If you are going to have all of that healing power on tap, what do you think of replacing the Rush of Essence passive with Blood Ritual? It knocks off 15% of the mana costs - putting locus swarm down to 500ish mana.
It's a nice build, my only question is if anyone has any confirmation for or against sacrifice triggering the golden rune on the zombie dogs. My question hopefully obvious, but being this: If sacrifice is going to be one of your key damage spells, that means the dogs aren't always going to live that long, meaning the white rune won't be of much use. If sacrifice can also trigger the golden rune however, then out of four dog deaths you are nearly guaranteed a health globe. A single health globe may be more useful than one or two dogs leaching 7.5% of your weapon damage back and health everytime they bite something over 60 seconds. That is if you're soloing.
If you're in a group, than a health globe for certain is going to be of a lot more use than health leech for just yourself. The health globe will provide health regen in the middle of boss fights or at the start of scary trash packs (at higher difficulties) that can mean the difference between life and death.
i think that the Rush of Essence is way better since I can use it for both haunt and soul harvest, i would initially cast in 2-3 different mobs haunt then start exploding dogs, by the time the haunt effect is down then i can soul harvest an wipe the rest of the mobs if something is left on i can either locust swarm or haunt again and sacrifice some dogs if i still have some.
Your mana regen should be good against large mobs where you can spam Haunt (more than just 2-3 I think), but I wonder how it will work against bosses or tough single opponents.
Since Haunt does not stack on targets that will lower your mana regen from runestone effect and maybe even from Rush of Essence synergy(dunno if RoE would return mana from "wasted" Haunt), thus reducing your chance to cast Locust swarm which mana cost is quite high.
I would change Locust Swarm from Indigo to Obsidian, reducing mana cost and (assuming the increase in duration does not reduce damage x sec, not sure about that) increasing damage.
Still, your build is not so "mana intensive" so you may be fine.
About Zombie Dogs: I believe you don't intend to spam sacrifice very often but use them to finish off weakened monsters, right?
Otherwise I don't understand your rune choice on ZDs, I would have picked up Final Gift.
Your mana regen should be good against large mobs where you can spam Haunt (more than just 2-3 I think), but I wonder how it will work against bosses or tough single opponents.
Since Haunt does not stack on targets that will lower your mana regen from runestone effect and maybe even from Rush of Essence synergy(dunno if RoE would return mana from "wasted" Haunt), thus reducing your chance to cast Locust swarm which mana cost is quite high.
I would change Locust Swarm from Indigo to Obsidian, reducing mana cost and (assuming the increase in duration does not reduce damage x sec, not sure about that) increasing damage.
Still, your build is not so "mana intensive" so you may be fine.
About Zombie Dogs: I believe you don't intend to spam sacrifice very often but use them to finish off weakened monsters, right?
Otherwise I don't understand your rune choice on ZDs, I would have picked up Final Gift.
I chose that runestone ZD, because i intend to use the dogs as passive healers also, and when sacrifice them to make some dps while in low mana, probabilities from sacrifice to spawn another one is quite high + the passive when some mob dies can spawn another one its also cool to keep the dogs alive and dispose at convenience, they are healing you with each attack while they are alive. it is wise to sacrifice a dog when its hp is low and the odds to respawn another dog is high.
I understand this build but i find the main purpose for zombie dogs is to keep them off you and if your going to rely on blowing them up you may want big bad voodoo with the white rune. This way when the enemies die there is a 60% chance they will come back as zombie dogs (not to mention the other buffs it gives you). This will allow for a constant flow of pets so long as you dont sacrifice them unnecessarily. I think on normal any build will be useable but on harder difficulties everyone will need to rethink their strategies. but isnt that why the game is so good
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use soul harvest to heal yourself
main mana regen is haunt
main dps sacrifice and locust swarm
and the gargantuan is your blocker
take a look and if you like it try it out when you are available to use it.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ScgbTh!bWU!YbZaaZ
hope you like it.
In progress: Barbarian, WD
If you're in a group, than a health globe for certain is going to be of a lot more use than health leech for just yourself. The health globe will provide health regen in the middle of boss fights or at the start of scary trash packs (at higher difficulties) that can mean the difference between life and death.
Since Haunt does not stack on targets that will lower your mana regen from runestone effect and maybe even from Rush of Essence synergy(dunno if RoE would return mana from "wasted" Haunt), thus reducing your chance to cast Locust swarm which mana cost is quite high.
I would change Locust Swarm from Indigo to Obsidian, reducing mana cost and (assuming the increase in duration does not reduce damage x sec, not sure about that) increasing damage.
Still, your build is not so "mana intensive" so you may be fine.
About Zombie Dogs: I believe you don't intend to spam sacrifice very often but use them to finish off weakened monsters, right?
Otherwise I don't understand your rune choice on ZDs, I would have picked up Final Gift.
I chose that runestone ZD, because i intend to use the dogs as passive healers also, and when sacrifice them to make some dps while in low mana, probabilities from sacrifice to spawn another one is quite high + the passive when some mob dies can spawn another one its also cool to keep the dogs alive and dispose at convenience, they are healing you with each attack while they are alive. it is wise to sacrifice a dog when its hp is low and the odds to respawn another dog is high.
psd. more mana regen can be obtained with equips.