Source
r/Diablo•
Problem_Santa

Started playing witch doctor, have some questions

First, link to my profile: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Mossel-1423/hero/39512705

For skills I replace the gargantuan for big bad voodoo + slam dance rune in group play. Skill order is piranhas -> locusts then spam bears till out of mana, reposition and cast spirit barrage/piranhas from a distance.

  1. Healing/sustain. What works well for a close range witch doctor? I'm first going to look for some toughness increase so I can take a few more hits, especially from white mobs. But what works well for healing back up? It feels like WD are balanced around having pets to tank hits for them. I will also be losing more life/sec and life on hit once I fill gear slots with stronger gear.

  2. Any skill/passive change recommendations? I like spirit vessel as I'm getting close to dieing regularly at the moment. Bears are nice but I feel like I have to stand in the middle of everything (which I cant) to get the maximum damage from them.

Any other advice on WD and items I need to look out for is always welcome.

Posted Apr 8, 2014, 9:46 AM UTC

416
ulDucsulDuc#2144•

as a WD player, i really miss the LS stat. The WD has no high AS high DMG skill, the bears and bats skills all have concentrated DPS so the life on hit is quite pointless. i guess you can play with the CDR and the spirit walk.

As for the mana, maybe you should use a primary skill instead of piranhas or the locust swarm(which i love :D). It would help you for the long range but it wouldn't be your DPS replacement for sure !

As passive, i play personally with Gruesome Feast(for the power and the regen), Blood Ritual(for the health regen essentially), Spirit Vessel(for the second chance, the replacement etc...), Grave Injustice (for the CDR essentially but the regen is nice too). Then i use the Firebats with the Plague Bats rune as my main DPS and i use the poison darts with the Spined Dart rune for the mana regen and health regen with the max LoH i can have(paragon and stuff). My big bad vodoo is for the mana regen more than the AS it gives so Rain Dance ! I use the gargantua for having someone to tank for me (and with the Bruiser rune for the stun very useful :D) and i use Soul Harvest with the Vengeful Spirit rune for the burst it gives ! Then i have my spirit walk with honored guest for the mana and the replacement in fight(or the engagement for the soul harvest :D)

i can't link my profile as i'm at work but maybe i will later

2
Problem_SantaOP•

I don't really like any of the primary WD skills. They all feel inconsistent, slow or low damage. When I'm low mana I use spirit barrage with the 12 mana on hit return. Combined with the rush of essence and spiritual attunement passives I can continuously cast spirit barrage and still regenerate my mana pool.

Gruesome feast seems interesting. Maybe a health globe focused healing setup could work, though it would need some increased health globe drop gear/skills.

Probably going to use grave injustice, don't know why I haven't been using it before!

1
Filum•

The primary skills of the witch doctor are indeed quite weak bar poison dart with a Carnevil.

However, most of them are being buffed in the next patch! Check this subreddit for the sneakpeek at the upcoming content.

With that said, you've gone all in on mana and mana regen in your passives, grave injustice with spirit walk/soul harvest + the spirit vessel cooldown reduction = toooons of survivability.

I've messed around with many builds, but that remains the core of many of my builds, the soul harvest runes also make for tons of different options.

5x25k healing on soul harvest amounts to 100k healing.

This doesnt sound like much when people run around with over 500k hp but keep in mind that in general play where you slay packs upon packs - with grave injustice each and everyone of those kills remove 1sec of all your cds which means you can soul harvest sustain quite a lot (especially paired with spirit walk).

And if you have mana issues with this build then getting the 20% max mana rune for spirit walk and the combo above is also tons of mana.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Filum-2545/hero/37478625

here's my WD for reference (I still have 2piece zunimassa for the 30mana per kill/250int bonus and by virtue of the ring still being acceptable and not having found a good chest yet)

2
ulDucsulDuc#2144•

Before the expansion, i was playing with a thing of the depth with its 20 radius... the health globes were just insanely powerful as i was able to get them from the side of the screen. Then gruesome feast and grave injustice were insane !

For primary, i feel the same, they are not that powerful and pretty slow even though, with the 3 darts on poison dart, you got a hell of attack speed :D

maybe with the rune of pestilence which gives you mana for each ennemy affected, it would solve any problem of mana and then, you can have something else to be tanky with :)

1
HiddenBoner1947•

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/shibolt-1864/hero/5725743

I've always been drawn to pet-driven classes, so for me, playing Pet Doctor was the obvious way to go. This is a variation on the usual Fetish build, with really any of the skills being interchangeable for others.

Stat-wise, pet damage scales with AS and Damage, so a Ruby in the weapon is preferred over the usual Emerald. I choose to use Rain of toads because of it's range (and hell, it's a rain of fucking toads), but the common choice are vampiric bats, as the ratio to summon fetishes with Fetish Sycophants is 2.0 opposed to RoT's 1.5.

Piranhas are just amazing, but only as much as you enjoy using them. Piranhado is fun for grouping up enemies, while Wave of Mutilation gives that extra damage boost. Haunt can be a good pick, especially after the buff it's getting, I simply chose to go full pets for the sake of keeping the Pet Doctor dream alive.

Overall the build is very versatile, damage is absolutely disgusting (I got a few legendary upgrades this week, but even in yellows I could quickly clear T3 with no problems), and you get to experience the rush of having almost twenty pets out at any given moment.

2
Mimical•

Not sure if you are lvl 60 or not, I find the best overall primary is blowpipe with either the spined dart or the snake to the face rune, one gives you 50 mana back, the other has a 35% chance to stun or opponent both work well on distance targets if you are waiting for your mana to regen.

For WD, I find that "spirit" based builds are not as powerful as pet based builds. Some people like to use only one style, I think the best is to always have a bit of both (you can do that right?)

