Spirit WD build

[Zoltar]

[original post edited with revised builds]

Okay so here are some revised Spirit-caster builds

1. Boss-killing build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...iTU!UYe!aaYbYc

Focuses on high single target damage with spammable Spirit Barrage (33 mana) and Haunt. PtV provides +20% damage and crimson Mass Confusion provides +30% damage for 8 secs with a 1 min CD. Gargantuan provides a meat shield and Spirit Walk provides an escape ability + heal. Acid Rain provides mass AOE (haunt spam/mass confuse will supplement). Lacks: Grasp of the Dead. This is compensated for by Obsidian Haunt.

[edit: I have Big Stinker rune for Garg. The idea is that the poison aura will help him gather groups of mobs to keep them off of you and keep them in acid rain. If that isn't effective, crimson runestone will be used to further improve dmg vs bosses/elites]

2. Witch Dot'er http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...gYU!VYh!ZacaZa

I think this is going to be a winner I don't know exactly how effective it will be, but it seems fun and unique. This build focuses on damage over time spells and life regeneration. Spirit Barrage is used every 20 secs to summon the Manitou spirit. Haunt is your spammable DOT with life leach. Mass Confusion and Grasp of the Dead provide CC + dots. You use Soul Harvest for the AOE damage + buff. Spirit Walk provides an escape + life regen. I can imagine opening up by dotting mobs with haunt. Spirit Barrage as they close in to summon specter. Soul Harvest as the mobs reach you then spirit walk to get back to range. Then lay down your CC with GotD followd by Mass confusion. Soul Harvest again while they are CC'd. This build has no meat shields, but it should work with all the CC, life regen, and defensive passives. Death Trance provides a ton of damage reduction when you get low and if they still manage to "kill" you, Spirit Vessel just heals you up and lets you escape again.

[Zoltar]

Sorry for not posting in the build thread.

[free waffles]

The new alabaster Haunt is only 175% over 3 seconds, so less than 60% dps, which is hardly high st damage. It's still incredibly mana effecient, but it's not going to wreck anything. If they change the Healing rune back to % of damage, it might be worth considering.


We haven't gotten to play with Wall of Zombies, but I think Grasp of the Dead will be better CC. The snare is fantastic (now 60%), and with Groping Eels (75% damage for 75 mana) it does solid dps. Since the mana cost (3X the cost of Poison Dart) has changed dramatically, it's no longer the most effecient spell in our arsenal, but still a must have in my opinion.

Rush of Essence got a huge nerf that took it to only a 30% mana reduction. While this won't have any impact on Haunt (barely more than half the current mana regen rate), it looks like it will effect Spirit Barrage spamming significantly, considering the increased mana cost to that spell.

I'm hoping we get some different runes for Spirit Barrage, since it got buffed damage wise (now 225% physical damage for 2.5X poison dart cost). Either way, I don't think the AOE rune is that great. Consider the Mana regen to compensate for Acid Cloud's huge cost, and then you can drop Rush of Essence for Spiritual Attunement.

The old Rush of Essence was awesome, but the new one isn't as good. 30% cost reduction for Spirit spells that takes time to recover vs. Passive 20% more mana and substantial regen bonus. At level 13, I have 283 mana (270 baseline +13 wanga doll) and 25 mps regen (baseline). By adding spiritual attunement, I jump to 339 mana and 28.39 mps regen. That's an increase in my regen of 13.5%. As gear and level increases, Spiritual Attunement's regen addition will become more and more substantial. A naked level 60 WD would have 740 mana (150 to start with +59 level ups of 10 mana each) and 25 mps regen. Adding Spiritual Attunement takes the WD to 888 mana and 33.88 mps. That's a 35% increase in mana regen with absolutely ZERO +mana gear. Rush of Essence will only effect a couple spells, and it takes 10 seconds for it to recover the 30% of the cost. That means after using haunt (17 mana) it only improves your regen by .5 mps for 10 seconds. That's hardly substantial in comparison to Spiritual Attunement.

[Zoltar]

The new alabaster Haunt is only 175% over 3 seconds, so less than 60% dps, which is hardly high st damage. It's still incredibly mana effecient, but it's not going to wreck anything. If they change the Healing rune back to % of damage, it might be worth considering.


We haven't gotten to play with Wall of Zombies, but I think Grasp of the Dead will be better CC. The snare is fantastic (now 60%), and with Groping Eels (75% damage for 75 mana) it does solid dps. Since the mana cost (3X the cost of Poison Dart) has changed dramatically, it's no longer the most effecient spell in our arsenal, but still a must have in my opinion.

Rush of Essence got a huge nerf that took it to only a 30% mana reduction. While this won't have any impact on Haunt (barely more than half the current mana regen rate), it looks like it will effect Spirit Barrage spamming significantly, considering the increased mana cost to that spell.

