Firebird Flame Blades Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Firebird Flame Blades Wizard in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
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.
Other Viable Setups
The gear setup described above is not the only viable option to build your Firebird Flame Blades Wizard or Greater Rift solo pushes. Depending on your preferred playstyle and your confidence with the mechanics of the build, you can also make the following alterations:
- 1) If you dislike playing around the
Squirt's Necklace increased damage taken penalty, you can play with the Endless Walk set (
The Traveler's Pledge and
The Compass Rose), combined with
Convention of Elements.
- 2) Using the craftable Cpt. Crimson set with
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and
Captain Crimson's Thrust for additional damage dealt and damage reduced scaling with your CDR and RCR stats.
- 3) Using the craftable Aughild's Authority set with
Aughild's Search and
Aughild's Power for additional damage against, and reduced damage from elite enemies.
- Changes 2) and 3) specifically necessitate that you use
Firebird's Eye as your offhand, along with a
Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. This moves
The Shame of Delsere and
Orb of Infinite Depth to the Cube, and loses you
The Furnace and
Aquila Cuirass.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
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 900k 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. Note that both Galvanizing Ward and
Magic Weapon
Deflection scale off total life, making Vitality and Life %
much better for overall Toughness compared to many other classes in the game.
All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Intelligence.
Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item 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 |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
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.
Paragon Points
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; remember that Wizard shields scale off maximum health, and try to reach the recommended toughness values outlined above. Adding to Maximum Arcane Power should not be necessary.
In the Offense section, max out Attack Speed, Crit Damage, Crit Chance, and Cooldown Reduction in that order. In Defense, prioritize Life %, then Armor, 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. Skip Area Damage, as it does nothing for the build except potentially lag out your game.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
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.
When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the
highest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these
will all be Flawless Royal Topaz as soon as possible. As you grow in
Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and
more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive
Flawless Royal Ruby (Intelligence-based classes such as the Wizard are
naturally high in Resistances, so their protection scales better with improving
Armor instead). There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of
thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede
your progress. Since this is a Health-reliant build, we recommend a
Flawless Royal Amethyst in the helm. In your weapon, use
Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
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.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the
Enchantress, due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpful for
the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in this build)
via Focused Mind, as well as the elemental damage bonus from
Amplification and damage reduction from
Powered Shield.
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.
Legendary Potion
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.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 23 Mar. 2021: Guide added.
More Wizard Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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