Here's my version of a spirit quest/summons build.
Firebats - Dire Bats. This will be my spammable damage dealer. The straight line aoe is the best damage you can do with the WD imo.
Wall of Zombies - Pile On. This has 2 purposes. 1.) Another cooldown ability to trigger vision quest. 2.) Even better damage than Dire Bats but it's not spammable. This will be the spell that is cast anytime it's not on cooldown.
Soul Harvest - Siphon. Unless they make some major changes to soul harvest, it belongs in every build. I'm a little unsure of the rune. Thanks to Wall of Zombies having a cooldown, it might be nice to take the Soul to Waste rune to make sure that you can always have a 5 stack of Soul Harvest up.
Fetish Army - Ambush. I was unsure about picking either this or Mass Confusion. I ended up picking Fetish Army instead because I'll be using it on cooldown and Mass Confusion would only be good if used when I needed it (aka defensively)
Zombie Dogs - Life Link. Mostly for tanking but the 10% damage reduction is nice as well.
Gargantuan - Humongoid. Another tank in case the Dogs die. Cleave damage sounds great.
Jungle Fort - 20% DR for me and pets? Must have.
Vision Quest - I should be able to have this up 100%. With 3 1+ minute cooldown skills and 2 shorter cooldown skills, it shouldn't be a problem.
Zombie Handler - 1 extra dog is nice, but 20% extra hp for dogs and garg will likely be needed later on.
Possible weaknesses? If the summons fall things could get bad. With 4 dogs and the Garg, I'm not sure if this will happen too often though. Really, the only solution to this would be to replace Wall of Zombies with an escape ability that I don't feel compelled to keep on cooldown (perhaps Spirit Walk or Horrify). If the summons can't stay alive, I'll make that change, but I'd rather have 2 damage dealing spells... it's be pretty boring to spam firebats the entire time (not to mention it'll be more damage with wall in there).
I'm assuming with vision quest up, I'll be able to spam firebats - dire bat decently enough. If that's not possible I could try the mana rune for Soul Harvest though!
I made a short analysis why i picked different spells to trigger the 4 cooldowns:
Zombie Dogs & Gargantua: Pets are just ideal to trigger vision quest. Unlike most cooldowns that you should save for crucial situations, pets are better used if you keep then out all the time. I can keep both those cooldowns without loosing the defensive power of those abilities. My only loss is thet that i can't ressummon pets immediately after they die. This is why i got Zombie Handler, to reduce the amoutn of time this incovenience will happen.
Grasp of the Dead: Another good spell to trigger Vision Quest. Runed it has slows enemies by 80%, which is awesome to help me when my pets die and will be on cooldown. I can use it to break barreels when i'm out of combat in order to keep the mana juice flowing.
Spirit Walk: My last Vision Quest trigger. This last spell is actually the "true trigger", the one i've to activate to boost my mana regen. I imagine myself spending everything i have on bats and zombie chargers and then using spirirt wlak to quickly regen my mana. I was between this and soul harvest. I opted for it because it's good spell to defend myself against bosses, since pet's sucks at those situations.
I think Fetish Arm and Soul Harvest are both not very good choices for trigerring the cooldown, unless i'm missing something.
Fetish Army have long cooldown and short duration. If you save it for situations it would make a difference (bosses for exemple) you will not trigger vision quest but if you do use it against any random mob it's usefulness will be nullified because you can problably deal with trash mobs without an army. The same occurs to me when i think about Zombie Wall.
If you plan on keeping Soul Harvest on cooldown most of the time, you will have to use it when theres not 5 enemies nearby just to trigger Vision quest and this will actualy remove your 5 stack buffs and replace it with weaker buff. Unless later in the game you most commonly face at least 5 enemies, you will have to live with suboptimal buff. I feel this will be problem in bosses were the 15 seconds cooldown will wear off multiple times and you will have to use it in the boss and getting only one stack (or wait for him to cast his minions in order to get your mana back).
Despite my critiques about Soul Harvest, i still consider it an viable option due the massive damage it gives even with low amount of stacks.
