[Delraich]

Since WD is the only one now without a thread, I figured that there is no time like the present!! I haven't actually finished the game yet, but based on my game play so far (level 31) I am really enjoying the build I have at the moment. At the moment I am not having any troubles with most things except when I get lag or get caught off guard by baneling mobs or a mini boss right after a cut scene that I am not expecting. Boss fights seem really easy - the gargantuan tanks and the haunt dots while you spam away with the poison darts. If the boss drops any thing on the floor you need to avoid and you have painted yourself into a corner you can just use spirit walk and escape to a safer zone.

Left Mouse: Poison Dart with Splinters (I spam this a lot and I love the speed of splinters. I have tried the mana version but it is just too slow for me). Really nice 1 target damage that is very fast.

Right Mouse: Acid Cloud with Acid rain (I use this spell tons, and usually in conjunction with grasp of the dead. The increased radius is great, but when I get high enough I will definately try out the other runes. I like that you can spam it over and over and you can select where you want the aoe to land - usually over the mobs I trapped)

1: Grasp of the Dead (I love this. You see a wave coming at you and plonk this in between you and the mobs. With this and the gargantuan, the mobs are mostly grouped up so that you can spam you aoe and throw a few dots their way if needed). I have the increased damage rune on it atm, but will experiment more when I get higher and have access to more options.

2: Gargantuan (This dude is so good. He hardly ever dies and tanks the bosses and mobs very very well. I can heal him with the rune that goes on haunt, which is really great). And if for some odd reason he actually does die, you can cast him against instantly. I have the restless giant rune on him atm, but I am not high enough to have tried the others.

3: Spirit Walk (I like this spell, but tbh I hardly ever use it because I am usually not worried about dying. I have used it though, so it does come in handy. I am thinking that when I am higher and can use it for healing or mana regen or something, I might keep it as a utility spell that can become an emergency spell if needed)

4: Haunt (this spell is brilliant. I love having a dot so that if I need to move around it just keeping ticking. Also it is pretty much key for life regain for me and the gargantuan because of the consuming spirit rune).

If anyone else wants to share their builds, esp if you are at higher levels, that would be awesome. Also, I have played solo 99% of the time, so this build is def good for this kind of play first time through. I hope it stays good later on in the game. I have not gone to the AH for gear (but I did purchase a few decent gems for the slots some of my drops had), so I am only using drops which seem decent but I am sure I could do a lot better when I start feeling under powered (I assume this will happen after I get into NM).

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

[TheGentleman]

I play a WD =D, so I thought I'd post up my build.

Left Mouse: Plague of Toads; Rune: Rain of Toads (AoE)
Right Mouse: Grasp of the Dead; Rune: Groping Eels (AoE DoT)
1: Horrify; Rune: Phobia (Increased fear duration)
2: Soul Harvest; Rune: Siphon (Heal)
3: Acid Cloud; Rune: Slow Burn (AoE DoT)
4: Big Bad Voodoo; Rune: Ghost Trance (Heal)

So you may have noticed I like AoE. For maximum damage output I cast the following (preferably off of 5 stacks of soul harvest):
Grasp of the Dead (reapply when possible) -> Acid Cloud (reapply when it wears off) -> Plague of Toads

P.S. WD has to be one of the best classes, I mean who else would summon a gigantic toad which eats people or vomit all over the enemies in the midst of battle. At my Diablo 3 mini-LAN the WD certainly got a good laugh out of all my friends.

[Delraich]

This is a link to what seems like a decent guide on WD builds. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4927183159

Regarding a strategy for the WD section, I think it would be nice to have a set of articles covering the following areas:
Build for each type of play (e.g. solo, group, pvp, hardcore) and play style preference (e.g. zoo, playing behind a gargoyle, close range/ lots of aoe).
Gear (including gems, AH gear name affixes good for WD, decent stat point parameters to search for on AH).
Stat point targets (e.g. how much Int, Vitality, DPS should the WD be aiming for each difficultly level and end game)

I am definitely not an expert on the above stuff, so help will be GREATLY appreciated. If you can make it look all pro with nice images and font, that would be awesome.

[Jaywalk]

that sounds really good delraich, im going to switch to make my main WD tomorrow and hopefully i can get a good handle on the class and help with your side of the forum too. looks like WD is a bit underplayed so well have to make sure we have a good tight community to get some good knowledge flowing

Ive been doing huge amounts of testing with WD builds and im struggling to find something that works as easily as the other classes ive been playing. hopefully i can get some good synergy going soon!

