Firebird Wizard

[Deadset 108]

On 8/3/2016 at 7:08 PM, LasseVK said:

The firebird item is unnecessary as the other 6 firebird armor pieces gives the 6 pc set bonus, and Chantodo's Force is needed, so the initial list in the guide should remove the "source" item.

Correct! It was a leftover from a previous version of the Firebird build, and will be fixed asap.

On 8/4/2016 at 8:52 PM, Guest Mighty mitch said:

Tryed a different variation of the build which i think worked better for me , as the problem i found running this build is the loss of furnace in cube hurts bad with rg , switching explosive blast for familiar sparkflint mixed with magic missile ignite allows archon to be run on teleport rune and still ignite elites arcane torrent static discharge for faster chantoodo stacks and archin reset plus leaving furnace cubed :) let me know what you think

You can definitely run your fire skills outside of Archon form! ...But I hated it when I tried it. It means you have to start a fight in your vulnerable normal form, pre-Ignite everything you want killed, pop your Archon to kill it, and rinse and repeat for every fight. I found trading Teleport's utility for the convenience of Combustion's ease of Ignition preferable. But yes, your version works too :)

[Guest Necrofelic]

i have a question , what does my cooldown reduction need 2 be ? at the moment its at 44.31 %

[Guest mish]

On 14/08/2016 at 11:57 PM, Guest Necrofelic said:

i have a question , what does my cooldown reduction need 2 be ? at the moment its at 44.31 %

anyone?

[Deadset 108]

On 8/15/2016 at 1:57 AM, Guest Necrofelic said:

i have a question , what does my cooldown reduction need 2 be ? at the moment its at 44.31 %

Heya - I'd recommend you reach at least 50 CDR, ideally 55 before any Gogok stacks. It'll be hard, but it will smooth out the performance of the build a lot.

[Guest SDGundamX]

I don't understand the purpose of unstable anomaly in this build.  The firebird set already gives you your cheat death ability for free, so surely unstable anomaly is a wasted passive.  Literally anything else would be a better choice!

[Valks 2,373]

4 hours ago, Guest SDGundamX said:

I don't understand the purpose of unstable anomaly in this build.  The firebird set already gives you your cheat death ability for free, so surely unstable anomaly is a wasted passive.  Literally anything else would be a better choice!

When you start pushing those higher grifts, the passive could in theory stop you dying 10+ times in 1 rift, even after your Firebird procs. It is DEFINITELY worth having.

[Deadset 108]

To add to Blainie's comment; yes, you can swap the cheat death, but I would only agree to it in runs with low death expectancy (i.e. running mid tier GRs for Caldesann gems where you know you can stomp the content). The build is extremely squishy and frequently juggles its two cheat death procs when pushing (one is usually on cooldown).

[Guest Xiaoman]

I am a console player, and the cubed Swami hat does not seem like a good choice. Reason being:

1. Main damage of Firebird Archon comes from Archon form, while Swami-maintained archon stack can only provide a few seconds (maybe 4~5 seconds) overlap with the new Archon stack. This means the damage bonus is not significant.

2. Archon stacks without Vyr's 4-set only increase damage, in the 20-sec window of normal form Archon stack does not help us survive.

From the ladder it seems almost all top Firebirds are using Swami though. Is it because in high-end gear the overlap of archon stacks from two sources could be 10 seconds, due to high cooldown rolls in gear along with the good ring of zodiac resets?

 

[Valks 2,373]

On 9/28/2016 at 8:52 PM, Guest Xiaoman said:

From the ladder it seems almost all top Firebirds are using Swami though. Is it because in high-end gear the overlap of archon stacks from two sources could be 10 seconds, due to high cooldown rolls in gear along with the good ring of zodiac resets?

I believe so, yes. Once you get those perfect CDR rolls, you should be much more comfortable using Swami.

[Guest Kiranos]

Hi, thanks for this guide !

I would like to say that you could play with Magic Weapon / Ignite and Arcane Torrent / Flame ward.

You have some extra damage as you could ignite mob while in Archon AND out of archon. You will still proc the zodiac ring at the same rate. So if you feel already safe you could easily switch.

But past GR70 I found that this build has some limitation, and I had to switch to The Furnace and Aquila Cuirass in the cube.

 

Anyway, really fun build though.

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/17/2016 at 5:42 PM, Guest Kiranos said:

I would like to say that you could play with Magic Weapon / Ignite and Arcane Torrent / Flame ward.

Aren't you able to get the base damage from Spectral Blades anyway though? It seems slightly overkill to push for MW/AT too. Also, what would you replace with AT?