I thimk you had a nice idea by adding 5, not 4, cooldowns. It mean you have more flexibility. While i still believe Spirirt Walk, Grasp of the Dead and Hex are the skills that fits the dynamic required by Vision Quest (despite ZDogs and Gargantua), using 5 cooldowns means you can include a skill like Fetish Army and Wall of Zombies. I will definetly look into that and rethink my build.
Duh. I know handler lets you get a 4th dog. But how is he going to acquire it? He might be presuming that if you cast ZD once you get 3 dogs, if you do it a second time, you'll get the 4th. I'm not sure I'd jump to that conclusion.
Anyways, I feel like ZD is a waste of a skill slot at higher levels. Take a rune that gives you x% chance of summoning a dog and I think it's a lot better use of them. Then take zombie handler.
I think Fetish Army and Soul Harvest are both not very good choices for trigerring the cooldown, unless i'm missing something.
Fetish Army have long cooldown and short duration. If you save it for situations it would make a difference (bosses for exemple) you will not trigger vision quest but if you do use it against any random mob it's usefulness will be nullified because you can problably deal with trash mobs without an army. The same occurs to me when i think about Zombie Wall.
If you plan on keeping Soul Harvest on cooldown most of the time, you will have to use it when theres not 5 enemies nearby just to trigger Vision quest and this will actualy remove your 5 stack buffs and replace it with weaker buff. Unless later in the game you most commonly face at least 5 enemies, you will have to live with suboptimal buff. I feel this will be problem in bosses were the 15 seconds cooldown will wear off multiple times and you will have to use it in the boss and getting only one stack (or wait for him to cast his minions in order to get your mana back).
Despite my critiques about Soul Harvest, i still consider it an viable option due the massive damage it gives even with low amount of stacks.
I thimk you had a nice idea by adding 5, not 4, cooldowns. It mean you have more flexibility. While i still believe Spirirt Walk, Grasp of the Dead and Hex are the skills that fits the dynamic required by Vision Quest (despite ZDogs and Gargantua), using 5 cooldowns means you can include a skill like Fetish Army and Wall of Zombies. I will definetly look into that and rethink my build.
Thnx alot for the contribution!
I don't think Soul Harvest will be a problem thanks to wall of zombies. It'll be a nice thing when it's on cooldown because I can save one of my other cooldown abilities when I need it. However, if I'm about to lose spirit quest I'll be forced to either use one of my high cooldown skills or use a less optimal soul harvest. I think it adds a lot to the build personally.
I don't like grasp in a spirit quest build. The 8 second cooldown kills it. I prefer skills with a higher cooldown because that means you have more time to cast damage dealing spells. I don't want to refresh grasp every 8 seconds.
Spirit Walk is a tempting choice. I'll pick it up if I'm unable to spam bats as much as I'd like. I'd prefer not to though because like I said earlier I'd rather have the longer cooldown skills.
Lorien -
I thought zombie handler made it so you summon 4 dogs? If I remember correctly, a few beta builds ago it behaved this way.... Either way... I completely disagree about zombie dogs. Having max zombie dogs for additional meat shields is the core of my build. I don't have anything to kite, I need my summons up and alive. Keep in mind that the key to this build is having 4 skills on cooldown. Having Zombie Dogs is a lot more than just having the dogs out there to tank for me. That's just a side benefit.
I think Fetish Army and Soul Harvest are both not very good choices for trigerring the cooldown, unless i'm missing something.
Fetish Army have long cooldown and short duration. If you save it for situations it would make a difference (bosses for exemple) you will not trigger vision quest but if you do use it against any random mob it's usefulness will be nullified because you can problably deal with trash mobs without an army. The same occurs to me when i think about Zombie Wall.
If you plan on keeping Soul Harvest on cooldown most of the time, you will have to use it when theres not 5 enemies nearby just to trigger Vision quest and this will actualy remove your 5 stack buffs and replace it with weaker buff. Unless later in the game you most commonly face at least 5 enemies, you will have to live with suboptimal buff. I feel this will be problem in bosses were the 15 seconds cooldown will wear off multiple times and you will have to use it in the boss and getting only one stack (or wait for him to cast his minions in order to get your mana back).
Despite my critiques about Soul Harvest, i still consider it an viable option due the massive damage it gives even with low amount of stacks.