[JoFritzMD]

I've been playing witch doctor on HC but still have no idea bout how to play it best. I've pretty much been getting as much as I can to tank for me so I have the templar, zombie dogs and gargantuan zombie haha.
These are the skills I've been using out of boss fights:
left click: poison darts, rune: splinter. I've tried the other abilities for this but they seem so unnatural and I can't get used to them. The damage on this is so good too.
Right click: grasp of the dead, rune: whichever one is damage increasing. This one is so good when you come to a room with a bunch of guys in it. Can actually kill everything while your dogs/gargantuan keeps them on the AoE. The slow is amazing too. Just throw it down and you can stand still and use your left click until they die.
1: zombie dogs, rune: Currently using the poison one for them but that's just because I'm not very high level in the game so I don't have access to anything better. These guys are just used to tank so I can stand still and kill stuff. Also used for my number 2 skill.
2. Dog explosion skill. Rune: I honestly can't remember TT. I use this skill just because it can clear packs of blue guys so quickly and most of the time your zombie dogs are off cooldown so you may as well get some damage out of them and then resummon them again. Against the blue packs sometimes you can kill 2 of them entirely and have 1 at 30% health after the explosion.
3. Spirit Barrage, rune: none because i'm not high enough level :3. This is useful for when you need to run but still do damage to something. This can be cast onto monsters behind you without having to stop running and it does only slightly less damage then your splintered poison darts so it can be pretty useful.
4. Gargantuan because my god it is tank and never dies which is exactly what I want. At first I didn't realise it lasted forever so I never used it because I was never in a spot where I needed to use a CD. But I used it once in a boss fight and have loved it ever since. ^_^
Passive 1. Jungle Fortitude. Reduces ALL damage taken by you and your pets by 20%? yes please.
Passive 2. Circle of Life. Currently have this one to try and get that achievement where you have 3 dogs actvie without them being your summon and because I don't really have other super good passives available yet.
passive 3. Not level 30 yet TT.

This is probably a terrible setup but it's been working for me so far in HC (not that I'm very far through it, almost finished Act 2 haha). But I've only had one or two spots where i've almost died and those weren't due to the abilities I chose but more to do with the stupidity of myself.

Quick Comments

	Delraich:
	nirvAnA:

[crAzerk]

I've only JUST played with a WD finally after a week, found a friend who was in 60 inferno as well. I must say, theyr'e a pretty noisy class! Haha! He had some spell that kept going 'eeyerrr eeeyerrr'

But I did like his CC-oriented build, he had Confuse and Polymorph (no idea what they're actually called) which made killing some elites slightly easier.

[Delraich]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

I've only JUST played with a WD finally after a week, found a friend who was in 60 inferno as well. I must say, theyr'e a pretty noisy class! Haha! He had some spell that kept going 'eeyerrr eeeyerrr'

But I did like his CC-oriented build, he had Confuse and Polymorph (no idea what they're actually called) which made killing some elites slightly easier.

Is there any chance you can ask him to do an article for us? If he can cover the following area's this would be very helpful:
Build (abilities he has chosen and why; abilities he tried in earlier levels which stopped working; if it is suited for a particular composition like group play or solo; the basic feel/ style of play he is going for)
Stats that he has gone for (e.g. maybe something beyond int and vit) and how it ties in with his build
How he engages the mobs based on his build

Depending on how this works out, maybe I can get a few different high level people to do articles (each one representing a particular build/ style - so this guy could represent a fear/ CC style of play), I can create a series of posts for people to look at when considering what build they want to chose.

[BearPack]

After fiddling around with WD for a while now, I've really grew to love Sacrifice. For what little it does, the DPS potential is unbelievably good if done properly.

So, naturally, I made a style that incorporates it.
I call it - THE EXPOLSION DOCTOR

LEFT CLICK - Poison Dart - splinters
This has an incredibly high single target DPS, and it would be silly not to include it. It's a cookie-cutter ability for the WD

RIGHT CLICK - Grasp of the Dead - Groping Eels
This is probably the one ability that I'm not sure about. I added it for the bonus AoE DPS, but at the same time the slow really helps get away from any kind of shenannigans that may happen in fights.

HOTKEY 1 - Zombie Dogs - Final Gift
The mentality behind getting leeching beast was that the dogs weren't there for the DPS that they do, they're there to run in and die. You want them to just go in, and explode, so any effects such as poison attack or the burning dogs were kinda negligible. So, through their death you benefit here, and believe me, the dogs will be dying a LOT.

HOTKEY 2 - Sacrifice - Next of Kin
Next of kin is extremely important. Not only does having the additional dog increase the damage output by 25%, but the chance of resurrection means the potential to chain together dog explosions. Combined with the passives I will talk about later, this is what makes this build so effective.

