This is the general outline for the build. I'm looking for some input on what I should put for some of the final runes/passives, which I talk about at the bottom.
Active Skills
Firebats/Hungry Bats: Massive nuke spell that will deal insane amounts of damage with your passives/bigbadvoodoo and soulharvest active.
Grasp of the Dead/Death is Life: Great slow, decent damage and good for controlling enemies. It also very much complements Gruesome Feast, helping to provide you with enough health orbs to keep your stacks up. Although only five percent, the area is takes up is pretty big and when killing 10+ monsters it greatly increases the chance of getting some.
Zombie Dogs/Final Gift: It is what it is. I'm not the biggest fan of Zombie Dogs but I think for this build they would work great. First off they act as a meat shield which is always good. Secondly, when they die they have a 15% chance to drop a health orb which, like grasp of the dead, acts to keep the stacks on Gruesome Feast up.
Sacrifice/Provoke the Pack: Good damage, provides you with a way to get your health orbs while also doing good damage. In addition, this will also increase your attack damage, along with most of the spells in this build. Boosting attack damage is pretty much the key part of this build.
Soul Harvest/Swallow Your Soul: Once again, very good damage buff. Runes can be adjusted depending on the situation, whether to provide health, mana, damage or cc.
Big Bad Voodoo/Slam Dance: Another huge attack damage bonus, however this one benefits the whole party. When combined with Soul Harvest, Sacrifice, Gruesome Feast and Pierce the Veil, you will do some CRAZY damage spamming fire bats at people.
Passives
Gruesome Feast: Build is partly based around collecting health orbs, provides a 50% intelligence bonus as well as bonus mana from orbs.
Pierce the Veil: More attack damage, aww yeah.
Vermin: Another huge damage increase to firebats, 20%.
Things that I am unsure about
Firebats: Debating between Hungry Bats and Cloud of Bats. Cloud of Bats forms an AOE around you that does 130% weapon damage, and increases by 10% every second until 180%. As this build is based on boosting attack damage, this could act as some serious AOE damage. However, I personally prefer the Hungry Bats because in this video I saw they look awesome. They are also good for both single and multi-target damage. Actives
Grasp of the Dead: Eh, not much here. I figure there will be enough monsters in my grasp to get a decent health orb return. I'll have to see though, because I'm a little doubtful on how practical this could be as a source of health orbs.
Zombie Dogs: 15% chance to drop health orbs. If you sacrifice 4 dogs, you have a 60% chance to get on, figure you kill a bunch of monsters while sacrificing your dogs and they happen to be in your grasp of death. I would expect a damage health orb return, allowing you to keep Gruesome Feast stacked at 50% intelligence bonus.
Sacrifice: It was either between Provoke the Pack and Next of the Kin. I decided to go with Provoke the Pack because I wanted to stick with the whole "get some crazy ass damage" thing. If I was planning on going more summon-based I think I would go for Next of the Kin, but for this build it is more based around buffing yourself to spam fire bats.
Soul Harvest: Soul Harvest is great because you can augment it for almost any situation. It could slow, deal multi-target damage, life leech, mana leech. Because of my passives, I chose to get the mana leech rune.
Big Bad Voodoo
Passives:
This is where I am the most unsure about what I want. There are so many different routes and viable passives for this build, such as:
Pierce the Veil: Large damage increase, large mana consumption. Without Vision Quest, I'm not sure if I get a large enough mana return. I can't test it out, but I am hoping that the mana boost from orbs (Gruesome Feast), my mana regen, and Soul Harvest keep me good on mana.
Gruesome Feast: 50% intelligence, bonus mana from orbs.
Vision Quest: Four skills in this build should usually be on cooldown, thus providing a large, constant increase in mana regen at most times. I would like to pick other passives to further increase damage but I don't know how my mana consumption will be.
Vermin: When I finally started typing this I realized that Vermin would be a much better choice than Zombie Handler. As Zombie Handler provides a 5% increase to damage (as well as another dog), Vermin will increase my firebats damage by 20%.
Zombie Handler: An extra dog, an extra 15% chance at a health orb, another 5% damage increase.
In conclusion, for the most part the build that I posted up is pretty close to what I think the final product will be. Instead of Zombie Handler, I plan on getting Vermin. Let me know what you guys think.
I have no idea what the final amount of damage increase will be because I am too lazy to do the math, but all I know is that it's going to be insane.
I guess it depends on when the build is used. What you use in Normal isn't the same build you'll use in Inferno. It's also fairly likely that people will be switching out spells for bosses.