I thimk you had a nice idea by adding 5, not 4, cooldowns. It mean you have more flexibility. While i still believe Spirirt Walk, Grasp of the Dead and Hex are the skills that fits the dynamic required by Vision Quest (despite ZDogs and Gargantua), using 5 cooldowns means you can include a skill like Fetish Army and Wall of Zombies. I will definetly look into that and rethink my build.
Thnx alot for the contribution!
I don't think Soul Harvest will be a problem thanks to wall of zombies. It'll be a nice thing when it's on cooldown because I can save one of my other cooldown abilities when I need it. However, if I'm about to lose spirit quest I'll be forced to either use one of my high cooldown skills or use a less optimal soul harvest. I think it adds a lot to the build personally.
In one way or another you're using your abilities in suboptimal mather.
I don't like grasp in a spirit quest build. The 8 second cooldown kills it. I prefer skills with a higher cooldown because that means you have more time to cast damage dealing spells. I don't want to refresh grasp every 8 seconds.
Why wouldn't you ? If you have GotD and you're in combat (situation which you should have VQ triggered) it should be on cooldown 100% of the time (extra damage and slow).
It is also a great spell to break barrels, another reason to keep it on cooldown even out of combat.
Why wouldn't you ? If you have GotD and you're in combat (situation which you should have VQ triggered) it should be on cooldown 100% of the time (extra damage and slow).
The 20% damage is completely neglectable since you're casting that instead of a firebat (which does 220%). The slow doesn't do a thing unless your pets die. IF pets can't stay alive I can see the point of grasp in the build.
All the pets are melee... even if you slow down monsters your pets will still run right in there and negate any slow the monsters have. The low cooldown is a killer for your overall damage. You'll have to spam a 20% damage skill every 8 seconds. Your pets will take even more damage and be even more likely to die because you aren't killing the monsters as quickly.
In one way or another you're using your abilities in suboptimal mather.
Yes, it will happen but it will be fairly rare and I don't see a solution that will lead to more damage. I don't need spirit quest active when I'm at full mana (aka when I'm out of combat). It won't hurt at all to start a fight off with Zombie Wall which will then proc Spirit Quest. There will be cases when I have to use it on smaller groups of mobs, but that's not really an issue. The priority order would be good Soul Harvest > Good Zombie Wall... I'd much rather have a 5 stack!
You do have a point for Fetish Army though. There are a few cases where I'd be forced to summon Fetish Army in a bad time... I'm willing to accept that because I believe it's the best available option. It could be bad if the fight is nearly over but I need to keep spirit quest up or if I'm fighting a smaller group. Fetish Army is the weakest choice in this build (besides passives which I'm still unsure about) but I personally want 3 long cooldown abilities. Feel free to change up this build to suit your play style.
My biggest concern with the original build is the lack of any defensive abilities, which is probably also why italofoca suggested Grasp of the Dead, and I plan on using it in my Vision Quest build as well (though mine is petless). If you are going to be playing solo, I'm not sure the pets alone will be sufficient to keep monsters off you, especially in later difficulties (provided they are smarter, faster, etc.).
You mentioned Fetish Army being sort of awkward in this, what about switching it for something like Mass Confusion w/ Mass Hysteria? It still fills the role of a long-ish cooldown ability for triggering Vision Quest, plus it would provide a bit of control as well.
Why wouldn't you ? If you have GotD and you're in combat (situation which you should have VQ triggered) it should be on cooldown 100% of the time (extra damage and slow).
The 20% damage is completely neglectable since you're casting that instead of a firebat (which does 220%). The slow doesn't do a thing unless your pets die. IF pets can't stay alive I can see the point of grasp in the build.
All the pets are melee... even if you slow down monsters your pets will still run right in there and negate any slow the monsters have. The low cooldown is a killer for your overall damage. You'll have to spam a 20% damage skill every 8 seconds. Your pets will take even more damage and be even more likely to die because you aren't killing the monsters as quickly.
You realize how skills such GotA and DoTs stacks DPS right ? I can cast GotD AND Firebats (i actually only loose 0.6 seconds) for 220% pluss 20% weapon damage (total 240% weapon damage). It's not like GotD is a channeling spell or requires it to be spammable. By picking GotD i will be dealing more damage, not less.
