Wizard Delsere's Magnum Opus (DMO) Fresh 70 Starter Build (Patch 2.7.6 / Season 29)

The Delsere's Magnum Opus starting build suffers greatly from the lack of offense-oriented bonuses on the set until the 6-piece bonus. In fact, it is quite viable to skip using a DMO-oriented build altogether, and focus on generically strong Wizard abilities, any buffing legendaries you might have found from leveling, and the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem which drops very early on (usually on your second Greater Rift, right after Bane of the Powerful).

Taking into account that one of the easiest gambles for level 1 Wizards is Winter Flurry (as advised in our Beginner Seasonal Guide) and one of your possible crafts is Serpent's Sparker, you can socket Legacy of Dreams and put together a makeshift LoD Hydra build along these lines:

Active Skills
Spectral Blade Barrier Blades Hydra Frost Hydra 1 Blizzard Snowbound 2 Magic Weapon Deflection 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Blur Audacity Galvanizing Ward Illusionist

Or, ou can build whatever skill-augmenting legendary items you have stumbled upon while leveling. That being said, we have provided a DMO progression path that takes into account the powers of the set to the extent that it is possible.

The following build assumes you will assemble the build in 2-piece increments, similarly to how Haedrig's Gift would dole the set out. Haderig's Gift is a seasonal participation reward that gives you a full class-specific set as you complete Chapters II, III and IV of the Seasonal Journey (accessible via the leaf-shaped icon in the top right corner). The cadence of early natural character progression is also not too far off the listed strategy, so even if the set is not part of Haedrig's Gift, you can put the advice below to good use.

Active Skills
Disintegrate Convergence Slow Time Exhaustion 1 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 2 Magic Weapon Deflection 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Unwavering Will Astral Presence Audacity Illusionist

At the 2-piece DMO set bonus, your basic build will look much like our recommendations during leveling to 70. Without supporting legendaries, Wizards are somewhat slow with progression; even more so with the middling Slow Time reset bonus from DMO. Still, Slow Time is included to getyou used to its mechanics, and you will be using the protective Exhaustion rune to shield yourself from harm.

Activate your two self-buffs — Magic Weapon and Familiar — and keep them up at all times (note their shared 10-minute duration and refresh them in between runs). Teleport into fights, put down a protective Slow Time and activate Explosive Blast so the reset starts ticking. After that, simply melt enemies down with Disintegrate.

At this point, no additional helpful legendary items are assumed. You might have lucked out during the leveling journey (especially if you followed the gambling and crafting advice in our Seasonal Guide), or in your first couple of farming sessions with items such as:

• Winter Flurry — use Blizzard Snowbound and Hydra Frost Hydra instead of Slow Time and Explosive Blast.
• Serpent's Sparker — Use Hydra Frost Hydra instead of Explosive Blast.
• Fragment of Destiny — Use Spectral Blade Flame Blades instead of Disintegrate and Hydra Frost Hydra instead of Explosive Blast.
• Etched Sigil and/or Ranslor's Folly — Use Energy Twister Raging Storm instead of Explosive Blast.
• Halo of Karini — Stick with Storm Armor over Familiar; consider using Shocking Aspect for the superior proc chance.
• Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer — Consider using Galvanizing Ward over Illusionist.

Active Skills
Disintegrate Convergence Slow Time Time Warp 1 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 2 Magic Weapon Force Weapon 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Unwavering Will Astral Presence Audacity Illusionist

At the 4-piece DMO set bonus, little changes in the base suggestions; this tier of improvements continue to be centered around Slow Time. You gain the expected damage reduction out of the 4-piece, and can gradually reduce the amount of defensive skills, runes and passives spread across your build. Slow Time can be swapped from Exhaustion to Time Warp, improving your damage against enemies caught within the radius. Magic Weapon can be swapped from Deflection to Force Weapon to (slightly) improve your output.

It is not unreasonable to assume that at the 4-piece bonus, you have attained at least one key item for DMO Wizards. If you follow the advice in our "Get the build started" section below, this item will likely be either Triumvirate or Etched Sigil. Triumvirate will augment a build based around Arcane Orb (we recommend Frozen Orb in particular), while Etched Sigil will complement an Energy Twister spec. Whichever of the two you get will dictate how your 6-piece spec plays out.

Active Skills
Shock Pulse Power Affinity Arcane Orb Frozen Orb 1 Slow Time Time Warp 2 Storm Armor Scramble 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Dominance Galvanizing Ward Power Hungry Illusionist

At the 6-piece DMO set bonus, you finally get to the coveted damage bonus that can propel you through the in-game difficulties. The sample build provided above assumes you stumbled upon legendaries that are synergistic with a Frozen Orb build, but if you found Energy Twister-oriented items instead ( Etched Sigil, Valthek's Rebuke and/or The Twisted Sword), you can simply swap Shock Pulse to Arcane Torrent and Arcane Orb to Energy Twister Wicked Wind, and you will be good to go.

In the sample build provided above, your basic rotation would be to:

• Pre-activate and keep up your Storm Armor and Familiar buffs;
• Teleport around with the multiple charges of Wormhole;
• Cover the battlefield in the damage augmentation of Slow Time Time Warp;
• Blast enemies down with Frozen Orbs, refueling as necessary with Shock Pulse Power Affinity.

Please refer to our endgame DMO Frozen Orb guide to get an in-depth explanation of the necessary rotation, skills, passives, gear and gems, s well as details like stat priorities and breakpoints that will get this beginner DMO build into endgame Greater Rift pushing.

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the DMO set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a DMO Frozen Orb Wizard, you should to the following.

• Gather the full 6-piece DMO set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Pants, Gloves, Chest, and Helm. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
• Gamble Off-hands or upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Wizard Sources for Triumvirate or Etched Sigil. Both these sources will be tremendous damage increases to their respective DMO builds, as described above.
• Gamble or upgrade rare Belts for The Shame of Delsere; attack speed is a major source of damage in the build, while resource stability will help you maintain skill spam and possible buffs like Aquila Cuirass.
• Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers for Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, a solid protective piece for the build. Gambling/upgrading rares in the Bracer slot can also net you other valuable pieces like Nemesis Bracers or Ranslor's Folly.
• Craft lvl 70 Wands at the Blacksmith and use the "upgrade rare" recipe to obtain Unstable Scepter, one of the biggest damage pieces in the Frozen Orb build. If you opt for an Energy Twister build instead, upgrade rare One-handed Swords for The Twisted Sword. Gambling is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
• Craft lvl 70 Daggers at the Blacksmith and use the "upgrade rare" recipe to obtain Wizardspike, the other cornerstone damage piece in the Frozen Orb build. If you opt for an Energy Twister build instead, upgrade rare Staves for Valthek's Rebuke. Gambling is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
• Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Cpt. Crimson, Aughild...) as described in the DMO Frozen Orb Wizard Gear page. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
• While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose), Convention of Elements, Unity, and Squirt's Necklace will all bring massive damage bumps to the build, with other standout pieces like Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.