Diablo 3 news » MicroWaveCat's "Haunting Spirits" Witch Doctor
If you’re a Witch Doctor that digs your DoTs, then you’re already familiar with the Raiment of the Jade Harvester set. In today’s Play Your Way build, MicroWaveCat#2473 ditches the 4 and 6-piece bonus and really lets the spirits guide his way.
About the Build:
Damage over time effects are one of those mechanics that, typically, are the type to pay off in the long run. The Raiment of the Jade Harvester set turns that concept on its head by effectively detonating those long debuffs into instantaneous effects. EU player MicroWaveCat#2473 focused on that first set bonus to capitalize on making Haunt devastatingly awesome.
Who ya gonna call? WITCH DOCTAH!
This singular focus on a damaging skill leaves a lot of room open for crowd control and utility abilities, ensuring MicroWaveCat keeps his enemies more than sufficiently at bay. It also makes for an easy to pick up and go kind of build that’s ideal for keeping a rapid pace, especially for speed-farming.
The Skills:
Your damage in this build will primarily come from repeated Haunt casts while other skills offer crowd control, damage boosts, and personal utility.
Active Skills:
- Haunt (Resentful Spirits)
- Your primary damage dealer
- Piranhas (Piranhado)
- Primarily serves as crowd control and activator for Strongarm Bracers and Bane of the Trapped
- Additional boost to damage is universally helpful
- Spirit Walk (Jaunt)
- Standard escape skill found in most Witch Doctor builds
- Mass Confusion (Paranoia)
- Similar to Piranhas, an additional source of bonus damage and crowd control
- Summon Zombie Dogs (Life Link)
- Puts a few fleshy roadblocks between you and the enemies
- Offers additional tankiness
- Horrify (Stalker)
- A third source of crowd control to rotate between Piranhas and Mass Confusion
- Adds an additional movement speed boost that’s particularly useful when speed farming
Passive Skills:
- Fetish Sycophants
- A supplementary source of damage
- Fetishes make excellent tanks, keeping the attention of your foes while you spam Haunt
- Creeping Death
- Spirit Vessel
- Lowers the cooldown on Horrify and Spirit Walk, increasing both mobility and survivability
- Useful for both speed farming and pushing Greater Rifts
- Rush of Essence
- Single-handedly ensures you never have to stop spamming Haunt
The Items:
One of the most appealing parts of MicroWaveCat’s build is the low barrier for entry. While you’ll want to gather a few more of the complementary items listed if you want to push it to the limits, there’s very little needed to get started.
The Tal Rasha's threw me off at first, but MicroWaveCat makes a good point on their inclusion for more Attack Speed.
Recommended Items:
- Raiment of the Jade Harvester (2-piece bonus)
- The 2-piece bonus of this set is the crux of this build
- Recommended pieces: Shoulders, Hands
- Haunting Girdle
- Rapidly pumps up your application of Haunt, allowing you to more quickly start applying those juicy Jade Harvester procs
- Quetzalcoatl
- Doubles the damage output of your Haunt
Complementary Items:
- Hellfire Amulet
- Recommended passive: Pierce the Veil
- Adds substantial damage while maintaining necessary Mana management
- Tal Rasha’s Relentless Pursuit
- An additional source of Attack speed in an usual slot that’s still guaranteed to roll with Intelligence
- A Wizard item on a Witch Doctor? Unconventional, but valid for stat stacking
- Cain’s Destiny (2-piece bonus)
- A crafted source of additional Attack Speed that allows easy entry into this build
- Recommended pieces: Legs and Feet
- Strongarm Bracers
- Your first option for Bracers to pack a bit more punch
- Warzechian Armguards
- If you’re leaning more towards speed farming, these are a great substitute for Strongarm Bracers
- Uhkapian Serpent
- Bonus damage reduction fills in this slot that, ultimately, is pretty flexible for this build
- Azurewrath
- While you can use virtually any fast weapon, Azurewrath offers cold damage and a built-in chance to freeze enemies which synergizes nicely with the rest of the build
- Convention of Elements
- Though most of your damage will come from Haunt, there’s enough mix of damage types in this build to virtually always benefit from this ring’s power
- Unity
- Highly recommended for solo-play, as one of this build’s weaker spots is in its survivability
Recommended Legendary Gems:
- Gogok of Swiftness
- You want to stack plenty of Attack Speed in this build, making Gogok of Swiftness a prime choice for gems
- Bane of the Trapped
- Lots of cold-oriented skills means plenty of freezing and activating this gem’s powerful damage boost
- Bane of the Powerful
- Great in any speed farming build, as with rapid speed comes ease of maintaining this buff
Recommended Stats:
- Attack Speed should be your primary offensive stat. The faster you’re attacking, the more often you will benefit from that 2-piece Raiment of the Jade Harvester bonus
- The majority of this build’s damage is Cold, so +% bonus to Cold damage is a solid choice
- Resource Cost Reduction can be helpful for maintaining constant Haunt casts, though isn’t as important when using Rush of Essence
Why We Like This Build:
The Haunting Spirits Witch Doctor is extremely versatile, and requires very little to get started. Simply picking up a couple pieces of Raiment of the Jade Harvester and stacking some Attack Speed is enough to get you started at 70 and into fast-moving bounty and Nephalem Rift farming. It scales reasonably well and offers substantial crowd control to combat the nastier situations that can arise in Greater Rifts. Overall, it makes for a great stepping stone to grow from for any budding young Witch Doctor.
It makes for a rather ghastly experience (for the demons, I mean).
Tell Us What You Think!
Are you a fan of Haunt or the Raiment of the Jade Harvester set? How does your build differ? Do you have any recommendations for MicroWaveCat? Let us know in the comments or send your build in and you might see yourself right here on the front page in the future!
That wraps up this round of Play Your Way. Next week, we’ll be opening up the polls for you to vote on the next guest for our upcoming livestream. See you then!
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