LoD Meteor “Bazooka” 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. This is a Legacy of Dreams build whose success is heavily dependent on this gem's rank. The first order of business is to equip a Legendary or Set item in every slot to take advantage of its power. Make sure to not have any Set Bonuses equipped or the gem will be nullified and you will deal no damage! Farm speed Greater Rifts (in under 5 minute clears) to find the items and get this gem as high as possible. Above Rank 25 ancient pieces of gear will give you even greater power.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

1. Nilfur's Boast
2. Mempo of Twilight
3. Goldwrap
4. Orb of Infinite Depth
5. Nemesis Bracers, Warzechian Armguards and Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer
6. Stone of Jordan, Halo of Karini and Convention of Elements
7. Magefist, Stone Gauntlets and St. Archew's Gage
8. Cindercoat and Aquila Cuirass
9. Ice Climbers
10. Blackthorne's Jousting Mail
11. Any Legendary Shoulders
12. The Swami and Fazula's Improbable Chain

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

1. Staves to get The Grand Vizier and The Smoldering Core
2. Wands to get Aether Walker
3. Amulets to get Squirt's Necklace
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: Pauldrons of the Skeleton King
• Act 2: Gloves of Worship
• Act 3: Avarice Band and Pride's Fall
• Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
• Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny (for your follower)

6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. Spend your materials getting items with better rolls and/or ancient quality.

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:

• Legacy of Dreams is the Legacy of Nightmares Set in a gem, which frees up two ring slots at the cost of removing one legendary gem. Due to the rings available to us this is a great trade-off to take.
• Gogok of Swiftness is required to meet Cooldown requirements and helps with extra Attack Speed and Dodge.
• Bane of the Stricken is the third gem in solo to help kill the boss. In groups, this slot is taken by Bane of the Trapped.
• Boon of the Hoarder is used in Nephalem Rifts, Bane of the Powerful for farming and Zei's Stone of Vengeance in some variants for extra damage.

• Meteor Star Pact is our main damage dealer.
• Archon Teleport gives us a 30% damage boost and another multiplier of 6% per Archon stack for a big burst.
• Storm Armor activates Halo of Karini. Without this buff you will be squashed like a fly, so make sure to keep it up. Use the Shocking Aspect rune for pushing and Scramble or Power of the Storm for farming.
• Magic Weapon Deflection provides a small damage increase and valuable shields for survival and Squirt's Necklace uptime.
• Spectral Blade or Electrocute or Magic Missile are used with various runes to either give us Shields, extra Arcane Power or an Elemental Exposure stack. It is also used to prepare Arcane Dynamo before the big nuke.
• Black Hole Spellsteal gives you damage boost and groups up monsters. In groups, this skill is replaced with Wave of Force Arcane Attunement.

• Evocation is necessary to hit the Cooldown requirements.
• Galvanizing Ward protects our Squirt’s Necklace.
• Audacity grants us a 30% separate damage multiplier for close-range combat. Power Hungry can be used for a ranged playstyle.
• Arcane Dynamo allows us to stack up a 60% damage multiplier for Star Pact nuke.
• These other passives are situational depending on activity:
  • Blur for damage reduction.
  • Elemental Exposure for a damage bonus.
  • Illusionist for mobility while farming.

¹ Assign this only when you are playing Star Pact.
² Aim for a strong HP pool (~1M HP) as your Shields (Galvanizing Ward and Deflection) scale with it.

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

• This build works on a 32 second Archon rotation and aims to throw one big Meteor combo exactly on entering Archon. This means you always spend 20 seconds in and 12 seconds outside of Archon.
• At the start of a run, buff yourself with Storm Armor to enable the 80% damage reduction from Halo of Karini. Make sure you keep this buff up at all times. In most situations it will not require much attention, but be careful when there are only very few or one enemy as you need to hit something that is at least 15 yards away from you. When fighting single target Rift Guardians especially, make sure to walk away a few steps regularly. The damage reduction can be tracked on your buff bar. Don’t forget to reapply this skill after 10 minutes when pushing.
• Similarly, buff yourself with Magic Weapon.
• Carefully gather some Gogok of Swiftness stacks and enter Archon precisely on the Arcane Convention of Elements cycle. While in Archon, use the Teleport and Beam to gather nearby enemies.
• As Archon is about to elapse, teleport to a safe spot outside of the pull you made. Use Black Hole to keep monsters stacked up while you throw Meteors for Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs. Alternate this with Spectral Blade until you have 4 stacks of Arcane Dynamo and cast Meteor at least twice (to stack The Smoldering Core).
• Shortly before your next Arcane cycle comes around, cast another Black Hole Spellsteal before using Spectral Blade for the final stack of Arcane Dynamo. Then throw your final Meteor and enter Archon to watch the fireworks. Prepare for Oculus Ring and get ready to jump in with your Teleport.
• Repeat the 32 second cycle until you win. If you ever drop Gogok of Swiftness, try to repair your rotation with extra Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs. If that's not possible, you have to skip one cycle and start building Archon stacks from scratch.