Yeah definitely lol, I assume that I'll be switching out spells for many of the different situation I'll encounter. I'm not 100% sure what situation this build would be best for, but as far as damage goes I think this is the highest damage build you can make. Maybe if I added in Locust Swarm somewhere to provide extra multi-target DoT damage it could be even more badass, but I'm just not sure where to put it.
I would expect this build to be applicable in pretty much any difficulty. However, having that said it is a very team dependent build. Your only means of defense are Zombie Dogs, which you will be sacrificing. You'll have to have a competent tank-type figure and hopefully another class that can support/take damage so that you can perform the role that this build is intended for, sitting in the back and doing insane amounts of damage. This build is completely glass cannon.
Anyways, if you guys could please provide some advice on which passives you think would be best/etc.
I tried to calculate the % increase when you have all of your buffs up and this is what I got. It could be wrong but I think it's in the right general area.
Firebats: 200% Weapon Damage
Sacrifice: 15% damage increase
Big Bad Voodoo: 30% damage increase
Soul Harvest: No true percentage value but let's just say that it's a 10% increase.
Pierce the Veil: 20% damage increase
Vermin: 20% damage increase.
Gruesome Feast: 50% damage increase.
15+30+10+20+20+50= about 150% total damage increase
Firebats: 200% weapon damage, increased by 150%=500% weapon damage (from your buffs alone)
Many people think that the Witch Doctor lacks the skills to stay on par with the Wizard in terms of damage, however I think with this build they could be far surpassed. For example, Meteor does roughly the same damage (initial damage and aoe) but takes up lots of arcane energy and does not do all of its damage at once. Hungry bats is the opposite and can be spammed at a relatively low mana cost while dealing insane damage while being focused at a single target.
These are my two WD builds. Haven't played the beta and the numbers in the skills may change in the final product so this may work well or it may totally suck lol.
i like it, just need a change a few minor things, like you have too much mana regen lawl. most peopel dont have enough but ur over compensating, your base regen is 25/second and with rush of essence returning 30% of ALL of your skills you'll be more then fine with just those two. change spiritual attunement for spirit vessel because it flows perfectly with your build. and id change the rune on spirit barrage because 3% isnt much at all and u need more AOE, so id take phantasm or well of souls.
summon build:
looks just fine to me. you covered all bases. :). anything id watch to change would be purely preference
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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
I preferred to go with Circle of Life and Zombie Handler for the chance to have more dogs. The cooldown on the Voodoo is twice the duration of Mass Confusion. If I sacrifice my dogs and Raise Zombie Dogs is on cooldown, I have more chance to raise some more with Mass Confusion.
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This is the general outline for the build. I'm looking for some input on what I should put for some of the final runes/passives, which I talk about at the bottom.
Active Skills
Firebats/Hungry Bats: Massive nuke spell that will deal insane amounts of damage with your passives/bigbadvoodoo and soulharvest active.
Grasp of the Dead/Death is Life: Great slow, decent damage and good for controlling enemies. It also very much complements Gruesome Feast, helping to provide you with enough health orbs to keep your stacks up. Although only five percent, the area is takes up is pretty big and when killing 10+ monsters it greatly increases the chance of getting some.
Zombie Dogs/Final Gift: It is what it is. I'm not the biggest fan of Zombie Dogs but I think for this build they would work great. First off they act as a meat shield which is always good. Secondly, when they die they have a 15% chance to drop a health orb which, like grasp of the dead, acts to keep the stacks on Gruesome Feast up.
Sacrifice/Provoke the Pack: Good damage, provides you with a way to get your health orbs while also doing good damage. In addition, this will also increase your attack damage, along with most of the spells in this build. Boosting attack damage is pretty much the key part of this build.
Soul Harvest/Swallow Your Soul: Once again, very good damage buff. Runes can be adjusted depending on the situation, whether to provide health, mana, damage or cc.
Big Bad Voodoo/Slam Dance: Another huge attack damage bonus, however this one benefits the whole party. When combined with Soul Harvest, Sacrifice, Gruesome Feast and Pierce the Veil, you will do some CRAZY damage spamming fire bats at people.
Passives
Gruesome Feast: Build is partly based around collecting health orbs, provides a 50% intelligence bonus as well as bonus mana from orbs.
Pierce the Veil: More attack damage, aww yeah.
Vermin: Another huge damage increase to firebats, 20%.
Things that I am unsure about
Firebats: Debating between Hungry Bats and Cloud of Bats. Cloud of Bats forms an AOE around you that does 130% weapon damage, and increases by 10% every second until 180%. As this build is based on boosting attack damage, this could act as some serious AOE damage. However, I personally prefer the Hungry Bats because in this video I saw they look awesome. They are also good for both single and multi-target damage.
