Firebird Flame Blades Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

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

Your jewelry will be focused entirely on amplifying damage, with the Bastions 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 slot as long as you alternate between a resource generating and resource spending attacks — a natural part of your rotation, as described in the Skills page. Squirt's Necklace is another grand source of damage multiplication, with a significant damage intake trade-off; you will be trying to maintain its bonuses with the use of Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, which doubles the effectiveness of your Deflection and Galvanizing Ward shields.

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

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

In Season 24, your ideal weapon during Greater Rift solo pushing will be Wizardspike, whose unique damage stacking mechanic and unrivaled skill and pure stat bonuses will outperform any other alternatives. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of Fragment of Destiny, and will ideally have the 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.

In your Offense stats, strive to obtain Increased Attack Speed on all the gear pieces that are able to roll it (Weapon, Gloves and both Rings) with the exception of the Amulet, as you will lose other, more valuable stats. Note that Increased Attack Speed is especially desirable on the weapon, since weapon attack speed rolls are multiplicative in nature. Conversely, due to the dominantly set-based nature of the damage you inflict, Area Damage is excluded from 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 base damage type (the damage type is denoted next to the big numbers that define the DPS of your weapon). Elemental Exposure is one of the rare instances where weapon damage type comes into effect, and will count as a stack towards the damage bonuses of the passive. Keep in mind that this is a high-end optimization roll and should not take precedence over other, more important stats.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool 700k and above, which should be trivial with the minor stat requirements for other aspects of the build. This build also focuses heavily on shields for survivability and buff maintenance, making it one of the more resilient Wizard builds; health sustain stats outside of Paragon points are not required.

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

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

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Firebird's Plume	Intelligence Socket Critical Hit Chance Vitality Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Firebird's Pinions	Intelligence Armor Vitality Life % or Resource Cost Reduction Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Firebird's Breast	Intelligence 3 Sockets Vitality Armor Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage Vitality Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands	Firebird's Talons	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Attack Speed Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist	The Shame of Delsere	Intelligence Vitality Armor Life % Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Firebird's Down	Intelligence 2 Sockets Vitality Armor Life per Kill (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Firebird's Tarsi	Intelligence Vitality Armor All Resistance Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	Squirt's Necklace	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Focus	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Restraint	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon	Wizardspike (Best in Slot) Fragment of Destiny (Off-Season in S24)	High Weapon Damage (ideally Cold) Intelligence Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Percentage Damage Increase Increased Attack Speed Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand	Orb of Infinite Depth	High Damage Range Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Vitality Arcane Power on Crit or Elite Damage Increase

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.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Adding to Maximum Arcane Power should not be necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Life on Hit and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Globe Radius and Area Damage.

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Intelligence Vitality (up to personal preference) Maximum Arcane Power
Offense	Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed Cooldown Reduction
Defense	Armor Life % All Resistance Life Regeneration
Utility	Life on Hit Resource Cost Reduction Globe Radius Area Damage

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will benefit from it naturally, 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 in prolonged fights and has a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians; this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Flame Blade Wizards are no exception.

Your final jewelry socket will be taken by Gogok of Swiftness, whose Increased Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, and scaling Dodge bonuses all bring massive value to the build. An alternative for this slot is Pain Enhancer, which can bring great AoE value in the right circumstances (massive pulls in densely populated Greater Rifts), but is a secondary recommendation due to its circumstantial nature; Gogok generally brings better consistency to the build.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Stricken Gogok of Swiftness Pain Enhancer
Helm	Flawless Royal Amethyst (Toughness)
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Topaz (Damage and All Resistance)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

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

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

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

Tucked away in the Cube, Convention of Elements brings yet another source of damage multiplication, which — due to its cyclical nature — requires a playstyle of pulling enemies during the off-cycles, and utter 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. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

Your recommended potion is 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.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Scoundrel due to his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage that are well suited to the strengths of this build.

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.