WD - DO IT RIGHT!! The Immortal Spirit of the Unformed Landder=0>

[FizzyBubbly]

This Build takes some skill to play yet is extremely high DPS, Efficient Mana usage, and like the title say.

IT WILL BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO DIE.... if you do it right

First Here is the Build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dZU!VWf!aabZaZ

Skills:

Poison Dart-Splinters: You need a no mana dmg spell and this is the best period
Haunt-Consume Spirit: life/second while doing considerable dmg, keeps you alive this is also a shoot and forget spell.
Spirit Barrage-Phantasm: This spell is absolutely amazing, repeat amazing! This spell stacks so you can drop 2,3,4+ of these in one spot and destroy any RARE,UNIQUE,BOSS.
Soul Harvest-Siphon: Massive Heal + Massive Damage Boost = Keeps you alive and killing baddies
Grasp-Unbreakable Grasp: AOE CC that effects everything, This works well when you want to drop your Phantasmx3 on groups
Spirit Walk-Honored Guest: Evasion/Mana = saves your but and lets you keep fighting

Passives:
Spirit Vessel: Brings down the CD of Spirit walk and Soul Harvest + Saves your life.
Rush of Essence: Build= 90% spirit spells, (did test blood ritual, i like essence better)
Pierce The Veil: with the mana regen of Essence and Spirit walk you can easily afford this 20% dmg increase


So How does this build make you immortal?

-With spirit walk and spirit vessel you will always be able to get away, but both these spells have a second effect that regens health/mana and keep you fighting, this build has no downtime or DMG fall off.
-The Haunts spread very well giving you passive life regen throughout the fights
-Grasp keeps most things in a neat little pack for you to rain death on them
-Soul harvest will bring you from near death to full when you get stomped by a champion back then you can proceed to spirit walk away to get distance
-Spirit Barrage does great dmg when stacked drop 3 in one spot and everything dies.

Spell Rotation:
This is obviously situational but for most fights its as so.

Haunt the first 2-3 enemies.
Drop grasp on group
Spam 3 Spirit phantasms on group
Poison dart stragglers
If group gets to you Soul Harvest to heal, Drop 3 more phantasms on your position, then Spirit walk out
NOTE: realize when you spirit walk enemies will keep attacking your physical body meaning they will stay in the AOE of your stacked Spirit Barrage.

Rinse and repeat. If for some reason you get overwhelmed spirit vessel kicks in and you are back to fighting strength

NOTE:I have been able to take on a Rare pack plus 2 Unique packs in Nightmare all at once with this build

If you have a witch doctor give this build a try it really shows off his true strengths.

[Chaosmage]

Well without any pets of some kind you will get swarmed at some point, honestly before I play this build I'd rather make a wizard.

Pretty decent boss killer though...
probably.

[FizzyBubbly]

Well without any pets of some kind you will get swarmed at some point, honestly before I play this build I'd rather make a wizard.

Pretty decent boss killer though...
probably.

Let me make it perfectly clear, the WD does not need pets. I used a heavy pet based build all of normal and did fine ,you can still get swarmed. However when i began nightmare i realized my damage was sub-par because my pet tanks took up slots that could be better utilized for Dmg/sustain. Also this build revolves around enemies being around you all the time. It's perfectly ok to get swarmed, you expect it with this build and it works fine. Notice this is a tested build not a theory crafted build.

Just because this build is more caster oriented does not mean it plays like a wizard (they actually play very differently.)

Video of build coming shortly.

[FizzyBubbly]

Note: now testing switching out Poison dart and/or grasp for abilities like mass confusion,zombie wall, and others.

I find that i'm not using poison dart all that much, it kinda sits there. It definitely could be replaced by a better utility spell. Need to find the right one though

Also sometimes I wish grasp was mass confuse so i'm going to play with that.

So far this build does well in Nightmare, will update on viability in hell and beyond.

[Frenzied Muffin]

I'm half way thru NM and want to move from the build I've been using for a change of play. I'll give this one a go and post back how I feel about it. On paper this seems very dependent on grasp to be successful? I'll have to wait and see.

[Dokubi]

Thanks. This is the best WD build I've seen yet. Works pretty well in Nightmare. Let me know how well it works in Hell and Inferno.

[Chaosmage]

I tried it on nm Diablo, I was not able to solo him with this. (But neither with the build I am currently using) I did finally beat him in a team, using my own build.

I also tried it out a little on regular groups, I seems to work, but is way too stressful to play imo.
You are constantly on the run and have to basically time your playstyle to the spirt walk cooldown.

Reminds me of a d2c meteor/blizzard sorc.

[FizzyBubbly]

I tried it on nm Diablo, I was not able to solo him with this. (But neither with the build I am currently using) I did finally beat him in a team, using my own build.

I also tried it out a little on regular groups, I seems to work, but is way too stressful to play imo.
You are constantly on the run and have to basically time your playstyle to the spirt walk cooldown.

Reminds me of a d2c meteor/blizzard sorc.

I will agree this build isn't for the average player. You can't set it up and expect it to just work, it takes a very active play style rather then the more passive ones from the pet build. It also requires a lot of quick thinking for instance should I pot, spirit walk, or soul harvest? and if i soul harvest do i have enough mana to make use of the buff? if the answer is no then you should spirit walk first use a pot then soul harvest and drop the spirit barrages and be ready to spirit walk again. if you're coming from a pet build then you will have to take a step back and re-tune your play style.

I didn't get much playtime in this weekend but I will try to get the vids up as soon as I can.

If you're having probs with the build please describe them so we can see how we can get this build fleshed out. It's not perfect yet but it has potential.

Thanks again for your guys input.

[Malicious]

Looks like an interesting buld and pretty well thought out. I'll give it a try tonight. Grasp has become my favourite spell, and my wizard friend absolutely loves it.

Regarding pets... the WD pets are pretty terrible the further down u go in difficulty. In normal they're fine, but they just don't live very long later on. Blizzard really need to fix pet scaling for them to be useful. Even the Gargantuan just drops in Inferno, especially when playing in a group. I just switched him out because there was really no point in summoning him.

If u are looking for a utility spell to replace poison dart, I'd recommend trying Hex Fetish with the heal rune. It's my second favourite utility spell after Grasp. The Hex is great, and the cooldown of the spell is reasonably short.

[Phillter]

I'm at work right now but I am looking forward to going home and trying this build out. I've been doing mainly physical spell builds through norm/nm, but I've been wanting to look at spirit builds, and this has potential from the sounds of it.