Hello everyone,
Below is a link to my current build, which I find fun and effective. I think zombie bears are cool and powerful, but I don't like their limited range, overall speed, and positional situations the spell can put me in. Any advise on how to change my spec, or, how to use bears more effectivly? This toon is on Act 3 Hell, and I eventually plan to take him to at least Act 2 Inferno before stopping to farm with friends/family. He is currently geared high int and mana regen gear, but otherwise that's it. Any help is appreciated. Thank you. http://us.battle.net...ZdRP!bXU!acaZab
Bears SUCK in Act 2 Inferno btw if you really plan on using them there. Chasing down all the ranged mobs that run away in Act 2 is a giant chore.
Bears work great in Act 1 Inferno and once you get really awesome gear I can see it working in Act 3 but I think it will always be a giant pain in Act 2.
* Drop Healing Journey, get Honored Guest or Jaunt: 14% HP every 12 seconds is very little for a rune, a single piece of armor with good HP regen affix gives more then that. Honored Guest gives incredible amount of mana (30% mana every 12 seconds means 18.5 mana/s with base mana pool, which is around the power of two items giving mana regen) and it's good to situations were you have no mana left but you skills are not on cooldown. If you feel like you already have enough mana you can pick Jaunt since it's a incredible rune too.
* Drop Hegde Magic, get Jynx: I think Healing Journey is mediocre rune and it's much better then Hedge Magic ! In Inferno you will be sitting on 25k+ HP, the amount healed will be really little. I know the 10% increased damage doesn't sounds alot but it is, specially when you're facing fat monsters and bosses (hexable ones).
* Drop Spiritual Attunement or Blood Ritual, get Spirit Vessel: VQ builds already have an sweet amount of mana, i think 3 mana fixers is too much. Also, Spirit Vessel is just too good to be overlooked. The effect over Spirit Walk alone justify it's usage and it also saves your life every 2 minutes. You have to test which one of those two you should drop. I'm inclined to say you should keep Blood Ritual because it also has a small HP regen bonus which is always nice but you should keep Spitirual Attunament if you don't have any mana regen items (you will need it to reach 120 mana per second on VQ).
Other things you can try:
* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement, get Jungle Fortitude: you will loose the mana fix but it shouldn't be a problem as long as you have mana regen items (around 11~14 mana/s from items). And the 20% DR does really make an huge difference, specially on Act 2+.
* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement/Julgle Fortitude, get Pierce the Veil if you have 46+ mana per second: With two good mana regen affixes you can reach 46+ base mana per second, which is enough to spam Direbats during VQ w/o running out of mana with 30% increased cost and an 1.2 attack speed weapon. You actually can do it with little less then that, it greatly depends on play style. In general with 50 base mana regen you cna easily use it and enjoy a 20% increased damage for free as the extra mana costs won't make any difference on your Direbat spamming. Beware that all WD skills costs mana, even the cooldown skills such as Spirit Walk and Hex. The increased costs will GREATLY increase the total mana you need to activate VQ, so if you run out of mana and have not VQ triggered you're even more screwed with PtV. Ideally this shouldn't happen but it does sometimes.
Resume of the opera: PtV is good choice if you have (i) good mana regen gear (45+ base mana regen), (ii) enough defensive stats so you cna drop the 20% Dr from jungle fort and (iii) enough cooldown triggering pratice to avoid the situation described above.
I think this build is quite powerful. Personaly i think it's far better then Bears.
So this is what I changed it to, as my mana regen is about on par with what you're suggesting. The damage output is very noticeable, and I find the survivability to be about the same. There is a big difference in mana costs as stated, but my method for creating the VQ CD works for me: GotD, SpirWalk, run in and SoulHar, run out, and nuke. If things get taxing, I use the fetishes to pull an aggro dump. The Spirit Vessel hasn't proc'd for me yet, but it probably will soon.
Thank you so much for everyone's input. I think I'm going to keep with the Dire Bats instead of Bears.
If you don't already know... Dire Bats + GotD means that you're forced to get Honored Guest if not Swallow Your Soul too. You need 50+ mana regen from gear as well (helm, weapon, off hand). It's the most mana intensive of the popular WD builds. Having to use SW for mana regen is pretty lame, but it's the biggest downside to using Bats over Darts (or ZBs) I think. Not getting Grasp is a terrible idea though as it's our best CC.
I'd recommend you get Horrify: Face of Death instead of Hex too. Hex really isn't that good overall.
It's best used for progression when you have weak gear. People use it for teleporters, but Face of Death allows you to fear on vortex and teleport. It's just a better ability.
More advice... don't use Zombie Wall. It's another weak CC ability imo. Pile On is obviously OP in some situations. But the CC variants aren't very good. I guess it's there as an option for people who don't have enough mana for Grasp or something.
Notice they all take advantage of Spirit Vessel for what it's worth too. Some people will drop SH because it can be annoying. But besides the CC you either run with BBV, FA or both. BBV makes more sense for ZBs though.