Grasp of the Dead is there as a defense option. In this build you can't count on pets like you would usually do because you have to keep the cooldown checked. Unlike other pet builds, if your minion dies you can summon another ones. In this build, since pets are on cooldown 100% of the time, if they die you will be petless until the skill recharges. For those occasions I will defend myself with Spirit Walk and Grasp of the Dead.
My biggest concern with the original build is the lack of any defensive abilities, which is probably also why italofoca suggested Grasp of the Dead, and I plan on using it in my Vision Quest build as well (though mine is petless). If you are going to be playing solo, I'm not sure the pets alone will be sufficient to keep monsters off you, especially in later difficulties (provided they are smarter, faster, etc.).
You mentioned Fetish Army being sort of awkward in this, what about switching it for something like Mass Confusion w/ Mass Hysteria? It still fills the role of a long-ish cooldown ability for triggering Vision Quest, plus it would provide a bit of control as well.
I've the feeling Vision Quest are better used with short cooldown abilities (like GotD, Hex, Spirirt Walk) not long cooldown ones. Basically because if you plan on leaving VQ triggered you will have to use your long cooldown abilities on encounters which they are not needed (like a pack of 7 trash mobs) just to get your mana regen working. When a really hard pack comes and you really need your emergency buttoms, they willbe on cooldown.
This problem do not arise if you're playing with short cooldown abilities. You can activate it on thrash mobs and still count on then in peak fights.
I'm reconsidering Wall of Zombies. The skill cooldown is very weird (30 seconds) it will really depend on how oftenly you will depend on it to survive or not.
I think it comes down to play styles. There is no right or wrong answer. I'm an aggressive player and will try to get away with the least possible amount of defense to maximize damage done. My thinking is that a powerful offense is the best defense. The best way to keep my summons alive is to kill the monsters the quickest way possible. Even with Grasp, if the summons fall, I'm screwed unless everything is close to dying or a summon cooldown is close to being back up. You can't grasp all the monsters unless it's a small group.
Yes, I know grasp damage stacks with Bats but you can't cast Bats and Grasp at the same time which was my point. You can't compare a single cast of bats vs a cast of bats and a cast of grasp. A fair comparison would be 2 casts of bats vs 1 bat + grasp.
Taking grasp gives you a security blanket but at a large loss of dps. IF the summons don't stay alive much I'll likely take grasp (or horrify) but it would be a sad day for me.
Thanks for the discussion everyone... it's making me wonder if a better way to play this build would be to save the Fetish Army (or zombie dogs) cooldown for when it's needed at the cost of using Wall of Zombies/Soul Harvest at times where it's not always optimal. It would be a more defensive way to play and the cost of damage would only be situational. Another option would be to add the Fetish Sycophants passive instead of Zombie Handler (would be attractive if Zombie Handler doesn't make summon spawn 4 dogs, otherwise it's probably a wash). I'm unsure if they will be targetable though?
@ Kjado
Funny that you say that... I originally had mass confusion in this build. I decided on Fetish Army instead because I was planning on keeping the skill on cooldown as often as possible and Mass Confusion was more situational than Fetish Army is.
Yes, I know grasp damage stacks with Bats but you can't cast Bats and Grasp at the same time which was my point. You can't compare a single cast of bats vs a cast of bats and a cast of grasp. A fair comparison would be 2 casts of bats vs 1 bat + grasp.
Actually the fair comparison is 1 cast of GotD + 12 casts of firebats vs. 13 casts of firebats (assuming an 1.5 aps weapon). GotD is an dot, you have to take it full effect in order to see the impact of it in your DPS.
The DPS using GotD is actually higher for every fight that lasts at least 8 seconds. Any weapon with higer attack speed increase even the gap between the two possibilities. Also GotD have superior AoE, which further increase my total DPS in the group... You cna also pick "Rain of Corpses" for 80% weapon damage per second, in case you don't need the slow.
Not trying to sound like an jerk, just trying to prove my point...
You definetly made me think about using 5 cooldown skills and use Wall of Zombies...
Yes, I know grasp damage stacks with Bats but you can't cast Bats and Grasp at the same time which was my point. You can't compare a single cast of bats vs a cast of bats and a cast of grasp. A fair comparison would be 2 casts of bats vs 1 bat + grasp.
