2.04
Witch Doctor Info: The Serious Casual Version
Table of Contents
Overview
Stat Information
Items of Note
The FAQ of Doom
General
Actives
Passives
Pets
Builds
Overview
Oh
hey there, guy. Welcome to Witch Doctor 201.
This class has
some odd things about it which bring up some unique questions. For
example, they don’t stick to 1 to 3 skill elements like other
classes, aren’t purely ranged or melee, and pets greatly
obfuscate game mechanics. I got tired researching questions from
multiple locations, so here’s some compiled info to save you
some time.
This isn’t
a guide or an in-depth analysis. See the Blizzard site or
theorycrafting posts for that. This write-up also isn’t telling
you how to play. Go nuts. Do whatever. Have fun. This is mostly FAQ
regarding major mechanics and how they affect the Witch Doctor class,
and the less than obvious interrelations of some of their
skills.
Right! So let’s get started with some basics,
eh?
Stat Stuff
%
Damage
You’ve got spells in 4 fields: poison, fire,
cold, and physical. Considering that +% elemental damage gear is
extremely powerful, here’s the breakdown per skill for the sake
of people wishing to take advantage of these stats.
+%
Poison Damage
The bulk of WD spells are poison based. As
such, poison damage bonuses are pretty amazing for a lot of skill
specs. If you wish to exploit this stat in your skillset, there are
many ways to go about it.
Poison skills:
Everything not
listed below.
+% Physical Damage
Physical
abilities are actually in #2 in amount behind poison skills. This is
why you see so many WD drops with +% physical, even though it isn’t
intuitive for a caster to have physical spells.
Physical
skills:
Corpse Spiders: (3 runes)
Grasp of the Dead
Zombie
Dogs: (3 runes)
Spirit Walk: Severance
Hex: (2 runes)
Soul
Harvest: Vengeful Spirit
Sacrifice
Mass Confusion: Mass
Hallucination
Zombie Charger: Pile On
Wall of
Zombies
Gargantuan: (3 runes)
Fetish Army: (3 runes)
All
non-damage skills are also technically Physical
+%
Fire Damage
Fire is #3 in number of
elemental abilities. As numerous primary and secondary damage
abilities as well as some support/pet skills are fire too, +% fire is
actually not so bad a thing.
Fire skills:
Poison Dart:
Flaming Dart
Corpse Spiders: Blazing Spiders
Plague of Toads:
Explosive Toads
Firebomb
Firebats
Locust Swarm:
Searing Locusts
Zombie Dogs: Burning Dogs
Spirit Walk: Umbral
Shock
Zombie Charger: Explosive Beast
Gargantuan: Wrathful
Protector
Fetish Army: Tiki Torchers
+% Cold
Damage
WDs have some great elemental cold skills. Problem
is they are few in number. This makes +% cold very beneficial for
certain skills, yet a pure cold spell skill build not entirely
feasible.
Cold skills:
Haunt
Zombie Charger: Lumbering
Cold
Spirit Barrage
Piranhas: Frozen Piranhas
+%
Ability Damage
There’s some great ones and there’s
some stinkers, depending on the item slot and your build. You’ll
figure it out. If it’s a main ability you use, odds are you’ll
want that stat if available as an option.
Mana
WD-specific
items (dagger, mojo, mask) can have +mana and +mana regeneration on
them. Outside of some very specific items and set bonuses, there are
no gear affixes which recoup mana or reduce cost.
The
dynamics of mana changes massively as gear upgrades. You’ll
start off as highly mana-dependent; progress to somewhat
mana-dependent; and end up as a beast who doesn’t need to pay
it much attention. Then are skill build possibilities which range
anywhere from “why do I have a blue bar” to “I
drink this shit like Red Bull”. So… yeah. It’s a
major class mechanic. There’s just a lot of variables.
Items of Note
Here
are the better and more interesting WD-specific items. I’ve
only included the ones with unique stats that are actually good in
some way.
Weapons
Starmetal Kukri: Reduce the
cooldown of Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo by 1 second each time
your fetishes deal damage.
Note: This dagger basically gives
you permanent FA/BBV. Brutal!
