I’m using the standard Firebird build from Icy Veins. I’ve completed the season journey. When I play Torment X, I get oneshotted often, despite the high damage reduction of the set bonus. Kill speed is not yet an issue.
So far, I haven’t seen a single Ancient item drop. All my gear is either set or Legendary. I got high level gems slotted. I got bonuses active in Kanai’s Cube.
How can I keep upgrading my gear to reach those higher Torments?
Thanks in advance!
Okay, first of all, here’s a big tip: dump Icy Veins. Go for Maxroll who is actually maintained by the current top players of Diablo III.
There’s a lot to digest on their site but it’ll do you a lot more good than the build you’re currently running. Some interesting choices in the cube there!
Link to OP’s profile:
Thanks. I’ve never heard of that site.
In a more general sense: what should I farm\look for to progress? Is it normal I haven’t seen a single Ancient yet?
Maybe look for a good, upgraded seasonal shard for your weapon to replace the emerald. Easiest way to get all the shards is to farm the Darkening of Tristram event as high as you can. Just do Butcher and Skeleton King then rinse and repeat.
If you want some immediate damage reduction, look for Ashnagar’s Blood Bracers and either of the Halo of Arlyse/Karini rings. (Carefully read their descriptions as people sometimes get them mixed up.) If you’re going to farm nephalem rifts, look for a Goldwrap belt so that the $$ gives you a ton of armor.
181 paragon… unlucky but not incredibly unlucky. You’re still very early in your journey. I’m sure they’ll come.
Ok, thanks! I didn’t realise that Paragon levels mattered for drop rates. Already learned a lot!
Oh no, it doesn’t. It’s just that 181 Paragon says to me you haven’t been playing for very long. Getting ancients is just a matter of playing the game for long enough to get what you’re after.
1 in 10 legendaries are ancient, so the more legendaries you earn, the more ancients you’ll get.
https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/firebird-explosive-blast-wizard-guide
Zurtle posted the build for flame blades, above the link is to the explosive blast build.
Immediate upgrades as you play would be mage fist instead of frostburn, like mentioned Asnagar’s bracers firedamage bonus is very important, other advice is to make sure your off hand has APoC which gives arcane power when you crit.
Crit hit chance has to be high for that reason.
Try to get your training on how the set works and even now you can try to do higher difficulty. Test T13 for starters. Read up first though, a lot of good advice in those links.
Best of luck and have fun.
You can play Firebird’s with some crafted sets (Aughild’s and Captain Crimson’s). That’s how the maxroll guide has it set up. You’ll need a Ring of Royal Grandeur, but once you have that you could craft those pieces.
If you do a few sets of bounties, you’ll have a decent shot at being able to craft some ancient Aughild’s/Crimson’s pieces. Early on, if your build has crafted pieces crafting can be an easy way to get going with a couple ancients instead of waiting for ancients to drop. This works well for Firebird’s because there’s a standard setup that uses 4 pieces of crafted gear (Crimson’s belt + pants/boots, Aughild’s bracers + shoulders/chest/helm).
You should also consider running regular rifts to get keys and then run GRs at the highest you can stand dying on, preferably fewer than 3 times (or if HC, not at all so run at lower) to get “guaranteed” drops but at least blood shards to spend at Kadala.
Fast bounties to get stuff for the Upgrade recipe is another way.
But, basically, you need to just maximize the drop rate so you get more legendary items to roll… eventually, you’ll get ancients and then better ancients.
Until you’re able to take hits from enemies, it’s safer to use Electrocute-ForkedLightning instead of Spectral Flame Blades. Keep your distance and two-shot things anyway.
look at my profile “Taetew” softcore wizard. i believe I used the same icy veins build and i can littlerly stand in the middle of fire/poison/explosions and beams while 4 giant hulks are smashing me on t16 and i dont even go half life. I can zoom thru gr100 fairly easy but gr103 is rought since I dont do enough damage. Notice in the cube the Orb in weapon slot (that boosted my defense by a crazy amount) prior to that I was using another item (weapon) for damage but I was getting “10 shotted” aka 1 one shots at once dying, not i can take 10,000shot and still stand there without dying.
disregard nems in armor cube, i think i was running people thru level 70 rush and couldnt use my follower. Also, i have a rank 3 gem in both weapon/helm slot and RoRG in my jewelry slot. My build is slightly different than the icy veins.
also, i never actually walk at all. I just hold 3 down (the beam) to build 50 stacks and insta teleport unlimited around. I think my hardcore crusader is only slightly faster at traveling a map as he has the unlimited pony trick with a rank3 gem that somehow rolled each time i go faster than normal speed gain a stack of speed and knock mobs into the air and gain more speed. its very funny watching me paladin outrun everything…zoom zoom
Thanks! This is all great advice. I’ve adjusted my gear and Torment X seems to go very smoothly now. I’ll continue advancing.
Still no Ancients, though. And I’ve crafted quite a bunch.
If ya ever want a hand (unless your a pure solo player), I’d be happy to run some Neph’s/Greaters with ya sometime.
Also playing a Wizard this season (Typhon’s)
Just want to add again I’ve made tremendous (Well, in my mind, at least)
progress thanks to the advice given here. Especially about using Max Rolls.