I think Blizzard had good intentions for why they did this, but it kind of backfired. Here's John Yang talking about those affixes. He's essentially saying that unavoidable, direct damage like Thunderstorm and Jailer is supposed to make up for the fact that ranged classes can stand around corners and avoid certain damage whereas melee classes are standing right in front of mobs and therefore have to soak up all the damage - and keep an eye on toughness.

Personally, I like this a lot. I think it's a good move that toughness is an important stat and it was one of the things that was really bad about D3V, people going "full glass canon" on MP10, because more damage translated to more life steal, and you could basically skip a lot of mitigation requirement that MP10 would've had otherwise. In the beginning of RoS, it looked that that approach was successful: I remember that we were initially running Torment 5-6 with up to 25 million toughness (on my wizard). In the very beginning, there were many different builds available and many classes could participate in high-level content. Then, over time, clearing T6 became so fast that people went back to glass canon style, and with the help of tank monks and jade WDs T6 became a similar thing to MP10 farming in D3V. Mobs were just dying too fast to deal damage, so toughness was not an important stat anymore for fast and efficient groups. Once more, 2.1 attempted to change this by giving us higher levels, equating to T7, T8, T9, and so on; it was not possible to instantly kill everything anymore, so toughness requirements were higher once again. Until people realized that there's a tipping point.

On Greater Rift level 40 and beyond, it becomes almost impossible to have both the DPS necessary to complete the rift in due time and have the toughness to withstand a couple of hits by mobs. Maybe it's possible for certain classes (Crusader) on early 40s, but certainly not on GR48+, and that's where endgame resides for many top players right now. There is absolutely no way you are going to clear GR48 by having both the DPS and toughness required. It's only one or the other. And thanks to playstyles that allow you to kill stuff "off screen" (Sentry/Hydra/Blizzard) or cheesy tactics to avoid damage altogether (Smoke Screen on DH, Tiklandian Visage on WD, Serenity on monk, Furious Charge on barb) you can go for high DPS and still avoid being killed by mobs. But this is just a way to "exploit" game mechanics to get around toughness. I can't blame any player for doing this; as soon as I saw the opportunity for perma Serenity when all the new CDR items surfaced I thought this might be a nice thing, and I was surprised that Blizzard didn't prevent this (just like they prevented perma Archon). So I went for it. But I would much rather go back to a more balanced character of having a mix of DPS/toughness rather than having a glass canon DH and a zDPS monk and WD for all my GR45+ attempts.



Anyways, I disgress. Unavoidable damage is a necessity to force players to go for toughness - this is what John Yang said in the video. He said they don't want to see players going for high Greater Rifts with something like 5 million toughness. Well, if that's the case, then why are they not doing something about it? Demon Hunters are clearing GR48 solo and GR51 in groups now with 2-3 million toughness. It's exactly the opposite of what they want to achieve. The unavoidable damage is canceled out by a CC witch doctor, dangerous packs are being kept away from the DPS by a CS monk, so toughness is something you need to give up completely in order to compete in high-end content. This was apparent from day 1 on PTR and yet went live, and there's no word from the developers about potentially changing this for season 2.




My proposal for potential solutions:

1) Itemization 3.0 - splitting stats in primary and secondary was nice, but giving players a trade-off between DPS and toughness for the same stats completely backfired. No one in their right mind uses any kind of toughness stats on any of their jewelry or gloves, for example, it's all about DPS. Therefore, I suggest (and this has been suggested many times before) to separate stats into offense, defense, and utility.

2) Just like the first change to crowd control in response to the CMWW wizard, further iterate on diminishing returns. Give mobs a fixed limit of 75% of time to be CCed, make them go crazy for at least 0.25 seconds every seconds. Just end all the dreams of perma-CC through fear, immobilize, Furious Charge, or freeze. Similarly, put a hard cap on CDR that makes more sense (75% or 66% instead of 90%) or re-iterate on skills such that even high CDR doesn't allow for invincibility or perma-use of skills that are meant to be situational (Akarat's Champion, Epiphany, Serenity, and so on). It would make those skills less mandatory, end cheesy game tactics, and maybe (I'm just being very optimistic here) open up build diversity once again.

3) If damage is meant to be unavoidable, make it so that it is avoidable through toughness. There is no point in forcing people to ramp up toughness "because we don't want glass canons", but at the same time design the endgame in a way such that it is impossible with given itemization to not be killed by a single hit (unless you run around with zero DPS, which defeats the purpose of this game). In addition to point 1, one potential solution could be an inherent Forced Armor mechanic for every class.



There's really no easy way to solve this. All of the aforementioned solutions are not enough to change how game mechanics currently work - although there is "unavoidable damage", the only way to get to rank #1 is to hope for RNG and a 15 minutes streak of not getting hit by any such "unavoidable damage". Any of the aforementioned changes needs to be accompanied with even more aggressive mobs, e.g., a Frozen/Jailer range of 200 yards or a density such that getting hit is virtually impossible to avoid. In return, the initial hit of such abilities should hurt, but not kill players, such that part of beating a high rift is to avoid the continued ticks of those affixes. It's very much like WoW; I haven't played it since Vanilla but there was certain damage that was impossible to avoid, and you had to gear for it (I remember many such encounters in Ahn'Qiraj like C'Thun's stomach or Huhuran's poison darts), and lots of damage that was possible to avoid when you payed close attention (void zones in multiple encounters). [Oh, and of course I forgot to mention - what the hell is that stupid change to channeling spells supposed to mean for wizards, when you need to stand still for ~5 second to deal respectable damage, but the only way to not die in GR40+ is to never stand still for more than 1 second? I mean, WTH were you thinking, Blizzard? Thanks for killing my class and forcing a kiting playstyle on everyone and giving us spells that only work if you never kite anything...]



TL;DR: Unavoidable damage wouldn't be an issue and would actually be good game design if there was a way to mitigate such unavoidable damage, at least until you can react to it.

Disclaimer: This thread has not been updated for 2.1 yet. First of all because I'm not playing wizard anymore (I might come back at some point, and update the thread then), but more importantly the wizard right now is a one-way street in endgame. The gearing advice in this thread might still be viable to players who do not seek for the absolute endgame cookie cutter spec. For a thread that explains almost everything about the Firebird wizard in 2.1, check Jaetch's Fire Wizard 101.

1) Introduction

• Changelog

2) Terminology and builds

• Terminology
• Builds

3) Categories of stats

• Offensive
• Defensive
• Life recovery
• Other stats

4) List by slot

• Helm
• Shoulders
• Amulet
• Chest
• Gloves
• Belt
• Bracers
• Pants
• Boots
• Rings
• Orb
• Weapon

5) Paragon

6) TL;DR cheat sheet: stats per slot

7) Getting started: roadmap for new wizards

• Bounties
• Crafting
• Gems
• Rift it Forward
• Endgame
• Prepare for 2.1

8) Follower's gear

9) Appendix

• Useful links
• Acknowledgements

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

1) Introduction

Déjà-vu anyone? Yes! This is nothing but a remake of my old D3V Wizard Gear Guide. I was hesitant to make this at first, but when I wrote this post I figured that we have actually come to a point in RoS where we can make general gear statements, and therefore it's time to remake my guide. Maybe it helps one or two people. I will try to keep this updated from time to time, especially when major patches hit, so please make this a community effort - reply when you think something is missing or wrong.