The Gidbinn: Chance to summon
a fetish while attacking.
Note: These fetishes are weaker than
both types of WD fetishes, cannot crit, and are capped at 3 max
summoned.
Mojos
Homunculus: A Zombie Dog is
summoned to your side every 6 seconds.
Note: This acts as if
you have the skill on your bar, summoning 3 max (4 or 5 with
passives) dogs. These dogs are just the basic type, with no rune
variations.
Shukrani’s Triumph:
Spirit Walk lasts until you are 30 yards from an enemy.
Ukhapian Serpent: X% you take
is redirected to your Zombie Dogs.
Note: Works just the same as
the Dog’s Life Link rune, but to a higher percentage. Yes,
this stat also stacks with the rune.
Masks
Quetzalcoatl: Locust Swarm
and Haunt do their full damage in half the normal duration.
Note:
If you are using the Creeping Death passive, you’ll have 2x
damage at unlimited duration.
Carnevil: When you shoot a
Poison Dart, so do your fetishes.
Mask of Jeram: Pets do 75%
more damage.
Note: Apparently affects Gidbinn fetishes,
too.
Note 2: This is not to be confused with the set item Mask
of Jeram, which does not have the unique pet damage stat.
The Grin Reaper: Chance on
hit to summon two Mimics that cast your spells.
Note: Mimics
will cast any single target and channeled spells without cooldowns
that you have on your bars, complete with whatever rune you have
selected. Mimics will not cast any AoE (outside of
Firebats) or any spell that has a cooldown.
Note 2: Mimics,
like all other AI, are kind of idiots. They have a tendency to
stand around and/or just shoot their spells off in to space.
Tiklandian Visage: Horrify
also roots your feared targets.
Visage of Giyua: Fetish Army is summoned after every 2 elite kills.
Note: This proc is currently bad for Fetish Sycophant users, as the when the proc spawns a Fetish Army it also destroys any existing fetishes, including the sycophant ones.
Note 2: You do
not need Fetish Army on your bar, and the proc doesn’t reset
your FA cooldown.
Other
Hwoj Wrap: Locust Swarm also
Slows enemies by 60-80%.
Note: This is as incredibly useful as
it sounds it is.
The Tall Man’s Finger:
Zombie Dogs summons a single dog bigger and stronger than your
other dogs combined.
Note: No idea if this scales with passives
that increase your dog limit.
Non-WD items of note
There
are many great non-specific weapons, rings, and amulets out there,
as well as many sets with great bonuses. Here’s a few not
falling into any of those categories.
(Head) Andariel’s
Visage: Chance on hit to create a poison nova.
Note: This is
the only helm with +% elemental damage, and always has one element
or another.
(Chest) Cindercoat: Fire
skills deal +5-10% damage.
(Legs) Swamp Land Waders:
Poison skills deal +15-20% damage.
(Hands) Magefist: Fire skills
deal +15-20% damage.
(Hands) Tasker and Theo:
Increase attack speed of your pets by +40-50%.
Amulets, rings, bracers,
etc.: There are so many options here that I won’t get in to
detail. The above are just some particularly exceptional items.
The same goes for non-class-specific class sets: have fun finding
yourself a combination that you like.
Witch Doctor Class Sets
There
is one weapon/offhand set, and three armor sets.
Manajuma’s Way
2 items: dagger and mojo.
- 2 piece bonus:
+250 Int, +30 mana per kill, and a 10 yard poison aura.
Note:
Unlike other set items, both of these can be gambled from Kadala.
Helltooth Harness
6 items: head,
chest, legs, hands, feet, shoulders.
- 2 piece bonus: +500
Intelligence.
- 4 piece bonus: Reduces cooldown of Wall of Zombies by 2 seconds.
- 6 piece bonus:
Wall of Zombies spews acid, dealing 300% damage per second.
Note:
The helm is called “Mask of Jeram”, just like the
legendary item. Yes, it’s dumb. No, it doesn’t have the
great unique pet stat. Yes, that’s really dumb.
Raiment of the Jade Harvester
6 items: head,
chest, legs, hands, feet, shoulders.
