Fetishes DO die, and they do so routinely in act II, especially from stuff like arcane beams.
The reason why the'yre the only viable pet skills (both passive and active) is cuz they aggro elite so much they damn nearly stop in their tracks to finish the little guys off.
Speaking of fetishes, the ambush rune works great with the said bear/glass cannon/vq build. The amount of burst you can create by popping slam dance BBV, 5 stacks of SH, then fetish ambush and then bear spam (also can do WoZ in the middle somewhere) is quite incredible. sure, sometimes you'll die with both SW and SV as well as potion procing, but a lot of times you'll mow the pack down easily or at least will be able to finish them off by kiting hopefully.
I do agree that Garg is useless in act II. it started being useless for me in act 4 hell actually. dogs started become useless in act 4 normal
Yeah, pretty much. I'm petless now. Act 2, everything 1 shots my gargantuan too. What's the point? Sadly, without pets, it's near impossible to kill the ninja nagas and lacuna before they kill me. Waiting to see how they change damage in Act 2-4 in 1.0.3. I just farm Butcher all the time. Exciting.
maybe champ packs, but regular lacuna and nagas are trivial imo. takes some time to get used to avoid their attacks but its not that bad.
Im currently running 29k HP/30k damage (that includes the pierce the veil passive) and its not that bad. I'm not even running VQ right now.
against nagas (all of them) bears are great. in sewers when its tougher to maneuver standing with your back to the wall gives you a line of bears. in open space running away from them and counting then casting bears where they might appear is effective as well.
hex is also beastly in these situations.
Problem is, you don't need soul harvest on trash. You need it on bosses, where it's useless. So it's useless.
no way ! when you kite champs packs around youre bound to run into trash. and trash hits as hard as any mob really...so getting 5 stacks off a random shaman and his imps...gives you a great boost.
as far as bosses, I think the consensus is they're generally easier (even in inferno) than random elite packs with random affixes because they have clear patterns. unless you really want those five stacks of NV you can always switch SH off for bosses. lots of other useful abilities (grasp, hex) are kinda useless on bosses as well.
I didn't ignore VQ build, I just stated I dislike the idea behind it, and I don't accept Zombie Bear build a valid one. Deadrushing/spawnressing isn't a gameplay tactic! Sure, I may die on my DH, but I have 6+ god mode buffs against one (and half from passive) with cd that goes on and on. Dire Bats, that could work, but we have many high mana skills, and relying on one (imo unfun) passive to make them work is broken.
well it's not that terrible a tactic when the only alternative is to run around kiting stuff with darts. it's as viable really. also you won't spend as much time as when you are kiting with darts. what's the big difference as to when you will get one/two-shot ?
I was kiting a wasp champ pack (reflect damage/arcane/molten/some other crap) yesterday and Ive killed all the minions and the yellow one was down to like 5% health when the enrage timer kicked in and styled on me...that took some time. now I know with reflect damage its pretty much impossible to run the bears tactic but in most other cases...it proves to be faster and you only die a few more times.
You need gear and alot of farming to progress, unlike Act I were you can rape it with hell gear easilly (only Bucther requires some real lvl 61 gear).
eh the butcher doesnt really require extra gear imo...at least when playing against him as a WD. all my items bought on AH for less than 90k each, except the weapon (800 dps blue dagger). I killed him really fast with crappy HP pool, and someone with a worse weapon would kill him a bit slower but surely theyd kill him before enrage timer kicks in.
two health pools, spirit walk and spirit vessel (+potion) work real well to replenish your hp and amend mistakes. if you can avoid the hook you don't really need any special gear to beat him at all IMO.
I agree with pretty much everything but a few things that others already pointed out (hex jinx imo the best rune, etc)
The thing is, I think it's a bit unfair to talk about skills only inferno-wise. Sure, it's the endgame and there is no reason to re-roll a WD and level one again up to inferno. However, seems to me that other classes also have tons of useless skills when they hit act II inferno. and devs stated repeatedly inferno will be a grind.
and even if talking about inferno, not sure how you can ignore the infinite mana regen builds just because you don't like em...
in inferno, there are two main tactics for the 3 ranged classes in the game.
