Vyr Archon Wizard BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

The build incorporates the complete Vyr's Amazing Arcana set, taking all six available pieces and leaving the jewelry to balance defense (with the Endless Walk set) and offense (with 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 utility in the jewelry slots. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This mimics the Archon playstyle, alternating long distance movement to favorable monster density with periods of stationary Arcane Blast and Arcane Strike spam. Ideally, you will finish off your jewelry with the timing-sensitive damage increase of Convention of Elements.

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, if you choose to take it) 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. This 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's 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 the traditional Cold-based setup that we recommend should ideally aim for a Lightning damage Chantodo's Will, while a Double Element variation (as explained in the Skills page) should aim for a Cold damage one.

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.

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 Armor 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 (replaced by Attack Speed at High Paragons) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist	Fazula's Improbable Chain	Intelligence Vitality Armor Life % Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Vyr's Fantastic Finery	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	The Traveler's Pledge	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cold Damage Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	The Compass Rose	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

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 Gold Find 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 Gold Find 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.

Earlier in progression, 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.

You will be using Orb of Infinite Depth in the weapon slot of the Cube for a decent split between a damage buff and reduction of incoming damage as you spam Explosive Blast. In a setup without Explosive Blast — for example, if you prefer to use Halo of Karini and need to have Storm Armor on your bar — you will use The Furnace in this slot for its 50% additional elite damage affix.

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.

Lastly, if you are used to the cooldown-resetting playstyle of Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac-based Archons, you can still use it in the jewelry slot. it will bring you back into Archon form quickly and reliably with a quick swap from Spectral Blade into Arcane Torrent Static Discharge.

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.