LoD Energy Twister Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Energy Twister Wizard is an excellent Greater Rift Speed Farmer, as it retains the tankiness of the GR progression build, but can transition into a more aggressive playstyle that is well suited to the needs of speed GRs. 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
Energy Twister Mistral Breeze Arcane Torrent Flame Ward 1 Teleport Wormhole 2 Familiar Arcanot 3 Magic Weapon Deflection 4 Storm Armor Power of the Storm
Passive Skills
Galvanizing Ward Astral Presence Audacity Illusionist

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.

The build keeps core parts of its GR progression base build, but is much less rigid in their application, and has a much larger margin for error. You still activate Storm Armor and Magic Weapon at the start of every run, and keep active watch of the Halo of Karini buff, which requires a relatively distant target to proc its effect. You will be adding Familiar Arcanot to the aforementioned duo of passive buffs, to enjoy greater stability of your Arcane Power reserves. Otherwise, you Teleport aggressively around, pulling as much monster aggro as possible, and channel Arcane Torrent with impunity on trash monsters and non-threatening elites, with the occasional manual cast of an Energy Twister when facing tougher elites and the Rift Guardians.

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 main damage dealer remains Energy Twister, which rips through speed Greater Rifts due to its monstrous damage multipliers. Exchange the static, progression-oriented Wicked Wind rune for the reduced Arcane Power costs of Mistral Breeze to enjoy stability in your Aquila Cuirass benefits.
• Arcane Torrent is still quite necessary in the build, granting you unlimited Energy Twister spam via the Etched Sigil mechanics. You should keep the Flame Ward rune, as its protective benefits still bring reasonable value in GR speeds.
• You have more than enough damage to deal with most GR speedfarm you will ever do, so precision and timing-dependent buffs from like Wave of Force Arcane Attunement from the base progression build will not be necessary; in their stead, use the convenient passive Arcane Power regeneration tool Familiar Arcanot.
• Mobility is paramount in speed Greater Rifts, so Teleport remains a staple inclusion in your skill lineup. Alter the protective Safe Passage rune from the progression variant to the multiple charges of Wormhole.
• The duo of 10-minute protective buffs — Magic Weapon Deflection and Storm Armor (with Halo of Karini equipped) are still mandatory in the GR speed build.
• The vast majority of the passive selection from GR progression retains its value in Greater Rift speed farming. Audacity (proximity-based multiplicative damage increase) is still a great addition as you try to burst down enemies with haste. Galvanizing Ward will safeguard your Squirt's Necklace damage buff with a massive shield. Illusionist brings tons of additional mobility. The extra damage bump from Elemental Exposure will not be necessary however, so you should supplement your AP regeneration with Astral Presence.

The vast majority of gear choices will remain intact from the GR progression setup. This is still a Legacy of Dreams build, so you run legendary items instead of set pieces and obtain the necessary damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. This will cost a legendary gem slot, but will net you all the jewelry slots for powerful jewelry options. Similarly to the GR setup, you should wear a Squirt's Necklace for its massive damage boost; its "damage taken increased" downside is negated by your various shields. For rings, wear your two best rolled rings between Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Cold cycle), Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from Storm Armor), and Unity (further reduces incoming damage when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for them). Cube your worst rolled ring. Note that you can drop Unity from the setup and wear a Cold damage Stone of Jordan once you grow confident in your survivability for the targeted GR level farm.

LoD Energy Twister armor pieces for speed farming can be roughly divided into the following categories:

• Damage amplification items. You will be wearing Cold damage Blackthorne's Jousting Mail (strictly for the elemental damage increase; it should be your only set item, not forming any set bonuses).
• Protective items. You will maintain the combo of Stone Gauntlets with Ice Climbers from the GR progression build. The former is an incredibly potent Armor multiplication tool, with an Immobilizing negative effect as you take hits; a downside you will circumvent completely by wearing Ice Climbers. Both Mantle of Channeling and Aquila Cuirass remain valuable damage reduction tools in the setup, with the latter enjoying improved uptime due to the lesser AP costs of the Mistral Breeze rune. Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer also stays put in order to safeguard your Squirt's Necklace bonus.
• Resource items. Since the additional damage of Andariel's Visage will not be required, you can use Leoric's Crown in the slot to multiply the Resource Cost Reduction of a socketed Flawless Royal Topaz. In the belt slot, Hergbrash's Binding will ensure you can carelessly channel with Arcane Torrent without endangering your Aquila Cuirass uptime.

Similarly to the Greater Rift solo progression setup, your weapon and offhand need to stay on the Energy Twister-dedicated legendaries The Twisted Sword and Etched Sigil.

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.

ThiS Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random. For this build, we recommend aiming for the Storm Armor Sanctification, which adds the following power to your build:

• Storm Armor Sanctification: Your Storm Armor charges over 30 seconds. Casting Storm Armor at full charge releases a powerful thunderbolt, instantly killing a random enemy within 30 yards. Bosses and Elites are not killed but take significant damage.

Use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). In the case of this build, good candidates for Sanctification are your weapon ( The Twisted Sword) and your off-hand ( Etched Sigil).

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

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).

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

Most of your legendary gem selection from GR progression retains its full value in GR speed farming as well. Legacy of Dreams forms the basis of damage reduction and damage multiplication in the build, while Bane of the Trapped still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build while speed farming. Within the limited challenges of Speed Greater Rifts, Bane of the Stricken should be replaced by Bane of the Powerful, for its well-rounded damage increase and damage mitigation bonuses.

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

Valthek's Rebuke remains just as valuable for GR speedfarming as it is for progression, adding a massive damage multiplier to your main damage skill. Its secondary path-straightening effect is actually helpful in this build variant, as Mistral Breeze is otherwise random in its pathing.

Similarly to the GR progression setup, you will equip your better rolled item between Ranslor's Folly and Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, and simply cube the worse one in this slot.

Your jewelry Cube slot will still be occupied by your worst rolled item between Halo of Karini, Convention of Elements and Unity. If you decide Unity is protective overkill for the GR levels you farm, you should equip a Cold Stone of Jordan and cube your worse rolled ring between Karini and CoE (SoJ is a waste to cube, since you lose the elemental and elite damage bonus).

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is the Enchantress, due to her elemental damage increase, enemy slowing and player shielding powers. You should make her invulnerable via a Smoking Thurible.

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.

The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid (allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede Frozen Orb DPS), Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered (giving you a brief window of CC immunity to counter your lack of CC-breaking or immunity skills), or Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Wizards). Pick whichever you feel helps you out the most.