Rating
+9

FireRasha aka Tal-Bird

Seasonal
Hybrid
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Skills

  • Spectral Blade Flame Blades
  • Meteor Thunder Crash
  • Teleport Calamity
  • Magic Weapon Force Weapon
  • Energy Armor Force Armor
  • Explosive Blast Obliterate
  • Audacity
  • Unstable Anomaly
  • Blur
  • Unwavering Will

Items

More Details
  • Legendary Gems

    • Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard
    • Simplicity's Strength
    • Bane of the Powerful

Kanai's Cube

  • The Grand Vizier
  • Nilfur's Boast
  • Unity

This guide, for the moment, is merely a way for me to document my current build. This combination of gear has been called FireRasha by some, and it could just as easily be referred to as Tal-bird. (or you can just call it 'Bob')


Cubing Ring of Royal Grandeur (RRoG)


This lets you maintain the 6 piece set bonus for Tal Rasha's Elements, and for a limited time only, the 4 piece bonus for the Firebird set! What else do our lucky contestants get for doing this, 'Bob'? Well, Bill, I'm glad you asked, we're going to throw in the opportunity to select one additional legendary ability of their choice. This plush, lush, and velvety designed slot can include the Amulet, Torso, Glove, and yes, if they're so bold, even the Offhand!


Wow, 'Bob' that's simply amazing! Can you provide us any other details?

Sure, I'd love to! Here's a quick example, let's take contestant one here, he's currently lounging in his Firbird's Pinions and Tarsi. He's also selected the sleek and ever debonair, Firebird's Talons.


Now you've got me all giddy; so he's picked up his four piece Firebird's bonus, tell me Moar!

Well, let's see, oh right! As you can see he's also sporting the latest in large, balls of earthbound, elemental, doomy goodness - 5 pieces of Tal Rasha!


Maniacal Laughter.


The Tal Rasha's Guise of Wisdom, always a smart choice! nod nod

Right below that, you'll notice the Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit. We're not looking at the character sheet, Bob

*Ahem*, Here you'll see that he's donned in the Tal Rasha's Stride (makes a spinning motion with his hand). Contestant spins around


Didn't you miss something?

Hmm. Glances at the character sheet. Oh, of course, he's girded in Tal Rasha's Brace! Mmm hmm.

And to Round out the set, he's carrying Tal Rasha's Unwavering Glare. I see, good choice.


So where does that leave us? Oh right! Tell us about the velvet! - Rubs his arm slowly

Facepalming. This is where our little bit of customization comes in, since the Tal Rasha's set has seven pieces, and only five need to be worn, our lucky contestant can wear the amulet of his choice! The contestant shouts, "Didn't see that coming, did you?"


!?

Obviously this contestant has a flair for the dramatic; he's chosen to use a Hellfire Amulet that's giving him the Prodigy passive. The contestant shouts again, "I'm so good, I astound myself!"


Partly Cloudy and a slight chance of Meteor Showers


That's today's forecast. But you're not going to brighten up that Rift Guardian's afternoon if you're not boosting your fire damage, right Bob? Getting that four piece Firebird is going to add some extra oomph to that damage and will help ensure that tomorrow's forecast will call for clear skies in Riftville.


An Update in the Forecast

As I've made some progress in Greater Rifts I've started to move a few items and skills around. I mostly run solo with the Templar as my follower. I've swapped out one of his rings for Unity and I've switched from Ring of Royal Grandeur to Unity in the cube (for more challenging grifts above 39). With this setup you're unable to continue using the 4 piece Firebirds bonus, but you can still take advantage of the 2 piece (which has now proc'd a couple of times for me.)

Paragon Priorities

Core

Maximum Resource
Movement Speed
Vitality
Primary Stat

Offense

Critical Hit Damage
Attack Speed
Critical Hit Chance
Cooldown Reduction

Defense

Life
Resist All
Armor
Life Regeneration

Utility

Area Damage
Life on Hit
Resource Cost Reduction
Gold Find

Disclaimer

As always, Paragon priorities can shift depending upon how you feel about your survival, your damage and according to the gear and abiliites that you've chosen. When I've acquired various items during my gearing up I've been able to change all of these things around. While my build features

some abilities that are generally not used, they are easily altered to fit diffent styles of play, which would shift priorities.


Because I enjoy Spectral Blade more than the other primaries, I'll focus on that. If you're going to use this ability, these things have to be kept in mind:

  1. You're going to be in Melee Range frequently.
  2. Higher Defenses and Recovery are even more important than in a ranged, kiting build.
  3. Unwavering Will offers increased Damage and Toughness while you're standing still.

Core

Once you're using an Aether Walker your Arcane Power spending is going to greatly increase. That's an example of when you might want to reprioritize Maximum Resource over Movement Speed. Even with the ability to spam Teleport, having the extra boost of speed is still incredibly helpful. The amount of Vitality and Intelligence you'll receive seems smaller in comparison to the boost you'll get from the extra Mobility and Damage

provided by more Arcane Power. That being said, the extra Vitality is still really helpful when you consider the Melee aspect of the build, it becomes even more useful once your +Life% starts to get higher.