- 2 piece bonus: +500
Intelligence.
- 4 piece bonus: Increases Mana regeneration by 20 per second.
- 6 piece bonus:
Soul Harvest consumes your DoTs, dealing the damage instantly on all
enemies.
Zunimassa’s Haunt
5 items: head,
chest, feet, ring, mojo.
- 2 piece bonus: +250 Intelligence, +30
mana per kill.
- 3 piece bonus:
+75 Resist All, Increases Mana regeneration by 7.5 per second
- 4
piece bonus: Your Fetish Army lasts until they die.
Note: You’ll
need Fetish Army on your bar for that last bonus. Switching it out
makes your fetishes die. Regardless, it’s an amazing bonus!
Question
and Answer time, my friends!
General
What spec is the best?
Shut up.
I mean, like, what is better? Direct damage, DoTs, or pets?
You kill bad guys, and as long as you do it, there’s no bad way, right? So do whatever. That said… yeah. Of course direct damage spells are the most efficient way to go about things usually, considering that things die fast. Though that is not to say DoTs and pets are not without their perks and positives. Direct damage spells that you have complete control over are inevitably going to have the edge.
If you’re
playing on a harder difficulty in which your DoTs last a while, they
do tons of damage and are great to have around. Pets also can do
amazing damage, but due to AI matters they don’t exactly kill
what you want dead at any given second.
Each of these has
their own negatives. A focus on direct damage spells leave you
physically vulnerable and prone to mana issues. A focus on DoTs
leaves you without ways to nuke things down. Pets kind of do their
own thing for better or worse. Each also has their positives.
Be smart, mix it
up, but also don’t let some jerk on the internet dictate your
play style too much.
Do buffs and debuffs of the same skill stack if cast by different players?
No. For example if
two WDs cast Big Bad Voodoo: Slam Dance in the same area, you’re
still going to get a 30% damage increase, and not 60%.
Dear swami on the mountain peak, can you tell me about stats?
Yeah. Okay.
Damage
Stats
Like other classes outside of ‘primary stat’,
Crit Chance/Damage are your best bet. Area Damage is always
amazing for packs. There are a few big things of note here
regarding pet builds, but more on that later.
Healing/Toughness Stats
WDs have solid
active and passive skills for mitigation, damage avoidance, and
healing so it’s difficult to say something catch-all here. One
thing is true regardless: Unless you’re going for a long-range
nuke build, odds are you’re going to be hit a lot more than
your average Wizard or Demon Hunter. Plan accordingly. Resist All
is your best bet for survival, with Armor being second and Vitality
third.
As for Life on Hit, Life per Second, and Life
after Kill, your mileage will vary per spec. If you’re
close range, you may want to focus a bit more on mitigation and LoH
over LpS (especially because Firebats ticks procs like LoH faster
than a squirrel on cocaine… more on that later). If you’re
a longer range spec and/or have some nice active survival skills on
the bar, LpS is excellent if you can get out of the fray for a bit.
Again, it varies a lot per play style and skill build.
Paragon Points
Not much changes between classes. The only two points of note I
can think of are: 1) In Offense, +Mana is extremely useful and more
bang for your buck than +Int once you’ve capped out your
Movement Speed, and 2) In Defense, play around with RA vs. LpS to see
what works best for your current build and gear. Again, there are
different things to consider here when it comes to pets.
Active Skills
Primary skills! What’s up!
There’s nothing wrong with Primary abilities. They’re excellently balanced among themselves. It’s just that once you are confident in your mana management there’s little to no need to have a Primary skill on your bar. Gear makes them irrelevant over time. You’ll eventually reach a point where you just no longer need a low damage skill that costs no mana. Until then, enjoy the skills and runes of your choice.
As of 2.04,
Primary skills were considerably buffed, so keeping one on your bar
isn’t such a bad thing any more. They’re still just made
obsolete over time due to class mechanics.
What are the better single target direct damage skills?
Outside of Primary
skills, you’ve basically got Spirit Barrage and Firebats. As
things stand right now that’s about it for options for actively
casted single target nukes.
