Wizard Energy Twister Build with the DMO Set (Patch 2.4)

This group-oriented, devastating AoE build is attained through the following set pieces:

• Helm: Shrouded Mask
• Chest: Harness of Truth
• Gloves: Fierce Gauntlets
• Pants: Leg Guards of Mystery
• Shoulders: Dashing Pauldrons of Despair
• Boots: Striders of Destiny

This build is no longer competitive and we are leaving it on the website for documentation purposes and in case it becomes viable again.

This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.

Active Skills
Energy Twister Raging Storm Teleport Safe Passage 1 Slow Time Exhaustion 2 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 3 Magic Weapon Conduit 4 Ice Armor Crystallize
Passive Skills
Illusionist Audacity Power Hungry Unwavering Will

The majority of the DPS in the build comes from the interaction between Energy Twister and The Twisted Sword legendary power, increasing the skill's damage for every Energy Twister out on the battlefield. The Raging Storm merging mechanics encourage you to not simply spam Energy Twister, but to position enemies in such a way as to make the merging of twisters instantaneous and deny them as much random movement as you can. Common tactics include luring enemies next to a wall and casting against it for a bounce back, as well as using close quarters and tight corridors to funnel the twister's pattern. Your defenses rely primarily on your teammates, but you bring some of your own with Slow Time Exhaustion and generous use of your Teleport Safe Passage — both skills bring damage reduction in their own way and are reset frequently by the Illusionist passive. As you will quickly discover, the spec's damage with proper positioning is through the roof, so your primary concern will become survival — to aid you further with that, you will be taking the passive armor buff from Ice Armor and the active damage reduction from the Explosive Blast Chain Reaction and Orb of Infinite Depth combo. Finally, do not forget to apply the Magic Weapon Conduit buff for AP management in combat.

Your primary source of damage is Energy Twister — an exotic spender that saw little use from RoS onward and the removal of CM Wizard builds. With the DMO rework and a new synergistic weapon in the face of The Twisted Sword, it comes back stronger than ever. You will be taking the rune with the most damage potential, Raging Storm; when two of its twisters collide, they more than double the total damage and AoE. Coupled with the random movement of Energy Twister, this forces the unique playstyle of the build of that prefers tight spaces, casts against walls, and abuses corridors.

Slow Time is integral to DMO setups, amplifying the damage of multiple skills inside its radius, as well as cutting incoming damage in half for you and by a quarter for party members. You will augment its damage reducing properties with another 25% from the Exhaustion rune. Slow Time has a sizable 15-second cooldown, which you circumvent through the 2-piece set bonus of DMO and your Energy Twister and Explosive Blast spam. Do not hesitate to spread multiple Slow Times as the battle demands: they are free to cast, and your damage will be negligible outside their radius.

Despite the bonuses it receives from the DMO set, Explosive Blast will be introduced to the build as means of protection rather than damage. You will be taking the multiple explosions of the Chain Reaction rune, quickly maximizing the damage reduction benefits from the Orb of Infinite Depth source, discussed in the gearing section.

Sometimes immediate repositioning will be required — evading a bad affix, engaging fresh enemies for Ancient Parthan Defenders procs, or simply to gain a Toughness buff without losing too much of your Endless Walk damage bonuses. Teleport will cover you for all these purposes, along with the damage reduction of the Safe Passage rune.

In a spam-heavy setup like this one, Magic Weapon is taken not only as a passive Wizard damage buff; it is also incorporated for the additional utility of the Conduit rune, whose AP restoration will be a major contributor to resource stability in big fights. Still providing the baseline 10% damage increase, unconditional in nature (no crit dependency) and sporting excellent 10-minute uptime, Magic Weapon Conduit is hard to pass up.

For additional protection, we will be using Ice Armor with the massive bulwark of Crystallize. Standing close for the protection of your support allies will invariably put you in melee range, refreshing your Crystallize stacks constantly. The added value from Halo of Arlyse will bring excellent crowd control on top of the mitigation, cementing Ice Armor as the defensive spell of choice.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

The Illusionist passive brings a potent survival tool to the build, feeding further CDR into your Slow Time and turning Teleport from a strategic cooldown into a constantly available asset. The requirement of 15% life taken per hit is calculated prior to mitigation and translates into “any hit taken” in high Greater Rifts. The additional 30% movement speed after using some of the build's core abilities is just icing on the cake.

Audacity is a natural inclusion in a melee range spellcasting builds like this one, bringing an impressive 30% multiplicative damage increase against enemies within 15 yards.

Power Hungry is a passive exclusively ran in group Greater Rifts, fueled by Solanium-wielding Monks and Barbarians. Triggered off your party picking up health globes as well as you, Power Hungry makes the next Arcane Power spender free, stacking up to 10 health globes picked. This passive immensely eases AP management throughout the run.

There is a degree of freedom in your last passive choice, but generally any protective passive is a great pick for the slot. Unwavering Will with its significant Armor bonuses and a smattering of damage, Blur with its straight mitigation, or even the shielding Dominance are all decent choices here.

When soloing, Explosive Blast gets replaced by either Disintegrate or Arcane Torrent, as the build shifts from manually spamming Energy Twisters to creating them by channeling spells and the power of the Etched Sigil offhand. The preferred rune for Disintegrate is Intensify, as it increases the damage enemies will take from your primary damage dealer — Energy Twister. If you opt for Arcane Torrent, the rune of choice is Static Discharge. Other changes to the build include a swap of Magic Weapon from the resource management of Conduit to the protective Deflection, and the replacement of the speedrun-oriented Power Hungry with the Unstable Anomaly cheat death.

