Below is a series of vids of Act III/IV Inferno clears with what I'll call a Witch Doctor Poison Summoner build (2 pet summons for defense and Rain of Toads/Lob Blob Bomb for offense). It's been a very survivable build but is no slouch on damage / clear efficiency either. I'm able to milk ~60k character sheet damage and amp that up into high-70k with 5-stack Soul Siphon. I'm trying to keep each video around 10-15 minutes so they are more consumable.
ACT III (39 Elite Packs, 6 Goblins, Ghom, Siegebreaker, Cydaea, and Azmodan)
Part I: Keep Lvl 1 and 2 - 6 Elite Packs
Part II: Keep Lvl 2 and 3 - 4 Elite Packs, 2 Goblins, and Ghom
Part III: Bridge of Korsikk - 5 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part IV: Ballista and Trebuchet - 4 Elite Packs
Part V: Rakkis Crossing and Siegebreaker - 3 Elite Packs, Siegebreaker, and 1 EPIC Goblin
Part VI: Arreat Crater / Tower of the Damned - 6 Elite Packs
Part VII: Tower of the Damned / Sin Heart - 6 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part VIII: Cydaea and Azmodan - 5 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin, Cydaea, and Azmodan
Part I: Gardens of Hope - 3 Elite Packs, Iskatu, Rakanoth
Part II: Gardens of Hope / Silver Spire - 2 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part III: Silver Spire and Izual - 4 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin, Izual Posted in a later reply as each post is limited to number of embed files.
Part IV: Silver Spire / Great Span / Diablo - 1 Elite Pack, Diablo Posted in a later reply as each post is limited to number of embed files.
Background on spec in vids:
When the patch commentary and information for 1.0.4 began to get released, I started working on a summon build based largely around a high health pool and Blood Ritual / Fierce Loyalty passives. My gut was this would make pets very survivable and I could probably sit back and nuke. Pre-patch I wasn't quite sure how it would all work out so I erred on the side of survival over damage. Spec looked like:
Vitality and Life %
Intelligence
Regen
All Resist
Strength/Armor
Damage Stats (Attack Speed/Crit/Crit Damage)
Well the patch hit and day 1, I was around 90k life, 1,800 plus regen, mid-700 resists, and mid-20k dps. I was tweaking gear back and forth got as high as 102k life if I recall and 2,000 regen at one point. I also had 700 LoH at one point and 6% Life Leech at another point. What I quickly began to realize though was I didn't need near as much survival oriented stats and passives as I had.
So began the goal to see how much survival I could drop in favor of damage to speed Act III clear efficiency. I dropped Jungle Fortitude in favor of PtV. I dropped all LoH and Life Leech. I have life down to mid-80k and regen down to around 1500/sec. Meanwhile I have upped crit chance to 38% (with Scoundrel) and crit damage up to 365% to where my dps is now just shy of 60k (high 70k with 5-stack Soul Harvest). Current gear and build setup can be seen by clicking my profile link (my signature).
18 Paragon levels and a bunch of Act III clears in, I'm feeling pretty sold on it. The one thing I may try is switching PtV to Gruesome Feast - just to see if I can keep the damage buff up at a higher level with enough consistency to make it better. Other than that, probably not going to tweak it much in the near term. I'm not advertising it as the MOST efficient build but it is an efficient build for sure. Also, I'm not a fan of glass cannon specs and I'm having a great deal of fun with this play-style (and that's the point after all isn't it)
Nice videos. I'm beginning to tweak my WD for Act 3 farming, right now working on finishing Act 4 first, If I can kill elite Opressor packs without dying several times that is.
Questions:
Why RoT with no LoH? Wouldn't Flaming Darts/Splinters or Ghost Bomb be more effective?
If you drop Fierce Loyalty, how do the pets fare?
When you had your mid-20k dps, did you use Lob Blomb? With 32k dps I find it less useful than Acid Rain (with LoH/LL btw) or Locusts.
