LoD Meteor Wizard Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The LoD Meteor Wizard can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, mostly thanks to overwhelming damage potential offered by Meteor that allows you to include Aether Walker in the build, and the freedom from set pieces that allows you to spread various utility legendaries for mobility. 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.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Magic Weapon Deflection Meteor Thunder Crash 1 Storm Armor Power of the Storm 2 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 3 Teleport Wormhole 4 Familiar Arcanot
Passive Skills
Illusionist Galvanizing Ward Elemental Exposure Power Hungry

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

The T16 key farming build will mimic the GR speed farming rotation, but sped up one step further: with extremely aggressive Teleports on top of enemies and their subsequent decimation with Meteors, made immediate with the rune Thunder Crash. Spam Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to maximize the all-around benefits from Orb of Infinite Depth. Otherwise, maintain the trio of passive buffs in the form of Storm Armor Power of the Storm, Magic Weapon Deflection, and Familiar Arcanot.

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 cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take 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 T16 farm.
• 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 Aether Walker you wield in your hand will find an excellent companion in the Orb of Infinite Depth off-hand, and will need to use Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to trigger its effect.
• A trio of 10-minute buffs rounds out your "active" skill slots. Magic Weapon Deflection provides a constantly refreshed defensive buff. Storm Armor massively reduces incoming damage from the equipped Halo of Karini, and doubles as a resource management tool with Power of the Storm. Familiar Arcanot is a fire-and-forget source of passive AP regeneration.
• In your passives, Galvanizing Ward retains its defensive value (especially with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer equipped). Elemental Exposure is an easy-to-maintain damage increase, corresponding nicely to your various types of elemental damage. Illusionist is an excellent boon to movement speed, triggered constantly from your Teleporting. You are free to make a decision between the proximity-based Audacity and the distance-based Power Hungry as sources of damage multiplication.

The overall gearing philosophy will remain intact from the GR progression setup. 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. For rings, wear a Fire damage Stone of Jordan and your better rolled ring Convention of Elements (cyclical damage buff; burst down elites during the Fire cycle) and Halo of Karini (massive damage reduction from Storm Armor). 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. Don't put SoJ in the Cube, as you will lose out on its elemental and elite damage bonuses.

LoD Meteor gear pieces for speed farming can be roughly divided into the following categories:

• Damage amplification items. Cindercoat, Magefist, and a Fire damage roll of Blackthorne's Jousting Mail all fit this category. Stone of Jordan (also Fire-rolled!) will convert their elemental damage type to Lightning to fit Thunder Crash.
• Protective items. When playing solo, you should make use of the extra safety of a cheat death proc from the Act I bounty cache-specific legendary Pauldrons of the Skeleton King. This is because your follower can wear the teleportation utility of Homing Pads and emanate their power to you; in groups, where you lose the follower, you should wear the Homing Pads yourself. Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer is an all-around useful protective piece, which will double the effectiveness of shields to safeguard your Squirt's Necklace bonus. If you find it overkill, you can alternate this slot to Warzechian Armguards (solo), or Nemesis Bracers (groups). The final protective piece will be Goldwrap, which is part of the triumvirate of gold bonuses with Avarice Band (on your follower or in CoE's place in groups) and a socketed Boon of the Hoarder.
• Meteor-related items. Mempo of Twilight and Nilfur's Boast provide universally useful damage bonuses to your main damage dealer, and remain across all setups. Note that while it won't be worn, The Grand Vizier will move to the Cube.

Aether Walker turns your Teleport from a cooldown to a spender, and allows for near limitless mobility in T16 farm. Pair it with an Orb of Infinite Depth to enjoy this source's all-around useful bonuses.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Mempo of Twilight (Best in Slot) Pride's Fall (Alternative)	Intelligence Socket Meteor % Damage Attack Speed Crowd Control Duration Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Pauldrons of the Skeleton King	Intelligence Area Damage Resource Cost Reduction Vitality Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Cindercoat	Intelligence 3 Sockets Vitality Elite Damage Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Arcane % Damage Vitality Reduced Damage Melee Attacks (Secondary stat)
Hands	Magefist	Intelligence (or Resource Cost Reduction at high Paragon) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Area Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Waist	Goldwrap	Intelligence Vitality Armor Life % Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Blackthorne's Jousting Mail	Intelligence 2 Sockets Vitality Armor Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Nilfur's Boast	Intelligence Meteor % Damage Vitality Armor Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	Squirt's Necklace	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Arcane % Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Stone of Jordan (Best in Slot) Convention of Elements (Alternative)	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Crowd Control Duration Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Halo of Karini	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Crowd Control Duration Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Weapon	Aether Walker	High Weapon Damage Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Intelligence (or % Damage at high Paragons) Area Damage Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand	Orb of Infinite Depth	High Damage Range Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Meteor % Damage Area Damage Arcane Power on Crit

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 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.

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.

Most of your legendary gem selection from GR progression retains its value in T16 Nephalem Rift speed farming. Legacy of Dreams forms the basis of damage reduction and damage multiplication in the build, while Bane of the Trapped still brings excellent damage multiplication value to the build. While certainly not weak, you should consider dropping Bane of the Powerful in order not to overkill on damage, and replace it with Boon of the Hoarder instead. Paired with a worn or cubed Goldwrap, and an Avarice Band worn by your follower in solo play (or yourself in groups), this legendary gem increases your movement speed and provides near-infinite Toughness through its interaction with the aforementioned items.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Boon of the Hoarder Bane of the Trapped Legacy of Dreams
Helm	Flawless Royal Topaz (Resource Cost Reduction)
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 Greater Rift staple The Grand Vizier moves from a worn item to a cubed power in T16 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.

The Act III bounty cache-specific legendary Pride's Fall will greatly ease the strain on your resource spending, while the bulwark of your Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer-enhanced shields and Goldwrap armor will protect the helm's bonuses.

Your jewelry Cube slot will still be occupied by your worse rolled item between Halo of Karini and Convention of Elements. Stone of Jordan is a waste to cube, since you lose the elemental and elite damage bonuses of the item — they are innate rolls but are not part of the legendary power, and are thus not extracted in the Cube.

The recommended follower for this build during T16 speed farming is the Enchantress, due to her cooldown reduction bonus (cutting down Teleport downtime) and elemental damage increase. Note that this requires that you run Hand of the Prophet and optimize her survivability, as per our guide.

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.

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.