Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

Last updated on Jul 10, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 14 comments
1.

Nephalem Rift Speed Farming

The Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, with versatile and unconditional damage at its disposal and great mobility offered by the Teleport Teleport-resetting powers of the Firebird set. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Disintegrate Icon Disintegrate Convergence Convergence Right Mouse Button Magic Weapon Icon Magic Weapon Deflection Deflection 1 Explosive Blast Icon Explosive Blast Chain Reaction Chain Reaction 2 Familiar Icon Familiar Arcanot Arcanot 3 Teleport Icon Teleport Wormhole Wormhole 4 Diamond Skin Icon Diamond Skin Prism Prism
Passive Skills
2.

Adapting Rotation

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

When farming keys in Torment difficulties, the Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard abandons the prolonged channeling playstyle of its Greater Rift counterparts and channels Disintegrate Disintegrate in short bursts — in order to Ignite the enemies (the set mechanic) and pull monsters in melee range (via the worn Ranslor's Folly Ranslor's Folly). Channeling is done to keep the Combustion stacks topped up, which empowers the Explosive Blast Explosive Blast damage and lowers the Teleport Teleport cooldown. With no Deathwish Deathwish or Taeguk Taeguk bonuses to keep up, you can ease the strain on your resources and channel only to Ignite enemies and to maintain stacks. The remainder of your skillset is comprised of passive (Magic Weapon Magic Weapon Deflection Deflection, Familiar Familiar Arcanot Arcanot) and active (Diamond Skin Diamond Skin Prism Prism — needs to be spammed) buffs.

3.

Adapting Skills

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

  • The use of Disintegrate Disintegrate is set in stone, since its powers trigger the set mechanics for both Ignition of enemies and the Combustion stacks. Use the rune Convergence Convergence for the wider beam, which should cover the entire pull once Ranslor's Folly Ranslor's Folly procs.
  • As usual across all variations, damage dealing duties fall onto Explosive Blast Explosive Blast, taken with the multiple explosions and Fire-based nature (tying into the Firebird bonuses) of the Chain Reaction Chain Reaction rune. This rune will also synergize with Orb of Infinite Depth Orb of Infinite Depth, if you choose to use it during farming. The cooldown of Explosive Blast Explosive Blast will be practically nullified as you chain Elite kills and take advantage of the In-geom In-geom bonus, but you will also be using Evocation Evocation in your passives to keep said cooldown naturally low.
  • To keep up the considerable costs of both Explosive Blast Explosive Blast and Disintegrate Disintegrate, you will be using Diamond Skin Diamond Skin Prism Prism for its massive, flat resource cost reduction bonuses.
  • The shields from Magic Weapon Magic Weapon Deflection Deflection will pair with the one from Galvanizing Ward Galvanizing Ward to keep your Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace damage bonus safe from harm.
  • Teleport Teleport will be vital for maneuverability during key farming; during early character progression you can stick to the defensive Safe Passage Safe Passage, but eventually you can adapt to the multiple charges of Wormhole Wormhole — useful in sparse and prolonged Rift layouts, an inevitability in longer farm sessions.
4.

Adapting Gear

You will still be aiming for the full 6-piece bonuses of the Firebird set, but you will shift pieces around to accommodate the inclusion of a craftable set and utility legendaries in the mix: the Captain Crimson's Trimmings set, plus the combo of Etched Sigil Etched Sigil and Ranslor's Folly Ranslor's Folly. The off-hand and bracer combo simply produces free Energy Twister Energy Twisters as you channel, which attain an extra pulling effect — very handy during farming. Naturally, you will have to complete this amalgamation of bonuses with a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube.

Stat-wise, this variant is just as demanding on Resource Cost- and Cooldown Reduction stats as its Greater Rifting counterparts, and you will be striving to reach around 40% RCR and 60% CDR to maintain both consistent Disintegrate Disintegrate channeling and Explosive Blast Explosive Blast spam. Thankfully, you have the CDR powerhouse In-geom In-geom to fall back on.

