Firebird's Finery has been one of the weakest and most clunky sets in the game for quite some time, having to juggle between three Fire abilities to benefit from its set bonuses. Comically enough, the strongest Firebird build iterations have been using non-Fire abilities! Yet, Firebird's Finery had its glory days of dominating the META as a Trash Killer from Season 12 to 15 using Meteor Star Pact alongside channeling multipliers like Deathwish.
Season 23 however brought us a complete rework of this set. Firebird's Finery always had a strong fantasy around the Phoenix theme with the (2) Bonus"rising from the ashes" cheat death and the Fire element with an Ignite DoT.
This new rework created a specific playstyle based around channeling Disintegrate to Ignite monsters and build Combustion stacks with the (4) Bonus. These stacks are then used to buff our Ignite DoT when hitting monsters with another Fire ability, on top of reducing our Teleport Cooldown.
In Season 24, Ethereals comforted Firebird in its position of strongest build in Diablo III, especially with Mang Song's Lesson allowing the build to annihilate everything as showcased here. Season 25 however completely changed the landscape by removing the ability for Mirror Images to proc the Ignite, essentially destroying the build which now focuses on Explosive Blast to deal damage. On Console, the Energy Twister setup seen here stays the setup of choice.
This, however, comes at the price of not being able to benefit from the best way to scale our damage in density: Area Damage (AD) does not work with the Ignite DoT! As a result, we stack Cooldown Reduction with Explosive Blast to maximize our hit count and the resulting Ignite DoT ticks. To get as many (6) BonusIgnite procs as possible, this iteration utilizes Deathwish in conjunction with Explosive Blast (see Mechanics). While the build is quite strong overall, it has to compete with the Firebird Flame Blades build on the leaderboards. Let's get into it!
High DPS ✔ Unique Playstyle ✔ Fast Paced Gameplay ✔ Easy to Get Starter Gear ✔
❌ Heavily Nerfed ❌ Channeling Playstyle ❌ Scales Poorly with Density ❌ Vulnerable to Crowd Control
Core Setup
Items
The Firebird's Finery set provides 80% damage reduction to our character as well as a 5,000% damage multiplier and the central Ignite DoT mechanic.
Deathwish is a staple for any channeling Wizard build, providing us with a 325% separate damage multiplier.
Orb of Infinite Depth grants us a massive 80% damage reduction and a 40% separate damage multiplier when using Explosive Blast.
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac allows us to spam Explosive Blast as much as possible.
Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to complement Firebird's Finery with other sets such as Aughild's Authority and Captain Crimson's Trimmings.
Captain Crimson's Trimmings provides us with 20% Cooldown Reduction and grants us damage and toughness based on our CDR and RCR.
Jewelry Slots offer several options: Endless Walk and Convention of Elements are commonly used in push meanwhile the combination of Squirt's Necklace and Focus&Restraint can be used at higher paragon or for speed runs for more damage.
Season 32 Ethereals
Ethereals are powerful rare weapons that can only be found during Season 32. They were initially the Season 24 Theme. They have incredible stats, a random Legendary power, and a free passive for your class. Read our Ethereal Mechanics Guide for full details on how they work and our Ethereal Farming Guide to learn how to acquire them. What you should prioritize on them is the following:
TheLegendary Power This build requires Deathwish and Orb of Infinite Depth to be functional. We need our Ethereal to roll one of these powers so we can cube the other. We also want a good roll on our Legendary power if it has a range. For speed content it is always helpful to have Ethereals with Echoing Fury, In-geom or Messerschmidt's Reaver powers, so keep those if you find them.
TheEtherealItself There are 3 different weapons available to us, each with its own benefits:
Wizardspike - This is a great Ethereal for this build due to its Damage Stacking special affix, especially in Greater Rift push eventhough its high Attack Speed does not benefit us. This is also the one we absolutely want when we play as a Rift Guardian Killer.
The Oculus - This Ethereal comes in a close second for solo push due to its Damage Reduction effect, its Elite Damage as well as its high Arcane Power on Critical Hit roll allowing you to replace your APoC roll on your Off-Hand.
Mang Song's Lesson - This is an amazing Ethereal for all kind of content from speed runs to endgame push. This is a Two-Handed Staff meaning we need to give up Aughild's Authority and get some Resource Cost Reduction (Shoulders, Flawless Royal Topaz in Helmet, Astral Presence) in order to keep channeling Disintegrate without Arcane Power on Critical Hit (APoC) roll. In some group setups, Magic Weapon Conduit is all you need to solve all Resource issues.
