Vyr Archon Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

The build incorporates the complete Vyr's Amazing Arcana set bonuses, taking all six available pieces and leaving the jewelry to balance defense (with Halo of Karini) and offense (with Squirt's Necklace and Convention of Elements). Rolls-wise, this Archon-centric playstyle takes good advantage of Cooldown Reduction and Crit-based affixes. Vyr's Sightless Skull, Vyr's Astonishing Aura, Vyr's Fantastic Finery and Vyr's Swaggering Stance can all be dedicated to Toughness, as Archon abilities are not possible skill damage rolls on gear. Cooldown Reduction should be the fourth primary alongside Toughness stats on the Vyr's Proud Pauldrons, and is also taken on Vyr's Grasping Gauntlets alongside an ideal trifecta of Crit Chance and Crit Damage.

The scaling difficulty of Greater Rifts forces you to split between offense and defense in the jewelry slots. The timing-sensitive elemental boost of Convention of Elements and the evasion-dependent bonuses of Squirt's Necklace will serve to amplify your damage, while Halo of Karini will layer you with a massive damage reduction bonus via the Storm Armor proc.

Spending a lot of time in the crowd control-immune Archon form, you will find yourself at your weakest and most susceptible to deadly affixes in your regular form. To counterbalance the loss of survivability, you will do well to wear Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, which doubles the effectiveness of your Deflection and Galvanizing Ward shields.

Fazula's Improbable Chain belt is tailored after Archon builds, with a BiS roll giving you 50 automatic Archon stacks when entering Archon form. Aiding you in your most vulnerable moments, this belt gets your damage and Toughness off the ground quicker, making it vital for the playstyle.

Your weapon and offhand slots will be occupied by Chantodo's Resolve set, Chantodo's Will and Chantodo's Force. This set combo received a massive buff in Patch 2.6.5, marking their return as the favored setup for the Vyr Archon.

Mechanically, this set has a stacking bonus that, for every hit outside of Archon form, increases the Wave of Destruction effect that your character expels while in Archon form. The waves' damage scales with the various damage bonuses across your gear, including Attack Speed, up to the 5 APS equivalent. It is important to note however, that Chantodo's Resolve only receives benefits from elemental damage bonuses on gear if the element of the selected Archon rune on your bar matches the element on gear, despite the Vyr 2-piece bonus granting you 'all the runes'.

The Chantodo damage scaling is dynamic in nature, so you need not trouble yourself with concerns about snapshotting mechanics; stacks can also be acquired post-activation of Archon if the skill was cast prior to that activation, so delays in re-entering the Archon form are also not necessary.

There are certain details in your gear rolls that you need to pay attention to if your goal is to maximize the damage of your Archon Wizard for the purposes of pushing the highest tiers of Greater Rifts.

First up, it is important to understand the mechanics of the passive Elemental Exposure. This passive rewards you with a 5% additive damage buff for each additional element that you use in the build, stacking up to 4 times. The passive is quite unique in that the weapon elemental damage roll — the one that reads, for example, 1560-1940 Lightning (or Cold, or Fire...) Damage — counts towards the requirements of the passive. In practice, this means that a Double Element variation (as explained in the Skills page) should aim for a Cold damage Chantodo's Will.

As for the elemental damage rolls on your amulet and bracer in a Double Element variation, you need to have a maximized (20%) roll on your Lightning piece, and just-below-maximum (19%) on your Fire piece (i.e. a 20% Lightning amulet, and a 19% Fire bracer). Note that the Double Element variation is also extremely demanding on CDR, and you will need perfect rolls across all pieces outlined below to have a chance to pull it off. Consult the Skills page in order to learn how this variant affects your rotation.