Questions:
Why RoT with no LoH? Wouldn't Flaming Darts/Splinters or Ghost Bomb be more effective?
If you drop Fierce Loyalty, how do the pets fare?
When you had your mid-20k dps, did you use Lob Blomb? With 32k dps I find it less useful than Acid Rain (with LoH/LL btw) or Locusts.
I want a multi-target primary so dart is out. My main reason for Rain of Toads versus Firebomb is targeting flexibility. What I mean by that is the ability to cast RoT through walls --either in the indoor keep areas or through waller packs. While RoT isn't as strong damage wise as Firebomb, I find that I can keep it sustained in situations where I couldn't sustain keep Firebomb targeted. It's a preference thing I guess but that's the logic.
Honestly it's a similar reason I choose Lob Blob over Zombie Bears -- flexibility and range of targeting. I just feel both spells allow me to position better and still do outstanding damage overall.
I haven't dropped Fierce Loyalty yet -- while pets are very survivable, you'll see in later vids, Fast and Electrified affixes can be very rough on them as can harder hitting mobs such as Phasebeasts, Tremors, etc.
When I originally started 1.0.4, I had Searing Locusts in place of Acid Cloud. It was very effective at taking down packs -- just slower at doing it.
25 minutes through the keep and Ghom is moving at a reasonable clip. Just making your way through the maze and finding each pack takes a good bit of time. The actual pack kills are really a fraction time spent. Need to find another 12% movement speed - Lacuni Prowlers with INT/VIT/Crit are currently prohibitively expensive :*(
25 minutes through the keep and Ghom is moving at a reasonable clip. Just making your way through the maze and finding each pack takes a good bit of time. The actual pack kills are really a fraction time spent. Need to find another 12% movement speed - Lacuni Prowlers with INT/VIT/Crit are currently prohibitively expensive :*(
This really inspired me to make a similar build, the only thing I changed near the end was Fierce Loyalty for spiritual attunement. As I found that with the high HP and 500 AR my pets already had enough survivability + all the health globes you can pick up to heal. I almost never have to summon them again, but that's a small price to pay imo to be able to spam acid cloud more
A Pierce the Viel, Gruesome Feast, Grave Injustice passive setup works to help health/mana regen and buff damage output as well. It replaces high regen with more health globe healing but it works surprisingly well. Worth noting, because of the cooldown reduction with Grave Injustice, you can get far more frequent health or mana regen (your choice based on rune) from Spirit Walk as well.
If I were just starting the spec, I may not go with it as it feels less survival-oriented and definitely relies on more globes -- but after having played for awhile, this may be something I transition to for more runs. May even work some + globe range into my gear setup.
EDIT: Worked 28 yds pickup radius and the PtV, GF, GI setup works fairly well. It definitely can help you kill an individual pack faster -- especially if you spike up to 125k dps on globes :). That said, reflects damage causes issues and in general I found myself going from dying just about never to 3 or 4 times a run -- my gut is the corpse runs chewed up any perceived time savings so . . . I'm just going run the same spec I've been running. I guess don't fix what isn't broken . . . I'll just buy some Lacuni's and that'll get me going faster more than a spec change.
One upshot of the experiment, I found adding a little bit of pickup radius is a good thing even in my standard spec -- I kept 14 yds in my setup which helps grab some globes while fighting elites much easier without entering the danger zone and I can grab gold up much quicker as well . . . so all was not lost.
Emberos I found your guide really helpful the only tweek I made was to drop the frogs for firebomb with Wilde fire ruin. It felt a lot more powerful after running it for a bit. Have you looked at that what were your thoughts on it?