Actually the fair comparison is 1 cast of GotD + 12 casts of firebats vs. 13 casts of firebats (assuming an 1.5 aps weapon). GotD is an dot, you have to take it full effect in order to see the impact of it in your DPS.
The DPS using GotD is actually higher for every fight that lasts at least 8 seconds. Any weapon with higer attack speed increase even the gap between the two possibilities. Also GotD have superior AoE, which further increase my total DPS in the group... You cna also pick "Rain of Corpses" for 80% weapon damage per second, in case you don't need the slow.
Not trying to sound like an jerk, just trying to prove my point...
You definetly made me think about using 5 cooldown skills and use Wall of Zombies...
I think the issue is that we don't agree on how Grasp damage works.
I read it as doing 20% damage over 8 seconds (aka, 2.5% per second if you attack once a second). It seems like you think it works as 20% per second. The % changes of course based on your weapon speed. Basically, the total damage the skill does will be based on the DPS your weapon does. The tooltip actually changes if you have a faster/slower weapon.
here's a blue post
The damage listed in channeled spells is the total damage the spell will do during one full cycle. For example, if you have a weapon that makes you hit once every two seconds, it would take two seconds for the channeled spell to do the full amount of damage listed.
I know it's not a channeled spell, but I think DoTs are the same way.
I can check over lunch on the beta but it's so hard to get anything from the numbers since grasp typically does 1 damage a tick I hate the blizzard tooltips, a lot of them aren't very clear at all.
Yes, I know grasp damage stacks with Bats but you can't cast Bats and Grasp at the same time which was my point. You can't compare a single cast of bats vs a cast of bats and a cast of grasp. A fair comparison would be 2 casts of bats vs 1 bat + grasp.
Actually the fair comparison is 1 cast of GotD + 12 casts of firebats vs. 13 casts of firebats (assuming an 1.5 aps weapon). GotD is an dot, you have to take it full effect in order to see the impact of it in your DPS.
The DPS using GotD is actually higher for every fight that lasts at least 8 seconds. Any weapon with higer attack speed increase even the gap between the two possibilities. Also GotD have superior AoE, which further increase my total DPS in the group... You cna also pick "Rain of Corpses" for 80% weapon damage per second, in case you don't need the slow.
Not trying to sound like an jerk, just trying to prove my point...
You definetly made me think about using 5 cooldown skills and use Wall of Zombies...
Thanks for keeping up the argument! You're correct.
I just tried it out and it IS 20% per second not 20% over 8 seconds... why can't the tooltip say "per second" ::eyeroll:: The rain of corpses rune adds even more confusion because it says damage over 8 seconds but I would assume that's not true or it would worse than the base skill.
I might have to switch out Fetish Army with Grasp in my build. I think it'd be a bit safer and have more damage.
Good advice. I'll test it out when we have the game but it seems like just from the tooltips at least, humongoid is better than wrathful protector. Unless the protector has other stats that they don't mention (like increased attack speed)... I'd much rather have a 32% cleave compared to a 55% single target. That's not even considering the fact that I'd have the garg for 45 more seconds to tank for me.
@ Perma
Good eye, I didn't catch that. I like the undeath rune a lot... it'll be great in normal/nightmare when things die pretty quick. I might even use that for a bit instead of dire bats.... but I do love the line damage that dire bats does... it's a tough choice. Start with pile on and finish with undeath.... could be a sweet combination early on when that kills most things. Spirit walk is a great call if vision quest can't keep up with the mana required... it's definitely in the back of my mind if I have too much idle time in my build due to mana.
Why would dogs have trouble if you're playing in groups? +Players doesn't make the monsters hit harder.
It's interesting to have hex + toad instead of dogs. It could work really well. Personally, I'm a bit worried about the whole "higher level monsters will have increased resist to CC" statement made by Bash. It's currently unknown how viable CCs will be in Inferno but it's also unknown how well dogs will survive in inferno It's my personal opinion that dogs will be more viable than CCs but we'll see when we get there! I'd rather have something that works 100% of the time like dogs compared to something that might not CC a monster because it resists.
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Firebats - Dire Bats. This will be my spammable damage dealer. The straight line aoe is the best damage you can do with the WD imo.