The EtherealStat Rolls Each Ethereal comes with its own fixed set of powerful affixes. While some have a static value, many have a wide stat range. This means the difference between good and bad rolls is significant and something you should look for.
A Useful Passive This is just icing on the cake because a fifth passive is not going to make or break your build. You're better off hunting for the things above. Check out the Passives section down below to see which ones you're looking for.
Global Stat Priorities
You want to stack damage stats wherever possible, especially Critical Hit Chance and Damage as well as Fire Damage. Area Damage is useless in this build (and actively avoided in groups including in Paragon Points). As this build only deals damage with Firebird's Finery(6) BonusIgnite procs, Cooldown Reduction is our most important stat by a long shot in order to maximize Captain Crimson's Trimmings(3) Bonus and Explosive Blast Chain Reaction casts. Aim for 66.67% CDR to get Explosive Blast Cooldown below 2 seconds which essentially lets you spam it every 0.5 second with Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs.
It is mandatory to get 4 Arcane Power on Critical Hit (APoC) on your Off-Hand in order to keep channeling Disintegrate for Deathwish, especially for Rift Guardian fights. Attack Speed is not useful as it doesn't scale Ignite procs damage.
For toughness, we prioritize Vitality and Life % as Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon Deflection generate Shields based on our HP pool (See Mechanics). This is why we aim for around 1 million HP in Greater Rift Solo Push. The next priority would be Armor, mainly in Chest and Pants sockets using Flawless Royal Ruby if you feel too squishy. In solo push, Life per Hit on Bracers is very important to get some welcome recovery.
Crowd Control Reduction is an incredibly valuable secondary Affix to roll on both Rings, Amulet and Helmet as we are extremely sensitive to Hard Crowd Control effects because of Deathwish delay, so that mitigating these will ease up our gameplay significantly. Make sure to get the Primary Affixes locked in before attempting to get CCR though. Furthermore make sure to use Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full Firebird's Finery set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Create a level 1 Demon Hunter and upgrade Swords to get In-Geom
Create a level 1 Witch Doctor and upgrade Maces to get Echoing Fury
Rings to get Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Rechel's Ring of Larceny
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Act 2: Gloves of Worship
Act 3: Avarice Band
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Aughild's Authority, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny
6. There is one final required piece that is difficult to acquire, The Traveler's Pledge. With amulets being so expensive to gamble and craft, we'll have to search for it to drop in Nephalem and Greater Rifts. The biggest hint is to party up with other players and kindly ask them to drop any duplicates they find.
7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
To avoid Crowd Control effects during your DPS phases
Gems
Bane of the Trapped (BotT) grants us a global separate 1.6 damage multiplier. It requires us to stand within 15 yards of our enemies to apply its effect, which is the same range we require for Audacity. On the Rift Guardian our Follower will continuously reapply a slow.
Taeguk grants us up to 80% additive damage when we channel, which perfectly complements our playstyle.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance replaces Taeguk in groups as zBarb and zDH grant us a massive amount of additive damage, reducing Taeguk benefits.
Bane of the Stricken helps us kill the Rift Guardian. As long as you don't need more than 2 minutes to kill it you can equip Bane of the Powerful instead.
For Nephalem Rifts, Boon of the Hoarder is always included due to its amazing synergy with Avarice Band and Goldwrap.
Skills
Disintegrate is the cornerstone of the reworked Firebird's Finery set. Hitting monsters with this skill applies Ignite on top of building Combustion stacks to reduce our Teleport Cooldown and buff our (6) BonusIgnite procs.
Explosive Blast Chain Reaction is our main source of damage. It is a great way to generate numerous hits to proc the Firebird's Finery(6) BonusIgnite as it has no cast animation and won't interfere with our overall gameplay.
Spectral Blade Flame Blades is there in some variants with Bastions of Will for up to 30% Fire Elemental Damage or stacking Bane of the Stricken on Rift Guardians.
Teleport with either Wormhole or Safe Passage is our mobility skill whose Cooldown is reduced to the minimum 0.5 second mark due to the Firebird's Finery(4) Bonus.
Magic Weapon Deflection is used in some setups to generate Shields on every cast to keep us alive and protect our Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier.
Familiar Sparkflint can be used to generate around 10% more Firebird's Finery(6) BonusIgnite procs.
Frost Nova Bone Chill is used to generate damage burst with a lot of additive damage.
Passives
Galvanizing Ward is used in order to protect our HP pool and Squirt's Necklace 100% separate damage multiplier in the process.
