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RiffSphere, I understand that some of the sets in combination with current Legendaries would actually make your character OP, if not TOO OP.  But who would ever want to use Beckon Sail and Pauldrons of the Skeleton King in their current form right now?  No one, because it doesn't mix and match with slots taken up by your set items.  Sure Blackthrones Immunity bonuses could be a huge flaw to this setup, but it could also be altered in some way that would not make it as powerful as it can be -- make it a (5) set bonus instead of (4) or change what slots the Rune it can be equipped to -- helm, shoulders, chest, neck.

The end game of Diablo will always be to look for the BiS item -- a mandatory item.  Always has been and always will be, unless you make everything equivalent to one another.  A Sup 15% EBotD CB, an Eth 50rez upped HoZ, Sup 15% Archon Plate RW'd to Enigma -- Ancient Furnace, Ancient Cindercoat, Ancient Set Items, Ancient anything really.  In games like Diablo you'll always be searching for that One item, the One item that is above all the rest.

I don't like how they implemented Set Items as the mandatory End Game either, but that's the direction they took, and I just wanted to present an idea to help the system out a little better.  With Set Items, many common Legendaries become irrelevant.  Has anyone ever wanted to use any of the Legendary Shoulders? Probably not.  Tyrael's Might, Iron Heart, or any chest piece other than Cindercoat? Stone Gauntlets?  Have you ever wanted to use Frostburns but couldn't because it would mess up your set bonuses?  These can be alleviated with this system.

The Diablo 3 Team has taken the simple route to mechanics in Diablo.  Hence, the great complex ideas the community has come up with will never be implemented in the game.  The idea has to be simple, simple to the point where an 8 year old would comprehend it.  There are so many possibilities with this game overall, but they (IMO) are very slow at changing their own game, or rather -- the changes they make are very underwhelming.



Zero(pS) I have also thought about using the runeword system as the set system, but there are just so many complications with it.  First, how many Runes would there actually be (20, 26, 30?) and what do you do with the excess Runes.  Would there be Higher class Runes (harder to find) as in Diablo 2?  How would the system work with RoRG?  I tried very hard to think of ways this could work, but it just didn't make sense with how the developers want the game to work.  To reiterate, they want whatever they implement to be very user friendly/simple.  Don't get me wrong, I love complexity, complexity brings out so much diversity, but from what I've seen them doing since Alpha -> Beta -> Live -> RoS, simple trumps complex in their view.

Remember their own version of the Rune System when they announced Diablo 3 back in '08?  There were different levels of Runes (lesser, less, minor, major, etc.) and they altered the skill to something different (3 arcane orbs instead of 1), but they also worked for every class. Reference: http://www.curse.com/news/blizzard-entertainment/17438-diablo-iii-rune-system-details
But they scrapped that because it was apparently too complex.

Hey guys I'm Debo, I Main the Witch Doctor class, ever since the beta for Diablo 3 Vanilla. Encouraging players to try out the Witch Doctor class, and enjoy Diablo 3 is my major focus. I started to do this by compiling my thoughts in guides, and streaming to provide information to those who seek it.

My Twitch Tag:

http://www.twitch.tv/spsdebo

My armory Profile:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Debo-1782/hero/1274676

Diablo Fans Link to where I keep the growing list of all WD information:

http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-class-forums/witch-doctor-the-mbwiru-eikura/95384-debos-2-1-witch-doctor-compendium

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Final Coverage for Witch Doctors PTR Patch 2.2 (Season 3)

Here is the Early coverage of Patch 2.2 on PTR, to see how development started

Early Witch Doctor Coverage

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New Items that effect/work with Witch Doctors

This is a list of the items that had the biggest impact on Witch Doctors for the upcoming patch (2.2). These items, may or may not have started off the way they are listed now, but it is safe to say these are in their finalized forms. If anything Changes I will go back and amend them

Zunimassa Gloves

• * Added to allow for the 6 Piece set Bonus

• * Takes away from the Possibility of running Tasker & Theo with Unity for Greater Rift play

Understandable why Blizzard wouldn't want Tasker & Theo to combo in with Unity. Pet build WD's with their improved damage, toughness, and skill improvement we would end up terrorizing the solo leader boards. I know a lot of people may not agree with this statement, but Zuni/SMK build can easily hit GR 46-48, while having a "Fishing potential" of Greater Rift 50-54 next season.

Zunimassa Pants

• * Was Added after Player feedback to the Developers

• * Enabled use of Unity ring with 6 Piece Zuni Sets.

These pants were included, after initial feedback with the Zuni set. Without having an additional piece to work with, it automatically made it so that a Player had to use Zunimassa Pox, and Ring of Royal Grandeur to get any viability out of the build. It was a solid choice to add an additional Zuni piece to the pants slot, being it is the most flexible area to work with.

Zunimassa Off Hand

• *The picture you see isn't of the current PTR updated version*

• * Added an additional 5th affix: *Increase Fetish Army Damage 25-30%*

• * You can't re-roll this item to have *Increase Skill Damage*, unless you are rolling the new 5th affix off this item

The change to the 5th affix won't do anything for CarnEvil Builds, they still will be rolling "Increased Poison damage" on their off hands. For Zuni/Smk builds the New affix is a welcome "buff", having the additional 10-15% increased damage to Fetish army can't do anything but help.

Belt of Transcendence

Very solid new item for Witch Doctor. It will provide many different options to passive skill usage due to Fetish Sycophants not being needed, and allowing fetish generation not requiring you to worry about proc co-efficient of skills. Most Witch Doctors are using Haunt, as a mana spender to trigger the effect of the pants.

• * Allows for us to drop Fetish Sycophants passive, and run an alternative one

• * Opens up options for 2 Hander's to generate Fetishes in a more reliable manner.

• * Multiple builds for Witch Doctor, have flexibility in-regards to what pants we use.

• * Works extremely well with Zunimassa's new 6 Piece set bonus.

