Firebird Explosive Blast Wizard Guide

1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!

2. Gather the full Firebird's Finery set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

1. The full Firebird's Finery set
2. Etched Sigil and Orb of Infinite Depth
3. Ranslor's Folly and Nemesis Bracers
4. Goldwrap
5. Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Rechel's Ring of Larceny
6. The Compass Rose, Convention of Elements, Focus & Restraint for other variants

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

1. Create a level 1 Demon Hunter and upgrade Swords to get In-Geom
2. Create a level 1 Witch Doctor and upgrade Maces to get Echoing Fury
3. Rings to get Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Rechel's Ring of Larceny
4. Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.

5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:

• Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
• Act 2: Gloves of Worship
• Act 3: Avarice Band
• Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
• Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Aughild's Authority, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny
  
  

6. There is one final required piece that is difficult to acquire, The Traveler's Pledge. With amulets being so expensive to gamble and craft, we'll have to search for it to drop in Nephalem and Greater Rifts. The biggest hint is to party up with other players and kindly ask them to drop any duplicates they find.

7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:

• Deathwish
• Convention of Elements
• Squirt's Necklace

• Bane of the Trapped (BotT) grants us a global separate 1.6 damage multiplier. It requires us to stand within 15 yards of our enemies to apply its effect, which is the same range we require for Audacity. On the Rift Guardian our Follower will continuously reapply a slow.
• Taeguk grants us up to 80% additive damage when we channel, which perfectly complements our playstyle.
• Zei's Stone of Vengeance replaces Taeguk in groups as zBarb and zDH grant us a massive amount of additive damage, reducing Taeguk benefits.
• Bane of the Stricken helps us kill the Rift Guardian. As long as you don't need more than 2 minutes to kill it you can equip Bane of the Powerful instead.
• For Nephalem Rifts, Boon of the Hoarder is always included due to its amazing synergy with Avarice Band and Goldwrap.

• Disintegrate is the cornerstone of the reworked Firebird's Finery set. Hitting monsters with this skill applies Ignite on top of building Combustion stacks to reduce our Teleport Cooldown and buff our (6) Bonus Ignite procs.
• Explosive Blast Chain Reaction is our main source of damage. It is a great way to generate numerous hits to proc the Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus Ignite as it has no cast animation and won't interfere with our overall gameplay.
• Spectral Blade Flame Blades is there in some variants with Bastions of Will for up to 30% Fire Elemental Damage or stacking Bane of the Stricken on Rift Guardians.
• Teleport with either Wormhole or Safe Passage is our mobility skill whose Cooldown is reduced to the minimum 0.5 second mark due to the Firebird's Finery (4) Bonus.
• Magic Weapon Deflection is used in some setups to generate Shields on every cast to keep us alive and protect our Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier.
• Familiar Sparkflint can be used to generate around 10% more Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus Ignite procs.
• Frost Nova Bone Chill is used to generate damage burst with a lot of additive damage.

• Galvanizing Ward is used in order to protect our HP pool and Squirt's Necklace 100% separate damage multiplier in the process.
• Elemental Exposure is a separate and global multiplier debuffing each target once for each element (Fire, Cold, Arcane, Lighting) for up to 5 seconds when you hit it with said target. The elemental type of the damage range on your equipped weapon will also be applied with each ability that you hit with.
• Audacity provides us with a separate 1.3 multiplier if our target is within 15 yards. Power Hungry is used in some group push variants for its synergy with Zei's Stone of Vengeance.
• Evocation grants us 20% Cooldown Reduction to help with Explosive Blast casts while also providing us a decent damage boost due to Captain Crimson's Trimmings (3) Bonus.
• Other options can include:
  • Conflagration to apply a nice 6% Critical Hit Chance debuff on monsters.
  • Dominance in speed content to help with shield sustain.
  • Unwavering Will for a toughness boost and 10% additive damage when standing still.
  • Unstable Anomaly for another cheat death mechanic on top of the (2) Bonus.
  • Blur for some decent flat mitigation.

¹ Aim for a decent HP pool (~1,000,000 Life in Solo Push) as our Shields (Galvanizing Ward and Deflection) scale with it.
² Avoid any source of Area Damage as this build doesn't scale with it and it can lag the game.

The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!

Optimal Path

Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:

1. The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
2. Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
3. Guardian's Jeopardy (3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
4. Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
5. Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
6. Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
7. Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.

Select Follower

The general playstyle for pushing Greater Rifts with Firebird's Finery is pretty straightforward once you get all your buffs running. The first thing to do is cast Disintegrate for 2 seconds to build your Combustion stacks for 80% damage reduction and a 0.5 second Teleport Cooldown. Use Teleport to get the Safe Passage 25% damage reduction and cast Explosive Blast Chain Reaction to build your Orb of Infinite Depth stacks for another 80% damage reduction.