Spirit Barrage: Long range, “heat
seeking”, goes over any barriers and other enemies, not
affected by Missile Dampening. Spirit Barrage: Well of Souls is
currently the best single target nuke of the class. The downside is
it’s (mostly) single target. The Manitou rune turns it into a
nice fire-and-forget ability you can use along with Firebats or
anything else. Phantasm turns it into an AoE DoT.
Firebats: A
high damage / high cost cone AoE, but the Vampire Bats rune removes
mana channeling cost and allows it to be used as a primary nuke.
Positives: superior damage especially for small packs, triggers Area
Damage like mad, can shoot through walls, and procs everything else
like crazy (more on this next). Negatives: short range, requires
repositioning for channeling if targets move, high initial mana cost,
anything that knocks back, fears, or freezes will interrupt your
casting and cost you mana.
Firebats procs stuff a lot! Sweet, right?
It’s beyond sweet, brother. Firebats “ticks” about 2x per second per target, before IAS. This means that Firebats has an incredibly high chance to proc anything that you have for skills or gear for.
If it’s an ‘on Hit’ thing like Life on Hit, you’ll be getting a full 2x per second per target hit by Firebats at the minimum. It it’s ‘% on Hit’ like chance to Freeze/Stun or otherwise, you’ll be getting that same % applied every tick.
As for the Fetish Sycophants passive, you’ll get the 5% chance to summon a fetish every half second at the minimum. Number of targets hit doesn’t matter. This means you can summon fetishes without hitting anything at all.
IAS shortens the time between ticks, meaning that you’ll nicely benefit from all of the above should you equip some IAS gear.
What are the better direct damage are of effect (AoE) skills?
Numerous options
here. Here’s info on some of the best based on the current
state of things.
Firebats: Hits in a cone, hits hard.
Something of an all-purpose skill that can be a single target ability
too. Limited by a short/medium range. There are many nice rune
variations, but the spell’s cost is so high that Vampire Bats
is easily the most favored.
Acid Cloud: Targeted circular AoE.
Half direct damage, half DoT damage. Nicely spammable if you have the
mana, especially with the Lob Blob Bomb rune which has a lingering
pet/DoT, or the Corpse Bomb rune that makes the spell all direct
damage.
Zombie Charger: The strongest direct damage spell a WD
has, though limited by coverage area and the point of origin always
being the WD. Each rune is very different from the next. There’s
a lot of variation with zombie pathing, piercing, AoE range, and
damage element here. Zombie Bears was the flavor of the year previous
to patch 2.0, but every rune option has at least some viability these
days.
What are the better DoT skills?
Yeah DoTs. We got
those.
Piranhas: The always amazing piranhas, with a +15%
damage taken debuff no matter the rune. Technically a high damage AoE
DoT, but more intended to be used with other abilities. The two big
stand-out runes here are Wave of Mutilation for a strong cone attack,
and Piranhado for a whirling vacuum of doom and hilarity.
Locust
Swarm: Though the initial cast is short range and high mana cost, and
it’s something of a longer DoT time, Locust Swarm is awesome in
about every other way. Have fun pulling packs from three screens
away, infecting 100+ mobs in a single cast, and destroying annoyingly
small and fast mobs like ghosts. The Creeping Death passive makes it
particularly nice.
Haunt: Haunt used to be very mediocre and
limited. Since patch 2.04, Haunt is now your highest damage DoT. It
does have the downside of only hitting a single (or two with a rune)
target. It also has a noticeable downside of having a “spread
on death” jump range is nowhere near as big as it is for Locust
Swarm, so it dissipates frustratingly quickly. It’s a great
spell for boss fights, and hard to kill elites. It’s also
unlimited in duration with the Creeping Death passive, which is
pretty sweet.
Grasp of the Dead and Wall of Zombies: Two
skills both made mostly obsolete by the addition of Piranhas, sadly.
They so have their niche uses, but Piranhas generally tends to be
better overall.
Can DoTs crit?
This is a tricky question. DoTs do crit, but they don’t all crit the same. They come in two types: Ones that crit upon cast, and ones that crit per damage tick.
Oh, and it’s also hard to see. DoT crit damage shows as white damage, not yellow.