1. Kite (and be able to take a hit or two)
2. Burst damage kill em all/glass cannon build
demon hunters can use 1 and 2 at the same time so theyre the most played for farming.
for WDs, we at least have the choice in either 1 or 2 (splinters or VQ with bear spams)
now as far as clearing content faster, I think VQ with bears if you max your damage is actually better and will cost you less in spending on gear.
we as WDs get two chances with spirit walk and spirit vessel so thats 6 'free' seconds right there to spam bears if using the jaunt rune (and assuming theres no double attack for SV to fail procing)
and you're kinda ignoring that build (I mean, rain dance BBV is NOT a B )
either way, I think this is a great writeup, very detailed skill analysis. my point (kinda incoherent I know) is that most classes end up pigeonholed on inferno past Act I as well...yes it can get boring when youre choosing between dart kiting and 4 cool down watch/burst damage spamming...but its not like other classes are very diverse to play in inferno as well...to me, demon hunters become boring starting on nightmare.
1) I knew grasp would be a good skill, but its crazy how good and versatile it is. the fact that you can grasp mobs that are visible to you (not your character) on the screen and not having any LOS or distance requirement is huge. unbreakable grasp is by far the best rune here imo. slows monsters and treasure goblins down to a crawl.
Im only lvl 25 so far but it seems like it'll stay in my arsenal forever, it's that good.
2 ) toads with explosive rune is actually pretty good if you deal decent dmg. its great for those annoying swarmy things in act 2. I hear that firebomb with bouncing rune is better but I havent got to that point yet. explosive toads are fast deal good dmg and are great to clean up after you are OOM
3) hex is definitely much more useful than it looked. short cooldown and all.
4) garg. I still dont use him but Ill admit he can tank a good amount and aggro some mobs quite well.
5) haunt. this is probably only true for normal difficulty, but I like the healing rune a lot. also, haunt has very good range. put it on an rare pack champion and heal while he's alive
6) SW. even more awesome than it looked and pretty much the only reliable oh shit skill and also the only real mobility skill. any hardcore WD character will have this skill, I'll bet you anything.
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1) I thought dogs would be useless, but I didnt expect them to be useless FROM THE GET GO. lol.
2) locust swarm is meh. waay to expensive for short AOE that is DoT. the only good thing about it that it spreads fast so its decent for small spaces. I dont think you can beat a bats+frogs/firebomb combo for damage dealing to mobs that are big in numbers.
3) zombie chargers unruned/first rune is stupid
4) mass confusion is probably only viable in builds with vision quest or in a very coordinated coop with friends. same with bbv.
5) spiders arent as good as I thought. the damage is too puny. also its kinda tricky to throw them well.
Not worth starting a thread over this one, but did you notice there is no point of Bad Medicine unless you already have Jungle Fortitude. Jungle fortitude gives you 20% damage reduction unconditionally, where as bad medicine gives you 20% damage reduction ONLY if the enemy is poisoned. So the only point is if you combine Bad medicine with Jungle fortitude. I'm not going to do that, but maybe in inferno it is a good idea. That'll get you 40% damage reduction, not too shabby.
those damage reductions dont add up but multiply. so its not 40% damage reduction but rather 36% dr
not bad, but zero defensive skills...you wont be able to oneshot the boss, but he will be able to oneshoot you
I guess the plan is to do DoT and kite, but I dont know how viable it will be with big bad bosses, especially in inferno.
also, you have no mana regen AND you have a passive that increases mana cost by 30%. OOM possiblity and no defensive skills spells trouble in inferno to me.
as a starting suggestion, if you have final gift anyway, why not get a gruesome feast passive ?
gruesome feast only has a 10 second duration and with a 60 second cooldown on dogs it wont be good for long boss fights. and yes like i said this is meant to be a kite and run build. and because even with 30% more mana each dot last for around 10 seconds each so he should be fine with mana. but just in case i will just switch the rune on haunt to get 10 more mana per second. gotta remember his 20 base mana regen with zero help from gear and if your inferno you'll def have mana regen from gear helping you.
and how wouldnt it be viable? its the ONLY option for ranged classes.... lol. your going to HAVE to kite on bosses especially in inferno. your not a melee class with strong defense so you cant stand still hacking away and your pets will never be strong enough to tank inferno bosses for more then a couple seconds.
my point is I dont know how viable pets are for bosses. they have a long CD and the bosses will shred them in a second. Id get something like spirit walk for sure over pets.
not bad, but zero defensive skills...you wont be able to oneshot the boss, but he will be able to oneshoot you
I guess the plan is to do DoT and kite, but I dont know how viable it will be with big bad bosses, especially in inferno.
also, you have no mana regen AND you have a passive that increases mana cost by 30%. OOM possiblity and no defensive skills spells trouble in inferno to me.
as a starting suggestion, if you have final gift anyway, why not get a gruesome feast passive ?
you only have one defensive skill though. grasp is nice but you cant really spam it either and it will be on CD. its easy to be overwhelmed, especially solo, with your horrify already on cooldown and having only grasp as your defensive skill.
imo survival builds need to have at least 3 defensive/direct cc skills. if this isnt coop build, BM is not really needed. its nice to have, but really you have no real control over big stinkers range and acid cloud you wont be able to spam.
like faceflap said, if you intend to survive, you don't want to be anywhere close to the mobs (but imo in inferno they will find you themselves anyway) so gruesome feast is also fairly useless.