The only thing left to do is to Teleport around and bodypull enemies together using Disintegrate while spamming Explosive Blast to keep Orb of Infinite Depth stacks up at all times. Never stop casting Explosive Blast Chain Reaction! A few seconds before your Fire Convention of Elements cycle starts:

• Set up on a pull of monsters with Teleport.
• Channel Disintegrate to get your Combustion stacks to 50 and make sure all monsters are ignited.
• Cast a few Flame Blades to get some Fire Elemental Damage but only if the density is decent or if you're playing with Focus & Restraint to refresh the damage multiplier buff.
• Cast Frost Nova Bone Chill and Blackhole Spellsteal if you have it for massive additive damage buffs.
• Channel Disintegrate to gain Deathwish separate damage multiplier after its 1 second delay.
• Sit back and chill while Explosive Blast is doing the work!

Firebird's Finery builds are a good choice for Hardcore players as the (2) Bonus provides a free cheat death every 60 seconds and the (4) Bonus grants you 80% damage reduction as long as you keep at least 1 Combustion stack. All iterations use Orb of Infinite Depth for another 80% damage reduction. The set also allows us to get a 0.5 second cooldown on Teleport to escape danger at any time and, last but not least, Shield mechanics can be used with Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon Deflection for another layer of defense to guarantee you'll never die! Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

• The Meteor that revives you from the Firebirds Finery (2) Bonus has a 60 second internal cooldown (ICD) and resets when you die.
• The Ignite DoT of Firebirds Finery (2) Bonus has a maximum range of 200 yards. Once you exceed this distance to an ignited enemy the DoT is removed from the target. The Ignite DoT is also removed when you change Greater Rift floors or die.
• You gain Combustion stacks from Firebird's Finery (4) Bonus very quickly when channeling Disintegrate. Combustion stacks decay at the rate of 2 per second.
• Teleport Cooldown is reduced by up to 100% at 50 Combustion stacks, but still has a minimum cooldown of 0.5 seconds.
• The Ignite DoT benefits from "Fire skills deal X% more damage" and include Critical Hit Chance and Damage (1 + CHC * CHD) as a damage multiplier but cannot proc Area Damage. Like any DoT, crit debuffs applied on monsters such as Iceblink, Multishot Wind Chill or Conflagration don't work.
• Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus procs benefit from "Fire skills deal X% more damage" and can critically hit but cannot proc Area Damage. Crit debuffs like Iceblink, Multishot Wind Chill or Conflagration do work.
• Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus cannot proc from effects with a proc coefficient of 0. Thus Etched Sigil and Wand of Woh procs do not trigger the (6) Bonus!
• Blizzard Apocalypse does not proc the (6) Bonus either.
• Pets like Hydra and Mirror Images cannot proc the Firebird (6) Bonus since the Season 25 nerf.

• When channeling Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost or Disintegrate, the Deathwish 325% damage multiplier is activated after 60 frames of channeling (1 second) and lasts for as long as you channel, dropping immediatly when you interrupt the channel.
• Being teleported by the Wormhole Elite affix doesn't interrupt the Deathwish damage multiplier.
• Due to this 1 second delay, it is not always optimal to teleport into an Oculus Ring proc during a damage burst.

• In order to keep up your shields to survive while maintaining Squirt's Necklace damage multiplier, you need to learn to judge the incoming damage and how fast you can build those shields yourself, which requires practice.
• Shields have no direct UI indicator unless you mouseover your health globe.
• You can see that you have any shield up when you see a transparent blue bubble around your character (not the size of the shield, however).
• Because Wizard Shield values scale with your total life, Vitality and Life % stats become substantially better for toughness scaling compared to other builds.
• Galvanizing Ward is the main shielding mechanic used for most Wizard builds, which combined with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer adds up to 120% of your total life as a shield. This shield will reset to its maximum value every 5 seconds if this shield in particular doesn't take any hit in the meantime.
• Spectral Blade Barrier Blades and Magic Weapon Deflection represent the secondary shielding mechanic of the Wizard and can be stacked as much as you like, but their shield value is set at 4% (up to 8% with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer) of your total life and they only lasts for 3 seconds. The duration is counted for each stack individually. For this specific build iteration, we want to use Flame Blades.
• While Barrier Blades or Deflection (or any other shield in that matter) protect the Galvanizing Ward shield, it is possible to reset the shield gained from the passive to full even while taking hits.
• All of these mechanics make it so that when your shields start breaking or your Galvanizing Ward doesn't find enough time to reset, the whole setup will fall apart really quickly. Make sure you understand your limits and survivability in different situations.

