LoD Energy Twister Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your LoD Energy Twister Wizard in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
This Energy Twister Wizard build is based on the Legacy of Dreams power, which offers significant flexibility when it comes to item choice. Stat-wise, focus on pieces where Energy Twister skill damage is a possible roll — helm, boots and source, as well as spreading Area Damage wherever possible.
The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination
while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with
the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older
way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer
(and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry)
method is the
Legacy of Dreams legendary gem.
In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing your two best
rolled rings and cubing the third between
Convention of Elements,
Unity, and
Halo of Karini.
Convention of Elements simply
provides a massive damage increase during the Arcane cycle of its rotation.
Halo of Karini will greatly supplement your defenses, providing a massive
damage reduction bonus for the modest requirement of keeping your
Storm Armor active.
Unity further reduces incoming damage when
paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for him
(i.e.
Enchanting Favor).
Aside from Halo of Karini,
Squirt's Necklace will also incentivize
you to keep track of your enemies' positioning — it rewards the evasive
playstyle of an Energy Twister Wiz with a massive damage bonus, but also punishes
the unwary with an amplification of damage taken. To encase you in at least a
measure of protection before you lose that valuable DPS buff, you will be wearing
the
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer for the doubled shield potency
(consult this build's skills page to see where
the shields should come from). Note that this slot is interchangeable with
Ranslor's Folly, which is an
Energy Twister-specific item that both
increases the skill's damage considerably (up to 300%) and introduces a powerful
monster-pulling mechanic to the tornados. There is a considerable disparity
between a low and high roll of the unique property, so barring an exceptional
roll, we recommend cubing it to maximize its benefits.
Swamp Land Waders notably require that you gamble them on a Witch Doctor
alt, and then use them on your Wizard main; while the pants' legendary bonus will
be entirely ignored, their unique ability to roll elemental damage (which you
will reroll to Arcane on your Wizard) is a great boon to the build.
Four more armor slots will be occupied by protective legendary powers, with
the combo of Ice Climbers,
Mantle of Channeling,
Aquila Cuirass and
Stone Gauntlets each bringing their own angle
of value to the build.
Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective
protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor in 50% increments as you get
hit, but with a similarly stacking mobility penalty — a downside you will
be completely negating with the unique property of
Ice Climbers, which
make you immune to immobilization effects.
Mantle of Channeling is a build
subtype staple, offering a substantial 25% damage increase to channeling specs,
along with an equal amount of damage reduction while channeling.
Aquila Cuirass is simply a defensive cornerstone, cutting incoming damage
in half if you maintain above 90% of your resource.
The final two armor pieces will be dedicated to resource management. Your helm
of choice should be Leoric's Crown, which can roll up to a 100% increase of
the effect of its socketed gem — in this case, you should go with
Flawless Royal Topaz for the resource cost reduction. In accordance with
your considerable focus on channeling skills, you will be equipping
Hergbrash's Binding — a dedicated legendary belt that reduces the
strain on your Arcane Power reserves while holding down the
Arcane Torrent barrage. Note the considerable range of the unique bonus,
and strive to attain as close to the maximum 65% as possible.
The remaining item slots — weapon and offhand — will be occupied
by dedicated channeling legendary items that enable the playstyle
interactions in the first place and increase the build's damage output.
Etched Sigil is a build-defining legendary source that augments and casts
Energy Twisters for free. The aptly named
The Twisted Sword
increases the skill's damage by up to 150% for each tornado you have out on the
battlefield, up to a maximum of 5; it also nets you the strongest rune,
Raging Storm, for free, with additional stacking enhancements.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
For Offense stats, try to obtain Energy Twister % bonus on both the helm, boots and source (maximum of 45%), Arcane elemental damage on the amulet, wrists and pants (maximum of 60%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+.
For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 500k+; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with at least one high roll in your setup (i.e. bracer).
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. Investing into Max 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 Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.
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.
Bane of the Trapped procs
itself with the level 25 property and is otherwise procced by crowd control skills
and stats on your gear.
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. Energy Twister Wizards are no exception.
Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem,
which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you
have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal
quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares
(
The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This
potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic
legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot.
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 Topazes 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, scaling the lacking Armor of an Intelligence-based
character (Intelligence scales Resistances). 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 build is free of CDR
concerns, you can pick between
Flawless Royal Amethyst for the extra health
or
Flawless Royal Topaz for the Resource Cost Reduction as befits your needs
and playstyle. In your weapon, use a
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
Your weapon Cube slot should be taken by Valthek's Rebuke, another
Energy Twister-specific legendary that amplifies the damage of the skill.
There is an additional, path-straightening effect, which will be ignored in a
setup with
Wicked Wind as the Twisters will remain stationary as
priority.
As previously mentioned, you will equip your better rolled item between
Ranslor's Folly and
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, and simply cube the worse
one in this slot.
Your jewelry Cube slot will be occupied by your worst rolled item between
Halo of Karini,
Convention of Elements and
Unity.
In Season 22, you are still able to take advantage of the damage buff while
channeling from a cubed Deathwish.
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.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due
to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed
and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.
Follower
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.
Changelog
- 20 Nov. 2020: Guide added.
More Wizard Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
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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