Wall of Zombies - Pile On. This has 2 purposes. 1.) Another cooldown ability to trigger vision quest. 2.) Even better damage than Dire Bats but it's not spammable. This will be the spell that is cast anytime it's not on cooldown.
Soul Harvest - Siphon. Unless they make some major changes to soul harvest, it belongs in every build. I'm a little unsure of the rune. Thanks to Wall of Zombies having a cooldown, it might be nice to take the Soul to Waste rune to make sure that you can always have a 5 stack of Soul Harvest up.
Fetish Army - Ambush. I was unsure about picking either this or Mass Confusion. I ended up picking Fetish Army instead because I'll be using it on cooldown and Mass Confusion would only be good if used when I needed it (aka defensively)
Zombie Dogs - Life Link. Mostly for tanking but the 10% damage reduction is nice as well.
Gargantuan - Humongoid. Another tank in case the Dogs die. Cleave damage sounds great.
Jungle Fort - 20% DR for me and pets? Must have.
Vision Quest - I should be able to have this up 100%. With 3 1+ minute cooldown skills and 2 shorter cooldown skills, it shouldn't be a problem.
Zombie Handler - 1 extra dog is nice, but 20% extra hp for dogs and garg will likely be needed later on.
Possible weaknesses? If the summons fall things could get bad. With 4 dogs and the Garg, I'm not sure if this will happen too often though. Really, the only solution to this would be to replace Wall of Zombies with an escape ability that I don't feel compelled to keep on cooldown (perhaps Spirit Walk or Horrify). If the summons can't stay alive, I'll make that change, but I'd rather have 2 damage dealing spells... it's be pretty boring to spam firebats the entire time (not to mention it'll be more damage with wall in there).
I'm assuming with vision quest up, I'll be able to spam firebats - dire bat decently enough. If that's not possible I could try the mana rune for Soul Harvest though!
Here's the build http://us.battle.net...dPYT!ZUd!aYZaba
Zombie Handler Passive which he said
I made a short analysis why i picked different spells to trigger the 4 cooldowns:
I think Fetish Arm and Soul Harvest are both not very good choices for trigerring the cooldown, unless i'm missing something.
Fetish Army have long cooldown and short duration. If you save it for situations it would make a difference (bosses for exemple) you will not trigger vision quest but if you do use it against any random mob it's usefulness will be nullified because you can problably deal with trash mobs without an army. The same occurs to me when i think about Zombie Wall.
If you plan on keeping Soul Harvest on cooldown most of the time, you will have to use it when theres not 5 enemies nearby just to trigger Vision quest and this will actualy remove your 5 stack buffs and replace it with weaker buff. Unless later in the game you most commonly face at least 5 enemies, you will have to live with suboptimal buff. I feel this will be problem in bosses were the 15 seconds cooldown will wear off multiple times and you will have to use it in the boss and getting only one stack (or wait for him to cast his minions in order to get your mana back).
Despite my critiques about Soul Harvest, i still consider it an viable option due the massive damage it gives even with low amount of stacks.
I thimk you had a nice idea by adding 5, not 4, cooldowns. It mean you have more flexibility. While i still believe Spirirt Walk, Grasp of the Dead and Hex are the skills that fits the dynamic required by Vision Quest (despite ZDogs and Gargantua), using 5 cooldowns means you can include a skill like Fetish Army and Wall of Zombies. I will definetly look into that and rethink my build.
Thnx alot for the contribution!
Duh. I know handler lets you get a 4th dog. But how is he going to acquire it? He might be presuming that if you cast ZD once you get 3 dogs, if you do it a second time, you'll get the 4th. I'm not sure I'd jump to that conclusion.
Anyways, I feel like ZD is a waste of a skill slot at higher levels. Take a rune that gives you x% chance of summoning a dog and I think it's a lot better use of them. Then take zombie handler.
I don't think Soul Harvest will be a problem thanks to wall of zombies. It'll be a nice thing when it's on cooldown because I can save one of my other cooldown abilities when I need it. However, if I'm about to lose spirit quest I'll be forced to either use one of my high cooldown skills or use a less optimal soul harvest. I think it adds a lot to the build personally.