Once you get enough gear that you're killing champs faster than every 2 min BBV / FA become weaker. Some people may keep them just to have a long cooldown to make VQ easier. I tend to agree with doing this just because you shouldn't need more than Horrify / GotD / SW to escape mobs.
Below is a link to my current build, which I find fun and effective. I think zombie bears are cool and powerful, but I don't like their limited range, overall speed, and positional situations the spell can put me in. Any advise on how to change my spec, or, how to use bears more effectivly? This toon is on Act 3 Hell, and I eventually plan to take him to at least Act 2 Inferno before stopping to farm with friends/family. He is currently geared high int and mana regen gear, but otherwise that's it. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
http://us.battle.net...ZdRP!bXU!acaZab
Bears work great in Act 1 Inferno and once you get really awesome gear I can see it working in Act 3 but I think it will always be a giant pain in Act 2.
* Drop Healing Journey, get Honored Guest or Jaunt: 14% HP every 12 seconds is very little for a rune, a single piece of armor with good HP regen affix gives more then that. Honored Guest gives incredible amount of mana (30% mana every 12 seconds means 18.5 mana/s with base mana pool, which is around the power of two items giving mana regen) and it's good to situations were you have no mana left but you skills are not on cooldown. If you feel like you already have enough mana you can pick Jaunt since it's a incredible rune too.
* Drop Hegde Magic, get Jynx: I think Healing Journey is mediocre rune and it's much better then Hedge Magic ! In Inferno you will be sitting on 25k+ HP, the amount healed will be really little. I know the 10% increased damage doesn't sounds alot but it is, specially when you're facing fat monsters and bosses (hexable ones).
* Drop Spiritual Attunement or Blood Ritual, get Spirit Vessel: VQ builds already have an sweet amount of mana, i think 3 mana fixers is too much. Also, Spirit Vessel is just too good to be overlooked. The effect over Spirit Walk alone justify it's usage and it also saves your life every 2 minutes. You have to test which one of those two you should drop. I'm inclined to say you should keep Blood Ritual because it also has a small HP regen bonus which is always nice but you should keep Spitirual Attunament if you don't have any mana regen items (you will need it to reach 120 mana per second on VQ).
Other things you can try:
* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement, get Jungle Fortitude: you will loose the mana fix but it shouldn't be a problem as long as you have mana regen items (around 11~14 mana/s from items). And the 20% DR does really make an huge difference, specially on Act 2+.
* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement/Julgle Fortitude, get Pierce the Veil if you have 46+ mana per second: With two good mana regen affixes you can reach 46+ base mana per second, which is enough to spam Direbats during VQ w/o running out of mana with 30% increased cost and an 1.2 attack speed weapon. You actually can do it with little less then that, it greatly depends on play style. In general with 50 base mana regen you cna easily use it and enjoy a 20% increased damage for free as the extra mana costs won't make any difference on your Direbat spamming. Beware that all WD skills costs mana, even the cooldown skills such as Spirit Walk and Hex. The increased costs will GREATLY increase the total mana you need to activate VQ, so if you run out of mana and have not VQ triggered you're even more screwed with PtV. Ideally this shouldn't happen but it does sometimes.
Resume of the opera: PtV is good choice if you have (i) good mana regen gear (45+ base mana regen), (ii) enough defensive stats so you cna drop the 20% Dr from jungle fort and (iii) enough cooldown triggering pratice to avoid the situation described above.
I think this build is quite powerful. Personaly i think it's far better then Bears.
So this is what I changed it to, as my mana regen is about on par with what you're suggesting. The damage output is very noticeable, and I find the survivability to be about the same. There is a big difference in mana costs as stated, but my method for creating the VQ CD works for me: GotD, SpirWalk, run in and SoulHar, run out, and nuke. If things get taxing, I use the fetishes to pull an aggro dump. The Spirit Vessel hasn't proc'd for me yet, but it probably will soon.
Thank you so much for everyone's input. I think I'm going to keep with the Dire Bats instead of Bears.
I'd recommend you get Horrify: Face of Death instead of Hex too. Hex really isn't that good overall.
It's best used for progression when you have weak gear. People use it for teleporters, but Face of Death allows you to fear on vortex and teleport. It's just a better ability.
More advice... don't use Zombie Wall. It's another weak CC ability imo. Pile On is obviously OP in some situations. But the CC variants aren't very good. I guess it's there as an option for people who don't have enough mana for Grasp or something.
As far as I'm concerned these are the best CC abilities to pair with either DB or ZB: http://us.battle.net...ch-doctor#Z.UdX
Notice they all take advantage of Spirit Vessel for what it's worth too. Some people will drop SH because it can be annoying. But besides the CC you either run with BBV, FA or both. BBV makes more sense for ZBs though.
Once you get enough gear that you're killing champs faster than every 2 min BBV / FA become weaker. Some people may keep them just to have a long cooldown to make VQ easier. I tend to agree with doing this just because you shouldn't need more than Horrify / GotD / SW to escape mobs.
Something like this: http://us.battle.net...UdXP!WVU!aaZabZ
Maybe drop a mana rune depending on your personal playstyle and how much you spam bats.