Leveled your Wizard to 70 already? It is time to go and get your free set for this season! Here are Wizard builds and tips to help you get your Seasonal Journey and Haedrig’s gifts ASAP! Get to endgame ASAP with Fresh 70 Wizard guide! Not quite there yet? Check our Wizard Leveling Guide.

In Season 25, the Wizard free set is: Firebird’s Finery.

Season 25 and YOU. How does it affect?

S25’s unique mechanic is the Soul Shard system. Let me provide you a quick TLDR right here. There are 7 special “gems” (Soul Shards) this season. Three for head sockets (Prime Evil), and four for weapon sockets (Lesser Evil). What makes these gems so powerful? Mainly things:

STATS: A lot of em. Each soul shard has the stats of “every possible gem” combined. Plus a rerollable one!

TWO Unique (legendary-esque) Passives: Each soul shard has a corresponding unique that’s always there. Then, furthermore, they can each roll 1 of 3 possible sub-unique powers. Imagine a “double orange text” for each one of these.

There are essentially 9 new head gems and 12 new weapon ones, given the possible combinations of the Main and Sub powers. Of course, not all are “amazing”, but what do.

For this guide though, the free set doesn’t matter (but we WILL be able to beat the whole Seasonal Journey, don’t worry), as we’re rushing with LoD. Why? We want to get out of the early and early-mid game, freeing up for us to transition STRAIGHT into high-tier speedfarming or tryhard builds. More why? S25 Soul Shards give L100 augments – skipping a huge “mid-game” lull we’re used to. Another reason is, selfishly, I want to have a baseline LoD setup for Fresh 70 classes, and this seems like the best time to do it.

Step 1) Initial Build & Getting Legacy of Dreams

Don’t get stressed out, yes, LoD builds might seem a little daunting but let me tell you that it’s a fun and exciting process. Ultimately you need two things right now: The actual LoD gem, and a basic build to get you going.

Generic Starter build (slightly related to our ‘final build’)

Skill Rune
Disintegrate
Chaos Nexus (Entropy)
Hydra Lightning Hydra
Teleport Wormhole
Familiar Arcanot
Archon Pure Power / Teleport
Energy Armor Prismatic Armor
Passives
Blur Audacity
Unwavering Will

The above build is meant to be in the middle of two things: Easy to edit – that hopefully game-changing legendaries can fit in no matter what. Related to our ‘final build’ – it’s a rough basic version of our “goal”, so it feels more natural as you transition towards it. Have a look down there for the final build preview to see what we’re going for.

Getting Legacy of Dreams ASAP

It’s simple, you need this GEM so get it ASAP.

Get 3 rift keys → Run 3 rifts → Wear three gemstones on your gear.

The first three gems will always be Bane of the Powerful, Legacy of Dreams, and one random one. So thankfully, there’s no RNG there.

Step 2) Easy power-ups. Huge gains for little effort.

You can go all of these things “simultaneously”, basically small tasks here and there that you should keep in mind right now that will greatly increase your power for little to no effort.

Make a Reaper’s Wraps: Speaking of no effort to big returns… Make this ASAP. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael.

What three Legendary gems?

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get rift keys and spam GR’s until you get them, and do the absolute minimum level you need to level them up. Get them and level them quickly – do not feel pressured to “maximize” your rift keys by inflating the difficulty.

Legacy of Dreams is mandatory, as mentioned in the basics segment! Level this up as much as you can.

Honestly, double defensive gems will serve you best FOR NOW. Molten Wildebeests Gizzard and Esoteric Alteration are the best pair for Wiz IMO.

If you need more DPS later on, Gogok for CDR, Powerful for a good cheap gem, Stricken or Trapped for DPS depending on content.

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming. (Need a refresher? Basic offensive: Powerful, Trapped. Basic Defensive: Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeests Gizzard)

Legendary Items in ALL SLOTS

LoD gets stronger with each legendary item you have equipped – so get to it! You should aim to get this done “passively” by natural item drops, but you can also craft items if you’re desperate.

