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.
Patch 2.7.0 and 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.
But 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.
While self-cast Flame Blades was completely overshadowed by Mirror Images in Season 23 and Season 24, the nerf to them in Season 25 brought this build into the light as a serious competitor for the best Firebird setup, especially with Soul Shards! In Season 27, Sanctified Items introduced a slightly stronger variant of this build with Sanctified Magic Missile that you can find here!
This, however, comes at the price of not being able to benefit from the best way to scale our damage in density: Area Damage does not work with the Ignite DoT! As a result, we stack Attack Speed to maximize our hit count and the resulting Ignite DoT ticks. To get as many (6) Bonus Ignite procs as possible, this iteration utilizes Spectral Blade Flame Blades in combination with Fragment of Destiny and The Shame of Delsere to reach insane Attack Speed Breakpoints. This guide will explain everything there is to know for you to master this unique melee Wizard!
High DPS ✔ Melee Playstyle ✔ Fast Paced Gameplay ✔ Easy to Get Starter Gear ✔
❌ Hardcap DPS ❌ Sensitive to Breakpoints ❌ 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.
Orb of Infinite Depth grants us a massive 80% damage reduction and a 40% separate damage multiplier upon using Explosive Blast.
Fragment of Destiny for its 50% separate Attack Speed multiplier to Spectral Blade, our main Ignite DoT proc ability. The Hydra effect is irrelevant.
The Shame of Delsere for yet another 50% separate Attack Speed multiplier to Spectral Blade!
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 Fragment of Destiny, Orb of Infinite Depth and The Furnace (or eventually Echoing Fury) 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 Aether Walker, 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 the best Ethereal for this build due to its high Attack Speed and its Damage Stacking special affix, especially in Greater Rift push.
The Oculus - This is an alternative if you can't get your hands on a Wizardspike, especially for speed content where its Damage Stacking mechanic is not important.
Mang Song's Lesson - This is a Two-Handed Staff meaning we can't use it as we are completely reliant on high Attack Speed to deal damage.
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 Attack Speed, Critical Hit Chance and Damage as well as Fire Damage. Area Damage is completely useless in this build (and actively avoided in groups including in Paragon Points).
Since this build only deals damage with Firebird's Finery(6) BonusIgnite procs, Attack Speed is our most important stat by a long shot. Due to Fragment of Destiny and The Shame of Delsere granting us two 50% separate Attack Speed multipliers, we can reach the Spectral Blade Flame Blades 11 FPA Breakpoint with 52% Attack Speed. This requires us to get perfect Attack Speed on both Rings, Weapon and Gloves on top of Paragon Points, Gogok of Swiftness (or at least 5 bleeding targets with Pain Enhancer) and the 6% from the Enchantress' Focused Mind.
In regard to toughness, like most Wizard setups, we take advantage in some variants of Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon Deflection to generate Shields based on our HP pool. This means Vitality and Life % are very important as they double dip into Shields. This is why we aim for around 1 million HP in Greater Rift Solo Push. The next priority would be Armor wherever it is possible, mainly in Chest and Pants sockets using Flawless Royal Ruby if you feel too squishy.
Cooldown Reduction is only useful to ease up our Orb of Infinite Depth buff refresh through Explosive Blast Chain Reaction but we still want it for Captain Crimson's Trimmings(3) Bonus. Crowd Control Reduction is an incredibly valuable secondary Affix to roll on both Rings, Amulet and Helmet as we are very sensitive to Hard Crowd Control effects and mitigating these will ease up our gameplay significantly. Make sure to get the Primary Affixes locked in before attempting to get CCR though.
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, Squirt's Necklace. 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:
Deathwish
Convention of Elements
Squirt's Necklace
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT
ITEM
STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand
Fragment of Destiny Echoing Fury The Furnace (Cubed)
1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladnis Gift 3. Attack Speed 4. Damage % 5. Elite Damage 6. Intelligence
Ideally, you want a Cold or Lightning Damage Range in order to get an additional stack of Elemental Exposure.
Off-Hand
Orb of Infinite Depth Firebird's Eye Etched Sigil (Cubed)
1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Elite Damage 3. Arcane Power on Critical Hit 4. Intelligence
Helm
Firebirds Plume The Swami
1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Intelligence 3. Vitality 4. Socket
Gloves
Firebirds Talons
1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Intelligence
1. Fire Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Intelligence 4. Vitality 5. Armor
Amulet
The Traveler's Pledge Squirts Necklace
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Fire Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance 5. Attack Speed 6. Intelligence
Belt
The Shame of Delsere Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Goldwrap Fazula's Improbable Chain
1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Life % 4. Armor
Potion
Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered
To avoid Crowd Control effects during your DPS phases
Gems
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.
