Vyr-Chantodo Archon WoD 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 Vyr's Amazing Arcana 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 Vyr's Amazing Arcana set
2. Chantodo's Force
3. Fazula's Improbable Chain
4. The Swami
5. Nemesis Bracers
6. Goldwrap

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

1. Wands to get Chantodo's Will
2. Two-Handed Axes to get Messerschmidt's Reaver
3. Rings to get Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Halo of Karini and Convention of Elements
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 Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny (for your follower)
  
  

6. This build heavily relies on Cooldown Reduction to chain Archon so when starting out you need to include extra CDR items such as Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac which will be later phased out when you get better gear. With those items you can comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for the different variants of the build. From that point, spend your materials on improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon etc.

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:

• Chantodo's Will
• Convention of Elements
• Halo of Karini

• The only Legendary Gem that is default included in all variants is Bane of the Trapped (BotT), which is a nice separate multiplier and has some great synergies with Vyr-Chantodo. Specifically the Cold Wave of Destruction applies a slow before the damage instance is calculated, which means that BotT has permanent uptime on all targets; this means that it's not a necessity to be within 15 yards of an enemy.
• For Solo Greater Rift Pushing, Bane of the Stricken must be included to kill Greater Rift Guardians within a reasonable timeframe. As a rule of thumb, one should incorporate Stricken once Rift Guardian fights take longer than two minutes.
• The third viable damage option is Zei's Stone of Vengeance, which, in contrary to its description, grants its first stage benefit at 0 yards and not 10 yards.
• Bane of the Powerful is an acceptable addition for Speed Greater Rifts or Nephalem Rifts, however, it's not recommended for pushing variants due to its subpar uptime.
• For Nephalem Rifts, Boon of the Hoarder is always a default include specifically due to its amazing synergy with Avarice Band.
• Lastly, Gogok of Swiftness is a good choice at season start due to Vyr-Chantodo's significant dependency on Cooldown Reduction; however, Gogok should be rotated out for the other options once enough CDR is acquired as long as you're not playing the Elemental Swap variant.

• Black Hole Absolute Zero increases our Cold damage by quite a lot. This buff persists when you enter Archon, however, times out after 10 seconds.
• Archon Slow Time is our main ability. The Slow Time MUST be selected else you'll lose out on a lot of damage (see Mechanics).
• Slow Time Time Warp provides a very nice defensive layer against projectiles after dropping out of Archon and a nice 15% additive damage boost.
• Magic Weapon Deflection has a amazing synergy with Archon since it grants a shield instance for each ability used in Archon (including Teleport etc.). The shields are protecting your hit points from taking actual damage protecting the damage buff of Squirt's Necklace.
• Storm Armor Shocking Aspect is needed to proc the defensive capabilities of Halo of Karini. Shocking Aspect has the best overall uptime while Scramble grants a nice Movement Speed buff.
• Arcane Torrent Static Discharge is our best ability to proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and gain stacks of Chantodo's Resolve.
• Spectral Blade Flame Blades for the Elemental Swap variant, in order to operate the swap between Fire and Lightning elements.

The beloved Wizard class has some great passives to choose from, however, a few of these are so excellent that we straight up must include these since they are simply too good to pass up on:

• Firstly, Evocation granting us 20% Cooldown Reduction, which immensely helps out with Archon's significant cooldown.
• Secondly, Audacity, which provides us with a separate 1.3 multiplier if and only if our target is within 15 yards. The restriction, to fight within melee range, is not only imposed via Audacity itself, but also via the Vyr's Amazing Arcana (6) Bonus (Archon Blast radius is 15 yards to gain a stack) as well as Bane of the Stricken (which stacks faster with left-click).
• Thirdly, Galvanizing Ward, which grants a massive shield leading to better Squirt's Necklace uptime in conjunction with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer.
• Lastly, one has the choice between Illusionist, which works with Archon Teleport and grants a comfortable Movement Speed buff, and Unstable Anomaly, which provides us with a second life in those situations where we all overstay our welcome.

¹ Only add Vitality if you really feel squishy or if you're playing the Elemental Swap variant.

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 idea of the build revolves around entering and re-entering Archon as soon as possible to build up Archon stacks and overlap them with The Swami. In Greater Rifts you want to click Archon as soon as possible, make sure to activate Storm Armor and Magic Weapon first though, without caring too much for building up Chantodo's Resolve stacks. You are very squishy in your first rotation, and each time you drop out of Archon, which is when Slow Time as well as Black Hole come in real handy as defensive abilities.

After your first rotation you should be fairly comfortable and tanky meaning it should be fairly easy to get up to 20 Chantodo's Resolve stacks without the feel of being threatened. Keep in mind to repeatedly press Button 1 while in Archon (600ms cooldown) due to it granting additional stacks via the Vyr's Amazing Arcana (6) Bonus as well as some decent shielding via Magic Weapon.

For Hardcore I recommend using Esoteric Alteration instead of Zei's Stone of Vengeance and incorporate the passives Unstable Anomaly and Galvanizing Ward at all times. Early season Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer will help quite a lot even in Nephalem Rifts. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

The Legendary and Set effects in Vyr-Chantodo are a bit more complicated than the average build from any other class; but that's nothing a Wizard can't handle, right?

