DoT and Grave Injustice build

[Thrakhath]

Here is the build I am running with right now. Still on Hell. I want to know two things: Will this work in Inferno, and how could it be improved? Please do not tell me to use Splinters or use Vision Quest, I want to keep the flavour of this build unchanged.

Corpse Spiders - Widowmakers (3 mana gained per hit)
Grasp of the Dead - Rain of Corpses
Haunt - Grasping Spirit
Locust Swarm - Cloud of Insects
Spirit Walk - Jaunt
Horrify - Stalker

Pierce the Veil, Spirit Vessel, Grave Injustice

Spiders are a fallback when mana runs out, but all three other damage spells come out first. I can almost permanently spirit walk right now, and everything dies really fast, even with crap gear. What do you think?

[emiliorf]

Hello Mate,

Man, I love everything about this build and actually tried to run one like this myself, to abuse Grave Injustice, which I found very cool. The issue I see with this build and any other grave injustice build is that on Inferno, all that matters are Elite/rare groups. I mean, clearing trash is and should be easy for any build, but elite/rare mobs are what will get you killed.

The issue is that Grave injustice usually don't work so well on them, as they are few mobs that are hard to die. Contrary to the wizard which has a passive that reduces cooldown on crits, which they can generate as well on white mobs as on Elite/rare, we need them to die to reduce our cooldowns, which defeats their usability on Elite/rare mobs. Maybe illusionist mobs would work on this, but any other kind would make grave injustice kind of useless.

Still, let me know if it works out for you, as I love the idea of reducing cooldowns.

[sacridoc]

This build is useable in Inferno probably. But not as good as other builds.

The main point here is that the way the game is built... Grave Injustice is kind of pointless unless you use it with long cooldowns. Because the only benefit you're really getting is against white mobs, which should be no problem anyway. If you need multiple spirit walks to kill white mobs, you won't be able to kill elites.

You're better off building your character around abilities that are good for elites/champions than trash mobs.

That's why I'm thinking... if you want to use Grave Injustice, you should at least get Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo. But then you have to wonder if it's better than Tribal Rites (once they fix it). If you had Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo for every elite/champion pack it would definitely be an advantage though.

Bottom line is that the game is all about elite/champion packs meaning that all these abilities that are based around large groups of regular enemies aren't very useful... which isn't great design if you ask me.

Maybe if elites are no problem it'll be worth it to kill trash mobs a lot faster, but generally you won't want to build your character like that. You should be concerned with killing elites easily first and foremost.

[Thrakhath]

Currently, the minions surrounding elite monsters are easy enough that I can feed off them to keep cooldowns low, making me more or less indestructible. And for champion packs, I try to drag in nearby trash monsters to help me. But if the minions themselves are hard to kill in Inferno, this may fail. I'll let you know how it goes.

[magicrectangle]

Barbarians drag trash mobs to elite packs in order to use revenge to heal off them. I don't see why a witch doctor couldn't do the same with grave injustice. You'd still need to be fairly tanky gear-wise though, since you need to be able to train from elite pack to elite pack instead of killing your way there. Even if you're able to perma-walk on the elite itself, it is no good if you can't collect enough trash mobs.

I also worry about your dps on elites. Spiders aren't real good dps, and haunt + locusts, while great for groups, also aren't that great single target. I know you don't want splinters, but I think you're going to have a hard time with the dps output with spiders as your only spam.

[Thrakhath]

Haunt, locusts and grasp, all ticking at once, deal 153% weapon damage per second to a single target (assuming one corpse every 2 seconds and assuming they stay in the grasp area). [I]Before[I] Pierce the Veil. That might not sound like amazing dps, but considering I can run around while it ticks, it works out not much lower than a shoot-run-shoot-run with Splinters.

Haunt has the advantage that it can always target elites and does not get blocked by minions in the way, whereas Splinters can miss, needs Line of Sight and can be blocked.

It was concerns about single-target dps that made me take Cloud of Insects over Pestilence though.

Regarding DPS in general, this build does not really benefit from attack speed the way others do. So pre 1.03, it would have been terrible. It also did not benefit from crit items, really, until that was fixed in 1.03. But now, using a slow 2-hander with +crit items, damage feels pretty good.

[magicrectangle]

Haunt has the advantage that it can always target elites and does not get blocked by minions in the way, whereas Splinters can miss, needs Line of Sight and can be blocked.

I personally use haunt, locusts, and splinters. Using splinters doesn't mean you can't also use DoTs. The damage really adds up when you have DoTs ticking and you're spamming a direct damage attack.