Elemental Exposure is a separate and global multiplier debuffing each target once for each element (Fire, Cold, Arcane, Lighting) for up to 5 seconds when you hit it with said target. The elemental type of the damage range on your equipped weapon will also be applied with each ability that you hit with.
Audacity provides us with a separate 1.3 multiplier if our target is within 15 yards. Power Hungry is used in some group push variants for its synergy with Zei's Stone of Vengeance.
Evocation grants us 20% Cooldown Reduction to help with Explosive Blast casts while also providing us a decent damage boost due to Captain Crimson's Trimmings(3) Bonus.
Other options can include:
Conflagration to apply a nice 6% Critical Hit Chance debuff on monsters.
Dominance in speed content to help with shield sustain.
Unwavering Will for a toughness boost and 10% additive damage when standing still.
Unstable Anomaly for another cheat death mechanic on top of the (2) Bonus.
Blur for some decent flat mitigation.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. Life %
1. Resource Cost Reduction
2. Maximum Arcane Power
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Armor
2. Life per Hit
3. Intelligence
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. All Resistance
3. Pickup Radius
4. Vitality1
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Regeneration
4. Area Damage2
1 Aim for a decent HP pool (~1,000,000 Life in Solo Push) as our Shields (Galvanizing Ward and Deflection) scale with it. 2 Avoid any source of Area Damage as this build doesn't scale with it and it can lag the game.
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Node 7: Take Vigor to help your build sustain its resources.
Nodes 8-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
GR Pushing Templar
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
For speed Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is speed content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Hellfire Ring, Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
For Greater Rift we recommend this Templar setup for the sustain from Heal, 10% increased damage from Onslaught, and the very powerful cheat death mechanic from Guardian. This is the only follower build that stacks Cooldown Reduction because it works with Heal.
Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Templar.
Strength > Cooldown Reduction > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Leoric's Crown and Captain Crimson's Trimmings: For more Cooldown Reduction on Heal.
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Cooldown Reduction from Prophetic Harmony, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
The general playstyle for pushing Greater Rifts with Firebird's Finery is pretty straightforward once you get all your buffs running. The first thing to do is cast Disintegrate for 2 seconds to build your Combustion stacks for 80% damage reduction and a 0.5 second Teleport Cooldown. Use Teleport to get the Safe Passage 25% damage reduction and cast Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to build your Orb of Infinite Depth stacks for another 80% damage reduction.
The only thing left to do is to Teleport around and bodypull enemies together using Disintegrate while spamming Explosive Blast to keep Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up at all times. Never stop castingExplosive Blast Chain Reaction! A few seconds before your FireConvention of Elements cycle starts:
Set up on a pull of monsters with Teleport.
Channel Disintegrate to get your Combustion stacks to 50 and make sure all monsters are ignited.
Cast a few Flame Blades to get some Fire Elemental Damage but only if the density is decent or if you're playing with Focus&Restraint to refresh the damage multiplier buff.
Cast Frost Nova Bone Chill and Blackhole Spellsteal if you have it for massive additive damage buffs.
Channel Disintegrate to gain Deathwish separate damage multiplier after its 1 second delay.
Sit back and chill while Explosive Blast is doing the work!
Hardcore
Firebird's Finery builds are a good choice for Hardcore players as the (2) Bonus provides a free cheat death every 60 seconds and the (4) Bonus grants you 80% damage reduction as long as you keep at least 1 Combustion stack. All iterations use Orb of Infinite Depth for another 80% damage reduction. The set also allows us to get a 0.5 second cooldown on Teleport to escape danger at any time and, last but not least, Shield mechanics can be used with Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon Deflection for another layer of defense to guarantee you'll never die! Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Speeds
GR Group Speeds
GR Solo Push
Echoing Nightmare
Concept Like usual we utilize Boon of the Hoarder with Goldwrap and Avarice Band to become invincible and instantly vacuum the juicy Progression Orbs from Elites.
We focus on Explosive Blast Chain Reaction in conjunction with Cooldown Reduction and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac to kill monsters.
Gameplay Immediately cast Disintegrate to build Combustion stacks. Another good trick is to numlock Explosive Blast. While Teleport is a good mobility skill, its animation time and minimum 0.5 second cooldown are the reasons why we will move faster by running around using the Movement Speed buffs of Boon of the Hoarder, Echoing Fury, Rechel's Ring of Larceny and Illusionist.
