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 %

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

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For class-specific items, Wizards should consider Halo of Karini if it's absent from the build; this is a powerful damage reduction item that incentivizes you to use Storm Armor and maintain a pull for procs at all times, synergizing well with the killstreak theme. Another strong option is Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer to significantly boost the strength of your shielding abilities. These help shore up Wizard fragility, especially in high-tier content.
• For additional options that balance between defense and offense, the class-specific offhand Orb of Infinite Depth offers a balanced boost of damage and defense for the reasonable requirement of Explosive Blast inclusion. Helpful cross-class jewelry includes Unity (combined with the same ring on the follower plus a follower immortality token), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose).
• Situational items that can bolster your defenses include Stone Gauntlets, the drawbacks of which are negated via CC-immunity effects like Ice Climbers, or the Altar of Rites CC-immunity node.A good number of Wizard builds can also afford the inclusion of an Aquila Cuirass (for low AP-spenders) or a Mantle of Channeling (for channelers).
• Utility items like Nemesis Bracers are essential as more elites mean more killstreak maintenance and faster progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of Strongarm Bracers (extra damage vs. displaced enemies), Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), and an Aether Walker if you can spare the weapon slot for ultimate mobility. To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill tool like Teleport and an enemy-pulling tool like Black Hole. Take a look if you can include passives like Illusionist (for easy mobility resets) or Unstable Anomaly (for a cheat-death).

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.