Just coming into nightmare mode, so I am not overly concerned with how well this is going to work for inferno farming or whatever you release-day folks are doing now.
Went through act1 in nightmare and fiddled around with a lot of spells. I'm coming to the conclusion that my mana pool simply can't sustain any of the worth-while aoe spells with or without pierce the veil. Dart spam with pierce the veil seem to be good enough at taking down large groups with the cleaving gargantuan + poison dogs helping out. After playing most of the act with bad medicine I decided it's not doing much at this point, although it will probably outscale zombie handler at some point very soon.
Grasp pretty much feels manditory outside of normal mode and as I said the missing aoe is not terrible. I feel spirit walk and soul harvest are mandatory regardless of build, the buff and escape mechanisms are not just useful, but downright necessary when in tight spaces. Any time my minions unexpectedly die/get overwhelmed it allows me to kite with darts and spirit walk. I swap the gargantuan to restless giant and the dogs to life link for some boss fights.
I've experimented a bit with wall of zombies in place of the dogs since they're usually lousy at staying up; however, the cooldown seems a bit on the long side for what it does (not much in open terrain, nothing when teleporters are around). Really didn't like the amount of kiting I had to do with nothing but the gargantuan and my enchantress to help tank.
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Here's the build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#aWUdTY!Zdc!ab.ZYa
My itemization strategy is trying to balance vitality, intelligence, and take any other useful stats as I can get them.
All comments and suggestions are welcome, but do please leave the "so underpowered class dudejustrerollnow," for other threads. Thanks!
Here's my updated skill set:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#aZUdYT!ZdW!aYaZaa
(Keep in mind I am only level ~38 so I don't have access to some of the optimal rune choices just yet.)
Grasp pretty much feels manditory outside of normal mode and as I said the missing aoe is not terrible. I feel spirit walk and soul harvest are mandatory regardless of build, the buff and escape mechanisms are not just useful, but downright necessary when in tight spaces. Any time my minions unexpectedly die/get overwhelmed it allows me to kite with darts and spirit walk. I swap the gargantuan to restless giant and the dogs to life link for some boss fights.
I've experimented a bit with wall of zombies in place of the dogs since they're usually lousy at staying up; however, the cooldown seems a bit on the long side for what it does (not much in open terrain, nothing when teleporters are around). Really didn't like the amount of kiting I had to do with nothing but the gargantuan and my enchantress to help tank.