• *Just for a side note, the fetishes are the same ones from "Fetish Sycophants" Passive, meaning if you ran the passive with the pants you could only have "15" "Fetish Sycophants" at one time

Haunting Girdle

Not to much to say about the Haunting Girdle. The ability to have a double cast on the Poisoned Spirit is "ok", but with the inclusion of the "Belt of Transcendence" I'm 99.9% Sure that most Witch Doctors would prefer to have 15 Fetishes that provide additional damage, and toughness over simply having an additional haunt per cast. I think they item will find its uses, but only really in early stages of development in newly created/seasons Witch Doctor.

Homunculus

• * New 5th affix: Increases Sacrifice Damage

• * Secondary Affix Change: A Zombie dog is produced every 2 seconds, down from 4-6 seconds.

Very nice buff to this item. Zombie dog generation with this item is phenomenal, which allows us to maintain multiple stacks of Sacrifice "Provoke the Pack". This, and focus & restraint made the "Tiki Sac" Build for Witch Doctors the top end build on PTR for Witch Doctors.

Little Man's Finger

This is a highly entertaining ring, and is example of when blizzard does it "right". It isn't part of a "set", it has a solid legendary effect, and versatility to be inserted into many different builds. The only thing I worry about, is what the drop rate % will be once it hits live servers.

*Side note did a little written guide for this*

Link to Small Mans Finger Guide

Ring of the Zodiac

• * Reduces the Cool down of "ONE" of our skills by 1 second for each time we use a mana spender

For zDPS, and early Witch Doctor Builds this will be a very useful ring. The only thing that holds this ring back is of the randomness of which skills will be reduced by one second, but shouldn't be to much of a problem in zDPS builds due to them benefiting from any of their long cool down skills be reduced.

Broken Ring of Promises

• * After 5 non crit Consecutive hits your Critical Chance is increased by 100% for 3 seconds

**My original thoughts for how the initial way that the ring works**

*Depending on how blizzard is going to treat this ring, a lot of things can get pretty silly. In theory you could eliminate all of the Critical Chance in your Build, run pure attack speed with Critical Damage, you could easily maintain a 100% up time on the effect of the ring. I'd imagine Blizzard will add an additional stipulation in the form of "This effect can only occur once every <insert number here> seconds. Back in the "original ptr" Legendary Gem testing phase, Enforcer gem secondary provided pets with 40% increased critical chance increase or pets, needless to say this never mate it to the light of day on the live servers.*

**How the item works now.**

• Pets no longer triggers the effect.

Apparently the Crit chance granted by the effect, carries over to your pets. With this being allowed, this ring would provide, an interesting way to itemize a WD for TIki/Sac play, or simple in efforts to Min-Max without worrying about the Crit Chance Stat whats so ever. Tiki/Sac could get a lot out of this ring until a Focus/Restraint were found, however if the WD prefers not to run focus and restraint, this would be the next viable option in Tiki/Sac play, while still allowing for a Unity ring to be used.

Focus & Restraint

I'm quite surprised to see this ring, not receive any additional alterations towards it. With the Tiki/Sac Build it turns it into a monster. The only reason this is possible to run this build in higher Greater rifts w/o unity is due to the fact Tiki/sac uses "Perma Fear" on the monsters, and runs high toughness. Blizzard can still make alterations to the ring set, but if they don't expect the top Leader Boards to reflect this set use, along with the traditional Tiki/Sac we have been using.

**Long story short**

• * If you can use these rings in your build, DO IT.

In-Geom

*My original thought upon this weapon is as follows:*

• * Nothing to complicated with this One-Handed weapon

• * Reduces our base skills cool down from 4-6 seconds

This item, could be a really big game changer in a couple of our major builds, but most specifically our ZDPS group build. I would go more into detail about this item, however I'm pretty confident that this item will not make it through the PTR test phase, but if it does I will revisit and update this section.

**The current State of the weapon**

Almost useless, in its current state. I have to agree with the nerf to this weapon, as its previous form would of been game breaking for some classes. I would however hope Blizzard will address this issue, as I do not enjoy them spending development time on items, that end up being completely useless.

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**Changes to Witch Doctor Active/Passive Skills & Set Items**

In terms of "Quality of Life" Changes for WD's Blizzard knocked it out of the park. A lot of our skills that haven't been used in a while will be use full. Hopefully in the future Blizzard can keep going back, and addressing the issues of some skills that are next to never used by most WD's. However one skill change, Spirit Walk, has unfortunately left the Jade build in ruins, and weakening the overall survivability of the WD.

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Set Changes:

**Zunimassa 6 Piece Set**

• * Enemies hit by your mana spenders take 275% additional from your pets.

• * Gloves, and Pants have been including to obtain the 6 piece bonus.

The initial damage increase from 100% ---> 150% -----> 275% was defiantly needed to make this set bonus competitive with other classes set items, and builds. I would like to see a solid 300% implemented by blizzard, but isn't really necessary. I will say this however, reducing all Major 6 Piece Set items, for all classes to only requiring 5 pieces would defiantly add a lot more flexibility, and item combinations for all classes.

**Raiment of the Jade Harvester**

Blizzard made some changes to the Jade Harvester set for the better. I will say the only complaint I have about these changes is that, the (2) piece set bonus, should be the (4) piece set requirement, and drop the (4) Piece bonus to only (2) Piece requirement.

**(2) Set Bonus**

• * When Haunt lands on an enemy already affected by Haunt, it instantly deals 10 seconds worth of Haunt damage

**(4) Set Bonus**

• * Soul Harvest gains the effect of every rune

**(6) Set Bonus**

• * Amount of DoT time detonated (via creeping death) increased from 30 to 40 seconds (This just increases Damage of the Harvest).

The overall set changes to the Jade set are fantastic HOWEVER.... The mechanics of what made the Jade Build so successful was related to the way Spirit walk worked so well with the build. With the changes to Spirit Walk, the Jades survivability within large mobs of groups is gone. Thus rendering the build useless.

