Diablo® III

Hey guys

Have been playing a while with the WD ( my 1st character once the game is out)

This is what I came up with

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#acZXdj!ZTV!bYYaaY

Would LOVe to hear some advice

2 questions I have- does the Soul Harvest rune replaces the basic effect or adds to it?
and what do you think should I change horrify for a heavy damage ability?

any advice would be welcome

Thanks

First off always like to hear your idea with the specc cause otherwise i cant really analyze it. Whats the mean idea with it? What is the synergy between the spells?

Right now to me your specc feels like a mess. you got both fobia and mass confusion. You dont have any proper aoe ability. You specced to reduce cooldown on grasp when you once again dont have any proper aoe.

What was the idea with the build?

One thing I'd like to point out for this build, and many other builds seen lately on forums, is that you got to look at what level you get spells/passives/runes. The passive Grave Injustice is gained at level 50, so I wouldn't count on it before that :) Also hope you're not going to be too reliant on Hungry bats rune as it's lvl 45.

The other is that you're not having any of the Voodoo spells. (yeah, the ones with the huge amount of CD or Gargantuan...). Just what I would've chosen ofc :)

For the 2 questions you have - It doesn't, it adds to it.
And yes, yes I do think that you should change horrify for a heavy damage ability.

Just my 2 cents :)

P.S: and yeah, what's your purpose with that build anyways?

Odd. You have no Pets yet you've taken the reduce damage Passive, considering that you also have a heck allot of CC, I can't see yourself being damaged much. So I think a multitude of other Passives would work better here - esp. considering Normal difficulty, dam not much problem. Grave Injustice too, just meh on normal diff, esp. considering your CC again - again considering normal too and also Spined Dart for mana regen, I don't think that little bit on the side from Grave Injustice will help much but you'd have to test that in-game, plus you may have mana regen gear drop. I don't really know, we need to know what purpose as people have said is this build serving, building towards. I don't see it.

My idea was as follows

To alternate between close and long range- a hit switch idea- using bats for my primal damage ability- while at the same time making sure I always have enought mana to constantly use bats

Up close I can harvest and use bats- + am also able to add confusion with the added 20% damage- since harvest gives me 39 per creature along with the 20 reg per sec- it means that creature one pays for the casting of harvst and I get extra 156 mana (from spell only) which I can replentish rather quickly since the harvest takes only 13 sec to cooldown- adding the grim harvest I assume my mana will allow me to spam bats all day long

Longer range - I use Bats and alternate with dart to generate the mana for the bats-while slowing opponents with grasp spam- it deals less damage but grants more field control and keeps me at a safer distance

P.S. - I thought to use widowmaker spiders instead of dart but it seems they also provide 24 mana per use and deal less damage ( unless I miscalculated)

Jungle fortitude is simple for the 20% damage reduction as well as spirit vessel that "saves" me once every 90 sec

The horrify I planned to use as an emergency bottun in case I get overrun

This is the plan
Advice will be gladly accepted

Thanks

Hey again

Played a bit with the build as follows:

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#bcdXgZ!VZT!bZZYca

The idea is still to avoid pets as much as possible and be a melee (close range) dude just cause I think its nicer than hiding behind things

I plan for high difficulty HC

The concept is the same:

Long range -use spiders+ grasp to lock stuff and quickly regen mana
Short ranger- harvest (damage + heal from rune) and bats for both damage and HP
Spirit batage with the Manitou rune is a constant damage dealing ability that follows me ( as far as I understood it) and horrify is a "get out of trouble" bottum -while the rune is for boss fights and in general for more protection vs stuff who are unaffected by fear

The passives are for mana/HP and cooldown generation (injustice)
some damage reduction (fortitude)
further cooldown reduction and an "escape death" effect (spirit vessel)

The problem I see with this build is that I have no mobility (i.e. spirit walk) so Unless I wait for them to come I have no safe way to activate Harvest

Any advice would be appreciated

02/05/2012 08:28Posted by Blaze

The problem I see with this build is that I have no mobility (i.e. spirit walk) so Unless I wait for them to come I have no safe way to activate Harvest

The WD is the class that kinda has no real mobility, We rely on Control instead of mobility.
Since you have no pets to tank for you, your control comes from Horify and grasp, wich is more then enough to need a mobility. because of your grave injustice your graps will be up everwhere all the time.

