Hey guys, I previously had the most broken witch doctor build I could have possibly come up with, I didn't even want to share it, however two beta patches later pretty much every skill and rune attachment was nerfed into the ground, so here is a new one!
Plague of toad (Toad Affinity) is is your main damaging, spammable attack. Because of Toad Affinity you can spam this without hesitation ideally after your mana has dropped.
Acid Cloud (Corpse bomb) Is your main AOE damaging attack. With corpse bomb, its a pretty hefty AOE nuke with its only drawback being a high mana cost. The idea is we can use this ability as needed until our mana is low, and then spam plague of toads while our mana regenerates, then revert back to corpse bomb.
Grasp of the dead (Unbreakable Grasp) This is your main kiting ability and it allows you to ensure your aoe is useful and effective. I take the rune to increase the slow amount to 80%, as that is a huge slow and will allow you to kite effectively and keep your enemies in one spot for an extended period of time, allowing you to spam corpse bomb and even land a perfect Pile on (wall of zombies)
Soul Harvest (Siphon) This ability is incredible powerful, because each point of intelligence is 1% increased damage with abilities, by keeping this buff up 100% of the time - which is quite possible due to its 15 second cooldown and 30 second duration, you are greatly increasing your potential damage output. With the siphon rune, we can also use this as a survivability tool in pinch situations, the rune can be changed though depending on whats needed. Its mana cost is also very cheap.
Wall of Zombies (Pile on) This is your strongest attack, the drawback is that it takes a few seconds for the damage to actually happen, during this time your targets could potentially move and the ability would be somewhat or completly wasted. This is why we combine it with Unbreakable Grasp, by slowing your enemies 80% first you can ensure that this lands properly. Not to mention with Soul harvest up this ability will be incredibly powerful and should be used as needed on cooldown.
Garguantuan (Restless Giant) Its always good for such a powerful caster to have a tank, and thats what good ol garguantan is for, not only does tanking take damage off of you but it also ammases enemies in one grouped location, allowing for your AOE to be easier to use and more effective. Restless giant is a personal preference to make fighting bosses and champion packs easier, the rune can be changed to your liking though.
Passives:
Vermin: As this build allows us to use plague fo toads endlessly, I wanted to make it as strong as possible. 20% damage increase
Pierce the Veil: Because our main ability costs no mana, I figure its worth increasing the mana costs of our other spells, as the only one we actually cast regularly would be corpse bomb (acid cloud) with soul harvest and pierce the veil our abilities will be incredibly powerful, when we start to go OOM simply switch to plague of toad spamming and wait for our mana to regen, rinse, repeat! 20% damage increase to all spells
Fetish Sycophants: Plague of toads, Acid Cloud, and Wall of zombies all work for this passive, and because we will be spamming plague of toads and acid cloud pretty much constantly, I figure this passive would go off fairly often. The power of these fetish's are still mysterious to me, so if I found out that they are infact weak this passive can always be changed, if they are good though, this build is optimal for this passive as our plague fo toad spamming is potentially endless.
So how it works:
Summon your garguantan in advance, upon approaching a pack of enemies you would first want to grasp of the dead them, followed by soul harvest, at this point you can use acid cloud (corpse bomb) and plague of toads in some combination until the enemies has fallen. You can use wall of zombies (Pile on) for a huge damage increase. The important part is that you keep soul harvest up, with all the passive damage increases this build offers, we will have an incredible aoe damage potential, and the ability to consistently spam high damage attacks even with no mana at all, bypassing the dependency on a resource system atleast partially in a very effective way.
Edit: Upon testing the plague of toads range is actually quite long, they explode upon making contact but if left untouched they move pretty far. And its 3 toads per cast
Well if they are hitting my gargantuan I could get close safely, if they are going after me I could simply cast and kite. Grasp of the dead cooldown isn't very long, if I find I need to reduce it I could always use the rune to make it 6 seconds, or as you suggested switch fetish sycophants for grave injustice.
Corpse bomb is still over 200% weapon damage in a pretty large radius with no cooldown, while the mana cost is hefty its pretty much the only thing I need to use my mana regularly on, there is no other AOE in the witch doctors kit that compares.