In this guide, I will first explain some of the basic terms and abbreviations that will be used later, introduce some of the main builds and summarize some of the main points to consider when gearing up by categorizing stats into different types. The main part consists of a list of all useful items (which will of course be growing as it's difficult to make such a list ever "complete") and explains for each item why and in which situations it will be helpful for your wizard. For those who prefer a TL;DR I've added a picture of preferred affixes per slot. There's also a section about paragon point distribution, "getting started" to let you know what to do next to improve your wizard, a short word on followers, and a list of useful links in the end.

I'm also well aware that much of this guide might change with 2.1 - but that patch is still far away, and I will just update it for 2.1. For some items I'll foreshadow 2.1, but since all of that is subject to change and we know as much about 2.1 as Jon Snow (i.e., nothing) it is too early to draw any final, comprehensive conclusion.

► Changelog ◄

July 4, 2014 - release
July 5, 2014 - minor changes based on internal and external feedback.

2) Terminology and builds

There are many terms and abbreviations that have developed in the past. For a full list please check Jaetch's D3 Urban Dictionary. I'll just try to cover most of the terms that will be used in this guide.

► Terminology ◄

CHC – Critical hit chance (sometimes CC, but could be confused with crowd control)
CHD – Critical hit damage (sometimes CD, but could be confused with cooldown reduction)
CC - Crowd control
CDR - Cooldown reduction
RCR - Resource cost reduction
IAS – Increased attack speed
APS – Attacks per second (displayed in detailed character screen)
AP - Arcane Power, the wizard resource that we turn into damage spells
APoC – Arcane Power on Crit
AR/Allres – "All resistance" (resistance to all elements)
MS – Movement speed
MF – Magic find
GF – Gold find
LS – Life steal
LoH – Life on hit
LaK – Life after each kill
DPS – Damage per second (displayed in character screen)
BiS – Best in slot item
XP – Experience points
HP – Health points
BoA - Binds on Account (i.e., non-tradable items)
T# - Refers to Torment difficulty setting, e.g., T6 = Torment 6 difficulty
WoW - The Wand of Woh, a very powerful endgame weapon
RoRG - The Royal Ring of Grandeur, a very powerful ring
SoJ - Stone of Jordan, another very powerful ring
AT - The wizard spell Arcane Torrent
EB - The wizard spell Explosive Blast
D3V - Diablo 3 Vanilla, refers to Diablo 3 before Reaper of Souls

► Builds ◄

It is a bit more difficult to define the endgame builds right now as compared to D3V. There are a few dominating builds, but we see lots of variants of those - especially due to the fact that the "cookie cutter build" for your character very much depends on the gear you have.

Probably the most popular build is Chainpocalypse, using Explosive Blast as main damage spell. However, it also the one that is most difficult to realize because of the elusive Wand of Woh. If you get this item consider yourself very lucky and make sure to give this build a try! The main knowledge repository for this build is Melkor's thread on the official forums.

The other very popular spec is based on Archon; it requires the Vyr's set and is oftentimes combined with the Tal's set as well. Since 2.0.5 Archon automatically turns into the damage type of which you have the highest elemental damage bonus, so it is in theory viable to create an Archon build for each of the four wizard elements. The popular ones right now (2.0.6) are fire and arcane, though.

The third very common build revolves around a signature spell: Magic Missile. It requires one specific item though: The Mirrorball. Note that it can roll with 1 or 2 additional missiles; 2 is better but even a Mirrorball with +1 missile can make the build work.

There are other interesting builds, for example based on Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost, Arcane Orb (usually with "Frozen Orb" rune), or Meteor (in particular with the "Lightning Bind" rune). It is also very common to see combinations of all those builds; you can even combine the top three builds and run all three spells - Archon, Explosive Blast, and Magic Missile - to take full advantage of all those items if you're lucky enough to have all of them.

However, in the end the most important thing is that your items define your build! You can try to get a specific item through Kadala in return for your Blood Shards, in particular the Vyr set is a realistic goal to complete through gambling and to gain access to this endgame build. However, select the build based on what gear you have and which spells you like. Jaetch made a very nice guide about how to create a build - if you do not have a specific build in mind right now stop reading right here and read his guide first.

If you just want collections of builds, check out the "Builds" section on Diablofans, the Build compendium by Hope on the official forums, section #2 in RobertVarga's thread on the official forums, or a list of the most common wizard builds on Diablo Somepage.

3) Categories of stats

Diablo 3 has many different affixes on items. I'll loosely categorize them into four different categories: offensive, defensive, life recovery, and utility. These should be self-explanatory: offensive stats help to increase your pew-pew, defensive stats protect yourself against pew-pew, life recovery helps to clean up the mess if your pew-pew protection wasn't good enough, and utility... well, they're like the cousin you don't care about, who keeps eating all the cookies on your birthday party, but you hold on to him because he might be useful one day.

► Offensive ◄

Intelligence (int) is your main stat. For every wizard build it is very important and you want to get as much as possible. You want this stat on every single item - with one exception: sometimes it might be an option to skip this on jewelry. However, this is only for absolute endgame players who are min/maxing every single stat on every item - and those people know everything about gearing. Unless you have reached that level of ultimate wizard wisdom and you have several stashes full of perfect wizard gear, do not equip any item that has no int on it. Also keep in mind that int is a defensive stat as well: 10 int provide you with 1 AR; endgame wizards usually have about 9000 int, which translates to 900 AR!

Critical hit chance (CHC) and critical hit damage (CHD) are again very important for all builds. CHC not only contributes to damage, but in case you decide to run with APoC on your helmet and/or orb it will generate Arcane Power and therefore further increase your damage. Note that a perfect balance of CHC and CHD is roughly 1:10, therefore try to keep it balance. CHC is a must-have stat on helmet, bracers, and orb; similarly, an emerald in your weapon's socket is an absolut must. Furthermore, three types of items can roll both CHC and CHD: gloves, amulets, and rings. In a perfect world you want to get both, but it's not often possible, therefore the rule of thumb is: CHC > CHD on gloves and CHD > CHC on amulet and rings. (The maximum CHC, including paragon points and excluding the 2% on Vyr's chest, is 64% - maximum CHD is 530%; even if you switch to a staff in 2.1 for some reason the maximum CHC is still 54% and therefore still exceeds the 1:10 ratio. Therefore, do yourself a favor and prioritize CHD over CHC on rings for int classes, always.)

Elemental skill bonus increases, as the term says, all damage dealt by your skills (of that elemental skill type). Stacking this bonus is absolutely important, therefore it's a must-have on bracers and amulets. It also rolls on many slots for legendary items - more on that in the list down below. Elemental skill bonus are simply added; so two items of 20% increased fire damage increase your fire damage by 40%. Note that there's a sanity limit though - if you already have 100% increased elemental skill damage, adding another item with 20% will only increase your damage by 10%, therefore don't sacrifice too much to get this. Example: A Magic Missile deals 1 million damage; with 100% increased fire damage it deals 2 million damage, add another item with 20% to it and the damage is 2.2 million, thus just a 10% increase. Too complicated? Don't despair, you can see your elemental DPS under "details" on your character screen, at the end of the first (offense) section. Note that most item effects (e.g., Thunderfury's lightning damage proc) do not benefit from elemental damage bonus. This seems to be a bug and might get fixed. For a list of which items do and which don't benefit, see this thread.