Move from Elite to Elite and use Teleport only to keep up the Illusionist Movement Speed buff. Then cast Disintegrate on top of your character to proc an Energy Twister from Etched Sigil that sucks all the monsters in while you Ignite them with Explosive Blast Chain Reaction doing the work.
Setups If you lack damage early in a season, remove Echoing Fury to equip In-Geom and cube Orb of Infinite Depth. If you don't like the Ranslor's Folly playstyle, you can swap them with Warzechian Armguards and equip Orb of Infinite Depth while keeping both Echoing Fury and In-Geom.
In groups, replace Warzechian Armguards with Nemesis Bracers and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac with Avarice Band. Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac is mainly used to help us kill the first Elite pack to get our In-Geom proc so losing it should not impact you in parties as your teammates can help you kill the first Elite. If you are comfortable enough with your damage, use Sage's Journey instead of Captain Crimson's Trimmings. On the Rift Guardian, you can swap to Cain's Destiny while keeping your Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus if you rotate out Etched Sigil for Firebird's Eye.
Concept Explosive Blast is still our damaging ability. We replace Boon of the Hoarder with Taeguk for additional 80% additive damage as we channel all the time due to Deathwish.
Gameplay Your biggest enemy will be Hard Crowd Control Effects since you have no way of mitigating these except for Crowd Control Reduction on your Amulet, Helmet and Rings. Don't forget to refresh your Bastions of Will buffs with Flame Blades before channeling. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Setups Replace Bane of the Powerful with Esoteric Alteration if you are dying too much. You can also replace Teleport Wormhole with Safe Passage for an additional 25% damage reduction. If you're comfortable with both your damage and toughness, go for Invigorating Gemstone instead of Bane of the Powerful for the Crowd Control Immunity.
Concept In Group Speeds the setup is exactly the same you use in Solo Speeds with the exception of can replacing Dominance with Elemental Exposure for more damage. The setup revolves around two Wizards supported by a zBarb pulling Elites and grouping monsters together so you can hit many targets at once, with a zDH tremendously buffing your damage.
Gameplay The gameplay stays the same as in Solo Speeds: rush to Elites and big pulls of monsters, kill them and move onto the next pull quickly. Luckily, you won't have to care about Crowd Control Effects since the zBarb is providing you with Ignore Pain Mob Rule. Don't forget to refresh your Bastions of Will buffs with Flame Blades before channeling.
Setups As there are two Wizards in the party, the Wizard with the least damage should replace Elemental Exposure with Conflagration to provide everyone with a 6% Critical Hit Chance debuff.
Reverse ArchonExplosive Blast is a possible setup with 67.5% Cooldown Reduction to get a 39 seconds Archon Cooldown and Dominance to sustain shields for Squirt's Necklace but can be inconsistent due to its low Area of Effect potential in comparaison to a Reverse ArchonFlame Blades setup found here.
Select Build Version
Standard Setup
Concept This build is very straightforward in terms of gearing. We use the same setup as in Speeds with the exception we take more toughness with Flawless Royal Ruby and more Vitality.
Gameplay As usual, Hard Crowd Control Effects when you're actively channeling Disintegrate to buff your damage are going to be your worst enemy since you have no way of mitigating these except for Crowd Control Reduction. Cast Frost Nova right before your CoE Fire cycle. On single target Rift Guardians, you might have troubles with Arcane Power, just make sure you can channel during your CoE Fire cycle. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Setups At lower Paragon, using Blur is a good option. You can use different followers: Enchantress or Templar. At lower Paragon or if you want to feel safer, the Templar is a great choice due to its Heal while the Enchantress is a more cut-throat full damage option. At high Paragon, you can swap Magic Weapon Deflection with Black Hole Spellsteal if you can keep Squirt's Necklace without it.
Concept The other variant you might find on the leaderboards is the Reverse Archon taking advantage from The Swami and Fazula's Improbable Chain. We build around a 48 second cycle using Archon. In order to do this, we replace Frost Nova and Familiar Sparkflint with Archon Combustion and Black Hole Spellsteal. As a result, the build is rotation-based and generates massive damage bursts.
Gameplay As usual, Hard Crowd Control Effects when you're actively channeling Disintegrate to buff your damage are going to be your worst enemy since you have no way of mitigating these except for Crowd Control Reduction.
You want to time Archon so that you come out of Archon at the start of the Cold rotation to give yourself enough time to setup your nuke. Cast Black Hole Spellsteal right before your CoE Fire cycle. On single target Rift Guardians, you might have troubles with Arcane Power, just make sure you can channel during your CoE Fire cycle. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Please note that this setup is not recommended for casual play. The playstyle is similar to the regular version, except you have precise damage burst windows and can spend Archon time to pull and gather enemies or simply skip through maps.
