Squishy Wizard using Firebirds + MI

Wizard
1

Just got back to D3 after years and trying out the Wizard for Season 23 for a week.

At Paragon 672, I feel so squishy having to teleport in and out trash mobs and elites in Solo GR.
I seem to get 2-3 shot at GRift 80+ and need to play extremely cautious without overcommitting on holding on Disintegrate for a long time in the middle of huge packs.

I’m already rocking the Firebirds set but yet to have farm full ancient/primal gear yet. I’ve seen some Firebird+MI builds where Wiz can tank for a decent amount of time with Disintegrate to proc the Magic Weapon Deflection and with Galvanizing Ward but I still get melted on my current build.

  • Using Firebirds, Captain Crimson Set (w/ RRG) + Ashnagarr’s Bracers & Orb of Infinite Death
  • Can’t seem to roll any decent (or Ancient) Deathwish on GR or Bloodshards, on Kanai Cube only
  • Gems are Bane of the Powerful and Taeguk
  • Int @ 9.6k | Vit @ 5.0k | HP @ 632k |
  • Base Damage @ 1.1M | Base Toughness @ 23M | Resists @ 1500+ | Armor @ 6.5k
  • Latest Solo run w/o death was GR89 @ 10 mins time

Should I continue praying to the RNG gods for Ancient/Primal Gear on GRs for better stats?
Is it better to run Aughild’s 2 piece for now? With such a low HP for GR, should I pour all Paragon stats to Vit instead? I’m lacking both Armor and HP - to what amount should I aim to reach for higher GRs? What gear or stats do I need to look out for on higher GR levels?

Sorry had to post my profile. Can’t seem to import my character on Maxroll planner.
Thanks heaps.

2

There is a proper build for this on Maxroll.gg Give it a whirl. The mechanics of the Firebird set are clearly explained.

3

You have some way to go in gearing up still. Some of the guides on maxroll and youtube may have the build with magic weapon deflection and Squirts. If you check the leaderboards on season (view hero details with right click on the characters) you’ll most likely see the variation with Frost Nova Bone Chill and then you can use templar for healing (if needed). If you wanna roll intelligence gear to strength for the templar you’ll need to make a level 1 barb or crusader.

4

Trying to find a generic FireBird + MirroImage topic, but this topic should be the closest to my question…
Mirror Images cast Slow Time, and it seems like the bubble overlays - will the buff increase?
Just tried Time Warp rune but not quite sure if it does…
If it does, then I guess Exhaustion rune might help on the defense, since enemies also get slowed…

5

Slow time is mentioned in this thread. It may not cover all your questions.

1 Like
6

Thanks!
Still not sure if a buff of the bubble stacks, but doubtful enough. =D

7

The top-tier builds on maxroll or icy-veins assume you’re at least p1000+, if not p1400+, and have the points to really boost your INT and VIT via paragon alone. At your level, yes, you’re going to have a hard time staying alive playing that exact same spec.

Instead, sacrifice some damage and focus more on defense for now. Personally, I was able to get to GR103 without using either the Crimson or Aughild sets by maxing my life and shields. I made sure to focus on VIT and +% life, together with a high roll on Ashnagarr’s and fast attack speed. With that, I could camp in the middle of a mob in GR95-100 and my shields would hardly ever drop (and when they did, it was mostly due to ground effects).

It’s okay to deviate from the recommended spec / stats at this point in your game. Later, when you’re at a higher paragon level, you’ll end up replacing most of your gear anyway and can focus on the recommended stats then. For now, focus on staying alive. You’ll want to finish bounties and rifts as quickly as possible, and dying really slows you down.

I should also mention that I wasn’t using the MI build or Deathwish at the time. Previously I mentioned what I was doing for defense. For damage I was using Zei, BoT, and either BoP/BoS gems; Focus/Restraint and a socketed amulet; my best 1H weapon (doesn’t matter what it was), ball of hate off-hand and Delsire belt; with Fragment of Destiny, Velvet Caramel, and Unity (for solo play) in the cube. The rest were Firebird pieces. Skill rotation was to briefly hit with Disintegrate / Chaos Nexus for about 0.5 seconds then spam Electrocute / Forked Lightning for 1.5 seconds and repeat, teleporting (Safe Passage) around the battlefield every 3 seconds for positioning and even more damage reduction. For passives I made sure to use Temporal Flux and Galvanizing Ward + Magic Weapon / Deflection and Engergy Shield / Prismatic Armor.

