Get these three to L25 ASAP:

Taeguk is godlike for any build that relies on channeling skills. It helps us out with Armor and damage – you can’t ask for more! If you ever transition into a non-channeling build, use it for augments!

Bane of the Powerful is pure value. For 25 levels you already reach the maximum damage potential of the gem! It plays nicely into our style of elite genocide.

YOU NEED DEFENSE RIGHT NOW!

Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard is probably the best one for you in the extreme early game, and will comfortably pad your survivability until your build matures a bit. Don’t worry about wasted upgrades as you’ll be using it for augments once you feel like you’ve “graduated” from it.

Any other gems worth it?

Bane of the Trapped is a basic DPS gem that is a huge upgrade for most if not all builds. It’s not so relevant early on as we have glaring defense issues. Never bad to own one.

Bane of the Stricken is mandatory once you’re at the “limits”. It’s worth investing into, once RG’s life is well into the trillions. I digress – this is a fresh 70 guide after all.

Esoteric Alteration is the “Stricken” of the defensive gems. Sometimes you just have to reliably survive in order to clear – and this is probably the gem for you.

Boon of the Hoarder: A must for speedfarming.
(See: Speedfarming General, Wizard Speedfarming, Wiz Fastest Speedfarming)

ACTIVELY, and I mean ACTIVELY – Search for ELITES. 
Trashing elites is, literally, making your life 20x easier.

Re-read your 6pc bonus. Igniting an elite (3 burn spells) gives the 20 stack bonus, which means 2400% damage bonus and 60% damage reduction. Fighting small clumps feels terrible when you can literally kill an elite 23x faster than its non elite counterpart.

You can take this further – gather mobs, ignite elite, kill mobs – CONTINUE ALONG YOUR WAY WHILE THE ELITE IS BURNING. Killing any random stragglers AS THE ELITE BURNS AWAY (The DoT is infinite!) – then pick up the balls when they do die!

There’s not much to be said about the mechanical finesse to play this flavor of Firebird. It’s more an adjustment of playstyle/thought and decision making within rifts.

Feel free to experiment for your third burn source – even if I recommend Hydra (followed by Wave of Force), there’s a ton of viable ones. I chose Hydra since you don’t need to stop channeling Disintegrate. As long as you have three fire sources – you’re good as gold.

Again, I’m not recommending an Archon build path because the build is way too fine tuned and requires a metric ton of support items. It makes no sense to jump straight into it.

More offense or Arcane Power needed?

For resource gain, there’s a ton of ways to get more AP. In our base kit though, you shouldn’t look further than Familiar-Arcanot. It’s “passive” and gives a ton. Any more is overkill. (If you need the skill slot, the best AP passive is Astral Presence).

Arcane Power on Critical Strike will solve all your problems later on. This Wizard only stat shows up on Sources and Wizard Hats.

Storm Armor-Power of the Storm should only be considered for speedfarming weak content. It’s the best Arcane Power management skill, but comes at a heavy cost of being a non-defensive armor choice. Use at your own risk.

There’s a whole host of items to help you here, most notably Cindercoat. However, AP isn’t really a huge issue in our build.

——

Damage? If you need more damage, there are a lot of ways to get that up! Just keep in mind that it won’t interrupt our “Three burn spells”. We currently stack full up on defensives to progress reliably, so we’re not using many offensive options in our build.

Audacity is the best DPS passive, followed by the well-rounded Unwavering Will. This pair is oft used side by side in the later game iterations of many Wizard builds.

Familiar – Sparkflint gives 10% damage, and is a fire spell! It’s pewpew contributes to our burn as well! However, it’s unreliable against large mobs and losing Arcanot in the early game is a significant loss. If you don’t need Arcanot – this becomes juicy.

Glass Cannon is a solid boost that comes at an obvious cost. It’s a great “thoughtless damage boost” for non-threatening speedfarm content.

Conflagration is not bad for multiplayer scenarios with more than 1 DPS player.

Power Hungry is solid, but a little more narrow than Audacity in practice. Obviously, they don’t work with each other, so I’d rather take the latter.

Long story short, between Audacity and Unwavering Will, that’s a 40% damage increase. Other sources aren’t very practical in the early game, but at least you have an idea now.

More defense needed?

Defense is seen as self-healing and damage reduction.

I crammed as much defense as I could in the base build. Many of these are already
part of the basic setup. I’ll discuss them and a few more options.

Wizards have no innate self-heal – they rely on shields. Which is why Life per Hit is valuable in the early game – going shield heavy isn’t a luxury we can go for right now!

