Guide Compendium for the New Season - patch 2.6.6

So this one is a little late, isn't it? I truly apologize, but a pesky goblin named Gamescom whisked me away and stole my attention for much of the week! :) Now that we're here though - welcome to Season 18, with the theme of the Triune! Throughout Season 18, circles of power will spawn during combat, which empower characters in various ways; they affect combat from the humblest character beginnings, all the way to the highest of Greater Rifts. These newfound effects will cause you to reposition, shift and weave through combat more than you might be used to - and personally, I find it a great incentive to try out some of the more mobile builds.

-Deadset
>>LIST OF DETAILED GUIDES EVERY CLASS AND EVERY ACTIVITY<<

(No, really!)

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM PATCH 2.6.6?

Patch 2.6.6 brings some unexpected and exciting changes, introducing jewelry that rivals some of the most popular staples, reworks crafted sets into very powerful and enticing options for builds, and brings the usual round of reworks and additions of legendary powers to items - some of which are incredibly potent! Amulets like the Flavor of Time and Squirt's Necklace will shake the position of Hellfires in many builds, while legendary powers like Echoing Fury and Messerschmidt's Reaver will surely bring out new builds, as well as enhance older ones. And by the way, Mortick's Brace came back. Hell, it was about time.

BASICS GUIDES AND CONQUEST GUIDES

Before moving on to class impressions and recommendations, I just want to give a quick pointer to the new basics and conquest guides that I compiled recently. If you are new to the game, returning after a long break, or simply have friends that you want to get into Diablo, give those a read:

Beginner Seasonal Guide

Bounty Farming Guide

Regular "Nephalem" Rift Farming Guide

Greater Rift Farming Guide

Conquest Guides for Season 18

As a guide hub, Icy Veins receives a ton of messages on a regular basis for topics like these - I hope they are of use to the community and answer a lot of questions for Seasons to come!

BARBARIANS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Legacy of Raekor

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Barbarian. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Might of the Earth - Earthquake

The Earthquake is one of the steadiest performers in the Barbarian roster; an AoE-heavy, visually satisfying playstyle with a rock-solid rotation. In Season 18, the build is improved with the addition of Mortick's Brace - much like other Barbarian builds, of course, since you can't argue with the addition of all Wrath of the Berserker runes - which helps with the troublesome survivability of the build. The addition of Messerschmidt's Reaver is another curious option for the build, vying for the Kanai slot to bring you steady WotB uptime.

Legacy of Dreams - Hammer of the Ancients

Hammer of the Ancients is a signature Barbarian playstyle that revels in melee destruction, slamming down the mighty Gavel of Judgment onto the demonic hordes with unrelenting precision. Turning the Legacy from a Nightmare into a Dream (see what I did there?) does wonders for the legendary-based HotA build, as it is now free to keep the triumvirate of Convention of Elements, Band of Might and Zodiac Ring at the mere cost of a legendary gem slot. WotB performance is assisted not only by Mortick's, but also the addition of the revised Echoing Fury and its insane attack speed bonuses - directly feeding into your Zodiac CD resets.

Wrath of the Wastes - Whirlwind

You can't get a more clear description than "Whirlwinding" for what this build does; a spin-to-win, medieval lawnmower of a playstyle, this is by far the smoothest and most satisfying farming build. A long-standing lament of Barbarians is its lackluster performance in GR pushing, and while it's not quite solved yet, the Whirlwind barb is greatly boosted by Mortick's Brace (solving some of the survivability issues) and Echoing Fury (which is now a fixture to IAS-dependent builds). Add The Flavor of Time on top of it all for the delicious doubled duration of Pylons, and Whirlwind gets a much needed spike of power.

CRUSADERS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Armor of Akkhan

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Crusader. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Legacy of Dreams - Blessed Shield

Empowered by their resource-free playstyle, Blessed Shield Crusaders cover the battlefield in Captain America-like barrage of fiery steel. Exchanging the Legacy of Nightmares for a Legacy of Dreams, this mighty Crusader build gets to keep a potent jewelry combo of Convention of Elements, Justice Lantern and Unity, and even adds The Flavor of Time on top. I'm sure you can imagine what doubled pylon duration does to a build that is already rock-solid in most fighting situations.

Invoker - Thorns

Where this build lacks in flashiness, it more than makes up with approachable and easy-to-grasp, yet top tier performing playstyle. Despite its somewhat subdued visuals, the devastating efficiency of the Invoker Thorns Sader is undeniable. Staying true to its 'understated powerhouse' reputation, Invokers simply adds an Echoing Fury to its lineup - and will proceed to decimate high tier GRs once again.

Rolands - Sweep Attack

Affectionately called the 'Janitor Crusader', Sweep Attack-based Rolands quite literally clean up battlefields in precise, blindingly fast arcs (on top of the most satisfying ASMR 'whoosh' of the sweeps, you can't deny). The newest addition to the build is the craftable Captain Crimson, which plays wonderfully into the needs for cooldown and resource management of the build, and even empowers you for it. And then there's the prospect of running Messerschmidt or Echoing fury into the Cube (or just play it straight with Furnace), enhancing different aspects of the build... quite promising for an underdog.

DEMON HUNTERS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Embodiment of the Marauder

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Demon Hunter. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Legacy of Dreams - Rapid Fire

The emergence of the Rapid Fire build finally brought the close range, Tommy gun-like fantasy of the Demon Hunter class to life - all in a destructive, methodical playstyle that isn't afraid to get into the thick of fights and chaingun-and-grenade its way out. In Season 18, the swap from Legacy of Nightmares into Dreams allows the Rapid Fire DHs to keep their protective powerhouses - Elusive Ring and Unity, while bringing extra devastation with Convention of Elements and The Flavor of Time on top.

Unhallowed Essence - Multishot

The Multishot build embraces the long-range powers of the Unhallowed Essence set, bringing the "lone archer eclipsing the sun with arrows" archetype to life. The screen-wide decimation of Multishot has never been sweeter, now that it adopts Squirt's Necklace and Captain Crimson's set into the setup - extra incentives to stay alert, on the move and always shooting your (now stronger) volleys of death.

Shadow - Impale

The ninja-like, assassin playstyle of Shadow Impale ramps up in power so fast, that it often sits at the top of the leaderboard for a week, waiting for slower builds to catch up. Impale DHs vault in, plant a dagger in an elite's back (usually ending its life outright), and then disappear in the shadows, onto their next target. I'll be honest, this build hasn't budged much - but it's so damn satisfying that I can't help but point it out.

MONK

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Inna's Mantra

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Monk. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Inna - Wave of Light

Although not particularly exciting, this is a purposeful highlight; Inna is the free set of the Season, and the (relative) ease of starting an Inna Wave of Light build can take you very far into the Season with relatively minor time investment. Inna WoL is a tried and tested build that combines the inherent screen-clearing AoE of Explosive Blasts with the forgiving, easy-to-play Inna set. If you're looking for something to breeze the Season with, this is a strong contender.

Legacy of Dreams - Wave of Light

Roll your eyes as you might at another WoL season, you simply can't argue with the skill - from the relative safety that Tzo Krin's Gaze provides, you can obliterate the screen with Wave of Light spam, dropping blazing clusters of holy power on demon upon unsuspecting demon. The transition of Legacies - from Nightmares to Dreams - allows you to keep all S17 toys, and the trio of Convention of Elements, Unity and Zodiac (DPS, protection and utility staples respectively) is now strengthened even further by The Flavor of Time. Double duration of Pylons on a build that benefits from pretty much all of them? Yes, please!

