couple things. like he said u need more CC if your petless. this build wont survive in hell/inferno for sure without more CC.
also runing frogs to get rid of the mana cost is pointless because its mana cost is so insanely cheap. you can get exploding toads that do an AOE and they do 40% more dmg and it will STILL be endlessly spammable.
and with exploding frogs firebats is pointless because its essentially the exact same thing, its very close range AOE spell. either use one or the other. replace one of them with another CC and replace vermin with jungle fortitude because your going to get hit too hard.
you dont need PtV since your main attacks are vermin spells so just use vermin so you dont need all that mana regen on your CC spells. so u need more survival use out of them .
when you make a petless WD you need TONS and TONS of survivability for it to be even remotely viable.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
couple things. like he said u need more CC if your petless. this build wont survive in hell/inferno for sure without more CC.
also runing frogs to get rid of the mana cost is pointless because its mana cost is so insanely cheap. you can get exploding toads that do an AOE and they do 40% more dmg and it will STILL be endlessly spammable.
and with exploding frogs firebats is pointless because its essentially the exact same thing, its very close range AOE spell. either use one or the other. replace one of them with another CC and replace vermin with jungle fortitude because your going to get hit too hard.
you dont need PtV since your main attacks are vermin spells so just use vermin so you dont need all that mana regen on your CC spells. so u need more survival use out of them .
when you make a petless WD you need TONS and TONS of survivability for it to be even remotely viable.
Maybe your right, I don't plan on using a Witch Doctor with 0 summons, infact you've seen my Witch Doctor build with the 4 cooldowns.
I just thought this could be just a little diffrent.
Anytime I see plague of toads in a build I just wanna facepalm
I used to think the same, but then watch the video of it. Its pretty decent.
Maybe it gets better with different rune mods, but from when I used it - it kinda stunk. But all that can change.
no i agree. plague of toads unruned is COMPLETE garbage. it only hits 3 targets max and its super close range and random pathing and the dmg isnt high enough to be worth it. but with exploding frogs the dmg is increased by 40% per frog and each frog explodes in its own small AOE so its just a close range wrecking machine. or runed for rain of toads you can actually aim it and it does 200% dmg. all the other runes are bogus though.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
As already stated, there is a problem with POT and FB being the same. If you wan't to keep it like that, rune POT for "toad of hugeness" instead. Then, you could exchange "soul harvest" for GOTD if you can't keep your distance from mobs (all depends how you play it, alone oir in team, etc.)
Anytime I see plague of toads in a build I just wanna facepalm
I used to think the same, but then watch the video of it. Its pretty decent.
Maybe it gets better with different rune mods, but from when I used it - it kinda stunk. But all that can change.
no i agree. plague of toads unruned is COMPLETE garbage. it only hits 3 targets max and its super close range and random pathing and the dmg isnt high enough to be worth it. but with exploding frogs the dmg is increased by 40% per frog and each frog explodes in its own small AOE so its just a close range wrecking machine. or runed for rain of toads you can actually aim it and it does 200% dmg. all the other runes are bogus though.
Idk addling toads sound interesting depending on what confuse means.
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One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Idk addling toads sound interesting depending on what confuse means.
I was wondering the same thing. Usually in games this is either like a disorient or it causes them to sometimes attack their allies. Anyone with more info on confuse?
Idk addling toads sound interesting depending on what confuse means.
I was wondering the same thing. Usually in games this is either like a disorient or it causes them to sometimes attack their allies. Anyone with more info on confuse?
confuse means they have a chance to attack eachother but still have a chance to keep attacking you.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Ever since the WD stole my heart away from Wizard I've been toying with my own version of a no-pet build. I prefer to have a very active strategy, and I think my starting build reflects that: Build1.
The two high-damage abilities -- Spirit Barrage for single-target, Zombie Charger (Bears) for groups -- are supported by a variety of slowing effects via Grasp of the Dead (runed to 80%), Soul Harvest (Languish), and Wall of Zombies (Barricade). Finally, Spirit Walk with the healing rune offers additional utility and health, as well as being the 4th cooldown for Vision Quest.
