Quote (BoMan @ Jun 11 2012 07:15am)
why bump a old thread?
Because I, most likely the same way others will, came here to read/discuss about witch doctors. There's a lot of stuff in the first post that sounds reasonable but there's way too much that is proposed without very strong arguments. It's kind of difficult finding good WD stuff to read since basically everyone is an idiot and the number of good WD's farming inferno seems to be scarce. I've used a lot of builds but some of them seem a bit wonky. I intend on doing hardcore with a WD when the server issues have been fixed, class fixes have been made, etc. That's why I'm here.
So on that note, I would say that Plague of Toads with the Rain of Toads rune is probably one of the most underrated WD abilities. I never see anyone use it, and it's great. It costs 36 mana for 130% weapon damage as poison over 2 seconds in an area. It's great for cleaving down clumped up mobs, especially illusionist. I've seen a lot of WD's use insect swarm but the specs are always strange because that uses up over 1/4 of your mana at a time, and sure it's definitely a nice spell to kill stuff or have sustained damage on a boss it's still sort of pricey. The worst part is how you have to be really be in melee range, which can be rather dangerous. You frequently get screwed by fast mobs or vortex, whatever, and wind up in melee range to use it anyways. That's why I would say acid cloud with the acid pool rune would probably be better, but it would be dumb if the mob just runs out of the pool. Something else really important to point out is not all abilities are able to go over the walls put by up champion and elite packs with the "waller" affix. Rain of Toads CAN go over the wall, so if you're blocked off from the mobs you can just spam Rain of Toads with ease and not have to annihilate your mana pool. So going back to what I first said, Plague of Toads with the Rain of Toads rune seems quite a bit more useful and practical without costing very much mana. You don't exactly need a passive giving mana back to make it work well, though I will point out that with 56% IAS you can go OOM from simply spamming darts after about 6 minutes.
An alternative to Rain of Toads that I've been enjoying is Firebomb with the Ghost Bomb rune
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#.h!!.cIt's ultra cheap, it's kind of a fast cast, it hits for a good amount in an a small aoe, and with the 20 yard splash damage it's good for whittling away at nearby mobs as well.
This is the build that I quite frequently use for solo and group farming. It works best in a group if you ask me.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#aWZdRU!WYV!abaYaZ Basically it provides artificial DPS through soul harvest and gruesome feast. It will make you go from 26k to ~52k dps fully stacked. With the gear I have now it makes me go from 37.8k to ~66k dps. All you have to do is get a 5 stack of soul harvest and anyone in the group can pick up the health globes. It actually worth out pretty well on Belial too since there's a decent amount of mobs to get a 5 stack and Belial drops a boatload of health globes. It may be wise, though, to swap out soul harvest for Wall of Zombies w/ Barricade so you don't get your poop pushed in during phase 1 and 2 with all the monsters spawning. The build, overall, seems decently well-rounded. It has a slow which sometimes isn't the most useful due to certain mobs being really fast, but at LEAST 12%+ run speed boots will help. You get healing through Hex since the tiki guy heals you, and you can get mana back through Spirit Walk. Hex also gives really nice CC that works on more than most of the champion and elite packs. It doesn't work on end bosses but it'll work on stuff like Skeleton King, Maghda, and The Jailer.
I've tried glass cannon specs but I'm not a huge fan of them because the idea is supposed to be killing stuff before it kills you. That's highly situational considering if you die then you have Big Bad Voodoo and Fetish Army down you might be screwed. Pierce the Veil and spamming bears = a rough go because it's easy to run out of mana. I only used this spec for chest farming in Act 3 and for farming the bosses in the Silver Spire in Act 4, obviously all on inferno. I was using this spec for Act 2 farming and it was just such a bad time because it's still really easy for mobs to knock you out of Spirit Walk and kill you instantly. Being in melee range is such a hassle and so damn dangerous and definitely not viable for playing hardcore.
The haunt/spirit barrage builds were kind of hit and miss when I used them. It's really tough to assess anything based on Act 1 inferno since that act is truly so simple and quite a joke in comparison with Act 2 and beyond. The HP and damage output of mobs is really dismal, however, the haunt/spirit barrage build is really gnarly anyways. Obviously there is no cookie cutter build for this type of spec, but it'd be similar to this:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#egZjRU!fUV!ZbaYaZ (talent thing is bugged, Haunt rune does 288% damage over 2 seconds).The swirling spirit from spirit barrage can be really nasty if you cast it like 3 or 4 times in one area because then anything that runs through it will really take a beating. I liked Grasp of the Dead and/or Wall of Zombies for containing mobs so I could maximize spirit barrage damage. Mass Confusion was kind of a nice skill for sticky situations, however it's a 60 second cooldown so using Horrify would be an alright alternative. In softcore mode if you still somehow have mana problems you could Swap spirit Vessel for something like Blood Ritual. There's also possibly swapping Hex for Big Bad Voodoo with Rain Dance for maximum spamming, plus it's a 2min CD so you won't have to use it as often. That's one thing I hate about Vision Quest builds is that you are either blowing your entire load or you get burdened with casting some abilities too often.
I will say I am not set on any of these specs and I frequently change builds. I'm not satisfied with anything because I'm looking for something that will effectively kill stuff while maintaining good survivability. I've been toying with less mana intensive specs so I can have stuff like Jungle Fortitude, although that stuff gets kind of pointless in Act 3 or 4 depending on what you're fighting. I actually tried a build last night in Act 1 inferno that was built with "stupid" and otherwise useless abilities based on what I was reading in a thread on the Blizzard forums.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#bWXPRU!XZV!YZZYbY this is the spec I was using and it wound up working WAY too well compared to how I thought it would go. The spiders kept a constant slow on literally everything, so that was awesome. The Toad of Hugeness is probably one of the most useless cool abilities in the game except it would eat a champion/elite and make it absolutely useless for 5 seconds. Horrify was great for getting stuff away from me, and same with Hex w/ Angry Chicken. That Angry Chicken rune is probably the #1 dumbest/funniest thing in the game, but it was useful for when mobs got too close to me I could just go into chicken form and explode which caused a knockback. Some mobs got knocked back really far too and allowed me to gain a lot of space. I went with that tiki torch rune for Fetish Army because... I never anyone use it, and even then it was useful for all the slowed mobs because they were in the frontal cone that each tiki guy was doing. I wouldn't really say the build is practical for much, but it was certainly a ton of fun to play.
This post was edited by blgdinger on Jun 11 2012 02:13pm