How I leaguestart Winter Orb and you can too!

1. Level 1 to lvl 94 pob - https://pobb.in/qbFQfrnRQPm3
2. Bossing pob (more of a proof of concept) - https://pobb.in/DUvdD9vd-YDl
3. My build from Settlers - https://pobb.in/RFQRhclDsUK9
4. My build from NecroSettlers (assassin) - https://pobb.in/-9FwbkMudkSt5. Tigerw222's lvl 80 levelling run - https://youtu.be/INUcr4TqRaE
5. My own a5 levelling run - https://youtu.be/E-HBofgPgBs
6. Flies' A10 levelling run with commentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on_p0UWN5wk
7. Light bossing on an older version of the build - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2S4Z2Xob7E

Huge I want to start by giving a massive shoutout to Aer0 who got me first started on the Winter Orb journey with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzyAb201akA
Thank you for sparking my love for the skill!!

As a side note, please critize this post, its structure anything you see fit because am trying to get better at writing .... should have started to write my undergrad thesis instead LOL.'
2nd sidenote: I am really trying to persuade you to play winter orb. I will answer any of your questions and edit this post so that people dont have to scout the comment section to get the best version of the build.

Greetings my fellow and future worbers and welcome to my written (maybe even a video later) guide on how you can start and even league-start playing Winter orb as soon as lvl 28.

First and foremost, what even is Winter Orb? According to the wiki, “[…] is a channelling skill and a spell. Channelling the skill charges up an orb, which fires icy projectiles that deal cold damage to enemies, and which also explode on impact with the ground to deal AoE damage.” This AoE damage can shotgun on bosses.

 So, if you’re a veteran player like me, you are already seeing the weak spots and the power of the skill. I’ll list them for you now:

Weaknesses

1. Channelling skill
2. Requires cast speed but not too much
3. Low base damage, low effectiveness, low base crit
4. Requires huge AoE investment to get projectiles to overlap

Power

1. Auto-targeting
2. 100% dmg uptime on bosses
3. Built-in Mirage Archer (the most broken support gem even introduced)

Now that we have the skill’s strength and weaknesses laid in front of us, lets go 1 by 1 and think about how to overcome these weaknesses and thus turning Worb from a noob trap to a veteran trap (because you’ll never want to play another skill after it).

1. Channeling skill – there is sadly no way to go about it and in my opinion, it is not a bad playstyle. If you’ve never been a fan of channeling skills, then I highly suggest you to try Worb because it feels much better than other channeling skills, because you can move while the skill does damage.

2. Requires cast speed but not too much – The problem with Worb is that cast speed adds additively to projectile fire frequency, which you already get plenty from the skill gem at maximum stages (10, 12 with 20% quality). I’ve also made a small graphic to showcase the problem. -> https://imgur.com/a/7s0A3n5
Simply put, cast speed doesn’t increase fire rate of Worb, because it adds to the big chunk of fire frequency but there is a big BUT. It increases the speed of the wind-up significantly thus you can get to 12 stages quicker. This is also my prefer way to make the skill feel good, because scaling %inc duration is extremely ineffective. The skillgem gives you a truckload of that inherently.
Put even more simply, cast speed makes lower stacks of Worb feel good while slightly aiding at the full 12 stages. I usually aim for somewhere around 24 – 40+ cast speed to make it feel great.

3. Low base damage, low effectiveness, low base crit
Sadly, there is really nothing you can do with the first two inherent features of the gem. It used to be true that you needed tons of investment to make the skill deal enough dmg but that is no longer true.

Low base crit is however and issue. Due to the lower build crit (around 70 % on starter items), your damage will feel inconsistent because 30 % of your hits will not deal any substantial damage. There are few tips and tools that I will highlight at the build portion of this guide.

4. Requires huge AoE investment to get projectiles to overlap
By huge I mean huge. According to Aer0, worb needs 2.6 AoE radius to get consistent 5 overlaps. This is about 210 ish % increased AoE.
You don’t have to worry, I have a secret solution to help you – the “Expansive might” notable on medium AoE clusters gives the build a maximum of 50% area when standing still which you should be doing anyway on most bosses and tough rares. You should use the notable as a buffer to get you to/over the 2.6m AoE threshold.

The build guide

With a skill like Worb there are plenty of ways to build it. I am now going to show you my favourite way of playing it and that is as the Occultist. However, there is a possibility to play it as the Assassin for getting yourself to crit-cap easily and free elusive combined with the unique amulet Badge of the Brotherhood allows you to zoom through maps. If none of these are to your liking, you can go the full-meta way and play it as a 3-charge stacker on slayer. Here is a build framework done by Lightee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4rOKx3uehs

How I like to level
Oftentimes I just grab freezing pulse and level until 28 or when I get a 4L or when I get to GMP. I don’t recommend playing worb on a 3 link, it sucks.
For movement, you can choose between a few options – flame dash + 2x crafted damage wands. This allows for better damage, but worse movement compared to the 2^(nd) option and that is using Shield charge.
Shieldcharge is imo the superior option but it requires more buttons and a more active playstyle – press bloodrage for attack speed + frenzy charge attack speed and frostblink to cancel the animation. It is also more socket heavy, because ideally you want a 3l for Shieldcharge – faster attacks – momentum

Progression
Everything should be laid out in the PoB attached at the top of the post.