Skill damage bonus works exactly the same as the elemental skill damage bonus - but obviously only for one skill. Signature spells (AP generators) roll on belt and pants; main damage spells (AP spenders) roll on helmet and boots; all damage spells that are considered to be utility/support roll on shoulders and chest. Orb can roll all those skills combined, so for any of those spells the maximum bonus is 45%. Getting the right skill damage bonus on an item is very difficult as it's not top priority and locks an item to a specific spec. Nevertheless, try to keep an eye out for such bonuses, especially on boots and orb. The following table highlights which spells can roll on which slots:

Belt, Pants	Helmet, Boots	Chest, Shoulders	Orbs
Magic Missile	Ray of Frost	Explosive Blast	◄
Shock Pulse	Arcane Orb	Hydra	◄
Spectral Blade	Wave of Force	Blizzard	◄
Electrocute	Energy Twister	Black Hole	◄
	Disintegrate	Familiar	◄
	Meteor		◄
	Arcane Torrent		◄
(Signature spells)	(Main damage spells)	(Support/cooldown spells)	(All those 16 spells)

Elite damage bonus is a very useful stat for endgame wizards. It naturally only rolls on weapons and orbs but is not very desirable there as it is too low (up to 8%) compared to other stats; similarly, a diamond in your weapon is a clear loser to an emerald. However, elite damage is the reason why three particular items are endgame material: The Sun Keeper, Unity, and Stone of Jordan. More on that later.

Improved attack speed (IAS) gives a nice damage boost, but is not as important as in D3V anymore. If you use channelling spells (Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, Ray of Frost) you might want to keep your IAS low - it increases your damage, but also increases your resource cost consumption. Endgame wizards usually don't have too much IAS; if you don't need cooldown reduction on gloves it's the fourth priority stat, and it comes naturally on The Witching Hour, The Royal Ring of Grandeur, and many amulets. The only reason to stack up lots of IAS is if you are relying on procs, for example, with a frost or lightning build and high proc coefficient spells.

Cooldown reduction (CDR) is a very important stat if you use Explosive Blast (with the Wand of Woh) or Archon (with the Vyr's set), and can be useful for many other spells that have a cooldown. Depending on how important the cooldown spells are for your build, you want it in a helmet's socket (up to 12.5% with a Flawless Royal Diamond), shoulders, gloves, and orb (up to 8% each). If your main damage spell is Archon or Explosive blast, it is also worth considering to get CDR on your weapon (up to 10%) and rings (up to 8%). There are only few cases where you'd want to get CDR on an amulet (up to 8%), but I will mention it here just for the sake of completeness. Last but not least, there are two sets that yield 10% CDR: Born's Command and Captain Crimson's Waders. They are especially great for starters, in particular if you don't have many of the class set items or endgame legendaries yet.

CDR suffers from diminishing returns, the formula is like this: 1-(1-cdr1)*(1-cdr2)*(1-cdr3) and so on. If you have 8% CDR from paragon, 20% CDR from skills, and 6% CDR from an item, your entire CDR is not 34% but 1-(1-0.08)*(1-0.2)*(1-0.06) = 1-0.69184 = 0.30816 (or 30.816%). However, note that this doesn't mean higher CDR is useless - quite the contrary, it is desirable to get to 50% for some builds. The maximum possible CDR for a wizard right now is 72.15% (with patch 2.1 this is going to be 74.378% as the Vigilante Belt will roll CDR as well). Check out this great website to calculate your cooldown reduction or see what the maxmimum amount is.

Resource cost reduction (RCR) is another affix that can make certain builds work; it is especially useful for builds with channelling spells (Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, Ray of Frost). It can roll on the same slots as CDR and the same rules apply in terms of calculation. There is already a legendary belt that can roll RCR, the Sash of Knives. Usually, most wizards don't stack as much RCR as anyone would stack CDR, so don't sacrifice too many stats for it.

Average damage comes on weapon, orb, and jewelry. Obviously we want those values to be as high as possible on weapons and orb. On amulets and rings the average damage roll is a stat that is usually subpar to any of the other damage affixes - it doesn't hurt if you can't re-roll it, but in the end you want to change it to be something else.

Area damage is an affix that is not really used by many wizards right now. It's not because it's bad - but simply because other affixes are better. Maybe it will be improved in the future, but right now it seems like you don't want to keep this (or even re-roll this) on any item.

► Defensive ◄

Resistance to all elements (AR) is one of the most important stats. Luckily, we get a huge chunk of it through intelligence, and up to 250 through paragon. In RoS we don't get AR on as many slots as we used to do in D3V: it is a must-have on shoulders, belt, pants, and boots, and an optional stat on bracers - that's it. The key is maximizing it through buffs, paragon, getting high values on all the aforementioned items, getting max topaz gems in all armor slots, and stacking some single resistances on secondaries.

Armor is a stat that is heavily underrated by many wizards. There are two different rolls: the lower armor roll (up to 397) and the higher armor roll (up to 595). The latter can be found on chest, pants, helmet, and amulet, and is an absolute must on the first two (on helmet and amulet we want other stats). The lower armor roll is desirable on shoulders, belt, and boots if possible. Just like AR, it is an option on bracers.

A common topic is the "armor-AR 10-1 ratio". What does this mean? Essentially, this rule of thumb says that 1 AR is worth about 10 armor. However, this is only true if you are already at a 10:1 ratio, e.g., if your wizard has 4000 armor and 400 AR. This is usually not the case, because we get AR through int and AR comes in as much as 80 on a single slot, while we try to avoid strength (which gives 1 armor per 1 strength) and armor can't roll higher than 595 (chest, pants, helm, amulet) or 397 (other slots). Therefore, wizards have a natural imbalance of AR and armor. Try to get some armor and not go AR only – both ways of damage reduction work multiplicatively and it's inefficient to boost one to infinity while neglecting the other stat. In order to find out which stat is better for your, you can use this quick mitigation calculator.

Vitality is obviously another important stat. Each point in vitality awards you 80 HP, and your goal should be about 250k-350k HP. This is very subjective – some people prefer to have much more (although it's highly advised to not go over 500k), while some people manage to get along with much less (e.g., 200k). See what works for you, but aiming at around 300k seems to be a good idea. To give you an idea, if you get max vitality in helmet (750), orb (750), boots (500), and pants (500) you're already at 252k. Keep in mind that you can always tweak your life with paragon points in vitality or amethysts in armor sockets.

Life % is another way of raising your HP, however, it's only useful if you have already a considerably amount of HP. Since it is very advisable to not stack your HP too high, life% is in general considered to be almost useless. Never sacrifice any other affix for it. Wizards don't want life%, period. To read more about the mistake of hoarding too much life read this thread on the official forums (a developer even stopped by to agree on that matter, so I'm not making that up).

Elite/ranged/melee reduction offer another great way of improving your defense. Elite damage reduction rolls on chests, and it is not a bad idea to get this (after 3 sockets, int, and a 500+ armor roll). Melee and ranged damage reduction roll on bracers, chest, and amulet as secondaries and it is worth to keep an eye on them; in endgame it's all about perfecting your secondaries. Since melee damage is probably the more frequent (and more dangerous) type of damage, the String of Ears is a great item to consider. Note that many elite affixes that are considered melee or ranged currently can't be mitigated by that stat; for a comprehensive list check out this thread.