I also think that almost any heavy survival WD build should have spirit vessel.
spirit walk will be extremely useful in pvp and soloing inferno, as well as in HC mode imo.
it's the only skill that besides being the best panic moment skill WD has (along with horrify), also seems to break out of you being frozen/feared/etc.
as far as WD skills I dont like right now...
not a big fan of hex in the form Ive seen it form. too random and unpredictable. Ill try it but meh seems a bit useless unless you want a movement boost. unless you can somehow spam it with grave injustice I dont see much use for me.
spirit barriage is just a waste imo. prolly the worst skill here. single damage with runes that dont anything interesting. the only useful thing is that its not very mana-demanding.
toads in basic form is just not my thing at all.
not a huge fan of sacrifice because it implies you have to use dogs and have a specific summon build which Ill try but I like to have control and AI of pets is never good imo.
fetish army seems pretty damn weak unless you use the ambush rune...but what good is ambush when you cant control it ?
how do you find a shitty build tho ? one that works but is ridiculous or one that completely doesnt make sense and is the worst build possible as in you'll get your butt kicked in all aspects of the game ?
the bats in general seem the best damage spell of WD you can hypothetically spam (or semi-spam). its fast, effective and relatively cheap compared to other AOE/dmg spells. Im not considering DoT spells like haunt of course.
pile on does very nice damage but its kinda slow and obviously has a cooldown.
imo bats will have to be in almost anyones WD build unless you go for a heavy summon build.
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The reason why the'yre the only viable pet skills (both passive and active) is cuz they aggro elite so much they damn nearly stop in their tracks to finish the little guys off.
Speaking of fetishes, the ambush rune works great with the said bear/glass cannon/vq build. The amount of burst you can create by popping slam dance BBV, 5 stacks of SH, then fetish ambush and then bear spam (also can do WoZ in the middle somewhere) is quite incredible. sure, sometimes you'll die with both SW and SV as well as potion procing, but a lot of times you'll mow the pack down easily or at least will be able to finish them off by kiting hopefully.
I do agree that Garg is useless in act II. it started being useless for me in act 4 hell actually. dogs started become useless in act 4 normal
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Im currently running 29k HP/30k damage (that includes the pierce the veil passive) and its not that bad. I'm not even running VQ right now.
against nagas (all of them) bears are great. in sewers when its tougher to maneuver standing with your back to the wall gives you a line of bears. in open space running away from them and counting then casting bears where they might appear is effective as well.
hex is also beastly in these situations.
no way ! when you kite champs packs around youre bound to run into trash. and trash hits as hard as any mob really...so getting 5 stacks off a random shaman and his imps...gives you a great boost.
as far as bosses, I think the consensus is they're generally easier (even in inferno) than random elite packs with random affixes because they have clear patterns. unless you really want those five stacks of NV you can always switch SH off for bosses. lots of other useful abilities (grasp, hex) are kinda useless on bosses as well.
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well it's not that terrible a tactic when the only alternative is to run around kiting stuff with darts. it's as viable really. also you won't spend as much time as when you are kiting with darts. what's the big difference as to when you will get one/two-shot ?
I was kiting a wasp champ pack (reflect damage/arcane/molten/some other crap) yesterday and Ive killed all the minions and the yellow one was down to like 5% health when the enrage timer kicked in and styled on me...that took some time. now I know with reflect damage its pretty much impossible to run the bears tactic but in most other cases...it proves to be faster and you only die a few more times.
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two health pools, spirit walk and spirit vessel (+potion) work real well to replenish your hp and amend mistakes. if you can avoid the hook you don't really need any special gear to beat him at all IMO.
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The thing is, I think it's a bit unfair to talk about skills only inferno-wise. Sure, it's the endgame and there is no reason to re-roll a WD and level one again up to inferno. However, seems to me that other classes also have tons of useless skills when they hit act II inferno. and devs stated repeatedly inferno will be a grind.
and even if talking about inferno, not sure how you can ignore the infinite mana regen builds just because you don't like em...
in inferno, there are two main tactics for the 3 ranged classes in the game.
