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 2.7.6 and Season 29.
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 them (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.
Blackthorne's Jousting Mail provide an elemental damage increase,
which is fairly unique for the slot — as long as it does not form its
set bonus with another Blackthorne item, thus breaking the LoD bonus, this
will be your best-in-slot item.
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.
You have two remaining armor piece slots, and you can adapt those according to your familiarity with the build.
- When starting out and as you get acquainted with the playstyle, you can
use pieces dedicated to resource management. Your helm 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.
- When you grow familiar with how the build handles, you should adapt to
more offense-oriented legendaries, with glass cannon choices like
Andariel's Visage (increased attack speed and elemental damage) and
The Witching Hour (increased attack speed and critical hit damage), both of which will provide a straight DPS increase and take the build further in GR progression.
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, with an internal cooldown of 59 frames
— meaning an
Energy Twister will only spawn when your channeled
skill ticks for damage, and the item is off its ICD. Note that Twisters
spawned by
Etched Sigil obey the standard Diablo 3 law of "procs cannot
proc", and will not trigger Area Damage. They will, however, consume
Arcane Attunement stacks, ruining your potential to properly buff up
the initial Twister; this is the exact reason why you should be careful with
your buff management and manually cast the initial Twister for a pull. 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. Note that the
initial cast of
Energy Twister snapshots additional damage amplifiers
(such as
Arcane Attunement), and Twisters that follow it up and merge
via
The Twisted Sword mechanics also receive said amplifiers. These
additional Twisters, stackable up to 4 times, also reset the duration of the
initial cast.
Reverse Archon Variant
The 'Reverse Archon' variant (outlined in its variant paragraph in the skill page) requires several changes to the
gear described above. The head slot needs to be occupied by The Swami
in order to maintain
Archon stacks outside that form, and
Fazula's Improbable Chain is required in order to kickstart any Archon
stacks at all, since the build revolves around Energy Twister damage, not Archon
(the latter is treated strictly as a buff). Altering to this setup requires
perfected cooldown across most of your gear (shoulders, hands, both rings, and
off-hand,
Flawless Royal Diamond in the helm), as well as Paragons and
an Enchantress for the cooldown reduction buff. Missing any of the
pieces will land you short of the 61%+ sheet CDR breakpoint.
An extra step further in gear alteration is to drop Aquila Cuirass
for
Shi Mizu's Haori, which guarantees Critical Hits below 25% life.
Since the build runs several shields and is quite tanky in general, it will be
able to sustain even at that low health point. This alteration allows you to
drop all Critical Hit Chance rolls on gear, and replace them with Intelligence
and Area Damage rolls for even more damage.
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 helm,
amulet, wrists and pants (maximum of 80%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within
a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 60% and 450%, respectively), and Area Damage of
130%+. In terms of breakpoints, you should note the 59 frames internal
cooldown of Etched Sigil, which forces you to optimize around frames
per animation breakpoints that are divisors of 60. In practice, this is easily
and optimally achievable for the 12 frames per animation breakpoint, reached
by a 1.4 Attacks per Second weapon base (which matches the sword subtype of
The Twisted Sword) and the 10% increased attack speed from Paragon
points.
For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 800k+; 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 is up to personal preference.
In the Offense section, max out Attack Speed, Crit Damage, Crit Chance, 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 Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Life on Hit and Globe Radius.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Season 29: Paragon Cap
Season 29 introduces a season-specific cap to stat benefits from Paragon levels, all while updating how Paragon point distribution is handled. For the duration of this Season, you can only assign 800 Paragon stat points to your character, removing the long-standing practice of main-stat stacking (with some gearing implications — see below) after you reach Paragon 800.
On top of that, you could only allocate 50 Paragon stat points to each of the four stats in a given Paragon category (Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility). In Season 29, you can allocate up to the full 200 points per category into any attribute, allowing you to more easily reach necessary build breakpoints (as outlined in the Gear page of the guide) for Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, etc.
With the changes to Paragon in mind, we recommend using the following Paragon distribution for this build:
- Core: Movement Speed: 200 points.
- Offense: Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage: Allocate points so they are as close to the desirable 1:10 ratio between the two stats, as displayed in your Character Details sheet. For weapon-and-offhand builds, this is usually achieved with the full 200 points spent into Critical Hit Damage.
- Defense: Life and All Resistance: Allocate points to maximize survivability; for Wizards, this is usually achieved by evenly splitting 100 points into Life (directly increasing your Health pool) and Armor (to complement the naturally high All Resistance stat of Intelligence-based characters).
- Utility: Area Damage: 200 points.
Season 29: Gearing Considerations
In terms of gear, keeping the Paragon cap in mind is paramount, as it stymies the traditional endless supply of main stat after Paragon 800. This means re-rolling mainstat off your gear is no longer desirable, and full equipment augmentation with your main stat is even more critical. Additionally, you should take a careful look at your build and consider if you can fit the following changes to strengthen your damage and survivability:
- Guardian's Jeopardy: This is a craftable armor set, and the recipe
for its creation drops from Bounty farming. Guardian's 2-piece provides a
decent damage reduction bonus, but the true powerhouse of the set is the
3-piece bonus, which nets you an additional 100% of your main stats from
equipped items. This is a tremendous benefit in an 800 Paragon capped Season.
If the Guardian set can fit into the build with minimal sacrifices (other
craftable sets, tertiary damage multipliers, etc.), consider its
implementation. The available pieces are
Guardian's Aversion (Wrists),
Guardian's Case (Waist), and
Guardian's Gaze (Head). Of course, you can wear 2 pieces of the set and complete the full 3-piece bonus with a
Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
- Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of
The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and
The Compass Rose (Ring), and is randomly found through farming, gambling Blood Shards, and/or Kanai's Cube recipes. The Endless Walk set is a nice compromise between damage bonuses (building up while stationary) and defensive bonuses (building up while moving). It can replace glass cannon choices like the Bastions of Will set (
Focus and
Restraint) and
Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another
Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e.,
Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%.
Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.
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. In this particular build, it will fall
in line with its melee-oriented playstyle, matching the range for the damage
amplification from
Audacity and forcing you to all but point blank
drop the
Wicked Winds.
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 (at least in its non-Reverse Archon, base
version — see the paragraphs above), 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 fact, when using
Andariel's Visage, the optimal
roll will not have a helm socket at all! 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.
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
Scoundrel due to his powerful damage and crit buffs: both passive
in nature (with Piercing Shot and
Anatomy),
as well as the brief but battle-turning window of guaranteed crits from
Night's Veil.
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
The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
(allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede
Energy Twister
DPS),
Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered (giving you a brief window of CC
immunity to counter your lack of CC-breaking or immunity skills), or
Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties
complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Wizards). Pick whichever
you feel helps you out the most.
Changelog
- 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.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 30 Oct. 2021: Enriched the guide with additional information.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 02 Apr. 2021: Item selection revised, added follower recommendation.
- 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.
- Icy Veins Launches Genshin Impact Guides Section
- Upcoming Dev Campfire Chat: November 30th
- Player Gathers All Uber Uniques and Asks “Did I Beat the Game?”
- Diablo 4 Steam Discount and Free Trial
- Diablo 4 Patch 1.2.2 Hotfixes: November 20th
- Diablo 4 Mother’s Blessing XP and Gold Buff Bugged, to Be Increased and Live This Week
- Diablo 4 Patch 1.2.2 Hotfixes: November 17th
- Mother’s Blessing Returns to Sanctuary (November 20-27)