• Each stack is a debuff for one of the following elements: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
• Each stack is unique and refreshes its own duration when reapplied.
• Any ability with a proc coefficient greater than zero applies a stack of its respective element. This inherently means that only selfcasted abilities grant stacks.
• The elemental range on the Weapon applies its respective stack with all abilities if the elemental range is of the type: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
• This build procs by default the Fire stack with Explosive Blast and Flame Blades and the Arcane stack with Disintegrate. Some variants might use Frost Nova, which procs the Cold stack. This is why Item Stat Priorities state you want a Weapon with Lightning or eventually Cold Damage Range.
• The 5% damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% separate damage multiplier.

• On Console Versions, the build replaces Mirror Images by Energy Twister Gale Force.
• The main reason is that channeling mechanics are different on Console: it is possible to cast Energy Twister while channeling without interruption.
• This means you can selfcast Energy Twister while channeling, maintaining the damage multipliers from Deathwish and Mantle of Channeling at all times.
• The gameplay is similar to the Explosive Blast setup described in this guide, the main difference being that you want to pull monsters in tight spots in order to make Twisters bounce on walls to maximize hits for the Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus.
• In order to sustain the heavy Arcane Power cost of Energy Twister Gale Force (35 AP base cost), the console variant uses Magic Weapon Conduit and at least one Resource Cost Reduction roll (Shoulders).
• Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac allows for more Explosive Blast casts and permanent Diamond Skin Crystal Shell uptime, so that Squirt's Necklace can be used.
• Attack Speed has more value in this setup to increase your Energy Twister Attack Speed Breakpoint.
  
  
  
  

The build presented in this guide is the heir of the almighty Firebird Mirror Images build which dominated during Season 23 and even more so during Season 24 with Ethereals. It was relying on Mirror Images to cast Flame Blades for us in order to deal massive amount of damage while we were channeling for Deathwish. In Season 25, the build got destroyed by the removal of the ability for Pets to proc the Firebird (6) Bonus. Mirror Images had very interesting mechanics in conjunction with Firebird's Finery as seen here:

• Mirror Images cast some spells equipped on your skillbar with the assigned rune. They cast Flame Blades and Explosive Blast and can proc the Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus. They can cast Hydra but it cannot proc the Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus.
• Firebird's Finery (6) Bonus procs from Mirror Images are considered to be your damage, meaning Oculus Ring procs without any trouble unlike most Pet builds.
• They last for 7 seconds, meaning they can each cast up to 7 skills by default as their Flame Blades and Explosive Blast have a base 60 FPA. Tasker and Theo works but only allow them to cast up to 9 skills (42 FPA Breakpoint). Slow Time Stretch Time also buff their Attack Rate, allowing them to do up to 11 casts when combined with Tasker and Theo (36 FPA Breakpoint). However in the latter case, their first cast is going to be Slow Time so they do 10 effective casts.
• Mirror Images' HP pool takes a percentage of your HP pool as base (50% for Duplicates) then scales similarly to other Pets, adding your Vitality * 100 to this base HP and using your HP % as a separate multiplier. This means your HP pool double dips into your Mirror Images' HP pool.
• Like most Pets, Mirror Images scale their toughness with All Resistances while Armor and Damage Reduction sources have no effect besides Enforcer. They benefit from Dodge Chance (War Cry Veteran's Warning) and double dip All Resistances buffs like Mantra of Salvation. Inspiring Presence Life Regeneration is also double dipped by them. Mirror Images summoned while Shield Pylon is active do not get the invulnerability effect.
• Casts from Mirror Images proc your Arcane Power on Critical Hit if you have some on your equipment.
• They can be crowd controlled (frozen, jailed, knocked back...) but they are affected by Crowd Control Reduction on your equipment as well as Ignore Pain Mob Rule and Inner Sanctuary Temple of Protection Crowd Control Immunity.
• Mirror Images are not affected by Fragment of Destiny, Mirrorball and The Shame of Delsere.
• Mirror Images can proc the Firebird's Finery (2) Bonus Meteor upon dying a first time but do not proc the (6) Bonus with it.
• Mirror Images have a pretty bad AI and often run away instead of attacking with Flame Blades. This is due to specific monster immunities and aggro mechanics, which affects some monster types but also Shielding and Juggernaut affixes as well as some Rift Guardians. The best way to avoid that is summoning them while surrounded by monsters or in a tight spot.
• Note you can still consult the Season 24 Firebird Mirror Images Wizard Guide, obviously outdated!