Frost Nova Sorceress Guide

Frost Nova* is your Primary Damage Skill. It emits an expanding ring of ice from your Character that Slows and deals Cold Damage to enemies within its Area of Effect (AoE).

Frozen Orb* is your Secondary Damage Skill. Use it to damage enemies such as Bosses from afar. It is cast outward from your Character in the direction of your cursor, dealing Cold Damage to any mobs caught in its path. The Orb shoots tiny bolts of Ice outward in all directions and explodes at a certain distance, dealing its highest damage.
Note: This Skill has a 1 second Cooldown/Cast Delay; other Skills may be cast in the duration. Faster Cast Rate only improves the Skill's cast speed; it does not shorten the interval between casts.

Static Field* is great to use against Bosses and densely-packed high Life monsters. Each cast uses Lightning Damage to lower nearby monster Life by 25% of their remaining Life. This Skill can reduce monsters' Life to 1 in Normal, 33% of total Life in Nightmare, and 50% in Hell.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Cooldown Skills

Teleport* is an essential Sorceress Skill used for mobility. It repositions your Character to your cursor's position. Repeatedly cast it to cover long distances.

Energy Shield* is a temporary buff that redirects damage to your Mana pool instead of your Life. While active, a percentage (based on this Skill's Level) of all received Damage (except Poison) results in a loss of Mana. Resistances do not apply to damage taken on Energy Shield. If you have 0 Mana in your Mana pool and receive additional damage, this buff expires and needs to be recast.

Telekinesis* allows you to use a Waypoint, enter a Portal, or pick up utility items (Potions, Scrolls, or Gold) from a distance.

Frozen Armor* increases your Defense rating and briefly Freezes enemies that strike your Sorceress. It doesn't work against ranged attacks.

Warmth* provides you with passive Mana Regeneration based on its Skill Level.

Cold Mastery passively grants -x% to Enemy Cold Resistance. It does not break Cold Immunity on its own, and is 1/5th effective if a Cold Immunity is broken (such as by Cold Rupture) as of Patch 2.6.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Use a Lower Resist Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap to further reduce Cold Resistance or break some monster Cold Immunity if you do not have a Cold Rupture in your inventory.
2) You can pre-buff Energy Shield using a +9 Energy Shield Memory.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Build Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Insight, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to finish off Elites quicker and to deal with enemies that are Cold Immune. Equip him with Insight for the high Mana Regeneration provided by Meditation Aura. Energy Shield benefits greatly from the use of Insight.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Cast Telekinesis on Waypoints to activate them, on Town Portals to get in or out of town, and on Red Portals to go through them. This allows you to travel through the game faster. Telekinesis can also be used to open chests and pop other clickables for loot.
• At the beginning of your Magic Find/Experience run, cast Frozen Armor and Energy Shield once each on whichever weapon loadout has the most + to Skills. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire.
• Use Teleport to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.
• Teleport directly into the center of Elite Packs and repeatedly cast Frost Nova until all nearby monsters are dead.
• When encountering high mob density with high Life (such as in a game with High Player Count), first cast Static Field 1-3 times at close range, and then finish them off with either Frost Nova or Frozen Orb.

For Single Targets:

• Use Frozen Orb against isolated high Life targets such as Bosses and Elites. Position so that your Frozen Orbs detonate directly atop your target.
• When encountering Bosses, first cast Static Field 3-5 times at close range, and then finish them off with Frozen Orb.

Immunities

• Cold Rupture sets all Immune to Cold monsters to 95% Cold Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Cold Resistance to take effect (including 1/5th of Cold Mastery).
• You can break some Cold Immunes using a Lower Resist Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap before obtaining Cold Rupture.
• You can "Telestomp" unbreakable Cold Immunes with your Mercenary to kill them with his Physical Damage Jab attack. Alternatively you can just skip them.
• Always skip Unique monsters that are both highly Cold and Physical Resistant or Immune.

Late-Game

• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire (approx. every 2-3 minutes).

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• Arachnid Lair Solo - This Max Level Area hosts low Life Elite Monsters right next to the Spider Forest Waypoint. It has 0 Cold Immune monster types, making it an ideal spot for the Frost Nova Sorceress even before obtaining Cold Rupture. Farm this area Solo on B Net or between /Players1-3 on Single Player.
• Ancient Tunnels Solo - This Max Level Area hosts many low Life Elite Monsters not far from a Waypoint in Lost City. It has 0 Cold Immune monster types, making it ideal even before obtaining Cold Rupture. Farm this area Solo on B Net or between /Players1-3 on Single Player.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 105% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 60% FHR Breakpoint.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate is not required for this build's survivability, but the, 20%, 27%, and 48% FBR Breakpoints can be utilized if using either Gerke's Sanctuary or Stormshield.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Frost Nova Sorceress can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear and Stat Point allocation. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: Equip either Gerke's Sanctuary or Stormshield instead of Spirit. Both the Damage Reduction and Magic Damage Reduction on Gerke's Sanctuary synergize really well with Energy Shield. The Damage Reduction and Increased Chance of Blocking stats on both of these Shields drastically improve your survivability. Crown of Ages and Verdungo's Hearty Cord are also great options for achieving high Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Frost Nova Sorceress.
• Faster Cast Rate: It can be difficult to achieve the 105% Faster Cast Rate (FCR) Breakpoint while prioritizing Damage Reduction on this build. Trang-Oul's Claws, Ormus' Robes, Skin of the Vipermagi, Fortitude, Arachnid Mesh, a Caster Crafted Amulet, and 10% Faster Cast Rate Rings, are great options for shoring up your FCR.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Skin of the Vipermagi, Fortitude, Chains of Honor, and Tal Rasha's Guardianship are great Body Armor options for stacking Resistances on this build. Crown of Ages is a solid Helmet option. Boots, Jewelry, and Charms are also ideal sources of Resistances.
  Note: Stacking Resistances is not as important on builds using Energy Shield.
• Faster Hit Recovery: Aim for at least the 42% Faster Hit Recovery Breakpoint with your Charms, Boots, Helmet, and/or Shael Runes socketed into gear. Faster Hit Recovery is not as important when going for maximum Chance to Block (75%). You mainly rely on the Faster Block Rate Breakpoints attained by Gerke's Sanctuary (15%) or Stormshield (48%).
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming or Teleporting through an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.

Stat Point Changes

• Allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to wear Gerke's Sanctuary or Stormshield.
• Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to achieve maximum Chance to Block (75%).
• Put all remaining Stat Points into Energy.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.