Possible problems and how to solve them:

1. Lack of life recovery A. Run Vitality + arrogance B. Get cold spell leech on gloves or get a large cluster with the “Doryani’s Lesson” notable C. (my favourite) try to find a helmet with cold dmg leech as a corrupted implicit
2. AoE is hard to come by A. Use Carcass jack even past the Bitterdream setup B. Use a 2^(nd) AoE clusterC. C. (My favourite) Try to get your weapons corrupted with 15-20 % increased AoE. Pay anything to get them since they could potentially save you a lot of points otherwise spent in getting that AoE.
3. I die easily A. Fix resistances, chaos resistance, get some form of regen B. Try to get to evade cap as close as possible – go LL with Starkonja for a massive 150% global evasion boost, get a grace % evade Watcher’s eye, invest into blind scaling (point hungry) C. Get more damage in order to freeze mobs so they can’t kill you
4. I don’t have enough currency to transition into the next phase of the build A. Farm delve for fossils and azurite. The build excels at speed delving. B. Controversial I know but get hired by someone from TFT to trade for them. The profit is usually somewhere around 1-4 divines/hour. C. Blight maps are amazing for the build because of explode clearing whole lanes of monsters and Winter orb autotargeting. D. Einhar’s Memories of Harvest are my prefered way of farming currency. You get about 1.5x the investment and you can run them quite fast.

Mapping
This build maps phenomenally well, mainly due to the nature of the skill and also occy’s explode carries the build (or the other way around, lol?).

The “Red map wall”

The section “90+” in the PoB should be able to get you to clear t13-t14 maps easily but higher than that, it’s painful. I managed to get the Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds watchstones with easy but each of the bossfights took about 3 minutes (eater being much much easier).
Thus I highly suggest you to farm up a few divines before transitioning into the Tulfall + Malachai’s loop version of the build. These are the items you must obtain before the swap:

1. Tulfall
2. Malachai’s Loop
3. 2x Grand spectrum with +1 minimal powercharge
4. 1x Grand spectrum with ANY other mod than min. powercharge
5. Any 6L or 5L replica Covenant

How does the Tulfall+ Malachai’s combo work?
Since you will have 6 minimum charges from the spectrums, 1 from the “Disciple of the Forbidden” notable and 1 from a unveiled ring craft for a total of 8 minimum (9 maximum) power charges, each time you get a power charge you reach your maximum charges, thus enabling Tulfall to give you a frenzy charge and Malachai’s to shock you (countered by the “cannot be shocked at maximum charges” charge mastery). Because you’re always at 8 charges, the shield gives you it’s dmg bonus permanently.

What's wrong with using 2x void batteries instead of all this tulfall business?
There is nothing inherently wrong with those kinds of builds but void battery is extremely overpriced - 2-4 divines on leaguestart and 1/3 of that price on day 3.

What to do if I have more power charges?

With more currency you should get either a +1 Heatshiver, Willclash, Eye of malice (for the endgame bossing version I’ll also mention) or Starkonja (If you go LL and stack evasion). That puts your maximum powercharges at 10 which significantly eases the gearing. Instead of running only 2x min. power Grand spectrums, you can run 3 and save yourself 1 suffix on a ring.

I can’t kill bosses like the Uber Elder and Shaper with this build, what can I do?

If you’re serious about converting this giga mapping build into a giga bossing build, I highly recommend you check out the second PoB I put on the top of the post. It is just a template to follow but it proves that Winter Orb canactually do bosses quite comfortably. On this build I did all the elderslayers and Sirus, shaper guardians and the Shaper and even Maven. I failed the UE fight because I always pay for carries LOL and Uber Shaper because IMO the build doesn’t have enough dps to ignore the mechanics and not enough defences to withstand them + I don’t have the bossing skills to outplay the weaknesses.

For a quick rundown of the build, it is a cursestacker stacking Elemental Weakness, Frostbite, Punishment and Assassin’s Mark and using the Fated End unique ring in the place of The Mark of Submission to GIGA boost them. Original credit goes to our favourite CAT streamer for showcasing a similar build in one
of the 10d bossing challenges a year or so ago.

Best Movement skills to pair with the build

The obvious option is to use shield charge because of all the attack speed and
frenzy stacking but there is an even better option.

Use Smoke mine with Phase run for a whopping 130 % burst of speed. The
 idea is that you channel Winter Orb to maximum stages, throw smoke mine,
wait for it to detonate and then press Phase run in combination with a gigafast
quicksilver flask for a total of 197% ms boost. By the time you stages run out,
you’ll be ready to repeat the entire process.

Thank you for reading the post all the way until the end. If you have any more questions regarding the build, the guide, my experience or anything else, feel free to DM me or ask in the comments! Asking is free but mistakes cost you your time.