LoD Energy Twister Wizard Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Energy Twister Wizard can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, mostly thanks to overwhelming damage potential offered by Energy Twister that allows you to include Aether Walker in the build, and the freedom from set pieces that allows you to spread various utility legendaries for mobility. 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.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Energy Twister Gale Force Diamond Skin Prism 1 Teleport Calamity 2 Familiar Arcanot 3 Magic Weapon Deflection 4 Storm Armor Power of the Storm
Passive Skills
Galvanizing Ward Astral Presence Audacity Unstable Anomaly

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

The playstyle in T16 is substantially different from the channeling-based GR progression and GR speedfarming builds; it revolves entirely around self-casting Energy Twister and relying on damage multipliers to obliterate fights in a second. Make a note to kickstart your Energy Twister damage at the start of every rift by stacking your The Twisted Sword bonuses with five quick casts. From there, simply Teleport from fight to fight with your unlimited mobility, stunning them for a second via Calamity and decimating them just as quickly with one or two manually cast Energy Twisters. Apply Diamond Skin Prism liberally, ideally whenever you know you are about to jump into a fight; spamming the key is also acceptable. The remainder of your skill selection is comprised of passive buffs. Storm Armor Power of the Storm and Magic Weapon Deflection will keep you safe as you recklessly port around the rift in search of the next big fight, and Familiar Arcanot will keep your Arcane Power reserves flowing; just do not let their 10 minute duration distract you from refreshing them in between runs.

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 cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Your main damage dealer remains Energy Twister, which rips through standard Rift difficulties due to its monstrous damage multipliers. Exchange the static, progression-oriented Wicked Wind rune for the self-empowering, fiery Gale Force rune.
• Arcane Torrent is no longer necessary, as channeling will be too slow for T16s. Replace it with the massive resource cost reduction bonuses of Diamond Skin Prism, which you will ideally activate just before nuking a screenful of enemies.
• The precision and timing-based damage bonuses of Wave of Force Arcane Attunement from the main progression build will be a huge overkill in T16, and should be replaced by the passive Arcane Power regeneration of Familiar Arcanot.
• Mobility is crucial in any form of farming, and T16s are no exception; Teleport remains mandatory, but should be taken with the Calamity for its momentary stun. The skill will remain spam-able due to Aether Walker, and the CC will be helpful in wiping the battlefield before anyone has a chance to retaliate.
• 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.
• Half 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. Finish your passive lineup with the passive AP regeneration of Astral Presence, and get an emergency cheat death safety net in the face of Unstable Anomaly.

The overall gearing philosophy 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 best two rolled rings between Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Fire 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 Fire 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:

• Resource management is the most important category, as Energy Twister is quite AP intensive and has limited resource cost mitigation in a self-cast build. You should replace the damage of Andariel's Visage for Pride's Fall, and further cut down costs with Cindercoat (hence the choice of Gale Force).
• Damage amplification items. Stat-wise Cindercoat also falls in this category; so do Magefist, and a Fire damage roll of Blackthorne's Jousting Mail.
• Protective items. When playing solo, you should make use of the extra safety of a cheat death proc from the Act I bounty cache-specific legendary Pauldrons of the Skeleton King. This is because your follower can wear the teleportation utility of Homing Pads and emanate their power to you; in groups, where you lose the follower, you should wear the Homing Pads yourself. The final protective piece will be Goldwrap, which is part of the triumvirate of gold bonuses with Avarice Band (on your follower or in Unity/SoJ's place in groups) and a socketed Boon of the Hoarder.
• Utility items. When playing solo, you should use the environment destruction-based movement speed procs of Warzechian Armguards. This is because your follower can wear Nemesis Bracers and proc extra elite spawns for you; in group play, you need to wear the Nemesis yourself. The Act II bounty cache-specific Illusory Boots will further supplement your mobility, as you will not need the progression oriented Ice Climbers.

In T16 speed farming you can afford to drop a damage multiplier from your weaponry; thus, drop the slightly weaker Valthek's Rebuke bonus and either cube or wear an Aether Walker. Since this will not be a channeling-based setup, replace Etched Sigil from the GR variants for the additional teleport utility of the craftable Cosmic Strand.

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 value in T16 Nephalem Rift speed farming. Legacy of Dreams forms the basis of damage reduction and damage multiplication in the build, while Bane of the Trapped still brings excellent damage multiplication value to the build. While certainly not weak, you should consider dropping Bane of the Powerful in order not to overkill on damage, and replace it with Boon of the Hoarder instead. Paired with a worn or cubed Goldwrap, and an Avarice Band worn by your follower in solo play (or yourself in groups), this legendary gem increases your movement speed and provides near-infinite Toughness through its interaction with the aforementioned items.

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

In the limited challenges of T16 keyfarm, one legendary weapon damage multiplier should be enough; thus, we advise you to stick to the multiplier from The Twisted Sword and replace Valthek's Rebuke with an Aether Walker. This legendary wand turns your Teleport from a cooldown to a spender, and allows for near limitless mobility. Simply wear your better rolled item between The Twisted Sword and Aether Walker, and cube the other.

Ranslor's Folly brings tremendous damage multiplication and monster pulling value to the build. In T16 farming, your competing bracers for the slot would be Nemesis Bracers for the extra elite spawns (worn by yourself in group play), and Warzechian Armguards for the extra movement speed (in solo, where you have a follower to wear the Nemesis and emanate their effect to you).

Your jewelry Cube slot will still be occupied by your worse rolled item between Halo of Karini and Convention of Elements. Stone of Jordan is a waste to cube, since you lose the elemental and elite damage bonuses of the item — they are innate rolls but are not part of the legendary power, and are thus not extracted in the Cube.

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is the Enchantress, due to her cooldown reduction bonus (cutting down Teleport downtime) and elemental damage increase. Note that this requires that you run Hand of the Prophet and optimize her survivability, as per our guide.

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.