Flash Fire rune maybe? Either way, I did try a variety of Firebomb runes (Fire Pit, Flash Fire, Ghost Bomb) as well as some Spider runes. At the end of the day, I kept coming back to Rain of Toads for target flexibility. Flash Fire would be my second choice if I had to fall back on something. That said, no reason you can't use whatever primary feels best. It's not a situation where we're tied to needing LoH procs or anything like that so go with what works best for you. Honestly, nothing says that Acid Cloud couldn't be swapped for Bears if someone wanted to as well -- I just like the way Lob Blob and Rain feel the most for my setup.
Also, my armory/profile is beginning to look a bit more advanced than what was shown in the vids. Vids had more life/resistances/regen and less dps. I've been using AH to "transmute" the drops I've been getting into gear that amps up my damage/magic find/pickup radius and, in the process, my life/regen/resistances have taken a hit. It's definitely noticeable in pet survivability -- they crash and burn a lot more -- but I'm also moving through content a ton faster so . . . mission accomplished.
My profile nothwitstanding, this can absolutely be a budget build with lower dps and higher life/regen/resist. That's where I started it -- so if you are on a tight gear budget, do that and then once you're clearing content, you get drops and start migrating my direction
Act IV Part IV now up as well. I may work on doing a consolidated Act III Bosses and Act IV Bosses video that shows clean boss attempts - we'll see -- until then series is complete.
Hey Emberos!
It wouldnt let me post a link but I love your guide and I have been using it and then I got to ACT3 right after the bridge and it was like a brick wall. Im not sure if you do or not but I was wondering if you could give me any recommendations on my char? I havent been very good with farming or selling on the AH (No luck with drops) so I have to a budget build! If not no worries! Heres my page if you do /d3/en/profile/Marchosias-1153/hero/25954981
Right now doesn't look like your passives are set correctly -- you may have been messing with something else. That said, you do have Fierce Loyalty in place and your regen to pets looks pretty solid - it's actually higher than I've been playing with recently. Your resists are actually higher than I've been running with with as well. However, your overall health is a bit low though compared to how I run so the pets may not have enough buffer for some of the harder hitting Act III mobs. I'v never gotten under ~75k with this spec and really like to stay above 80k.
When I was doing this more conservative/budget style, my regen to pets from Blood Ritual and Regen on gear was high 1.8 - 2k and my health was above 85k. At those levels pets can really tank pretty much anything that is thrown at them other than a fast electrified hard hitting mob. Even those they lived long enough to resummon and win. At your damage, you definitely need pets to be very survivable because it's going to take you longer to down the packs and the pets need to sustain longer.
As I look at AH lately, it seems INT/VIT/Life % gear has gotten reasonably affordable -- I'd guess if you can stack a bit more of that, pets will do the work you need them to. It may be slow clearing until you start getting drops and can fill in some better dps gear but you should be able to work through the Act.
Thanks embers I did upgrade a bunch of items last night and it's been working much better now enough so that I've been playing with the builds. Becoming a fan of searing locusts it's just bounces through everything.
Thanks for the guide. After seeing it, I made a WD and started getting through inferno with high mf gear enabling me to get many more legendaries and good rare dops all while surviving easily. In the beginning I couldn't kill things fast enough but could tank pretty much everything. Getting into groups with DHs and others allowed me to keep monsters distracted while they killed. Now I can go though mobs faster with my current gear. I would suggest getting Sky Splitter it has 400-500 regen along with smite for stunning. I used Addling Toads to confuse groups along with the stun from Sky Splitter for awhile when I was at low dps. The extra regen on the weapon allows you to focus on more dps/life on your other gears instead of searching for more regen. I run at a lower 65K hp but I have more resists to balance it out.