► Life recovery ◄

Since the removal of life steal (which doesn't work anymore at level 70) there are other, new measures of recovering life. Two things are important to consider: 1) Your best way to survive is not to recover as much life as possible but to avoid losing too much. Improve your mitigation as much as possible. 2) As of now, none of the primary affixes on any endgame wizard's equipment contributes to life recovery. This might change with patch 2.1 when life on hit and life regeneration are getting buffed - retroactively! That means, if you find an item with such a stat it might be worth considering to keep it, unless you desperately need it right now. The amount of life on hit or life regeneration on this item will be about tripled (!) when patch 2.1 hits the live servers. I'll go over those really quick, because there's not too much to say:

• Life regeneration is the #1 priority on your "defense" tab for paragon points because it gets really high (over 8000 at paragon level 200) but not worth getting on gear, since it occupies a primary stat.
• Life on hit (LoH) is a good way to recover life, but 1) it's enough to get it through paragon and 2) it's only worth to be considered on an item if you're using a high proc coefficient spell.
• Life steal (LS) doesn't work anymore at level 70.
• Life after kill (LaK) sounds nice and is only a secondary affix, but the value is not high enough to make it a high priority. On chest and amulet (melee/damage reduction) as well as rings (health globe bonus/CC reduction) other stats are better. It's only worthwhile on pants and weapon.
• Extra health from health globes is the most useful health recovery affix right now. It's the most desirable secondary affix on shoulders, boots, orb, and rings, and an alternative to melee/ranged damage reduction on chest and amulet.

► Other stats ◄

Movement speed (MS) is something we don't want on gear in endgame. WHAT? You might ask if you stopped playing in D3V. Well, once you are paragon level 200 you can get the maximum 25% MS from your first paragon tab. Everything you get through paragon you don't need to get on gear: 50 paragon points in MS save you two primary slots (2x 12% MS) on gear (technically even a bit more). All you sacrifice for that are 250 int - which is half a primary stat (or even one third for some slots). As soon as you are above paragon ~150 get rid of movement speed on gear if possible. Many items come with movement speed as fixed roll now - which will thankfully be removed in patch 2.1, stay tuned.

Crowd control (CC) reduction is a secondary stat on helmet and jewelry. It rolls up to 40% and although it's calculated multiplicatively it's awesome - you totally want this on 2-3 of these items if possible! With 3 items of 35% CC reduction each, you get 1-(1-0.35)(1-0.35)(1-0.35) = 1-(0.65)^3 = 1-0.275 = 0.745% CC reduction. It means that frozen, jailer, and all similar effects only last for one fourth of their initial time - which renders most of them harmless!

Pickup radius got nerfed to roll only 1-2 yard radius. It is not worth it and although it doesn't hurt to get some, it's totally underwhelming right now.

Arcane power on crit (APoC) also got nerfed to roll only 3-4 and only on orb and helmet. Especially on helmet there are too many other affixes that are too important to give up (int, CHC, vitality/skill damage/socket). It is an option for some builds, especially if you don't need CDR (and can give up the socket on helmet and CDR on orb), such as with channelling spells. But most builds get by without any APoC these days.

Sockets – on weapon (1 socket), pants (2 sockets), and chest (3 sockets) they are absolutely mandatory. On helmet you only want a socket if you need CDR. On an orb a socket can be a placeholder but ultimately other stats are more important (int, vit, CHC, skill damage). Since it is difficult to re-roll orbs, however, it's okay to keep it sometimes if the re-roll costs get too high. Two things to keep in mind for patch 2.1: There will be a new item, Ramaladni's Gift, that allows to add a socket to a weapon. Therefore, sockets on a weapon switch from becoming the most desirable to the least desirable affix. If you have a weapon that you haven't enchanted yet, wait until 2.1 - you might regret re-rolling it later on! Second, sockets will be added to jewelry, and new legendary gems will drop in Greater Rifts.

Bonus experience is not very useful. Not from the secondary affix, not from a ruby in helmet (41%), and not from the legendary items like Hellfire Ring (45%). The reason simply being that the bonus XP one gets on higher levels, especially in groups, is so high that the relative increase of XP by those items is not worth the loss of other stats (see XP calculator). There are exceptions - especially if you play sub-Torment, bonus experience might be an option - but in endgame it is absolutely useless.

Magic find (MF)/gold find (GF) are not important and should not be prioritized too high. Magic find only applies to legendary items with 10% of its value; so a perfect Nagelring with 50% will only yield 5% higher legendary drop rate. Feel free to wear it until you find something else, but don't go crazy on MF. Goldfind, on the other hand, can be very useful as it recently got changed to be multiplicative; a Goldskin helps a lot to simply double all your gold income and Goldwrap offers a considerable toughness boost if your killspeed is high enough. Don't hunt for GF items specifically - but if you are low on gold you might decide to keep it on some items as secondary affix.

Chance to freeze is a secondary stat that can roll on weapon, orb (up to 2.6%) and belt (up to 5.1%). It is not a bad idea to look out for that stat, especially if you ever consider to go for a cold build!

4) List by slot

For each slot, I'll list the items to consider, why they're good and in which situations it might be good to aim for them. Those who know the old D3V guide know my style - I like to point out not only why the item is good and what it's good for, but also what the drawbacks are (if any). The difference to my D3V guide is that there are so many sets right now and there will be lots of redundancy - therefore I'll keep it shorter.

Note that there are maaaaaany set items for almost every slot; I just copy/paste the description - which of those items you use to get the set bonuses is totally up to you! There are simply too many variations to go into detail for each of them. Keep in mind that the most important item in order to acquire as many set items as possible is the Ring of Royal Grandeur. No matter how many bounties you have to do in act 1 to get one - some people had to do as many as 1500 to finally get there - it's totally worth it and opens up dozens of different combination of gearing.

There is also no ranking for any slot - the items are just put there in arbitrary order. There is no "BiS ranking" of items since there are quite a few builds; and even for one specific builds players might argue about which sets to combine. Therefore: embrace the options and pick a gear set of your liking!

► Helm ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Aughild's Spike	Best crafted set and if possible, you want to wear this set with any build.	Always comes with AR (which we don't want on helmet).
Tal Rasha's Guise of Wisdom	Use when you want to get the 4 piece set bonus (adds about 20% DPS).	-
Firebird's Plume	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus)	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped! Annoying that they always come with RCR and Black Hole damage (useless)
Andariel's Visage	Only helmet that can roll elemental damage. Insane DPS boost.	Turns you into an absolute glass canon; always poison resist, therefore no good secondary; only one random property (you need CHC).
Velvet Camaral	Enables you to turn the signature spell Electrocute into a considerable damage source. Combine with Myken's Ball of Hate, offers great CC.	Lightning is not the strongest element right now and this item is super rare.
Storm Crow	Up to 20% lightning damage; potentially good item for a lightning build.	Always rolls LoH, so very difficult to have good rolls. Andariel's can also roll lightning and might be better (additional IAS); most lightning wizards consider Velvet Camaral as BiS.
The Magistrate	Great for a frost build. Combine with Serpent's Sparker. Offers great CC.	The proc rate seems to be quite low and cold is not the strongest element right now.
Dark Mage's Shade	Adds just a bit of extra survivability.	The proc delay is way too high to make it useful.
Archmage's Vicalyke	If you use the Mirror Image spell, definitely consider this helmet; especially with Duplicates rune.	Unfortunately, Mirror Images are only of limited use in endgame; it's more of a fun/toy item.
Cain's Insight	Potential starter set item because of 8% IAS	Not really useful in endgame, don't craft unless you're desperate and don't mind spending some mats on an item that will be replaced.

