Tal Meteor Wizard Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation (2024)

The Tal Meteor Wizard can dealreasonably well with Greater Rift Speed Farming, with the ability to wipeentire screen's worth of enemies with the Meteor barrage. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if youwant to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

During lower tier Greater Rift farming, the balance between defense, damageand utility can be shifted to favor the latter two aspects of characterbuilding.

Active Skills
Diamond Skin PrismMeteor Star Pact1Magic Weapon Deflection2Familiar Icicle3Teleport Calamity4Storm Armor Power of the Storm
Passive Skills
AudacityGalvanizing WardIllusionistElemental Exposure

When you are Speed Farming Greater Rifts, your playstyle should at leastpartially reflect the circ*mstances by focusing on massive pulls, genericbonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.

The build will maintain the vast majority of the GR progression playstyle(four stacks of Tal Rasha from four skills of different elements, using Meteor to decimate the entire pull, etc.), but shifts to a faster andmore aggressive mindset. The build is very easy on the micro, as it sportsthree semi-passive buffs in its "active" skills: Storm Armor Power of the Storm, Familiar Icicle and Magic Weapon Deflection. These 10-minute buffs will keep you safethroughout the rift, and proc half of the elemental requirements (Lightningand Cold) of the Tal Rasha set. To assist your heavy Arcane Power spending,you should apply Diamond Skin Prism as soon as it comes off cooldown. Teleport Calamity will serve double duty as a method of repositioning,as well as proccing the Arcane portion of Tal Rasha. Naturally, your damagewill come from Meteor, which you should hurl with reckless abandon ontop of your enemies' heads.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base GreaterRift progression build, but others will have to change according to the taskat hand. Ability to burst down enemies quicker takes precedence.

• The Fire Tal Rasha Proc, as well as your main damage dealer, is found in Meteor. Swap to the unruned version, which befits speed farmingcontent; you still get the benefits of the Meteor Shower rune from theCubed Mempo of Twilight.
• The Lightning Tal Rasha proc will come from Storm Armor. It is alsotaken for the massive damage reduction of Halo of Karini, and you canassist your frivolous resource spending in speed GRs with the Power of the Storm rune. You will further solidify your resourcemanagement with Diamond Skin Prism.
• The Arcane Tal Rasha proc will be taken care of by Teleport Calamity, which also doubles as a mobility tool.
• The Cold Tal Rasha proc will come from Familiar Icicle. The skillalso adds a minor, automated source of crowd control, which can prove usefulat times.
• Magic Weapon Deflection will provide an additional shielding buffer,necessary to safeguard your Squirt's Necklace buff (see Cube sectionbelow).
• In the passives, you should keep Audacity (proximity-based damagemultiplication), Elemental Exposure (element-based damagemultiplication), and Illusionist ( Teleport resets) fromthe GR progression spec, as they retain their usefulness. You should, however,avoid overkilling on damage and drop Arcane Dynamo. In its stead, use Galvanizing Ward: a shielding passive, which lends itself well tooverpowering the content in GR speeds.

The Tal Rasha's Elements setremains gloriously adaptable in GR speeds, and you should largely keep thesame split between pieces as you do in Greater Rift solo progression: 5 piecesof Tal's, plus utility inclusions. It is recommended that you keep wearing the2 pieces of the craftable Aughild set ( Aughild's Power and Aughild's Search), as they still produce valuable damage increasing anddamage reducing properties.

Utility slots can also vary according to your overall strength, as well aswhether you play solo or in a group — as you have to take care ofcertain bonuses that are usually relegated to the follower yourself whenpartying up. The bracer and shoulder slots — usually occupied by Aughildpieces — can also be taken by Ranslor's Folly (for supremelystrong, pixel-tight pulling effect you can exert over trash mobs), and eitherthe Act I bounty cache legendary Pauldrons of the Skeleton King (for theextra cheat death proc in solo play), or Homing Pads (for the safetyduring town portal when partying up). In order to make this combo viablehowever, you will need to use Energy Twister Wicked Wind over Diamond Skin Prism, making resource management considerably harder.Still, you gain supremely strong, on-demand CC from the Ranslor's Follypulls, which can make all the difference in your GR speed clears.

In your jewelry, you should keep Halo of Karini for the ubiquitousdamage reduction it provides, as well as the damage multiplication Convention of Elements — though you can consider dropping thelatter for a Fire damage Stone of Jordan, if you prefer a consistent (ifweaker) bonus over a timing-sensitive one. Use Squirt's Necklace as youramulet; its damage multiplication bonus will be safeguarded by the stackingshields of Magic Weapon Deflection and Galvanizing Ward.

Similarly to the Greater Rift solo progression setup, your weapon needs tostay on the Meteor-dedicated legendary staff The Grand Vizier.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two veryuseful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide tohelp you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear anda Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised andre-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — Forvirtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual toadvanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the pathoutlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of lifefirst, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive andedge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary PotionPowers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separateresource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Setitems of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, andin the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powersin our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Both Esoteric Alteration and Bane of the Trapped still bringexcellent damage reduction and damage multiplication bonuses, respectively.Within the limited challenges of Speed Greater Rifts, Bane of the Stricken should be replaced by Bane of the Powerful fora well-rounded damage increase and damage mitigation bonus, with aduration-based (but very generous and manageable) limitation.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Considering its massive damage multiplication and taunting property, The Smoldering Core is still a mandatory inclusion in Greater Rift speedfarming as well.

Moved from the equipped pieces to the Cube in order to free up a slot forSquirt's, Mempo of Twilight is nevertheless a mandatory inclusion forthe tremendous damage bonuses and rune advantages it provides to Meteor.

In order to maintain the amalgamation of the Tal Rasha and Aughild sets, aswell as a slew of synergistic legendary items, you need to keep the Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot of the Cube.

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is theEnchantress, due to her cooldown reduction bonus (cutting down Teleport downtime) and elemental damage increase. Note that thisrequires that you run Hand of the Prophet and optimize her survivability,as per our guide.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our FollowerGuide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear ofyour follower.

The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid(allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede Frozen Orb DPS), Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered (giving you a brief window of CCimmunity to counter your lack of CC-breaking or immunity skills), or Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing propertiescomplement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Wizards). Pick whicheveryou feel helps you out the most.