Wizard Leveling and Fresh 70 Guide (Patch 2.7.8 / Season 33)

Choose the Wizard if you want to bend the elements to your will, wielding the might of fire, ice, lightning and pure arcane power into the singular purpose of annihilating your enemies. While weaving Arcane Power into storms, twisters and explosions, the Wizard remains safe behind by mighty shields of ice and energy — whether fighting from afar, or into fierce melee. With an ascending Archon form that dominates any remaining opposition, the Wizard is the embodiment of elemental powers in Diablo 3.

Your progression on a given character always start with leveling to 70. To help you with that, we have a beginner leveling build that you can access using the link below.

After reaching Level 70, the easiest way to start gearing up and progressing towards the end-game is by using the set given by the Haedrig's Gifts. Haedrig's Gifts are cache-like rewards that drop 2 pieces of a fixed class-specific set after completing chapters II, III, and IV of the Seasonal Journey. Having a full 6-piece set bonus available to you will skyrocket your character's power well in the mid-to-high Torments. This makes the early portion of the Seasonal Journey your first priority upon reaching Level 70.

This Season, Wizards will find the Firebird's Finery set in their Haedrig's Gifts. We have an early progression build for this set, which you can find by clicking the link below.

While you get a fixed free set at the start of every Season, it is not unreasonable to assume you will attain other sets in quick succession. If you are interested in switching around your playstyle, take a look at the beginner points for other sets below, and note to which endgame builds they point you after.

To learn how to gear up quickly and approach a character's progression in general, check out our Beginner Seasonal Guide. It includes advice and tactics related to gambling Blood Shards, doing Bounties, Normal (up to T16) Rifts, Greater and Challenge Rifts, and using Kanai's Cube for easy upgrades.

Certain items can be targeted through the completion of bounties or boss kills. The following is a list of such items, in order of importance for the class.

• Ring of Royal Grandeur is a legendary from Act I caches that reduces the number of set items required for set bonuses by one. While it might not be immediately useful, obtaining powerful bonuses (such as the 4- and 6-piece set bonuses of any set) as early as possible for a huge spike in character power is an opportunity you should not pass up. Doing bounties will be inevitable for crafting materials anyway, so optimize your farming time and get this ring as soon as possible.
• Avarice Band is an Act III cache legendary ring that extends your pickup radius by up to 30 yards as you pick up gold. This unassuming bonus has the potential to turn in the strongest source of defense during normal rifts due to its synergy with Boon of the Hoarder and Goldwrap. Their powers combined, they can render your character practically invulnerable even in the highest of Torment difficulties.
• Reaper's Wraps are a good bracer option for beginner Wizards, as the spenders of this class tend to be Arcane Power-heavy, and primary skills are lackluster for AP regeneration. These bracers restore up to 30% of your Arcane Power reserves when you get healed by a health globe, capped at once every 2 seconds. This is an easy trigger if you keep an eye on the battlefield. These bracers are craftable, and the plan for their creation drops when you kill the Act V boss Malthael on any difficulty.
• Gloves of Worship are an Act II cache legendary that extends the duration of Shrines to 10 minutes, a very decent farming effect that is usually stored in Kanai's Cube. The combined power of Empowered Shrines (doubled resource gain, halved cooldowns), Frenzied Shrines (25% Attack Speed) and Fleeting Shrines (25% increase to Movement Speed and 20 yard pickup radius), often refreshing before their 10-minute duration, is a huge buff during normal rifts. Wizards are among the classes that can benefit from Gloves of Worship, as the armor Cube slots of most of their specs are flexible enough to fit the item in.
• Illusory Boots are an Act II cache legendary item that removes enemy collision — a staple of support builds in Greater Rifts, as their precise positioning for party-wide buffs and enemy disables dictates the course of Greater Rift progress. Wizards are lacking in impactful support skills and are almost never taken for that role, lowering (but not negating, especially if you plan on alts) the importance of obtaining Illusory Boots.
• Envious Blade is an Act II cache dagger with one of the most powerful speedfarming bonuses in the game — a guaranteed Critical Hit against enemies at full health. A well equipped character using this dagger can oneshot entire screens of enemies in a suitable farming difficulty. Since Wizards can not dual wield and their weapon slots are frequently taken by more important legendaries, Envious Blade is not considered a cache priority.
• As previously mentioned, Wizard spenders can be harsh on your Arcane Power reserves when no set bonuses are available to skyrocket your damage. Another cache item can easily be added to your setup to ease the strain on your resources: the Pride's Fall helm. Obtained through Act III cache bounties, the helm reduces your resource costs by 30% after not taking damage for 5 seconds, which is easily achievable with proper positioning.