WD skills dont do a ton of damage, but they are fantastically handy at packing on AOE and Damage over time. not to mention there are some amazing skills that bring life back to you. with a good set-up, its easy to run high difficulties as you have tons of options to bring life back.

if you are looking for abilities that bring back health, here are my favorite

 Soul Harvest {Siphon} - brings back 25K health for every opponent. 

 Sacrifice{For the Master} - Brings back 85K health for each dog sacrificed

 Spirit walk{Healing journey} - brings back 14% life

Soul harvest is a low cooldown, easy to spam (especially when hit by a bunch of mobs at once) and costs no mana at all (awesome!) if you use dogs (especially with midnight feast) being able to instantly heal for 350K health all at once is serious business.

anyways, I'll let you read others peoples stuff too! experiment around, have fun and explore :) I'd suggest sticking to 3 mana sinks tops (between secondary and 2 skills) and 2 things that you rarely use, or cost no mana at all. if you want to build a more defensive build for life, swap one mana sink to a skill that keeps you alive for a bit more

2
danscabra•

I use Firebombs (Flash Fire), Rabid Dogs, Gargantuan (Humungoid), Piranhas (Wave of Mutilation), Big Bad Voodoo (30%), Acid Cloud (Acid Rain).

I am able to farm T1 whilst being seriously undergeared doing this. Firebomb seems to do a lot of base dmg, whilst you have a cooldown for elites and tanks to stop you dieing.

Acid Cloud is about the best aoe i can get that doesn't destroy my mana.

1
Truditoru•

I am using this build atm: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#gRldYU!YTef!Zcbccc aggro mobs, cast piranhado, walk next to them, vengeful spirit, 4-5 corpse bomb, shift + click spirit barage, and repeat :D

i find the spirit barrage + well of souls rune better with rush of essence, also, the LOH is from all spirits that hit, so its 7 spirit x your LOH and with good attackspeed you are really getting life back, also, get zombie dogs + leeching beasts rune instead of gargantuan

1
ZenpaZenpa#1618•

I notice people mentioning Gargantuan over zombie dogs (leeching rune if you have the LoH).

Is the Gargantuan better for soaking up damage as oppose to zombie dogs?

I know the Zombie Dog's dmg is pretty crap and they are mostly there as distraction for mobs.

1
nimblerabit•

Zombie Dogs are better at soaking up damage I believe, no matter what the rune choices are. That has been my experience at least, 3 tanks is just better than 1.

The damage in the gargantuan is actually pretty good though, so I think that's why some people choose to use him instead.

1
nimblerabit•
  1. Our healing options definitely limited, but there are some things you can do. Health globe bonus can help a lot, and you could also use Soul Harvest with siphon rune (I think this is very strong until your gear is good enough to not need it anymore). Another often overlooked option is grasp of the dead with death is life rune. This slows mobs so they can't hit you as easily, gives you constant zombie dogs to soak hits, AND gives more health globes for healing. Even better when combined with gruesome feast passive.

In general I think the best thing to do is just keep your toughness reasonably high and rely on spirit walk/pets to mitigate damage while you blow everything up.

  1. Honestly I would replace locust swarm as I think there are much better options. I would also switch your spirit walk rune to honored guest unless you really never run out of mana. Try gruesome feast instead of spiritual attunement, the mana regen is decent and the damage boost is huge. Give this setup a try and see what you think. Play around with some of the flexible slots (grasp, nado, SH, etc) and find what works best for you.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#gfldZU!YTcf!ZcbcbZ

1
InuitTanuki#1827•

Still looking for advice? I just saw this thread, but I'd be happy to help you/give some pointers if you want.

1
Problem_SantaOP•

Sure, always open for more advice. Switched out a few skills and got some new gear since posting the thread. Have less dieing issues since I started using grave injustice and soul harvest: siphon

1
InuitTanuki#1827•

I've been running a build for a long time, that seems like it might address some of the issues you've been having. If you're ok with pets in your build, it's probably one of the most reliable and best scaling set-ups I've found.

Skill Calculator Showing the Build

Basically, this build works by being really really sustainable. You want some Life-on-Hit, and some All Resist mainly. You use your pets to tank (and the dogs heal you, too), and basically take advantage of how Rain of Toads rune, Lob Blob rune on Acid Cloud, and the Manitou rune on Spirit Barrage synergize fantastically with LoH. The passives make you, and your pets pretty tanky while still dealing decent damage. As for the 4th slot of passive, it's up to personal preference. Sometimes I run Midnight Feast for the extra dog & damage, sometimes I run Vision Quest for the mana-regen.

What's great about this is two things:

  1. So long as you don't get one shot by a mob (which hopefully you shouldn't be), you just staying alive will eventually kill literally anything. Your pets sit between you and harm so you have more time to react to issues, and you have an escape just in case.

  2. It's a really flexible build, you can tinker with some of the passive slots and gear to get a great balance between survivability, farming capability, and a feel that you personally like to play. Plus, because it has such nice synergy, if you get a good amount of LoH, you can solo difficulty levels you normally would have no business being in with your gear normally. Back at 60, I was able to do MP9 Solo with like 400k toughness and 150k damage. Just be quick on your feet.

Any questions?

2
rust2bridges•

Question for you, do you know how life on hit works now? Back when the game came out each skill was different in what percentage of your life on hit it gave, but I can't find any current info through Google.

1
InuitTanuki#1827•

I'm pretty sure, but not entirely, that for spells it is each damage "tick". So something like Rain of Toads rune which deals multiple ticks of damage over the course of 2 seconds, procs LoH for each tick. At the very least, that's how it feels functionally when I play.

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