[Guest Mike]

On 24/1/2015 at 1:54 PM, Archimage said:

Have you considered using Gogok of Swiftness instead of Bane of the Powerful? Attack speed+ cdr + dodge would be great for anything with a lot of HP like in GR80+, i just don't know if attack speed increases Bane of the Stricken stacking speed

 

[Deadset 108]

On 10/17/2016 at 7:42 PM, Guest Kiranos said:

I would like to say that you could play with Magic Weapon / Ignite and Arcane Torrent / Flame ward.

Indeed you can! We had a comment on that variation until recently, but the mainstream version with Blades has become so dominant that it felt redundant and potentially confusing to readers.

2 hours ago, Guest Mike said:

 

Gogok is an option in Powerful's place, and was included in the guide until recently; due to the elite-hunting nature of the build however, BotP has proven more dominant which necessitated the revision of the build. If you feel more comfortable using Gogok however, you can definitely work with it.

[Guest Leydra]

I tried this build out and im dissapointed. It feels impossible to survive out of archon form. I played fireflash before and was stuck on GR 60. With this buildi cant even survive GR 50. Out of archon mobs onehit me. Im confused whats wrong

[Guest Eredrin]

I've switched to this build from seasonal Vyr's set and the elite damage of it is really off the rain even without Furnace. The biggest issue that I'm having with this build, though, is what to do with the 'idle' time, as even with the biggest CDR you're getting about 20s between each two archon casts when you have max Chantodo stacks already, but archon is still on cooldown - time when you can't ignite anything . I ended up using arcane torrent and zodiac for now, but I do see the downsides.  Also not sure if it's normal, but it feels a lot more squishy than most builds I've tried, and unity became mandatory for me as early as GR45... Ofc, probably Aquila would help with that.

[Valks 2,373]

12 hours ago, Guest Leydra said:

I tried this build out and im dissapointed. It feels impossible to survive out of archon form. I played fireflash before and was stuck on GR 60. With this buildi cant even survive GR 50. Out of archon mobs onehit me. Im confused whats wrong

When you're out of Archon form, maintain the Endless Walk damage reduction bonus, stack mobs when you can for Parthan buff, Aquila should take care of the rest.

[Valks 2,373]

10 hours ago, Guest Eredrin said:

I've switched to this build from seasonal Vyr's set and the elite damage of it is really off the rain even without Furnace. The biggest issue that I'm having with this build, though, is what to do with the 'idle' time, as even with the biggest CDR you're getting about 20s between each two archon casts when you have max Chantodo stacks already, but archon is still on cooldown - time when you can't ignite anything . I ended up using arcane torrent and zodiac for now, but I do see the downsides.  Also not sure if it's normal, but it feels a lot more squishy than most builds I've tried, and unity became mandatory for me as early as GR45... Ofc, probably Aquila would help with that.

Outside of Archon, you basically are just looking to stack mobs and stay alive until you can pop it again. Aquila is definitely going to help, it's a huge, permanent defensive bonus to a class that can take a lot of damage.

[Deadset 108]

I can definitely understand survivability feeling awkward and lacking at first. Missing Aquila is a huge culprit, but adjusting yourself to Ancient Parthan Defenders + Halo of Arlyse-based Toughness is always a hurdle at the beginning. Give it time, and you'll definitely improve (and see why the build tops the soloing charts).

[Guest Eredrin]

Quote

When you're out of Archon form, maintain the Endless Walk damage reduction bonus, stack mobs when you can for Parthan buff, Aquila should take care of the rest.

For me, endless walk in this set and this guide is a little bit of an utopia. Without unity, I'm yet to meet any mob that needs more than one shot to kill me in GR45+, even with endless walk+halo+parthan on.

[Guest Eredrin]

Oh and one more thing - You mentioned above that gogok can be considered in place of powerful. How about in place of stricken? Elite damage of firebird is amazing all by itself...

[Deadset 108]

Well, you don't have to take my word for the Endless Walk set - the bunch of GR 100+ clearing Wizards with the same build and setup reinforce the recommendations however :)

Bane of the Stricken becomes a factor when you start pushing against the upper limits of the build and your own gear, and Guardians start to be a major nuisance. You are correct that the build is oriented at hunting down elites, and as long as you burst them down reliably Bane of the Powerful will be a great benefit. If I was aiming to keep Gogok in my build, I would probably stay at Trapped - Powerful - Gogok until GR70-ish, and switch to Trapped - Stricken - Gogok past that point.

[Guest oh hi]

Your guide lists 2 things I found confusing...

Firebird's Pinions to you have stat pref as 2. Vitality (range is 416-500) and 3. Cooldown (5-8%).

