Respectfully, I disagree with your entire post. While Firebird’s isn’t perfect, I would prefer any more buffs to made to items, not the set itself. For example, Slorak’s could buff disintegrate by 500%, or a “Fire” legendary gem.
I recorded some GR115’s using electrocute and MM, in case anyone wants to see some alternatives to SB and MI.
2.7.0 MM Firebirds GR115 - YouTube
2.7.0 Electrocute Firebirds GR115 - YouTube
MM has better single target, but electrocute clears trash quicker.
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I’ll definitely be trying out the electrocute version, thanks for posting.
Doesn’t look terribly strong, but soly for the aesthetics I’ll give it a whirl. Thanks for putting it up.
While I do agree that several items need a serious update, I don’t think they will provide us with Channeling skill items. Given how they redesigned both Etched Sigil and Firebirds… and they made sure we can’t use Arcane Torrent with the set to proc ignite. It’s pretty obvious they hate the idea of wizards channeling skills being the main damage dealer.
Back to Firebirds, though… let me tell you why I truly detest this MI crap:
The damage is there and the toughness is fine. Anyhow, I have a serious issue with relying on Mirror Images. I want to see a fix for the ultra stupid AI of the Images first and foremost. It’s unbelievable how idiotic this design is. Especially against Teleporting RGs it becomes seriously annoying. I got to a 125 RG at around 10 minutes (130+ gems, avarage to good item but only four had 120ish augments, that shouldn’t matter too much). I still failed that rift because I had absolutely no way of dealing any damage to the RG. Every single time I summoned MI the RG instantly ported away and the images were too dumb to track it down and as a player you have no means to make them attack. This has to change, it’s frustrating and simply bad design. They need to fix the moronic AI and make them more aggressive. For example, if they don’t have a target, they should switch to your target. Easy peasy. That alone would help a lot. Right now they are just way too dumb. That’s why I really hate this build.
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Just tried the firebird set dungeon for the fun of it, and I have to say that the set dungeon became even easier to do now than it was before (I’d say that it’s easier and faster than both Tal-Rasha and Vyr). Disintegrate alone is enough to kill your enemies, so the only thing you may have to work for is getting the revival meteor to hit enough enemies, and even this shouldn’t take too much work as long as you aim the meteor at a spot where there’s a lot of enemies.
This is 100% what i’m most dissappointed bout. I miss the old spectral blades build when tal rasha was the bee’s knees. I was hoping to see a variant of this build where the old “simplicity strength” battle mage teleporting ninja would come back. It is kinda back, but disentegrate being the “central” part of the build completely breaks the fun of just ninja blading everywhere.
I really wanted the DD/Simplicty Str version to come out somewhere… but no top wizards even have indicated that it was an option and I don’t understand wiz mechanics enough to know if its good.
The mirror image build looks like a real pita to play. you could get lucky and ai kills everything quick and get screwed with some weird teleporting RG that completely turns a good run into frustrating RNG.
I am so disappointed that the FB set didn’t get changed to just buff fire skills in general. I’ve been dying to play a wand of woh/SB/teleport ninja build and it just always seems a little out of reach with every redesign of this cursed set.
Well, yes. Mirror Images dealing all the set damage is retarded. If they hadn’t have worked, the set perhaps could have been left at a 7500% DoT.
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Am I reading all of this correctly? The current MI behavior is intentional? I’ve been operating under the assumption that it was bugged.
You mean that the Images are as dumb as a doornail? Yup, pretty much working as intended, if we take into account that they are designed to be decoys and meant to distract enemies from you. The problem with that is… nobody uses them for that reason. From a defensive point of view there are way better options to use your skill slots.
Or do you ask whether it is intended that Mirror Image attacks can proc Firebird? Seems so, at least. The devs pretty much gave their stamp of approval, seeing that they nerfed the FB set on PTR to exclude Arcane Torrent from the set buff. If they really don’t want us to work with Mirror Images, they could have taken care of that with the final patch iteration when they buffed the set a little.
This one. The AI is so unreliable. Not attacking, running off to chase squirrels, following the attacker when you TP instead of attacking the target that is hitting them, etc. Wiz is already a higher-maintenance class. FB:MI variant is too frustrating to be enjoyable for me.
Yeah, as Venaliter nailed it… in case of Mirror Images AI means Absolute Incompetence.
So I take it as the insane amount of lag caused by firebird is also “working as intended” along with vyr archon teleport rubber banding as well…
This season really is nothing but a joke…
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Have seen the suggestion somewhere on forums and decided to switch away from Flaming Blades to Magic Missile:Conflagrate for that reason. Not perfect, obviously, but at the very least MIs don’t have to run up to their targets, they can start shooting straight away. Sometimes they are still running around like headless chicken instead of attacking, but hey.
That, and MM:Conflagrate also pierces. Makes wonders in corridors.
A word of warning however: if you will decide to go that way, don’t bother to equip / cube the Mirrorball source. MIs don’t receive extra 2 MMs from it, only your char does. Then again, it would be a complete overkill if they would 
.