ACT III (39 Elite Packs, 6 Goblins, Ghom, Siegebreaker, Cydaea, and Azmodan)
Part I: Keep Lvl 1 and 2 - 6 Elite Packs
Part II: Keep Lvl 2 and 3 - 4 Elite Packs, 2 Goblins, and Ghom
Part III: Bridge of Korsikk - 5 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part IV: Ballista and Trebuchet - 4 Elite Packs
Part V: Rakkis Crossing and Siegebreaker - 3 Elite Packs, Siegebreaker, and 1 EPIC Goblin
Part VI: Arreat Crater / Tower of the Damned - 6 Elite Packs
Part VII: Tower of the Damned / Sin Heart - 6 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part VIII: Cydaea and Azmodan - 5 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin, Cydaea, and Azmodan
ACT IV (10 Elite Packs, 2 Goblins, Iskatu, Rakanoth, Izual, Diablo)
Part I: Gardens of Hope - 3 Elite Packs, Iskatu, Rakanoth
Part II: Gardens of Hope / Silver Spire - 2 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin
Part III: Silver Spire and Izual - 4 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin, Izual
Posted in a later reply as each post is limited to number of embed files.
Part IV: Silver Spire / Great Span / Diablo - 1 Elite Pack, Diablo
Posted in a later reply as each post is limited to number of embed files.
Background on spec in vids:
When the patch commentary and information for 1.0.4 began to get released, I started working on a summon build based largely around a high health pool and Blood Ritual / Fierce Loyalty passives. My gut was this would make pets very survivable and I could probably sit back and nuke. Pre-patch I wasn't quite sure how it would all work out so I erred on the side of survival over damage. Spec looked like:
http://d3db.com/calc...ch-doctor/35876
And gear setup prioritized as:
Vitality and Life %
Intelligence
Regen
All Resist
Strength/Armor
Damage Stats (Attack Speed/Crit/Crit Damage)
Well the patch hit and day 1, I was around 90k life, 1,800 plus regen, mid-700 resists, and mid-20k dps. I was tweaking gear back and forth got as high as 102k life if I recall and 2,000 regen at one point. I also had 700 LoH at one point and 6% Life Leech at another point. What I quickly began to realize though was I didn't need near as much survival oriented stats and passives as I had.
So began the goal to see how much survival I could drop in favor of damage to speed Act III clear efficiency. I dropped Jungle Fortitude in favor of PtV. I dropped all LoH and Life Leech. I have life down to mid-80k and regen down to around 1500/sec. Meanwhile I have upped crit chance to 38% (with Scoundrel) and crit damage up to 365% to where my dps is now just shy of 60k (high 70k with 5-stack Soul Harvest). Current gear and build setup can be seen by clicking my profile link (my signature).
18 Paragon levels and a bunch of Act III clears in, I'm feeling pretty sold on it. The one thing I may try is switching PtV to Gruesome Feast - just to see if I can keep the damage buff up at a higher level with enough consistency to make it better. Other than that, probably not going to tweak it much in the near term. I'm not advertising it as the MOST efficient build but it is an efficient build for sure. Also, I'm not a fan of glass cannon specs and I'm having a great deal of fun with this play-style (and that's the point after all isn't it)
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Questions:
Why RoT with no LoH? Wouldn't Flaming Darts/Splinters or Ghost Bomb be more effective?
If you drop Fierce Loyalty, how do the pets fare?
When you had your mid-20k dps, did you use Lob Blomb? With 32k dps I find it less useful than Acid Rain (with LoH/LL btw) or Locusts.
I want a multi-target primary so dart is out. My main reason for Rain of Toads versus Firebomb is targeting flexibility. What I mean by that is the ability to cast RoT through walls --either in the indoor keep areas or through waller packs. While RoT isn't as strong damage wise as Firebomb, I find that I can keep it sustained in situations where I couldn't sustain keep Firebomb targeted. It's a preference thing I guess but that's the logic.
Honestly it's a similar reason I choose Lob Blob over Zombie Bears -- flexibility and range of targeting. I just feel both spells allow me to position better and still do outstanding damage overall.
I haven't dropped Fierce Loyalty yet -- while pets are very survivable, you'll see in later vids, Fast and Electrified affixes can be very rough on them as can harder hitting mobs such as Phasebeasts, Tremors, etc.
