Items
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Head
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Shoulders
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Amulet
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Torso
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Wrists
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Hands
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Waist
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Legs
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Feet
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Rings
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Weapon
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Offhand
Strong AOE -> Fire %(Tiki Torchers)
Strong Single Target Damage -> Physical % (Legion of Daggers)
Head: Mask of Jeram is the only choice in this build, it increases the damage of our fetish by 75% - 100%. Not required for this build, since it's just an increase in our damage, but I'd say It's almost a must.
Shoulders: Personally, I use the Aughild set, it brings a lot of Thoughness and some Elite damage. you could use the "Pauldrons of the skeleton king", it's also a nice choice, but I don't like the "random" part of it.
Amulet: This is a hard choice. We all know that in high lvl grift all monsters do a huge amount of damage (a normal melee zombie can 1 shot you), but, there's a difference between that, and a Jailer. You can't avoid a Jailer if you're in his range and in most situations it 1 shot you, so the amulet I'd strongly recommend is Countess Julia's Cameo. The other amulets are also viable, even a hellfire one, but I don't see that the witch doctor has any crazy OP passive that is missing from this build so I prefer to avoid some damage from elites. Remember, you cannot DPS while you're dead, so...
Torso: Zunimassa's Marrow. Required, nothing else to do here.
Wrists: As I said before, I use the Aughild set, I really like it, but you're free to not wear it. The thing is that there's no any crazy OP wrists out there yet, so I prefer to use the set. Also, if you use Piranhado, you could benefit from the "Strongarm bracers"
Hands: If you don't have Zunimassa's Pox, then you must use Zunimassa's finger wraps, otherwise you should use Tasker and Theo. Tasker and Theo would boost your DPS by I don't know... a lot!? It's crazy.
Waist: Belt of transcendence is required for this build, 15 fetish tanking and doing high DPS, what more do you want?
Legs: Zunimassa's Cloth is a must.
Feet: Zunimassa's Trail, another must.
Rings: Ring of Royal Grandeur is a must if you don't want to wear the 6p of Zuni, with this ring you just can wear 5p, it's great. The other ring, well, you can go with Convention of Elements, it's a great DPS boost in some situations but I strongly recommend to get a Zunimassa's Pox and then a Tasker and Theo, the damage is more consistent. Also, sometimes you can miss (and of course you will, a lot of time btw) the Convention of Elements's bonus damage, I don't really like it for this build.
Weapon: Starmetal Kukri is required. I have to say that this weapon is very rare, so if you happen to get an ancient one go to the lottery. With this weapon you have an almost 100% uptime on Big bad voodoo and on Fetish army too. A big difference between this build and the Carnevil build is that if the Carnevil build dies in a grift and fetish army is on cooldown, you can say the grift is over, because the cooldown is so damn long... But with this build that won't happen.
Offhand: Zunimassa's String of Skulls is required.
In general, you should be looking for the following stats (in no particular order): Fetish Army Damage (shoulders, mojo and torso) - Physical/Fire Skills Damage% (wrists and amulet) - Critical Hit Chance (hands, mask, mojo, rings, amulet and wrists) - Critical Hit Damage (amulet, rings, hands and weapon's socket)
Legendary gems:
Banned of the Trapped: Mandatory gem, cause the damage it applies is individual from others. your haunt will apply a slow which is not being said in the description. Also, your Soul Harvest will apply a slow with the Languish rune. Do not forget the lvl 25 bonus, a slow aura.
Taeguk: This is personal preference, but I think Taeguk is almost a must in this build, You'll be spamming Haunt all day and you'll never wun out of mana. You can keep the stacks between fights by using haunt to somewhere. It also greatly increases your armor, so more thoughness is always nice.
Pain enhancer: Well, this is something I'm still testing but seems really viable. Pain Enhancer will boost your damage a lot and I'm talking about the bleeding effect. Your pets can proc it so it's very nice. You don't benefit a lot from the attack speed bonus but still is good enough.
Another option is Enforcer but I don't like it because it's being added to the elemental damage part and it has a diminishing effect.
Paragon Priorities
Core
Movement Speed
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Primary Stat
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Vitality
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Maximum Resource
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Offense
Critical Hit Chance
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Critical Hit Damage
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Cooldown Reduction
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Attack Speed
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Defense
Armor
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Life
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Resist All
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Life Regeneration
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Utility
Life on Hit
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Area Damage
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Resource Cost Reduction
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Gold Find
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Core: Max. Mov speed to 25%, then go for INT.
Offense: CHC -> CHD -> CDR -> AS. Attack speed don't synergy that well with this build, since you'll be reapplying haunt to enemies, but, it's true that more attack speed means more haunted enemies in AOE situations, and of course AS increase the speed you stack your Taeguk gem.
Defense: Armor -> Life- > Resist All -> Life Regeneration. INT already gives you resist all, so it's not a high priority in the defense paragon, I see like armor/life are way more important. You could priorize Resist all instead of life if you want to.
Utility: Life on hit -> Area Damage -> Resource Cost Reduction -> Gold Find. Nothing really worth here, except for maybe life on hit. Resource cost reduction isn't important cause' you have "Rush of Essence", you'll never run out of mana.
Build Guide
UPDATE 3: I will update this guide for 2.3 once the patch is released. Some gear will be changed. Also, I'm running with Fire damage again, this only proves that it is a hard choice for me, because both of the elem dmg have its pros and cons. Anyway, this guide will be updated massively when patch 2.3 hits the ground. Until then, I don't think this guide needs too many updates.
