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Jade WD ptr patch 2.4 solo grifts (77+) - rank 1 wd ptr guide!

by last updated Nov 28, 2015 ( Patch 2.3 )
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Skills

  • Piranhas Piranhado
  • Haunt Poisoned Spirit
  • Spirit Walk Jaunt
  • Soul Harvest Swallow Your Soul
  • Horrify Frightening Aspect
  • Locust Swarm Cloud of Insects
  • Creeping Death
  • Confidence Ritual
  • Grave Injustice
  • Spirit Vessel

Items

More Details

  • Legendary Gems

    • Bane of the Trapped
    • Bane of the Stricken
    • Esoteric Alteration

Kanai's Cube

  • The Furnace
  • Quetzalcoatl

Hey DiabloFans readers, rank 1 wd actual ptr patch 2.4 (before leaderbords reset) here!

I would like to explain one of the actual strongest jade builds in the ptr of patch 2.4, in end game,, capable to clear grifts 80+ in solo.

In the list, as you can see, there are some items missing:


- as bracers, you should use the new bracers called Lakumbra's Ornament. Why? Because it reduces all damage taken by 5% for each stack of Soul Harvest you have!

- as ring in the Kanai cube, you should use the new ring called Ring of Emptiness. Why? Because with it in the cube you deal 100% increased damage to enemies affected by both your Haunt and Locust Swarm!


Another thing: dmg% = haunt %damage.


Let me explain briefly why some of the items above are important in the new jade build.

We have first of all the revisited Endless Walk set (Traveler's Pledge-Compass Rose).

This is the new description of the 2.4 bonus: While moving, damage taken is reduced by up to 50%, while standing still, damage dealt is increased by up to 100%.

Very good bonuses for jade build, because it is a build that attack standing still near group of monsters or elite packs, but has to move to allow the wd to survive.

So, a good gameplay could garantee you nice damage buff and nice damage taken reduction.

The Haunting Girdle belt is good because with it is like you have the classic (for who played jade build several patches ago) Resentful Spirit rune of Haunt.

Regarding rings, unity is fundamental to survive (you must put another unity to the follower together with Enchanting Favor relic if you use the templar).

The cerimonial knife Sacred Harvester is in perfect harmony with the new wd bracers!

The new mojo Vile Hive gives you the following great power: Locust Swarm gains the effect of the Pestilence rune and deals 45-60% increased damage.

Now we talk about the Kanai cube items.

Why Furnace? It gives you a 50% buff againts elites! It is probably the best choice in this slot.

Another good weapon choice could be Wormwood, that allows you to free the Locust Swarm slot in the build and put a general buff skill like Hex (Jinx), Mass Confusion (Paranoia), Zombie Dogs (Chilled to the Bone), ecc.


Update: some wds are recently testing (with good results) a fusion between convention of elements and this endless walk variant. In this case, we have to give up the furnace for Henri's mojo and unity for convention of elements! More details in the FAQ below.


I don't think is necessary to explain why put Quetzalcoatl in the cube. XD

As regards items stats, you need a good quantity of cooldown reduction.

You can put in gloves, shoulders, in the helm (with the diamond in the socket) and also on mojo or weapon (but here is not fundamental).

As regards legendary gems, bane of the trapped represent a great buff to all damage, bane of the stricken is good to kill the grift guardian, esoteric alteration is needed to survive.

Obviosly the build works also with 2h weapon (furnace/wormwood) in your inventory and the 1h sacred harvester in the kanai cube, but with good rolls 1h+mojo seems better! :)

Paragon Priorities

Core

Movement Speed
Primary Stat
Vitality
Maximum Resource

Offense

Cooldown Reduction
Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage
Attack Speed

Defense

Life
Armor
Resist All
Life Regeneration

Utility

Resource Cost Reduction
Area Damage
Life on Hit
Gold Find

In the "core section": just put movement speed until you reach the 25% cap together with your items (boots of course), then all in intelligence.

In the "offence section": cooldown reduction, critical hit chance and damage are very good for jade, attack speed is quite useless, so put paragon points here for last.

Build Guide

How to use this build?

First of all, when you enter in a grift, you need to accumulate as soon as you can the 10 stacks of Soul Harvest.

Only now you can think to slay monsters with jade set in grifts 70+!

Once you find a nice group of monsters or an elite pack, you should use pinrahado to group them, then locust swarm.

The Vile Hive mojo guarantees that locust swarm spread very well thanks to the pestilence rune.

Now you should cast 2-3 times haunt and conclude with soul harvest.

Once you did this, repeat (the cooldown of soul harvest will be reduced both by the jade set bonus and the grave injustice passive).

In this process, you need to insert horrify to buff your armor and to control a bit the monsters.

Spirit walk (always present in wd builds) is good to skip dangers, to move fast and to insert the wd in the middle of the action.