The passives were selected with only two goals in mind: buff damage output, and provide enough mana regeneration to actually be able to pull off a build that will be pressing buttons as often as possible. Pierce the Veil was the obvious choice for damage, and Vision Quest along with Spiritual Attunement generate boatloads of mana to play with.
Everything felt good on the surface, but I've slowly started to collect some concerns:
My two main abilities that I intended on chain-casting both cost a lot of mana, and initially I wasn't sure if I'd have enough mana. After mathing out some numbers, I'm now confident that I'll be OK on mana, provided casting costs don't change much before release... Though I'm beginning to shift to the "maybe I have too much mana regeneration" mindset.
The primary goal was to spam Spirit Barrage/Zombie Bears, and the mana regeneration potential of this loadout can definitely support it. However, three of my cooldown abilities are 15 seconds or less, meaning I will have to refresh them very often in order to keep Vision Quest active, which at that point might not even be necessary since I'm using 3-4 lower-cost casts regularly to keep the regeneration up.
My options here seem to be: drop Vision Quest for another regeneration-related passive that isn't dependent on cooldown usage (Blood Ritual, perhaps); or, swap Spirit Walk -- maybe even Soul Harvest, but I want to keep it as much as possible -- for an ability with a longer cooldown that doesn't need to be refreshed as often for Vision Quest.
Will two slowing effects and an obstacle be enough to outmaneuver "smarter" monsters in higher difficulties? This seems very difficult to answer right now, and as much as I want the answer to be "yes", there's just no way to know for sure yet.
Also, is Wall of Zombies really an obstacle (ie. does it block pathing)? This also seems to be up in the air, as I've read both yes and no responses, and after watching the only footage of it that I could find (Blizzard's own introduction of the WD), it was hard to tell because the wall just one-shot everything that came up to it. I could see this going either way, so I won't wrack my brain too much thinking about it, but if for some reason it doesn't block pathing I may have to trade in a couple abilities for pets to assist with monster positioning (also addresses the issue above with too many short cooldown abilities, but I'm trying to avoid pets if possible), as such: Build2.
Regardless, this is definitely something I'd like to pursue once we have our hands on the full game, especially with so many unknown factors at the moment.
nice build man. although even with vision quest and spiritual attunement i dont know if you'll have enough mana regen because you got pierce of the viel increasing the mana cost of some of his highest mana costing spells. might want to consider runing one of your CC spells to return mana, both spirit walk and soul harvest have those rune options. or switching pierce for something.
or even getting poison dart instead of spirit barrage. its like a 3rd of the mana cost and it wont even budge your mana and can do nearly the exact same amount of dmg. the 3% life return really isnt much at all and considering mobs in inferno will hit like trucks so 3% life return rally isnt going to save you. splinters is a lot of fun to use in the beta esp with fast attack speed.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Here's my napkin math from earlier; I didn't want to over-bloat the first post: (Acronyms in use: mana per second [mps]; Pierce the Veil [PtV], Spiritual Attunement [SA], Vision Quest [VQ])
For the following numbers I had to rely on what I observed in the current beta (patch 13), since this is the first patch I've had access for.
Max unbuffed mana pool at level 60: 740 mana Base mana regeneration rate: 25 mps
Max mana pool at level 60 w/ SA: 888 mana Mana regeration rate at level 60 w/ SA: 33.88 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ VQ: 100 mps Mana regeneration rate w/ SA and VQ: 135.52 mps (This assumes SA affects base regeneration rate and VQ is truly multiplicative; ie. mps = (base + (max mana * 0.01)) * 4)
So using these numbers, if accurate, would result in a net mana gain even when spamming Spirit Barrage, and a slight (21 mps) loss while spamming Zombie Charger. Even though it's not completely net neutral (you have to spend mana to activate VQ), it still feels like a lot of mana, especially considering the fact that these two abilities are on the higher end of the scale when it comes to mana costs. I almost think that if there were a stronger, higher-mana cost, single-target ability I would gladly swap Spirit Barrage out for it.
I do agree that the 3% life leech rune for Spirit Barrage may end up being negligible, but it's the only rune that really makes sense because all of the others either gain mana back (seems unnecessary after this), or assist with area of effect damage, but if I've got a pack of monsters you better believe I'm going to be spamming bear cavalry at them instead.
