On May 18 2012 03:27 Dommk wrote: Anyone find a satisfying build that isn't Dire bat spam or Soul Harvest + Locus Swarm?
I honestly thought this class was going to be very flexible and have many options, but really it just seems that no matter what build you go, it will always be better with Soul Harvest than without...
Right now I'm just trying to grind my way to level50 for the passive that reduces cooldown for each enemy killed so I can actually make an interesting build using Mass Confusion and the other 2min cooldown spells (sans Garg)
I currently use a combination of fire spiders, haunt, acid rain, spirit walk, grasp and harvest having no issues at all. You can use almost any build. I change it up for the situation too or out of boredom, sometimes I will use fetish army or whatever or voodoo.
Grave Injustice is just an amazing passive, it makes Zombie dogs viable and it feels so good! The chain sacrifices utterly rip everything, and you can use Fetish Army almost every minute and Big Bad Vodoo every 1.2-1.5mins
I also killed the ACT 3 Boss in Hell in less than 10seconds on my first attempt haha
EDIT:
Oh, if you are going to use Grave Injustice then you NEED +Gold/Globe pickup radius in every slot, it just sucks without it. You would think you could keep mobs in 8-12 yard range, but it never plays out that way. Also kicks ass with Gruesome Feast (but kinda not needed since Sacrifice chains can even gib the elite monsters)
On May 19 2012 00:20 Haemonculus wrote: Is there any way to make the WD a viable summoner?
My first ever solo un-twinked Hell victory in D2 was with a summoning Necro, and I really want to try out a summoner-type in D3, but I'm told that the WD's summoning skills are pretty pathetic past normal difficulty.
Is there any way to make your pets viable, or at least a core part of your skillset?
This is as close as you can get as a summoner imo. I've been playing around with this build atm so its a work in progress still.
FireBomb (flashfire), Haunt(Consuming Spirit), Locust Swarm(cloud of insect) , Soul Harvest(siphon), Sacrifice (next to kin), Acid Cloud Passives (Circle of Life) (Fetish Sycophants) ( Zombie Handier)
The idea is to create zombie dogs and sacrificing them. with (next to kin) and (circle of life) you do not need to summon them your self just kill all with your high damage spells. And you can acid rain and locust swarm your dogs. When they are almost dead, Sacrifice them for final punch.
hit Lvl 40 and been trying out some build variations to try to make use of Vision Quest's huge mana regen
currently using fetish summon, gargantuan, soul harvest, and horrify as the CD skills and have been experimenting with trying out different no-CD damage skills
Locust Swarm and Haunt eventually felt lacking. Zombie Charge range is way too short. it's looking like either Dire Bats or Acid Cloud as the no-CD damage skill to take advantage of Vision Quest mana regen
Yeah, I've been using the Dog one ever since I've got it, really haven't found anything more effective than it. But you need Vision Quest to make use of it, costs far too much mana otherwise
Current build is Fetish Army with whatever extra fetish rune I like at the moment, combined with Big Bad Voodoo runed with Slam Dance or whatever the damage increase is. These are my long cds to drop at champion/rare packs, usually the voodoo aoe is big enough to stay on while fetish ram in damage and bother the pack enough to not make them all focus you instantly.
Low mana is now Splinter darts, though I sometimes use the mana return. Main spender is Dire Bats, alternatively I've used Acid Rain. Both are fun and quite efficient. Rest of the slots are Spirit Walk with mana return and Soul Harvest with mana return. Popping Harvest is safe since you can do it during the walk too.
I really enjoyed the enraging Gargantuan too as his rage resets with a respawn, normally the rage has cd of 2min, but the gargantuan has 1min. You can recast him right after the rage ends at champion pack/boss etc. to get another one.
I'll probably try more stuff once I get some gear, very enjoyable class to play. (Gruesome Feast is pretty ridiculous with Soul Harvest, if you manage to get full stack to both it's ridiculous dps for a short while).
Does anyone actually has some good WD build for solo inferno?
Actually I'm using Dart with 2nd rune, haunt (hp drain or slow), grasp (slow 80%), spirit walk(3s), harvest(time),gargantuan(stun). passives: ressurect one, +20%dmg +30%mana cost, globes +dmg and 1% hp regen. I was using Firebomb with last rune in hell (hell was pretty ez), but in Inferno dart deals more dps and i need to kill mobs one by one anyway.
