LoD Meteor Wizard Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Meteor Wizard can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, mostly thanks to overwhelming damage potential offered by Meteor 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
Magic Weapon Deflection Meteor Thunder Crash 1 Storm Armor Power of the Storm 2 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Illusionist Galvanizing Ward Elemental Exposure Power Hungry

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 T16 key farming build will mimic the GR speed farming rotation, but sped up one step further: with extremely aggressive Teleports on top of enemies and their subsequent decimation with Meteors, made immediate with the rune Thunder Crash. Spam Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to maximize the all-around benefits from Orb of Infinite Depth. Otherwise, maintain the trio of passive buffs in the form of Storm Armor Power of the Storm, Magic Weapon Deflection, and Familiar Arcanot.

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 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 T16 farm.
• 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 Aether Walker you wield in your hand will find an excellent companion in the Orb of Infinite Depth off-hand, and will need to use Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to trigger its effect.
• A trio of 10-minute buffs rounds out your "active" skill slots. Magic Weapon Deflection provides a constantly refreshed defensive buff. Storm Armor massively reduces incoming damage from the equipped Halo of Karini, and doubles as a resource management tool with Power of the Storm. Familiar Arcanot is a fire-and-forget source of passive AP regeneration.
• In your passives, Galvanizing Ward retains its defensive value (especially with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer equipped). Elemental Exposure is an easy-to-maintain damage increase, corresponding nicely to your various types of elemental damage. Illusionist is an excellent boon to movement speed, triggered constantly from your Teleporting. You are free to make a decision between the proximity-based Audacity and the distance-based Power Hungry as sources of damage multiplication.

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 a Fire damage Stone of Jordan and your better rolled ring Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Fire cycle) and Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from Storm Armor). 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. Don't put SoJ in the Cube, as you will lose out on its elemental and elite damage bonuses.

LoD Meteor gear pieces for speed farming can be roughly divided into the following categories:

• Damage amplification items. Cindercoat, Magefist, and a Fire damage roll of Blackthorne's Jousting Mail all fit this category. Stone of Jordan (also Fire-rolled!) will convert their elemental damage type to Lightning to fit Thunder Crash.
• 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. Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer is an all-around useful protective piece, which will double the effectiveness of shields to safeguard your Squirt's Necklace bonus. If you find it overkill, you can alternate this slot to Warzechian Armguards (solo), or Nemesis Bracers (groups). The final protective piece will be Goldwrap, which is part of the triumvirate of gold bonuses with Avarice Band (on your follower or in CoE's place in groups) and a socketed Boon of the Hoarder.
• Meteor-related items. Mempo of Twilight and Nilfur's Boast provide universally useful damage bonuses to your main damage dealer, and remain across all setups. Note that while it won't be worn, The Grand Vizier will move to the Cube.

Aether Walker turns your Teleport from a cooldown to a spender, and allows for near limitless mobility in T16 farm. Pair it with an Orb of Infinite Depth to enjoy this source's all-around useful bonuses.

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, a good candidate for Sanctification is your weapon, The Grand Vizier.

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.

The Greater Rift staple The Grand Vizier moves from a worn item to a cubed power in T16 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.

The Act III bounty cache-specific legendary Pride's Fall will greatly ease the strain on your resource spending, while the bulwark of your Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer-enhanced shields and Goldwrap armor will protect the helm's bonuses.

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 T16 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.

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.