The build incorporates the complete Delsere's Magnum Opus set, taking all six available pieces and opening up the jewelry for the Endless Walk set and its damage multiplication bonuses. Area Damage is important for the Energy Twister Wizard and is a recommended roll on Fierce Gauntlets (along with both Crit stats and Intelligence) and Dashing Pauldrons of Despair (along with Intelligence, Vitality and Resource Cost Reduction). Harness of Truth and Leg Guards of Mystery should remain pure Toughness slots. Shrouded Mask and Striders of Destiny can roll Energy Twister % bonus, and it is mandatory to seek the skill bonus at least on the boots. Note that stacking Armor benefits you because of the balancing of sources of mitigation, as All Resistance is already abundant on an Intelligence-based character.

Not skipping on any of the six available set pieces to obtain the full Delsere's Magnum Opus set bonus allows you to split between offense and defense in the jewelry slots. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This is identical to the DMO Energy Twister playstyle, which teleports long distances in pursuit of party members, and then transitions into a stationary Energy Twister and Explosive Blast rotation.

Your other ring slot will be taken by the pure damage boost of Convention of Elements, whose rotation of elemental bonuses you will need to learn and time to maximize the benefits of the short-lived Arcane proc. The ideal stats are Crit Chance, Crit Damage, an open Socket and Area Damage.

You have two interchangeable options for the bracer slot. The easier to obtain choice are the craftable Reaper's Wraps, with the plan for their creation dropping from killing the Act V boss Malthael on any difficulty. These bracers refill your Arcane Power reserve by up to 30% when you (or party members) pick up health globes; a powerful effect that almost nullifies resource concerns and shapes the playstyle of your supports into feeding you more globes. The alternative bracers are Ancient Parthan Defenders, whose protective unique property triggers off Freeze effects as well (inexplicably missing from the item tooltip). With the chain triggers of Frost Nova from the cubed Halo of Arlyse, diving into massive fights turns from a suicide tactic into a survival tool through the numerous damage reduction procs of the bracer. Note that if you solo with the build, Ancient Parthan Defenders are equipped by necessity, as the cube armor slot is taken by Mantle of Channeling.

The best-in-slot belt for the build is the glass cannon favorite, The Witching Hour. What this belt lacks in unique properties, it makes up in unique rolls: it is the only item in the slot that can roll Attack Speed and Critical Damage. Both stats are immensely beneficial to your damage output, so seek as close to the maximum 7 IAS and 50 Crit Damage as you can. When running this build for solo progression, reflect the shift of focus to channeling spells by taking Hergbrash's Binding instead, which will allow you to stand still and cast for extended periods of time.

The build's defining item is its weapon, The Twisted Sword. Added in Patch 2.4, this unique one hander increases Energy Twister damage by up to 150% for each Energy Twister you have out on the battlefield, a bonus you can easily stack over a dozen of with proper gear optimization. The desired stats include high Damage range, Intelligence, Area Damage and Attack Speed.

Another one of the 2.4 additions, Orb of Infinite Depth is a Wizard offhand designed around DMO's set bonuses that twists the damage role of Explosive Blast into a source of additional buffs. These buffs build up every time Explosive Blast hits an enemy, with an end result of 20% additive damage increase and the substantial 60% Damage Reduction at the maximum 4 Orb of Infinite Depth stacks. Getting these bonuses up as soon as possible dictate the choice of the Chain Reaction rune. If you choose to run this build in solo, you need to match the change to channeling skills by equipping an Etched Sigil, whose legendary power will spam the Energy Twisters for you. The ideal rolls include high Damage range, Crit Chance, Energy Twister % and Arcane Power on Crit.

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.

Your three jewelry sockets will be taken up by the legendary gems Bane of the Trapped, Bane of the Stricken and Pain Enhancer.

• Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. While the gem procs itself with its level 25 property in melee range, it will be consistently procced by your crowd controlling support teammates.
• Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken takes a firm spot in your second jewelry socket. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. DMO Energy Twister Wizards fall neatly in that category, as the usual lack of trash during Guardian fights nullifies the Ancient Parthan Defenders protection and it is in your best interest to get the fight done as quickly as possible.
• Finally, Pain Enhancer might not seem like an obvious fit as a Physical gem — but its damage proc is unimportant compared to its level 25 power, the Blood Frenzy. Big fights will skyrocket your Attack Speed, resulting in a faster casting animation and in turn maximizing the number of Energy Twisters you have going at once.

The Kanai's Cube recommendations are as follows: The Furnace for the weapon slot, Ancient Parthan Defenders or Reaper's Wraps for the armor slot, and Halo of Arlyse for the jewelry slot.

• To improve your damage, the best choice for the weapon slot in the Cube is The Furnace, the strongest generic two-handed weapon in the game. With its 50% additional elite damage affix it speeds up clear times greatly, as Champion and Rift Guardian fights are the usual GR bottleneck.
• As previously mentioned, you can cube your weaker rolled item between Ancient Parthan Defenders and Reaper's Wraps in the armor slot. As the Reaper's Wraps are craftable and thus easier to perfect, it is usually Ancient Parthan Defenders that take the cube slot. Note that for soloing the armor slot is usually taken by Mantle of Channeling, an item that substantially increases your Damage and Toughness while channeling. If you feel particularly daring, you can try cubing the control-oriented Ranslor's Folly instead.
• As a build that regularly stands toe to toe with monsters, Halo of Arlyse will occupy the jewelry cube slot. Halo of Arlyse will multiply the effectiveness of your Ice Armor mitigation, and provide additional crowd control. As long as the requirements of the ring are met (and they are calculated pre-mitigation), it will release a constant streak of Frost Novas, unhindered by internal cooldowns.