**Things Blizzard could do to save the set:**

• * Increase the Dot Time detonation cap from 40 to about 70-100 Seconds

This may seem like a little much, but if it proves to be to powerful Blizzard could always reduce it. If our survivability changes that's ok, we can make

due, but need something in compensation to make up for losing out on it.

• * Allow for the 6 piece Bonus of Jade, to remove the Cool Down restraint placed upon Spirit Walk

Pretty straight forward here, reverts Spirit Walk to how it use to be only if you have 6 pieces of the Jade Set running. I think this would be a simple solution, and it wouldn't require Blizz to increase the damage any further with the jade build.

• * Enable ,after Harvesting, a Scaling Damage absorption shield base upon how many enemies you landed harvest on.

I dunno if this would be more trouble than what its worth, but it would allow for the Witch Doctors toughness to be depending on how effect, and how often the player could cast soul harvest on enemies. This would no doubt cause more programming inside of the game, but I think it would make the play-style more interesting. However out of the 3 solutions/ideas I've listed the other teo are much easier to implement.

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**Witch Doctor Skills Changes**

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**Hex**

• * Hex will now turn all enemies within a 12 yard radius into chickens, instead of just 1 enemy

• * Increased the maximum range for both Hexing enemies and healing friendlies

• * Minimum time between Hex casts by the Fetish Shaman increased from 3 to 4 seconds

• * Duration for which enemies can be Hexed reduced from 4 to 3 seconds

A beautiful change to a spell that hasn't been in Witch Doctor use. It provides Crowd control, damage amp, and it doesn't cost any mana. It works on trash mobs, and elites and should be included in any build when you feel you are lacking a skill to finish rounding out your build.

**Fetish Army "Fetish Ambush"**

• *Weapon damage dealt by each Fetish when it is summoned increased from 250% to 680%

I'm gonna keep this short. Unless your using some sort of cold pet build this changes is worthless. The damage from summoning the fetishes isn't worth it due to, the damage loss from taking the fetishes off their current target while due to summoning them.

**What Blizzard should of done**

• * "Summon 5 Fetishes of Cold property, that "Cleave/Splash Attack" for a "% of the damage it deals* To all enemies within "Insert Radius" *Health Globe pick Up radius improves the Cleave/Splash area* up to a maximum "20 yards"

It would be nice for a Cold pet build, if the main focus of pets were to be "Cleave/Splash" damage.

**Spirit Walk**

• * Cool down reduced from 15 to 12 seconds

• * This ability does not start its cool down until after its effects expire

This change has no effect on pet builds, but Ruins the Jade Build. I won't go to much into how bad this change is, because it would take hours, but a couple of ideas on how they could fix this issue.

• * Decrease the Cool Down to 6-8 Seconds

• * Allow for it to be affected by Grave Injustice, even if the WD is still under the effects of the skill.

• * Give a Small 1-2 Seconds of invulnerability when a WD comes out of its effect.

• * Implement an item that increases the duration of Jaunt Spirit walk Rune for every enemy you kill while under the effects of it.

They have said they would take into some consideration to helping with the Spirit Walk nerf, but we haven't seen anything yet. So until then I expect 99.9% of the Witch Doctors will be running pet builds for season 3.

**Soul Harvest**

• * Intelligence bonus granted by each enemy harvested increased from 2% to 3%

Great solid change here, I have no complaints. Will syn-energize with Gruesome feast, and builds that build a lot of intelligence.

• * Skill Rune - Languish Has been redesigned Increases your Armor by 30% and reduces enemy movement speed by 80%

I don't mind the change that it increases armor, but it is a little weird since pre-patch 2.0 Horrify Frightening aspect had its Armor nerfed from 100% increased armor all the way down to 30%. They could of alternatively left "Frightening Aspect" at 100% increased armor, or reduced it down to 60%. The biggest errors in the balancing process is when you devote time to changing, or developing a certain skill to be a certain way, and then undermining that change, later through buffing of other skills, and or items. To add armor to soul harvest is a little silly at this point.

**What I hope they do:**

• * Change Horrify FA* to give 60% increased armor, and change Languish for soul harvest to something else entirely

• * Change Soul Harvest Languish, to 60% Increased armor, and Change Horrify FA* to something else entirely

**Haunt**

• * Skill Rune - Consuming Spirit Life per second increased from 2682 to 4291 Damage type changed from Cold to Fire

Haunt now has every single element possible. With that being said, no one is going to use this skill, hopefully they look back into this in the future.

• * Skill Rune - Poisoned Spirit Bug Fixes Fixed an issue that prevented this rune from increasing the damage of itself

Glad that this was addressed, and patched.....nothing to see here people.

**Plague of Toads "Rain of Toads"**

• * Proc coefficient has been reduced

Not a Big deal since Fetish Sycophants (Passive Skill) chances have been buffed by 5% (Making it a 15% chance to proc fetishes with an attack)

**Summon Zombie Dogs "Final Gift" ---> "Chilled to the Bone"**

• *Skill Rune - Final Gift Has been removed, Replaced with: Chilled to the Bone

• * Enemies hit or hit by Zombie Dogs are Chilled for 3 seconds and take 10%-15% increased damage from all sources

This was a fantastic change, and it does Two things:

• * Nerfs the Legacy Zero Dogs Build, that was only obtainable if you played the original vanilla Diablo

• * Provides us extra damage on any enemies the zombie dogs are attacking

Way to go blizzard, nice to see a Cold rune property for zombie dogs, let alone have a rune effect that actually is very solid.

**Fetish Sycophants "Passive Skill"**

• * 15% Chance to spawn a fetishes pet , after successfully landing an attack on an enemy

Up from 10% can't really complain about that, I'll take the extra 5% increase

• * At the time of spawning, what ever is your highest elemental Damage, these fetishes take on that property

Fantastic quality of life change, this will allow for a lot of alternative builds to function much better, and optimize all their elemental damage for pets to one type.