Setups At lower Paragon, using Blur is a good option. You can use different followers: Enchantress or Templar. At lower Paragon or if you want to feel safer, the Templar is a great choice due to its Heal while the Enchantress is a more cut-throat full damage option. At very high Paragon, you can swap Magic Weapon Deflection with Frost Nova Bone Chill if you can keep Squirt's Necklace without it.
Swap Bane of the Stricken for Bane of the Powerful since we are fighting hordes of enemies.
Gameplay
Click Speed Pylon instantly to boost your mobility and dodge Green Meteors.
Around Wave 90, click Channeling Pylon and Power Pylon.
After Wave 100, use Conduit Pylon.
At Wave 122, stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.
The only thing to do is to Teleport around and bodypull enemies together using Disintegrate while spamming Explosive Blast to keep Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up at all times. Never stop castingExplosive Blast Chain Reaction! A few seconds before your FireConvention of Elements cycle starts, cast Frost Nova Bone Chill and Blackhole Spellsteal (if you have it) for massive additive damage buffs then channel Disintegrate to gain Deathwish separate damage multiplier after its 1 second delay.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Firebirds Finery
The Meteor that revives you from the Firebirds Finery(2) Bonus has a 60 second internal cooldown (ICD) and resets when you die.
The Ignite DoT of Firebirds Finery(2) Bonus has a maximum range of 200 yards. Once you exceed this distance to an ignited enemy the DoT is removed from the target. The Ignite DoT is also removed when you change Greater Rift floors or die.
You gain Combustion stacks from Firebird's Finery(4) Bonus very quickly when channeling Disintegrate. Combustion stacks decay at the rate of 2 per second.
Teleport Cooldown is reduced by up to 100% at 50 Combustion stacks, but still has a minimum cooldown of 0.5 seconds.
The Ignite DoT benefits from "Fire skills deal X% more damage" and include Critical Hit Chance and Damage (1 + CHC * CHD) as a damage multiplier but cannot proc Area Damage. Like any DoT, crit debuffs applied on monsters such as Iceblink, Multishot Wind Chill or Conflagration don't work.
Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus procs benefit from "Fire skills deal X% more damage" and can critically hit but cannot proc Area Damage. Crit debuffs like Iceblink, Multishot Wind Chill or Conflagration do work.
Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus cannot proc from effects with a proc coefficient of 0. Thus Etched Sigil and Wand of Woh procs do not trigger the (6) Bonus!
Blizzard Apocalypsedoes not proc the (6) Bonus either.
Pets like Hydra and Mirror Imagescannot proc the Firebird (6) Bonus since the Season 25 nerf.
Deathwish
When channeling Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost or Disintegrate, the Deathwish 325% damage multiplier is activated after 60 frames of channeling (1 second) and lasts for as long as you channel, dropping immediatly when you interrupt the channel.
Being teleported by the Wormhole Elite affix doesn't interrupt the Deathwish damage multiplier.
Due to this 1 second delay, it is not always optimal to teleport into an Oculus Ring proc during a damage burst.
Wizard Shields
In order to keep up your shields to survive while maintaining Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier, you need to learn to judge the incoming damage and how fast you can build those shields yourself, which requires practice.
Shields have no direct UI indicator unless you mouseover your health globe.
You can see that you have any shield up when you see a transparent blue bubble around your character (not the size of the shield, however).
Because Wizard Shield values scale with your total life, Vitality and Life % stats become substantially better for toughness scaling compared to other builds.
Galvanizing Ward is the main shielding mechanic used for most Wizard builds, which combined with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer adds up to 120% of your total life as a shield. This shield will reset to its maximum value every 5 seconds if this shield in particular doesn't take any hit in the meantime.
Spectral Blade Barrier Blades and Magic Weapon Deflection represent the secondary shielding mechanic of the Wizard and can be stacked as much as you like, but their shield value is set at 4% (up to 8% with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer) of your total life and they only lasts for 3 seconds. The duration is counted for each stack individually. For this specific build iteration, we want to use Flame Blades.
While Barrier Blades or Deflection (or any other shield in that matter) protect the Galvanizing Ward shield, it is possible to reset the shield gained from the passive to full even while taking hits.
