LoD Meteor Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation
Greater Rift Speed Farming
The LoD Meteor Wizard is an excellent Greater Rift Speed Farmer, as the build adapts nicely to your chosen difficulty (low- or mid-GR farming), and transitions its time-sensitive solo GR progression burst into a more aggressive playstyle that is well suited to the needs of speed GRs. 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.
During lower tier Greater Rift farming, the balance between defense, damage and utility can be shifted to favor the latter two aspects of character building.
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Passive Skills |
Adapting Rotation
When you are Speed Farming Greater Rifts, your playstyle should at least partially reflect the circumstances by focusing on massive pulls, generic bonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.
The build keeps core parts of its GR progression base build, but is much
less rigid in their application, and has a much larger margin for error. You
still activate Storm Armor and
Magic Weapon at the start of
every run, and keep active watch of the
Halo of Karini buff, which
requires a relatively distant target to proc its effect.
Black Hole is
still used to pull enemies together for the convenience of your
Meteor
nuke. The latter will be swapped to
Thunder Crash for the immediate
projectile, which is more suitable for speed farming. Spam
Explosive Blast
Chain Reaction to maximize the all-around benefits from
Orb of Infinite Depth. Otherwise, you
Teleport aggressively
around (optionally with
Aether Walker, pulling as much monster aggro as
possible, and quickly melting enemies down.
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 burst down enemies quicker takes precedence.
- Your main damage dealer remains
Meteor, which rips through speed Greater Rifts due to its monstrous damage multipliers. Exchange the resource demanding, time-sensitive
Star Pact rune for the immediate effect of
Thunder Crash to avoid wasting unnecessary time in speed GRs.
- Mobility is paramount in speed Greater Rifts, so
Teleport remains a staple inclusion in your skill lineup. Use the multiple charges of
Wormhole for maximum mobility.
- The monster grouping powers of
Black Hole
Spellsteal retain — and even increase — their value in Greater Rift speed farming.
- Depending on your chosen GR level to farm, you will either keep
The Grand Vizier from GR progression (if you choose to farm mid-to-high GR speeds), or
Aether Walker for maximum speed (if you choose to farm low-ish GR speeds). If you opt for lower GR farm, you should pair the
Aether Walker with an
Orb of Infinite Depth for its excellent multi-purpose buffs, and will need to use
Explosive Blast
Chain Reaction to trigger its effect. If you opt for higher GR farm, add
Familiar
Arcanot in this slot for improved Arcane Power management.
- The duo of 10-minute protective buffs —
Magic Weapon
Deflection and
Storm Armor (with
Halo of Karini equipped) are still mandatory in the GR speed build. Exchange the proc rate superiority of
Shocking Aspect from the solo GR push build for the improved Arcane Power management of
Power of the Storm.
- Some of the passive selection from GR progression retains its value in
Greater Rift speed farming.
Audacity (proximity-based multiplicative damage increase) is still a great addition as you try to burst down enemies with haste.
Galvanizing Ward will safeguard your
Squirt's Necklace damage buff with a massive shield.
Dominance is a "win more" type of defensive passive, snowballing quickly from your fast clear speed.
Elemental Exposure is an easy-to-maintain damage increase, corresponding nicely to your various types of elemental damage.
Adapting Gear
This is still a Legacy of Dreams build, so you run
legendary items instead of set pieces and obtain the necessary damage
amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. This
will cost a legendary gem slot, but will net you all the jewelry slots for
powerful jewelry options. Similarly to the GR setup, you should wear a
Squirt's Necklace for its massive damage boost; its "damage taken
increased" downside is negated by your various shields. Your rings will depend
on your chosen GR tier for farming:
- Low-ish GR speed farming will use a
Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from
Storm Armor) and a Fire damage
Stone of Jordan, along with a bunch other Fire elemental damage-boosting items outlined below. Note that the legendary power of the
Stone of Jordan will convert the Fire elemental damage stacked on your gear to Lightning, so you needn't worry about not matching the
Thunder Crash element type.
- Mid-to-high GR speed farming will use the same setup as the GR progression
build —
Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Lightning cycle),
Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from
Storm Armor), and
Unity (further reduces incoming damage when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for them). Cube your worst rolled ring.
Some of your gear slots will match the Greater Rift solo progression setup
regardless of your chosen GR difficulty. Meteor-related legendaries
like
Mempo of Twilight and
Nilfur's Boast remain universally
useful, and don't have any speedfarm-oriented competition worth noting.
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer and
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King still
bring considerable protective value. Since you drop signature skills from the
build though,
The Shame of Delsere should give way to the universal
damage amplifier of
The Witching Hour.
Your chosen GR tier for farming will dictate the remaining gear choices:
- Low-ish GR speed farming will use
Aether Walker to port around constantly. Use
Orb of Infinite Depth for your off-hand, and take advantage of the lower toughness requirements to stack elemental damage across gear with
Magefist and
Cindercoat (it will be converted to Lightning from the worn
Stone of Jordan, as noted above).
- Mid-to-high GR speed farming will wield
The Grand Vizier, meaning you stick closer to the push setup. Keep
Aquila Cuirass in its place, but use
St. Archew's Gage over
Stone Gauntlets. These legendary bracers better complement GR speed farming, providing a strong temporary shield upon elite engagement (more than enough in these circumstances), and none of the pesky Stone Gauntlet downsides.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Head |
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Shoulders |
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Torso |
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Wrists |
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Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Amulet |
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Ring #1 |
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Ring #2 |
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Weapon |
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Off-hand |
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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.
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.
Adapting Gems
Most of your legendary gem selection from GR progression retains its full
value in GR speed farming as well. Legacy of Dreams forms the basis of
damage reduction and damage multiplication in the build, while
Bane of the Trapped still bring excellent damage multiplication value to
the build while speed farming. Within the limited challenges of Speed Greater
Rifts,
Bane of the Stricken should be replaced by
Bane of the Powerful, for its well-rounded damage increase and damage
mitigation bonuses.
Slot | Gems |
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Jewelry | |
Helm |
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Torso and Pants |
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Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Adapting Kanai's Cube
The Greater Rift staple The Grand Vizier moves from a worn item to a
cubed power in low-ish GR speed farm, freeing up a slot for
Aether Walker mobility. Nevertheless, it should still be present in the
build for its ubiquitous damage multiplication and resource cost reduction
bonuses. When you farm higher GR tiers, use the other
Meteor staple,
The Smoldering Core, in this slot instead.
Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan increase resource generation and damage dealt
while moving — and decrease them while stationary. In the breakneck pace
of GR farm, this legendary should always provide its positive powers as you
relentlessly move forward.
In mid-to-high GR speed farming, your jewelry Cube slot will be occupied by
your worst rolled item between Halo of Karini,
Convention of Elements and
Unity. In the low-ish GR farming
variant, where you need to wear the Fire damage
Stone of Jordan (SoJ is
a waste to cube, since you lose the elemental and elite damage bonus), you
will need to cube your worse rolled ring between Karini and Unity.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is the
Enchantress, due to her elemental damage increase, enemy slowing
and player shielding powers. You should make her invulnerable via a
Smoking Thurible.
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
Frozen Orb 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.
- 31 Aug. 2022: Variation added, as well as Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
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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