► Shoulders ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Firebird's Pinions	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus)	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Aughild's Power	Best crafted set and if possible, you want to wear this set with any build.	-
Born's Priviledge	10% CDR set bonus, great for Archon/Chainpocalypse.	Aughild's set is simply the best in slot item here (until 2.1)
Asheara's Custodian	Nice starter set, considering the 2 piece bonus.	Aughild's (and when using CDR spells Born's) are better.
Pauldron's of the Skeleton King	Might prevent death, occasionally.	Only obtainable via bounty caches (act 1). I've worn them for a long time an never seen them proc.
Homing Pads	Keep this in your inventory at all times. Put them on before you teleport to town to avoid being interrupted.	No real endgame material, only used for gear swap.
Spaulders of Zakara	Great to save repair costs.	Repair costs are a joke - absolutely no need to wear those.

► Amulet ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Tal Rasha's Allegiance	Use when you want to get the 4 piece set bonus (adds about 20% DPS).	Always comes with vitality, difficult to get great rolls.
Moonlight Ward	BiS for arcane builds. Arcane damage roll will be buffed to 30%-40% range in 2.1, so keep yours no matter how high the roll is right now!	To be really perfect, needs CHD/int random roll (and re-roll IAS).
The Star of Azkaranth	Turns fire damage into healing. Always comes with CDR.	Rarest item in the game, insanely difficult to get a good roll.
Countess Julia's Cameo / Xephirian Amulet	Turns arcane/lightning damage into healing.	Since IAS is fixed roll, difficult to get a decent roll.
Mara's Kaleidoscope	Turns poison damage into healing. Always rolls with CHC.	Very rare.
Talisman of Aranoch	Turns cold damage into healing.	Always rolls with LoH, therefore almost impossible to roll BiS.
Haunt of Vaxo	Always rolls CHC, high potential to roll BiS, especially nice for lightning builds	-
Golden Gorget of Leoric	Always rolls CHC, potential to roll BiS	Only obtainable via bounty cache (act 1), always rolls AR therefore difficult to roll good
Squirt's Necklace / Rondal's Locket	No fixed primary roll, can roll BiS	-
Rakoff's Glass of Life / Kymbo's Gold/Ouroboros	Only one "wrong" roll, otherwise potential to roll BiS	Need three good random rolls
Ancestor's Grace	Drops on hardcore only. Adds an extra life!	It only works once...
Blackthorne's Duncraig Cross / The Traveler's Pledge / Eye of Etlich / Dovu Energy Trap / The Flavor of Time / Halycon's Ascent	-	These amulets have more than one "useless" stat and therefore will never be considered in endgame
The Ess of Johan	Always rolls with socket+CDR, so almost impossible to be useful	Socket will be mandatory in patch 2.1 (legendary gem) - might keep a good roll!

► Chest ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Cindercoat	Bis for almost all fire builds, especially those that are resource-heavy	One less primary stat, many wizard fire builds don't need resources.
Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit	Has one more primary affix (fixed IAS), therefore BiS	-
Firebird's Breast	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus)	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Vyr's Astonishing Aura	Mandatory set for Archon build	Least desirable item of this set (Tal's is better); fixed useless 1-2% CHC roll
Aughild's Rule	Best crafted set and if possible, you want to wear this set with any build.	Class set chests or Cindercoat are to be preferred on this slot
Born's Frozen Soul	10% CDR set bonus, great for Archon/Chainpocalypse.	Loses to all other set chests
Blackthorne's Surcoat	Great survivability set for starters	Loses to all set chests
Goldskin	Doubles your gold income	Loses to all set chests

► Gloves ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Magefist	BiS for fire builds, additional primary stat, only gloves with elemental bonus besides Frostburn	-
Frostburn	BiS for cold builds, only gloves with elemental bonus besides Magefist, insane up to 45% chance to freeze!	Always LoH, therefore often crap rolls; extremely rare
Tasker and Theo	BiS for pet builds (Hydra is considered pet!), might be BiS in patch 2.1	Quite rare
Vyr's Grasping Gauntlets	Mandatory set for Archon build	-
Firebird's Talons	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus); always roll main stat, IAS, CDR	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Cain's Sriviner	Potential starter set item because of 8% IAS	Not really useful in endgame, don't craft unless you're desperate and don't mind spending some mats on an item that will be replaced.
Asheara's Ward	Nice starter set, considering the 2 piece bonus.	Loses to all other aforementioned gloves.

► Belt ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
The Witching Hour	BiS if IAS/CHD rolls are high	Very rare, damage comes at high costs (survivability stats)
Harrington's Waistguard	BiS thanks to insane damage boost. Not only chests but all clickable containers (dead bodies, vessels, ...) trigger the buff	Situational - depends on the area. Should not be worn by too many in group (chest opening fights).
Thundergod's Vigor	Only belt with elemental damage (lightning), good option for lightning builds; lightning proc increased by lightning skill damage	In terms of raw damage, Witching Hour or Harrington's are usually better
String of Ears	Best belt for toughness boost thanks to melee reduction secondary	-
Goldwrap	Toughness alternative, in particular if paired with Goldskin chest	Not really reliable
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle	10% CDR and 10% CRC set bonuses	Loses to other belts in endgame
Tal Rasha's Brace	Use when you want to get the 4 piece set bonus (adds about 20% DPS).	-
Blackthorne's Notched Belt	Very underrated set/belt, can be a real toughness help especially for starters	Fixed life regeneration, therefore sometimes bad rolls
Fleeting Strap	Nice starter belt that can be crafted, fixed IAS	For starters a DPS belt is usually better, and IAS is not that important for most builds
Hellcat Waistguard	Fixed IAS and elite damage	Elite damage roll too low, not worth it

► Bracers ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Strongarm Bracers	The "pull" from Black Hole triggers these, therefore BiS - especially in groups	-
Aughild's Search	Best crafted set and if possible, you want to wear this set with any build.	-
Reaper's Wraps	BiS for resource-heavy builds	-
Trag'oul Coils	Can be useful to keep these in inventory to swap before using healing well and reduce Archon cooldown	Very situational, can be annoying
Lacuni Prowlers	-	Used to be BiS in D3V, now completely useless since we don't want neither IAS nor MS on bracers
Warzechian Armguards	Incredible speed boost, especially useful for speed runs and with AoE spells	-
Nemesis Bracers	Mandatory to have in inventory for shrines	Due to the fixed MS almost always bad rolls
Custerian Wristguards	-	Don't be fooled: these are useless. The gold amount, even in T6 with GF equip, is negligible compared to XP.
Ancient Parthan Defenders	Toughness boost on stun, optional for lightning build	Rolls two (one too many) toughness stats by default; other bracers are better

