The Delsere’s Magnum Opus (DMO) is a staple Wizard set with a distinct playstyle. While it can be used with a variety of skills, one of the most popular ones is the iconic Arcane Orb Frozen Orb from Diablo II.
It’s quick, impactful and the explosions are very satisfying when played correctly. Very few builds incorporate the fantasy of a spell-slinging Wizard as well as this one. It's also possible to play this build as a Legacy of Dreams version, which frees up one skill slot and allows to include a lot of utility choices.
While it’s not the best in very fast speedfarming content such as Nephalem Rifts, it can be quite successful in Greater Rifts farming and especially pushing. The basic idea is to trap enemies inside your Slow Time bubble, stack them up by kiting and the use of Black Hole or the Energy Twister + Ranslor’s Folly combo and unleash devastating icy explosions onto them from the right distance.
Although it is not really one of the fastest in movement, the build's high damage makes it a great choice for pushing in solo Greater Rifts, while the AoE coverage is decent for farming. Throwing Frozen Orbs into a tightly stacked pull of monsters feels great while you get some supplementary damage from the shards flying in all directions. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to make it a more viable speedfarming alternative as you always have to rely on the Slow Time setup to activate your damage bonuses and can't just start blasting right away like other builds.
Iconic Frozen Orb ✔ Actual Spellcaster ✔ Rewards Good Gameplay ✔ Fun and Satisfying Explosions ✔
❌ Squishy ❌ Clunky Playstyle ❌ Difficult Execution ❌ Vulnerable to Crowd Control
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
The Delsere’s Magnum Opus (DMO) set grants 60% damage reduction to our character as well as a massive 12,500% separate damage multiplier to our Frozen Orbs.
Unstable Scepter is our core weapon, providing a 450% separate damage multiplier and a second explosion for Frozen Orbs, nearly doubling our total damage.
Triumvirate grants us a stacking 400% damage buff for a total 1,200% separate damage multiplier to Frozen Orb when using Signature Spells.
Wizardspike provides another 350% separate damage multiplier on top of a 25% chance to cast an extra Frozen Orb when attacking.
Squirt’s Necklace is a default inclusion for Wizards in any build due to their shield strength. Protecting our HP pool for a 100% global separate damage multiplier with continuously refreshing shields is a Wizard speciality.
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer to double our Shields, to ensure we keep the Squirt's Necklace 100% damage multiplier.
The Shame of Delsere helps us by increasing the Attack Speed and Resource generation of Signature Spells.
Halo of Karini is a core Wizard defensive item, providing us with a tremendous 80% damage reduction at the cost of using Storm Armor.
Season 33 Shades of the Nephalem
For the duration of Season 33, you gain one extra slot in Kanai’s Cube that allows to choose any Legendary Powers for a total of 4 slots. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, now you can add a second of one of these categories! Some builds enjoy major damage buffs while others are able to run completely different setups, for example through otherwise impossible combinations of weapon effects.
In addition, whenever you press a shrine or pylon, you spawn a Shadow Nephalem of your class to assist you for 1 minute. These use various abilities and provide helpful extra damage in the early game and for lower tier Greater Rifts. Learn more in our Season 22 overview.
In this build, most setups gain a free Convention of Elements to produce huge damage bursts during your Elemental cycle.
Global Stat Priorities
Stack the typical damage stats such as Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage and Cold Damage on every piece possible. Next you want to add Arcane Orb damage rolls to your Helm, Boots and Offhand slots. In addition, the build relies on heavy Area Damage by stacking up monsters tightly. We want to have it on as many pieces as possible, especially Shoulders, Gloves, Offhands and Rings. The remaining options go to Resource Cost Reduction, Attack Speed, Damage Range (Rings) and Defense whenever you can fit it in. Arcane Power on Critical Hit (APoC) on Off-Hand can be useful especially for farming but is not required.
For toughness, like most Wizard setups, we take advantage of Galvanizing Ward and Spectral Blade Barrier Blades to generate Shields based on our HP pool. This means Vitality and Life % are very important as they double dip into Shields. This is the reason why you want to aim for a decent HP pool in Greater Rift Solo Push.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full Delsere's Magnum Opus set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 2: Illusory Boots and Gloves of Worship
Act 3: Avarice Band
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny (for your follower)
6. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Cold Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance 5. Intelligence
Belt
The Shame of Delsere
1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Life % 4. Armor 5. All Resistance
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is procced by default from our main damage skill and a very strong DPS choice, providing up to 60% multiplicative damage increase.