Your spirit vessel is kinda useless. yeah the avoid death 90sec cd is usefull if you get 1shot, but its on a 90sec cd. and the cooldown reduction you dont need because of your grave injustice.

I would suggest, to take either Spirrutal Atunnement and replace Widowmakers for other an other Spider dmg, control,cooldown spell.

Or keep the widowmakers and take pierce the veil. though you have 2 heavy mana sinks already, firebats and spirit barrage. so you have to see how long you can keep it up without going oom. 1 widowmaker inbetween your rotation might be enough or not, just have to test it on live.

Thats my take on it. Gl

Thanks all for GREAT advice

Shifted some things around and this is the current outcome

The biggest change includes grusome feast and the death in life rune for the grasp - for I figured that if I go for this type of boost why not increase its chances-

Debating wether to keep barage or switch to some Aoe Like Acid Cloud

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#bcdXgZ!YZT!bZZYcb

Any thoughts?

I agree, if your up-close then I'm not seeing why Spirit Barage - an even with that rune, it just doesn't sound that promising to me for the mana cost -, especially as you have Firebats for OOM/Nuke close-range. Not sure what to replace Barage with but I certainly wouldn't replace Barage with another heavy Mana cost spell BUT you'll have to test this in-game of-course, maybe you will balance it out with Mana gear. However, maybe Wall of Zombies with Dead Rush rune, heavy damage and can be utilized at close-range effectively, also with the 25 second CD it shouldn't cause much Mana issues if your careful and it also means that its not just another Nuke/OOM spammable spell like Acid Cloud. It can be your heavy-hitter in a sense.

I'm really not to sure about your passive though, okay I see Fortitude now as your up-close but Grave Injustice when your up-close, can get Health globes easily and you have a couple of Health Runes. I don't see it. I just think another passive would be advantageous. Not sure about the CD Reduction it gives either, how effective that will be for your build, I personally don't think it will be that helpful.

I might have misunderstood the ability but I understood that the Manitou rune says that I cant spawn it cause it summons a creature for 20 sec that follows me- so I assumed once I recast it , it just replentishes rather than creating another.

If this is the case than it is no longer a mana sink since I use it like once/twice a battle and it follows me (hovers above me) dealing short range constant damage

Injustice is neat close range IMHO not only because of the regen but mostly because of the CD which allows me to spawn Grasp and Horrify - that being said I see your point that perhaps a better CD ability may be needed to fully benefit from it

The third one I am a bit unsure of- on the one hand an even bigger int bonus (to harvest) is neat but on the other maybe something else should be taken- like circle of life for some tanking dogs or something else- in which case I can replace the Grasp run for something else as well

Ideas?

Yes, I do agree that the CD reduce sounds neat if it works like I'm think it does for Injustice. Spamming Horrify wouldn't be that great though, your up-close and the Monsters will all flee off in different directions lessening the effectiveness of your Firebats etc. Keeping Grasp up is nice obv. with that Rune for additional Armor esp.

The thing with Soul Harvest, it is not a percentage increase, so later game in Inferno its benefits certainly won't be as great as they were in the Beta. BUT with the rune that shall give you life back for the enemies you harvest, it certainly sounds allot better for your up close build, as you can pop it if you get in a little bit of trouble.

Your right about the Manitou rune I think. Yes, I do think it is viable as long as you use that rune with Barage but I still don't think it sounds that great, you'll have to test that and then something like Zombies w/ Dead Rush etc. to see which works more effectively for your build.

Not sure on the Dogs chance Passive, I thought your build wasn't going in that direction and I think Grasp is a must to be honest here, regardless of any passive you take. The rune however for Grasp - I think that is what you were on about -, you'll have to see how your doing health wise and if your fine mostly then I'd take the Unbreakable Grasp rune instead as slowing down enemies even more is always helpful when you want to be up close - esp. if then horrify with Grasp down w/ 80% slow they won't get very far, I'm assuming, all needs testing.

GravitlcWar thanks for the input- The reason I think Grusome Feast will be cool is because it will become stronger then more INT I have- thus if I use Harvest and then "consume" an orb I will get 65 extra INT only due to Harvest (without calculating the percentage from my base INT score) which I find awsome + I just noticed that It serves as a weakish mana regen which is something I seem to lack in the build- Think I will keep it for testing

If there is anything else anyone can suggest I would appreciate it

Thank you all!!