The build is quite squishy and immobile outside of Archon. Stack as much Vitality as possible and best case practice the build extensively before attempting it on Hardcore. Alternatively, there are non-Archon variants that are more forgiving but weaker. Either way, drop Audacity for Unstable Anomaly. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

• 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.
• 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.

• The 30% damage increase is a global separate damage multiplier.
• The stacks add a separate 6% multiplicative damage increase, adding together as one separate damage multiplier. The baseline of a perfect Fazula's Improbable Chain is 300% damage bonus before adding any stacks from The Swami or kills.
• Leftover stacks from The Swami are added on top as one separate damage multiplier. The numerical distribution of stacks between old and new is irrelevant for the total bonus gained, what counts is the combined number of stacks.

• Is a separate multiplier for any Arcane ability.
• Has a maximum cap of 125 targets which equals a 6.0 multiplier.
• The character is buffed when the "Wave" stops traveling. Any Arcane ability casted while the Wave is still traveling will not consume Arcane Attunement.

• The base damage of 740% weapon damage can be increased to up to a total of 4080% with a perfect 167 maximum Arcane Power and a Channeling Pylon. Realistically that value will be around 3600-3650% (or less if you don't wear a Wand) because you have to cast Wave of Force Arcane Attunement right before your nuke as long as there is enough density around you.
• Resource Cost Reduction only applies to the base cost of the skill, meaning that a 8% RCR roll (e.g. on your Shoulders) will add ~3 more Arcane Power to be consumed for a Star Pact cast. This adds 60% weapon damage or ~1.5% overall damage to the impact.

• Each hit from Meteor on an enemy applies a debuff granting you a 50% separate damage multiplier, up to 3 stacks.
• Meteors from Tal Rasha's Elements (2) Bonus and Mempo of Twilight Meteor Shower effect are stacking the effect.
• This effect is a debuff on monsters, meaning another Wizard with The Smoldering Core equipped can stack the effect for other Wizards in the party but one has to equip it to benefit from the damage multiplier.
• The debuff stacks add up as one combined 150% separate damage multiplier.
• The debuff stacks have a duration of 5 seconds. All stacks have their duration refreshed on hit.
• The ground DoT effect of Meteor does not contribute to stacks.
• The lure effect means enemies are taunted by your Meteor Impacts and run towards them.

• The Attack Speed bonus of The Shame of Delsere is multiplicative with other bonuses.
• This can be used to stack Bane of the Stricken quite fast on longer boss fights. Try to use it a lot especially at the start of a long boss fight and when you are waiting for your Convention of Elements Elemental cycle!

• 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.
• Since the build already deals Fire and Arcane damage by default, having a Cold or Lightning damage roll on your weapon is the most optimal choice.
• The 5% damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% separate damage multiplier.

If you ever played between Season 16 and Season 19, you might have heard of the Reverse Archon Star Pact "Bazooka" Wizard. This overview will explain you everything there is to know about this infamous build!
Since Season 12, Firebird's Finery Meteor Star Pact's reign on the leaderboards was absolute, (ab)using damage multipliers stacking, especially the combination of Deathwish, Legacy Etched Sigil and Mantle of Channeling. But with Season 16, allowing players to build around the newly (and massively) buffed Legacy of Nightmares Rings, the LoN32 "Bazooka" Wizard quickly emerged with this post from sVr and Rob, presenting the build to the community.