The majority of the gear will be found by random chance as you farm normally, by killing monsters, opening chests, gambling at Kadala and upgrading rare items at the Cube. While the list below is not exhaustive, these are some of the pieces to seek, spend blood shards on, or upgrade yellows for — in order of priority:

• Sets: While the seasonal journey will reward you with a complete set through Haedrig's Gifts, gambling for armor set pieces still makes sense — to improve lackluster pieces, or complete class sets other than the gifted one. The Wizard sets are:
  • Tal Rasha's Elements: Tal Rasha's Allegiance, Tal Rasha's Brace, Tal Rasha's Grasp, Tal Rasha's Guise of Wisdom. Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit, Tal Rasha's Stride and Tal Rasha's Unwavering Glare;
  • Firebird's Finery: Firebird's Plume, Firebird's Pinions, Firebird's Breast, Firebird's Talons, Firebird's Down, Firebird's Tarsi and Firebird's Eye);
  • Delsere's Magnum Opus (DMO): Shrouded Mask, Dashing Pauldrons of Despair, Harness of Truth, Fierce Gauntlets, Leg Guards of Mystery and Striders of Destiny;
  • Vyr's Amazing Arcana: Vyr's Sightless Skull, Vyr's Proud Pauldrons, Vyr's Astonishing Aura, Vyr's Grasping Gauntlets, Vyr's Fantastic Finery and Vyr's Swaggering Stance;
  • The Typhon's Veil: Typhon's Frons, Typhon's Tibia, Typhon's Claws, Typhon's Thorax, Typhon's Abdomen and Typhon's Tarsus;
  • Chantodo's Resolve: Chantodo's Will and Chantodo's Force.
• The weapon is by far the most impactful item on your damage output, putting a priority on the weapon slot as the first to obtain an ancient item for. Due to its higher Blood Shard cost (75 for weapons vs. 25 for armor pieces and off-hands), you should delay weapon gambling — avoiding it at the start of character progression and only considering it when you start perfecting your gear. If you simply need a specific weapon, you will get a much better deal with the Upgrade Rare recipe in Kanai's Cube. The Hope of Cain recipe (1 rare item, 25 Death's Breaths, 50 of white, blue and yellow crafting materials) will only produce the type of item you put in (i.e. wands), cutting out all other weapons from the RNG pool that you would have to deal with through regular gambling at Kadala. Wands are the Wizard-specific one handed weapon you can easily target through upgrading rares, with valuable and build-defining wands such as Fragment of Destiny, Unstable Scepter, Serpent's Sparker, Chantodo's Will, Aether Walker, Wand of Woh, and Starfire. Other weapons valuable to the Wizard include In-geom, The Twisted Sword, and Deathwish (1h swords); Wizardspike (dagger); Valthek's Rebuke (2h Staff); and The Furnace (2h Mace).
• Wizard Sources are almost equally important to their weapon companions, and it is recommended to gamble for them even early on due to their low Blood Shard price. Powerful and build altering off-hands include Orb of Infinite Depth, Chantodo's Force, Triumvirate, Winter Flurry, and Etched Sigil.
• Belts are a surprisingly important slot for the class, with several belts serving as crucial pieces for Wizard playstyles. Being another cheap gamble slot, you can invest a reasonable amount of Blood Shards into belts early on. Important belts include Fazula's Improbable Chain, The Shame of Delsere, Hergbrash's Binding, Goldwrap and The Witching Hour.
• Bracers can add significant toughness or utility to Wizard builds, and share the cheap gamble price of other armor slots. Wizards should invest in the slot mid-progression, when trying to complete their initial speedfarming or average pushing build. The character progression bracers are usually Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, and you also have farming-oriented staples like Nemesis Bracers and Warzechian Armguards.
• Jewelry has a huge influence on your DPS, but similarly to weapons it is expensive to gamble (50 shards for rings, 100 for amulets). When searching for specific jewelry rolls, you should consider upgrading rares instead. Two jewelry sets are considered crucial for Wizards, both considered best-in-slot for various builds: the Bastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint; and the Endless Walk set, The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge. Complementary jewelry for those sets are often Squirt's Necklace, The Flavor of Time, Halo of Karini, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Convention of Elements or Unity. While a third jewelry set exists — the Legacy of Nightmares set, Litany of the Undaunted and The Wailing Host — Wizards tend to use its legendary gem alternative, Legacy of Dreams.
• Most remaining armor slots only have one or two desirable items for Wizards, and it is preferable to leave them to drop from normal farming instead of wasting shards and materials on the numerous possible duds for the slot. A notable exception is The Swami, a Wizard hat; it is a crucial piece in any Archon or Reverse Archon builds, and can be considered a priority depending on the build you aim for. In the long run, you will want to find Aquila Cuirass and Cindercoat (chest pieces); Leoric's Crown (helm); Depth Diggers (pants); Nilfur's Boast (boots); Mantle of Channeling (shoulders); Tasker and Theo and Magefist (gloves).

