Tartarus (btw he's my favorite Cryx solo, especially with e-Gaspy), I too am incredibly interested to see how viable non pet builds are for the WD. My main in WoW was an Affliction Warlock and it definitely played to my gaming preferences. The strength of DoT's is they don't require us to stand and cast; we can cast them and kite/move away/CC while everything gets burned down.
My opinion is that WD's will utilize their pets at minor damage dealers that occupy mobs while you cast your spells. WD build's that don't use pets will dig into the vast amount of utility CC spells and opt to rely on those in place of summons. I think of pets more as CC that deal some damage more than I would rely on them for straight damage, but that's just me.
From what you describe the main departure is my use of Well of Souls as a nuke spell, but it just looks too interesting to pass up. Resentful Spirit is the obvious DoT, thought I might also play around with Searing Locusts once that becomes an option and go for a straight DoT build. What inspired me to make this build in the first place was Mass Confusion. After seeing the post about how much health/damage Inferno mobs have it seems like a no brainer for the WD and has the potential to increase our damage to epic levels. GoTD as a low CD slow, Horrify to send mobs scrambling, and Spirit Walk for getting out of trouble. I'm going to try it as a solo/coop hybrid to see how it performs, and with how Gruesome Feast is worded we might also get the buff if we're in range when our Barb/Monk friends suck up an orb. Unlike a lot of other builds I see that use Vision Quest, they often take high CD utility to keep the regen bonus. I don't personally agree with this tactic and prefer lower CD spells that I can cast multiple times in an encounter over 2 minutes on Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo (almost requiring Grave Injustice which works directly against Vision Quest).
The other option I'm toying with into is a poison DoT synergy build to gain a respectable 40% Damage Reduction (this could be clutch in Inferno). The support uses Dogs as another source of poison/CC, Spirit Walk as our 'Uh Oh' button, and Mass Confuse as a CC/buff option. What we loose out with Gruesome Feast we gain through survivability. My main concern with this build is the amount of mana our main damage spells are using.
Do you have links that could give us a better sense of what you're thinking for non-pet builds?
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My opinion is that WD's will utilize their pets at minor damage dealers that occupy mobs while you cast your spells. WD build's that don't use pets will dig into the vast amount of utility CC spells and opt to rely on those in place of summons. I think of pets more as CC that deal some damage more than I would rely on them for straight damage, but that's just me.
This what I've been cooking up so far:
http://us.battle.net...ZjXU!WYU!ZZaYbc
From what you describe the main departure is my use of Well of Souls as a nuke spell, but it just looks too interesting to pass up. Resentful Spirit is the obvious DoT, thought I might also play around with Searing Locusts once that becomes an option and go for a straight DoT build. What inspired me to make this build in the first place was Mass Confusion. After seeing the post about how much health/damage Inferno mobs have it seems like a no brainer for the WD and has the potential to increase our damage to epic levels. GoTD as a low CD slow, Horrify to send mobs scrambling, and Spirit Walk for getting out of trouble. I'm going to try it as a solo/coop hybrid to see how it performs, and with how Gruesome Feast is worded we might also get the buff if we're in range when our Barb/Monk friends suck up an orb. Unlike a lot of other builds I see that use Vision Quest, they often take high CD utility to keep the regen bonus. I don't personally agree with this tactic and prefer lower CD spells that I can cast multiple times in an encounter over 2 minutes on Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo (almost requiring Grave Injustice which works directly against Vision Quest).
The other option I'm toying with into is a poison DoT synergy build to gain a respectable 40% Damage Reduction (this could be clutch in Inferno). The support uses Dogs as another source of poison/CC, Spirit Walk as our 'Uh Oh' button, and Mass Confuse as a CC/buff option. What we loose out with Gruesome Feast we gain through survivability. My main concern with this build is the amount of mana our main damage spells are using.
Do you have links that could give us a better sense of what you're thinking for non-pet builds?
0