Maybe I'm just a bad player, but I've been in Inferno for several weeks and I'm still struggling bigtime. I had a bad enough time getting through Act I (at least now I can do a Skeleton King run without dying, usually) and Act II turned out to be a complete slaughter. It took me like a dozen deaths to make it through to Maghda, and every time I tried a cave I was getting massacred.
I tried to gear for a mix of offense and defense, but it seems like every little thing that takes a swipe at me in Act II takes like 3/4 of my life off. My attempts at kiting elite packs look more like running around like a chicken with its head cut off. What was really disappointing is that I got a monk to 60 the other day, bought some cheap gear at the AH, and was able to immediately plow through Act I mobs without a scratch. Is WD just a much tougher class to play?
You can't kite many of the enemies. You would need much higher defenses to tank them. Which means your damage drops and it will take you an eternity to clear everything.
First of all, playing it solo as a WD isn't a great idea. Second of all, even if you have a good tank, it probably makes more sense just to chain die your way through it. Even with the repair costs, it's more efficient. Clearing things legitimately takes forever and is pointless as far as progression goes. The main bosses in Act 2 aren't a big deal once you get to them.
Once you get into Act 3 things get easier. But kiting champ packs still won't be very easy, and soul lashers will likely murder you. Again, the best advice is to die your way to Ghom.
Ghom is probably the hardest boss in the game. Most people will need a tank to kill him. People who overgear can kill him solo, but that's not saying much.
Basically just follow the same formula through the rest of Inferno.
The fact is that even with good gear, parts of the game are still really hard because Inferno is a raw gear check. It's easy to destroy Act 1 because it's a joke. And some parts of Act 3 as well as WS are doable with decent gear. But the people who farm the entire game are doing it because 1) They have extremely good gear OR 2) They stack defensive stats and kill everything really slowly. Stacking defensive stats feels terrible when you sacrifice a lot of damage.
In the end it's most efficient to have a kiting build with high MF using either darts or bats in order to farm Act 1, 3 or WS... depending on your gear.
The other option is to get like 70k damage and try to instakill everything with bears. This is definitely doable, and it's what a lot of people do, but the gear will cost you significantly more than a dart/bat build. And what's the point anyway when you could just farm A1? No one has that kind of gold coming into Inferno unless they're spending real money, too. So basically you go with darts or bats farming A1 until you feel comfortable doing A3 or WS easily.
The way Inferno is built, it's not supposed to be "easy" until you have crazy gear. You kind of just have to limp your way through if you want to complete the game... and then go back to whatever farming spot you like best (A1 Butcher with decent MF most likely until you can do Siegebreaker runs, HoS or WS comfortably) and just keep grinding to get better gear =/
Maybe I'm just a bad player, but I've been in Inferno for several weeks and I'm still struggling bigtime. I had a bad enough time getting through Act I (at least now I can do a Skeleton King run without dying, usually) and Act II turned out to be a complete slaughter. It took me like a dozen deaths to make it through to Maghda, and every time I tried a cave I was getting massacred.
I tried to gear for a mix of offense and defense, but it seems like every little thing that takes a swipe at me in Act II takes like 3/4 of my life off. My attempts at kiting elite packs look more like running around like a chicken with its head cut off. What was really disappointing is that I got a monk to 60 the other day, bought some cheap gear at the AH, and was able to immediately plow through Act I mobs without a scratch. Is WD just a much tougher class to play?
Am I missing something major? Am I just not cut out for the kiting lifestyle? Help!
Admittedly I am trying to get past Belial atm, but the rest of Act 2 wasn't too much of a problem. I would say a couple of things I would consider changing are:
1. You might want to look into boosting your armor and resistances. I use bats, so am not a tank doctor, but still have significantly higher resists. In addition try to see if you can find a few things with + armor or higher ilevel to boost that armor level up. You might end up sacrificing some vitality to do it, but imo its worth the trade-off as effective health is better than actual health.
2. I personally don't like splinters in inferno simply because shielding and invulnerable mobs become a nightmare. If you are going to use splinters, I would focus on that (if you are worried about survive-ability), and have supporting spells, maybe something like: http://us.battle.net...UXiR!bWV!aYcbcZ.
I personally would always go for the armor buff on fear, simply because you can still use it on bosses, and hey it doubles your armor, which is the first step in damage reduction.
I found in Inferno I prefer Wall of Zombies because it fully stops the enemy (not just snare) which imo is much better against fast mobs.
I am a soul harvest fan, not a requirement, but a good damage boost and heal. Would rather have that then focus on a second damage spell. If you want a secondary attack though Soul Harvest is probably the one I would leave behind.
As for your passives I would drop the mana regen of spiritual attunement, if you have some mana regen on your items I think you would be better off with the damage reduction of J. Fort., or just get Gruesome Feast for damage bonus + mana.
If you want a complete change of pace the VQ builds can be interesting. You might also play around substituting Mass confusion or Fetish Army for CC. Fetish Army can be pretty fun, and powerful!
This has been my experience playing the witchdoctor in inferno as well.
I'm able to completely farm the first act but as soon as I get out of it, I start dying to the champion packs left and right.
I'm not a fan of the VQ build and spend most of my overworld time in a splinters variant spec (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#aeUZRT!bWV!aacaaY). Admittedly, my build isn't the best with the Gargantuan only really there to buy me a few seconds during kiting.
