Diablo III is gorgeous, and my Witch Doctor looks awesome. Past, pre-D3 me would be very jealous right now.
Witch Doctor Build Update
I’ve made significant progress in Diablo 3 now, so I thought I’d share how my build turned out, and what I’m currently doing. I’m level 51 and have just begun my Hell playthrough.
Skills
- Soul Harvest remains from my Normal & Nightmare mode builds, as one of the essential Witch Doctor casts. It buffs DPS immensely with 5 stacks. This time around, however, I’m using the “Siphon” rune which heals for every soul harvested rather than replenishing mana. There is a huge focus on health in the later difficulties, more so than on dealing damage (I’ve found).
- In the place of Haunt I’m now using Firebats with the “Dire Bats” rune. Firebats was previously in a hot bar slot but due to its high damage I’ve found it a serviceable secondary skill. Combined with the stacked Soul Harvest buff it certainly clears a path when things get hairy.
- My primary remains Firebomb, alongside “Roll the Bones” which allows the bomb to bounce twice. I did briefly return to using Poison Dart runed with “Fire Dart” but I’ve found the area damage provided by Firebomb more effective than the slightly higher damage but single-target dart.
- Mass Confusion now makes an appearance, with the “Unstable Realm” rune to reduce its cool down. Charming enemies into attacking one another is invaluable, allowing me to pick them off from safety while they dwindle one another’s health.
- I now use minions! I’d said in my last post that I didn’t like to micromanage pets, and this is true, but I’ve found that having minions around to take damage and provide some themselves is pretty essential in the higher difficulties. Better them than me! So I’m using Zombie Dogs runed with “Burning Dogs” which has them explode and deal some damage upon death, and the Gargantuan equipped with the “Restless Giant” rune which has him turn into an enormous tank with significantly increased damage and speed when confronted with either a unique or more than five enemies.
Passives
- Spiritual Attunement remains from the last build. The Witch Doctor has a pretty limited mana pool, so any extension on it and increased regeneration is a boon.
- Jungle Fortitude reduces all damage taken by you and your pets by 20%, a pretty useful passive especially in Hell
- Zombie handler enables four zombie dogs to be summoned, and increases their health and the gargantuan’s by 20%
This is how my rotation currently works. As before they’re mapped to W,E,R and Spacebar. Dogs and Gargantuan are pre-cast before encounters, but I otherwise run in and cast Harvest and Mass Confusion before making my escape with Dire Bats and then hurling Firebombs from afar while my pets take the focus of damage.
Gear
Armour has been all about vitality and damage. My DPS was actually higher in early-nightmare but the importance of vitality meant swapping some gear out to increase my health pool and survivability. I’ve amassed a little bit of coin over last night, so I’m going to be trawling the auction house to improve my gear further. I’ll probably update once I’ve done that.
I need pets!
So my plan to not use minions fell in on itself when faced with the higher difficulty of late-nightmare and Hell. It was perhaps pretty inevitable that I would eventually need someone to mitigate the insane amount of damage that gets thrown around in the later difficulties, but at least I have a good deal of direct attacks in combat, meaning it’s certainly not a case of sitting back and watching the pets do all the work as I had feared.
My Witch Doctor Build (So far)
Just as a point of interest, here’s how I’ve built up my Witch Doctor so far. I’m currently level 30 in act III on my first Normal play through.
Skills
- Soul Harvest x 5 makes my DPS jump from 307.02 to 522.36 and with Siphon rune equipped to regain 343 life for every soul harvested. An effective way to quickly heal. If your mana pool is unsatisfactory you might want to use “Swallow your soul” which gives 27 mana for every harvested soul to a maximum of 135. I found this to be less useful than the health injection given my relatively quick rate of mana regen and pool size of 528.
- Haunt & Locust Swarm dealing 288% weapon damage over 2 seconds (Restless Spirit rune) and 360% weapon damage over 8 seconds respectively. Locust Swarm jumps to two targets instead of one (Pestilence Rune)
- Firebats (dire) for when things get too hectic, travelling up to 40 yards with 220% weapon damage dealt.
- Firebomb as primary left-click skill with negligible mana cost of 7 and dealing 85% weapon damage as fire to all enemies within 8 yards
- Poison Dart on skill bar, also with negligible mana cost of 7, with Spined Dart rune equipped to gain 17 mana every time a succesful hit is landed. Useful for stepping out of the thick of combat and picking enemies off to recoup lost mana.
Passives
- Spiritual Attunement increases mana pool by 20% regenerates 1% of maximum mana a second
- Pierce the veil increases all damage output by 20% but increases mana costs by 30%, which is why I use Attunement and Spine Dart.
- Spirit Vessel is useful for third slot as it reduces the cooldown of Soul Harvest by 2 seconds, increasing the frequency of those health and DPS boosts. An additional useful buff in the form of entering the spirit realm for 3 seconds the next time you are fatally wounded, healing yourself for 10% and being invulnerable for that duration.
That can only happen once every 90 seconds but you shouldn’t find yourself in such a compromising position that often at this stage.
This is how I set out the skill bar. They’re mapped to W, E, R and Spacebar for bats. I really recommend this over 1,2,3,4 as I found it way more comfortable. Also, you will really need to turn on elective mode in the options and dig into the combinations of spells that are possible to work out a rotation you find exciting and effective.
Gear
My gear is, for the most part, nothing to write home about. I have a few rare pieces equipped, but most of my yellows from earlier acts have been replaced by better magic items from act III. I have a feeling the real crazy loot will open up in Nightmare and beyond.
Intelligence is the damage-boosting attribute for the Witch Doctor. My priorities have been boosting DPS as much as possible and maintaining a sizeable life pool. Armour is nice too, my level currently reducing damage taken from enemies of my level by 31.16%, but my overall strategy has been “kill enemy before it can hurt you rather than preparing for dealing with its damage”.
Who needs pets?
This has seen me as far as act three with no real issues dealing with anything I’ve come across when soloing, but it is pretty dependant on what gear you’re using.
I’ve never enjoyed micro-managing pets or sitting back while followers do the fun fighting (My Diablo II build was a Necromancer who didn’t summon a single skeleton) so it’s great that the Witch Doctor can hold his own without the help of any minions, and look like a total bad-ass while doing so.
Currently attending Bede Sixth Form College, in his spare time Ben enjoys referring to himself in the third person, design, obsessively editing the Dark Souls wiki and writing words about games at GGSGamer.
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Copyright © Ben Tyrer & Respective Owners 2012. Praise the sun!
