Wizard Firebird Explosive Blast Build

The Firebird Explosive Blast playstyle revolves around incinerating your enemies, using the ceaseless detonations of this skill into a fiery source of burning destruction. This guide will cover all of its available playstyles. The base one presented on this page is the Greater Rift Solo Pushing Variation, but this build also has a N ephalem Rift Farming Variation, and a Gr eater Rift Speed Farming Variation.

The basic skill setup of the Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.

Active Skills
Disintegrate Chaos Nexus Magic Weapon Deflection 1 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 2 Frost Nova Bone Chill 3 Teleport Safe Passage 4 Diamond Skin Prism
Passive Skills
Audacity Elemental Exposure Galvanizing Ward Evocation

The required gear setup for the Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on the required stat rolls on gear, itemization alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.

• Head: Firebird's Plume with Int/ChC/Vit/Socket
• Shoulders: Aughild's Power with Int/Vit/CDR/Life %
• Torso: Firebird's Breast with Int/Vit/Life %/3 Sockets
• Wrists: Aughild's Search with Int/ChC/Fire %/Life on Hit
• Hands: Firebird's Talons with Int/ChC/ChD/CDR
• Waist: Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle with Int/Vit/Life %/Armor
• Legs: Firebird's Down with Int/Vit/Armor/2 Sockets
• Feet: Captain Crimson's Waders with Int/Vit/Armor/All Res
• Amulet: Squirt's Necklace with ChC/ChD/Socket/Fire %
• Ring #1: Convention of Elements with ChC/ChD/Socket/Flat Dmg
• Ring #2: Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac with ChC/CDR/RCR
• Weapon: Deathwish with High Dmg/CDR/Damage %/Socket
• Off-hand: Firebird's Eye with High Dmg/ChC/ApoC/CDR/Fire %

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random.

Unfortunately, Explosive Blast-based builds do not have a great way of utilizing the three Sanctification powers. Thus, you should simply use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). The Sanctification power outcome does not matter. In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification are your weapon, Deathwish, or a jewelry piece like Convention of Elements.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

• Legendary Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
• Legendary Gem 2: Taeguk
• Legendary Gem 3: Bane of the Powerful (GR Solo Speeds) or Bane of the Stricken (GR Solo Push)

• Weapon Slot: Orb of Infinite Depth
• Armor Slot: Mantle of Channeling
• Jewelry Slot: Ring of Royal Grandeur

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the Firebird set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a Firebird's Explosive Blast Wizard, you should:

• Gather the full 6-piece Firebird's Finery set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Pants, Gloves, Off-hand, Chest, and Helm. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
• Gamble Off-hands or upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Wizard Sources for Orb of Infinite Depth. This will be a massive damage reduction boost to the build, while simultaneously adding to DPS. It will also net you Etched Sigil, which will be helpful in T16 runs — check the Nephalem Rift Farming Variation to find out more about its application.
• Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get Deathwish and In-geom. Deathwish is a foundational damage multiplier for the playstyle that enables the Explosive Blast build in GRs. If you are looking for In-geom specifically, upgrading rares on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. In-geom greatly benefits Explosive Blast Wizards in T16 runs, since it allows for unmatched Explosive Blast spam and makes Teleport a constantly available asset. Gambling these two swords is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
• Upgrade rare One-handed Maces to get Echoing Fury; doing this on a level 1 Witch Doctor or Necromancer alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary maces. Echoing Fury is the preferred alternate weapon for T16 runs.
• Gamble Bracers for Nemesis Bracers and Ranslor's Folly, both of which will be immensely helpful during any form of farming.
• Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Cpt. Crimson, Aughild...) as described in the Gear page. Bounties will get you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
• While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Convention of Elements, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, and Squirt's Necklace will all bring massive value to the build, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Unity and Stone of Jordan, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.