UPDATE 2: I've been testing Physical/Fire for a long time and right now my choice is PHYSICAL. I know a lot of people says that we (pet build users) lack of any AOE dmg and that the Tiki torchers kinda solves that problem, and while I agree with that, I also find that the single target damage is the "cherry on the cake" of this build, as Grift bosses just MELTS. When I say that single target is our strength, in AOE situations you won't be lacking that AOE dmg at all since you have 23 fetish. I'm talking about my own experience, of course.
I will make a video about this guide in the near future, but I've never done this before and english is not my native language, so I'll be hard for me I think but whatever.
TL;DR: I use Physical over Fire damage (Legion of Daggers over Tiki Torchers)
UPDATE 1: I've been testing the fetish army with the fire rune for more AOE damage, and it's going pretty well, same items just different elem dmg. I'll add it to the title.
Hi I'm Khaligoth, currently sitting at rank 610 (solo WD) and this is my first guide here in diablofans. I've been playing D3 since the launch day. I'm in love with summoners in all kind of games, and D3 is not an exception. I personally don't like the Carnevil build that much, and after chaging my build to this, I was able to do 50+ grift. I don't have a great gear, not even an ancient weapon, but with the proper gear I'm sure you can push to 55+. I will update the guide as I keep playing the build. I'll add more information very often. You can add me on Curse ("Khaligoth") if you have further questions about the guide, but english is not my native language (spanish is).
Gameplay:
Always keep track of your fetish, 8 from Fetish Army and 15 from the belt.
Haunt everything you see and use Piranhas on cooldown.
Spam Big bad voodoo everytime it's up, and reapply it on different zones of the map, around the enemies, behind you, etc. Battles are not always static and remember that your fetish benefits from the buff too, so it's important to note that YOU and your FETISH should be in the buff area.
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* NO BBV
30% Damage Bonus: NO
20% Attack Speed Bonus: NO
* YOU in BBV
30% Damage Bonus: YES
20% Attack Speed Bonus: NO
* PET in BBV
30% Damage Bonus: NO
20% Attack Speed Bonus: YES
* BOTH in BBV
30% Damage Bonus: YES
20% Attack Speed Bonus: YES
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Soul harvest to stack it to 5, reapply it when it's about to go off. It's a great boost to your damage and also makes you more tanky.
Try to keep the Taeguk stacks always up but you can let them go in some situations, like if you're about to die, or if you have to walk the whole map because you can't find the right way to the next level.
You're not force to be in range of the Pain Enhancer gem, it will only increases your attack speed, and you won't benefit a lot from it.
You have to learn when to skip some elites, specially Jailers are a pain in the ass.
Reflect damage is not that bad with this build, you're very tanky and your damage comes from your fetish.
This build lacks of any strong AOE ability, but with Tiki Torchers that problem is less annoying.
I choose Jungle Fortitude over Bad medicine, it's just a personal choice, you can switch between them.
Sounds great but in a 50+ GR where the mobs last longer, how are you spamming Haunt w/o loosing mana.
Also You think Soul Harvest provides more DPS than Summoned Zombie Dogs with the 6 piece set bonus?
I could see this working. Rush of Essence keeps the mana up and the int adds dps to the 23 army where as right now I only use dogs for life regen, when if anything they get in the way of the fetish. I have all the gear, but never tried this build. I'll give it a go and see.
@Khaligoth
the Templar tip might have been the biggest yet.
But with that knowledge, do the Fetishes block each other from DPS'ing??
U mind giving some insight on how you have your enchantress set up:
Sweet, I think this is the last I got for now.
BoT Gem, I know it amplifies your damage, but since most of your damage is pet damage is it worth it?
Spent some time with it and your right, it does take practice. My traditional build for WD has always been Melee, never really got into the carnival build, so it hasn't been too much of a change for me, but it takes a lot more awareness around your procs. I had to build the main gem Taeguk up and I'm playing with one small varient, Enforcer rather then pain enhancer. But I like it. I haven't gotten to push solo Grift yet cause I have been running with clan mates all day, but I already see the improvements in damage even though the taeguk is only lvl 30 right now. Surviving isn't much of an improvement yet cause I built off dog siphon for life previously, but with some tweaking and gear rerolling I think this will be a strong build and I can already tell I'll jump some levels on Grifting. Good build. With my gem build and not so great gear I'm seeing 260mil crits from my fetish and full buff (non-party). About 380-400mil with Barb and DH buffs (same time). over 900mil with power enhancer buff (with 50 stacks).
My tactic with it, and let me know if u go a different direction, is to "Spirit walk" into the enemy, "Soul Harvest," "Big Bad Fetish," "Fetish Army," and run out before Spirit walk ends and spam Haunt and Pirhanado. I see good results just from having the fetish deep in the enemy while I pound them with abilities.
Let me know if u have further advice.
I don't use the convention of elements with melee build. I have gone back and forth between that and being able to use my Tasker and Theo. If I go with the CoE I need to give up my RRoG which means another set piece is needed and no way I'm giving up my Kuni so it ends up being gloves. I've found that even though I'll do less damage per hit then when I have CoE on, having the 47% attack speed to pets I get from Tasker more then out weighs the damage/hit.