Legacy of Dreams - Lashing Tail Kick

Lashing Tail Kick builds are the counterpart of their WoL bretheren; getting into the fray where WoL keeps to the side, and melting the enemy in a flurry of Chuck Norris spin-kicks. You might argue this is a weaker build - and it is - but similarly to its WoL brother, it gets to keep all synergistic legendary jewelry from S17 and add The Flavor of Time on top, plus the option to deviate into Echoing Fury if the cubed Flying D isn't consistent enough for your tastes.

NECROMANCER

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Pestilence Master's Shroud

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Necromancer. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Legacy of Dreams - Singularity

Love them or hate them, you can't deny Singularity Necromancer is one of the most ruthlessly effective summoner builds in the game; cold, calculating and intensive to play (both in terms of resource management and, befitting of Necromancers, frailty of the character). Replacing The Legacy of Nightmares for that of Dreams, Singularity Necros stay at the peak of their offensive power through Convention of Elements, Krysbin and the Circle of Nailuj rings.

Legacy of Dreams - Skeleton Thorns

Let's get one thing out of the way: this is a quirky and slow-to-construct build. But there is an undeniable appeal to an army of undead minions that cripples - and eventually destroys - the enemies through their own attacks. In Season 18, Thorns Necros get to add Squirt's Necklace, adding another massive source of damage to a build that already benefits so much from its deliberate, calculated pace.

Legacy of Dreams - Blood Nova

Nova Necromancers are an evocative playstyle, spilling fountains of (literal) bloody destruction from their bodies, which grow in efficiency the more enemies you throw at them. In reality, the build has its issues (the mechanics and numbers on items like Bloodtide Blade are a culprit), but the build is damn fun, and I wanted to give it a little spotlight just for that.

WITCH DOCTOR

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Zunimassa's Haunt

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Witch Doctor. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Zunimassa - Carnevil DoD

The Carnevil Witch Doctor summons an army of swarming minions at his side, whose adorable mimicking of his blowdart attack - and positively horrifying attack speed - are a sight to behold. This has been a long time coming; Zunimassa has been building up in power over the course of a few patches, with set and item changes that slowly inched it up in viability. Season 18 will be the triumph of this oldschool build, with the Zuni Fetishes empowered by the craftable Aughild set (fitting just right into the vacant slots of the setup) and the Attack Speed madness of Echoing Fury in the Cube.

Jade Harvester WD

With power to match his imposing name, the Jade Harvester is a force to be reckoned with - crippling the enemies with damage over time effects, and then recklessly diving in to 'consume' and apply their entire duration instantly with a well placed Soul Harvest. This build now benefits from the Captain Crimson craftable set, as well as The Flavor of Time amulet, keeping it high in the WD pantheon of builds.

Helltooth - Gargantuan

Keeping a trio of overprotective, lumbering, undead giants at your side is the signature of this build - another take on the summoner fantasy, this time relying on stitched-corpse voodoo dolls to pummel your enemies to the ground. This setup, while still in need of buffs, got a nice addition in the form of the craftable Spite ceremonial knife; granting you the Humongoid rune for free, its legendary effect opens you to experimentation both in GRs and speedfarm with this build.

WIZARD

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Delsere's Magnum Opus

A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Wizard. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:

Vyr - Archon

Transforming the Wizard into an unstoppable being of Arcane destruction, the Achon build simply has it all - power, mobility, versatility. For the modest investment of two relatively easy-to-obtain sets - Vyr and Chantodo - this build will take you into the highest of Greater Rifts, and with a relatively simple to grasp playstyle to boot. One of the strongest builds in S18. Definitely the one with the best power-to-time-invested ratio.

Legacy of Dreams - Star 'Bazooka' Pact

The Star Pact Wizard has a rather complex rotation and playstyle, but rewards it with a monstrously powerful punch - arguably, the strongest one in the game right now. In a densely packed fight, no other build will deliver comparable punishment as the arcane juggernauts dropped by the (fittingly nicknamed) Bazooka Wiz. Oh, and now it gets to play with extra Pylon duration from The Flavor of Time, as if what it had wasn't enough. Geez.
Thank you so much for reading this and my guides! Good luck and have a great Season 18!

P.S. There is a ton of work I am doing in the background at the moment, but in the coming weeks you can expect a massive revision to the way our builds are presented, as well as another clean sweep of old artifacts - I think you will be very pleased! :) Stay tuned!

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Witchdoctor: How To LoN Gargs

How To LoN Gargs. 
The other day I was trying to switch from LoN Gargs to LoN Firebats, so I made a post asking about playstyle changes between the 2.

I got some good answers from some great firebats players, but I got a lot more questions about LoN Gargs. Apparently a lot of people don’t know about LoN Gargs, how it works, or how to play it at a high level.

By the time I finished replying to all of them I had basically written a very disorganized guide. Here I’ve tried to organize it with my observations. I tend to reread and revise my posts, so don't be surprised if things get added/rearranged.

LoN Gargs is not Firebats lite or a Firebats trainer. Its a completely different playstyle. The learning curve at the begining is easier than Firebats, no argument there. Mastering the intricacies of it makes it a totally different build though, and its a blast to play. Far more interactive than it first appears.

First, let’s get a few formalities out of the way:

What is LoN Gargs?

It is a WD Pets build using Legacy of Nightmares. With good gear, it can push into 80s with far less than 1000 paragon and using legendary gems it can level itself. At time of writing it holds several spots on the seasonal solo leaderboards, including #3 on the NA leaderboards @ grift level 86.

The route to the season 5 WD leaderboards goes through Gargantuan –Humungoid. LoN Gargs is no exception. All the gargs builds share a common theme of “Buff the gargs, group the mobs for them and try not to die while they kill stuff.”

Its non-obvious at first, particularly in the lower 70s where the sheer power of the gargs and the survivability of LoN + Harvester will just carry it, but as you push higher it’s a very interactive build with a lot of strategy.

What is LoN Gargs not?

LoN Gargs is not LoN Firebats without Firebats. On paper it looks like that, but the playstyle is very different, with a lot of intricacies and interactions that are non-obvious when you first start playing it.

At a base level, it actually plays a lot more like Helltooth Gargs than Firebats, but it is also not Helltooth Gargs without Helltooth. Full disclosure, the leaderboards say Firebats is a little stronger, or at least has a slightly higher ceiling in its ideal rift layout/mob composition. If your only goal is to be #1 on the leaderboards, you should probably be playing firebats.

Helltooth Gargs is easier to gear for. If you don’t want to do a million bounty runs to get a nearly full set of ancients before you start pushing, go with helltooth. You’ll still want full ancients in helltooth eventually though.

But if you’ve got the time, and your goal is to push high grifts with a lot less fishing than Firebats, with the potential to get high on the leaderboards and have a lot of fun doing it, LoN Gargs might be the build for you.

What business do you have writing a guide about LoN Gargs?

I don’t claim to be an amazing player. In fact I usually describe myself as a terrible player, but I’ve played this build a lot, and I think I play it pretty well.

I’m not a casual player, but I’m not insane either. I’m not a streamer. I have a day job. I usually get 7+ hours of sleep. I don’t have 1500+ paragon or any legendary gems above what I can level solo in my gear, let alone to burn on augments.

Friday I cleared 79 after 8 attempts, and Saturday I got 80 in 5 to snag 137 on the solo seasonal leaderboard at the time. I think that’s pretty good. I had hoped to do 80 before I hit 900 paragon, but I ended up actually hitting 900 during the run. I'm confident if I had understood the build better early on, I could have done it somewhere in the 700s or low 800s. (edit: earlier I had said 901, but I just checked. Nope. 900 on the dot.)

I’ve taken a break from pushing the last few days, but I’m pretty sure I can push it to at least 82 without any more upgrades.

*edit: 25 or so attempts and 42 paragon levels later, just got 81 in 12:20 for rank 74 US.

