Hello everyone, with Reaper of Souls right around the corner and loot 2.0 being released recently many of us have been playing diablo quite a bit a again. The game has changed significantly and there is plenty of room for new builds and interesting new concepts. Having each character to 60 already and breaking 100 paragon level I decided to play Hard Core for the first time ever, no AH, no gold, not even stash space. Having started from scratch I've been playing around with a bunch of the witch doctors skills and came across a really fun build that is also Hard Core viable. This build focuses on very fast clear speed, huge bursts of damage, very sustainable with good utility and also works well in a group. I find this build extremely fun.
Skills
- Locust SwarmPestilenceGreat AoE, high damage and with this rune spreads extremely fast, pulling monsters (that live) towards you. This skill, I feel is essential because of the cast and forget aspect, being able to kill other creatures, soul walk and soul harvest while getting kills and reducing your cool downs (grave injustice passive) making Hex easily spammable.
- Zombie ChargerZombie BearsVery powerful AoE channel and does wonderful single target damage too. It's hard to find a replacement for this skill. The next best contenders would probably be poison bats. I much prefer zombie bears though.
- Summon Zombie DogsHere you have a few choices for runes use whichever you feel is most beneficial to you. Zombie dogs tank and aggro enemies, pulling them to you or distracting them if you get in a sticky situation. Very useful and hard to replace.
- HexAngry ChickenThis is the key of this build. Hex has a 15 second cool down and with this rune lasts 2 seconds. The Angry Chicken rune allows you to transform yourself into a chicken, gaining %50 movement speed and explode after 2 seconds (you can blow up at any time before that) for %1350 weapon damage to enemies within 12 yards. With the grave injustice passive it's very easy to make this spammable every 3-5 seconds in group situations. Can also be used as an escape or in combination with Spirit Walk (cast spirit walk first) to pass through enemies, not take damage while in chicken form and gain a total bonus of %100 movement speed moving to what you want to explode very quickly and easily.
- Soul HarvestSwallow Your SoulHuge DPS bonuses, %2 intel per enemy (up to 5 stacks) with this rune you also gain %5 max mana per stack making zombie bears and locust swarm even easier to spam.
- Spirit WalkHonored Guest Pass almost a guarantee in a witch doctor build, pass through enemies, escape, move closer faster, great utility spell and when you spirit walk with this rune you gain %20 of your max mana back to cast more zombie bears and locust swarms.
Passives
- Grave InjusticeThis is the key behind the build. For every enemy killed within 20 yards you gain %1 of your max life and mana while also reducing the cool down of all skills by 1 second. This makes Hex easily spammable.
- Blood Ritual Blood ritual helps with mana costs, paying %10 of them with while, while also gaining %1 life per second. The life paid isn't an issue especially in combination with grave injustice.
- For the third pass you have a few options, more or less preference. My top choices would be Spirit Vessel for the reduced cool down on spirit walk and soul harvest with the saving you from death perk, Gruesome Feast for the up to %50 max mana and inteligence by picking up health globes, Rush of Essence or Spiritual Attunement if you're having a hard time keeping your zombie bears up for mana.
With this build it's meant for very fast clear speed, insane damage bursts and mobility. An example is in CoTA experience farming, this build can easily keep up with frozen orb wizards or barbarians. You run in, spirit walk in the center of pack, soul harvest for the intel boosts and max mana gains, cast hex, explode hex, killing 5-10 enemies and reducing your cool down on spirit walk, soul harvest and hex by the number killed while also returning %1 max and mana life for each enemy killed. Throw out a locust swarm to the next groups chaining across screen infecting everything, draining health slowly. Maybe you zombie bears a few if your cool downs aren't up yet then cast hex, explode, rinse and repeat. This has insane amounts of damage out put.
Gear Preferences
Nothing is required for this which makes it a very easy, fun build to use. Beneficial gear stats would be reduced cooldowns, % skill damage increase on locust swarm and zombie charger (unsure if there's anything for hex), poison damage increase for stronger bears and locust swarm or physical for stronger angry chicken explosions. Max mana and mana regen. Stacking life is beneficial since you'll be gaining %1 per second, more life = more gained every second, life on hit if you're using leeching bests for zombie dogs, or even health globe radius if you're using gruesome feast. With this build you should use a higher damage weapon preferably 2H (they're bugged right now so more likely a slow hard hitting 1H with a high damage offhand will be better especially since the off hand will give you boosts like mana, mana regen, more int etc etc), the more damage the weapon does, not DPS, the harder Angry Chicken explosions will hit. Attack speed is nearly useless with this build and using a fast weapon will hinder it a lot.