Zei’s Stone of Vengeance is another huge damage increase for ranged builds, giving up to 80% multiplicative damage increase. Frozen Orbs will explode at 40 yards distance and thus provide most of the benefit by default.
The third slot will be taken up by different gems depending on your needs and activities. Boon of the Hoarder is strong in Nephalem Rifts, Bane of the Stricken is necessary for solo pushing in higher Greater Rifts and Bane of the Powerful or Esoteric Alteration are useful in Speed Greater Rifts.
Skills
Arcane Orb Frozen Orb is our main damage dealer.
Slow Time Time Warp will activate our set bonuses and keep monsters contained while adding 15% additive damage done.
Spectral Blade Barrier Blades is necessary for our 2-piece bonus and the synergy with Triumvirate. It also adds additional shields for survival.
Storm Armor is the activator for Halo of Karini. Without this buff you will be squashed like a fly, so make sure to keep it up. Typically you want to use the Shocking Aspect rune for pushing and Scramble for farming.
One of two abilities for grouping enemies must be used to be effective: 1) Energy Twister Wicked Wind combined with Ranslor’s Folly or 2) Black Hole Absolute Zero. This is very important to give you enough time to throw Orbs from exactly the right distance and benefit from Area Damage.
The last skill slot will be filled with Teleport Wormhole or Safe Passage for mobility.
Passives
Galvanizing Ward is a must-have for any Wizard build and synergizes with Squirt’s Necklace and Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer.
Power Hungry boosts our damage by 30% multiplicatively, one of the best DPS passives in the game.
The other passives are situational depending on activity. For most purposes Blur and Elemental Exposure are recommended. For farming, Illusionist and Dominance are good utility or defensive choices. Glass Cannon could be used when combined with Goldwrap. Unstable Anomaly will allow you to survive death when you get trapped.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Critical Hit Damage
1. Armor
1. Area Damage
2. Intelligence
2. Critical Hit Chance
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality1
3. Cooldown Reduction
3. All Resistance
3. Life per Hit
4. Maximum Arcane Power2
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Regeneration
4. Pickup Radius
1 Aim for a decent HP pool (~800,000 Life) as your Shields (Galvanizing Ward and Barrier Blades) scale with it. 2 Only spend points here if you are really struggling to cast during your nuke.
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Node 7: Take Vigor to help your build sustain its resources.
Nodes 8-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
With Enforcer equipped on the player it's much easier to keep followers alive even without an immortality relic. The 90% damage reduction counts for them, too.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
T16 Enchantress
T16 Enchantress
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
GR Pushing Templar
For Greater Rift pushing we recommend this Templar setup for the sustain from Heal, 10% increased damage from Onslaught, and the very powerful cheat death mechanic from Guardian. This is the only follower build that stacks Cooldown Reduction because it works with Heal. Since we take the immortality relic, we do not need any survivability stats. Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Templar. Strength > Cooldown Reduction > Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Leoric's Crown and Captain Crimson's Trimmings: For more Cooldown Reduction on Heal.
Gameplay
At the start of a run, buff yourself with Storm Armor to enable the 80% damage reduction from Halo of Karini. Make sure you keep this buff up at all times. In most situations it will not require much attention, but be careful when there are only very few or one enemy as you need to hit something that is at least 15 yards away from you. When fighting single target Rift Guardians especially, make sure to walk away a few steps regularly. The damage reduction can be tracked on your buff bar. Don’t forget to re-apply this skill after 10 minutes when pushing.
Set up Slow Time bubbles on top of your enemies. Only those inside a bubble will take extra damage provided by the set.
Stack up Triumvirate and keep it up by using Spectral Blade at least once every 6 seconds. It also resets the cooldown on Slow Time and helps to stack up shields and Bane of the Stricken quickly on Rift Guardians.
Pull enemies and then group them up at a safe distance before your nuke using Black Hole or Energy Twister.
Position yourself exactly 40 yards away from the center of the pull to cast Arcane Orb. This will maximize the value of Zei’s Stone of Vengeance and most importantly unleash the final explosion of Frozen Orb exactly on top of the enemies, dealing devastating damage. The Orb will shoot out shards in all directions as it travels, but by far the biggest portion is included in the explosion at the end of its path (which is also doubled by Unstable Scepter).