Additionally, I’ve had enough high end Firebats players say things here and in other venues about LoN Gargs that don’t make any sense to me to think maybe a lot of people don’t understand it.

The Base Build

Here’s my current profile showing typical gear and talents:

D3planner isn’t importing my augments, but 12/13 are augmented, all somewhere between level 60 and 70, so add about 4000 intellect to that.

My gear is far from perfect. I have all the right pieces, but several slots have all resist where I’d prefer they were armor with physical/arcane/lightning in a secondary resist. A few secondary affixes are useless things like gold find or thorns. My hellfire is terrible, but it’s the first ancient hellfire I’ve seen with a usable passive that was a mathematical upgrade, even with the LoN ancient bonus over the near perfect non-ancient I cleared 80 with.

Gear and skill variants are covered at the end of the guide.

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY LoN Gargs, Basics

Rift 75 and below is where you learn the basics of the build and get a feel for it while collecting upgrades and leveling random gems for augments. You don’t need augments yet, but if you have a really nice piece you won’t replace for awhile, do it, probably with a gem around level 65. Don’t waste time augmenting stuff you know you will need to replace.

First, forget everything you know about LoN Firebats. You need to group stuff up for gargs. You wear a lot of the same gear. The similarities end there.

Firebats channels. You move around.

Firebats facetanks with it’s crazy sustain and taeguk armor. You dodge.

Firebats runs past Knockback/frozen/teleporters/other crap and looks for something else. You smash their faces.

Assuming decent gear and paragon 500+, it initially plays a lot like the helltooth gargs that probably got you this far. Wall of Death is gone, but now you have mass confusion or horrify and Grin Reaper mixing things up. I mostly play mass confusion, so thats where I'm coming from. Just personal preference. Horrify has the goods too.

To start, run through the grift aggroing mobs and collecting them together with pnado for your gargs. Focus your attention on learning to stack BotS on elites/rift guardians with firewalkers without getting killed.

Try to save mass confusion for when you have all 3 gargs beating the same big pack of mobs with an elite in it, but don’t hold it for too long. If you are staying in the right range, Grave Injustice brings it back up pretty quick.

The damage debuffs from pnados and mass confusions that you cast will stack with the debuffs from the ones your mimic’s cast, and everything in the range gets the damage debuff even if they have diminishing returns on CC. The debuffs of your own casts won’t stack with your own casts, so if GI brings it back up really quick, wait till the first one wears off before casting it again.

Learn to manage your garg and spirit cooldowns. You shouldn’t have too much trouble with them dying yet, but still learn to get everything you can out of Grave Injustice.

Live dangerously, resummoning gargs for moderate positioning improvements. When you can, use spirit walk offensively to create a bigger pull or to instaport your gargs a long distance. It will cost you a few grifts when it goes bad, but you are trying to learn the limits now.

Learn which mobs can kill your gargs and which affixes you should consider skipping. The list is a lot shorter than firebats. Mallet lords hit boxes are too big to get a good cleave going. Unburied/Gorgons have enough HP and hit your gargs hard enough that sometimes its better to just skip them if you can’t pull enough whites, but you absolutely don’t have to. Shielding mobs are annoying for the time loss. For all of those, if all the whites are dead and they still have high HP move on. If they follow you to the next pack, great, otherwise leave them behind.

Low HP/high damage mobs will randomly kill your gargs too, but they tend to come with enough trash that the surviving gargs will be killing enough to bring the cooldown back up fast.

Best Follower at high levels is a thunderfury enchantress with attk speed, wydward and occulus ring. At lower levels you can get away with some other follower builds if you want, but the templar causes just as many problems as he solves. Further explained in other sections.

That covers the basics. There's a mastery section further down.

Rift Guardian Tactics

If something here doesn't make sense, read it again after reading the mastery section further down. You want to learn these tactics while learning the basics, but you can get away with just hiding while your gargs finish it in 75-

Learn to dance with the rift guardians sub 75 (or even in TX with your pets unsummoned!) where you can survive a hit. Over time you’ll learn to read their attacks and know when to move a bit, when to spirit walk, and when to run for your life.

I rarely get hit by any rift guardian attack that is avoidable anymore. My 76/77/78 first clears the rift guardian didn't hit me. I didn't die on the 79 either, but I had a shield pylon for 98% of it so I won't count it. I died once on the 80 rg because I did something stupid. *edit: Didn't die on 81 either.

Almost all of them have a place you can run in tight circles near enough for firewalkers safely, usually behind them or to the side. For example, Man Carver will never hit you if you stay right behind him. When he turns to face you, all his attacks have a windup that gives you time to get to the side or run through him. Perendi is too slow too as long as you step out of the add spawn circles and have spirit walk up for the ceiling collapses.

If its something that's too dangerous to be right next to, find a safe area 10-15 yards out to spin in circles and jump in for a moment and then back out every few seconds to keep stacking firewalkers. This works fantastic for Bloodmaw... stay behind him, dart in after he takes a swing and spirit walk off the screen when he starts jumping. It also works for Infernal Maiden... Stay out of her point blank melee, make quarter circles back and forth about 10-15 yards out darting in after she swings. When she starts to cast any of her 3 aoes (spin, jump and fire projectiles) get out to about 25 yards until they are past. The last time I got Blighter I realized this may be a workable strat for him with his slow melee attacks you can run in after. I had some success, but I don't have a perfect pattern yet.

Several of them you can just run circles around them varying distance around them in and out by about 10 yards and they’ll almost never attack between turning to face you, chasing you and randomly getting stunned by your follower. It is easiest to see this in action on Orlash, a joke as long as you don't stand in the beams. With slight modifications to your pathing based on their attack patterns it works reasonably well on any guardian without a devastating aoe. Sand Shaper is another one who just gets demolished by this. Both of them can be killed without taking any damage at all. Tethys gets wrecked by this tactic. Eskandiel too, but you'll need to manage the adds and dodge arcane sentries. If it gets too crazy run a few screens away and he should come to you.

It also works for ones with aoe until you get high enough that your pets can't survive it while you dodge. For example, Cold Snapand Rime are both wrecked by this until 79/80, where their aoe can kill all your pets in 1-2 ticks and you have to find a new tactic. If you have 3-4 minutes left when he spawns, Rime can be kited around a very large area(multiple screens). You basically always stay far away. As soon as the aoe casts, run farther to port your pets to you and keep running until he follows you out of the aoe. Your pets will still get picked off, but you'll get several attack cycles before they're all dead. When all the gargs are dead, run in and do the firewalkers dance to build stricken stacks using spirit walk to not die until the gargs come back up. Then repeat the cycle. I don't have a workable 80+ strategy for Cold Snap yet.

Voracity you can use something like the 80+ Rime tactic above except not as extreme. Stay closer. When the aoe starts stacking up too deep, run a few screens away and make him come to you. You should be able to keep your pets alive, but if they do die, make sure you continue to stack firewalkers while you wait for the cooldown.

Knowing telegraphs for boss projectiles is important. You need to dodge anything you can, and slow projectiles should never be allowed to land on you. If its something you can control the direction the boss shoots, you actually want him to pick you and then dodge it so your pets don't take damage. Sand Shaper's tornados, Rime's ranged attack and Bone Warlock's orbs are at least semi targeted on you and completely avoidable in flight.

Fast multi-directional projectiles that you know are coming but don't know where until its too late, you may need to use your follower/dogs/gargs as a meat shield. If the telegraph is long enough just get farther away when its coming, but for some you have to dive behind your pets. For the most part they can take the hits, but if your gargs have a lot of cooldown left be smart about it. Always prefer follower over dogs over gargs to take the hit.