I'm hoping we get some different runes for Spirit Barrage, since it got buffed damage wise (now 225% physical damage for 2.5X poison dart cost). Either way, I don't think the AOE rune is that great. Consider the Mana regen to compensate for Acid Cloud's huge cost, and then you can drop Rush of Essence for Spiritual Attunement.

The old Rush of Essence was awesome, but the new one isn't as good. 30% cost reduction for Spirit spells that takes time to recover vs. Passive 20% more mana and substantial regen bonus. At level 13, I have 283 mana (270 baseline +13 wanga doll) and 25 mps regen (baseline). By adding spiritual attunement, I jump to 339 mana and 28.39 mps regen. That's an increase in my regen of 13.5%. As gear and level increases, Spiritual Attunement's regen addition will become more and more substantial. A naked level 60 WD would have 740 mana (150 to start with +59 level ups of 10 mana each) and 25 mps regen. Adding Spiritual Attunement takes the WD to 888 mana and 33.88 mps. That's a 35% increase in mana regen with absolutely ZERO +mana gear. Rush of Essence will only effect a couple spells, and it takes 10 seconds for it to recover the 30% of the cost. That means after using haunt (17 mana) it only improves your regen by .5 mps for 10 seconds. That's hardly substantial in comparison to Spiritual Attunement.

WTF

175% damage over 3 seconds for alabaster runed haunt? That is seriously retarded. Poison dart without a rune is 180% over 2 seconds... I really hate the poison dart skill, but it just seems to totally outclass haunt. WTF blizzard!!

I really liked the idea of the Rush of Essence skill, that the mana you spend on spirit skills would be returned over time. They generally seem like fairly low cost skills anyway, so I don't see the issue with it. But yea, a 30% reduction to spirit spells is just crap. I do not like these changes at all! It seems like they are killing the unique aspects of spirit witch doctors.

[pcguy]

We do not yet know how Haunt will function in the later difficulties. It was probably toned down due to it being too strong or too effective. If we find that it still does great damage in Inferno, or that it's power grows substantially with +Haunt gear, we won't have to worry.

Remember: Haunt is an extremely safe skill. You can use it from far away to tag a group of enemies and then just run away while their health ticks down and haunt spreads. This will be extremely useful if the later difficulties when avoiding damage becomes more important.

[Zoltar]

But it's a comparison between skills. If Haunt gets better with gear, then surely poison dart will too. Anyway, my issue isn't with haunt in general, it's with the alabaster rune. The point of a dot is generally that it does less dps compared to spammable skills, but that the total dps of having the dot ticking while you spam another skill is good. The alabaster rune changes haunt from a long-duration dot into more of spammable nuke. But it's not much of a nuke if it's doing 2/3 of the damage of an unruned skill that functions similarly.


Haunt's runes seem pretty lackluster in general. The jump in DPS from alabaster is easily overshadowed by the massive decrease in damage-per-cast. Lingering Spirit seems totally pointless. The values from the mana and life regen runes seem suspect. The snare might be useful, though its use overlaps with GotD and we have other means of distracting mobs.

Actually, what are level 60 health pools like? You can get 3 haunts going at once, right? Maybe more? Anyway at 3 haunts that would be 3x297 HPS. So 891 HPS.

[free waffles]

But yea, a 30% reduction to spirit spells is just crap. I do not like these changes at all! It seems like they are killing the unique aspects of spirit witch doctors.

The change was obviously made to compensate for the overhaul of the mana system. In patch 12 and before, we regened 60 mana/sec base line, and skill cost increased with level. Haunt for example cost 177 mana, nearly 3X the mana regen rate. Now, we regen at just 25 mana/sec, but skill costs NEVER increase. That means that Haunt (now 17 mana) will always cost less than the regen rate. Spirit Barrage was at 236 mana, 4X the regen rate. It's now at 66 mana (2.64X the regen rate).

The mana change as a whole is beneficial, as it means that Poison Dart, Haunt, and Firebomb are always below the baseline regen rate, so with at 1 attack/sec, you are guaranteed to never run out of mana. Faster cast rates will reduce mana, but not nearly as quickly. This essentially gives us "signature skills" like the wizard has, and means we never have to stand around with a thumb up our butt because we're OoM.

If you want to use Pierce the Veil, then I think you need to go heavy Pet. Sacrifice and Fetish Army are free casts that should still get the +20% damage. Gargantuan is a 1-time mana cost, so it won't be hit hard. You'll still need some sort of spell, but it could be Splinters, Flame Dart, or a Fire Bomb alteration that won't suffer greatly from the increased mana cost. Something like: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YTP!eWa!YacZZb would work well with Pierce the Veil.

[Zoltar]

The change was obviously made to compensate for the overhaul of the mana system. In patch 12 and before, we regened 60 mana/sec base line, and skill cost increased with level. Haunt for example cost 177 mana, nearly 3X the mana regen rate. Now, we regen at just 25 mana/sec, but skill costs NEVER increase. That means that Haunt (now 17 mana) will always cost less than the regen rate. Spirit Barrage was at 236 mana, 4X the regen rate. It's now at 66 mana (2.64X the regen rate).