I don't think the wall of zombies will be tough to aim, it hits in a line, so if the enemy is attacking my gargantuan or coming after me it will move at a pretty constant rate. If I still can't land it grasp of the dead slows there movement by 80%, so i should be able to land it without too much trouble vs. most enemies
And yeah, corpse bomb is the strongest aoe, the idea is that its high mana cost is made up for due to my ability to spam toads and actually GAIN mana.
Also, because toads has no cost it synergizes well with pierce the veil, and vermin, making it one of my strongest nukes with no cooldown and no cost.
toads without the rain of toads or exploding toads runes are garbage
you will only be able to do corpse bomb a few times until your entire mana pool is gone and you have no way to get it back fast.
you dont have nearly enough survivability for inferno. your trying to stack too much dmg.
you should get rid of pierce of the viel and toads. i suggest jungle fortitude and psn dart - splinters or fire bomb - conflagration. they both had their mana reduced in patch 14 to 6 mana per cast. not even noticeable at all when you generate 20 mana per second. and then replace vermin with spiritual attunement so you can cast corpse bomb MUCH much more.
Like the OP I had zombies, then swapped to Soul Harvest (Siphon) in my build, but I then switched to spiders. I don't know how well the heal from Soul Harvest would work out considering you have a 15 sec cool off and it will have to be used at the start of the fight to benefit from the Int. buff. So you really have to hope you get hurt like 15 seconds into fight and not sooner, or your heal will be on cool down. I still think the buff is nice however and I want to see if an additional DoT (like spider queen) or the buff from Soul Harvest is better later on down the line. But for now I am going with:
If mana becomes an issue I would sub the 20% (handler) pet health passive for the 20% mana (attunement). 8 sec duration for the GoTD and Acid Cloud combo and pets, with the Firebomb spammer at 6 mana, so I don't think mana should be too bad with a little gear (if Blizz releases as is). If the pets do not trigger the poison for Bad Medicine, they will be adjusted as well, probably to Leeching dogs. (I am banking on they trigger it).
Being this is mostly a DoT/kite build, if the kiting becomes a problem I also would sub the Firebomb for the Dart snare. I honestly think that pets will be a speed bump at higher levels (I hope I am wrong), this is why I am planning on this type of build to be on the safe side.
Addling toads kick ass!! 4 seconds of confusion!!!
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Epicurus
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ciZRkT!Zef!bcZZYZ
The idea is this:
Spells:
Plague of toad (Toad Affinity) is is your main damaging, spammable attack. Because of Toad Affinity you can spam this without hesitation ideally after your mana has dropped.
Acid Cloud (Corpse bomb) Is your main AOE damaging attack. With corpse bomb, its a pretty hefty AOE nuke with its only drawback being a high mana cost. The idea is we can use this ability as needed until our mana is low, and then spam plague of toads while our mana regenerates, then revert back to corpse bomb.
Grasp of the dead (Unbreakable Grasp) This is your main kiting ability and it allows you to ensure your aoe is useful and effective. I take the rune to increase the slow amount to 80%, as that is a huge slow and will allow you to kite effectively and keep your enemies in one spot for an extended period of time, allowing you to spam corpse bomb and even land a perfect Pile on (wall of zombies)
Soul Harvest (Siphon) This ability is incredible powerful, because each point of intelligence is 1% increased damage with abilities, by keeping this buff up 100% of the time - which is quite possible due to its 15 second cooldown and 30 second duration, you are greatly increasing your potential damage output. With the siphon rune, we can also use this as a survivability tool in pinch situations, the rune can be changed though depending on whats needed. Its mana cost is also very cheap.
Wall of Zombies (Pile on) This is your strongest attack, the drawback is that it takes a few seconds for the damage to actually happen, during this time your targets could potentially move and the ability would be somewhat or completly wasted. This is why we combine it with Unbreakable Grasp, by slowing your enemies 80% first you can ensure that this lands properly. Not to mention with Soul harvest up this ability will be incredibly powerful and should be used as needed on cooldown.