Actives
Grasp of the Dead: Eh, not much here. I figure there will be enough monsters in my grasp to get a decent health orb return. I'll have to see though, because I'm a little doubtful on how practical this could be as a source of health orbs.
Zombie Dogs: 15% chance to drop health orbs. If you sacrifice 4 dogs, you have a 60% chance to get on, figure you kill a bunch of monsters while sacrificing your dogs and they happen to be in your grasp of death. I would expect a damage health orb return, allowing you to keep Gruesome Feast stacked at 50% intelligence bonus.
Sacrifice: It was either between Provoke the Pack and Next of the Kin. I decided to go with Provoke the Pack because I wanted to stick with the whole "get some crazy ass damage" thing. If I was planning on going more summon-based I think I would go for Next of the Kin, but for this build it is more based around buffing yourself to spam fire bats.
Soul Harvest: Soul Harvest is great because you can augment it for almost any situation. It could slow, deal multi-target damage, life leech, mana leech. Because of my passives, I chose to get the mana leech rune.
Big Bad Voodoo
Passives:
This is where I am the most unsure about what I want. There are so many different routes and viable passives for this build, such as:
Pierce the Veil: Large damage increase, large mana consumption. Without Vision Quest, I'm not sure if I get a large enough mana return. I can't test it out, but I am hoping that the mana boost from orbs (Gruesome Feast), my mana regen, and Soul Harvest keep me good on mana.
Gruesome Feast: 50% intelligence, bonus mana from orbs.
Vision Quest: Four skills in this build should usually be on cooldown, thus providing a large, constant increase in mana regen at most times. I would like to pick other passives to further increase damage but I don't know how my mana consumption will be.
Vermin: When I finally started typing this I realized that Vermin would be a much better choice than Zombie Handler. As Zombie Handler provides a 5% increase to damage (as well as another dog), Vermin will increase my firebats damage by 20%.
Zombie Handler: An extra dog, an extra 15% chance at a health orb, another 5% damage increase.
In conclusion, for the most part the build that I posted up is pretty close to what I think the final product will be. Instead of Zombie Handler, I plan on getting Vermin. Let me know what you guys think.
I have no idea what the final amount of damage increase will be because I am too lazy to do the math, but all I know is that it's going to be insane.
I would expect this build to be applicable in pretty much any difficulty. However, having that said it is a very team dependent build. Your only means of defense are Zombie Dogs, which you will be sacrificing. You'll have to have a competent tank-type figure and hopefully another class that can support/take damage so that you can perform the role that this build is intended for, sitting in the back and doing insane amounts of damage. This build is completely glass cannon.
Anyways, if you guys could please provide some advice on which passives you think would be best/etc.
Firebats: 200% Weapon Damage
Sacrifice: 15% damage increase
Big Bad Voodoo: 30% damage increase
Soul Harvest: No true percentage value but let's just say that it's a 10% increase.
Pierce the Veil: 20% damage increase
Vermin: 20% damage increase.
Gruesome Feast: 50% damage increase.
15+30+10+20+20+50= about 150% total damage increase
Firebats: 200% weapon damage, increased by 150%=500% weapon damage (from your buffs alone)
Many people think that the Witch Doctor lacks the skills to stay on par with the Wizard in terms of damage, however I think with this build they could be far surpassed. For example, Meteor does roughly the same damage (initial damage and aoe) but takes up lots of arcane energy and does not do all of its damage at once. Hungry bats is the opposite and can be spammed at a relatively low mana cost while dealing insane damage while being focused at a single target.
spirit build:
i like it, just need a change a few minor things, like you have too much mana regen lawl. most peopel dont have enough but ur over compensating, your base regen is 25/second and with rush of essence returning 30% of ALL of your skills you'll be more then fine with just those two. change spiritual attunement for spirit vessel because it flows perfectly with your build. and id change the rune on spirit barrage because 3% isnt much at all and u need more AOE, so id take phantasm or well of souls.
summon build:
looks just fine to me. you covered all bases. :). anything id watch to change would be purely preference
http://syl.comli.com/d3/?witch-doctor#VZRSYQ!cbW!YcaZbZ
I preferred to go with Circle of Life and Zombie Handler for the chance to have more dogs. The cooldown on the Voodoo is twice the duration of Mass Confusion. If I sacrifice my dogs and Raise Zombie Dogs is on cooldown, I have more chance to raise some more with Mass Confusion.