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**New Legendary Gems**

These legendary gems is a nice change of pace. They've included one new defensive spell, and one new offensive spell. The defensive one looks like a solid choice with early level mitigation, but will fall wayside once Double unity combo is found. And Ice blink might aid Cold pet builds, but unfortunately is the weakest out of all elements for pet based builds.

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**Ice blink (Season 3 Exclusive)**

• * Your Cold skills now apply Chill effects and your Chill effects now slow enemy movement speed by an additional 5%

• * The additional movement speed reduction is increased by .4% per rank

• * At rank 25 you gain 10% increased chance to critically strike Chilled or Frozen enemies

This combined with Bane of the Trapped shall yield some very interesting results. Also depending on how well the movement speed reduction scales could literally leave enemies standing in their place unable to come directly at you. The 10% Crit chance is also nice, meaning you could drop Crit chance of some pieces of your gear, and run other stat affix's.

**Mutilation Guard**

• * Gain 10% melee damage reduction

• * Melee damage reduction is increased by 1% per rank

• * At rank 25 while below 50% life, you may move through enemies unhindered

I wish they would change from Melee damage reduction to "all damage reduction", but hey for what its worth it is a step in the right direction. It will help people out early on in seasons, and provide them decent damage mitigation until people are able to find toughness through their gear, or Double Unity combo.

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**Witch Doctor Build Rankings (As of Current PTR Testing)**

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**1. Focus & Restraint Tiki Sac**

Focus & Restraint takes this build to the next level, with the Perma Fear the Tiki Helm provides, and toughness increases to pet WD's, you won't need to run Unity ring anymore. The Damage increase provided from F& R takes it to another level higher then CarnEvil. If no changes happens to F & R expect to see this build on Season 3 Leader Boards

**2. Zuni CarnEvil**

CarnEvil was already a build showing a lot of promise, but with the ability to use the new 6 piece Zuni set with it, allowed this build that topped out in the mid forties, be able to run all the way into the mid fifty's. Very easy set to build for, and gaining popularity, this build will re-occur it's self in the top 50 WD's on any server, quite easily.

I did a side guide on this:

Link to Zuni/Carn Build

**3. Zuni SMK**

My personal favorite, out of the new builds that are coming out of PTR. Very easy to run, not a lot of weakness outside of the lack of AOE damage, and overall just a lot of fun. This is a good alternative for players who may tire of tiki/sac, and CarnEvil builds. I will be personally running this build for Season 3.

I did a side guide on this:

Link to Zuni/SMK Guide

**4. Tiki Sac**

Same build as above, only difference this version runs Unity, and Stone Of Jordan as opposed to Focus & Restraint

**5. CarnEvil**

Same Build as above, just not running the 6 piece Zuni set along with it

**6. Jade**

Not gonna spend to much time talking about this build, in its current state on ptr it is in shambles. Hopefully Blizzard does some re balancing, tuning to make this build at least competitive with others.

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Overall Thoughts about the Witch Doctor Class, for season 3 Video:

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Wizard Tier 59 4p (DH PoV)

Hi everyone,

you might know me from over at the DH forums. I'm just here to share my latest video, a 4-player tier 59 run. Avoid of our clan has found a way to boost the Wizard's dps to crazy levels in specific situations, making use of the Hydra spell alongside Flame Blades. It's really strong, potentially stronger than a 2xDH combo, and excels when fighting many targets at once. This clear was done a few nights ago and recently Avoid has agreed to let me stream and share it, so here it is. We have done only a few runs, spawning the RG in time almost every time up to tier 60 (but unfortunately we always got a very bad RG on 60). In this particular clear, we managed to use only one 58 key and upgrade it to 59 and 60 afterwards. Since the season is so short, we will not continue to push further because both Avoid and me are busy pushing for rank 1 solo, but it certainly has the potential to clear 61-62 and take the rank 1 non-sever clear if you put in some time to fish for a good rift.

Previously, whenever a Wizard tried to enter a group for serious greater rift attempts, he would have to resort to playing a different class or would have to be carried by his teammates. With this new build (that I don't know all the details of, but you should be able to tell just from seeing and hearing the video), Wizards can be a good or even better alternative to a second DH in groups.

The Wizard had the potential all along - and this is a prime example of how focusing on only one class will ultimately leave everyone blind to other options. It's not an optimal situation to have only two options for the dps slots, but it's certainly better than one. I hope this encourages everyone to try out new things, especially with all the changes coming up in season 3, and not just sit there crying for buffs or nerfs =)

[Further links]

DH profile

Wiz profile

Crus profile

WD profile

Avoid's livestream

Clx's livestream

My livestream

[EU leaderboards - 4 player - S2]

[Diabloprogress - Wizards - 4 player - S2]

Reddit Link

Official Forums Link

[Summary, FAQ and video compilation at the bottom]

Hi everyone,

so it's been a while and with season 1 now being concluded, I decided to come out with a few things that I have learned about DH in 2.1.2 recently. Because I got a little unlucky with pylons pre-patch, I still had to up my rank a bit before the end of the season, so I decided to try out various things. As always, there was so much misinformation floating around on the forums that I decided it would be best to not trust any of it, and after some initial testing, I went with Cluster Arrow. Following some disappointing attempts with the grenade-heavy runes of the skill I realized that in solo play, the accuracy and utility of rockets is pretty much unbeatable, so I was left with two choices: Physical and Cold. Since the mainstream was focusing on Cold so much, I decided to start with the other one first, and cleared a tier 50 rift after two tries on patchday, and my tier 52 rift quickly thereafter, lifting me up to the second highest DH solo clear after patch 2.1.2 (only to be beaten by my clan mate Kampfkoloss) and a top 10 spot overall. I have also used this build on my hardcore character to get two then-rank 1 spots (tier 44 + 45, beating my own previous rank 1 twice) shortly after the patch, even with suboptimal items, and also took it to even higher tiers with great success.