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.
Gogok of Swiftness gives 15% Attack Speed, 15% Cooldown Reduction and up to 30% Dodge based on the amount of stacks you have. You gain a stack with each hit up to a maximum of 15, and all stacks are refreshed if you attack every 4 seconds.
Pain Enhancer for endgame solo Greater Rift push in order to reach crazy Attack Speed Breakpoints in density and burst down Elites.
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.
Spectral Blade Flame Blades is our main damaging ability due to its high Attack Speed allowing us to proc Ignite damage ticks insanely fast.
Explosive Blast Chain Reaction activates our Orb of Infinite Depth and is also a good way to proc the Ignite from the Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus because it has no cast animation and therefore won't interfere with our overall gameplay.
Teleport is our mobility skill whose Cooldown is reduced to the minimum 0.5 second cooldown due to the Firebird's Finery(4) Bonus.
Magic Weapon Deflection is used to generate Shields on every cast to keep us alive and protect our Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier in some variants.
Blackhole Spellsteal and Frost Nova Bone Chill in some variants for massive additive damage buffs before our FireConvention of Elements cycle.
Passives
Evocation for additional damage through Captain Crimson's Trimmings(3) Bonus or for Archon setups.
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.
Unwavering Will grants us a toughness boost and 10% additive damage when standing still.
Galvanizing Ward is our main defensive passive for variants using Squirt's Necklace, to protect its 100% separate damage multiplier.
Other options can include:
Conflagration to apply a nice 6% Critical Hit Chance debuff on monsters.
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. Attack Speed
1. Armor
1. Life per Hit
2. Intelligence
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality1
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. All Resistance
3. Pickup Radius
4. Maximum Arcane Power
4. Cooldown Reduction
4. Life Regeneration
4. Area Damage2
1 Aim for a decent HP pool (~1,000,000 Life in Solo Push) as your 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.
Nodes 7-14: 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
Speed GR Enchantress
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 Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Fire Damage from Amplification, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind. 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 FineryFlame Blades is pretty straightforward once you get all your buffs running. The first thing to do before moving is casting Disintegrate for 2 seconds in order to build your Combustion stacks granting you 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 for you to do is to Teleport around and bodypull enemies together using Disintegrate while keeping your Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up. 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 Black Hole Spellsteal to lock monsters and group them up while getting a huge additive damage buff for 5 seconds.
Spam Flame Blades to kill monsters!
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. Furthermore, all iterations are using Orb of Infinite Depth for another 80% damage reduction. The set also allows us to get a 0.5 second Cooldown Teleport for a huge mobility to escape danger at any time and, last but not least, Shields mechanics are 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
GR Group RGK
Echoing Nightmare
Concept Like usual we utilize Boon of the Hoarder with Goldwrap and Avarice Band (on follower) to become invincible and instantly vacuum the juicy Progression Orbs from Elites.
However, as Flame Blades is clunky for T16 Nephalem Rifts, we are going to use 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. Meanwhile 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 (which can proc due to Echoing Fury Fear on Hit) and Illusionist.
Move from Elite to Elite and use Teleport only to keep up the Illusionist Movement Speed buff and to jump on Elites quickly. 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 and Explosive Blast Chain Reaction is doing the work.
Setups Early in a season, if you lack damage, 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 Our main damaging ability is going to be Flame Blades from now on. We take Focus & Restraint and replace Boon of the Hoarder with Gogok of Swiftness for additional Attack Speed, Dodge and Cooldown Reduction granting us damage due to Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus.
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. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Setups If incoming damage is an issue, swap out Bane of the Powerful for Esoteric Alteration instead. 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.
It is also possible to replace Aughild's Authority with The Furnace and Ranslor's Folly, and removing Black Hole for Energy Twister Wicked Wind for pixelpulling.
Select Build Version
Standard Setup
Concept In Group Speeds the basic setup is exactly the same you use in Solo Speeds with the exception of replacing Dominance with Elemental Exposure for more damage. The setup revolves around two Flame Blades 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 output.
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.
Setups As there are two Flame Blades Wizards in the party, the Wizard with the least damage should replace Evocation (or Elemental Exposure if you're playing Reverse Archon) with Conflagration to apply a 6% Critical Hit Chance debuff on monsters.
Concept & Gameplay The best Group Speeds setup relies on two Reverse ArchonFlame Blades Wizards. The only changes required are to take off Captain Crimson's Trimmings to get The Swami and Fazula's Improbable Chain and get Cooldown Reduction on all your gear to get to 68.24% CDR with Gogok of Swiftness. This brings us to a 38 second cooldown on Archon Teleport. We're not playing Convention of Elements, meaning we play around a 40 second cycle.
