LoD Meteor Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Meteor Wizard is an excellent Greater Rift Speed Farmer, as the build adapts nicely to your chosen difficulty (low- or mid-GR farming), and transitions its time-sensitive solo GR progression burst 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
Magic Weapon Deflection Meteor Thunder Crash 1 Storm Armor Power of the Storm 2 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Black Hole Spellsteal
Passive Skills
Elemental Exposure Dominance Galvanizing Ward Audacity

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. Black Hole is still used to pull enemies together for the convenience of your Meteor nuke. The latter will be swapped to Thunder Crash for the immediate projectile, which is more suitable for speed farming. Spam Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to maximize the all-around benefits from Orb of Infinite Depth. Otherwise, you Teleport aggressively around (optionally with Aether Walker, pulling as much monster aggro as possible, and quickly melting enemies down.

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 Meteor, which rips through speed Greater Rifts due to its monstrous damage multipliers. Exchange the resource demanding, time-sensitive Star Pact rune for the immediate effect of Thunder Crash to avoid wasting unnecessary time in speed GRs.
• Mobility is paramount in speed Greater Rifts, so Teleport remains a staple inclusion in your skill lineup. Use the multiple charges of Wormhole for maximum mobility.
• The monster grouping powers of Black Hole Spellsteal retain — and even increase — their value in Greater Rift speed farming.
• Depending on your chosen GR level to farm, you will either keep The Grand Vizier from GR progression (if you choose to farm mid-to-high GR speeds), or Aether Walker for maximum speed (if you choose to farm low-ish GR speeds). If you opt for lower GR farm, you should pair the Aether Walker with an Orb of Infinite Depth for its excellent multi-purpose buffs, and will need to use Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to trigger its effect. If you opt for higher GR farm, add Familiar Arcanot in this slot for improved Arcane Power management.
• 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. Exchange the proc rate superiority of Shocking Aspect from the solo GR push build for the improved Arcane Power management of Power of the Storm.
• Some 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. Dominance is a "win more" type of defensive passive, snowballing quickly from your fast clear speed. Elemental Exposure is an easy-to-maintain damage increase, corresponding nicely to your various types of elemental damage.

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. Your rings will depend on your chosen GR tier for farming:

• Low-ish GR speed farming will use a Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from Storm Armor) and a Fire damage Stone of Jordan, along with a bunch other Fire elemental damage-boosting items outlined below. Note that the legendary power of the Stone of Jordan will convert the Fire elemental damage stacked on your gear to Lightning, so you needn't worry about not matching the Thunder Crash element type.
• Mid-to-high GR speed farming will use the same setup as the GR progression build — Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Lightning 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.

Some of your gear slots will match the Greater Rift solo progression setup regardless of your chosen GR difficulty. Meteor-related legendaries like Mempo of Twilight and Nilfur's Boast remain universally useful, and don't have any speedfarm-oriented competition worth noting. Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer and Pauldrons of the Skeleton King still bring considerable protective value. Since you drop signature skills from the build though, The Shame of Delsere should give way to the universal damage amplifier of The Witching Hour.

Your chosen GR tier for farming will dictate the remaining gear choices:

• Low-ish GR speed farming will use Aether Walker to port around constantly. Use Orb of Infinite Depth for your off-hand, and take advantage of the lower toughness requirements to stack elemental damage across gear with Magefist and Cindercoat (it will be converted to Lightning from the worn Stone of Jordan, as noted above).
• Mid-to-high GR speed farming will wield The Grand Vizier, meaning you stick closer to the push setup. Keep Aquila Cuirass in its place, but use St. Archew's Gage over Stone Gauntlets. These legendary bracers better complement GR speed farming, providing a strong temporary shield upon elite engagement (more than enough in these circumstances), and none of the pesky Stone Gauntlet downsides.

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.

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.

The Greater Rift staple The Grand Vizier moves from a worn item to a cubed power in low-ish GR speed farm, freeing up a slot for Aether Walker mobility. Nevertheless, it should still be present in the build for its ubiquitous damage multiplication and resource cost reduction bonuses. When you farm higher GR tiers, use the other Meteor staple, The Smoldering Core, in this slot instead.

Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan increase resource generation and damage dealt while moving — and decrease them while stationary. In the breakneck pace of GR farm, this legendary should always provide its positive powers as you relentlessly move forward.

In mid-to-high GR speed farming, your jewelry Cube slot will be occupied by your worst rolled item between Halo of Karini, Convention of Elements and Unity. In the low-ish GR farming variant, where you need to wear the Fire damage Stone of Jordan (SoJ is a waste to cube, since you lose the elemental and elite damage bonus), you will need to cube your worse rolled ring between Karini and Unity.

In Season 33, where you get a 4th slot for the Kanai's Cube, you can introduce additional damage to the build by slotting Strongarm Bracers there. The initiator skill in your rotation, Black Hole, will provide a consistent proc for this bracer at every fight.

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.