In your Offense stats, there are not particular Cooldown Reduction or Attack Speed breakpoints to chase. You simply need to obtain CDR on all the gear pieces that are able to roll it (Shoulders, Gloves, both Rings, Weapon and Offhand) with the exception of the Amulet (although it can be considered if you alter this slot to The Flavor of Time). Due to the way the Vyr 4-piece bonus scales your attack speed, additional rolls on gear are not necessary, as they will be additive in nature; the only exception is Chantodo's Will, where IAS is desirable, since weapon attack speed rolls are multiplicative in nature.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of about 700k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. This build focuses on shield rather than sustain for survivability, so you can focus on general toughness stats (Vitality and Armor) across the respective pieces; you can add some Life per Hit as the 4th main stat on bracers, however.

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	Vyr's Sightless Skull	Intelligence Socket Critical Hit Chance Vitality Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Vyr's Proud Pauldrons	Intelligence Cooldown Reduction Vitality Life % Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Vyr's Astonishing Aura	Intelligence 3 Sockets Vitality Elite Damage Reduction Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Cold Damage Vitality or Life per Hit Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands	Vyr's Grasping Gauntlets	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist	Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Best in Slot) Fazula's Improbable Chain (Best in Slot)	Intelligence Vitality Armor Life % Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Captain Crimson's Thrust (Best in Slot) Vyr's Fantastic Finery (Best in Slot)	Intelligence 2 Sockets Vitality Armor Life per Kill (Secondary Stat) Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Vyr's Swaggering Stance	Intelligence Vitality Armor All Resistance Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	Squirt's Necklace	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cold Damage Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Halo of Karini	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cooldown Reduction Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Convention of Elements	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cooldown Reduction Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon	Chantodo's Will	High Weapon Damage Intelligence Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Cooldown Reduction Increased Attack Speed Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand	Chantodo's Force	High Damage Range Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Cooldown Reduction Arcane Power on Crit or Elite Damage Increase

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.

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. Adding to Maximum Arcane Power should not be necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Life on Hit and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Globe Radius and Area Damage.

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Intelligence Vitality (up to personal preference) Maximum Arcane Power
Offense	Cooldown Reduction Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed
Defense	Armor Life % All Resistance Life Regeneration
Utility	Life on Hit Resource Cost Reduction Globe Radius Area Damage

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will benefit from it naturally, as Archon Wizards tend to fight in melee range to maximize the Wave of Destruction — Bane of the Trapped procs itself with the level 25 property, along with Wave of Destruction chilling effect, and the freezes from the Archon Slow Time.

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. Vyr Archon Wizards are no exception.

Your final jewelry socket will be taken by Gogok of Swiftness, whose Increased Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, and scaling Dodge bonuses all bring massive value to the build.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Stricken Gogok of Swiftness
Helm	Flawless Royal Diamond (Cooldown 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 Furnace is a preferred piece in the weapon Cube slot, with a simple yet undeniable power — 50% increased damage against elites, assisting you in taking down the hardest fights in Greater Rifts: Champions and Rift Guardians.

The Swami is an essential addition to the Cube for the armor slot, as the power of this Wizard Hat allows you to maintain the Archon stack benefits for 20 seconds in your normal form. That window of opportunity allows you to survive and safely wait out the next Archon.

When pushing the upper limits of the build, it is recommended that you use Squirt's Necklace in the Cube jewelry slot; rewarding Archon's evasive playstyle that controls and demolishes enemies while deftly evading their strikes, this legendary piece greatly amplifies both damage dealt and damage taken. If you are uncomfortable with such a glass cannon playstyle, you can use Halo of Karini here, and drop Explosive Blast from your setup for Storm Armor.

In your jewelry slot, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac will bring you back into Archon form quickly and reliably with the consistent procs of Arcane Torrent Static Discharge. Note that in Season 22, due to the inclusion of the Cpt. Crimson set, you will have to use Ring of Royal Grandeur here to maintain the set bonuses of both Vyr and Crimson.

Again, due to the inclusion of the Cpt. Crimson set in Season 22, you will have to move the vital Fazula's Improbable Chain power to the Cube in the 4th slot.

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.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Wizards (due to Intelligence scaling resistances) for optimal survivability.

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.