All of these mechanics make it so that when your shields start breaking or your Galvanizing Ward doesn't find enough time to reset, the whole setup will fall apart really quickly. Make sure you understand your limits and survivability in different situations.
Elemental Exposure
Each stack is a debuff for one of the following elements: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
Each stack is unique and refreshes its own duration when reapplied.
Any ability with a proc coefficient greater than zero applies a stack of its respective element. This inherently means that only selfcasted abilities grant stacks.
The elemental range on the Weapon applies its respective stack with all abilities if the elemental range is of the type: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
This build procs by default the Fire stack with Explosive Blast and Flame Blades and the Arcane stack with Disintegrate. Some variants might use Frost Nova, which procs the Cold stack. This is why Item Stat Priorities state you want a Weapon with Lightning or eventually Cold Damage Range.
The 5% damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% separate damage multiplier.
Console Version
On Console Versions, the build replaces Mirror Images by Energy Twister Gale Force.
The main reason is that channeling mechanics are different on Console: it is possible to cast Energy Twister while channeling without interruption.
This means you can selfcast Energy Twister while channeling, maintaining the damage multipliers from Deathwish and Mantle of Channeling at all times.
The gameplay is similar to the Explosive Blast setup described in this guide, the main difference being that you want to pull monsters in tight spots in order to make Twisters bounce on walls to maximize hits for the Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus.
In order to sustain the heavy Arcane Power cost of Energy Twister Gale Force (35 AP base cost), the console variant uses Magic Weapon Conduit and at least one Resource Cost Reduction roll (Shoulders).
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac allows for more Explosive Blast casts and permanent Diamond Skin Crystal Shell uptime, so that Squirt's Necklace can be used.
Attack Speed has more value in this setup to increase your Energy Twister Attack Speed Breakpoint.
In-Depth Season 23-24 Firebird Mirror Images Build Overview
The build presented in this guide is the heir of the almighty Firebird Mirror Images build which dominated during Season 23 and even more so during Season 24 with Ethereals. It was relying on Mirror Images to cast Flame Blades for us in order to deal massive amount of damage while we were channeling for Deathwish. In Season 25, the build got destroyed by the removal of the ability for Pets to proc the Firebird (6) Bonus. Mirror Images had very interesting mechanics in conjunction with Firebird's Finery as seen here:
Mirror Images cast some spells equipped on your skillbar with the assigned rune. They cast Flame Blades and Explosive Blast and can proc the Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus. They can cast Hydra but it cannot proc the Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus.
Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus procs from Mirror Images are considered to be your damage, meaning Oculus Ring procs without any trouble unlike most Pet builds.
They last for 7 seconds, meaning they can each cast up to 7 skills by default as their Flame Blades and Explosive Blast have a base 60 FPA. Tasker and Theo works but only allow them to cast up to 9 skills (42 FPA Breakpoint). Slow Time Stretch Time also buff their Attack Rate, allowing them to do up to 11 casts when combined with Tasker and Theo (36 FPA Breakpoint). However in the latter case, their first cast is going to be Slow Time so they do 10 effective casts.
Mirror Images' HP pool takes a percentage of your HP pool as base (50% for Duplicates) then scales similarly to other Pets, adding your Vitality * 100 to this base HP and using your HP % as a separate multiplier. This means your HP pool double dips into your Mirror Images' HP pool.
Like most Pets, Mirror Images scale their toughness with All Resistances while Armor and Damage Reduction sources have no effect besides Enforcer. They benefit from Dodge Chance (War Cry Veteran's Warning) and double dip All Resistances buffs like Mantra of Salvation. Inspiring Presence Life Regeneration is also double dipped by them. Mirror Images summoned while Shield Pylon is active do not get the invulnerability effect.
Casts from Mirror Images proc your Arcane Power on Critical Hit if you have some on your equipment.
They can be crowd controlled (frozen, jailed, knocked back...) but they are affected by Crowd Control Reduction on your equipment as well as Ignore Pain Mob Rule and Inner Sanctuary Temple of Protection Crowd Control Immunity.
Mirror Images are not affected by Fragment of Destiny, Mirrorball and The Shame of Delsere.
Mirror Images can proc the Firebird's Finery(2) BonusMeteor upon dying a first time but do not proc the (6) Bonus with it.
Mirror Images have a pretty bad AI and often run away instead of attacking with Flame Blades. This is due to specific monster immunities and aggro mechanics, which affects some monster types but also Shielding and Juggernaut affixes as well as some Rift Guardians. The best way to avoid that is summoning them while surrounded by monsters or in a tight spot.