Tal Frozen Orb Wizard Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation
Nephalem Rift Speed Farming
The Tal Frozen Orb Wizard can
deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, mostly thanks to
overwhelming damage potential offered by Frozen Orb that allows you to
include
Aether Walker in the build, and the monster pulling capabilities
of
Ranslor's Folly. 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 |
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Passive Skills |
Adapting Rotation
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 into
fights, using
Energy Twister right on top of the nearest Elite pack to
cluster enemies in one spot and decimating them with
Frozen Orbs —
ideally still using the optimal 40 yard range for the peak detonation damage,
but not nearly as important as in GRs. Of course, you should not forget to stack
up
Triumvirate with
Shock Pulse
Piercing Orb, but this will come
naturally through gameplay as you draw monster aggro prior to the
Ranslor's Folly pull.
Storm Armor
Power of the Storm and
Magic Weapon
Deflection will keep you safe as you recklessly port around
the rift in search of the next big fight; just do not let their 10-minute
duration distract you from refreshing them in between runs.
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 cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.
- The Cold proc for Tal Rasha and your main damage dealer remains the namesake
of the build:
Arcane Orb, taken with strongest
Frozen Orb rune.
- The Lightning proc for Tal Rasha is consistent throughout the variants:
Shock Pulse
Piercing Orb for its massive range and AoE aggroing potential. Its Primary Skill nature is also important for
Triumvirate stacking.
- The Fire proc for Tal Rasha should come from
Energy Twister
Gale Force; while the rune is strictly taken for its element and its properties are lost on the build, the skill itself brings massive Crowd Control value through
Ranslor's Folly.
- The Arcane proc for Tal Rasha comes from your mobility skill,
Teleport due to the rune
Calamity. In T16 keyfarm, it will be completely spammable due to the cubed
Aether Walker.
- You will take two shields in the build:
Storm Armor (combined with
Halo of Karini) and
Magic Weapon
Deflection. Their powers combined will allow you to throw yourself from fight to fight with reckless abandon.
- Passive-wise, the distance-based damage multiplication of
Power Hungry and mobility value of
Illusionist remain core to the setup. Supplement them with the protective powers of
Galvanizing Ward and
Dominance, which safeguard the
Squirt's Necklace bonuses.
Adapting Gear
The Tal Rasha's Elements set
remains gloriously adaptable in T16 farming, and you should largely keep the
same split between pieces as you do in Greater Rift speed farming: 5 pieces of
Tal's, plus utility inclusions. It is recommended that you keep wearing the 2
pieces of the craftable Cpt. Crimson set ( Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and
Captain Crimson's Waders) when you farm on your own, since your follower
can wear the craftable sets Sage's Journey (doubled Death's Breath drops) and
Cain's Destiny (chance for extra Greater Rift Keystones) and emanate their power
as if you were wearing them yourself. When you farm in groups however, drop the
Cpt. Crimson's pieces for
Sage's Ribbon and
Sage's Passage, as you
will have no follower and have to take care of the extra Death's Breath drops
yourself. Ideally, you will also carry 2 pieces of Cain's set (i.e.,
Cain's Habit and
Cain's Insight) in your inventory and right before
the Rift Guardian kill, you will swap to them for the chance of additional GR
keystone drops.
Utility slots also vary according to solo or group play, as you have to take
care of certain bonuses that are usually relegated to the follower yourself when
partying up. The bracer and shoulder slots that are occupied by Aughild pieces
in the GR speedfarm variant are better taken by Ranslor's Folly (for
supremely strong, pixel-tight pulling effect you can exert over trash mobs),
and either the Act I bounty cache legendary
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King
(for the extra cheat death proc in solo play), or
Homing Pads (for the
safety during town portal when partying up). When partying up, you might want to
be able to proc the extra elite spawn at Pylons yourself (usually done by the
follower in solo play); this means either cubing
Nemesis Bracers, or
equipping them over Ranslor's to keep the
Goldwrap toughness in the
Cube. If you choose the latter, swap
Energy Twister for
Black Hole
Blazar to maintain some form of Crowd Control in the build.
From the base GR progression setup, Halo of Karini maintains its
massive defensive relevance, but the timing-based damage boost of
Convention of Elements does not. Replace it with
Ring of Royal Grandeur to maintain your full Tal Rasha and Cpt. Crimson set
powers, allowing you to adapt either
Squirt's Necklace (in solo) or
Avarice Band (in groups) in the jewelry Cube slot.
Similarly to the Greater Rift solo progression setup, your weapon and
offhand need to stay on the Arcane Orb-dedicated legendaries
Unstable Scepter and
Triumvirate.
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 |
|
|
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 |
|
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.
Adapting Gems
Both Zei's Stone of Vengeance and
Bane of the Trapped still bring
excellent damage multiplication value to the build in T16 keyfarm. Within the
limited challenges of T16 rifts,
Bane of the Stricken should be replaced by
Boon of the Hoarder. This gem increases your movement speed and provides
near-infinite Toughness through its interaction with
Avarice Band (either
slotted in the Cube during group play, or worn by your follower in solo play),
and the cubed
Goldwrap.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Adapting Kanai's Cube
In the limited challenges of T16 keyfarm, one legendary weapon damage
multiplier should be enough; thus, we advise you to stick to an equipped
Unstable Scepter and replace
Wizardspike in the Cube with an
Aether Walker. This legendary wand turns your
Teleport from
a cooldown to a spender, and allows for near limitless mobility.
When you solo T16s for keystones, no other source of damage mitigation will
be quite as effective as the triumvirate of Boon of the Hoarder,
Avarice Band (worn by the follower and emanated), and
Goldwrap in
the armor slot of the Cube. In groups, you might want to take
Nemesis Bracers in this slot to allow you to proc extra elites, but
wanting to
Goldwrap is understandable — if so, equip the Nemesis
on yourself and swap
Energy Twister for
Black Hole
Blazar.
Due to the neck slot occupation of the Tal Rasha amulet, you are forced to
slot Squirt's Necklace in the Cube and equip the
Ring of Royal Grandeur. Despite the tradeoff, this necklace more than makes
up for it with a massive doubling of your damage; you will offset its "damage
taken increased" drawback with a plethora of shields in your skill and passive
selection.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during T16 rift 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.
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
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 30 Oct. 2021: 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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