► Pants ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Vyr's Fantastic Finery	Mandatory set for Archon build	-
Hexing Pants of Mr Yan	Amazing DPS buff for always-moving builds	Only works with Eplosive Blast build
Pox Faulds	Damage aura, nice starter pants	Set chests or Hexing Pants more endgame viable
Blackthorne's Jousting Mail	Great survivability set for starters	Always roll LoH and life%
Firebird's Down	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus)	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Asheara's Pace	Nice starter set, considering the 2 piece bonus.	Loses to all other aforementioned pants
Cain's Habit	Potential starter set item because of 8% IAS	Not really useful in endgame, don't craft unless you're desperate and don't mind spending some mats on an item that will be replaced.
Captain Crimson's Thrust	10% CDR and 10% CRC set bonuses	CDR is usually not worth it giving up other sets

► Boots ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Illusory Boots	Great utility boots that allow to walk through all enemies	Only obtainable through bounty cache (act 2)
Ice Climbers	Immunity to many CC effects (not only frozen, but also certain immobilize abilities)	Very rare
Blackthorne's Spurs	Great survivability set for starters	Always roll MS and life regeneration
Firebird's Tarsi	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus)	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Vyr's Swaggering Stance	Mandatory set for Archon build	-
Asheara's Finders	Nice starter set, considering the 2 piece bonus.	Loses to all other aforementioned boots
Cain's Travelers	Potential starter set item because of 8% IAS	Not really useful in endgame, don't craft unless you're desperate and don't mind spending some mats on an item that will be replaced.
Captain Crimson's Waders	10% CDR and 10% CRC set bonuses	CDR is usually not worth it giving up other sets

► Rings ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Ring of Royal Grandeur	Makes it extremely simple to combine sets. Absolutely mandatory - for starters as well as for endgame	Only obtainable through bounty cache (act 1), always fixed IAS+LoH
Stone of Jordan	Only elemental damage ring and up to 30% elite damage, absolutely BiS. Re-roll random roll to CHD or CDR	Difficult to get a good one that also has the right element, re-rolling expensive
Unity	Four fixed rolls: int, CHC, elite damage, LoH; BiS in solo play if you have two (one for you, one on follower with immortality token)	-
Wyrdward	Adds the same as Paralysis passive; option for lightning builds	Not worth wearing it if you have any of the other endgame rings.
Bul-Kathos's Wedding Band	Heals you for 1% of your maximum HP, drains 0.4% of any enemies maximum HP per second. Right now, this item is powerful on the 2.1 PTR, but it will probably be changed - still: keep one.	Always rolls main stat, CHD, LoH, and life%. So right now it can never have perfect rolls.

► Orb ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Mirrorball	Most powerful orb at this point, turns Magic Missile into a main damage spell	Very difficult to get, especially with +2 missiles (can roll +1)
Firebird's Eye	Set only useful in hardcore right now (4 piece bonus); this orb is still useful because of up to 20% fire skill damage	Keep this for patch 2.1 - will be revamped!
Tal Rasha's Unwavering Glare	Great choice to gain the 4 piece set bonus	-
Winter Flurry	Potential BiS for frost builds; great cold damage boost	The Frost Nova procs "on kill", which makes it useless in fast group play
Light of Grace	Obvious BiS for Ray of Frost build	For other frost builds consider Winter Flurry
Myken's Ball of Hate	BiS for lightning build	Rare
The Oculus	Great utility orb	Proc not reliable enough
Triumvirate	Great overall DPS orb	Usually loses to set orbs
Chantodo's Force	Great starter set	There are better set orbs and the Mirrorball
Cosmic Strand	Crafted starter orb	For Teleport-focused builds, The Oculus might be better

► Weapon ◄

Item	Why is it great and for which build?	Drawbacks
Wand of Woh	Definite BiS weapon for wizards right now; optimal random roll: CDR!	Extremely rare
Thunderfury	BiS for all non-Explosive Blast builds, adds not only great DPS but also debuff (proc)	-
Serpent's Sparker	Might be BiS weapon in 2.1, definitely keep it!	Hydra not that powerful right now
Gesture of Orpheus	Close contender to BiS weapon for arcane builds	Some argue Thunderfury is better (also because of debuff proc)
Slorak's Madness	BiS for Disintegrate builds	-
Shard of Hate	Can be useful for lightning or frost builds - some might even say BiS if you use high proc coefficient spells	Lightning proc requires to be in close range to be useful
Rimeheart	Instantly kills frozen white mobs; potentially BiS in patch 2.1 Greater Rifts if combined with Frostburn	Rarest weapon in the game
Sun Keeper	Up to 30% elite damage, great endgame weapon	-
The Burning Axe of Sankis	Great for fire builds; the "Ignore Pain" proc adds survivability	-
Devastator	Great for fire builds, craftable	Burning Axe of Sankis is better due to the legendary proc, and has higher attack speed which can be useful
Odyn Son	Great for lightning builds	-
Utar's Roar	Great for frost builds, craftable	-
Born's Furious Wrath	10% CDR set bonus, great for Archon/EB (unless you have the WoW). Decent starter weapon.	-
Azurewrath	Great weapon for frost builds due to high freeze chance	Rimeheart, Utar's Roar
Chantodo's Will	Great starter set	No real endgame weapon

5) Paragon

With Reaper of Souls there is a new way of distributing stats: paragon points. While paragon points are not absolutely mandatory to be successful (as opposed to the high magic find buff from paragon in D3V), having a high level of paragon makes a huge difference. You have 13 slots on gear with 4 primary stats each, which means there are about 52 primary stats you can get from gear. A level 600 paragon player will have 25% MS, 500 int, 10% CDR, 10% CHC, 50% CHD, 250 all resist, 10% RCR, and 50% area damage from paragon - which equates to about 10-11 additional affixes! And we are not even taking into consideration the 25% armor bonus, over 8250 life regeneration, and 4126 LoH. Therefore: try to get as high paragon as possible. 200 should be your minimum goal!

On the core tab, the first 25% go into MS. The exception is if we can't get any better stat on an item (e.g., Blackthorne's Spurs always roll with life regeneration and MS, so we will keep the MS). After that, ask yourself: are you using a resource-heavy spell, in particular a channelling spell? If yes, maximize Arcane Power. Otherwise, every point goes into intelligence unless we are starving for HP (less than 200k). Here, the paragon points allows us to balance missing points on gear.

For offense, the first question is if we use a cooldown spell as a major skill in our build (Archon or Explosive Blast). If yes: maximize CDR first. If no: whatever gives most DPS. Usually it's CHD > IAS > CHC (if we don't need CDR, otherwise CDR is number 1).

Defense is very simple: fill it up from bottom to top. Done. Start with life regeneration, after that resist all, and then armor. Life %, as usual, is the most useless stats for us.

The utility tab again depends on our spec: do we need RCR, yes or no? If yes, maximize RCR first; if no, go for LoH (and RCR second). Area damage is almost always only the third option, and gold find is for those that are going towards paragon 800 (if you need gold, equip Goldskin - don't waste your points here).

6) TL;DR cheat sheet: Stats per slot

Too much text? Not interested in all the details? You have the items and just want to know the stats? Well, then this is what you might be looking for: a (relatively) simple cheat sheet that tells you which affixes on which slots you want.