For guardians that summon a lot of adds, use your pnados to keep the adds right under the guardian as much as you can. This will keep your pets from wasting boss dps killing adds, and actually add some aoe dps. If things get too spread out, resummon on top of the boss or run a screen away to port your gargs and then try to coax them back onto the boss when he follows you. Don’t worry if your dogs are off killing some random add. As long as they are hitting something, they are doing their job of healing you and allowing your gargs to focus on the boss.

For Hamelin treat it like a trash pack with a high damage elite and a lot of high damage whites. Run around and through him and don't stand in the rat swarms and he'll just die.

Mix and match all those tactics and you with 2 exceptions noted below you can pretty much wreck every boss., if I didn't mention a specific guardian its probably because some combination of the above works and they arn't notable at all.

2 exceptions for me: Peredition and Blighter are assholes. Theoretically they telegraph their attacks just like all the others, and I know some people have mastered Peredition. Nobody likes Blighter. His attacks can 1shot pets en-masse several grift levels before any other rift guardian is even a realistic threat to one. Some tactics help with him, but not one obvious strat.

How to master LON Gargs

Okay, so you’ve cleared 75. Maybe even scored a fast 76 or a 77 and got yourself a spot on the bottom of leaderboards. 78 might not have happened yet, but it feels possible. Your primary gems are all leveled to 75+, whatever you can clear through reliably. You’ve got 13/13 ancients and most of them are pretty good rolls even. How to push this build?

First prepare. Get your augments in order. By this point some of your gear is already augmented, and the rest is good enough to make it worth it. There’s still room for upgrades, but its mostly random chance at this point. Spend a few hours grinding 5 minute 60s-70s with a few friends and level some garbage gems to the mid-60s. If you have a near perfect piece, push the gem for that a little higher before you augment it. You can go higher without full augments, but at this point there’s no reason not to.

You can wear nemesis bracers or strongarms and a red gem in your helm while you do this. It’s not much XP, but 4% is 4% and paragon is paragon. You won’t need the survivability for anything below 70 anymore.

After your gear is augmented, make sure you’ve stacked 20+ rift keys before you push. It burns when you have a few good rifts but just miss the timer, but you are psyched and in the zone. Nothing sucks more than to be so close you can taste it and realize you are out of keys.

Now you push. Here’s what’s different than the lower levels.

Your gargs are going to start dying a lot more, so all that time you spent learning to manage the cooldown and maximize grave injustice will be your new best friend. At first it will just be one here and there. As you go higher, it gets harder. Sometimes one will die right after you summon you'll just be stuck running with 1 or 2 gargs trying to get your cooldown back.

Eventually you’ll want swampland attunement. I felt it was necessary at 80.

You are a support class for your gargs. Pay attention to where your gargs are and what their health pool is like, and when they are about to get slaughtered, save them. Keep track of where all the health globes are, and if your gargs are at full health, delay the pick up until they take some damage.

You should already be using pnado/confusion on what they are fighting to max their dps, but now a well timed one will also save your gargs from a killing blow, or at least buy them a few more swings before they go down.

If necessary, outrange them to force them to port them somewhere safer with less aoe. Don’t worry, the mobs will follow, and you can either run your gargs right back to them or build them a new pack with whatever you ran into while the ones they were fighting catch up to you.

And while you are porting them, keep pulling more mobs, always moving through the grift. At higher levels, LoN Gargs ceases to be a series of pulls and turns into an endless marathon of slaughter where you are always pulling more.

Bring whites that are cooperative and elites with you to the next room, but abandon individual stragglers who wont cooperate. Keep 2 or 3 loose packs on the screen or just adjacent that you can move your gargs between when the aoe gets too hot. The constant flow of mobs doesn’t just move your progress bar. It keeps your gargs alive.

The steady stream of trash mobs is maximizing your aoe/cleave damage to explode the trash, which gets you more health globes to heal the gargs and power through the heavy hitters. The random whites running around will also be in the way of the big ones so the gargs don’t get surrounded entirely by power hitters at once. A garg can facetank one or two big ones and a bunch of trash even at 80. By keeping a big pack of trash in the fray, you aren’t just increasing your damage, your are mitigating incoming damage on your gargs while aoe damage pecks away at their health.

Your follower is a lot more instrumental at this level too. I’m pretty set that a thunderfury enchantress with wydward and oculus is the right pick at this level. Templar heals are nice, but you shouldn’t need it. He tends to create the wrong kind of chaos with all his charges and stuns. Enchantress creates the right kind, and amps your damage too.

Occasionally your enchantress will proc ess of johan and collapse the whole screen on one point. Before they spread out again, If your gargs arnt in the middle, resummon them on it immediately. The aoe damage when the whole screen is stacked on 3 gargs is comical.

Your enchantress should also have an Occulus ring at this point. I still don’t entirely understand how that proc works, but with so much constant chaos in the higher rifts, you’ll get quite a few pools during a typical rift. Since this build never needs to stand still, you can utilize them a lot more than other builds that rely on you stopping to cast. Book it to the pool, pnado everything near your gargs and dance in circles as you enjoy the explosion of numbers.

Oh look, you're at the rift guardian. You've got 3 minutes left. And he doesn't know how to hit you. Have fun!

Basic Gear Priorities

Cold damage on bracers and ideally hellfire. Crit and Crit Dmg everywhere you can get it. Aim for the standard 1:10 ratio. With perfect gear you’ll have high 50’s crit and low 500’s crit damage. If one is way higher than the other and you can’t balance them any further with the gear you have, you can sacrifice some of the higher one for area damage or possibly a bit of life on hit.

Garg Damage everywhere you can get it.

Area Damage 70% - 100% wherever it fits. You have 50 from paragon so it should be pretty easy. Really you want as much as you can get but going past 70-75 tends to eat into something else you’d rather have.

Int everywhere you can get it without losing cold/crit/crit dmg.

Stack survivability everywhere else, ideally with a bit of life on hit. A bit of life on hit > Vit > Armor > % life.

Attack Speed isn’t a bad thing, but you already have 45-57% from taskers depending on how its natural attack speed and bonus pet attack speed rolls.

For secondary affixes, get a 30-40% cc reduction roll somewhere, which really cuts down on the dps loss when your gargs get stunned/frozen/jailed, and will save your life if you fail to dodge the same.

For resists, stack arcane/lightning/physical resist. Really you’ll have enough all resist from intelligence that you can just use whatever you find up to the mid/high 70s, but when you push higher you’ll be glad you have it. Around 80 you’ll start using swampland attunement to keep your gargs from dying too fast, so fire/poision/cold will be fine. There is no such thing as too much physical at that level.

A bit of pickup radius. You don’t need much since you are so mobile, but a little helps to pluck the globes out of the mess.

Gear Specifics / Variants

If you are lucky enough to get a high base damage Sacred Harvester that has 10% dmg/life on hit or area damage/life on hit, use that. Otherwise, the highest damage one you can find with vitality.

If you are getting 1 shot by unavoidable damage, use string of ears instead of witching hour.

If you are getting whittled down, or even 2 shot, find some life on hit. Leeching beasts is a force multiplier for life on hit. Paragon only gives you ~9K which is nearly unnoticeable. Getting up to 20K by getting it on bracers makes it very noticeable. More than that is a lot more expensive to your damage stats, but anything that doesn’t kill you will be healed up almost instantly.

If I were to get an ancient taskers that already had Int/crit/crit dmg but only a 5% normal attack speed, I would consider rolling off the attack speed for more life on hit.

