Combining all the elements is a challenge every Wizard takes the opportunity to tackle from time to time. With Kilka#2369’s “Meteor Apocalypse” build, his efforts rival extinction-level events that would make the mightiest dinosaur quiver in fear!

About the Build:

Channeling is a difficult play style to pull off as the Wizard class quite epitomizes the “Glass Cannon” role. Standing your ground takes guts, but the payoff can be substantial and appealing. Kilka#2369 takes the risk versus reward ideology seriously in his “Meteor Apocalypse” build, combining multiple sets and elemental damage types to dish out enough destruction to prevent his foes from ever reaching him. It’s a risky and flashy play style that, should you pull it off, rewards you with a great adrenaline rush.

I'm not trapped in here with you — you're trapped in here with me.

Before we get too deep into breaking down this build, it should be noted that this entry was submitted prior to the launch of Patch 2.2.0 and some skills or items may not be reflective of their most up to date iteration. However, I’ve tweaked a few details to account for the largest changes and this build should actually be more effective and flexible as a result of the patch.

The Skills:

This channeling build offers a veritable buffet of elemental damage with each skill aimed at triggering a different Meteor effect from the Tal Rasha’s Elements set bonus.

Active Skills:

• Disintegrate (Chaos Nexus)
  • The primary damage dealer of this build
  • Visually and mechanically awesome
  • Acts as the Arcane damage trigger for Tal Rasha’s Elements
• Blizzard (Apocalypse)
  • Secondary damage dealer
  • A fire-and-forget damage over time ability that will capitalize on Firebird’s Finery
  • Acts as the Fire damage trigger for Tal Rasha’s Elements
• Hydra (Frost Hydra)
  • Supplementary damage dealer
  • Acts as the Cold damage trigger for Tal Rasha’s Elements
• Storm Armor (Shocking Aspect)
  • Supplementary damage dealer
  • Acts as the Lightning damage trigger for Tal Rasha’s Elements
• Magic Weapon (Force Weapon)
  • Personal buff to increase damage across the board
• Familiar (Sparkflint)
  • Personal buff to increase damage across the board
  • Acts as an additional Fire damage trigger for Tal Rasha’s Elements

Passive Skills:

• Astral Presence
  • Provides additional Maximum Arcane Power and Arcane Power Regeneration to combat this build’s high resource demands
• Glass Cannon
  • Greatly increases damage-dealing capabilities, though at the cost of Toughness
• Dominance
  • Offers sizeable survivability bonuses when clearing high density areas quickly (or when farming lower difficulties)
  • Synergizes with the Chantodo’s Resolve set, ensuring the shields are used for either healing or to prevent damage
• Elemental Exposure
  • Provides group-wide damage bonuses that will frequently be available from your multiple elemental skills

Alternative Skills:

• Temporal Flux
  • Replaces Glass Cannon
  • Substitutes direct damage increases (and additional squishiness) for reliable enemy movement speed reduction
  • Synergizes well with Bane of the Trapped
  • Buys you a bit more channeling time before movement becomes necessary from encroaching enemies
• Blur
  • Replaces Dominance
  • Offers more consistent damage reduction

The Items:

There are some sizable gear requirements to run this build, though with changes in Patch 2.2.0, you can retain the essence of constantly dropping meteors with a much lower gear wall.

Kilka's got quite the collection of green gear going on!

Recommended Items:

• Ring of Royal Grandeur
  • Necessary to activate set bonuses from Firebird’s Finery
• Chantodo’s Resolve
  • Elite Damage reduction is helpful to combat this build’s inherent squishiness
  • Expired shields from Dominance won’t ever go to complete waste, offering bonus healing
• Tal Rasha’s Elements (2-Piece Bonus)
  • Recommended items: Chest, Neck, or Belt
• Firebird’s Finery (6-Piece Bonus)
  • Recommended items: Gloves, Shoulders, Helm, Boots, and Pants

Complementary Items:

• Magefist or Cindercoat
  • Offers additional Fire damage should you not yet have the complete Firebird’s or Tal Rasha’s set
• Serpent’s Sparker
  • Alternative to Chantodo’s Will for more damage over Toughness
  • Doubles your Hydras, increasing the likelihood of triggering the cold damage Meteor from Tal Rasha’s Elements
• Stone of Jordan
  • All-around great option for increasing elemental damage and damage versus elites
• Convention of Elements (New in 2.2.0)
  • Rotating buff to various elemental damage types synergizes well with Tal Rasha’s Elements and Elemental Exposure
• Reaper’s Wraps
  • Helps to address the frequent resource droughts caused by expensive spenders

Recommended Legendary Gems:

• Bane of the Trapped
  • Triggered indirectly by your Hydra (via the Tal Rasha’s Element’s Meteor effect) or by the Rank 25 bonus
  • Offers additional utility in the form of enemy movement speed reduction at Rank 25
• Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard
  • A great method to combat the inherent low Toughness caused by Glass Cannon, especially if paired with a large health pool and additional Life per Second
• Esoteric Alteration
  • An additional further option for balancing out Toughness concerns resulting from Glass Cannon

Recommended Stats:

• +% Fire or Arcane Damage should be your primary elements; while you’ll use all four elemental types, these two will dish out the most punishment
• Arcane Power on Critical Hit and Resource Cost Reduction will help combat the expensive resource costs with this build
• If using a Rank 25 Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard, extra Life per Second will greatly benefit your survivability

Recommended Difficulty and Game Mode:

Kilka is currently running this build in Normal game mode comfortably at Torment IV and moderately at Torment VI. With massive amounts of area of effect damage constantly dropping from the sky, this is most satisfying to run in high density areas, such as those found in Nephalem and Greater Rifts. The largest difficulty you’ll face is your survivability, as this is a very fragile build. It’s a bit too risky for my tastes in Hardcore play, but don’t let me stop you if you’re feeling particularly audacious!

Why We Like This Build:

Combining sets is a long-term investment that often results in a lot of fun experimentation. With the release of Patch 2.2.0, some of these experiments have changed results, so it was fun to look through the lens of a new patch at an older build.

Massive critical hits from Tal Rasha’s Elements are super satisfying to behold between the constant ticks of Disintegrate.

This build is also appealing for players who enjoy a challenge; there’s some intentional personal hamstringing with the use of Glass Cannon that pays off with skill and careful positioning. In addition, juggling all four elements perfectly to benefit as much as possible from Elemental Exposure is a mini game in itself. The “Meteor Apocalypse” has a lot of appealing details and it makes for a fun, engaging departure from other popular builds.

Tell Us What You Think!

Patch 2.2.0 is live and plenty of changes are here! What new builds have you been experimenting with? Are you using the revised Tal Rasha’s Elements or have you picked up the new Delsere’s Magnum Opus to experiment with? Share what you’re working on or planning for in Season 3 by sending in your build — we can’t wait to see what you’re up to!

Next week, we’ll be opening up the polls for you to vote on your favorite build in preparation for our next Play Your Way livestream. Don’t miss it!