Since I didn't want to rely on my gut feeling alone, I needed some math to back it up. I wanted to be as exact as possible in order to produce the best possible combination of items, skills and stats; some basic napkin math just didn't catch it, so I crafted a spreadsheet to include everything. I calculated the damage versus various amounts of enemies, factoring in accuracy loss (because you can't hit everything all the time) and area damage, different weapons (generic 2h Xbow, generic 2h Bow, Etrayu, Kridershot, Calamity), various combinations of runes for Kridershot, follower, sentry deployment and multiplier for sentry effectiveness, health globes, CD use, buff uptime, time spent on RG / elites / trash packs, legendary gems, generator:spender ratios, just everything, and weighed the numbers to my best knowledge. Even though I had ceased testing with Hexing Pants pretty quickly back on the ptr, I was encouraged by oogieboogie to continue to do so on live, and I have also plotted this item against the very common Pride's Fall, with interesting results. (FYI: You can keep the bonus of Hexing Pants when constantly stutter stepping).

Here is a screenshot of a part of the spreadsheet to give you an idea how I calculated things in there. Disclaimer: The purpose is not to calculate actual damage values, but to provide a comparison for different builds. (Full-scale link: http://puu.sh/fpAvZ/6b1f3247a1.png)

There is also a second page where I basically calculated the effectiveness of the different runes based at its heart on "rift composition", which looks like this. (Full-scale link: http://puu.sh/fmjnj/16126b7bcc.png)

There's also some more, like a whole page devoted to Kridershot and the results of all the different weapon types. Still, the most interesting part of this whole thing is this, where "Element = 1 is cold, = 0 is physical":

Note that physical pulls ahead for every weapon type. Cold vs. physical is pretty close for Kridershot, because I included the Spitfire Turrets for cold, but not for physical (since you will slow with Elemental Arrow), causing the gap to narrow by ~8%. For every other weapon, physical wins out by approximately 10%, even considering that you will spent a lot less time on the RG and elite packs because the rockets are considerably stronger in those situations. Hexing Pants lose effectiveness if you get a power pylon and gain some more if you get a channeling. If you lose Pride's Fall buff more than once per minute, you should use Hexing Pants in any case. If you get a plagued elite pack during your rift, Hexing Pants is almost guaranteed to be better.

The numbers uses in this spreadsheet are the values I have on my items; I used the same numbers for all bows (because I have neither an Etrayu nor a Kridershot), my Xbow and Bow rolls are within ~2-3% of the maximum, while my Calamity is lacking behind by ~6-7%.

Some further information about itemization:

- Resource cost reduction is king

- Hatred reg vs RCR on quiver is about ~1% worse for Xbow, increasing up to ~3% for Calamity. Hatred reg + RCR is also an option (another 1-4% worse than CA)

- Area Damage is very strong, close to RCR on quiver and weapon (~-2-3% worse), depending on rift layout this might even shift into a net gain

- CDR is not really important (e.g. dropping 12,5% gem is a ~3% loss), the best combination for shoulders is RCR, Sentry, Area Damage

- CA wins out by far vs Sentry on quiver

- Taeguk is the best third legendary gem to use in conjunction with Zei's and Bane of the Trapped, by far. Enforcer is an option in group play (requires ~150% external damage increased by skills at about rank 60 of both gems). BotP is a ~3-10% loss.

- Ancient Saffron Wrap is an option compared to nonancient Witching Hour (2-5% worse)

- Hellfire Amulet is probably unbeatable

- Using a generic 1h Xbow is not worth it, Calamity is a ~8-12% boost

- Always get % damage on your weapon, and add RCR to it (not for Etrayu). IAS is okay for Kridershot as well (~2-4% worse)

- Kridershot 3 Hatred vs 4 Hatred is a ~3-4% dps increase

- Dropping Reaper's Wraps for IAS bracers is an option, possibly a gain with high attack speeds

- Elite dmg is not included in the calculations, but it should be safe to assume that you will be fighting elites about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time, thus every point of elite damage should boost your overall dps by ~0.5%

- Zei's is not included for now, it's safe to assume that your sentries benefit a little less than you do, and Kridershot with Spitfire Turrets will benefit a bit more from Zei's

The exact skills used are these: Build

Use Steady Aim, Single Out or Night Stalker (with Calamity) as your 5th passive, and Frost Arrow + Spitfire Turrets or Nether Tentacles as your generator with Kridershot.

Some closing remarks: Please note that by choosing to run physical, you won't suddenly clear tier 50 easily. It's still difficult, you are still going to get oneshot, you will still have to dodge everything. It's a ~10% increase over cold, plain and simple, if you have a well-rolled Etrayu, it's even less. For lower tiers, you can still stack toughness and Unity if you like, the gearing priorities don't change at all. I hope this information helps and encourages you to try out the physical element of the Demon Hunter and make your character stronger as a whole. The spreadsheet will be improved upon in the future, and I have many ideas that I need to include and test ingame, but this will take some weeks or months. I will share what I know when I find out new things.

I will return to streaming very soon, I just had a busy time at university during the last weeks/months, but this will be over in a few days. Feel free to check out my Twitch channel if you want to watch me play and interact with me, or look for me on Youtube. If you are interested in more of my recent work, you should check out this thread and the links there for some information on the lightning DH in 2.1.2. (As of now, I'm not sure if lightning will take the top spots in the end, since you essentially need to stack layer upon layer of good RNG (in terms of drops and rift) in order to complete a tier ~55+ rift, which makes it a lot easier for versatile builds like this to achieve.)

Cheers,

wudijo

Video compilation

Tier 52 sc [Era 1]

Tier 48 hc [S1]

Tier 52 sc [Era 2]

Tier 45 hc [S2]

Kridershot + Taeguk demo

Tier 51 sc [S2]

Tier 52 sc [S2]

Tier 49 hc [S2]

Summary

Physical is about 10% stronger for solo GRs that you complete in close to 15 minutes. For this purpose, almost all the weapon choices are very close to each other (given equal rolls), and cold Kridershot or cold Etrayu can compete. Quick runs favor cold, and groups favor fire. Stack RCR, learn to use Taeguk and run with zero toughness for maximum efficiency.