7) Getting started: roadmap for new wizards

"So..., thanks for all the info, but where should I start?" If you are a bit overwhelmed by all the info and don't know where to start, I'll try to outline what (I think) is the quickest way to get into "wizard endgame", i.e., have a decent enough gear to try out several builds and play on Torment level difficulty. Note that these are only my subjective recommendations - this is not the only way to do this, and over all those activities your primary motivation should always be FUN. Do whatever you like to do - don't force yourself into anything you don't like, just because "maybe it will make my wizard better if I do 10 hours of this". In the end you'll get bored after a few hours, stop playing, and never get anywhere!

► Bounties ◄

The first thing you should do are bounties. Specifically act 1 bounties. There are two reasons why:

• Bounties will yield Rift Keystone Fragments that allow you to play Nephalem Rifts. You will get 1 fragment for each bounty - except for the first one. If you play in group, you will only get the fragment if you are in the specific area while the bounty is completed.
• If you complete all bounties in one act, and talk to Tyrael in town afterwards, he will award you a Horadric Cache. The cache contains a few of items, crafting materials, 2 Rift Keystone Fragments, Blood Shards, and has the potential to drop special legendary items: items that you can only obtain from those bounty caches. The The Royal Ring of Grandeur is one of these items and the main reason why you should do bounties. Never stop doing bounties (at least from time to time) until you have this ring!

There are other "bounty only legendaries", you can find a full list here. The legendaries from act 1 are by far the most important ones; act 4 can drop legendaries from all other four acts as well - you might add this to your bounty hunt, but if you really desperately need the ring I recommend staying on act 1 only.

Bounty caches roll when you open them - this means you can farm them on any character and open them on your wizard to get intelligence items (although you can get unlucky and still roll, for example, a strength ring). The cache loot is subject to the game's difficulty, however, it is still by far the fastest way to get as many caches and fragments by doing bounties on Normal difficulty - and in groups. There are in-game communities you can join to find other people to run with - just search for some keywords like "bounties" and you'll find them, or ask in any clan/community/general chat for "LFG act 1 normal bounties".

Since you can pretty much one-shot everything on Normal this requires almost no gear, but a build that is focused on running really fast. Here's one build that does accomplish that (just one of many variations, pick whatever damage spells you like). Important: pick up as much as you can when doing bounties and salvage everything - you will need all materials you can get! See next section.

► Crafting ◄

The other thing you can do in the beginning is crafting. There are five sets that are worth crafting:

• Aughild's
• Asheara's
• Born's
• Cain's
• Captain Crimson's

The Aughild's set is by far the most important one as it is worn by almost all classes and specs even in endgame (on fully geared Torment 6 characters). It is never wrong to craft any of those set items (specifically shoulders; they are simply "best in slot" as of now). Some people wear Captain Crimson's and Born's for quite a while for Archon builds due to their high CDR. Asheara's and Cain's are good starter sets but will definitely be replaced as you find more loot.

If you have no The Royal Ring of Grandeur but all sets, I suggest to craft helmet, bracers, and chest of Aughild's, and all four items of the Asheara's set. They complement each other best. If you have the ring, you could craft Aughild's bracers and helmet, Born's chest and weapon, Captain Crimson's belt and pants, and Asheara's gloves, boots, and shoulders. That way you get all set bonuses of four sets! If you get decent rolls on those items, simply crafting them might enable you to jump right into Torment 2/3 (or even higher, depending on rolls on gear, gems, and jewelry)!

As for your off-hand, the Cosmic Strand is a very decent starter orb. You see, crafting can get you fully decked out with legendary armor right from the start - you only need to make sure you pick up as much crafting materials along the way as possible. Crafting all those items and re-rolling them into useful stats might cost you anywhere between 2k and 5k of each material, so start stockpiling them now!

You should only craft rings and amulets though if you really have nothing (not even yellow) for those slots at all, and if you can spare the gems (upgrading gems for your gear is way too important in the beginning). If you decide to craft rare rings and amulets, set yourself a fixed limit and absolutely do not go over it. I suggest to not craft more than 10 rings and 10 amulets unless you have close to (or more than) a thousand Marquise gems of all types. You need lots of gems for your gear, but also upgrading legendary rings and amulets!

► Gems ◄

We haven't talked about gems yet, so let's do this real quick:

• In a weapon, use an emerald. The emerald is way more powerful than any other gem in weapon; this will be fixed with a future patch, but for now there's no choice.
• In helmet, the only gem worth wearing is a diamond if cooldown spells as a main part of your build (e.g., Archon or Explosive Blast). If you don't need CDR, get a helmet with no socket!
• In all other armor slots, use either topaz or diamond. As a rule of thumb, use diamonds until you have enough money to create Royal (or even Flawless Royal) topazes; until then, diamonds are simply better (diamonds scale more evenly from low-level to high-level gems, topaz only pick up at the end). If you start crafting from Marquise, a Flawless Royal costs 9.8 million gold, so upgrading all 6 required gems to max level will cost you almost 60 million gold! (It is not as much as it used to be though; especially in 2.1, there are ways to get that much gold in a few seconds.)

With 2.1 we will see new legendary gems for amulets and rings and hopefully more diversity for the weapon slot, so stay tuned!

► Rift it Forward ◄

So, you have done lots of bounties, the ring, many rift key fragments, and all the crafted gear, but you really want to get the real loot? Then it's time to do some rifts. You can do rifts on your own, using your follower (see next section); you can rifts in groups, with your friends and clan mates; but there's also a different way, called "Rift it Forward". The concept is that there are two groups: runners and openers. Runners clear the rift up to the Rift Guardian and then invite others by posting it in the Rift it Forward community channels. Openers send party invite requests to runners, join for the kill, one of the openers opens the next rift (hence the name) and then leave. This works because the runners get to do lots of rifts without paying any rift key fragments, and openers get lots and lots of Rift Guardian kills.

Join any of the communities (there are several of them, but they all start with "Rift it Forward", so search for that). Whenever you do rifts and your group isn't full, consider doing this to save rift key fragments (disadvantage: you can't clear the rift after the Rift Guardian is killed). If you have plenty of rift key fragments from your bounties, consider RiF as opener - because it will yield an insane amount of blood shards. Blood shards can be turned in at Kadala to gamble for legendary and set items. You can gamble anything from Kadala (even class set items) except for legendary potions, Legendary follower items, and bounty cache items. I highly recommend start gambling orbs, as you might get a Mirrorball - and this one item enables you to run lots of different builds that don't have high gear requirements. After that, gamble all armor slots to get the wizard sets; do not gamble for weapons or jewelry, it is too expensive. Here's a thread that can help you find out about the "expected blood shards" to get a specific item. Note that this is gambling - you might get your desired item after spending 5 blood shards, or you might not get it after spending 12,000 shards. On average, getting a specific set item takes roughly about 3,000 blood shards, so hang in there and don't give up!

► Endgame ◄

For endgame gearing, there are three wizard sets: Tal's, Firebird's, and Vyr's. Vyr's is only worn by those that run Archon in their build - and obviously Vyr's is also almost a must-have when you want to run Archon. Tal's is a decent set that gives about 20% extra damage with its 4 piece set bonus plus an additional primary on the chest, but it's optional and not necessary for any build. Firebird's is currently considered to be useless and will be buffed in 2.1 - so keep it, but don't wear it. The 4 piece bonus might be helpful for those who play hardcore, though.

