Firebird Flame Blades Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

Last updated on Oct 23, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 33 comments
1.

Greater Rift Speed Farming

The Firebird Flame Blades Wizard can deal excellently with Greater Rift Speed Farming, with versatile and unconditional damage at its disposal and great mobility offered by the Teleport Teleport-resetting powers of the Firebird set. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

During lower tier Greater Rift farming, the balance between defense, damage and utility can be shifted to favor the latter two aspects of character building.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Spectral Blade Icon Spectral Blade Flame Blades Flame Blades Right Mouse Button Disintegrate Icon Disintegrate Chaos Nexus Chaos Nexus 1 Explosive Blast Icon Explosive Blast Chain Reaction Chain Reaction 2 Frost Nova Icon Frost Nova Bone Chill Bone Chill 3 Teleport Icon Teleport Safe Passage Safe Passage 4 Black Hole Icon Black Hole Spellsteal Spellsteal
Passive Skills
2.

Adapting Rotation

When you are Speed Farming Greater Rifts, your playstyle should at least partially reflect the circumstances by focusing on massive pulls, generic bonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.

In GR speeds, you will basically be doing an accelerated version of the core rotation. You will still put priority on establishing defenses first thing in the rift — channeling Disintegrate Disintegrate for stacks, activation of Magic Weapon Magic Weapon Deflection Deflection, and hitting enemies with Explosive Blast Explosive Blast for the Orb of Infinite Depth Orb of Infinite Depth interaction. With that handled, you will simply alternate between Combustion stacks upkeep with Disintegrate Disintegrate, as well as its spread of the Ignition effect on enemies, and actually mowing them down with Spectral Blade Spectral Blade. Manipulate your enemies into large pulls with Black Hole Black Hole, and reposition smartly with Teleport Teleport — that is everything necessary in GR speed farm.

3.

Adapting Skills

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to burst down enemies quicker takes precedence.

Your entire active skill selection will match the base GR solo progression setup, with the interplay between Disintegrate Disintegrate Chaos Nexus Chaos Nexus and Spectral Blade Spectral Blade Flame Blades Flame Blades forming the base of the build by ramping up Combustion stacks and bursting them down, respectively. You will augment this damage by taking Audacity Audacity and Elemental Exposure Elemental Exposure in your passives, as usual.

As a non-channeling fire-based skill in its own right, Explosive Blast Explosive Blast Chain Reaction Chain Reaction will bring its own damage value to the build, but it is largely taken for the Orb of Infinite Depth Orb of Infinite Depth protective interaction.

The protection offered by Magic Weapon Magic Weapon Deflection Deflection and Galvanizing Ward Galvanizing Ward in conjunction with the worn Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer is too valuable to pass up, especially to keep the damage bonuses of Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace intact. Note that in Season 25 Magic Weapon Magic Weapon will have to be replaced by Frost Nova Frost Nova Bone Chill Bone Chill in order to get a proc for the CC-reliant Remnant of Pain Soul Shard.

Pulls will hasten runs by a large margin, so Black Hole Black Hole Spellsteal Spellsteal will still find a place on your bar, and the inclusion of Teleport Teleport Safe Passage Safe Passage is non-negotiable in speed farming, where mobility is a primary concern. To smooth out the uptime of both skills in quick farming runs, you will be taking Evocation Evocation as your final passive.

4.

Adapting Gear

You will be equipping 5 pieces of the Firebird set, and will be adding the CDR and RCR utility of the craftable Cpt. Crimson set on top; of course, both sets will be complete via a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. Stat priorities will remain largely the same, with a focus on Toughness stats across gear, as well as Attack Speed and a smattering of Cooldown Reduction.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Intelligence
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Vitality
  5. Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Life %
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor or Resource Cost Reduction
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Intelligence
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Life %
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Fire Damage
  4. Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Life %
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. All Resistance
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Fire Damage
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. High Weapon Damage (ideally Cold)
  2. Intelligence
  3. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  4. Percentage Damage Increase
  5. Increased Attack Speed
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. High Damage Range
  2. Intelligence
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Vitality
  5. Arcane Power on Crit or Elite Damage Increase

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

4.1.

Altar of Rites

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

Altar of Rites Planner

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

5.

Adapting Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming; Gogok of Swiftness Gogok of Swiftness is also universally helpful with its Increased Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, and scaling Dodge bonuses.

Within the limited challenges of Speed Greater Rifts, Bane of the Stricken Bane of the Stricken should be replaced by Bane of the Powerful Bane of the Powerful for its well-rounded damage increase and damage mitigation bonuses; its limited duration should be of no consequence when you are demolishing the difficulty.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

6.

Adapting Kanai's Cube

With Elite and Rift Guardian fights being much less of a threat and bottleneck in Speed Greater Rifts, you should replace our base build recommendation of The Furnace The Furnace for the attack- and movement speed amplifier Echoing Fury Echoing Fury.

As this remains a Spectral Blade Spectral Blade-centric build when it comes to delivering the bulk of your damage, The Shame of Delsere The Shame of Delsere is still a crucial part of the build that simply gets moved off the worn pieces and into the armor slot of the Cube.

As previously mentioned, in order to tie the set bonuses of Firebird and Cpt. Crimson together, you will have to put Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot of the Cube.

In Season 33, where you get a 4th slot for the Kanai's Cube, you can introduce additional elemental damage to the build by slotting Convention of Elements Convention of Elements there.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

7.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is the Enchantress, due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpful for the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in this build) via Focused Mind Focused Mind, as well as the elemental damage bonus from Amplification Amplification and damage reduction from Powered Shield Powered Shield.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

8.

Legendary Potion

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered, which renders you immune to Crowd Control effects for a brief time after consuming it — valuable bonus to a build that lacks means to break away from CC outside of straight up evasion via teleporting.

9.

Changelog

  • 23 Oct. 2024: Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
  • 10 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
  • 10 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 06 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 23 Mar. 2021: Guide added.
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