranks of Conjuration Mastery Passive
    • Ranks of All Conjuration Skills
    • Cooldown Reduction
    • Movement Speed
• Ring One

  • Accelerating Aspect: Crits with core skills increase attack speed. Likely one of the best aspects to pair with the Barber Malignant Heart, once you crit you pop this aspect then have a huge attack speed steroid to put massive damage into one target and turn them into an AOE nuke.
  • Stat Priority

    • Critical Strike Chance
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Lucky Hit Chance
    • Vulnerable Damage
• Ring Two

  • Edgemasters Aspect: Gain damage based on available primary resource when cast. With Hydra being the only ability that costs mana it becomes easy to take advantage of the free damage from this aspect by running your full rotation before activating Hydra.
  • Stat Priority

    • Critical Strike Chance
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Vulnerable Damage
    • Damage to Frozen Enemies
• Dagger

  • Aspect of Splintering Energy: Lightning Spear has a 41-50% chance to spawn an additional Lightning Spear when you case it. This aspect is essentially free damage since you’re using Lightning Spear on Cooldown and getting that cooldown reduced dramatically by Ice Blades.
  • Stat Priority

    • All Stats
    • Vulnerable Damage
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Intelligence
• Focus

  • Conceited Aspect: Grants increased damage when a barrier is active, since flame shield counts as a barrier this is essentially more free damage given how often your cooldowns are reduced.
  • Stat Priority

    • Cooldown Reduction
    • Damage Reduction from Enemies That Are Burning
    • Intelligence
    • Critical Strike Chance

Gems and Malignant Hearts

• Armor: Ruby
• Weapons: Emerald
• Malignant Hearts

  • The Barber: A go-to heart for almost every build this season this heart activates when you land a crit, from there the enemy you crit will absorb all damage for 2-4 seconds then erupting onto the surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by a percent per second. With the huge attack speed buffs and quick skill rotation, once the barber pops you are able to dump massive damage into a single target turning them into a nuke. This is where Hyrda comes into play. Hydra's burn damage currently scales with monster level, so the higher and more deadly the monster, the more damage your Hydra does. Now this is where the gross portion comes in, the game currently takes all of your burn damage and applies that to your Barber stored damage then releases that amount as AOE to everything including the target you're hitting. This is how you can melt a boss and any nearby enemies in mere seconds.
  • Revenge: A perfect choice for both defense and offense this heart suppresses a percentage of incoming damage, when a defensive skill is used all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes dealing fire damage (up to a scaling maximum) to nearby enemies.
  • Tal’Rasha: A heart perfect for this build because you are running with every element type with high up-time. This heart increases your damage based on how many unique elements you deal damage with. It also synergizes with The Barber due to its eruption being Shadow damage, which counts as an additional element type.

Paragon

• Starting Board: Barricade picks up Elementalist and Elemental Balance for the non-physical damage. He slots the Elementalist glyph for another increase to non-physical damage and a damage multiplier provided by using different elements.

• Static Surge: Without rotating the board, he grabs Paralyzing, Electro, Incapacitate, and Overwhelming rare nodes for damage to stunned enemies and a bit of lightning resistance. Slotting the Conjurer glyph increases the damage and duration of your conjuration skills.

• Elemental Summoner: Attached to the left of Static Surge and rotated twice, Barricade grabs Conjurer, Reservoir, and Swift Conjurer for the conjuration skill damage and maximum mana. He also grabs the legendary node, Elemental Summoner, to take advantage of the cooldown reduction and mana cost reduction per conjuration skill you have equipped. The Flamefeeder glyph is perfect for this board for the increased damage to burning enemies.

• Frigid Fate: Attached above Elemental Summoner and without rotating, he picks up Oppressive, Weakness, and Chilling for increased vulnerable damage and resistances. Barricade slots Territorial in this board for the increased damage and damage reduction against close targets.

• Burning Instinct: Attached to the right of Frigid Fate and rotated three times, Barricade chooses Keeper of Flames, Cinders, and Smoldering Embers for the damage to and damage reduction from burning enemies. Picking up another legendary node here, Burning Instinct, allows for a massive increase to burning damage. Slotting in Exploit here gives another passive way of applying vulnerable to enemies and giving you a bit more damage against them.

• Ceaseless Conduit: Attached to the right of Burning Instinct and rotated once, he grabs his last rare node, Galvanic Catalyst, for a bump to crackling energy damage. This board also allows him to fit in the Destruction glyph for critical strike damage and a multiplier on further damage for 10 seconds after landing a crit.

Wrapping It Up

Massive CC, great defensive options, huge aoe damage, and constantly resetting cooldowns with auto-casting free abilities, this build from BarricadeTTV makes for an incredibly powerful and an incredibly fun way to play the Sorcerer. Taking advantage of some less commonly used synergies and abilities while also maximizing some of the more meta staples like The Barber, Barricade’s Hydra Frozen Orb Conjuration Sorcerer makes for an awesome gameplay experience for those looking to blaze a trail. For more Sorcere content check out BarricadeTTV’s channel Here and for his build in our Calculator click Here!