LoD Frozen Orb Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Frozen Orb Wizard can deal reasonably well with Greater Rift Speed Farming, 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
Shock Pulse Piercing Orb Arcane Orb Frozen Orb 1 Teleport Wormhole 2 Black Hole Absolute Zero 3 Magic Weapon Deflection 4 Storm Armor Scramble
Passive Skills
Galvanizing Ward Elemental Exposure Power Hungry 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 maintains most of the GR progression spec rotation; pop Magic Weapon and Storm Armor at the start of each run, and position properly so that the distance-based Halo of Karini does not fall off. Teleport aggressively around, drawing enemy attention with Shock Pulse Piercing Orbs and as enemies close the distance, clump them up with Black Hole and mow them down with Arcane Orb Frozen Orb. Two offensive buffs still need to be accounted for: you need to maintain the 3 stacks of Triumvirate with a Primary Attack at least once every 6 seconds, and you should track the Convention of Elements rotation, making a point to dump your Arcane Power with Frozen Orb nukes onto elites during the Cold CoE cycle.

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 Arcane Orb, taken with the highest damage potential of the Frozen Orb rune.
• To manage the gluttonous Arcane Power spending of your damage dealer, you can still use a Signature Skill in combination with The Shame of Delsere. For GR speed farm, we recommend Shock Pulse Piercing Orb for its range and reliable proc coefficient, which — once you comfortably stomp the targeted GR level and/or have the proper Arcane Power on Crit rolls on gear — will allow you to swap to The Witching Hour for extra DPS.
• A grouping tool is just as necessary in GR pushing as it is in speed farming, so you should keep Black Hole from the progression build, along with the helpful damage buff of Absolute Zero.
• Mobility is paramount in GR speedfarm, perhaps even more so than progression; to that end, keep Teleport in the build, and swap the protective Safe Passage rune from the progression build to the multiple charges of the Wormhole rune.
• 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. Consider altering the Storm Armor rune to Scramble for the additional movement speed proc.
• The entire passive selection from the GR progression build retains its value in GR speed farming. Power Hungry (distance-based multiplicative damage increase) and Elemental Exposure (additive damage increase per element used in the build) are more than welcome 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 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 best two 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 Frozen Orb armor pieces for speed farming can be roughly divided into the following categories:

• Damage amplification items. You will still be wearing both Frostburn (elemental damage increase and crowd control value), and Cold damage Blackthorne's Jousting Mail (strictly for the elemental damage increase; it should be your only set item, not forming any set bonuses).
• Resource items. Resource management legendaries retain their value — the Act III bounty cache-specific Pride's Fall and The Shame of Delsere will help offset the tremendous AP spending of Frozen Orb. Once you are confident with the build, you can consider dropping this belt for the extra damage of The Witching Hour.
• Protective items. The damage reduction of Aquila Cuirass and the proc-based cheat death of Pauldrons of the Skeleton King are just as valuable as they are in GR progression. Same goes for Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, which can either be worn or cubed depending on your better rolled item between Ashnagarr's and Strongarm Bracers.
• Utility items. You will be dropping the excessive protection of the Stone Gauntlets from the GR progression setup, so wearing Ice Climbers to counter their immobilization negative effect will not be necessary. In their stead, wear Illusory Boots; these Act II bounty cache-specific legendary boots will allow you to move unhindered through enemies, enhancing your ability to position for optimal Frozen Orbs.

Similarly to the Greater Rift solo progression setup, your weapon and offhand need to stay on the Arcane Orb-dedicated legendaries Unstable Scepter and Triumvirate.

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 Arcane Orb Sanctification, which adds the following power to your build:

• Arcane Orb Sanctification: Arcane Orb now periodically spawns up to four orbiting charges that will generate an additional orb when cast. All charges from the Arcane Orbit rune now detonate at the same time.

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 ( Unstable Scepter) and your off-hand ( Triumvirate).

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.

The entirety 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 Zei's Stone of Vengeance and Bane of the Trapped still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build while speed farming.

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

Considering its massive damage multiplication and skill proc bonuses, Wizardspike is still a mandatory inclusion in Greater Rift speed farming as well.

You should wear whichever item rolled better between Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer and Strongarm Bracers, and extract the weaker's power for this slot in the Cube.

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 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.

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.