The table below is meant to point you in a general correct direction and is by no means indicative of the exact rolls you want to go for. They can vary greatly from build to build and it is always preferable to refer to our exact guide page. If you simply use the rolls below however, and roll for skill damage on the applicable pieces:

• Disintegrate, Arcane Torrent, Arcane Orb, Ray of Frost, Energy Twister, Wave of Force, Meteor on helms and boots;
• Explosive Blast, Familiar, Black Hole, Hydra, Blizzard on shoulders and chest;
• Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Electrocute, Spectral Blade on belt and pants.

Wherever it says 'Elemental damage', match it to the rune of your damaging skill of choice. You will come out with a functional spec, and probably not too far off from what we would recommend in a dedicated build!

Your armor sockets should be taken up by the highest tier Topaz gems you can afford at the time, while the helm is usually best filled by a Diamond gem for a boost to Cooldown Reduction. The weapon is best fitted with an Emerald. When you stumble upon jewelry with good primary stats and a socket, you should start dabbling into Legendary Gems. The best Legendary Gems for Wizards are, in relative order of importance:

• Bane of the Trapped — staple multiplicative damage increase. Note that the gem is self sufficient, proccing itself when fighting in melee range (where a surprising number of Wizard builds fight at).
• Bane of the Stricken — almost mandatory gem for Greater Rift progression, as it is designed to whittle down the scaling health numbers of monsters with a percentage-based increase on successive attacks.
• Boon of the Hoarder — synergizing with other farming mainstays like Avarice Band and Goldwrap, this gem will not only keep you rich, but also sped up and safe during normal rift farming.
• Situational gems — Simplicity's Strength is a primary skill empowering gem, strengthening your basic attacks with a multiplicative damage increase and a heal. Gogok of Swiftness is a vital part of Cooldown-centric builds, which means most Archon setups for Wizards. Zei's Stone of Vengeance is a multiplicative damage increase to long range builds. Enforcer is a pet-oriented gem that multiplicatively boosts the damage of pets, and is part of Hydra builds.

Kanai's Cube choices are highly build- and content-specific, making them hard to summarize. Generally speaking, Wizards should store the powers of the following items in the Cube as soon as they have the materials available: Aether Walker, The Furnace, In-geom, Orb of Infinite Depth, Nemesis Bracers, Aquila Cuirass, The Swami, Goldwrap, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Ring of Royal Grandeur, Avarice Band, Convention of Elements and Unity.

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.

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.