As already said, with endless walk set you have to calibrate when you can standing still (doing more damage) and when you need to walk (to buff
your damage mitigation).

With furnace in the kanai cube, you need to focus on elite packs.

Elites will give you most of the progress bar that you need to arrive at the boss.

Some bosses are obviously better than others.

The worst i encountered is Erethon...he can oneshot you multiple times! -.-


UPDATE:


I try a little variation in the build, that can improve the results if the grift is good.

What skills I changed?

First of all, I wanted more damage, so I put the Confidence Ritual passive instead of Swampland Attunement.

To compensate the less capacity to survive, I change Locust Swarm rune from Diseased Swarm to Cloud of Insects, which reduces the damage done by monsters by 25%.

This change probably could be better in overall performance than put a Convention of Elements (COE) instead of Unity (this would be a very drastic drop for the wd toughness and the buff is not constant like the passive!). As already said, to keep COE in Endless Walk set variant, you must in fact give up some things!

Another passive that can be tested instead of Confidence Ritual is certainly Gruesome Feast (great buff to damage and toughness through health globes), maybe together with a follower with Solanium can work well.


UPDATE 28/11/2015


I would like to insert some of the considerations done in the comments here, like a FAQ, to facilitate the readers the discovery of the informations discussed!


Q: is In-Geom good in jade builds?

A: yes, but for speed things (like t8-10 rifts), not for high grifts.


Q: are the fetishes belt (Belt of Trascendence) and the slow belt (Hwoj Wrap) worth in a jade build?

A: yes, but they are not useful like the second haunt belt (Haunting Girdle). The fetishes with jade, in high grifts, are insignificant in term of damage (they are only useful for a little tank role) and as regards the other belt, we already have bane of the trapped that slows enemies! The fetishes belt maybe could be better if we choose to give up the unity for convention of elements and furnace for henri's mojo!


Q: can a poison rune (instead of cloud of insects) of locust swarm be better?

A: yes, in term of damage, but not a lot better. So it is not worth to lose a 25% damage mitigation for a little buff of locust swarm (when the ability that does most damage in jade builds is haunt).


Q: what about putting Pierce the Veil as passive for damage buff?

A: not a good passive, for 2 reasons:


1) the damage bonus is additive, while Confidence Ritual is an independent 25% multiplier!

2) could generate mana problems, especially if you don't use wormwood in the cube and have to cast manually locust swarm.


Q: What about putting Convention of Elements (COE)?

A: very good ring, but the damage buff is not constant. The COE variant is the only one that could compete with Endless Walk set variant. Obviously, the COE variant needs (if without Endless Walk set) to be accompanied by an hellfire amulet or Eye of Etlich for damage taken mitigation. We could also go for a fusion of the 2 variants, with both COE and Endless Walk set, but without unity, as some wds are doing recently on grifts 80+ in ptr!


Q: What about putting Ring of Royal Grandeur?

A: not a good choice! If we wear it (so not in the cube) we would lose lot of damage (this ring always rolls with attack speed and life on hit, so you can't have both Critical Hit Damage and Critical Hit Chance in the roll). I remember that (patch 2.0.5 notes): skills of jade builds (haunt/locust) calculate an average damage augmented by your critical hit chance and critical hit damage on application and apply that damage evenly over the duration of the entire dot! So having both CHD and CHC on a ring is very important. For example, in a ideal Compass Rose we can have both CHD, CHC and even cooldown reduction, together with socket obviously! If we instead put Ring of Royal Grandeur in the kanai cube (wearing quetzalcoatl), we should have a perfect roll on ring of Emptiness and anyway there aren't worthy items to put in the kanai cube armor slot.


Q: What about putting Henri's Perquisition mojo?

A: It could be ok, but we have to drop the Vile Hive mojo (loosing pestilence rune and nice buff for locust swarm), if you want to maintain furnace! If you want to use Henri's Mojo you probably have to give up the furnace and put Henri's mojo or Vile Hive in the cube, as some wds are doing in ptr. In addition to this, you could drop unity for convention of elements and in this case it could be useful to have fetishes belt for more tanking (just remember we lost the 50% damage taken mitigation of unity)! Obviously you need very good toughness to make this variant viable (in fact, you probably should put amethyst in the helm instead of diamond, if you go without unity!).


Q: what about putting bad medicine as defensive passive?

A: swampland attunement > bad medicine (and the effect of bad medicine is the same of the cloud of insect rune of locust swarm)!


Q: Is grin reaper worth in jade builds?

A: I don't think Grin Reaper is worth enough in a jade build, sure it can be tested, but I can already imagine that the results would not be great (the wd mimics maybe could cast haunt and locust, but I don't think they are effective on the key ability of jade set: cast soul harvest on monsters and concentrate all dots in one big damage)!