What skills are the witch doctors "Nukes"

[morriskh]

Here is the question: What do you think is the best all around “Nuke spell” that can end lives of high priority targets swiftly?


I really like DOT builds as you can easily cast – forget, and concentrate on other tactics like kiting, healing, positioning, running ETC.
But while the DOTS are doing work I need some HIGH burst damage spell to finish off the weakened foes, destroy high priority targets, or in PVP do that massive unexpected burst that finishes them off.
It would be pretty awesome to DOT some grunts and while they are being taken care of Spirit walk through them right up to the range attackers or high priority summoners and just BLAST them!

Zombie Bears seems pretty powerful but I am unsure its mechanics. Multiple bears doing 236% each; AOE damage at that! But I am unable to see how this functions, how many bears? Is it accurate enough at a close range to be effective?

Hungry Bats is 280% DPS but you would have shoot for several seconds to = the damage of three zombie bears plowing through you.

Wall of Zombies (Dead Rush) is a 445% zombie nova, pretty awesome in itself but this damage is Omni-directional, branching out all around you and less focused on the targets you are trying to destroy. But there is a long cool down so this is hardly spammable.

Wall of Zombies (Pile On) deals a massive 765% but I can only imagine a skill like this being extremely slow and inaccurate. May be great for the occasional high Damage hit on large bosses though?

Fetish Ambush when summoned each fetish will do 250% damage, Depending on the amount of fetishes summoned and the concentration of the pack this could be extremely high Burst damage, if it can accurately be aimed and implemented. Again there is a cool down so only one High damage burst.

Sacrifice does offer huge burst damage but in order for it to be effective you essentially need a dedicated build.

So what do you think is the best all around “Nuke spell” that can end lives of high priority targets swiftly?

I think if zombie bears can be accurately aimed and shoots out 3 bears at a time It is the best spell for rapid amounts of insane damage. 236%x3=708% spammable high burst damage. If it is only 2 bears 236%x2= 472%. Still quite impressive for not having a cool down.

[zUkUu]

wd spotlight video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Zqmfmzmy4
zombie tower @1:15
zombie nova @1:43
bears @3:07

Tower is our most "burst" ability in a literal sense as combined with veil it deals almost 1000% damage. semi-ranged and a second or two delay, tho.
bears seem bad to be honest. VERY short ranged, and they run next to each other making it almost impossible to hit a single target.
zombie nova is a very costly, high CD AoE. dunno if it's worth it.

Hungry Bats are the best mana-consuming/damage spell which you want to use to drain down a single foe quickly. it's very costly tho and you can't keep it up long unless you have perfect gear and setup. If you use Veil it's not possible to make mana neutral tho.
Spirit Barrage is the most reliable as you can tweak it to be spammable, even with veil. making it the best solo DPS source in the long run. also there is a +% damage spirit barrage modifiers mojos / crossbow / bows. (guide lists up to +5%; but level 9 only. d3nut lists +14%). afaik there is no firebats + damage modifier, only a -12 manacost.
with veil and the affix you have a sweet 244,5% damage spell that can be spammed.

[z00t]

Keep in mind that we don't know how long-ranged Hungry Bats is (the emulator video is just that - emulated, so it needs to be taken with a grain of salt). We also don't know how the target-acquiring for Hungry Bats work. Are they just going to home to the nearest target in the general direction they are fired in? Or is it going to work a bit like the Demon Hunter's 'Strafe' skill?

Whatever the case, it is clear that Hungry Bats will have SOME degree of uncontrollability to it, otherwise there'd be no reason to take Spirit Barrage over it.

Spirit Barrage's strength is, as zukuu pointed out, its reliability. It's probably the #1 overall WD spell for killing single targets that need to be dead asap.

Haunt with the Resentful Spirit rune is also not bad. Last I checked it did something like 287% weapon damage over 2 seconds. It may not kill a single target as quickly as spamming Spirit Barrage, but I imagine it'll still deal a respectable job, and opens up more kiting options (that's the tradeoff).

[impale]

One way to find out which skill nukes is to play it in a few days.

[pcguy]

Fetish Ambush - Each Fetish deals 250% weapon damage to a nearby enemy as it appears. There are 5 fetishes. 1250% weapon damage if they all hit the same enemy (It would have to be a large target and be stunned, slowed, or hexed).

While I am on the subject of Hex, it may be worth noting that Hex allows you to do burst damage with your boring, old non-burst damage spells. Damage buffs can make you very bursty.

Damage buffs:

Provoke the Pack
Jinx
Paranoia
Soul to Waste
Slam Dance

Pierce the Veil
Gruesome Feast

Damage: Possible 105% boost to damage, not counting buffs to intelligence

Intelligence: (possibility of 650 intelligence + 50% enhanced intelligence)

Build capable of insanely massive burst damage (but not much else): http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...jdQ!WYa!acZYYb

[Unloyal]

The only true nuke that I will refer to is Sack of Rice. It's a nuke. You point and go BOOM. All others, I would classify as potentially high-damage and/or high-cost spells.

[pcguy]

The only true nuke that I will refer to is Sack of Rice. It's a nuke. You point and go BOOM. All others, I would classify as potentially high-damage and/or high-cost spells.

Sacrifice costs all your zombie dogs. Indirectly, it has a mana cost of 49 and a cooldown of 60 seconds. If you have Circle of Life, Next of Kin, Devolution, or Boogie Man, it becomes very random - as if you and every enemy on the field are constantly playing Russian Roulette.

[Illgore]

Here is the question: What do you think is the best all around “Nuke spell” that can end lives of high priority targets swiftly?

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...=1#post8305201

have a look at my last build. It's designed for groupplay (I think solo will be difficult to play, not impossible, but difficult) when the grp already has some CC/Tanky chars and your job is to just burst high priority enemies ASAP. Some people may say DPS is not everything but it makes encounters faster and thus easier, cause you don't have to handle that b**ch of a boss for so long, maybe a few minutes lesser.

[Unloyal]

Sacrifice costs all your zombie dogs. Indirectly, it has a mana cost of 49 and a cooldown of 60 seconds. If you have Circle of Life, Next of Kin, Devolution, or Boogie Man, it becomes very random - as if you and every enemy on the field are constantly playing Russian Roulette.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...VQj!dZW!YYYZcZ
Running something like this build? With boogie man + devolution + zombie handler? I dunno if that's really that random with over 135% chance to summon after destroying a dog and/or killing enemies

[pcguy]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...VQj!dZW!YYYZcZ
Running something like this build? With boogie man + devolution + zombie handler? I dunno if that's really that random with over 135% chance to summon after destroying a dog and/or killing enemies

I don't doubt that that would be effective, but the 135% figure you give isn't really accurate.

I don't think the percentages will add together like that.

For instance:
If
a skill has a 50% chance to spawn a zombie dog on hit.
and
a skill has a 50% chance to spawn a zombie dog on enemy death
then
both skills still only have a 50% chance of spawning a zombie dog, even though 50% plus 50% adds to 100%

The values are calculated separately even if you happen to use both the skills to both hit and kill an enemy. You have a 50% chance plus another 50% chance - not a 100% chance.

EDIT:
Chance for Next of Kin to fail =
with 1 dog = 1 - .35 = 65% chance to fail / 35% chance to re-summon one dog
with 2 dogs = 1 - .35^2 = 87.75% chance to fail / 12.25% chance to re-summon 2 dogs
with 3 dogs = 1 - .35^3 = 95.7% chance to fail / 4.3% chance to re-summon three dogs
with 4 dogs = 1 - .35^4 = 98.5% chance to fail / 1.5% chance to re-summon all your dogs