Spending Blood Shards is “OK”, but only use Death’s Breath to fill up the slots if you’re absolutely desperate. You’ll get an item for each slot in no time (you can even craft them). Save your resources for finding SPECIFIC items that will greatly boost your power. We talk more about this in the next segment, refinement.

Ancients DOUBLE this bonus, and they’re a welcome boost to consider.

Defense Type & Gems

Wizards / WD’s / Necros are INTELLIGENCE classes (they get free ALLRES from INT). So, in the face of all this free allres, your prime defensive stats are ARMOR > VIT. So try to reroll Armor on your gear if you need defense – it’s your best defensive stat by FAR.

So your gemming strategy (body and legs) should be slotting your best Rubies or Emeralds, as they give Armor.

In S25 your head and weapon gems should beSoul Shards ALWAYS.

Basic Rerolls

Since legendaries are a little expensive to reroll EARLY ON, try to make the most by REMOVING GARBAGE STATS, and getting anything “remotely usable”.

Life per Hit is decent early on. Don’t sweat if you don’t get it on your gear, though, as all weapon soul shards have it!

Archon% is NON EXISTENT. So don’t go for ANY skill percent rolls.

Remove useless stats

  • Life Regeneration – garbage for any build.
  • Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
  • Excess Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
  • Excess Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
  • Unused skill% – literally USELESS.
  • All Resists – Useless for us, take Armor and VIT instead.

Take better stats

  • INT VIT– can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
  • ARMOR Life% Great defensive stats.
  • Sockets are essentially MANDATORY.
  • Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
  • CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.
  • Skill and Elemental% – that you use.

FOLLOWER GEAR!

Do not forget to fully equip your follower for farming. You can start by crafting Sage or Cain’s NOW and worry about the rest later.

Step 3) Refining, Using Resources -> ‘Full Build’

Full Build Preview

So you can easily see what items you’ll need, and you can get an idea of what we’re trying to do here.

S25 Fresh 70 Wizard: Early Game LoD Archon speedfarm
Head The Swami Skill Rune
Shoulder Any / Skeleton King Spectral Blades Barrier Blades
Chest Aquila Cuirass Arcane Torrent Static Discharge
Arms St. Archew / Stone Teleport Wormhole
Legs Blackthorne’s Storm Armor Shocking Aspect
Boots Ice Climbers Magic Weapon Defleciton
Belt Fazula’s Improbable Chain Archon Teleport / Pure Power
Bracer Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer Passives
Amulet Squirt’s Necklace Galvanizing Ward
Ring Halo of Karini Evocation
Ring Zodiac / CoE / Unity Unwavering Will (Audacity)
Weapon Aether Walker / In-Geom Unstable Anomaly (Audacity)
Offhand Any Source —
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Messerschmidt’s Reaver / Furnace Legacy of Dreams
Goldwrap / Any option above Bane of the Powerful (or Defensive Gems)
Zodiac / CoE / Unity Gogok of Swiftness (or Defensive Gems)

Get CORE ITEMS asap. The heart of your build

The absolute core of your build are these:

Messerschmidt’s Reaver – use Death’s Breath. The Swami (Helm) and Fazula’s Improbable Chain (Belt) – use Blood Shards.

To a lesser extent: Zodiac and Karini… Both are rings so they’re hard to MAKE. Pray for them from drops.

Spending Blood Shards and Death’s Breath

Blood ShardsDeaths BreathRings, amulets

Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance:

  • The Swami – Helm
  • Fazula’s Improbable Chain / Goldwrap – Belt
  • Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer / Nemesis – Bracer
  • St. Archews Gage – Glove
  • Aquila Cuirass – Chest

You can look for the other ‘unimportant’ things in the build preview after these (IE Ice Climbers, etc)

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Deaths Breath rare item upgrades (Kanai’s Cube Recipe: 25x Deaths Breath convert a rare into random legendary of same type), roughly in order of importance:

2H Axe for Messerschmidt’s Reaver is really really important for your build, early on at least. For the most part it can single handedly allow you to keep spamming Archon, “if you’re not unlucky”. You can use Zodiac for “backup” later on.