I have ~9000 dps (up to 13-14k when buffed) and 30k hp.
Right now I finished Leoric in act one and I dont want to go further cause there's no point if i can't kill 70% of elites. I'm thinking about switching grasp for horrify with +100% def, cause slow on Inferno isn't as effective. But dunno if 100% more armor will help at all.
On May 19 2012 19:03 NeonFlare wrote: Current build is Fetish Army with whatever extra fetish rune I like at the moment, combined with Big Bad Voodoo runed with Slam Dance or whatever the damage increase is. These are my long cds to drop at champion/rare packs, usually the voodoo aoe is big enough to stay on while fetish ram in damage and bother the pack enough to not make them all focus you instantly.
Low mana is now Splinter darts, though I sometimes use the mana return. Main spender is Dire Bats, alternatively I've used Acid Rain. Both are fun and quite efficient. Rest of the slots are Spirit Walk with mana return and Soul Harvest with mana return. Popping Harvest is safe since you can do it during the walk too.
I really enjoyed the enraging Gargantuan too as his rage resets with a respawn, normally the rage has cd of 2min, but the gargantuan has 1min. You can recast him right after the rage ends at champion pack/boss etc. to get another one.
I'll probably try more stuff once I get some gear, very enjoyable class to play. (Gruesome Feast is pretty ridiculous with Soul Harvest, if you manage to get full stack to both it's ridiculous dps for a short while).
That is essentially what I ran uptill Hell, the core (Slam Dance, 90sec Fetish Army, Soul Harvest), different damage skills from time to time...
But Big Bad Voodoo just sucks for Hell if you solo, it is good on some boss fights but it is has such a long cooldown and all the elite(whatever they are called) mobs have some sort of effect that make it super hard to even utilize it...
The multiple combos of elite mobs (whatever they are called) is just too harsh, you get forced out of your ritual AOE very quickly and you can't stand still enough to make use of it.
Pure damage was fun during Nightmare but it just flat out sucks in Hell tbh :/
Does anyone actually has some good WD build for solo inferno?
Actually I'm using Dart with 2nd rune, haunt (hp drain or slow), grasp (slow 80%), spirit walk(3s), harvest(time),gargantuan(stun). passives: ressurect one, +20%dmg +30%mana cost, globes +dmg and 1% hp regen. I was using Firebomb with last rune in hell (hell was pretty ez), but in Inferno dart deals more dps and i need to kill mobs one by one anyway.
I have ~9000 dps (up to 13-14k when buffed) and 30k hp.
Right now I finished Leoric in act one and I dont want to go further cause there's no point if i can't kill 70% of elites. I'm thinking about switching grasp for horrify with +100% def, cause slow on Inferno isn't as effective. But dunno if 100% more armor will help at all.
Try running that, pick 3 utility spells that you are comfortable with (i.e Grasp, Gargantuan, Horrify, Hex Mass Confusion, Fetish army)
Goal is to maul things with your bears whilst you use your utility spells actively to fuel Vision Quest and keep you alive.
The damage output of your Zombie bears is freakishly high, so if you happen to have some % lifesteal then you could go for the Mana runes on Spirit Walk/Soul Harvest
@up I don't like this mana regen passive, It forces you to spam skills even when you dont need them and you end up with dying when they are on cd. Also life steal from weapon is very weak when you have 10k dps and 30k hp, thats why I;m using +1% hp regen passive.
Mainly defensive and AoE based. Worst great in coop. For boss fights, I spec soul Harvest to Big Bad Voodoo, spiders for Flaming darts and Acid Rain to Haunt that heals.
I tried a VIsion Quest build towards the end of Act 3 nightmare, with Spirit Barrage. But didn't like the playstyle to much.
I thought there wouldn't be much options for build diversity as the WD didn't seem to have crazy "Change the rules of the game" passives. But man was I wrong. They're there, just a bit less obvious than for some of the other chars.