1. Kite (and be able to take a hit or two)
2. Burst damage kill em all/glass cannon build
demon hunters can use 1 and 2 at the same time so theyre the most played for farming.
for WDs, we at least have the choice in either 1 or 2 (splinters or VQ with bear spams)
now as far as clearing content faster, I think VQ with bears if you max your damage is actually better and will cost you less in spending on gear.
we as WDs get two chances with spirit walk and spirit vessel so thats 6 'free' seconds right there to spam bears if using the jaunt rune (and assuming theres no double attack for SV to fail procing)
and you're kinda ignoring that build (I mean, rain dance BBV is NOT a B )
either way, I think this is a great writeup, very detailed skill analysis. my point (kinda incoherent I know) is that most classes end up pigeonholed on inferno past Act I as well...yes it can get boring when youre choosing between dart kiting and 4 cool down watch/burst damage spamming...but its not like other classes are very diverse to play in inferno as well...to me, demon hunters become boring starting on nightmare.
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1) I knew grasp would be a good skill, but its crazy how good and versatile it is. the fact that you can grasp mobs that are visible to you (not your character) on the screen and not having any LOS or distance requirement is huge. unbreakable grasp is by far the best rune here imo. slows monsters and treasure goblins down to a crawl.
Im only lvl 25 so far but it seems like it'll stay in my arsenal forever, it's that good.
2 ) toads with explosive rune is actually pretty good if you deal decent dmg. its great for those annoying swarmy things in act 2. I hear that firebomb with bouncing rune is better but I havent got to that point yet. explosive toads are fast deal good dmg and are great to clean up after you are OOM
3) hex is definitely much more useful than it looked. short cooldown and all.
4) garg. I still dont use him but Ill admit he can tank a good amount and aggro some mobs quite well.
5) haunt. this is probably only true for normal difficulty, but I like the healing rune a lot. also, haunt has very good range. put it on an rare pack champion and heal while he's alive
6) SW. even more awesome than it looked and pretty much the only reliable oh shit skill and also the only real mobility skill. any hardcore WD character will have this skill, I'll bet you anything.
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1) I thought dogs would be useless, but I didnt expect them to be useless FROM THE GET GO. lol.
2) locust swarm is meh. waay to expensive for short AOE that is DoT. the only good thing about it that it spreads fast so its decent for small spaces. I dont think you can beat a bats+frogs/firebomb combo for damage dealing to mobs that are big in numbers.
3) zombie chargers unruned/first rune is stupid
4) mass confusion is probably only viable in builds with vision quest or in a very coordinated coop with friends. same with bbv.
5) spiders arent as good as I thought. the damage is too puny. also its kinda tricky to throw them well.
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I guess the plan is to do DoT and kite, but I dont know how viable it will be with big bad bosses, especially in inferno.
also, you have no mana regen AND you have a passive that increases mana cost by 30%. OOM possiblity and no defensive skills spells trouble in inferno to me.
as a starting suggestion, if you have final gift anyway, why not get a gruesome feast passive ?
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imo survival builds need to have at least 3 defensive/direct cc skills. if this isnt coop build, BM is not really needed. its nice to have, but really you have no real control over big stinkers range and acid cloud you wont be able to spam.
like faceflap said, if you intend to survive, you don't want to be anywhere close to the mobs (but imo in inferno they will find you themselves anyway) so gruesome feast is also fairly useless.
I also think that almost any heavy survival WD build should have spirit vessel.
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it's the only skill that besides being the best panic moment skill WD has (along with horrify), also seems to break out of you being frozen/feared/etc.
as far as WD skills I dont like right now...
not a big fan of hex in the form Ive seen it form. too random and unpredictable. Ill try it but meh seems a bit useless unless you want a movement boost. unless you can somehow spam it with grave injustice I dont see much use for me.
spirit barriage is just a waste imo. prolly the worst skill here. single damage with runes that dont anything interesting. the only useful thing is that its not very mana-demanding.
toads in basic form is just not my thing at all.
not a huge fan of sacrifice because it implies you have to use dogs and have a specific summon build which Ill try but I like to have control and AI of pets is never good imo.
fetish army seems pretty damn weak unless you use the ambush rune...but what good is ambush when you cant control it ?
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the bats in general seem the best damage spell of WD you can hypothetically spam (or semi-spam). its fast, effective and relatively cheap compared to other AOE/dmg spells. Im not considering DoT spells like haunt of course.
pile on does very nice damage but its kinda slow and obviously has a cooldown.
imo bats will have to be in almost anyones WD build unless you go for a heavy summon build.
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