Firebird Flame Blades Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points (2024)

The build incorporates the complete Firebird's Finery set bonuses,taking six of the seven available pieces and leaving the jewelry fullydedicated to offense with the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint) and Squirt's Necklace. Rolls-wise, this is a uniquelyset-based damage focused build that benefits from a good spread of AttackSpeed and Crit-based affixes, but does not require any particular skill damagerolls to thrive. Firebird's Breast, Firebird's Down and Firebird's Tarsi can be dedicated entirely to Toughness stats; you caneven consider doing the same with Firebird's Pinions, or dedicating oneof the primary stat rolls to Resource Cost Reduction. Firebird's Plumeis also an immense source of Toughness with its massive Intelligence andVitality rolls, but it should also feature Crit Chance; Firebird's Talons should be stocked up on both Crit Chance and CritDamage, as well as Attack Speed.

Your jewelry will be focused entirely on amplifying damage, with theBastions of Will set occupying your two ring slots, and Squirt's Necklace — your neck. Focus and Restraint bring the highest possible damage multiplier from the slotas long as you alternate between a resource generating and resource spendingattacks — a natural part of your rotation, as described in the Skillspage. Squirt's Necklace is another grand source of damagemultiplication, with a significant damage intake trade-off; you will be tryingto maintain its bonuses with the use of Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, whichdoubles the effectiveness of your Deflection and Galvanizing Ward shields.

Since you will be using Spectral Blade to deliver the bulk of thedamage, it is only natural to bring two signature skill-centric items into thefold. The Shame of Delsere amplifies the attack speed of your signatureskills (which Spectral Blade is part of), and adds an Arcane Powerrestoration angle to them, which helps maintain your reserve (and cubed Aquila Cuirass bonuses). Fragment of Destiny also brings anattack speed multiplier, as well as a massive damage increase to signatureskills.

Rounding out your gear setup, Orb of Infinite Depth brings twofoldvalue to the build with its damage increasing and damage reducing buffs as youspam Explosive Blast.

The gear setup described above is not the only viable option to build yourFirebird Flame Blades Wizard or Greater Rift solo pushes. Depending on yourpreferred playstyle and your confidence with the mechanics of the build, youcan also make the following alterations:

• 1) If you dislike playing around the Squirt's Necklace increaseddamage taken penalty, you can play with the Endless Walk set( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose), combined with Convention of Elements.
• 2) Using the craftable Cpt. Crimson set with Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and Captain Crimson's Thrust foradditional damage dealt and damage reduced scaling with your CDR and RCRstats.
• 3) Using the craftable Aughild's Authority set with Aughild's Searchand Aughild's Power for additional damage against, and reduced damagefrom elite enemies.
• Changes 2) and 3) specifically necessitate that you use Firebird's Eye as your offhand, along with a Ring of Royal Grandeurin the Cube. This moves The Shame of Delsere and Orb of Infinite Depth to the Cube, and loses you The Furnace and Aquila Cuirass.

In your Offense stats, strive to obtain Increased Attack Speed on all thegear pieces that are able to roll it (Weapon, Gloves and both Rings) with theexception of the Amulet, as you will lose other, more valuable stats. Notethat Increased Attack Speed is especially desirable on the weapon, sinceweapon attack speed rolls are multiplicative in nature. Conversely, due to thedominantly set-based nature of the damage you inflict, Area Damage is excludedfrom the build as a useless roll.

In order to maximize the benefits of the Elemental Exposure passive,your ideal Fragment of Destiny roll will have Cold damage as its basedamage type (the damage type is denoted next to the big numbers that definethe DPS of your weapon). Elemental Exposure is one of the rareinstances where weapon damage type comes into effect, and will count as astack towards the damage bonuses of the passive. Keep in mind that this is ahigh-end optimization roll and should not take precedence over other, moreimportant stats.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool 900k and above, which should betrivial with the minor stat requirements for other aspects of the build. Thisbuild also focuses heavily on shields for survivability and buff maintenance,making it one of the more resilient Wizard builds; health sustain statsoutside of Paragon points are not required. Note that both Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon Deflection scale off totallife, making Vitality and Life % much better for overall Toughness compared tomany other classes in the game.

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat,Intelligence.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item withstats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are mainstats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and isunable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for astat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. PerfectingSecondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case fordiscarding an item, except where noted.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two veryuseful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide tohelp you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear anda Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised andre-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — Forvirtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual toadvanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the pathoutlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of lifefirst, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive andedge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary PotionPowers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separateresource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Setitems of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, andin 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 Powersin our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally thisis done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, butif your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that youcannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simplysubtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as youcomfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality ifyou feel yourself lacking in Toughness; remember that Wizard shields scale offmaximum health, and try to reach the recommended toughness values outlinedabove. Adding to Maximum Arcane Power should not be necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Attack Speed, Crit Damage, Crit Chance, andCooldown Reduction in that order. In Defense, prioritize Life %, then Armor,then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, buildup Life on Hit and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with GlobeRadius. Skip Area Damage, as it does nothing for the build except potentiallylag out your game.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it isits own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will benefit from itnaturally, as Flame Blade Wizards need to fight within melee range — and Bane of the Trapped procs itself with the level 25 property.

Bane of the Stricken builds up your damage multiplicatively inprolonged fights and has a level 25 bonus specifically targeting RiftGuardians; this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggleagainst single target, high HP enemies. Flame Blade Wizards are noexception.

Your final jewelry socket will be taken by Gogok of Swiftness, whoseIncreased Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, and scaling Dodge bonuses allbring massive value to the build. An alternative for this slot is Pain Enhancer, which can bring great AoE value in the rightcirc*mstances (massive pulls in densely populated Greater Rifts), but is asecondary recommendation due to its circ*mstantial nature; Gogok generallybrings better consistency to the build.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting thehighest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally,these will all be Flawless Royal Topaz as soon as possible. As you growin Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for highertier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Ruby (Intelligence-based classes such as the Wizard arenaturally high in Resistances, so their protection scales better withimproving Armor instead). There is no specific breakpoint where you do that;the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack oftoughness impede your progress. Since this is a Health-reliant build, werecommend a Flawless Royal Amethyst in the helm. In your weapon, use Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

The Furnace is a preferred piece in the weapon Cube slot, with asimple yet undeniable power — 50% increased damage against elites,assisting you in taking down the hardest fights in Greater Rifts: Championsand Rift Guardians.

Aquila Cuirass is a damage reduction powerhouse, cutting all damagetaken in half as long as your resource pool stays near its cap. With the highArcane Power restoration coming from your attack speed and The Shame of Delsere bonuses, this buff can be reasonably maintained. Ifyou feel it dropping off too much, consider using a Flawless Royal Topazin your helm and rolling Resource Cost Reduction on your shoulders.

Tucked away in the Cube, Convention of Elements brings yet anothersource of damage multiplication, which — due to its cyclical nature— requires a playstyle of pulling enemies during the off-cycles, andutter decimation during the relevant (Fire) buff cycle of the ring.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Pleaserefer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The seasonal theme for Season 31 will be completely flexible slots forKanai's Cube, which means you can use anypiece of gear in any slot of the Cube.

This is one of the builds where we don't recommend making any changes, sincethe options presented in the default build already make up the strongestKanai's Cube composition possible for the setup.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is theEnchantress, due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpfulfor the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in thisbuild) via Focused Mind, as well as the elemental damagebonus from Amplification and damage reduction from Powered Shield.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our FollowerGuide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear ofyour follower.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered, whichrenders you immune to Crowd Control effects for a brief time after consumingit — valuable bonus to a build that lacks means to break away from CCoutside of straight up evasion via teleporting.