When it comes to jewelry, our base recommendation is to split between damage amplification and utility. For your amulet, take Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace — it offers massive damage multiplication bonuses at the cost of an increase of damage taken; a drawback that you will strive to nullify via the plethora of shields included in the build. For one of your rings, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac will pick up the slack whenever In-geom In-geom chaining does not line up, and will offer a speedy reset of your vital cooldowns. Your final ring should alternate between Avarice Band Avarice Band in group play (it offers indispensable Pickup Radius bonuses as you gather gold), or — since this ring can be equipped on your follower and have its powers affect you via the Emanate mechanics — simply use a Fire damage Stone of Jordan Stone of Jordan in solo farming. As a final hyper-optimization note, you can consider altering the second ring slot in solo play to Rechel's Ring of Larceny Rechel's Ring of Larceny (if you find the SoJ damage excessive); Rechel's brings another movement speed buff and can proc itself.

For early- to mid- character progression the cooldown reduction staple of speedfarming In-geom In-geom can be your main hand weapon during standard rift farming for keystones. This allows you to slot Orb of Infinite Depth Orb of Infinite Depth in the Cube for extra defense. Once you grow confident in your character, you can alter the main-hand to Echoing Fury Echoing Fury for the movement speed proc, move In-geom In-geom to the Cube and drop the Orb. This will result in a lightning-fast build, and should not be too hard to handle survivability-wise.

4.1.

Season 32 Theme — Ethereal Weapons

With this season's addition of Ethereal weapons as a theme, your ideal weapon during any form of speed farming will be The Oculus, whose unique damage reduction, APoC mechanics and unrivaled skill and pure stat bonuses will outperform any other alternatives. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of In-geom In-geom or Echoing Fury Echoing Fury, and will ideally have the Conflagration Conflagration passive. Learn more about Ethereal weapons in our Ethereal mechanics guide, and read up on how to farm them in the Ethereal farming guide.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Intelligence
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Vitality
  5. Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. Life %
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Intelligence
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Life %
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Fire Damage
  4. Life per Hit
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Life %
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. All Resistance
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Fire Damage
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Cooldown Reduction
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Resource Cost Reduction
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Flat Damage Increase
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. High Weapon Damage (ideally Lightning)
  2. Intelligence (replaced by % Damage at high Paragon)
  3. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Elite Damage Increase
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. High Damage Range
  2. Intelligence
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Arcane Power on Crit
  5. Fire Damage
  6. Cooldown Reduction

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

4.2.

Altar of Rites

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

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

Altar of Rites Planner

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

5.

Adapting Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming. Another "overall value" addition to speed farming can be found in Bane of the Powerful Bane of the Powerful, which brings a well-rounded increase to both damage and toughness.

Round out your standard Nephalem Rift farming gems with Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder, which increases your movement speed and provides screen-wide Pickup Radius via its interaction with the follower-worn Avarice Band Avarice Band.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

6.

Adapting Kanai's Cube

Orb of Infinite Depth Orb of Infinite Depth brings tremendous value to the build, especially when it comes to damage reduction. Once you grow comfortable with the build and feel like you can lose the toughness, slot In-geom In-geom here and use Echoing Fury Echoing Fury in your hand.

In solo play, you can slot Goldwrap Goldwrap for the near-invulnerability it provides through the interaction with Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder and Avarice Band Avarice Band. Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers can be worn by your follower and you will still receive their benefits via the Emanate mechanics, which makes certain items worn by the follower affect you as well. In group play, you will have to use the Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers in your armor Cube slot.

As previously mentioned, you will need to use Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube in order to maintain the full bonuses of the amalgam of sets that you have equipped.

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.

7.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during standard T16 rifts farming is the Enchantress due to her vast array of bonuses that complement this build; most notably, Prophetic Harmony Prophetic Harmony for the Cooldown Reduction and Amplification Amplification for the elemental damage increase, both of which you can attain by using a Hand of the Prophet Hand of the Prophet.

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.

8.

Legendary Potion

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

9.

Changelog

  • 10 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
  • 10 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 28 Dec. 2021: Guide added.
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