I don't like grasp in a spirit quest build. The 8 second cooldown kills it. I prefer skills with a higher cooldown because that means you have more time to cast damage dealing spells. I don't want to refresh grasp every 8 seconds.
Spirit Walk is a tempting choice. I'll pick it up if I'm unable to spam bats as much as I'd like. I'd prefer not to though because like I said earlier I'd rather have the longer cooldown skills.
Lorien -
I thought zombie handler made it so you summon 4 dogs? If I remember correctly, a few beta builds ago it behaved this way.... Either way... I completely disagree about zombie dogs. Having max zombie dogs for additional meat shields is the core of my build. I don't have anything to kite, I need my summons up and alive. Keep in mind that the key to this build is having 4 skills on cooldown. Having Zombie Dogs is a lot more than just having the dogs out there to tank for me. That's just a side benefit.
In one way or another you're using your abilities in suboptimal mather.
Why wouldn't you ? If you have GotD and you're in combat (situation which you should have VQ triggered) it should be on cooldown 100% of the time (extra damage and slow).
It is also a great spell to break barrels, another reason to keep it on cooldown even out of combat.
The 20% damage is completely neglectable since you're casting that instead of a firebat (which does 220%). The slow doesn't do a thing unless your pets die. IF pets can't stay alive I can see the point of grasp in the build.
All the pets are melee... even if you slow down monsters your pets will still run right in there and negate any slow the monsters have. The low cooldown is a killer for your overall damage. You'll have to spam a 20% damage skill every 8 seconds. Your pets will take even more damage and be even more likely to die because you aren't killing the monsters as quickly.
Yes, it will happen but it will be fairly rare and I don't see a solution that will lead to more damage. I don't need spirit quest active when I'm at full mana (aka when I'm out of combat). It won't hurt at all to start a fight off with Zombie Wall which will then proc Spirit Quest. There will be cases when I have to use it on smaller groups of mobs, but that's not really an issue. The priority order would be good Soul Harvest > Good Zombie Wall... I'd much rather have a 5 stack!
You do have a point for Fetish Army though. There are a few cases where I'd be forced to summon Fetish Army in a bad time... I'm willing to accept that because I believe it's the best available option. It could be bad if the fight is nearly over but I need to keep spirit quest up or if I'm fighting a smaller group. Fetish Army is the weakest choice in this build (besides passives which I'm still unsure about) but I personally want 3 long cooldown abilities. Feel free to change up this build to suit your play style.
You mentioned Fetish Army being sort of awkward in this, what about switching it for something like Mass Confusion w/ Mass Hysteria? It still fills the role of a long-ish cooldown ability for triggering Vision Quest, plus it would provide a bit of control as well.
You realize how skills such GotA and DoTs stacks DPS right ? I can cast GotD AND Firebats (i actually only loose 0.6 seconds) for 220% pluss 20% weapon damage (total 240% weapon damage). It's not like GotD is a channeling spell or requires it to be spammable. By picking GotD i will be dealing more damage, not less.
Grasp of the Dead is there as a defense option. In this build you can't count on pets like you would usually do because you have to keep the cooldown checked. Unlike other pet builds, if your minion dies you can summon another ones. In this build, since pets are on cooldown 100% of the time, if they die you will be petless until the skill recharges. For those occasions I will defend myself with Spirit Walk and Grasp of the Dead.
I've the feeling Vision Quest are better used with short cooldown abilities (like GotD, Hex, Spirirt Walk) not long cooldown ones. Basically because if you plan on leaving VQ triggered you will have to use your long cooldown abilities on encounters which they are not needed (like a pack of 7 trash mobs) just to get your mana regen working. When a really hard pack comes and you really need your emergency buttoms, they willbe on cooldown.
This problem do not arise if you're playing with short cooldown abilities. You can activate it on thrash mobs and still count on then in peak fights.
I'm reconsidering Wall of Zombies. The skill cooldown is very weird (30 seconds) it will really depend on how oftenly you will depend on it to survive or not.
I think it comes down to play styles. There is no right or wrong answer. I'm an aggressive player and will try to get away with the least possible amount of defense to maximize damage done. My thinking is that a powerful offense is the best defense. The best way to keep my summons alive is to kill the monsters the quickest way possible. Even with Grasp, if the summons fall, I'm screwed unless everything is close to dying or a summon cooldown is close to being back up. You can't grasp all the monsters unless it's a small group.