Use Teleport for mobility and survival as necessary. With the Wormhole rune, generally try to make sure to use both charges before the cooldown begins.
When possible, try to kill one small enemy before your big nuke to spawn Oculus Ring. When it appears in the right spot, you can dramatically increase your damage by teleporting into one.
Hardcore
The build is overall relatively mobile and tanky, so you should not have much trouble once your setup is complete. You should use Unstable Anomalyat all times, but don’t rely on it as it does not make you invincible, only protect you with a certain amount of shield based on your life pool!
If you forget your buffs or your damage reduction from the Delsere's Magnum Opus (4) Bonus or Halo of Karini drops, you are almost guaranteed dead. Make sure to pay special attention to your defensive buffs and you will be fine. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
Echoing Nightmare
DMO Frozen Orb Solo T16
Concept In T16 we don’t need a lot of damage and also won’t care about throwing Frozen Orb from the right distance all the time. The damage is good enough to destroy enemies with just the shards. We shouldn't need Convention of Elements and Unity here, so Stone of Jordan and Avarice Band combined with Boon of the Hoarder are great replacements.
Gameplay Be fast, use your Teleport to move around quickly and set up bubbles on large pulls, then throw your Frozen Orb and move on. It’s not really the smoothest T16 build but it does the job.
Setups Black Hole is not really needed nor very strong in Nephalem Rifts. You could replace it for Familiar Arcanot for extra resources or Magic Weapon Deflection for more shields. If you feel like you don't need any more damage, you could swap out some stats such as Damage Range or Critical Hit Chance/Damage on Rings for more Cooldown Reduction.
In groups, swap Warzechian Armguards with Nemesis Bracers and Rechel's Ring of Larceny with Avarice Band. You can also drop Stone of Jordan to equip Halo of Karini and cube The Flavor of Time.
DMO Frozen Orb Solo Speeds
Concept In Speed Greater Rifts we try to combine a great mix of damage, toughness and utility. Ultimately, the build plays similarly as in solo pushing, but is much more fast-paced. Bane of the Stricken should not be necessary at all, so we can take Bane of the Powerful, Gogok of Swiftness or Esoteric Alteration.
Gameplay Similar to pushing, try to make big pulls and destroy them either with your Convention of Elements cycle active (on elites) or without (most trash monsters). Don’t waste too much time on stray enemies, Waller elites, burrowers, wasps or similar and just move on towards the next pull.
Setups If you feel tanky enough, you can consider replacing Unity with Stone of Jordan for extra Elite Damage. Nemesis Bracers is also a great option to speed up your runs on lower Tiers.
DMO Frozen Orb Solo Push
Concept We stack up as much damage as possible while getting just enough toughness to keep up our shields at all times. Squirt’s Necklace is a considerable damage boost you don’t want to lose when pushing.
Gameplay The basic gameplay revolves around making large pulls of monsters and stacking them up using Black Hole or the Energy Twister + Ranslor’s Folly combo and obliterating them with your Frozen Orb. Playing around this is the most important part as most of your damage comes from Area Damage procs and the explosion of the Orb. The shards do almost nothing on higher Greater Rift Tiers. Since the Bracers can’t pull in elites, you should generally either try to pull them on top / next to them, or just ignore and skip them entirely until you find some that you can kite and kill easily. Just be swift and go for the juicy big pulls.
Setups Instead of Black Hole you can use Energy Twister Wicked Wind + Ranslor's Folly to pull enemies. You will have to give up the benefits of Crown of the Primus and the Cold damage bonuses from Absolute Zero, but gain a much larger pulling radius with a pixel-stacking ability (which however doesn't work with elites). This setup is generally better for very high end pushing with rifts that have big density. The Black Hole variant is recommended for most purposes and pushes that go all the way up to a few tiers below the build’s maximum potential, where killing elites is more realistic.
Swap Bane of the Stricken for Bane of the Powerful since we are fighting hordes of enemies.
Use Unstable Anomaly if you don't run with it already.
Gameplay
Click Speed Pylon instantly to boost your mobility and dodge Green Meteors.
Around Wave 90, click Channeling Pylon and Power Pylon.
After Wave 100, use Conduit Pylon.
At Wave 122, stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.