Vyr's Amazing Arcana (2) Bonus, which grants all runes of Archon, has a special interaction with "Arcane / Cold / Fire / Lightning skills deal X% more damage", which unfortunately leads to unintuitive mechanics. Let's first take a closer look at how this specific set bonus functions with Archon itself. Upon clicking Archon the three Archon specific abilities (Blast, Strike and Disintegration Wave) have their Elemental Damage Type determined by your currently highest element. This Elemental Damage Type will not change in this Archon instance even if your highest element changes during Archon. As an example let's assume you have "Arcane skills deal 20% more damage" and "Fire skills deal 15% more damage" equipped. Once you transform into Archon all your three abilities will be Arcane, deal 20% more damage and remain Arcane until the end of your Archon.

Everything is fine and dandy up until now; however, it get's a bit tricky once you gain "Arcane / Cold / Fire / Lightning skills deal X% more damage" from other sources that might time out while you are in Archon. In an follow-up scenario (see D3Planner right) assume that, before entering Archon, you use Spectral Blade Flame Blades to gain additional "Fire skills deal 30% more damage". Upon entering Archon, you'll have 45% Fire and 20% Arcane. Your three Archon abilities will be Fire for the entirety of Archon, yet, 5 seconds into Archon your Spectral Blade Buff will have been dropped resulting in 15% Fire and 20% Arcane. In the remaining 15 seconds you'll only be buffed by 15% Fire (not by 45% Fire). In summary, for Archon abilities, this means: The Elemental Type of your Archon abilities is snapshotted while the Elemental Damage Bonus is fully dynamic.

One would assume—and quite frankly hope—that the Wave of Destruction from Chantodo's Resolve follows the same exact interaction. Sadly this is not the case. In the second example (15% Fire, 20% Arcane equipped while buffed with 30% Fire from Spectral Blade Flame Blades) Wave of Destruction will be Fire for the first 5 seconds of your Archon and it will change to Arcane for the next 15 seconds. In other words the Elemental Type of Wave of Destruction is dynamic to your highest element. While this seems fairly intuitive there is an unfortunate mechanic with its Elemental Damage Bonus. Whether or not the Elemental Damage Bonus applies to Wave of Destruction, depends on the Archon rune that is selected on the skillbar. A Cold Wave of Destruction only benefits from "Cold skills deal X% more damage" if and only if the Archon Slow Time (Cold rune) is selected on the skill bar; this general rule applies regardless whether Vyr's Amazing Arcana (2) Bonus is equipped or not (so even if one is granted all runes). This is showcased in the D3Planner to the left, where Wave of Destruction would not gain any benefits from "Cold skills deal X% more damage" nor from Black Hole Absolute Zero effect.

• Being in Archon form grants a 30% global separate damage multiplier.
• Archon and The Swami stacks instances are additive with each other to form one global separate damage multiplier.
• Archon Slow Time inherits the Slow Time rune equipped on your skillbar. Crown of the Primus works on Slow Time. Slow Time and Slow Time effects stack for Exhaustion, Time Warp and Stretch Time runes.
• Archon Teleport benefits from both Aether Walker and Cosmic Strand.
• All Archon Abilities snapshot their Elemental Type upon Archon cast to your current highest element.
• Each Archon Abilities' damage is dynamic with its current Elemental Damage Bonus (according to its Elemental Type) which is not always your current highest element.
• Archon Strike's attack speed is fully dynamic with Increased Attack Speed. Any IAS gained during Archon will speed up Archon Strike and any IAS lost will slow it down.
• Archon Disintegration Wave tickrate is snapshotted upon entering Archon. Any IAS gained (or lost) during Archon will have no effect on its tickrate. The 50 stacks granted from Fazula's Improbable Chain will be accounted for.
• Activating Archon will consume all Chantodo's Resolve stacks immediately; however, any lingering abilities, such as Explosive Blast and Arcane Torrent, that were casted out of Archon, will already grant you new Chantodo's Resolve stacks for your next rotation.

• The Element Type of Wave of Destruction from Chantodo's Resolve is fully dynamic and matches your current highest element at all times.
• Wave of Destruction from Chantodo's Resolve benefits from Elemental Damage Bonus if and only if an Archon rune with the same Element Type is selected on the skillbar. Selecting an incorrect rune on Archon will lead to Wave of Destruction not gaining any Elemental Damage Bonus even though "all runes" are granted via Vyr's Amazing Arcana (2) Bonus.
• Wave of Destruction uses your current Attacks per Second (from your details sheet) as a separate damage multiplier. The faster you attack, the harder it hits. This multiplier caps out at 5.0 Attacks per Second with a reduced scaling for a final value of 5.0 * 1/1.75 = 2.857. Any further Increased Attack Speed % past that point will not increase WoD damage anymore.
• Activating Archon will consume all Chantodo's Resolve stacks immediately; however, any lingering abilities, such as Explosive Blast and Arcane Torrent, that were casted out of Archon, will already grant you new Chantodo's Resolve stacks for your next rotation.