The key was that my Electrocute was attacking so fast and wide as to both do a lot of damage and maintain my shields and resource. At the lower levels (< p1000, GR120), that build will serve you well for everything you do in this game: bounties, rifts, killing mobs, and killing elites.

Anyway, that’s just how I did it.

1 Like
8

A trend I see is the lack of CoolDownReduction and ResourceCostReduction on the build, which Firebirds heavily rely on. Aim to have 62%+ (ideally 67%) CDR and 32%+ (ideally 40%) RCR.

I recommend cubing the Ring of Royal Grandeur and instead equip Compass Rose w/ Traveler’s Pledge instead of Squirt’s Necklace to avoid the damage penalty. Obsidian Ring of Zodiac is largely unnecessary because the build relies on a high CDR to pump Captain Crimson’s set and to spam Explosive Blast.

Speaking of Explosive Blast, a terrible Deathwish will still be better than Wand of Woh. Explosive Blast doesn’t deal damage – but it does proc the 6 pc Firebird Set which does. Unfortunately, Wand of Woh’s proc’d Explosive Blasts in turn cannot proc this effect making it useless.

The build is missing Mantle of Channeling, which should replace Hergbrash’s Binding. Even with low 32% RCR, 4 Arcane Power on Crit on the off hand and just smart use of Mirror Images when in large groups will handle all arcane power issues. Hergbrash’s Binding is allowing you to channel Disintegrate to your heart’s content, but Disintegrate doesn’t do damage – 6piece Firebird Set does and you don’t have the Mantle to fully take advantage of it.

Passives – missing Evocation, a huge bonus to CDR (it’s probably why you’re missing damage as you don’t have enough CDR). Elemental Exposure is not as useful unless you can get a third element in, which is usually from the weapon. In your case your weapon is Fire, which is already covered by Explosive Blast. This last passive slot can be flexible. For more damage reduction you can maintain Blur. If you’re speed running and running out of arcane power from Explosive Blast and Disintegrate spam, use Astral Presence. For more shields you can use Dominance.

1 Like
9

Make sure you maintain your stacks (all of them) as they all help with damage mitigation in pieces.

As for packs, you can port in, drop your clones, and port out and leave the clones to kill for you while you channel from the edges of the group.

10

You don’t need 50 stacks for the 80% damage reduction.

1 Like
11

I never said FULL stacks.

12

Someone might think ‘all’ and ‘full’ could mean the same.

13

Someone might also think that night and knight mean the same. I’m not responsible for other people’s lack of understanding.

14

You are if something isn’t a double meaning. Something requires you to comprehend the entire message to understand the word, that’s fine, but when you make something that is incredibly unclear and the sentence itself doesn’t give you pause, it is in fact your fault.

15

Well then you should be able to replace the word “all” with the word “full” and still have the sentence make sense. But you can’t, so the premise is null.

16

Just because you can’t directly switch one word with another without changing other words it doesn’t mean that they’re not synonyms.

Longman Synonym Dictionary, third impression 1987, page 40: all, adj. 1. entire, whole, total… complete, full; every, each, each and every…

If you want to book a seat on a flight and they’re all taken, you might hear the attendant say; sorry we’re full. All seats are taken.

17

First of all … Wich Stacks do you mean ?

From your Class-Set ?
From your Taeguk ?
From EW-Set ?

For your Class-Set, it is enough to have even 1 Stack, wich is a given, because we use Desintegration nontheless all the Time.
Or do you mean the EW-Set ?
We hardly move by running around (maybe to collect some Globes), but teleport.
So we only get the DPS out of it.
And our Taeguk … The Armor is a nice Sideeffekt, but mostly we have him only for the DPS

In the End, there is only one you have to be aware of.
And that is your Orb of Infinite Depth
And besides Bosses or in Group, this one should also always be automaticly be up all the Time.

1 Like