Crit on Cast -
Crit chance is considered on the initial cast
Poison
Dart
Plague of Toads: Toad of Hugeness
Firebats: Plague
Bats
Locust Swarm
Haunt
Hex: Painful Transformation
Crit
per Tick - Crit chance is considered per individual ticks
Corpse
Spider: Spider Queen
Plague of Toads: Rain of Toads
Firebomb:
Firepool, Pyrogeist
Acid Cloud
Spirit Barrage: Phantasm
Grasp
of the Dead
Mass Confusion: Mass Hallucination
Wall of
Zombies
Zombie Dogs: Burning Dogs
Gargantuan: Big Stinker
Also, remember that anything that increases your Damage stat also increases anything based on a % of your damage, just like other damaging spells.
Special note: For Haunt and Locust Swarm, each jump has its own crit roll chance.
Do DoTs proc Area Damage?
Yep! Both on spreading to new targets and ticking. Sweet.
Do DoTs dynamically scale?
Unfortunately not. If you get a damage buff after a DoT is cast, an already casted DoT will not start ticking for more damage. it’s your damage at the original cast time which matters.
What about survival skills, and those with long cooldowns?
They’re awesome. All of ‘em.
I’m not going to mention them much. In general, they’re all good in their own ways. Some are amazingly good. Don’t let the long cooldowns of some discourage you. There are a few ways to exploit those.
Two quick notes on
survival skills:
1) Everything can be
charmed/horrified/slowed/stunned/frozen except for end of Act
bosses.
2) Not everything can be rooted or vacuumed. Some mob
types (the largest ones) are immune.
Note: remember that
Buffs/debuffs of the same spell don’t stack if cast by two
different WDs.
I hear WDs have party buffs. TELL ME ABOUT THEM PARTY BUFFS.
Yeah. They’re cool. WD has a few skills that amplify damage done / damage taken. They’re as awesome as they sound, so abuse the hell out of them. Some do run speed, healing, etc., but here’s the deals with the amazing +%damage ones:
- Piranhas (15%,
AoE)
- Big Bad Voodoo: Slam Dance (30%, AoE)
- Mass Confusion:
Paranoia (20%, AoE) p.s. this is every enemy in 20 yards, not
just those charmed.
- Hex: Jinx (20%, single target)
What about all the other skills you aren’t mentioning?
I’m not mentioning some of the utility and greatly underpowered stuff. Oh well. If you find a viable use for a skill not mentioned here, power to you, man. Some set and item bonuses turn a few of them into some real winners.
Passive Skills
Rather than answer individual questions about certain passive skills, I’m just going to say a bit about the ones that are less than clear or have unstated details. Ready? ONE TWO THREE GO.
Circle of Life: Yes, you summon
dogs even if the skill isn’t on your bar. You cannot spawn
more zombie dogs than your cap (3, 4, or 5).
Gruesome Feast: The stacking
buff and mana gain is gained not only when you pick up a health
globe, but also when a nearby group member does. A very strong
passive for fast moving multiplayer games.
Spirit Vessel: The “oh my
god save me” cooldown is not decreased by Grave
Injustice.
Fetish Sycophants: These little
guys are weaker than Fetish Army fetishes, but they still pack a
wallop and are invincible just the same.
Rush of Essence: The effect is
infinitely stacking. If you cast 20 spirit spells, you’ll gain
20 x 100 mana over 10 seconds (2,000 mana over 10 sec), and so on.
Spam for great justice.
Fierce Loyalty: The gained
Thorns and Life Regen applies to zombie dogs and gargantuans.
Fetishes - either actively or passively summoned - do not gain these
benefits.
Grave Injustice: Works on every
skill with a cooldown from Spirit Walk up to Big Bad Voodoo and
Fetish Army, and has no internal cooldown for time reduction. It is
the awesomes. All of the awesomes.
Creeping Death: Essentially
removes the DoT timer from Locusts and Haunt, making them tick until
the mob dies. Same goes for the Piranhas debuff that mobs receive.