FAQ

Keep in mind that I use some more clear-cut answers here than usual to keep it short. As always, usually the answer is "it depends", and you should read it up if you want to know the details. You'll find it somewhere.

Is physical really better at all times?

- No, it isn't. These calculations are done with very concrete assumptions in mind, and there will be rifts where cold will in fact be close to or even better than physical, but these are very rare. In turn you will also find rifts where physical is even stronger. I've tried to strike a balance here. Especially for speed runs and T6 you might want to consider cold because you'll oneshot many enemies anyway. Fire is not an option for solo.

Which weapon should I use?

- Usually I just recommend to use your best-rolled weapon. You have to keep in mind that these calculations are done assuming exactly 900 seconds runtime. Xbows gain an advantage for quick runs because you have to spend less time shooting and regenerating, same for group runs where you usually have people spawning globes for you. In extreme cases (e.g. zerodog WD), a fast weapon will be better.

Which build should I use for groups?

- Usually it's fire cluster. Cluster Bombs vs. Loaded for Bear is still open to discussion, both is used by top performing groups. Each has its advantages, just try them out. Physical can be really good in speed runs where it's your job to kill elites and RGs, e.g. when you have Monks or Barbs clearing the trash.

What to choose if I don't want to use Taeguk?

- Difficult to answer, because all the options are really bad. Usually I recommend BotP, but you really should get used to Taeguk if you want to go higher. Enforcer can be an option in groups if you die a lot, Pain Enhancer is crap. If you don't like any of these options, get a Phys, Dex, CC, CHD amulet.

So what's better, Hexing Pants or Pride's Fall?

- I recommend Hexing Pants for Xbows and Kridershot, Pride's Fall for anything else. If you don't like Hexing Pants, Pride's Fall is still fine. Other options are not even close dps-wise. For groups, always use Pride's Fall.

So how about the 5th passive?

- In short, my preference: Single Out > Night Stalker > Steady Aim. For speed runs, you can consider Blood Vengeance. For more info, see above. I strongly recommend to craft a Hellfire.

How should I reroll my items?

-Check the part about itemization above, and don't use any toughness. If you don't want to go full glass cannon, you can use a Unity instead of SoJ. For more toughness, replace these stats in the following order of priority: 1) Shoulders: Sentry -> % Life 2) Chest: Sentry -> % Life 3) Shoulders: Area Damage -> Vit 4) Helm: Cluster -> Vit 5) Quiver: Resource -> Vit

Updates

Edit 4 Feb 2015: Added links to Reddit and official forums

Edit 25 Feb 2015: Added video compilation and FAQ

Edit 28 Feb 2015: Added a quick summary

@Zero Thanks! Just added some Paragon Tab U.I. previews as TLDR

TLDR - Paragon User Interface Preview

Offensive Paragon Stats: http://s10.postimg.org/hkkcgd05z/offensive_tldr.png

Defensive Paragon Stats: http://s2.postimg.org/red0m7hmv/defensive_tldr.png

Utility Paragon Stats: http://s16.postimg.org/jsg29eqib/utility_tldr.png

Skills Paragon Stats: http://s16.postimg.org/6t2b6nxdf/skills_tldr.png

Paragon 2.0 was one of the best change introduced to the game to reward players for their time but at it's current state, it pretty much end up as a flat-increase to primary stats because eventually everyone will max out the stats that are capped and put remaining points into primary stats.

Some of the problems with current functionality are:

• You have useless utilities (e.g. gold find) which doesn't really help you in Greater Rifts or once you have billions of gold

• You cannot spend Utilitiy paragon points on Core paragon stats even if you wanted to due to capping and restrictions per category





• Having a cap on most paragon stat end up with everyone having those maxed out with only primary stats to spend on (e.g. no creativity / choice)

With next version of Paragon System, I would like to propose some changes that will not only address above issues but allowing Paragon System to open up massive number of ways to create your own builds and diversify the existing skills and item synergies.

Introducing Paragon System v.3.0

Goal of the new Paragon System is to make all under performing skills viable by lifting whatever major limitation / flaw of those skills and at the same time address pretty much all current outstanding issues that are limiting us from having build diversity, whether it's from gears (1h / 2h / shields) or skills. This makes your imagination the most important performance factor instead of number of paragon points you have.

There are 4 major categories with 6 paragon stats each (but no restriction on where you spend paragon points as with current system).

--

Category : OFFENSIVE

Offensive Stat 1.

Each point reduce your damage done to more than 3 enemies by 0.5% but increases your damage to 3 or less by 2% (max 100 points)

This helps builds with massive AOE damage but very low single target damage.At max points = Sacrifice 50% AOE Damage for +200% S.T.Damage.

Offensive Stat 2.

Each point deals 0.1% of your elemental resistance as increased elemental damage of same type. Does not stack with existing bonus from gears (max 100 points)

At max points = 10% of your highest elemental resist (fire/cold/physical etc.) are added to elemental damage of same type. e.g. If you have 1000 cold resistance, it will add +100% (minus any cold damage bonus from gear) to cold damage. This opens up multi-elemental type builds.This stat will be more favorable to INT-primary classes (WIZ/WD) who gets all resist with primary stats as it should be, they are the elementals of the game, but it generally make use of single resistance secondary stat.

Offensive Stat 3.

Each point increases proc chance and multiplies damage of your Area Damage by 0.2% (max 100 points)

At max points = You will have 20% additional chance to proc area damage (=40%) and total area damage you deal are increased by 20% multiplicatively. This will synergize well with single target skills and single target paragon stat above.

Offensive Stat 4.

Moving every 1 yards increase your critical hit damage of your next critical hit by (0.01% per point) then reset (0.05% per point) second after successful critical hit (max 100 points)

At max points = 1% critical damage increase for each 1 yard moved allowing some serious initial impact through high cooldown spender and pet builds. Bonus is reset after 5 seconds of successful critical hit. Mobility skills such as teleport suddenly becomes interesting.

Offensive Stat 5.