Skill Variants

More and more people seem to be running Horrify – Frightening Aspect over Mass Confusion – Paranoia, trading CC/Damage for CC/Damage reduction. This even seems to be the case in the high 70s. The 50% armor should have close to 100% uptime, so its huge, but I don’t feel like the extra reduction is necessary to clear 80. I'll let you know about 81 once I try it.

edit: Got through 81 still using mass confusion. The incoming damage in 81 was a much bigger problem for both me and the gargs, but still survivable. The push took about 25 attempts. Finished about half of them, with most ending in the 15-17 minute range. There's still a mix of horrify and mass confusion on the leaderboards above 81. I can see a horizon coming where the armor from horrify is clearly better just to survive unavoidable damage.

Passives

This build really wants 5 passives. A Hellfire is mandatory.

Ideally it should be Socket/Cold Dmg/Crit Dmg/Crit. If that isn’t an option, use Socket/Crit Dmg/Crit/Int or Socket/Cold Dmg/Crit Dmg/Int. If none of those are an option, you are probably better off using a non-ancient one that has Socket/Cold Dmg/Crit/Crit Dmg until you can farm a better one.

Grave Injustice and Midnight feast are mandatory.

Spirit Vessel is theoretically not mandatory if you play perfectly and get a perfect rift, but since gargs are 99.9% of your damage, if you die while your gargs have a lot of cooldown left, it’s basically GG. You’ll have no way to proc Grave Injustice, so you just have to wait it out while the timer ticks down.

Some people use Pierce the Veil over Confidence Ritual. I don’t like that, because you want to be right in there with the mobs as much as you can for Bane of the Trapped, Grave Injustice and Firewalkers already.

Gruesome Feast > Swampland Attunement until somewhere in the high 70s. Around 79 or 80, your Gargs need the extra resist to survive.

For speed leveling gems in the 60s – low 70s, you can drop all survivability passives to fit Gruesome Feast and pierce the veil. The extra damage really speeds things up as long as you don’t stand in things.

Gear Specific Notes and Variants

Hexing Pants: Never. Stop. Moving. Always know your escape route. If you are in a very tiny hole, run back and forth. If you get boxed in, even if you don’t die, your damage is going to drop by 50%. If you do get boxed in, use pnado to open a hole or spirit walk out. If pnado and spirit walk are on cooldown, resummon your gargs and if necessary your dogs right on top of you. It will force the mobs to reposition a bit which might open a hole, and the sudden burst of cleaves will hopefully open a path for you.

Firewalkers: The damage is nominal, but it builds Bane of the Stricken stacks super fast in a build that doesn’t have other options. To get max damage, you really need to spend as much time as you can dancing around next to/under as many mobs as you can.

This is particularly the case with high hp elites and rift guardians who will basically never die without it. This is the difference between a 1 minute guardian and a 5 minute guardian at 80.I’ve seen 1 or 2 people high on the leaderboards using Illusory Boots but still running Stricken. They know something I don't. If you know, please tell me.

Frostburn instead of Taskers or Grin Reaper, wearing a Mask of Jeram

I’ve heard good things about this but it didn’t work for me. I ended up using a non-ancient taskers until I got a good ancient one. Taskers is more or less mandatory Grin Reaper seems gimmicky and isn’t strictly necessary, but the extra cc and damage amplification it adds is crazy.

Corruption or Pauldrons of the Skeleton King instead of Homing Pads:

Corruption is a lot less stressful to play and is still really good. For Homing Pads to work you need to hold down force move while spamming town portal as fast as you can while continuously running around. Force move prevents town portal from ever casting, but the damage reduction for a moment. I didn’t use it until 78. I’ve seen other people 80+ with corruption or pauldrons, so empirically it is not necessary, but it is very strong.

I bind town portal to mouse wheel and force move to one of the side buttons on my mouse, and even then I can only stand to use it when the shit hits the fan. For anything below 78, I just use corruption for the extra pickup radius.

I expect this will get patched out of the game at some point, probably in 2.5 at the same time they’ve said they’ll address Furious Charge/animation cancelling for Barbs. Enjoy it while it lasts, or don’t, its pretty annoying do. A good ancient Corruption or homing pads are both really easy to get. Corruption is craftable and homing pads are a really common legendary shoulder so upgrading 20 rare shoulders or burning a few thousand blood shards should get you one without much trouble.

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Jade is powerful if you want . My way to reach top 100 as jade is almost finished . Rank 212 GR80

Hey guys , my last video reached almost 1k view . I done 80 GR with the jade so now I decided to record 77. The quality isn't the best as a last video , but I increased resolution to 720p . The rift that I show also isn't cool . if I got that rift on 80/81 I would quit . Anyway showing the perfect rift isn't helpful for ppl .

Here is gallery of my records ;














Here is a video ;

At the end sorry for my english again and hope for 80 video soon (if my low pc allow me to do it xd) . Atm pushing 81 and I'm very close . My last try ended with 15m;13s

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Zunimassa Set Dungeon Guide - Witch Doctor

Guide for Zunimassa Set Dungeon
lvl 70 Witch Doctor

-Location

Set up your Char:
-Gems
-Cube
-Skills
-Passive skills

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Witch Doctors - The Debbie Downers

I've been WD main since vanilla patiently awaiting a patch that gives us some goodies. I thought 2.3 was going to be the patch of all patches for us! Well, nope!

Helltooth underperforms, has deadzones, is clunky. Arachyr underperforms, is clunky. Jade and zdps build(s) might as well not exist. Melee pet Docs still worse then Carnevil + DoD.

It's great that we got some new toys to play with, I just wish they worked better. Granted, there's still time between now and s4 where big changes could be made to make these sets better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Just a real bummer, ya know? Get super hyped to only realize we're still going to be playing DoD in the end game, but this time around, we have no party utility whatsoever.

My suggestion Blizzard?

A) Give us back Jade. Dotty Shotgun is a fun play style. Just admit the Spirit Walk change is what doomed the set, revert it back to the way it was, and let us do our thing.

B) Continue to try and make Helltooth a thing. Every WD I know wants Wall of Zombies (change the name back, Wall of Death is beyond corny) to be a thing, and is super cool. Maybe try and focus the 6-piece into something more potent. Either all in for Bears, or all in for Acid Cloud.

C) Trying to turn two of our worst spells into a competitive set was ambitious, and that's admirable. But there's still a lot of work to be done to make Arachyr a set to be reckoned with. I'd like to see the 2-piece changed a bit to where you aren't forced to use Corpse Spiders as your primary in order to control the Widowmaker. The 4-piece is freaking great. Love it. Don't change a thing! The 6-piece is the biggest problem of course. Channeling spells is not where we want to be as a class. Especially when that spell mostly involves being in melee-ish range (which is precisely why Jade is currently terrible - we go splat without our old Spirit Walked juiced up with CDR). Many people have suggested the 6-piece allow Firebats to be channeled while moving. That could be cool! Or moving away from Firebats completely could also be a thing. Maybe put a bigger focus on Piranhas? This is a tough one, but it's a cool idea for a set using our "animal" abilities.

D) Now with 0dps shot to death as far as I'm concerned, we need a utility set! I'm kidding, but still, we have so much utility in our skills, but other classes are doing it so much better since we can't Tik our way to victory in 4-mans anymore. Which, frankly, I'm fine with - if it meant WDs could find another way to still be a great utility class - which doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm sure I'll get downvoted into oblivion for yet another whining Witch Doctor post, but shit dudes/ladies, I think we have some valid reasons for being bummed.

Maybe some people have had better experiences with the new sets and I'm missing something? I'd love to know if there's anything that can be done to salvage these 2 "new" sets before S4. I love DoD as much as the next guy, but I already had my heart set on playing the new sets, not just playing DoD with SMK/Jeram/RRG as passives.

Cheers.

Edit: There was a great suggestion on the forums about changing Helltooth to a Grasp of the Dead build instead of Wall of Death. This, as well as some major bumps in damage to the 6-piece (and possibly 2-piece, as well as making it poison damage - I believe its currently physical), would be a huge step in the right direction for this build.