Yet on the Chantodo's Force you have Cooldown (5-8%) as #3 and Vitality (range is 626-750) not listed.

Is there a reason for this? I don't have the ancient for either item.

[Deadset 108]

6 hours ago, Guest oh hi said:

Is there a reason for this? I don't have the ancient for either item.

Hey! While weapons have some of the highest possible Vitality rolls in the game, the extra toughness should not be necessary and other, more important stats should be prioritized. The high damage range and the socket are non-negotiable as they directly translate into your damage potential.  Cooldown Reduction is one of the most important stats for this build, as it helps you get back into Archon form faster (and by the way, it rolls up to 10% on the weapon).

Theoretically, you could replace the Life per Hit recommendation with Vitality, but then you completely deprive yourself of life sustain.

[Guest oh hi]

Ok cool!  When I preview the Cooldown Reduction at the Enchanting lady she says it is only 5-8% for both items. So the main confusion for me is why not swap the priority on the two items to maximize both stats. That *would've been* the same cooldown, but added vitality -- just on different items. This is on PS4 if makes a differences.

I digress, I totally agree with Cooldown been huge though. I love reducing cooldowns! Mine is at about 50% and I'm actually using a variation of the build for more cooldown. :)

I'm relatively new. But I'm loving a variation I made from this build (somewhat out of necessity to start) that lets me keep spending arcane power and doing damage during downtime. It's probably not as good at higher levels but I'm finishing GR55 with 4 minutes to spare and loving it. :)

*** Got quite long here, the rest is just what I've been playing and loving so stop now if you're not interested ***

For anyone interested it's a lot of the same stuff, just a few swaps based on what I had and then different skills -- it could probably be optimized, but it's more that it's a lot fun for me and maybe for you:

Same

• Firebird x6
• Chantodo x2
• Endless Walk x2
• Fazula Belt
• Ancient Parthan Defenders
• Gems

Different

• Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
• Powers: Etched Sigil , Crown of the Primus , Unity (unity gives the same bonus as Aquila's, but allows for Arcane power use)

Then the skill set up goes:

• Slow time - any rune
• Disintegrate - convergence
• Blizzard - apocalypse
• Force weapon - ignite (just the different rune)

Play-style goes something like:

1. Get my 20 hits in quick.
2. Archon.
3. Slow time.
4. Pew pew pew.
5. Slow time.
6. Teleport.
7. Slow time.
8. Pew pew pew.
9. Archon.
10. Repeat.

The fun part for me is using slow time really allows to group enemies (especially with a good Templar build from the guide on this site), and then attack with only Disintegrate -- it procs the firebird armor Ignite on its own (thanks to Etched and Force Weapon - ignite) without using much Arcane power. Being able to only worry about one attack skill simplifies the attack and makes dancing around defensively a good challenge, and not too much of one (slow time helps of course). Grouping the enemies with slow time allows for massive damage even in this non-archon form. I often leave the 1-3 stragglers behind.

Killing all those enemies while reducing the cooldown of slowtime/teleport/archon all together. I'm never waiting long and it's always challenging and engaging... my next archon is usually up before I realize it. I do get to zero life a lot, so the double self-res on this build is helpful, but there's enough mobility, crowd control, and archon availability to keep that just enough to be engaging (for me).

At a high level, it's something like kill a ton with Archon, kill about 15-20 over the next 30 seconds, realize I'm starting to die and pop Archon again.

I really want to try this out with The Swami, if I can get one, because Archon comes so quickly.

Anyway, hope someone else might enjoy this variation. Great work Deadset, starting from your build helped me get a TON more out of this game when I would've just stopped playing if I hadn't had it to build towards/from. Thank you!

 

PS. Sometimes both Unstable Anomaly and Firebird Revive occur together instead of offset. I might just be dying twice quickly, but it didn't seem like it.

PPS. Someone else posted about not having the "can't die" item for their follower -- I got it real quick from the Cube's upgrade rare into legendary feature, it doesn't seem like there are too many options there.

[Guest]

I just started my sorc (after playing the Mulitishot DH for a while), and - like with the DH - I appreciate your guide very much.

Why do u take "arcane power on crit" on the source?
Why not Vitality? There are no skills that require arcane power (except armor + weapon, both last 10 minutes -> this arcane power is back in a few seconds)
What am I missing?

And a second question: I found an ancient weapon (lucky me, first day^^)
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/WedgeAntille-2948/hero/8130452
Sockel is from Ramaladni.
Not changed any stats yet - what do u suggest? Looking for a higher damage range?

Thx a lot!