Each point grant you 10% weapon damgage as thorn damage. Thorn damage in gears are now changed to (thorn stat / 1000)% chance to proc thorn. (max 100 points)

At max points = 1000% weapon damage to attacker per thorn proc. e.g. If you have 40000 thorn damage from gear, you now have (40000/1000=40%) chance to proc thorn that deal 1000% weapon damage when hit.

Offensive Stat 6.

Each point increases your base damage of weapon by 2 (max 100 points)

At max points = Your weapon base damage is increased by 200. Dagger has 323.25 average base damage so maxing this paragon stat effectively increase your damage by 61.8%! This paragon stat makes fast weapons like dagger or one-had weapon in general more competitive against 2H weapons. 2H weapons benefit less from this stat. For example, 1 aps 2H mace has 1830.5 average damage and maxing this stat only grants 10.9% increased damage.

-----------------------------------------

Category : DEFENSIVE

It is important that defensive not only increase your defence but also improve the playstyle and effectiveness of your offensive ability indirectly to be a worthy competitor against other categories.

Defensive Stat 1.

Each point increase your chance to dodge by 0.1%. Every time you dodge an attack, you get (0.2 per points) movement speed for 1 second (max 100 point)

At max points = You get 10% chance to dodge and each dodge grant you 20% move speed bonus for 1 second.

Defensive Stat 2.

Each point increase your chance to block attacks with shield by 0.5% and reduces damage received from blocked attack by 0.2% per point (max 100 point)

At max points = You have 50% chance to block attacks as well as 20% damage reduction from blocked attack. This make shield viable option for all classes and further improves crusaders offensive skills based on shield block chance as well as defensive passives using block chance.

Defensive Stat 3.

Each point reduces duration you are affected by Crowd Control by 0.5% and damage taken during Crowd Control by 0.8% (max 100 points)

At max points = You will have 50% reduction in duration of Crowd Control and take 80% less damage while under Crowd Control. This will be favorable defensive stat for those who decide not to embrace perma CC immunity build setup.

Defensive Stat 4.

Each point increases your Recovery stats (e.g. life per hit, life regeneration) effectiveness by 2% (max 100 points)

At max points = You will have 3 times the life per hit, life regeneration, life per resource spent stat invested.

Defensive Stat 5.

Each point increases your chance to dodge fatal attacks by 0.1%. Every death dodge increase your damage by 10% until the stack is reset upon death (max 100 points)

At max points = You have 10% chance to dodge attacks that would normally have killed you instantly. No internal cooldown to this proc. Each death dodge increasing your damage until it is reset upon death.

Defensive Stat 6.

Each point increases your armor and resistances by 0.5% (max 100 points)

This is the primary base defence boost. At max points = 50% increased all resistances and armor stat invested.

-----------------------------------------

Category : UTILITY

Utility Stat 1.

Each point increase your movement speed by 0.5% (max 100 points)

At max points = 50% increased movement speed. Bonus MS from this paragon is added on top of your current MS speed. e.g. If you have 12% already on boots, you will have 62% MS with full 1000 points assigned. This will synergize well with mobility offensive stat #4 above.

Utility Stat 2.

Each point increase duration of your Crowd Control abilities by 1% (max 100 points). Duration bonus is halved for elites.

This will be powerful paragon stat choice for support roles in group play. Elites CC reduction is respected and this bonus is applied as multiplication to existing CC reduction so that it does not grant perma CC. At max points = Doubles your CC abilities duration.

Utility Stat 3.

Each point increase chance that you will be refunded 50% of your resource spent by 0.5% (max 100 points)

At max points = You have 50% chance that 50% of your resource spent will be refunded. This makes faster attack speed build more viable. Note this is a refund so life per resource spent is not affected.

Utility Stat 4.

Each point increase chance that your skill cooldown will be reduced by 10% of remaining cooldown by 0.05% (max 100 points)

At max points = You have 10% chance that your attack or skill reduces remaining cooldown of all your skills by 5%. For example, when this procs, and you had 30 seconds remaining, you will now have 28.5 seconds remaining. If you have 5 seconds remaining you will have 4.75 seconds remaining after the proc.

Utility Stat 5.

Each point increase item stat bonuses of gears (excludes set items) by 0.2%(max 100 points)

Makes all rubbish gears viable. At max points = 20% extra benefit from all item stats (attack speed, stats, crits, cdr, rcr) from gears. e.g. Item with 500 str, 10% crit chance, 50% crit damage, 20% Elemental Damage will provide (600 str, 12% crit chance, 60% crit damage, 24% elemental damage)

Utility Stat 6.

Each point increase the bonus stats from follower gears by 3% (max 100 points)

At max points = Your follower will have 300% bonuses they receive from their gears. This will make them more competitive against invincible follower mode as they can use their CC skills much more often, do more damage and survive better when they have access to all skills or have 50% reduced cooldown which will benefit the additional CDR or AS from their gears.

-----------------------------------------

Category : SKILLS

Skills Stat 1.

Each different elemental damage type you deal increases your damage by0.1% per point for 3 seconds, cooldown refreshed upon stack (max 100 points)

At max points with 4 different elemental type skills you use within last 3 seconds, you will deal 40% additional damage. Encourage multi elemental builds.

Skills Stat 2.

Each point increases chance that your resource generator attacks will deal double damage by 0.5% (max 100 points)

At max points = You have 50% chance that resource generators will deal double the skill weapon damage.

Skills Stat 3.

Each point increases your DoT skill damage by 0.1% for every 1% of health you are missing (max 100 points)

At max points = If you have 95% health missing, grants your DoT skills 950% damage boost! Generally improves the current under-performing DoT skills (i.e. all of them). Especially for classes with DoT build with temporary but massive damage reduction(e.g. WD spirit walk, Barb rend with new Nerves of Steel, Crusader Falling sword with Stop time etc. at the right moment)

Skills Stat 4.