The Angry ChickenWitch Doctor Build
Hello everyone, with Reaper of Souls right around the corner and loot 2.0 being released recently many of us have been playing diablo quite a bit a again. The game has changed significantly and there is plenty of room for new builds and interesting new concepts. Having each character to 60 already and breaking 100 paragon level I decided to play Hard Core for the first time ever, no AH, no gold, not even stash space. Having started from scratch I've been playing around with a bunch of the witch doctors skills and came across a really fun build that is also Hard Core viable. This build focuses on very fast clear speed, huge bursts of damage, very sustainable with good utility and also works well in a group. I find this build extremely fun.Skills
- Locust Swarm PestilenceGreat AoE, high damage and with this rune spreads extremely fast, pulling monsters (that live) towards you. This skill, I feel is essential because of the cast and forget aspect, being able to kill other creatures, soul walk and soul harvest while getting kills and reducing your cool downs (grave injustice passive) making Hex easily spammable.- Zombie ChargerZombie BearsVery powerful AoE channel and does wonderful single target damage too. It's hard to find a replacement for this skill. The next best contenders would probably be poison bats. I much prefer zombie bears though.
- Summon Zombie DogsHere you have a few choices for runes use whichever you feel is most beneficial to you. Zombie dogs tank and aggro enemies, pulling them to you or distracting them if you get in a sticky situation. Very useful and hard to replace.
- HexAngry ChickenThis is the key of this build. Hex has a 15 second cool down and with this rune lasts 2 seconds. The Angry Chicken rune allows you to transform yourself into a chicken, gaining %50 movement speed and explode after 2 seconds (you can blow up at any time before that) for %1350 weapon damage to enemies within 12 yards. With the grave injustice passive it's very easy to make this spammable every 3-5 seconds in group situations. Can also be used as an escape or in combination with Spirit Walk (cast spirit walk first) to pass through enemies, not take damage while in chicken form and gain a total bonus of %100 movement speed moving to what you want to explode very quickly and easily.
- Soul HarvestSwallow Your SoulHuge DPS bonuses, %2 intel per enemy (up to 5 stacks) with this rune you also gain %5 max mana per stack making zombie bears and locust swarm even easier to spam.
- Spirit WalkHonored Guest Pass almost a guarantee in a witch doctor build, pass through enemies, escape, move closer faster, great utility spell and when you spirit walk with this rune you gain %20 of your max mana back to cast more zombie bears and locust swarms.
Passives
- Grave InjusticeThis is the key behind the build. For every enemy killed within 20 yards you gain %1 of your max life and mana while also reducing the cool down of all skills by 1 second. This makes Hex easily spammable.- Blood Ritual Blood ritual helps with mana costs, paying %10 of them with while, while also gaining %1 life per second. The life paid isn't an issue especially in combination with grave injustice.
- For the third pass you have a few options, more or less preference. My top choices would be Spirit Vessel for the reduced cool down on spirit walk and soul harvest with the saving you from death perk, Gruesome Feast for the up to %50 max mana and inteligence by picking up health globes, Rush of Essence or Spiritual Attunement if you're having a hard time keeping your zombie bears up for mana.
To see the build visually -http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#hfYidU!Tce!acbbaZ
Play Style
With this build it's meant for very fast clear speed, insane damage bursts and mobility. An example is in CoTA experience farming, this build can easily keep up with frozen orb wizards or barbarians. You run in, spirit walk in the center of pack, soul harvest for the intel boosts and max mana gains, cast hex, explode hex, killing 5-10 enemies and reducing your cool down on spirit walk, soul harvest and hex by the number killed while also returning %1 max and mana life for each enemy killed. Throw out a locust swarm to the next groups chaining across screen infecting everything, draining health slowly. Maybe you zombie bears a few if your cool downs aren't up yet then cast hex, explode, rinse and repeat. This has insane amounts of damage out put.Gear Preferences
Nothing is required for this which makes it a very easy, fun build to use. Beneficial gear stats would be reduced cooldowns, % skill damage increase on locust swarm and zombie charger (unsure if there's anything for hex), poison damage increase for stronger bears and locust swarm or physical for stronger angry chicken explosions. Max mana and mana regen. Stacking life is beneficial since you'll be gaining %1 per second, more life = more gained every second, life on hit if you're using leeching bests for zombie dogs, or even health globe radius if you're using gruesome feast. With this build you should use a higher damage weapon preferably 2H (they're bugged right now so more likely a slow hard hitting 1H with a high damage offhand will be better especially since the off hand will give you boosts like mana, mana regen, more int etc etc), the more damage the weapon does, not DPS, the harder Angry Chicken explosions will hit. Attack speed is nearly useless with this build and using a fast weapon will hinder it a lot.A link to my hardcore character that uses this build using nothing but post loot 2.0 gear and started from complete scratchhttp://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Aranoch-1167/hero/42730522
#72 US Wizards in Vanilla D3 - Aranoch#1167