What I linked wasn't for bosses though--you said you were having trouble with the champion mobs, you don't get the luxury of pacing of boss fights as you do with the champ mobs, when there is like Arcane Enchanted + Plague it is complete and utter havoc
Here is a video of some beating skeleton king inferno with a Vision Quest + Zombie Bears variant.
On May 19 2012 15:11 Dommk wrote: WD becomes so much fun post lvl50.
Grave Injustice is just an amazing passive, it makes Zombie dogs viable and it feels so good! The chain sacrifices utterly rip everything, and you can use Fetish Army almost every minute and Big Bad Vodoo every 1.2-1.5mins
I also killed the ACT 3 Boss in Hell in less than 10seconds on my first attempt haha
EDIT:
Oh, if you are going to use Grave Injustice then you NEED +Gold/Globe pickup radius in every slot, it just sucks without it. You would think you could keep mobs in 8-12 yard range, but it never plays out that way. Also kicks ass with Gruesome Feast (but kinda not needed since Sacrifice chains can even gib the elite monsters)
I plan on giving that build a try, but I'm only just level 50. Gives me some time to collect the +pickup radius items.
What build are you using exactly? The mass-confusion dog spawning build? Any chance of you posting your build?
Probably easier to find +pickup items on the auction house (don't have to over do it, I only spent at max 10k per piece that I needed), Grave Injustice isn't too good until you have quite a bit of +pickup range.
It is something that I'm playing around with, my total pick up radius is 55 I believe, I have +6 or greater on each item that is capable of having +pickup...
I used to do Sacrifice + Dogs in nightmare, but it doesn't work in Hell unfortunately.....also I haven't seen anyone else do anything remotely like this either (that is, stacking +pickup gear). I'm going off trial and error here myself, improving it as I go along so I can't guarantee you that it will be good.
Try it at your own risk, the annoying part is finding good gear with +pickup.
Also it isn't mean for bosses, I change my build depending on each boss so I can't help you if you want to use it there :p
Due to your 55yard+ pick up range, you don't need the defensive passives, the Gargantuan can usually last long enough for the cooldown to come back even when fighting elite mobs
edit:
Also your spirit walk also comes off cooldown almost instantly if things start dieing too so that helps :p
Im interested in what stats people are stacking with WD. Naturally you need a lot of intelligence, but what about some resistances and vitality? I mean lot of his skills aren't that long range and he needs to get close for his soul harvest..
On May 20 2012 01:22 B.I.G. wrote: Im interested in what stats people are stacking with WD. Naturally you need a lot of intelligence, but what about some resistances and vitality? I mean lot of his skills aren't that long range and he needs to get close for his soul harvest..
you get resistances from int, vitality is very important, also some hp regen of some sort helps (i have weapon with 2500hp every kill)
On May 20 2012 01:22 B.I.G. wrote: Im interested in what stats people are stacking with WD. Naturally you need a lot of intelligence, but what about some resistances and vitality? I mean lot of his skills aren't that long range and he needs to get close for his soul harvest..
been up through 3/4s of Act 2 NM
I've been forced to start considering Vitality as an important stat when debating between equips. I can see attack speed (cast speed for WD) is becoming important when faced with elite packs that don't go down quickly and I have to start kiting. Movement speed also becoming important for the very same reason.
don't care about resistances yet, but definitely can tell it will become important as difficulty increases. I'm guessing life steal/life on hit will be important too.
Once you get into the harder difficulties, you won't have enough MP to spam Dire Bats, and they don't 1 hit everything anymore.
I run: MP Dart 80% Slow 24 yard Acid Rain 24 yard Fear Gargantuan with Berserk In my last spot, I use with Big Bad Voodoo with 30% damage for bosses, and HP drain haunt for mobs
Key is the abuse choke points, slow them, and spread the AoE love. The big key is to never miss a slow because mobs hit really hard without a lot of armor. I am level 45, with about 1200 armor and I still get crushed for 800+ in act 3.
Vitality is KEY, absolutely KEY, without it you will just get one hit, and once you start getting harder boss combinations there are times when you simply cannot avoid getting hit. I have around 9500 HP and it is still way too low.
Besides that, I think that there might be some runes coming up that may change this build slightly, but it really does the job in NM.
I can link my full stats later if people are interested.
EPT