The mana change as a whole is beneficial, as it means that Poison Dart, Haunt, and Firebomb are always below the baseline regen rate, so with at 1 attack/sec, you are guaranteed to never run out of mana. Faster cast rates will reduce mana, but not nearly as quickly. This essentially gives us "signature skills" like the wizard has, and means we never have to stand around with a thumb up our butt because we're OoM.

If you want to use Pierce the Veil, then I think you need to go heavy Pet. Sacrifice and Fetish Army are free casts that should still get the +20% damage. Gargantuan is a 1-time mana cost, so it won't be hit hard. You'll still need some sort of spell, but it could be Splinters, Flame Dart, or a Fire Bomb alteration that won't suffer greatly from the increased mana cost. Something like: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YTP!eWa!YacZZb would work well with Pierce the Veil.

It probably is better overall, but for a spirit-caster I liked the old system better because it seemed unique. Anyway, I still want to like Pierce the Veil with Rush of Essence even at 30% mana returned. PtV, RoE, and Spiritual Attunement are going to be your best offensive passives for a spirit-caster, but that does leave you without a defensive passive. Not sure how essential a defensive passive will be in hell/inferno given that the WD's active abilities provide good defense. PtV is really the only passive that increases your damage directly as a spirit-caster. Gruesome Feasts might be considered with the stacking int buff, but I don't really like the idea of it being tied to healing orbs since that makes it unreliable. RoE is actually going to significantly improve your ability to spam Spirit Barrage.

If PtV is calculated before Rush of Essence (which would make sense), then here are the Spirit Barrage Cost depending on build from highest to lowest cost:

PtV- 86
Base- 66
PtV/Gold- 59
RoE- 46
Gold- 39
PtV/RoE/Gold- 33
RoE/Gold- 19


The Gold Rune is going to make % modifiers on the cost of Spirit Barrage have a much greater effect on the final result. That's because the flat reduction lowers the cost so much that the % differences becomes significantly larger than they are without the rune. As you can see, with the gold rune selected RoE actually lowers the cost of Spirit Barrage by over 50% once you factor in the regen (39 mana vs 19 mana). The RoE/Gold combination is by far the most mana conservative option for SB spam, making it as cheap as Haunt and easily spammable. Adding PtV puts the mana cost at 33, which is a large jump for 20% damage. However if mana regen with gear is significantly higher than the figure you gave for a naked level 60 WD (34 mana/sec with SA), then you could still likely get SB mana-postitive with PtV.

So the conclusion that I draw is that Rush of Essence is still very good if you are going to be spamming Spirit Barrage and mana is any type of concern. PtV could also be a very good option assuming that @ 33 mana/cast your regen is enough so that you don't end up running on fumes.

[Zoltar]

Okay so here are some revised Spirit-caster builds

1. Boss-killing build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...RhU!UYe!cbZbca

Focuses on high single target damage with spammable Spirit Barrage (33 mana) and Haunt. PtV provides +20% damage and crimson Mass Confusion provides +30% damage for 8 secs with a 1 min CD. Gargantuan provides a meat shield and Spirit Walk provides an escape ability + heal. Acid Rain provides mass AOE (haunt spam/mass confuse will supplement). Lacks: Grasp of the Dead. This is compensated for by Obsidian Haunt.

[edit: I have Big Stinker rune for Garg. The idea is that the poison aura will help him gather groups of mobs to keep them off of you and keep them in acid rain. If that isn't effective, crimson runestone will be used to further improve dmg vs bosses/elites]

2. Witch Dot'er http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...gYU!VYh!ZacaZa

I think this is going to be a winner I don't know exactly how effective it will be, but it seems fun and unique. This build focuses on damage over time spells and life regeneration. Spirit Barrage is used every 20 secs to summon the Manitou spirit. Haunt is your spammable DOT with life leach. Mass Confusion and Grasp of the Dead provide CC + dots. You use Soul Harvest for the AOE damage + buff. Spirit Walk provides an escape + life regen. I can imagine opening up by dotting mobs with haunt. Spirit Barrage as they close in to summon specter. Soul Harvest as the mobs reach you then spirit walk to get back to range. Then lay down your CC with GotD followd by Mass confusion. Soul Harvest again while they are CC'd. This build has no meat shields, but it should work with all the CC, life regen, and defensive passives. Death Trance provides a ton of damage reduction when you get low and if they still manage to "kill" you, Spirit Vessel just heals you up and lets you escape again.

[free waffles]

I think the first one looks okay. If Mana becomes an issue, you may want to consider Fire Bomb over Acid Cloud. It's a little less dps, but near infinite spammability. It'll also give you Poison and Fire AOE as opposed to just poison. You could also consider using the Corpse Bomb rune instead of Acid Rain. You'll be sacrificing area for damage, but the area should match up better with the Garg's cloud and Mass Confusion's area.

I like the second one more, but I think with Grasp of the Dead you can do without Mass Confusion and pick up Acid Cloud.