Physical Attunement: This passive SOUNDS great, but +70 for each mob inevitably gets you only a few tenths of a percentage per nearby enemy if you’re already rocking decent level 70 gear. You’ll need to be surrounded by a large amount of mobs for the damage reduction to even come close to the 15% that Jungle Fortitude gives you. Even then it’s for the Physical realm only. Versus your average champ/boss pack (you know, the things that actually hurt) you’d only be getting a few percentages of damage mitigation.
Pets!
What’s the difference between pet types?
Right. You’ve got a few. Here’s the dilly. Yo.
Zombie
Dogs
Dogs don’t do much damage, but they’re very
durable and there’s always at least three, making them great
tanks. The Final Gift rune is amazingly crap, but the other options
aren’t bad. As for the other notable runes…
- Burning Dogs: The better choice for getting some damage out of your dogs.
- Life Link, Leeching Beasts: Usually Leeching Beasts is better, but if you have low Life on Hit, Life Link acts as a decent way to gain some survivability.
Gargantuan
Big Ugly packs a punch and is also very durable, making him the middle ground between ‘tank pet’ and ‘dps pet’. This one really doesn’t have a bad rune, but WD fans do have their favorites.
- Restless Giant: A great choice for the discerning smasher of Elite faces.
- Wrathful Protector: Turns Gargantuan into a dps cooldown, and all damage in to fire damage.
- Big Stinker: His fists are physical, but his aura is poison. A great choice for +% poison users.
- Bruiser: His stun works on everything except End of Act
bosses.
Fetishes
Here they are: your personal miniature badass army. The key thing to remember here is that they come in three types. All three types are capable of holding a mob’s aggro.
Type 1 - Fetish Army: These suckers will screw most anything up, and they’re nigh invulnerable. High damage, almost unkillable, what’s not to like? All rune choices have their benefits. It should be noted that with the Tiki Torchers and Head Hunters varieties, only the two additionally summoned fetishes are of the respective fire/poison elements. The rest all still attack for physical damage.
Type 2 - Fetish
Sycophants: While great in damage in their own right, they do less
damage than Fetish Army fetishes. They also do not get the armor
bonuses of your other pets, meaning it’s possible for them to
die in a bad situation. Thirdly, they do not benefit from Fetish Army
skill modifiers. On the plus side, you can summon a veritable swarm
of these bastards with a good Firebats build.
Type 3 - Gidbinn fetishes: This unique weapon summons fetishes, but they are considerably weaker than either of your other types of fetishes.
Charmed
Charmed
enemies via Mass Confusion or an item proc are technically your
minions, but unlike your summoned pets they are not affected by any
of your stat bonuses. Everything can be charmed with the exception of
End of Act bosses.
How does pet damage scale?
Pet damage = X% modifier x Attacks per Second. Your pet damage is the % in the skill description, times your Attacks per Second on your character sheet. Yes, it’s more than just “X% of your Damage”. As for affecting stats, this is better discussed in a broken down fashion.
Note:
As pets are a % of your damage/toughness, if you gain a buff they
will dynamically improve accordingly. Pets
do not gain temporary damage/toughness buffs.
For example, if you’re buffed by Big Bad Voodoo all of your
pets will benefit no matter where they are, but if your pets are
within the Big Bad Voodoo radius and you are not, they will gain
nothing.
What stats do pets benefit from?
Offensive
Str/Dex/Int:
Yes.
Vit: No.
Increased Attack Speed: Yes.*
Critical Hit
Chance: Yes.
Critical Hit Damage: Yes. (New as of patch 2.04.
Yay!)
Damage to Elites: Yes.
Elemental Damage: Yes.**
Area
Damage: No.
Life on Hit: No.
Various spell procs on Hit:
No.
Defensive
Armor: No.***
Block: No. ***
Dodge:
Yes.
Resistances: No.***
Crowd Control reduction:
Yes.
Melee/Missile/Elite reduction:
Yes.
Thorns: Yes.****
Life Regen: Yes****
Life on
Hit/Kill: No, with the exception of Zombie Dogs: Leeching Beasts.
*
Pet attack speed is static. BUT… anything that increases your
Damage on your character screen increases your pet damage. This means
that even though pets do not gain IAS, because you do and your Damage
stat changes, your pet’s damage increases.