Shielding comes in many forms, but Galvanizing Ward is arguably the best – it allows you to have 1.6x your toughness before engaging and very easy to reset mid-fight via Teleport-Wormhole. Learning to abuse Galvanizing Ward will be important later on.

The other popular source for shielding is Magic Weapon-Deflection. Sadly, our rune is solidly locked into Ignite for the foreseeable future.

Unwavering Will is straight up one of our best passives. Offense and defense!

Blur is as basic as it gets.

Unstable Anomaly is a free death mechanic. Between this and Firebird’s 2pc, you have a lot of leeway for messing up.

Ice Armor-Crystallize is one of our best defensive skills. But it will only shine
once you have good armor rolls and gear in general. It’s our late-game armor of choice.
Oh, check out Halo of Arlyse… right.

More mobility needed?

If you need to speed bounties early on or just clear weak nephs faster.

Wizard mobility is MOSTLY locked behind items (Aether Walker, In-geom). The class isn’t known for its built in mobility aside from Teleport-Wormhole.

• Evocation – is where I would start. Reducing the cooldown on Teleport
• Storm Armor-Scramble isn’t TOO bad… great for speeding bounties early on.
• Illusionist – This near unheard of passive is better than it looks on paper.

Any other changes for speed at this point is too greedy, and I can’t recommend it. And honestly, that may nearly be the entire list of in-built Wiz speed skills.
(See: Speedfarming General | Wizard Speedfarming | Wizard Best Speedfarm)

Using Blood Shards:

Shoulders: for great offensive and defensive hybrid item Mantle of Channeling. The only downside is many shoulders don’t do jack for you.

Source: Dump all your Shards into getting an Etched Sigil ASAP. While there are more than a few useful sources out there that you can definitely leverage,

Etched Sigil is the SINGLE ITEM that will truly OPEN THE GATES 
to multiple build paths and the elusive “free third burn”.

Bracers: Ah, there are a TON of good bracers. Nemesis Bracers is what I’ll look for first. More elites is exactly what we want. Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer is freakin’ OP early on with Galvanizing Ward. And Ranslor’s Folly is a great “brainless farming” item with Twister.

Chest: Cindercoat is a great filler but is ultimately a crutch. It rolls with Fire% so it’s not bad to equip. It helps with Arcane Power if that’s an issue for you. Aquila Cuirass comes out here too, which CAN WORK given SPECIFIC SETUPS – it’s worth sacrificing a defensive passive or skill to facilitate “Infinite AP” to trigger Aquila Cuirass consistently.

Gloves: have low level fillers. Magefist, which I guess is better than nothing. St. Archew’s Gage is also decent given our playstyle (no, it doesn’t stack with Ashnagarr’s).

Belt: Good ‘ol Goldwrap.

After that, shards are pretty disposable – it’s time for RINGS.

There are many good ring wizards can use – Convention of Elements, Unity, Compass Rose, Occulus Ring (for your follower), and the elusive Halo of Arlyse.

A small note on bounty items to chase for…
Ring of Royal Grandeur (ACT I) to stick in another legendary item.
Avarice (ACT III) to boost our speedfarm capability!

Using Death’s Breath – Rare to legendary:

Okay, okay… I get it. Something else? Sword is the next best thing. Deathwish is the absolute JACKPOT, while In-geom is more than welcome.

Upgrade Sources for Etched Sigil. Okay, I know you’re tired of hearing about it. But yeah. Be absolutely relentless in your quest to bag one (and hopefully, one for the cube, lel).

Another I would try for is 2H Mace for The Furnace. It’s not too relevant in the early on, but Furnace WILL BE when Rift Guardians have trillions of HP.

Past this, look at the weapon table if anything interests you.

The Classics: Good for any type of newer character, and even the most battle-hardened of builds.

Ring of Royal Grandeur: “Break” your 6-piece to make space for a good filler item!

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac: Massively reduce cooldowns, as channeling spells like Disintegrate trigger it extremely quickly.

Reaper’s Wraps: Not so relevant on Wizards, but since bracers aren’t our strong point, this can be used as a filler. Obtaining it has ZERO RNG (Kill Malthael).

Accessory Sets: Focus–Restraint or Traveler’s Pledge. Completing any of these 2-sets is a vast power jump. +100%~ is substantial for only 2 slots.

Convention of Elements: Good ‘ol CoE. Wear it, Kanai it, as a filler or till the end of time. Learning to maximize CoE in any build you choose is a turning point for higher GR’s.

Unity: Straight 50% damage reduction in the cube. Too bad you need two of ’em.

Goldwrap + Avarice + Boon of The Hoarder: I don’t care how many times I have to remind you about this combo. Be on the lookout. Avarice drops from ACT III bounties.