As far as SA is concerned, I'm starting to consider replacing it with Blood Ritual. Thinking about it in terms of "mana saved per second", it's actually better than SA's regeneration, plus the health usage for casting Zombie Charger w/ PtV (23.478 health per second) is negated once you get to 2348 max health, which seems like it will be easy to do even very early on (A2 of Normal, if not earlier). And with so much mana regeneration, the extra 20% mana pool bonus from SA seems irrelevant, so trading it for the passive 1% health regeneration might be a better choice.
yea but thats assuming you'll have VQ up constantly. and you'll have the mana cost of your CD spells that take away from your pool also, and you'll have to do them often to keep VQ up. 740 mana isnt that much when you have spells that cost 150 mana to cast and your spamming it. but of course we wont know until release.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Right, my problem with Vision Quest in general is the constant spamming of abilities that need to go into cooldown to proc the effect.
If I were to go with it though, I would definitely incorporate at least one summoning skill into the mix, each minute or so refreshing it. That way at least 1 of your needed cooldowns will be up PRIOR to going into a fight, taking away the need use a skill that you don't necessarily need to be casting and you can get down to the business of damage quicker. Ill work up my idea for vision quest and edit the post
(EDIT: Nevermind Ill take my build somewhere else haha, didnt see the "Summonless" as the idea for this build)
Definitely a more than viable route I'd imagine, but it'll rely on more manual forms of CC for survivability which is obviously fine for someone looking for a non-summon playstyle. Just grasp and firebomb everything Later skills make both directions richly complex I think, i.e. you won't be locked into certain skills either way (in later game anyway).
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A dripping sword / removes all memories.
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http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#hVcURW!ZeV!cYbcac
Thoughts?
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
I have Horrify & Spirit Walk for defence, along with Spirit Vessel if things go tits up.
I'll be playing co-op aswell.
If I see lots of mobs heading towards me and I have cooldowns, attack is the best defence. Spam Plague of Toads which runed is mana free.
Quick video of PoT:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-GfOk1VtNI&t=3m11s[/video]
edit: Skip to 3mins 11secs.
also runing frogs to get rid of the mana cost is pointless because its mana cost is so insanely cheap. you can get exploding toads that do an AOE and they do 40% more dmg and it will STILL be endlessly spammable.
and with exploding frogs firebats is pointless because its essentially the exact same thing, its very close range AOE spell. either use one or the other. replace one of them with another CC and replace vermin with jungle fortitude because your going to get hit too hard.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#hZcURW!aZV!cZacZY (your build with the changes)
you dont need PtV since your main attacks are vermin spells so just use vermin so you dont need all that mana regen on your CC spells. so u need more survival use out of them .
when you make a petless WD you need TONS and TONS of survivability for it to be even remotely viable.
Maybe your right, I don't plan on using a Witch Doctor with 0 summons, infact you've seen my Witch Doctor build with the 4 cooldowns.
I just thought this could be just a little diffrent.
http://www.diablofan...inferno-videos/
I used to think the same, but then watch the video of it. Its pretty decent.
no i agree. plague of toads unruned is COMPLETE garbage. it only hits 3 targets max and its super close range and random pathing and the dmg isnt high enough to be worth it. but with exploding frogs the dmg is increased by 40% per frog and each frog explodes in its own small AOE so its just a close range wrecking machine. or runed for rain of toads you can actually aim it and it does 200% dmg. all the other runes are bogus though.
As already stated, there is a problem with POT and FB being the same. If you wan't to keep it like that, rune POT for "toad of hugeness" instead. Then, you could exchange "soul harvest" for GOTD if you can't keep your distance from mobs (all depends how you play it, alone oir in team, etc.)
Idk addling toads sound interesting depending on what confuse means.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
I was wondering the same thing. Usually in games this is either like a disorient or it causes them to sometimes attack their allies. Anyone with more info on confuse?
confuse means they have a chance to attack eachother but still have a chance to keep attacking you.