I think your right about Feast, Blaze - it synergises in a way with Harvest, as you say. Feast has the straight 10 percentage increase which is really nice. Your build does need some mana regen and you will have to see how well that passive serves that purpose with testing of-course ! - you have Spider spam for mana too. I'm personally not really planning a build more so I will experiment and create a build around that, so many are viable ! I have chucked a build out on these forums but that's just me seeing how suited up I am on the WD class.

I'm liking the build though, interesting to see how you develop it when you actually get in to the game. So many peoples builds will change a heck of allot, esp. as you can never be sure of the affixes that you are going to get with the dice roll on gear. :)

02/05/2012 16:48Posted by GraviticWar

So many peoples builds will change a heck of allot, esp. as you can never be sure of the affixes that you are going to get with the dice roll on gear. :)

True That!

Not sure if you guys touched on this. But when Grave Injustice comes into play, be sure to have some +gold pickup radius or it will be completely useless :)

8 yards which it works from unbuffed by stats is as big an aoe as the Leap damage/slow aoe barbs get. And from my experience, that's pretty much -right next to you-.

Otherwise, looks like a doable build. Perhaps not my cup of tea, but yeah <3

Also, I love the back and forth. This is what every thread should be like.

Thanks uzr

My build has evolved recently- and got a bit doggish (just a bit)

I also posted it in the viable Inferno threads but I thought I should put it in my own thread as well

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#bcdZXY!YaT!bZZbYZ

Close range build that exploits grusome feast and harvest to stack INT and blast with bats
Mana reg comes from feast and injustice and spiders (which also lock stuff in combination with grasp)
While health comes from pretty much everything (vamp bats/ health orbs/ harvest/ injustice etc')

Dogs and grasp are there to both CC /tank and produce globes for feast

Circle of life to generate more dogs
and Horrify for defense + double armor especially vs bosses and ranged stuff

I am still debating wether to keep horrify or use sacrifice with the pride or next of kin rune- but than I fear I will focus too much on dogs.

Also- assuming I have enough mana reg- I though of switching spiders OR possibly bats with zombie charger (explosive beast rune) - while the damage per mana isnt very efficient- assuming it counts as a zombie dog- which according to description it is- than I increase my chance of getting more orbs and thus fueling my combo even further.

I am sadden a bit to loose the 20% damage reduction from Jungle Fortitude- but I see no way around it

Let me know what you guys think

Edit: I wonder If I can summon Rhaloz to this post for some advice as well

Hi, your circle of life i dont really get with this build. you want this build to evole around your Grave injustice so most of the time you will have the cd to spawn your dogs anyways. So whats the need to waist another passive for more dogs.
The 5% to spawn a dog and then have another 15% ontop of that to spawn a orb is just not worth it in my opinion.
You should stay with your Jungle fortitude. Fits your close range alot better.

Dont use Sacrifise with this build. then you will completly change the essence of what build youre trying to play.

The reason I thought of circle of life is cause I need some way to spawn new dogs-Unless I Only cout on injustice- I agree with you Gobeon- sacrifice wont fit here

Maybe I should replace horrify with confusion and the devolution rune-which will hopefully provide me with more dogs and thus I will be able to return to jungle fortitude againt

I just hate loosing Horrify because I think with the armor rune its much more usefull all rounder as opposed to confusion which will be less efficient ve stronger mobs/ bosses.

The reason I thought of circle of life is cause I need some way to spawn new dogs-Unless I Only cout on injustice- I agree with you Gobeon- sacrifice wont fit here

Maybe I should replace horrify with confusion and the devolution rune-which will hopefully provide me with more dogs and thus I will be able to return to jungle fortitude againt

I just hate loosing Horrify because I think with the armor rune its much more usefull all rounder as opposed to confusion which will be less efficient ve stronger mobs/ bosses.

Half of his point is that without sacrifice there's no need for you to spawn dogs outside the summoning skill, thus freeing up a passive from "Circle of Life". Remember this, dogs will grow stronger with you so. And if you plan to be up close, you'll run into a few health globes and these does not only heal you. But they also heal your dogs.

And I would like totally get Jungle Fortitude :) Without it or Zombie Handler your dogs will die alot, more survival on them will allow for your Grave Injustice to actually do it's work (getting your CDs down if they would die).