Another suggestion! Not that I dislike Acid Rain. I love it, in fact. However, I like bears more! I'd love to see a change to how Zombie Bears work. It would be great if the spell had a longer range, and shot one large bear straight ahead as opposed to three adjacent bears that have many collision issues. Being able to slow with WoD (or grasp) and then nuking them down in a rain dance with giant bears would please me, and I'm sure many WDs, to no end.

Realistically, I imagine none of these are feasible in the window Blizzard has before they drop 2.3. WDs aren't the only class in the game, of course! But it never hurts to throw out some suggestions as you read them, or think of them. Please, WDs, throw out suggestions as much as you can. You never know what Blizzard might pick up from these seemingly random posts. Blizzard is one of the few companies that does scour places like reddit and their official forums for ideas from the community. I imagine almost all the Quality of Life changes made from Vanilla to Ros, and Ros s1 to now, have been suggestions from the community. Just be constructive, try not to be super salty (I should take my own advice, lel), and good things could come!

Thanks for all the responses!

Deuces

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Witch Doctors: Speed Jade T6 Build (Patch 2.2)

With the current meta of Diablo 3, speed farming has became a popular tool to raise paragon levels, farm rift/trial keys, and gather crafting materials. Monk, and Barbs have proven to be very efficient at T6/Low GR level farming, due to their bursty damage, and speed increasing abilities. They're by far the MOST EFFICIENT WAY to speed farm Low Level content. However a lot of people don't want to Re-Roll, and or play an alternate class just due to the advantages they may have. So what I decided to do was piece together a speed farming build for the WD class for T6/Low Level content.

If your in a Rush...

Build/Gear

T6 Bounty Full Clear

T6 Rift Run

Otherwise, you can read up below.

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Time Averages

All this data was recorded in order to show how the build preforms over an extended amount of time. I've listed all the information, over the course of a 10 run segments for bounties, and rifts. A total of 3 different trial runs were completed, which resulted in 30 T6 Bounties/Rifts, ran.

Stats for first Trial


Sheet dps: 1.1m


toughness: 8.1m


Crit chance: 50%


Crit Dmg: 375%


element poison: 44%%


increase spell: Locust Swarm 26%


Gems: Boon of the horder 26, Bane of the trapped 42, wreath of lightning 27

Bounties T6:


1st: 10:10.30


2nd: 8:46.60


3rd: 10:52:01


4th: 9:18.51


5th: 7:59:00


6th: 9:45:.99


7th: 6:47


8th: 10:05


9th: 8:56


Final Run: 7:50


Avg time: 9:03


Total Time: 1:30:00

Rifts T6:


1st: 3:40


2nd: 3:30


3rd: 3:10


4th: 3:39


5th: 3:41


6th: 2:45


7th: 3:42


8th: 5:34


9th: 4:13


Final Run: 5:28

*Avg time: 3:56

*Total Time: 39:22

Stats for Second Trial


Sheet dps: 1.5m


Toughness: 9.4m


Crit chance: 50.5%


Crit Dmg: 389%


Element poison: 44%


increase spell: Haunt 28%


Gems: Boon of the hoarder 37, Bane of the trapped 42, wreath of lightning 38

Bounties T6


1st: 9.49


2th: 9.47


3rd: 8.22


4th: 8.14


5th: 12.52


6th; 9.14


7th: 10.11


8th; 8.54


9th: 8.19


Final Run: 9.40


Avg time: 9:32


Total Time: 1:35:00

Rifts T6


1st: 3.53


2nd: 3.57


3rd: 3.38


4th: 3.23


5th: 3.30


6th: 4.14


7th: 3.23


8th: 4.46


9th: 4.14


10th: 2:45


Avg: 3:42


Total Time: 36:57

Stats for third & final Trial


Sheet dps: 1.5m


Toughness: 9.4m


Crit chance: 50.5%


Crit Dmg: 389%


Element poison: 44%


Increase spell: Haunt 28%


Gem: Boon of the Hoarder 37, Bane of the trapped 42, Wreath of lightning 38

Bounties T6


1st: 9.21


2nd: 8.45


3rd: 8:45


4th: 9.20


5th: 8.58


6th: 7.56


7th: 7.55


8th: 8.58


9th: 7.39


Final Run: 7.4

Avg: 8:31

Total Time: 1:20:16

Rifts T6


1st: 3.41


2nd: 4.08


3rd: 3.32


4th: 3.33


5th: 5.44


6th: 4.14


7th: 3.33


8th: 5.19


9th: 3.47


Final Run: 2.08


Avg: 3:58


Total Time: 39:39

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Overall Time Avg, and best times

In this section I've listed video links to my best times I had accomplished over the 30 Trial runs. I thought these were the most interesting, because I wanted to showcase how good RNG can really effect the outcome of these times. Below that section I gave the final avg times for all 30 runs, for Rifts, and Bounties.
Best T6 Rift time: 2:08

Best T6 Rift Video
Best T6 Bounty run: 6:47

Best T6 Bounty Video

Average Overall time for Full Clear T6 Bounties:
Avg Time: 9:02

Average Overall time for T6 Rifts:
Avg Time: 3:52

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Paragon Setup:

Core Prioritization


1.Movement Speed until max


2.Int

Offensive Prioritization


1.Cool Down Reduction


2.Crit Chance


3.Crit Damage

Defensive Prioritization


1.Armor


2.Life %


3.All Resistance

Utility Prioritization


1.Resource Cost Reduction


2.Life on hit


3.Area Damage

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Gear & Skill Setup
Gear

Link to gear that I used
Skill Setup

Link to Skill setup

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Gem Setup

Gem Choices are pretty straight forward here, were taking the known two Legendary gems that provide a speed boost while in combat. However since there only two legendary gems that do this, our third option will lean to a gem that will boost the overall damage of the build.

Bane of the Trapped


Solid Damage increase for our Dots


Auto Procs itself @ LV 25

Wreath of Lighting


Lightning Damage is very solid vs T6 Monsters, if leveled up high enough


Provides a Speed boost, while the lightning effect is triggered (requires level 25)

Boon of the Hoarder


Running this due to the level 25 secondary


While picking up gold after slaying an enemy, we will be provided with a solid speed boost

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Video of build in action:

Build Break Down

Build in Action T6 Bounties

Build in Action T6 Rifts

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Witch doctor: Season2 GR45 complete with Tiki Sac. GR42+ guide.

Hello fellow WD's!

This season my 'project' was to get a high as I could with Petdoc (no Jade play at all) as I havent played beloved WD since prior to GR's being released, I had a fair bit to catch up on (ie I had no idea how much damage this class can output) but the biggest problem is how you deal damage to mobs and cannot choose who you kill so in higher tier you need as much time as possible.

Last night I did 45 in 11:4x got Rank16 and only seems to br 1 other petdoc higher, so I feel confident to write a guide about this class now

As season is closing and 2.2 is coming Tiki Sac will stay generally the same playstyle and I never seen any GR guides for Tikisac apart from gear/skill choices not how to actually succeed in higher tiers so if you are looking at this im going to assume you have these items below and are looking for advice on how to play (I dont record my runs anymore as haters gonna hate no matter what)

• SMK (Ancient just means a higher ceiling) and Homunculus (a 4 second Ancient Homunc with FA damage and crit can be harder than AncientSMK)
• 8 Sec Tiki - Needs 8 sec or you waste CDR
• Aughild 3 piece - Chest/Bracer/Shoulder - Make them Ancient ofc
• Cains 2 piece - Boots/Pants
• Witching Hour / Unity / SoJ
• Ess of Johan - this is a fantasic item I would say its BiS for petdoc

These Skills are mandatory, dont change them unless you swap Toads for Haunt in which you need Rush of Essence

• Toads / FA / Spirit Walk / BBV / Sacrifice / Horrify
• Spirit Vessel / Psychos / Grave Injustice (or RoE) / Pierce the Veil

The key to the build is stacking mobs, even though you have Melee Fetishes and can only hit 1 target at once, they are much more efficient when mobs are stacked together in a group plus fetishes save time by not running to each mob to hit them, but to stack mobs effectively you need to know how to engage them, there really is only a few very dangerous mobs in this game which arent elites/champs.