The Furnace from 2H Mace is probably next.

Nothing else is really WORTH spending DB’s for, and would rather spend to try and get jewelry you might not have yet. Aether Walker, In-geom and all that are nice, but not that important yet.

Rings and Amulets are tough to get from either BS or DB’s (due to the large amount of possible outcomes), but if you’re done getting your core items from these currencies – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them. Typically you’ll just find these as you grind – then use currency if you’re desperate. Anyway, if I had to rank the importance of your rings and ammys…

Halo of Karini is an ULTRA powerful defensive buff that needs a little work.

Zodiac is another way to cheat more Archons. Use it WITH Messerschmidt’s to ensure your uptime.

Unity is a decent defensive option, but you need the follower immortality relic, and another Unity for the follower!

As an aside – Ring of Royal Grandeur and Avarice Band are BOUNTY ONLY rings (respectively ACT I and III), which DO NOT APPEAR FROM any other source. They, like any other bounty item, DO NOT DROP from monsters, gambling, upgrades or any other source outside of their respective BOUNTY CACHE.

Follower Gear odds and ends

More of a reminder than anything, once you start farming you will be running into those little bonuses for your follower farming build. Keep an eye out!

Summary & Outro

Welp, that’s about it. I have to say these Soul Shards are weirdly exciting, and S25 is a little spicier for it. From here, you can easily do the Seasonal Journey if that’s your thing, or transition into literally any other build you like – the it’s exactly what the S25 fresh 70 LoD builds for each class are made for.

GL out there and check out our D3 Guide Directory if you need anything else!

27 COMMENTS

  1. I hit level 70, got the 4 piece vyrs, now just struggling with rifts.. i cant even do torment 1, it takes like 10 minutes. even when i’m in arcon 90% of the time. Any tips?

    What weapon should I go be using for the rifts? Should I just craft yellows for the other pieces?

    • Simply turn down the rift difficulty… you have no reason to “stay” in Vyr’s 4. Focus on clearing the seasonal journey ASAP using the minimum difficulty.

      In archon 90% of the time but struggling? That’s… somethings not adding up here hehe.

  4. Is there a suggestion for paragon points?
    Like for example:
    Basis: Movement > INT
    Off: Crit Ch > Crit DMG > Att Speed
    Def: Life Reg > AllRes > Life
    Adventure: LpH > Area DMG > Resource ?

    • we really need to put that in our guides, right? anyway here it is: MS > INT > Resource optional > VIT as needed; CHC CHD CDR AS; Armor Life% Allres Regen; LpH AD RCR GF (LpH is lower if you have good sustain)

  7. which fire skills do you recommend for a 6p firebird set and etched sigil+death wish pair? hydra as damaging skill or another big damaging fire based skill? my deathwish does +fire damage.

    thank you for this great guide!

  9. Hey guys,

    I’ve been following this guide for about a week now and compared to “competitors” builds, I find this one the most enjoyable. But I’ve seen to hit a rough spot, and I’m stuck hovering between T5-T7. Unfortunately I didn’t come accross this guide until I already progressed a little bit so my rolls aren’t perfect. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    http://www.d3planner.com/947058520

    • Well that would first depend on your personal goals. If you’re “stuck”, you should first find out where you’re progressing. What do you envision it is your goal this season would be? The free set is meant to be a free set, and you don’t need to STICK with it to the end – the build entailed in the fresh 70 guide will help you along to reach to “point of freedom”. Let me know what exactly is keeping you down? Survivability? Speed in clearing? What’s your goals this season?

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