The "Bazooka" Wizard is a self-cast Star Pact build that relies on stacking as many damage multipliers as possible and funnel them into one single devastating hit of Star Pact. The build specificity is to incorporate Archon in combination with The Swami + Fazula's Improbable Chain to benefit from the huge 4.0 multiplier given by the 50 Archon stacks. It goes even further by using a CDR-hardcap setup (68.24%), which allows for a 32 seconds rotation (every other Convention of Elements Arcane cycle, coming with Archon overlap benefits), clicking Archon while channeling, right when the Star Pact is about to hit the ground. This means you get benefits from the 30% Archon damage multiplier and 50 new stacks coming from Fazula's Improbable Chain added to The Swami stacks from the previous rotation.

Because you are in Archon form when the Star Pact hits, you gain stacks for every monster killed, said stacks which are going to be transfered onto the next rotation thanks to The Swami. The Archon overlap stacks indeed creates a snowball effect which makes every next rotation stronger, assuming you keep killing monsters every 32 seconds cycle. Although, do not forget you are very squishy and rely a lot on Ancient Parthan Defenders to survive, on top of having to perform a quite complicated rotation that could fail at any time, whether it is a mechanical mistake on your end, or simply the game server being unstable!

Funneling all your damage into one devastating Star Pact every 32 seconds means Area Damage is by a long shot your best offensive stat. This is why not long after the official presentation of the build, this post with showcase made by Chewingnom will incentivize how packing monsters tightly is a tremendous damage buff even though it requires teamplay changes: this is how Ground Stomp Wrenching Smash and the pixelpulling mindset got introduced to the META!

At the time being, "Bazooka" Wizard was a huge step in power creep, stimulating a whole new way of pushing limits due to the GR150 limit being reached more easily: Time Attack push was born, with players trying to reach the best timer possible rather than the highest tier. In Season 17, with players being given the Legacy of Nightmares Set Bonus for free, the "Bazooka" Wizard grew stronger, as you could now benefit from Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac allowing for more lenient CDR requirements, and Halo of Karini granting a massive toughness bonus at the cost of swapping out Black Hole Spellsteal for Storm Armor.

Halo of Karini enabled the ability for the zBarb to create neat pixelpulls with perfect Elites positioning due to the removal of Black Hole and the Wizard not being reliant on Ancient Parthan Defenders to survive anymore. At the same time, the community figured Power Hungry would now be less risky to play and would bring more damage than Audacity, especially in combination with Zei's Stone of Vengeance and Oculus Rings, usually spawning far from the monsters.

In Season 18, even more tools were created for the "Bazooka" Wizard to abuse: Stone Gauntlets for a tremendous Armor buff and Squirt's Necklace for another 2.0 damage multiplier. This new Amulet required you to use Galvanizing Ward instead of Unstable Anomaly in order to efficiently protect your life with a shield, so you could keep the damage multiplier from the legendary effect.

After an unsuccessful nerf to the build in Season 19 that only diminished the time window used to perform the rotation stacking all the damage multipliers, Season 20 finally put the Bazooka's reign to an end by adding a delay of 1 second to Deathwish, Legacy Etched Sigil and Mantle of Channeling damage multipliers, which prevented Bazooka Wizards to channel long enough to gain the damage multipliers before the Star Pact hit.

During Season 27, the LoD "Bazooka" build had a special setup thanks to Sanctified Powers. The reason is that you could build differently and incorporate Messerschmidt's Reaver and proc it consistently thanks to a zMonk using Sanctified Wave of Light. As a result, you were reseting the Cooldown from Archon without needing Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac nor Cooldown Reduction on top of generating Archon stacks (up to 220+ stacks).

Since you were reseting Shields from Dominance consistently, there was also no need for Magic Weapon Deflection which was replaced by Black Hole Spellsteal for even more damage.

Gameplay
Enter Archon on the Arcane cycle. As you exit Archon, you have 12 seconds to get your Archon Cooldown back for your Arcane cycle. This requires you to spam Wave of Force Arcane Attunement for Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs. During your Lightning cycle, use Black Hole Spellsteal, get 5 stacks of Arcane Dynamo then throw Star Pact a split second before Arcane. Immediatly turn into Archon and Teleport into an Oculus Ring or at the edge of the screen for Zei's Stone of Vengeance if there is none.