When I play solo I play very similair to zDPS - I just run ahead scouting for juicy packs and Champs while keeping Horrify up another extremely important part is knowing what to kill and what to skip as they arent worth the time -

• Best friends -

These guys are what you want and tonnes of them, a whole rift really the PetDoc thrives off massive mobs with huge HP, they are always worth killing because you only do Single target dmg

• Golgors / Mallet Lords / Executioners (unpullables) these are my favourite mobs, you use them as "Pull rods" and with the Ess of Johan you will start pulling everything to them, run directly up to them and start building a pack around them. I have never died once to any of these as trash, infact they have never even hit me but as Champs/Elites they can be dangerous
• Tusked Bogans / Brood Mothers / Unburied / Death Maidens / Stoneboys (large pullables) These guys are pretty good yet many of them spawn tiny adds which waste your time, block the mob and dont give progression. Unburied are just the best mob anyway in the game but they are pullable as well making them even juicier, killing these are generally worth it as long as they make more adds.
• Ponies / Teddies - bugged mobs that give 3x the progression of a normal mob, if you can get Whimsey mobs on a high tier you are lucky as its around 1/100 rifts for these guys, they are Stoneboy in mob form
• Thralls / Lacunis / Soul Lashers / Fallen Champs are quite good as long as they dont have tonnes of shitty trash around them like Fallen Champs have many Grunts around them that give 0.01 progression per kill. If you see Cultists praying let them turn.

Lacuni Stalkers or the ones who throw grenades have a 'dash' attack which can be used as you Horriy them but they can land outside the circle and become unstunned allowing them to attack you again with a projectile

• Undead are great but dont get hung up on killing them all, just kill large groups and move on. Dust Eaters however kill them all as they give .5 per kill which is stupid progression
• Cancer Mobs

These mobs are awful mainly because they give no progress, usually are annoying in someway and are most likely ranged, some of these bastards even get their own category because they are so bad, most of my deaths are to these guys in trash form in higher tiers

Grotesques - Love these on any other class but this one, even worse with Ess pulling large groups of them to you, I cant tell you how many times they have proc'd my SV or killed me from them dieing and I simply cant see them explode, sometimes I have to run away and keep them at the edge of the Horrify and even then sometimes the explosion can still hit you. Its 1 shotness from 41-42 onwards. They can be the cause of you failing said rift if you keep dieing to them or losing control as you have to move

Exarch - Hate them. No progress hardly, they stay well out of Tiki range just dropping lightning into you, I kill them somtimes so they stop annoying me

Anarch - Hate them even more than Exarchs. The charge attack they do not only can 1 shot you, it leaves a trail of fire on the floor which then kills you in 2 seconds but when they do the charge it usually leaves them outside the Horrify meaning they can just do it again and again until you lock them down. Lock them down asap

Exorcist - OMFG These guys are worse than Elites and some RGs, its insta 1 shot even tho they technically have a Channelling DoT, Most dangerous mob in the game. A Champion pack with Jailer on 44 is less likely to kill you than 1 Exorcist.

Random mobs to avoid - Almost all small mobs (Winged Assassins arent too bad) Fallen Grunts of all colours, Adds, Insects, Succubus, Armaddons (dont give good progress) Barbed Lurkers (unless you immediately lock them down and they are Champs)

• Affixes - Most affixes arent too bothersome once you have locked down a mob but there a few that stand out that will ruin your rift easy.

Reflect - This is retarded. At 41+ Toads insta 1 shots you if you hit a mob with it, but even if you arent it seems Pain Enhancer/Horrify combo seem to proc it as everytime I face a RD mob I lose 50-70% HP instantly by just standing there. Horrify procs Pain Enhancer, no idea why as it doesnt Crit.

Electrified - Cant stop it, only way is Xeph which is not recommendable, the only way to deal with it is standing about 13 yards away. Also Electrified procs their other affixes like Nightmarish so you may find yourself just running away from mobs which will cause chaos, may get you killed, watch out for this one

Molten - Spirit Walk can avoid this but sometimes shit just blows up concurrently and you cant dodge them without dieing so you must move..which can cause chaos. When a mob is pulled with Molten it will trail fire underneath them which can lead to death as you may not be able to move.

Then theres the dangerous yet avoidable such as -

Arcane will 1 shot but easy to dodge and move, Plagued will not go away so if a mob has created lots of poison maybe move on, Poison Enchanted is powerful but easy to dodge, Desecrator is temporary so Spirit Walk it.

• Rift Guardians

So you are you 99% and you have 5 mins left..you got this right? maybe as long as you dont pull a dreamcrusher, This is where the Petdoc seriously falls over, hardly any class loses lots of effectiveDPS because they cannot keep minions supplied because they are being wiped out in 3-4 seconds, ive failed a few rifts I assumed I had easily got because the damage can flatline sometimes.

Rule for RGs is: You want Stonesinger if failing that you want a Standalone RG that doesnt spawn adds, an RG with adds that also wipes out you and your fetishes are nightmares

■Agnidox - Good RG as no Adds. Can kill you easily though

■Blighter - HATE this guy on every other class but love him on Petdoc, Fetishes body block his poison attacks you only have to dodge his floor attacks occasionally. Very easy

■Bloodmaw - Bloodmaw bugs out and you can stunlock him just run away when he enrages and then go back and stunlock him again. Hes easy

■Bone Warlock - Easy takedown until he spawns adds which interfere with DPS and Fetishes, try pull his minions directly onto him

■Cold Snap - Stay within 25 yards or he FCs you, Freezes your minions, Pulse can 1 shot you at 44+. Dangerous

■Crusader King - Wastes tonnes of time, his Swing attacks can wipe ALL your fetishes out instantly

■Ember - Easy, just stand away from the Meteors and let Fetishes take them, even his Lunatics cant do shit as you lock them down instantly

■Erethon - Worst RG without Adds, this guy is tough, he has high armor it seems or HP, his melee attacks wipe out Fetish and if you are too far he just charges at you constantly..good for luring him to Pylons though

■Eskandiel - THE WORST. I used to think Saxtris was, this guy is the worse, failed many rifts to him, his Minions are much stronger than Saxtris's so they dont die much leaving hardly anytime to attack Eskandiel, Arcane 1 shotsyou, Wave attack 1 shots you, hate this guy

■Infernal Maiden - Easy, She tele's to you occasionally easy to dodge, Fire attack doesnt even 1 shot

■Man Carver - Hook attacks will 1 shot you, no pattern to this guy I stay as close as possible but it still doesnt stop the Hooks

■Orlash - You can lock him down but he can still attack, he is easy but wastes time

■Perdition - I figured this one out! Spam toads until he casts his AoE Knife attack - Run away - Run back he will then Telep to you and 1 shot USE SPIRIT WALK for this and repeat this pattern until he dies. He cant even kill me now

■Perendi - Suffers somesort of lockdown and does nothing, stay away from him

■Raiziel - Pretty easy, can kill you and Fetishes just be on your toes

■Rime - Dodge the floor effects and your fine

■Sand Shaper - Easy just dodge the Tornados

■Saxtris - Not as bas as Eskandiel but still bad, open areas make him a lot easier

■Stonesinger - Love you Stoneboy

■Tethrys - Technically the least dangerous RG, fetishes swamp her and her projectiles cannot pierce

■The Binder - Very easy, if you stand behind her you CANNOT die as her spider poison spit can only shoot forwards

■The Choker - Takes a while as he hides in corners and inside the walls so Fetishes cant get him. I fkn hate Barbed Lurkers

■Voracity - The higher you go the less fun he is.