Still, the build is interesting. I'll be looking forward to hearing how it treats you in inferno. I don't think I'll try it out myself, as my WD is hardcore, I don't see the grave injustice playstyle being very hardcore friendly (not unless you're out-gearing the content, anyway).

[DDuck]

All kinds of stuff will work in Hell mode and act 1 Inferno. Act 2 and beyond is something else entirely.

I tried running DoTs for my main damage sources, and they were a hoot through act 1 Inferno. Once you get to act 2 (act 3 if you have really good gear) you will have trouble cc-ing long enough to keep tough mobs off you before they die.

Spiders- some like it but for me the casting and killing is too slow for tough fast mobs (even with a lot of cc skills) and that's with the only viable rune - leaping spiders. You can make them work, but it's tricky. All the other runes are a waste of a slot against the faster stuff in act 2 and beyond. They will just run around your spiders and mob you.

Haunt - is fun and will kill stuff slowly in act 1. I even got a weapon with added Haunt damage to try to keep it viable, but by act 2 I was only using it for the slow rune for escaping and sometimes the mana rune to help support skills that actually apply useful damage. Some mobs seem to be able to almost out regen the damage of Haunt later on in Inferno. Too bad.

Locusts - especially the fire damage rune, does better damage and kills pretty well in act 1. My helm has added locust damage which helps a little. It's something else to see how it spreads through a large group of slow moving act 1 mobs. It's very mana efficient against large groups of easy stuff. Against bosses, it softens them up for you but most of the time you need something else to kill them at a reasonable pace. By act 2 I sadly dropped locusts. Mobs tend to be fast moving and often spread apart too much for effective application, which gets more and more dangerous as you progress due to the short range. I would sometimes dive in to a tough group to quickly Harvest their souls and apply a quick locust swarm, only to miss. 196 mana down the tubes. You can keep it for a secondary damage adder, but you will need something that is more effective for your main damage later on. If you insist on using locusts you will need at least 3-4 cc skills and the mana to support them.

As for Grave Injustice, I don't think it makes much sense to use a skill that depends on kills within 8 yards when your build is designed to kill stuff from a distance. Trust me, in act 3 you will not be tossing spiders, locusts, and haunt then standing around on the infected monsters waiting for your buff. Even if the range was expanded, the 1% heal is nothing when mobs are hitting you for 10k damage with average defenses. The decreased cooldown is nice, but you will have a hard time getting it when you really need it, as others have said.

I hate to be so negative, and really hope you find a way to make it work. I couldn't.

[Chaosmage]

I use grave injustice with zombie bears and vision quest and I disagree with the consensus here.

At first you pretty much have to kill the critters on the way to the elites and elites rarely come alone. The next thing once you got significant pickup radius you get fee heals instantly if a health globe drops (you have to move though)
This alone helps since elites are dropping them.

The only place where it is really useless are boss fights but even there you get some benefit. With Belial you can pick up health globes across the screen, with have to kill minons with Diablo shadows. Sure other passives are much more helpful there, granted.

I find it particularly helpful with grasp since you can get multiple ones on the screen if you are fast enough and zombie wall which can be a life saver. Also you can pretty much always "pull" a few white mobs between a elite pack.

[DDuck]

I use grave injustice with zombie bears and vision quest and I disagree with the consensus here.

At first you pretty much have to kill the critters on the way to the elites and elites rarely come alone. The next thing once you got significant pickup radius you get fee heals instantly if a health globe drops (you have to move though)
This alone helps since elites are dropping them.

The only place where it is really useless are boss fights but even there you get some benefit. With Belial you can pick up health globes across the screen, with have to kill minons with Diablo shadows. Sure other passives are much more helpful there, granted.

I find it particularly helpful with grasp since you can get multiple ones on the screen if you are fast enough and zombie wall which can be a life saver. Also you can pretty much always "pull" a few white mobs between a elite pack.

Are you sure you are talking about Grave Injustice (1% heal/mana and 1 sec cooldown decrease per kill inside 8 yards)? Even if you are, a the tactics of a Zombie Bears/VQ build is completely different from a Haunt/Locusts/Spiders build. Maybe you are saying that the skill could be useful when combined with increased radius items? I admittedly haven't used Grave Injustice so I could be missing something, but lets say you increase the radius so every kill registers. Even then it's hard to get excited about the 300 life and 8 mana per kill you would get with GI. The decreased cooldown would help VQ, ZW, and Grasp some, but for his build all he gets is perpetual Horror and a few more Spirit Walks in a best case scenario. I'd rather have one of the other passives and not have to juggle random whites while I fight a tough elite pack.