After some fun with with DH, I am back to playing wizard. Trying out the 2 best wizard builds currently (as par Rhykker’s guide). Still relatively youngish, 215 paragon levels at the moment and wondering what is the most effective order of upgrading legendary gems. Currently playing the LoD Hydra build, but after I get it to say GR100 level, I want to try out the Vyr Archon.
So what would be your recommendation for leveling order of legendary gems? I have my LoD gem at level 45 now and Taeguk/Enforcer both 0.
As mentioned, please share your thoughts on leveling order for Vyr Archon as well (Trapped, Stricken, Swiftness).
I’d get your other gems to 25, then focus on LoD until you get it to 99. Or at least as high as you can before the rifts start to really slow down. LoD is basically your set bonus, so you want to get it up to the 70-99 range as fast as you can. After you get your LoD up fairly high, then work up your Enforcer next.
I don’t think I’d recommend Taeguk for you here though. That’s more of a push gem. For speeds with hydra, I’d go Trapped instead. During speed runs you move too much so you won’t always have Taeguk up. Trapped works better for speeds because you have the damage bonus from it active more often.
Also if you are planning to transition to Vyr’s, it makes more sense to run Trapped instead of Taeguk with your hydra setup, since you’ll want the Trapped for Vyr’s too. Then it does double duty. If you do Taeguk for hydra, you need to level a Trapped later too. Might as well skip that step and just level the Trapped right away and use it for hydras too. The difference between Taeguk and Trapped for hydras isn’t huge, and as I said I think Trapped is better for hydra speed runs anyway, since you don’t have to wait for it to stack up while channeling.
Everything to 25. After that,:
-Trapped first: it’s more important than Stricken for lower GRs while you’re working your gems up
-then Stricken: it doesn’t really start to shine until your pushing your limits, so Trapped is more important while you are working your gems up
-then Gogok of Swiftness: get it to 25 ASAP for the CDR, after that it’s just a bit of dodge, which, while nice, is less important than the damage from the other gems. So work it up eventually, but do it last.
Vyr is slightly stronger I believe at this point. Also hydra is not the most optimal build for speeds. You can still do them with some alterations to conventional hydra setups but vyr is so much better for speeds. On the downside of vyrs you really need to focus on cooldown and it is harder to play. Not only mechanically but it takes a toll on your fingers after constant button smashing. Or I am the only one who has this problem? Lol. Seriously though hydra is almost brainless to play, one of the easiest builds in the entire game, super tanky and strong at the same time. After all it all comes down to what you enjoy more. In most cases, the gems that you should get as high as possible for wizard are lod, bane of trapped, bane of stricken, taeguk, enforcer, gogok, pain enhancer, bane of powerful. Do that and you can swap between them as you also swap between defferent builds and see what is better for you
LoD Hydra will probably win out slightly for low paragon pushes. It’s at least comparable anyway. Vyr’s is only the clear winner in non-season at like 10k paragon when people can drop Karini and do the dual-element build with Endless Walk + Squirt’s + CoE. That gives another 2x damage mod in place of Karini. That build isn’t generally viable at lower paragon in seasons though, so in seasons LoD and Vyr’s are much closer together.