HOTKEY 3 - Spirit walk - Jaunt
I've chosen this ability for two main reasons: Firstly, it's a LONG ******* SPIRIT WALK, meaning you will be immune to harm for a good amount of time. This will cut down the time in danger of dying if your dogs are all dead and you're waiting for cooldown. Secondly, it's an escape to any stupid shit you may run into.

HOTKEY 4 - Gargantuan - Restless Giant
He is basically there to be a meat shield for when your dogs are all dead and you're waiting on the resurrection of them. plain and simple.


PASSIVE ONE - Jungle Fortitude
It's all about survival. Not only will you have more survivability, but the gargantuan will last longer when waiting for the dog cooldown, and the dogs will last longer when you're waiting for them to get into position.

PASSIVE TWO - Circle of Life
So, when an enemy dies, there is a 5% chance a dog will appear, freshly made for you to sacrifice. I don't see how this is a bad choice.

PASSIVE THREE - Zombie Handler
This is the skill that will give you that extra Zombie dog, and more survivability for your dogs and gargantuan while you wait for that cooldown!


So far I've gotten into act 4 of nightmare mode with this, and it seems very effective for farming areas or levelling.
My only concern is that it is less valid in boss fights, as Circle of Life won't proc, as well as some boss fights don't have the boss in range of the dogs (Belial)

Quick Comments

	Delraich:
	nirvAnA:

[Delraich]

Originally Posted by TheGentleman

I play a WD =D, so I thought I'd post up my build.

Left Mouse: Plague of Toads; Rune: Rain of Toads (AoE)
Right Mouse: Grasp of the Dead; Rune: Groping Eels (AoE DoT)
1: Horrify; Rune: Phobia (Increased fear duration)
2: Soul Harvest; Rune: Siphon (Heal)
3: Acid Cloud; Rune: Slow Burn (AoE DoT)
4: Big Bad Voodoo; Rune: Ghost Trance (Heal)

So you may have noticed I like AoE. For maximum damage output I cast the following (preferably off of 5 stacks of soul harvest):
Grasp of the Dead (reapply when possible) -> Acid Cloud (reapply when it wears off) -> Plague of Toads

P.S. WD has to be one of the best classes, I mean who else would summon a gigantic toad which eats people or vomit all over the enemies in the midst of battle. At my Diablo 3 mini-LAN the WD certainly got a good laugh out of all my friends.

Hey there. I have read about a rain of toads build with infinite mana in a forum not too long ago - the dude was saying it works in inferno as well, which is why it caught my eye. Please could you expand on your build a bit more because it sounds really interesting and captures a totally different kind of playstyle.

[crAzerk]

Originally Posted by Delraich

Is there any chance you can ask him to do an article for us? If he can cover the following area's this would be very helpful:
Build (abilities he has chosen and why; abilities he tried in earlier levels which stopped working; if it is suited for a particular composition like group play or solo; the basic feel/ style of play he is going for)
Stats that he has gone for (e.g. maybe something beyond int and vit) and how it ties in with his build
How he engages the mobs based on his build

Depending on how this works out, maybe I can get a few different high level people to do articles (each one representing a particular build/ style - so this guy could represent a fear/ CC style of play), I can create a series of posts for people to look at when considering what build they want to chose.

Haha that'll be kind of hard considering he isn't really a forums kinda person. You should be able to figure it out I suppose? Haha just incorporate CCs and try to make it work :S

[Delraich]

I'm not sure how this compares to the other classes, but these people have:

Unbuffed DPS of 47266


Unbuffed DPS of 39616


Unbuffed DPS of 31695


Buffed DPS of 68293
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/837/dpswd.png/

Example of some builds for general fighting in act 2 (inferno)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...TPR!ZWV!YYZZbZ

and for bosses
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Tek!ZWV!YYZZZY

Quick Comments

	Jaywalk:	i literally dont understand the point of this build at all...
	nirvAnA:	What a boss WD!

[Jaywalk]

this is what im using atm.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dUT!ZXV!aaZZZZ

basically the point is to get 5 stacks of soul harvest (which gives ridiculous extra dmg + heals) then spam dire bats, which have massive burst dmg and aoe through packs.

zombie to tank and spirit walk to get mana back and evade if required.

any idea if this is at all on track? it doesn't work at that well in boss fights as most of them you cant get 5 stacks but for general play the damage is actually stupid.

[Delraich]

Originally Posted by ToREchoFive

this is what im using atm.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dUT!ZXV!aaZZZZ

basically the point is to get 5 stacks of soul harvest (which gives ridiculous extra dmg + heals) then spam dire bats, which have massive burst dmg and aoe through packs.

zombie to tank and spirit walk to get mana back and evade if required.

any idea if this is at all on track? it doesn't work at that well in boss fights as most of them you cant get 5 stacks but for general play the damage is actually stupid.