The two high-damage abilities -- Spirit Barrage for single-target, Zombie Charger (Bears) for groups -- are supported by a variety of slowing effects via Grasp of the Dead (runed to 80%), Soul Harvest (Languish), and Wall of Zombies (Barricade). Finally, Spirit Walk with the healing rune offers additional utility and health, as well as being the 4th cooldown for Vision Quest.
The passives were selected with only two goals in mind: buff damage output, and provide enough mana regeneration to actually be able to pull off a build that will be pressing buttons as often as possible. Pierce the Veil was the obvious choice for damage, and Vision Quest along with Spiritual Attunement generate boatloads of mana to play with.
Everything felt good on the surface, but I've slowly started to collect some concerns:
My options here seem to be: drop Vision Quest for another regeneration-related passive that isn't dependent on cooldown usage (Blood Ritual, perhaps); or, swap Spirit Walk -- maybe even Soul Harvest, but I want to keep it as much as possible -- for an ability with a longer cooldown that doesn't need to be refreshed as often for Vision Quest.
nice build man. although even with vision quest and spiritual attunement i dont know if you'll have enough mana regen because you got pierce of the viel increasing the mana cost of some of his highest mana costing spells. might want to consider runing one of your CC spells to return mana, both spirit walk and soul harvest have those rune options. or switching pierce for something.
or even getting poison dart instead of spirit barrage. its like a 3rd of the mana cost and it wont even budge your mana and can do nearly the exact same amount of dmg. the 3% life return really isnt much at all and considering mobs in inferno will hit like trucks so 3% life return rally isnt going to save you. splinters is a lot of fun to use in the beta esp with fast attack speed.
(Acronyms in use: mana per second [mps]; Pierce the Veil [PtV], Spiritual Attunement [SA], Vision Quest [VQ])
Mana costs
- Spirit Barrage: 66 (base), 85.8 (w/ PtV)
- Zombie Charger: 86 (base), 111.8 (w/ PtV)
Mana usage (w/ PtV; assuming 1.4 cast speed, consecutive casts)
- Spirit Barrage: 120.12 mps
- Zombie Charger: 156.52 mps
For the following numbers I had to rely on what I observed in the current beta (patch 13), since this is the first patch I've had access for.
Max unbuffed mana pool at level 60: 740 mana
Base mana regeneration rate: 25 mps
Max mana pool at level 60 w/ SA: 888 mana
Mana regeration rate at level 60 w/ SA: 33.88 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ VQ: 100 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ SA and VQ: 135.52 mps
(This assumes SA affects base regeneration rate and VQ is truly multiplicative; ie. mps = (base + (max mana * 0.01)) * 4)
So using these numbers, if accurate, would result in a net mana gain even when spamming Spirit Barrage, and a slight (21 mps) loss while spamming Zombie Charger. Even though it's not completely net neutral (you have to spend mana to activate VQ), it still feels like a lot of mana, especially considering the fact that these two abilities are on the higher end of the scale when it comes to mana costs. I almost think that if there were a stronger, higher-mana cost, single-target ability I would gladly swap Spirit Barrage out for it.
I do agree that the 3% life leech rune for Spirit Barrage may end up being negligible, but it's the only rune that really makes sense because all of the others either gain mana back (seems unnecessary after this), or assist with area of effect damage, but if I've got a pack of monsters you better believe I'm going to be spamming bear cavalry at them instead.
As far as SA is concerned, I'm starting to consider replacing it with Blood Ritual. Thinking about it in terms of "mana saved per second", it's actually better than SA's regeneration, plus the health usage for casting Zombie Charger w/ PtV (23.478 health per second) is negated once you get to 2348 max health, which seems like it will be easy to do even very early on (A2 of Normal, if not earlier). And with so much mana regeneration, the extra 20% mana pool bonus from SA seems irrelevant, so trading it for the passive 1% health regeneration might be a better choice.
If I were to go with it though, I would definitely incorporate at least one summoning skill into the mix, each minute or so refreshing it. That way at least 1 of your needed cooldowns will be up PRIOR to going into a fight, taking away the need use a skill that you don't necessarily need to be casting and you can get down to the business of damage quicker. Ill work up my idea for vision quest and edit the post
(EDIT: Nevermind Ill take my build somewhere else haha, didnt see the "Summonless" as the idea for this build)