** +%
Physical Damage affects melee pets! Though if certain pet rune
variations cast different elemental abilities, those ones apply.
Poison damage affects Big Stinker’s aura and Head Hunters’
darts (but only the two that blow darts). Fire damage affects Burning
Dogs, Wrathful Protector, and Tiki Torchers (but only the two that
breathe fire).
*** Like Damage, pet Toughness is also directly
proportional to your own. While pets do not gain specific armor,
block, and resistance stats, they do gain resilience when your
Toughness is increased by these stats. Oddly, they do gain
dodge.
**** Only if you use the Fierce Loyalty passive skill.
Also, unlike players, Dodge doesn’t trigger Thorns.
One more note: Any
special item that makes you immune to a particular skill or element
(like the amulet that makes you immune to Arcane) will only affect
you and not your pets.
What’s the deal with Increased Attack Speed and pets?
Okay, since IAS was the WD pet stat pre-patch 2.04, but things have changed, let me elaborate.
That formula
above… Pet damage = X% modifier x Attacks per Second? This
means that pets double dip on the benefit of Increased Attack Speed.
IAS is generally not one of the stronger desired damage modifiers
among any class, but due to it affecting both parts of that above
formula, IAS gear a great way to increase the damage of your
pets.
IAS also speeds up the damage ticks of Firebats (2x per
second base, increasing with IAS), which is the primary way to
generate fetishes through Fetish Sycophants. The more IAS, the
more potential fetishes spawned. Triple dippin’!
So what about pets, crits, and crit damage, oh wise one?
As of patch 2.04, pets got a massive buff in that they now gain both your Crit Chance and Crit Damage. This means they double dip on CC/CD, too. Previously it used to only be the former, with the latter locked at +50%. That’s huge! Pet builds are now very much viable rather than gimmicky things.
“Double dip” eh? YOU’RE a dip. What’s do you mean?
You read that pets gain a percentage of your damage/toughness, right? And that they also directly gain your Crit Chance and Crit Damage? This means that Crit Chance and Crit Damage improve your pets twice over… once in that it raises your Damage stat, twice in that they also directly gain your CC/CD percentages.
It’s a similar-but-different case for Increased Attack Speed. Remember that formula… Pet damage = X% modifier x Attacks per Second? This means that since IAS improves your Damage stat on the character sheet and also directly affects your Attacks per Second, IAS improves your pet damage twice over as well.
Friggin’ sweet buddy!
Ugh. Math. So what’s the best stat for high pet damage?
Short answer? It’s hard to say currently.
Before patch 2.04 it used to be that IAS was the best, as it both increased your Damage stat and also increased Firebats’ chances of summoning more fetish sycophants. While I haven’t tested it, it stands to reason that Crit Chance/Damage are now far more beneficial for pet damage. However, you need pets to utilize those stats, and if you’re using the Fetish Sycophants passive you’ll definitely want some IAS to summon more of them. If you’re using that talent, you’ll probably want a decent combination of IAS, Crit Chance and Crit Damage. If you’re not and just using pets otherwise, Crit Chance and Crit Damage are your huckleberries.
If I had to guess based without any testing done by my lazy ass, I would guess that there is a theoretical sweet spot for balancing CC/CD and IAS if you are using Fetish Sycophants. There’s a job for one of you nerd types. GET TO WORK.
So pets cannot trigger Area Damage?
Sadly, no. This is Big Pet Drawback #1. They also cannot proc any other Chance on Hit skills (LoH, slow, freeze, stun, special weapon procs, etc.).
Can I make my pets attack a certain target?
Man, I wish. This is Big Pet Drawback #2. Pet AI isn’t amazing. Sometimes they’re tenacious little bastards, sometimes they think that tiny skeleton is more of a threat than the big baddie summoning them, and other times they’ll just stare wistfully off in the distance, daydreaming about that one lady Gargantuan with the hipster glasses they met at Starbucks last week.
Not much you can do about it I’m afraid. If you’re using a pet summon on a cooldown (Fetish Army, Wrathful Protector), a way to maximize their uptime is to skill off weaker targets before you summon them, improving the chances that they’ll go for the target you want them to.