Two weapons are considered to be endgame: the Wand of Woh, which is extremely rare, and Thunderfury - especially for those who don't like the visual craziness of the WoW build (your screen is constantly exploding). For rings, everyone is wearing the Ring of Royal Grandeur and the Stone of Jordan as soon as you have both - there are some exceptions though, for example for those who play solo (see below, follower section). As mentioned earlier, Mirrorball is used by most wizards in endgame.

For other slots there are at least 2 or 3 dominating endgame items, so I will stop here. See this list for most common items worn by wizards and you will notice that there is more diversity than in D3V.

► Prepare for 2.1 ◄

At some points in this guide I already mentioned - at the end of this summer or beginning of fall we will see the patch 2.1 that will change everything. It will make the Firebird's set viable, it makes items such as Rimeheart and Serpent's Sparker highly desirable, and it will change a lot of things, hopefully also further increase diversity and choice. Many many legendary items will get new affixes, such as Depth Diggers (+100% damage to signature spells). There will be a new item that allows to add a socket to any weapon - Ramaladni's Gift - which essentially means you should not re-roll an affix on any weapon that has a socket right now. As soon as 2.1 hits, you want to re-roll that socket into a different stat and add the socket using Ramaladni's Gift! Similarly, if an weapon doesn't have a socket think twice before re-rolling it now - rather than, for example, rolling vitality into a socket you might want to keep the weapon and re-roll the damage (and again add the socket using Ramaladni's Gift).

Furthermore, some items will get changed retroactively (Moonlight Ward will get the damage ranged changed from 30%-40%, up from 20%-25%; if you have a 20% MLW right now it might have a perfect 40% MLW in 2.1, so definitely keep it! Some other items, like Depth Diggers or Vigilante Belt, will not get rolled retroactively - you have to find new ones. Also not that jewelry seems to be able to roll 5 primary affixes - so eventually you want to find new SoJs and amulets to have a socket on them (for the new legendary gem).

There will also be a new amulet - the Hellfire amulet, a level 70 amulet that can be crafted (the design can be bought from the merchant in act 2 for 5 million gold). It will roll one of your class' passives - so if you're lucky, you get a perfect amulet plus an additional fifth passive! It costs 10 Forgotten Souls, 50k gold, and all four organs from the uber event; this means you can already prepare and farm the organs now. For more information on level 70 check the FAQ.

Check the 2.1 PTR patch notes and Zero's compilation of undocumented changes! As the PTR will constantly see changes, make sure to follow all the updates. It's very simple - just check DiabloFans once a day! :-)

8) Follower's gear

I am going to keep this section really short because simply put, the overwhelming majority of players will use the follower for only one purpose: the Unity survivability boost. What exactly is this and how does it work?

With Reaper of Souls, two legendary items for each follower were introduced - one that enables your follower to access all skills, and one that grants immortality. Soon players found out that the Unity bonus (split damage between all wearers of that item in a party) also works if the follower wears this ring. In other words: if the follower has the immortality token, and you and the follower are both wearing a Unity, 50% of your damage is directed to your follower and he/her will never die - which increases your mitigation by a flat 50%. This bonus is so huge that nothing beats this. Note that this is not an exploit, as some people have said earlier, but was intended by the developers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJyMn04633M&feature=youtu.be&t=19m27s

This makes gearing of your followers extremely simple: you don't need any toughness stats on them. Also, followers critical hit damage is capped at 150%, and since they gain a native 50% bonus and the follower token itself can roll up to 100%, there is no need to stack neither critical hit damage nor critical hit chance. Altogether, any follower in Reaper of Souls will never even come close to your DPS and it is not worth investing too much into any of them (unless for fun, of course). Choose a follower of your choice; most pick the Templar because he has the best buffs, but if you find any of the other follower tokens first choose those instead. As the followers have some cooldown abilities, it makes sense to give them some items with cooldown reduction - otherwise just equip them with utility stats (magic find, XP bonus, gold find - you get 20% of its value) or other random items: it really doesn't matter much! For example, The Ess of Johan offers CDR and such utility and is therefore always a great choice for your follower. Especially in higher difficulties, Bul-Kathos's Wedding Band might be useful as it drains 0.4% of mobs' maximum HP per second (as of now - this might get changed in 2.1).

Now, if you think there should be more to it and you want to invest more time into gearing your follower, there is a very in-depth and comprehensive guide that contains everything you ever need to know: AshTag's RoS Follower Guide on the official forums.

9) Appendix

► Useful links ◄

• Mechanics and Game Information Compendium (Apo): The ultimate source of information about everything wizard-related (and beyond).
• Wizard Build and Items Compendium (Hope): A compendium that bears some similarities to this guide, with a bit more focus on builds.
• Wizard FAQ (Jaetch): FAQ, not necessarily restricted to wizards, answering questions that popped up especially frequently after the release of RoS.
• RoS FAQ (Bagstone): A general (not class-specific) collection of frequently asked questions.
• Wizard Guides and Community (RobertVarga): Collection of dozens of useful links to wizard guides on the offical forums.
• Skill proc coefficients (ZzEzZ): Check which skills are good and which are bad to proc LoH, APoC, and other effects. Always up-to-date.
• How to create a build (Jaetch): As the title suggests, this guide give you direction if you don't know how to create a meaningful wizard build.
• DPS and EHP Spreadsheet (Loroese): An Excel spreadsheet to calculate and simulate every little detail of your wizard.
• Gambling guide for beginners (Solmyr77): Lists the expected shards required to gamble specific items (your mileage may vary, of course).
• D3MaxStats: Looking for the maximum stats on an item? This website tells you everything.
• Cooldown Reduction Calculator: Let's you calculate the exact percentage of cooldown reduction to find out if it's worth it to get even more.
• Mitigation Calculator: Find out if you should rather get more all resist or armor.
• Elite affixes (KirusAlufras): Very helpful information about elite affixes, which damage type they are, and how they can be mitigated.
• RoS Wizard Tool (dolynick): A tool to help with gearing choices.
• Survivability Guide (Gazly): Always worth a read - how to correctly gear for survivability (TL;DR: avoid too high HP).
• Paragon level scaling: For those who always wanted to know how much XP is left to get to paragon 1000.

► Acknowledgements ◄

I'd like to thank my fellow DiabloFans mods MrMonstrosity, overneathe, and Zero(pS) for feedback on early drafts of this guide, especially in terms of spelling mistakes, visual improvements, barrier-free image design (:P), and funny discussions along the way. Also thanks to Diablofans' wizard mod and Blizzard's wizard MVP Jaetch for lots of helpful advice! Furthermore, thanks to the entire wizard community, the DiabloFans (EU) clan, all of DiabloFans (yes, all of you :P). Oh, and screw you, Blizzard, for making this damn game that I can't get away from! ;-)

This. Exactly this. I have 15 characters and 5 shared stash tabs. A third stash page for each character. My inventory offers more "stash" space than the stash. It's a joke. I actually had to delete half my wizard's items yesterday because I'm not interested in it at the moment but I couldn't handle all the new loot I'm getting...

Diablo 3 is the hoarder's nightmare at this point (and I am a hoarder, I'll totally admit). In D2 I had extra accounts to store all the loot but in D3 I'm forced to salvage SO MUCH that might turn out to be useful in the future... please give us more storage!

Gone from August 22-28. On a conference in Stockholm, lots of work, so probably not be able to moderate a lot (if at all) on the forums. Someone take over please