Offense

With my current situation I don't have any high cooldown abiliites. Since I'm using Aether Walker the focus has shifted from preferring the cooldown reduction and more towards needing as much Arcane Power/Power Regen as I can get. (My playstyle can be a bit 'spammy' at times, so it helps to have plenty of AP to spare). If you haven't acquired one yet, then I'd recommend putting CDR up with Critical Hit Damage and balancing it against whatever CDR you have on your gear.


Critical Hit Damage will give you the greatest boost to your Damage, while Attack Speed primarily helps with recovery of Arcane Power and health via life on hit.


Critical Hit Chance as a stat will give you more of a boost to your Damage over Attack Speed, and choosing between the two is more a matter of your survivability and ability to use Spectral Blade for regen.


Defense

Life, Resist All and Armor are all three very strong stats. Life Regen, while still beneficial, should be covered fairly well from your Gizzard gem and stats on your gear. You'll certainly be able to acquire a lot more via gear and I feel the points are best utilized in the other three stats.

Up to now, I've been emphasizing Life and Resist, but I feel like Armor would also be a very strong choice or at least a close second to Resist.


Utility

Because I've chosen Spectral Blade as my Primary, I like to boost my survivability via Life on Hit. However, even at 50 points into LoH you're not gaining a huge chunk; so it becomes a balancing job between which gear slots you want/can get your LoH. You can pick up a pretty sizable chunk between your jewelry and weapon and as always it's a matter of luck/reforging as to what you can work with.


Area Damage provides a significant change to how fast you clear, that's been my experience.


Resource Cost Reduction becomes more of a factor once you start throwing in Teleports with Aethyr Walker, and the amount you'll need will really depend upon how heavily you rely upon Teleport. Without Aethyr Walker it shouldn't really an issue.


Gold find is pretty laughable, with just some time played, you'll have enough gold that it won't even be a consideration.

Build Guide

Introduction

I'm going to preface the build by saying that this isn't meant to be a competitive build; it's also very likely that I may hit barriers to progress. No doubt there are more experienced and knowledgable players and guide writers. This guide is being used as a way to document my progress and learning what works and doesn't work. It's my hope that I'll get some positive feedback so that I can make some adjustments along the way to help in that regard.

The thing that always bothered me about the other Wizard Play styles that I tried was the constant kiting and feeling like I was a chicken with my head cut off, running around, finding that sweet spot to unleash all my big, powerful amazing spells. Now I know a lot of that can be countered by different gear setups and abilities, but using the Spectral Blade playstyle always felt more engaging and enjoyable.

Now, I know that crowd control has been sheeped, and Critical Mass imploded a long time ago, but my starting point was the play style I used to use back in the permafreeze days of earlier D3. So that's where I've started from and I feel that this type of build is a lot more free flowing, with a significant increase in damage output.

Build Basics


A Tal Rasha build focuses primarily on alternating between each of the four elements and stacking damage multipliers. In addition to that, by using Focus and Restraint you need to regularly alternate between a Primary, resource generating attack and a Secondary, resource spending attack to gain the damage bonuses.

Firebird's Set

The benefit of the Firebird set is pretty obvious, it gives you another Cheat Death, via the two piece bonus. It's proc'd a couple of times for me now, but only after I reached (GRift 38-40). It provides peace of mind, because Unstable Anomaly procs more frequently now.

In my earlier build I had chosen Meteor Shower as my resource spender. As long as you don't need to cube Unity, you can stick with a third piece of the Firebird set to get the added damage from the four piece. To take advantage of that setup you'll need to cube Ring of Royal Grandeur. That will provide a lot of flexibility. However, if you dont' feel like that 4 piece Firebird is as significant as a Cindercoat, then you can always switch the Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit and use the Gloves or Amulet from the set.

Active Skills
Spectral Blade (Thrown Blade,Flame Blades) - Lightning or Fire Skill

Right, I know it's a bit strange, all powerful wizard that can unleash a torrent of elemental destruction at range, wants to be a barbarian, monk or crusader. I don't use it heavily, but it's more immediate and on target. Further progression may require dropping it all together, but I'd like to keep it viable for as long as I can. Thrown Blade adds a bit more damage over the other options and it let's me use it at a further distance, which adds a small amount of safety.


As an alternative, you could use Flame Blades and the Thunder Crash rune for Meteor. You'll get a small boost to Spectral Blade, but the main benefit from the stacking Fire damage will occur when you get a 2 piece proc of the Tal Rasha's Elements for Fire.