This setup requires good group coordination as the main idea is to desynchronize the two Wizards, meaning when one goes out of Archon, the other transforms. This allows the first Wizard to kill monsters with Flame Blades, feeding Archon stacks to the second Wizard and so on.
Select Build Version
Endless Walk Setup
Concept The setup is pretty much the same than the Speeds setup except we use Endless Walk and Convention of Elements.
Gameplay As usual, Hard Crowd Control Effects when you're actively spamming Flame Blades to deal damage are going to be your worst enemy since you have no way of mitigating these except for Crowd Control Reduction. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Setups If you feel comfortable, replace Gogok of Swiftness with Pain Enhancer which makes you lose 30% Dodge but allows you to potentially make better damage bursts through additional Attack Speed Breakpoints.
Concept The other variant you might find on the leaderboards is the one using Focus&Restraint as well as Squirt's Necklace. This requires us to play Galvanizing Ward to protect the Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier. Don't forget that Wizard shielding mechanics scale with your HP pool, so adding more Vitality and Life % is always a huge toughness boost. This setup is way squishier and harder to play but has more damage potential overall.
Gameplay As usual, Hard Crowd Control Effects when you're actively spamming Flame Blades to deal damage are going to be your worst enemy since you have no way of mitigating these except for Crowd Control Reduction. Always make sure to keep your shields up to maintain Squirt's Necklace's damage multiplier. 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 are squishier and have a more exigent gameplay requiring to keep up Focus&Restraint buffs and protect Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier through shields at all time.
Setups You can swap Pain Enhancer to Gogok of Swiftness to retain some Attack Speed while getting a massive dodge bonus.
Concept You're an Elite sniper during the Greater Rift and the Rift Guardian Killer. Hence why you stack as much Attack Speed and Elite Damage as possible.
Gameplay You're not stacking Cooldown Reduction in order to keep a high Flame Blades Attack Speed Breakpoint. This means you have a 45 second cooldown on Archon and can damage twice every 3 Convention of Elements cycles, going into Archon at the start of your Cold cycle. The Trashkiller will feed you Archon stacks for you to use when you're out of Archon. A crucial point is to time your last Archon to finish when the Rift Guardian spawns so you have stacks from the last monsters killed and you won't waste any time on the Rift Guardian.
Setups If you feel too squishy or can't reliably keep Squirt's Necklace on the Rift Guardian, switch Lacuni Prowlers for Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer to double your shields at the cost of a Flame Blades Attack Speed Breakpoint. Swapping out Elemental Exposure to take either Unwavering Will or Blur is also possible.
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 keeping your Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up at all times. A few seconds before your FireConvention of Elements cycle starts, channel Disintegrate to get your Combustion stacks to 50 and make sure all monsters are ignited, cast Black Hole Spellsteal to get a huge additive damage buff for 5 seconds then spam Flame Blades to kill monsters!
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.
Ignite DoT benefit 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 or Multishot Wind Chill doesn'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 or Conflagration does 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 such as Hydra and Mirror Imagesdo not proc the (6) Bonus since a nerf in Season 25.
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.
The Shame of Delsere & Fragment of Destiny
The Attack Speed bonus of The Shame of Delsere and Fragment of Destiny are multiplicative with each other and with other bonuses. This means using both will grant you a 1.5 * 1.5 = 2.25 Attack Speed multiplier. This allows us to get the 11 FPA Attack Speed Breakpoint on Spectral Blade in this setup in order to get as many Ignite procs as possible from Firebird's Finery(6) Bonus.
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 is why Item Stat Priorities state you want a weapon with Cold or Lightning Damage Range.
The 5% damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% separate damage multiplier.
In-Depth Season 27 Firebird Sanctified Magic Missile Build Overview
During Season 27, there was a variant to the Firebird Flame Blades build thanks to the Sanctified Magic Missile Power.
Concept & Gameplay The general playstyle for pushing Greater Rifts with Firebird's FineryMagic Missile is pretty straightforward once you get all your buffs running. The first thing to do before moving is casting Disintegrate for 2 seconds in order to build your Combustion stacks granting you 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 for you to do is to Teleport around and bodypull enemies together using Disintegrate while keeping your Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up. A few seconds before your Fire Convention 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 Black Hole Spellsteal to lock monsters and group them up while getting a huge additive damage buff for 5 seconds.
Make sure to stay within Audacity & Explosive Blast range.