When I originally started 1.0.4, I had Searing Locusts in place of Acid Cloud. It was very effective at taking down packs -- just slower at doing it.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
But summoner is so . . . . . . s l o o o o o o o o o o w D:
My poor WD.
25 minutes through the keep and Ghom is moving at a reasonable clip. Just making your way through the maze and finding each pack takes a good bit of time. The actual pack kills are really a fraction time spent. Need to find another 12% movement speed - Lacuni Prowlers with INT/VIT/Crit are currently prohibitively expensive :*(
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Try Inna's.
I took one:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/ru/profile/walz-2194/hero/53648
My poor WD.
A Pierce the Viel, Gruesome Feast, Grave Injustice passive setup works to help health/mana regen and buff damage output as well. It replaces high regen with more health globe healing but it works surprisingly well. Worth noting, because of the cooldown reduction with Grave Injustice, you can get far more frequent health or mana regen (your choice based on rune) from Spirit Walk as well.
If I were just starting the spec, I may not go with it as it feels less survival-oriented and definitely relies on more globes -- but after having played for awhile, this may be something I transition to for more runs. May even work some + globe range into my gear setup.
EDIT: Worked 28 yds pickup radius and the PtV, GF, GI setup works fairly well. It definitely can help you kill an individual pack faster -- especially if you spike up to 125k dps on globes :). That said, reflects damage causes issues and in general I found myself going from dying just about never to 3 or 4 times a run -- my gut is the corpse runs chewed up any perceived time savings so . . . I'm just going run the same spec I've been running. I guess don't fix what isn't broken . . . I'll just buy some Lacuni's and that'll get me going faster more than a spec change.
One upshot of the experiment, I found adding a little bit of pickup radius is a good thing even in my standard spec -- I kept 14 yds in my setup which helps grab some globes while fighting elites much easier without entering the danger zone and I can grab gold up much quicker as well . . . so all was not lost.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Now starting to break-up Act IV footage into smaller videos for rendering and posting.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Also, my armory/profile is beginning to look a bit more advanced than what was shown in the vids. Vids had more life/resistances/regen and less dps. I've been using AH to "transmute" the drops I've been getting into gear that amps up my damage/magic find/pickup radius and, in the process, my life/regen/resistances have taken a hit. It's definitely noticeable in pet survivability -- they crash and burn a lot more -- but I'm also moving through content a ton faster so . . . mission accomplished.
My profile nothwitstanding, this can absolutely be a budget build with lower dps and higher life/regen/resist. That's where I started it -- so if you are on a tight gear budget, do that and then once you're clearing content, you get drops and start migrating my direction
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Act IV Part III: Silver Spire and Izual - 4 Elite Packs, 1 Goblin, Izual
Part IV: Silver Spire / Great Span / Diablo - 1 Elite Pack, Diablo
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
It wouldnt let me post a link but I love your guide and I have been using it and then I got to ACT3 right after the bridge and it was like a brick wall. Im not sure if you do or not but I was wondering if you could give me any recommendations on my char? I havent been very good with farming or selling on the AH (No luck with drops) so I have to a budget build! If not no worries! Heres my page if you do /d3/en/profile/Marchosias-1153/hero/25954981
When I was doing this more conservative/budget style, my regen to pets from Blood Ritual and Regen on gear was high 1.8 - 2k and my health was above 85k. At those levels pets can really tank pretty much anything that is thrown at them other than a fast electrified hard hitting mob. Even those they lived long enough to resummon and win. At your damage, you definitely need pets to be very survivable because it's going to take you longer to down the packs and the pets need to sustain longer.
As I look at AH lately, it seems INT/VIT/Life % gear has gotten reasonably affordable -- I'd guess if you can stack a bit more of that, pets will do the work you need them to. It may be slow clearing until you start getting drops and can fill in some better dps gear but you should be able to work through the Act.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579