What I like about Meteor over other options, such as Hydra, is that it, especially Meteor Shower, covers a lot of area and allows for a more mobile and free flowing play style. If I need to play it safe I can use it at a distance and from an adjacent room. While my current Passives emphasize more of a standing still approach to support Spectral Blade, it still does quite a bit of damage whether I'm taking advantage of Audacity or not. If you decide to go with the Flame Blades rune for Spectral Blade, then the Thunder Crash is my rune of choice. It doesn't blanket an area like Meteor Shower, but it will provide a larger strike in one area immediately, without the delay of the other Meteor varieties.

Teleport (Calamity) - Arcane Skill
Even with out the Aether Walker it's still highly useful, in that situation you really need to have some cooldown reduction to take advantage of it.
Once you have the AW, Ancient Parthan Defenders synergize really well with Calamity. That also helps your survivability when you want to use your Spectral Blade and stand still to take advantage of Audacity and Unwavering Will. If you ever feel like you're in over your head you have the ability to quickly move away.

This is where some of the flexibility comes in for the build. With Explosive Blast, I can time my usage to coincide with when I will Teleport into the group. With a baseline cooldown of 6 seconds it's also easy enough to use to keep my damage stacks up. It fits in with the flow of my playstyle very well.
With Blizzard, using Snowbound, I'm not really relying upon it for damage, but it allows me to place the damage more effectively than Explosive Blast and it's very cheap at 10 AP.
The Frozen Storm rune choice is a holdover from when my items/cube setup were a little different. It's useful in that it procs Meteors from the 2 piece, but it's really not an ideal choice for defense or utility.

Crystallize is a much stronger choice because it'll provide a greater boost to your survival. Since I'm using a melee style I should be able to keep the stacks up enough. That being said, I feel like Energy Armor is more reliable, the only caveat for me, at the moment, is the loss of Arcane Power if I choose Force Armor. With Energy Tap you gain some of that much needed armor benefit without a reduction to your max Arcane Power.
I'm still experimenting with this aspect of my build and I feel like this is a choice of preference.

This is a more straightforward choice: A pure damage boost or the ability to generate some more Arcane Power. Switching these around in conjunction with some other abilities and spells based upon how you feel about your survivability and Arcane Power usage is the way to go.

Passive Skills
Using a Hellfire Amulet can be a good option, because it allows you to have a fifth wizard passive skill. Next I'll list each of the passive skills that work well with the build and explain why they're beneficial.
Audacity Offensive Skill
This build is focused around Spectral Blade, Explosive Blast and using Teleport to unleash all of those abilities when surrounded by a group. So, naturally, you're going to find yourself within a range to take advantage of Audacity. This gives you a 30% increase to your damage against targets within 15 yards.
Unstable Anomaly Defensive Skill
This is widely viewed as a requirement in Hardcore; I'm starting to see it proc more regularly as I'm progressing in Greater Rifts. You need whatever cheat deaths you can get. Pairing this with the 2 piece bonus from the Firebird's Set helps to give you some extra piece of mind.

Blur Defensive Skill
This is another commonly chosen defensive skill. Unwavering Will, in my mind, is a much better choice. If you're satisfied with your Arcane Power and your level of damage. I'm testing this out in my build right now, I'm up to 39-40 Greater Rifts in Hardcore and really feel like my survivability needs a boost. In this situation, I'm using a Hellfire Amulet with Prodigy as a passive, Astral Presence would also be another alternative.

Unwavering Will Offensive and Defensive Skill

This provides both a defensive boost - armor and resistance - and an offensive boon - 20%. The only caveat is that you need to stand still for 1.5 seconds to activate and then stay put. You can take advantage of this by timing the release of Explosive Blast to land when your Teleport lands you in your target group.

As you're arriving at your destination you'll throw out Spectral Blade and your Meteor. You'll then proceed to use Spectral Blade to help refill your Arcane Power otherwise, you'll continue using your Meteor.

If you feel like you need to back out then just Teleport to another group or to a safe spot. You can then stay put to reactivate Unwavering Will and unload another Meteor or Spectral Blade any mobs following you for some more Arcane Power.
Prodigy Utility Skill
Selecting Prodigy, which will give you 5 arcane power whenever you cast Spectral Blade, will really depend upon your playstyle and whether you feel like you're starved for Arcane Power. One option is to use the Conduit rune for Magic Weapon instead of this. You'll lose an extra 10% damage from Magic Weapon, but this will free you to choose another passive skill. If you decide to use a Hellfire Amulet, then this is one of the Passives that I'd try to shoot for.

Astral Presence Utility Skill
As mentioned previously, I find myself spamming my Arcane Power spenders quite a bit. Between Meteor, Explosive Blast and mostly from using Teleport for both it's mobility and stun, you'll want to have as much Arcane Power as possible.

Elemental Exposure Offensive Skill

The mechanics of Tal Rasha's Elements, and Focus and Restraint, make this skill a really strong choice. However I think the boost from Audacity and Unwavering Will are overall better. If you feel like your Arcane Power supply is fine, then you can always use this as an option on a Hellfire Amulet.