I think this is actually a really good way to go. From what I have read, the soul harvest is there to trigger the very high intelligence which in turn makes your DPS insane. How can you easily trigger 5 mobs? Alot of people seem to use the spirit walk to get in/ out of the 5 mobs safely (with the added bonus that this spell has a cool down). Now what? You need a high DPS spell and dire bats seems to be really good choice for this but this spell costs a lot of mana to maintain. I have seen builds involving the highest DPS bats (hungry which is 280%) rather than the one you have chosen. So how are you going to pay for all these bats? The passive most people use in this build is Vision Quest (4 spells on cool down triggers 300% mana regen). The rest of the build involves having spells that have cool downs (e.g. grasp of the dead). Because it is a fairly high maintenance style of play and you need to keep 4 of your spells on permanent cool down so your mana is flowing so you can pay for the bats.

Btw. I read this regarding stats for a WD:
Stack int + life regen on hit + vit and make a VERY hard to die WD...or
Int+crit hit%+ crit dmg%= and make a guy that drops 70k and up crits 40% of the time

[Jaywalk]

+ [Delraich Post] +

Originally Posted by Delraich

I think this is actually a really good way to go. From what I have read, the soul harvest is there to trigger the very high intelligence which in turn makes your DPS insane. How can you easily trigger 5 mobs? Alot of people seem to use the spirit walk to get in/ out of the 5 mobs safely (with the added bonus that this spell has a cool down). Now what? You need a high DPS spell and dire bats seems to be really good choice for this but this spell costs a lot of mana to maintain. I have seen builds involving the highest DPS bats (hungry which is 280%) rather than the one you have chosen. So how are you going to pay for all these bats? The passive most people use in this build is Vision Quest (4 spells on cool down triggers 300% mana regen). The rest of the build involves having spells that have cool downs (e.g. grasp of the dead). Because it is a fairly high maintenance style of play and you need to keep 4 of your spells on permanent cool down so your mana is flowing so you can pay for the bats.

Btw. I read this regarding stats for a WD:
Stack int + life regen on hit + vit and make a VERY hard to die WD...or
Int+crit hit%+ crit dmg%= and make a guy that drops 70k and up crits 40% of the time

Ah ok that sounds good. It would be good to find a way to have constant bats, I use the Dire bats because they shoot THROUGH packs as well, Im only up to NM act 1 but im yet to find a pack of mobs thats not dead before I run out of mana. I might play around with other bats, but the diminished range might leave me with no mana and in the middle of mobs so thats a bit scary.

In terms of running in to get a 5 mob soul harvest, i have been literally using grasp of the dead, running to the edge of the pack, using harvest and running back, then shooting dire bats all through them. sometimes i use spirit walk if things get hairy to get out. It feels pretty inefficient but i guess there needs to be some difficulty involved to unlock such high dmg. then once i get 5 stacks, they generally last me about 3 packs of mobs before i have to do it again, which heals me back to full again too, so its usually pretty well timed.

I havent got that vision quest spell yet, but that sounds like it might be the way to go, with the mana regen spirit walk as well, I would constantly have 4 spells on CD pretty easily. thanks for the feedback im going to play around with it more as i go through NM today

[TheGentleman]

Regarding Soul Harvest, I find occasionally I'm surrounded by a large number of mobs and obviously they do a lot of damage really quickly. The Siphon rune allows you to gain health from each soul harvested so I highly recommend using that rune until you feel it no longer benefits you. The number of times that saved my life while levelling is beyond count.

[Jaywalk]

+ [bearpacks build] +

ive been giving this build a try through NM just for lols.

so far im really struggling with survivability, theres no heals! also not really sure when to bloe the dogs up, as sometimes they all die before you can, but other times the CD is so far away that you are left with no real damage till the dogs come back?

i found my previous build a lot more effective generally, but im still going to work on this for a while for fun

[TAavanar]

Thought i might as well add my build here, might not be any good but why not?
i started using this after normal mode because i found the dogs dieing too easy and a few skills not really fitting my playstyle.
Forgot to add im up to act 1 in hell.

Primary skill- Poison Dart- Splinters,
i've used this the whole way, allthe other moves dont feel right, i feel like i need an attacking move as my main skill.

Secondary skill- Grasp of the Dead- groping eels( extra damage)
I've also used this skill most of the time, just makes it easy to kite/slow down fast enemies and does some extra damage which is nice.