Ive covered most things, I may of missed something which I can add tomorror when im back at work.

Goodluck with your RGs. Im trying for 46-47 by end of Season 2 and thanks for reading

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Witchdoctors: Misconceptions about 10% Damage on a weapon.

A lot of people in the Gear Advice thread and otherwise ask about rerolling their weapon to 10% Damage. It obviously sounds like a really good roll.

It is a good roll, but it is usually not the best roll for a weapon.

Jade

• For a Jade build, 10% CDR is always better than 10% Damage.
• 10% Damage gives you a 10% dps increase.
• 10% CDR gives you an 11.11% dps increase, and reduces the cooldown on Spirit Walk.

The dps increase from CDR comes from faster Harvests, based on this formula: 1/(1-0.1) = 1/0.9 => 11.11%

Carnevil

• For a Carnevil build, 7% AS is always better than 10% Damage
• 10% Damage gives you a ~8% dps increase
• 7% AS gives you a 14.49% dps increase and gives you 7% faster fetish procs

The 10% Damage only gives you ~8% dps increase because it only affects the damage on your weapon, not the damage on your mojo. Your weapon contributes about 80% of your damage, so you only get roughly 8% damage increase.

The 7% AS gives you an incredible 14.49% dps increase because of the unique mechanics of the Carnevil build. The base damage of your pets is affected by your attack speed, and then they attack at your speed, meaning you benefit twice. 1.07*1.07 = 1.1449 => 14.49% increase.

Also, it's worth noting that AS on a weapon is independent of AS on your other gear. It is applied as a separate multiplier, so even if you already have a lot of AS on your gear, the weapon AS does not suffer from diminishing returns.

Pet

• For a Pet build, 7% AS is slightly better than 10% Damage, in my opinion.
• 10% Damage gives you a ~8% dps increase
• 7% AS gives you a 7% dps increase and gives you 7% faster fetish procs

The 10% Damage only gives you a ~8% dps increase, as discussed under Carnevil.

The 7% AS gives you a straight 7% dps increase.

In my opinion, it's worth giving up 1% dps for a 7% increase in fetish procs. However, this one is not as obvious as the others, and you're not necessarily making the wrong choice if you choose Damage.

Summary

Note that this doesn't mean you should never roll to 10% Damage. If your weapon already has an 8% CDR roll, or a 6% AS roll, you probably want to add a 10% Damage roll instead of increasing the other roll.

However, any time you have to choose between 10% Damage and CDR/AS, Damage is probably not the best choice.

In summary, if you're rerolling a weapon, make sure you don't get misled by the 10% Damage stat, there are often better options.

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Witch Doctors: Stay a while and listen: 92 Fetishes in Grift 40+

Introduction:
Since I browse the whole sub on a daily basis and like the awesome community here is it time for me to contribute some smut and keep you guys busy. At this point is the whole concept pure theory crafting and hasn't been tested yet.

The most common 4 man team for high Grifts consists of 2 DH doing all the dmg, 1 tank Monk for gathering up creeps and 1 tank WD to keep every creep locked down. My idea on the contrary is to have a 4 guys doing all dps with low toughness. The gear set-up is based on the highest solo pet build by Raijin with a few changes. I recommend reading it now since I will only discuss the differing set-up. Raijin was able to beat Grift 40+ solo with his set-up and I think that 4 of us can perform even better.

So why 4 pet WD?
We can move incredible fast: The combination of Rechel's Ring of Larceny and the Tiklandian Visage gives us a perma speed boost of up to 60%. The Illusory Boots enable us to run through every monster, this is like a perma spirit walk just faster! The combination with jaunt on top of that and we are able to run from elite to elite in no time. Screw map density, we don't care!

We can lock down every creep (except RG): Well known and no news here but the 24 yards of Face of Death is often not enough due to mean and horrible ranged attacks. But 4 guys with each 24 yards will enable us to cover the whole room no matter how big it is. Furthermore if one group member dies are the elites still locked down, hence resurrecting whilst our minions keep on fighting is not that difficult.

We have crazy single target dps: We skip every trash mop, screw them, we rather have them alive so we can fear them again in case we took a wrong turn and need to boost back. We solely focus on elites and killing them quick. Despite the fact that we suck at killing trash mobs anyhow are the elite kills more effective in order to beat the timer. And on top of that are we already very strong vs. single targets.

The Profile

Gear: Insted of Unity Rechels and travellers set/soj. Since we don't use the MoJ is the elemental dmg quite nice. A well rolled travellers set might be better though.

Skills: Instead of all 4 players using Jaunt might it be better if 2 use the Zombie Dog - Final Gift, since we all get the bonus from Gruesome Feast. This is quite some extra dmg, I get about 4.7k more Int!

Play style: Run Forrest run! If there is no creep to fear we use Jaunt to give us a 3 sec boost. This should be enough to find one to fear and give us the sweet sweet speed boost. As soon as we see an Elite pack do we use spirit walk again to reach them as fast as possible. They wont be able to cast anything since we approach them so fast and left our physical body before they see us. Everyone casts there fetishes next to them and spreads out a bit (depending on the creep density etc.). One BBV underneath the pack to give the fetishes the AS bonus, the other 3 BBVs wherever we are standing. After that we make it rain toads to get more fetishes. It might even be a good idea to split up in 2 groups. Each of us with one jaunt guy (to sprint forward and lock down the pack) and one zdog guy to quickly follow and start the health globe production. This way can we cover huge areas very fast and avoid that our fetishes block each other from surrounding/ hitting the same target.

Cons: Well we are no DH after all, not sure if our dmg output is good enough. Also the RG might give us a hard time. I would love to test this, a two man team could be enough for that. So add me in case you want to: RaphaFluffa #2887, EU SC Season.

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Witchdoctor: A guide to Legendary Gems for every build.

I wanted to make a very quick, easy guide to which gems work with which builds. I do NOT play many of these builds, so many of these ratings are just based on guides I read or feedback in the comments. If you have a different opinion, please comment and let me know.

These ratings assume your Gem is at least level 25, and that you are trying to clear the highest GRift possible within the time limit.

• A = The consensus best or second best gem for this build in any circumstance. Use it.
• B = A very strong choice for this build in nearly every circumstance.
• C = Situationally useful. If you're doing something specific, this could be a good choice.
• D = Not completely useless, but close.
• F = Completely useless for this build. No synergy.

Gem	Carnevil	Rhen'ho	SMK	Jade	TikTank	Grin Reaper
Bane of the Powerful	B	B	B	B	F	B
Bane of the Trapped	C	A	B	A	B	A
Enforcer	A	B	B	D	C	C
Effacious Toxin	C	B	B	B	A	B
Gogok of Swiftness	A	B	B	D	A	D
Invigorating Gemstone	C	C	C	C	B	C
Mirinae	B	B	B	D	F	B
Moratorium	D	D	D	C	B	C
Pain Enhancer	B	B	B	F	F	C
Simplicity's Strength	D	D	D	F	F	D
Taeguk	F	F	F	C	D	D
Wreath of Lightning	D	D	D	C	C	D
Zei's	B	F	F	D	F	D

Since there's going to be some debate about what's "best in slot" for some builds, I'm going to only mark something as an "A" if there's a strong consensus, so some builds may not have an "A".

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