At the start of a run, buff yourself with Storm Armor to enable the 80% damage reduction from Halo of Karini. Set up Slow Time bubbles on top of your enemies. Only those inside a bubble will take extra damage provided by the set. Stack up Triumvirate and keep it up by using Spectral Blade at least once every 6 seconds.
Position yourself exactly 40 yards away from the center of the pull to cast Arcane Orb. This will maximize the value of Zei’s Stone of Vengeance and most importantly unleash the final explosion of Frozen Orb exactly on top of the enemies, dealing devastating damage. Use Teleport for mobility and survival as necessary.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Arcane Orb Frozen Orb
This skill fires in a straight line from your character towards your cursor position and explodes precisely 40 yards away.
The final explosion deals the most damage by far but its AoE is really small. It deals 950% weapon damage twice in succession because of Unstable Scepter, for a total of 1900% weapon damage.
The main orb deals 635% weapon damage to enemies it passes through.
The shards deal 315% weapon damage to enemies along the path.
Wizardspike
Frozen Orbs spawned by this item benefit from all the damage multipliers but won’t deal Area Damage.
When you spawn one from your own Frozen Orb, they overlap so well that it is only noticeable from the higher amount of frost shards emitted by the two stacked orbs.
Wizard Shields
In order to keep up your shields to survive while maintaining Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier, you need to learn to judge the incoming damage and how fast you can build those shields yourself, which requires practice.
Shields have no direct UI indicator unless you mouseover your health globe.
You can see that you have any shield up when you see a transparent blue bubble around your character (not the size of the shield, however).
Because Wizard Shield values scale with your total life, Vitality and Life % stats become substantially better for toughness scaling compared to other builds.
Galvanizing Ward is the main shielding mechanic used for most Wizard builds, which combined with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer adds up to 120% of your total life as a shield. This shield will reset to its maximum value every 5 seconds if this shield in particular doesn't take any hit in the meantime.
Spectral Blade Barrier Blades and Magic Weapon Deflection represent the secondary shielding mechanic of the Wizard and can be stacked as much as you like, but their shield value is set at 4% (up to 8% with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer) of your total life and they only lasts for 3 seconds. The duration is counted for each stack individually.
While Barrier Blades or Deflection (or any other shield in that matter) protect the Galvanizing Ward shield, it is possible to reset the shield gained from the passive to full even while taking hits.
All of these mechanics make it so that when your shields start breaking or your Galvanizing Ward doesn't find enough time to reset, the whole setup will fall apart really quickly. Make sure you understand your limits and survivability in different situations.
Black Hole Absolute Zero
The damage bonus from Black Hole Absolute Zero is additive with your Cold Elemental damage. As a consequence, "Cold skills deal X% more damage" affixes (Mainly found on Bracers and Amulet slots), grants a lower relative damage increase to builds using Absolute Zero.
The Shame of Delsere
The Attack Speed bonus of The Shame of Delsere is multiplicative with other bonuses.
This can be used to stack Bane of the Stricken quite fast on longer boss fights. Try to use it a lot especially at the start of a long boss fight and when you are waiting for your Convention of ElementsCold cycle!
Elemental Exposure
Each stack is a debuff for one of the following elements: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
Each stack is unique and refreshes its own duration when reapplied.
Any ability with a proc coefficient greater than zero applies a stack of its respective element. This inherently means that only selfcasted abilities grant stacks.
The elemental range on the Weapon applies its respective stack with all abilities if the elemental range is of the type: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
Since the build already deals Cold and Arcane damage by default, having a Fire or Lightning damage roll on your weapon is the most optimal choice.
The 5% damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% separate damage multiplier.
Summary
Put together the core items and acquire the full Delsere's Magnum Opus set.
Keep up your Storm Armor and Halo of Karini buffs at all times.
Trap enemies in your Slow Time to activate the set bonuses.
Activate your Triumvirate bonus by using your Signature Spell (Spectral Blade) regularly.
Pull enemies together with Black Hole or Energy Twister to stack them tightly.
Position yourself at the right distance to explode Arcane Orb Frozen Orb directly on top of the enemies.
Play around the Convention of Elements cycle to maximize your damage.
I hope you enjoyed this guide! Frozen Orb is one of the core Wizard builds and it can be very fun and rewarding setting up the correct pulls and destroying them with your icy explosions. Good luck!
Credits
Written by wudijo. Updated by Chewingnom. Reviewed by Northwar.