Defensive skill- Hex - hedge magic (heals you)
i use this because i felt the need to have a heal other than a potion. Can't quite remember why i thought that but i like it, it of course also disables a few enemies which is handy. It usually disables the ones closest to you which are attacking you/chasing you, and its on a short 15 sec cooldown.

Terror (fourth skill)- Mass Confusion- mass hysteria(stuns)
This spell disables everything inside the cast radius with this rune which is awesome and can really help you when your in a bit of trouble. Before i got this rune i used the one which reduces the cooldown. But liked the rune im using now better.

Decay (fifth skill)- Spirit Barrage- well of souls(AOE)
This spell is a great nuke, and with the rune its AOE this tends to deplete your mana pretty quickly but because it does such good damage its deffinately worth it, and once ur mana runs out u can usually finish the enemies off with poison darts.

Gargantuan(sixth skill)- restless giant (gets enraged)
This guy is the biggest tank, takes sooo much damage,and when he does die u can pretty much respawn him right away which is sick. With this rune if he encounters a rare/elite or gets surrounded he gets enraged and does more damage and more attk speed(i think) which happens often and since the rares and elites are obviously harder to beat its good he gets stronger whenever he sees one.

Now onto passives!
im running:
jungle fortitude: a reduction of 20% damage on you and gargantuan is handy, cant go wrong with that.

rush of essence: which returns i think 10%(i might be wrong) on skills like spirit barrage and mass confusion, its mainly for spirit barrage because its very mana intensive.

Spiritual attunement: An increase in mana by 20% is pretty sick since your main damage dealing spell (spirit barrage) is very mana intensive.

Thats it Any questions feel free to ask.

Quick Comments

	TABottles:	We so similar <3
	nirvAnA:

[TABottles]

Take what you will from my build.

+ [Bottles Skill Menu] +

+ [''Merkaba'' at present] +

*I've re-mapped my hotkeys from 1,2,3,4 to Q,W,E,R

Left Mouse:Splinters on my poison dart as it's a great single target damage dealer.

Right Mouse: Using Haunt with the ''Lingering Spirit'' rune as it continually damages enemies.. the rune makes it so when the spirit can't find something to haunt it stays with you until it can - or until it times out.

Q: Spirit Walk - gets me around the map faster and saves my arse so many times! Also it works well running in and confusing a big pack from the center and then running out! Using Jaunt to have longer duration on my walk.

W: I'm rolling with Mass confusion here as i'ts super effective at halving a big quick army (such as spiderlings -.-) also is a good disable when facing one semi-boss elite (Manglemaw etc.) I've attached the ''Devolution'' rune so when confused enemies die there's a chance my dawgs arrive.

E: Gargantuan - super tanky best friend of mine - he gets particularly angry with the 'Restless Ghost' rune (Whenever he spots an elite, boss, rare etc. OR gets surrounded - he gets super tough and it is SICK!)

R: Hex with the rune Hedge magic to support heal me and my gargantuan and turn monsters into chickens - so another disable.


Passives:

Spirit Vessel: Reduces the cooldown of your Horrify, Spirit Walk, and Soul Harvest spells by 2 seconds. In addition, the next time you receive fatal damage, you automatically enter the spirit realm for 3 seconds and heal to 10% of your maximum Life. This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.

Rush of Essence: Spirit spells return 30% of their Mana cost over 10 seconds. So, Spirit Walk.

Pierce the Veil: All of your damage is increased by 20%, but your Mana costs are increased by 30%.

Tell me what you think! I hope to keep it for as long as possible because it's a damn fun playstyle i've developed for myself!

Quick Comments

	TAavanar:	I like the way you think buddy.
	Tonsh:	Haha, using q,w,e,r also

[BearPack]

Originally Posted by ToREchoFive

ive been giving this build a try through NM just for lols.

so far im really struggling with survivability, theres no heals! also not really sure when to bloe the dogs up, as sometimes they all die before you can, but other times the CD is so far away that you are left with no real damage till the dogs come back?

i found my previous build a lot more effective generally, but im still going to work on this for a while for fun

Most of the heals that I got through this were from globes left behind by the dogs/mobs that you would kill. I got through most of NM mode using this absurd build for fun, but switched back to my visionquest/direbat build :P

Dog revival is a mixture of luck/patence, in the sense that sometimes your dogs may just flat-out revive, or you will just wait for the CD on them between larger mobs.

It's more of a troll build than a serious build, but It's still a lot of fun

Quick Comments

Jaywalk:

yeah very fun, hard to pull off but funny haha

[Jaywalk]

I dont know how people are getting by without soul harvest! the damage is so much better!

Quick Comments

TABottles:

No clue why no one touches Spirit Walk - people must like dying :D