I did nearly all of act 2 skipping the fast Lacuni champions and killing those champions that I could. I didn't have as big of a problem with the Khule caverns/sanctuary as I thought I was going to. Might have just gotten lucky on the map spawns.
I did however spend >90 wipes to Belial before I managed to get him down. Took following a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcV8iKXgNT8) and practically memorizing his pattern to pull it off.
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I tried to gear for a mix of offense and defense, but it seems like every little thing that takes a swipe at me in Act II takes like 3/4 of my life off. My attempts at kiting elite packs look more like running around like a chicken with its head cut off. What was really disappointing is that I got a monk to 60 the other day, bought some cheap gear at the AH, and was able to immediately plow through Act I mobs without a scratch. Is WD just a much tougher class to play?
Here are links to my stats and stuff:
Stats: http://i46.tinypic.com/11u9u6t.jpg
Gear: http://i47.tinypic.com/ztsyh3.jpg
Build: http://us.battle.net...UXiR!bWV!aYcbcZ
Am I missing something major? Am I just not cut out for the kiting lifestyle? Help!
You can't kite many of the enemies. You would need much higher defenses to tank them. Which means your damage drops and it will take you an eternity to clear everything.
First of all, playing it solo as a WD isn't a great idea. Second of all, even if you have a good tank, it probably makes more sense just to chain die your way through it. Even with the repair costs, it's more efficient. Clearing things legitimately takes forever and is pointless as far as progression goes. The main bosses in Act 2 aren't a big deal once you get to them.
Once you get into Act 3 things get easier. But kiting champ packs still won't be very easy, and soul lashers will likely murder you. Again, the best advice is to die your way to Ghom.
Ghom is probably the hardest boss in the game. Most people will need a tank to kill him. People who overgear can kill him solo, but that's not saying much.
Basically just follow the same formula through the rest of Inferno.
The fact is that even with good gear, parts of the game are still really hard because Inferno is a raw gear check. It's easy to destroy Act 1 because it's a joke. And some parts of Act 3 as well as WS are doable with decent gear. But the people who farm the entire game are doing it because 1) They have extremely good gear OR 2) They stack defensive stats and kill everything really slowly. Stacking defensive stats feels terrible when you sacrifice a lot of damage.
In the end it's most efficient to have a kiting build with high MF using either darts or bats in order to farm Act 1, 3 or WS... depending on your gear.
The other option is to get like 70k damage and try to instakill everything with bears. This is definitely doable, and it's what a lot of people do, but the gear will cost you significantly more than a dart/bat build. And what's the point anyway when you could just farm A1? No one has that kind of gold coming into Inferno unless they're spending real money, too. So basically you go with darts or bats farming A1 until you feel comfortable doing A3 or WS easily.
The way Inferno is built, it's not supposed to be "easy" until you have crazy gear. You kind of just have to limp your way through if you want to complete the game... and then go back to whatever farming spot you like best (A1 Butcher with decent MF most likely until you can do Siegebreaker runs, HoS or WS comfortably) and just keep grinding to get better gear =/
Admittedly I am trying to get past Belial atm, but the rest of Act 2 wasn't too much of a problem. I would say a couple of things I would consider changing are:
1. You might want to look into boosting your armor and resistances. I use bats, so am not a tank doctor, but still have significantly higher resists. In addition try to see if you can find a few things with + armor or higher ilevel to boost that armor level up. You might end up sacrificing some vitality to do it, but imo its worth the trade-off as effective health is better than actual health.
2. I personally don't like splinters in inferno simply because shielding and invulnerable mobs become a nightmare. If you are going to use splinters, I would focus on that (if you are worried about survive-ability), and have supporting spells, maybe something like: http://us.battle.net...UXiR!bWV!aYcbcZ.
I personally would always go for the armor buff on fear, simply because you can still use it on bosses, and hey it doubles your armor, which is the first step in damage reduction.
I found in Inferno I prefer Wall of Zombies because it fully stops the enemy (not just snare) which imo is much better against fast mobs.
I am a soul harvest fan, not a requirement, but a good damage boost and heal. Would rather have that then focus on a second damage spell. If you want a secondary attack though Soul Harvest is probably the one I would leave behind.
As for your passives I would drop the mana regen of spiritual attunement, if you have some mana regen on your items I think you would be better off with the damage reduction of J. Fort., or just get Gruesome Feast for damage bonus + mana.
If you want a complete change of pace the VQ builds can be interesting. You might also play around substituting Mass confusion or Fetish Army for CC. Fetish Army can be pretty fun, and powerful!
I'm able to completely farm the first act but as soon as I get out of it, I start dying to the champion packs left and right.
I'm not a fan of the VQ build and spend most of my overworld time in a splinters variant spec (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#aeUZRT!bWV!aacaaY). Admittedly, my build isn't the best with the Gargantuan only really there to buy me a few seconds during kiting.
I did nearly all of act 2 skipping the fast Lacuni champions and killing those champions that I could. I didn't have as big of a problem with the Khule caverns/sanctuary as I thought I was going to. Might have just gotten lucky on the map spawns.
I did however spend >90 wipes to Belial before I managed to get him down. Took following a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcV8iKXgNT8) and practically memorizing his pattern to pull it off.