Each point increases damage and resource cost done by each stacked (continuous) channeled attack by 0.1% (max 100)

At max point = For example you have stacked channels 20 times, you will deal 200% increased damage but the channel will cost 200% resource cost. This will make faster attack speed build viable for channeled skills as well as resource cost reduction a favorable stat. You will be able to do effective short bursts even with channeled skills at the cost of requiring additional resource generation methods.

Skills Stat 5.

Each point increase the area size of all your attacks by 0.1 yard (max 100 points)

At max points = You will do 10 yard increase to any skills you deal. Single target attack becomes 10 yard AOE with full damage. This will synergize very well with Area Damage as well as improving single target skills to be more viable.

Skills Stat 6.

Each point reduces the area size of all your attacks by 0.5 yard (minimum single target) but increases the damage done by 0.5% per point. (max 100 points)

At max points = You will have 50 yards reduced radius of all attacks but deal 50% additional damage. This makes AOE damage more viable. Note the bonus is restricted to skill's AOE radius. So radius cannot be reduced below single target radius. Basically you will only get maximum benefit if your skill has 50 yards or more damage radius. Thus making this more favorable to larger AOE skills and runes that increase radius more attractive.

You can add points to both of above two stats to create a mixed and most effective damage output of your skills to the desirable radius. e.g. skill with 40 yards radius can be increased to 50 yards using the maxed out stat #5 then also max out stat #6 to create a single target concentrated damage spender from the 40-yard AOE skill.

Well I hope you will also see huge benefit and diversity these paragon stats will bring to the game. Of course they need some fine tuning but hopefully you can see how these address major build-stopping flaws we have in the game due to skill and gear mechanics.

Official forum thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16719302314

max

I was browsing through the forums searching for the word "rune" and came across an old post about runeword's which got me thinking about how they could work in Diablo 3.

The reference to the old post is here: http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-general-forums/diablo-iii-general-discussion/97425-rune-word-concept-in-diablo-3-what-do-you-think

The new developers of Diablo seem to want things very... simple.  So the aforementioned link probably was not suitable to their tastes.  However, with the idea in mind, I felt like sharing a simple version of what I think Runes could be in Diablo 3 by converting Set Items as Runes that you place on normal Legendaries.

In Diablo 3, Set Items play a major role in how powerful your character becomes, however with the introduction of more new sets, the chances of actually completing one set diminishes with each additional set.  Every new set added will increase the item pool that an individual would have to go through to complete a set. What I wanted to do is present an idea that could potentially shrink down that item pool while keeping the entertainment of finding items.

My idea is to convert Set Items to Runes.  This system will shrink the item pool size of 6-8 items per set to only 1 item, the Rune. The Rune will essentially have all the bonuses that Set’s consist of while also creating an opportunity for more build diversity in combination with other Legendaries.  By becoming a Rune, the underused Legendaries become more valuable.  The items that the Rune would be applied to would not need a socket, somewhat similar to that of Ramaladni’s Gift.   To help represent this I will give an example of a rune:

Rune of Tal Rasha’s Elements
Consumable
Use this item and select a Helm, Neck, Shoulder, Chest, Gloves, Waist, Boots, or Source.  This item is destroyed in the process.

(2) Set Bonus
Damaging enemies with Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning will cause a Meteor of the same damage type to fall from the sky.  There is an 8 second cooldown for each damage type.

(4) Set Bonus
Attacks increase your resistance to that element by 100% for 6 seconds.

(6) Set Bonus
Attacks Increase your damage by 175% for 6 seconds.  Arcane, Cold, Fire, and Lightning attacks each add one stack (maximum of 4).  Adding a stack refreshes the duration.

Let’s take an example of how you might use this Rune while also taking a look at how a lackluster item becomes more attractive.  Say you found Magefist and an Ancient Tyrael’s Might along with 2 of the Runes of Tal Rasha.  In the current game, the Magefist can be used in some Fire builds along with pieces of a set; however, the Tyrael’s Might would more than likely be scrapped immediately. But, because of Runes the Tyrael’s Might has a chance to be relevant now.  Although a Cindercoat would probably be considered the Meta; this Tyrael’s Might is still something to be considered useful like any other common Legendary you may find since it is, Ancient.  So now you have Magefist and an Ancient Tyrael’s Might, you right-click and apply your Runes onto the Magefist and Ancient Tyrael’s Might.  Now you have the 2 piece set bonus for Tal Rasha’s Elements along with the attributes from both Legendaries.

This system might be too complex for the game and it could cause potential problems.  Some concerns are listed below:
  -It could cause people to hoard even more loot in their stash.

  -Runes do not give a Forgotten Soul, like a normal set item would be able to give.

  -It could be too easy to complete a set this way.

  -Balancing issues with how often these Runes should drop.

  -Easy way to obtain Ancient set pieces.

  -What to do with other set items such as Bul Kathos, Chantodo’s, Focus/Restraint, Blackthrone’s, Blacksmith set items -- should those be converted to Runes too?

  -How to replace current Rune on X gear -- Magefist has Tal Rasha but I want to apply Delsere’s Magnum Opus Rune to  it instead.  Should this system allow you replace said Rune by simply overriding it, or require a Crafter to remove the old Rune, or should you not be able to apply a new rune to an existing piece?

I don’t know how well this system would work, but I just wanted to give an idea of what other systems they could implement to the game.  The set item mentality worked great for World of Warcraft, but that's also due to the fact that those sets died along with the content they were released in. In Diablo however, sets do not die out, and we will continue to use what we had an opportunity to obtain.  Currently in Diablo, there are 3 sets for each class (yes this includes Invoker’s).  With the release of patch 2.2 -- 3 of the 6 classes will now have 4 sets.  So a pool of ~18 items is now ~24; and this is only including the set items.  With each patch, there are more and more gear, increasing the item pool size, while decreasing % chance of obtaining a specific item.  I’m not actually sure if it DOES decrease the % chance to get what you want, but it seems like it would.  Many of you might enjoy the item hunt that comes with the increased item pool size, so it might just be me that is despairing in my lack of fortunate drops.

Suggestions would be most gracious.