Yes, I know grasp damage stacks with Bats but you can't cast Bats and Grasp at the same time which was my point. You can't compare a single cast of bats vs a cast of bats and a cast of grasp. A fair comparison would be 2 casts of bats vs 1 bat + grasp.
Taking grasp gives you a security blanket but at a large loss of dps. IF the summons don't stay alive much I'll likely take grasp (or horrify) but it would be a sad day for me.
Thanks for the discussion everyone... it's making me wonder if a better way to play this build would be to save the Fetish Army (or zombie dogs) cooldown for when it's needed at the cost of using Wall of Zombies/Soul Harvest at times where it's not always optimal. It would be a more defensive way to play and the cost of damage would only be situational. Another option would be to add the Fetish Sycophants passive instead of Zombie Handler (would be attractive if Zombie Handler doesn't make summon spawn 4 dogs, otherwise it's probably a wash). I'm unsure if they will be targetable though?
@ Kjado
Funny that you say that... I originally had mass confusion in this build. I decided on Fetish Army instead because I was planning on keeping the skill on cooldown as often as possible and Mass Confusion was more situational than Fetish Army is.
Actually the fair comparison is 1 cast of GotD + 12 casts of firebats vs. 13 casts of firebats (assuming an 1.5 aps weapon). GotD is an dot, you have to take it full effect in order to see the impact of it in your DPS.
Firebats + GotD DPS = 0*1 + 240%*12 = 2880% damage done
Firebats only = 2860% damage done
The DPS using GotD is actually higher for every fight that lasts at least 8 seconds. Any weapon with higer attack speed increase even the gap between the two possibilities. Also GotD have superior AoE, which further increase my total DPS in the group... You cna also pick "Rain of Corpses" for 80% weapon damage per second, in case you don't need the slow.
Not trying to sound like an jerk, just trying to prove my point...
You definetly made me think about using 5 cooldown skills and use Wall of Zombies...
I think the issue is that we don't agree on how Grasp damage works.
I read it as doing 20% damage over 8 seconds (aka, 2.5% per second if you attack once a second). It seems like you think it works as 20% per second. The % changes of course based on your weapon speed. Basically, the total damage the skill does will be based on the DPS your weapon does. The tooltip actually changes if you have a faster/slower weapon.
here's a blue post
I can check over lunch on the beta but it's so hard to get anything from the numbers since grasp typically does 1 damage a tick I hate the blizzard tooltips, a lot of them aren't very clear at all.
Thanks for keeping up the argument! You're correct.
I just tried it out and it IS 20% per second not 20% over 8 seconds... why can't the tooltip say "per second" ::eyeroll:: The rain of corpses rune adds even more confusion because it says damage over 8 seconds but I would assume that's not true or it would worse than the base skill.
I might have to switch out Fetish Army with Grasp in my build. I think it'd be a bit safer and have more damage.
Good advice. I'll test it out when we have the game but it seems like just from the tooltips at least, humongoid is better than wrathful protector. Unless the protector has other stats that they don't mention (like increased attack speed)... I'd much rather have a 32% cleave compared to a 55% single target. That's not even considering the fact that I'd have the garg for 45 more seconds to tank for me.
@ Perma
Good eye, I didn't catch that. I like the undeath rune a lot... it'll be great in normal/nightmare when things die pretty quick. I might even use that for a bit instead of dire bats.... but I do love the line damage that dire bats does... it's a tough choice. Start with pile on and finish with undeath.... could be a sweet combination early on when that kills most things. Spirit walk is a great call if vision quest can't keep up with the mana required... it's definitely in the back of my mind if I have too much idle time in my build due to mana.
It's interesting to have hex + toad instead of dogs. It could work really well. Personally, I'm a bit worried about the whole "higher level monsters will have increased resist to CC" statement made by Bash. It's currently unknown how viable CCs will be in Inferno but it's also unknown how well dogs will survive in inferno It's my personal opinion that dogs will be more viable than CCs but we'll see when we get there! I'd rather have something that works 100% of the time like dogs compared to something that might not CC a monster because it resists.