What’s the difference between Fetish Army fetishes and Fetish Sycophant fetishes?
See the pet descriptions a few sections back. Basically the former is super strong but short in duration while the latter are longer lasting though not quite as strong.
How do I maximize getting more of these little Fetish buggers?
Yeah! Two ways:
Passive: Grave Injustice + close range mass murder. This passive skill is seriously awesome, but if you use it while focusing on not being too far away when things die, cooldowns will cease to concern you. Your 120 second cooldowns will be less than a minute. One Fetish Army to rule them all.
Vampire Bats + IAS + Fetish Sycophants. Firebats is by far the best way to proc the Fetish Sycophants skill, and Increased Attack Speed speeds up the potential procs per second of Firebats. Embrace the glory of speedy hot flying mammals and the deformed dwarves they herald.
Fetish summons + Firebats, omg help?
See the Direct Damage section above, hese.
Do pets benefit from Monk mantras, Crusader laws, Barbarian shouts, and other group buffs?
Yes and no. They don’t directly gain such things. But, if your character gains the buffs and your stats are affected, all of your pets will scale accordingly.
Pets seem tougher than players by far. Why is this?
Dogs, Gargantuans, and Fetish Army (but not sycophants!) all benefit from something called “force armor” - an invisible buff that provides high mitigation and AoE damage resistance to the majority of pets for all classes. This makes them extremely durable, though not unkillable.
Do charmed “pets” through Mass Confusion or weapon procs gain benefits in any way?
Nope. They are super useful regardless though.
Are there any notable cases for +% elemental damage and pets?
Yup. A few of ‘em. For the most part, +%physical damage directly increases your pet damage. Here are the exceptions:
- In the case of
Burning Dogs and Big Stinker, the pets still attack as physical, and
only their aura is respectively fire/poison.
- With the Fetish
Army runes of Tiki Torchers and Head Hunters, only the two additional
fetishes are of those respective elements while the base five
fetishes are still physical damage.
Skill Builds
For serious dude, how do take advantage of this class?
Shut uuuuuuupppppp- OKAY. FINE.
As the above question divisions hint at, you’ve roughly got three types of damage spells (direct, DoT, and pets), so preferred specs either specialize in one of them or mix it up between them.
Direct damage? ERMAHGERD?
Pick a direct damage single target, pick an AoE, pick some support skills, profit. Personally I’m a fan of Spirit Barrage + Acid Cloud, but hey whatever. It’s hard to do a cold elemental build here, but you can pull off poison or fire with great success, and even physical to an extent.
You’ll be blowing through a lot of mana, so go for passives that maximize your single target damage and mana regeneration. You may find Pierce the Veil too demanding on your mana pool/regen, but luckily quantity makes up for quality if you have the mana to spam spells. Rush of Essence is a great one if you rely on Spirit Barrage.
How about them DoTs? Fuck yeah?
Fuck yeah! If you’re a true masochist you can DoT everything up with no direct damage skills and just wait for them to die. You’re probably going to want some other options too though, if anything so your group mates don’t want to punch you in the face. Look into Locust Swarm, Haunt, Acid Cloud, and Piranhas, with a smattering of direct damage or pets skills.
Creeping Death is a great passive to have here, and unless you’re spamming spells Pierce the Veil will be a great passive to have selected.
PETS HOLY SHIT?
Uh huh. Refer to the pet section for notions on what various pets are good for. Dogs are high durability, low damage. Gargs are damage/tanking. Fetishes destroy everything. Use as many or as few as you like.
As for passive skills, that’ll depend on what you prefer for pets. Midnight Feast if you use dogs or a garg or both. Fetish Sycophants for Maximum Midget Death Swarm. Fierce Loyalty if you actually have a decent amount of Thorns on your gear. Zombie Handler is an extra dog I guess, but… eh.
I want to mix it up! Any suggestions?
Nope! But this White Russian in my hand is pretty tasty. I do recommend mixing yourself one.
I like you. You’re a cool guy.
Mail me some craft beer ok?
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12091749472