Garguantuan (Restless Giant) Its always good for such a powerful caster to have a tank, and thats what good ol garguantan is for, not only does tanking take damage off of you but it also ammases enemies in one grouped location, allowing for your AOE to be easier to use and more effective. Restless giant is a personal preference to make fighting bosses and champion packs easier, the rune can be changed to your liking though.
Passives:
Vermin: As this build allows us to use plague fo toads endlessly, I wanted to make it as strong as possible. 20% damage increase
Pierce the Veil: Because our main ability costs no mana, I figure its worth increasing the mana costs of our other spells, as the only one we actually cast regularly would be corpse bomb (acid cloud) with soul harvest and pierce the veil our abilities will be incredibly powerful, when we start to go OOM simply switch to plague of toad spamming and wait for our mana to regen, rinse, repeat! 20% damage increase to all spells
Fetish Sycophants: Plague of toads, Acid Cloud, and Wall of zombies all work for this passive, and because we will be spamming plague of toads and acid cloud pretty much constantly, I figure this passive would go off fairly often. The power of these fetish's are still mysterious to me, so if I found out that they are infact weak this passive can always be changed, if they are good though, this build is optimal for this passive as our plague fo toad spamming is potentially endless.
So how it works:
Summon your garguantan in advance, upon approaching a pack of enemies you would first want to grasp of the dead them, followed by soul harvest, at this point you can use acid cloud (corpse bomb) and plague of toads in some combination until the enemies has fallen. You can use wall of zombies (Pile on) for a huge damage increase. The important part is that you keep soul harvest up, with all the passive damage increases this build offers, we will have an incredible aoe damage potential, and the ability to consistently spam high damage attacks even with no mana at all, bypassing the dependency on a resource system atleast partially in a very effective way.
So. Thoughts, comments, questions?
Well if they are hitting my gargantuan I could get close safely, if they are going after me I could simply cast and kite. Grasp of the dead cooldown isn't very long, if I find I need to reduce it I could always use the rune to make it 6 seconds, or as you suggested switch fetish sycophants for grave injustice.
Corpse bomb is still over 200% weapon damage in a pretty large radius with no cooldown, while the mana cost is hefty its pretty much the only thing I need to use my mana regularly on, there is no other AOE in the witch doctors kit that compares.
I don't think the wall of zombies will be tough to aim, it hits in a line, so if the enemy is attacking my gargantuan or coming after me it will move at a pretty constant rate. If I still can't land it grasp of the dead slows there movement by 80%, so i should be able to land it without too much trouble vs. most enemies
And yeah, corpse bomb is the strongest aoe, the idea is that its high mana cost is made up for due to my ability to spam toads and actually GAIN mana.
Also, because toads has no cost it synergizes well with pierce the veil, and vermin, making it one of my strongest nukes with no cooldown and no cost.
you will only be able to do corpse bomb a few times until your entire mana pool is gone and you have no way to get it back fast.
you dont have nearly enough survivability for inferno. your trying to stack too much dmg.
you should get rid of pierce of the viel and toads. i suggest jungle fortitude and psn dart - splinters or fire bomb - conflagration. they both had their mana reduced in patch 14 to 6 mana per cast. not even noticeable at all when you generate 20 mana per second. and then replace vermin with spiritual attunement so you can cast corpse bomb MUCH much more.
so http://us.battle.net...ZRkT!Yaf!ccZZYZ
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#eZYbiT!adW!cZZZbY
If mana becomes an issue I would sub the 20% (handler) pet health passive for the 20% mana (attunement). 8 sec duration for the GoTD and Acid Cloud combo and pets, with the Firebomb spammer at 6 mana, so I don't think mana should be too bad with a little gear (if Blizz releases as is). If the pets do not trigger the poison for Bad Medicine, they will be adjusted as well, probably to Leeching dogs. (I am banking on they trigger it).
Being this is mostly a DoT/kite build, if the kiting becomes a problem I also would sub the Firebomb for the Dart snare. I honestly think that pets will be a speed bump at higher levels (I hope I am wrong), this is why I am planning on this type of build to be on the safe side.
Epicurus