The nerf:
Witch Doctor
- Spirit Barrage
- The Spectres from the Phantasm rune no longer benefit from pet bonuses.
While I can fully understand balance is needed, I see this is a major slap in the face for all Witch Doctor (WD) players. I remember trying to get into a 4 player group before season 20 as a WD and getting absolutely shunned (to the point of getting kicked out without warning seconds after entering)
Season 20 brought something that WD’s rarely had and that was inclusion in the meta game.
Now after this nerf, WD is right back to the back of the line because the entirety of it’s viability in high end meta hinged on how this single set worked overall.
I’m not asking for outright reversal but please provide an alternative build or buff to one of the many other skills and items that go unused for the WD. Firebomb, toads, grasp of the dead, zombie bears, mass confusion… something.
Right now it feels discriminatory against WD’s to severely cripple their only meta capable build.
Community - please discuss.
29 Likes
Mundungus is for now total crippled.
- no attack speed multiplicator (so pe not work also)
- no enforcer
- no jeram
- as is dead stat
To heavy hit.
12 Likes
Almost every class has only one meta capabale build. What happend to bazooka wizzard after they nerfed bazooka to be unplayable ? well we have to wait in the dirt, with a lot of undertuned builds in every other Area of the game. it is very rare that classes has more than 1 capable meta build. Btw if you start comparisons, wd was 9 Seasons in the meta already, before this season. 
2 Likes
I should’ve been more specific in group meta (not solo), yes WD’s have had a few “top-tier” builds such as Firebats and Darts, however in general many of the D3 player base refuses WD in a group meta.
Im glad to see sb being a total sb build instead of having to use pet items. So I set up wd now and didnt see much of a difference. Traded jerams for coe and enforcer for botp and i like it even better. Kills elites a lot better. But thats 2 rings in cube so it in the end will lose around 200% damage . Maybe with a monk and barb in game you can use squirts. But looks like its going to lose around 10-15 tiers. And its back to being so squishy its no fun.
Yeah? Did you see that Shield of Fury nerf for Crusaders? If you understood what that does, you’d realize the silliness of this statement.
2 Likes
They could have removed the Mana Regen buff from the set. They could have reduced the 6pc bonus to 15K. They could have done both, and it wouldn’t have been the total gutting of the build this change will make.
I hear you. That nerf sucks too. However, it pales in comparison to what they’re proposing to do to WD’s.
Sader’s RG kill time could be doubled by the nerf, but it’s not totally shot. A three minute kill time is still acceptable. For solo it probably about a 4 GR reduction.
But it’s likely WD’s won’t even have a place in Meta, and solo it’s probably about a 8-10 GR reduction. That would bring the top solo clears in line where they want it in the 140 range. However, the average WD players currently running 120-130 are going to get crushed hard.
6 Likes
It depends how many GR nerf that Blizzard envisioned. If you halved the 6 piece bonus for the set, it would be a 4.5 GR nerf. The top worldwide non-season barbarians cleared GR 147 and that class has no changes so that may give an idea about an acceptable power level relative to Blizzard’s ideas.
This nerf was not so bad, the power of AoV / HF is still good for killing the boss. But … … This kind of gives chills … ohh remember, the only reason we didn’t use Necro thorns would be because sader was superior. With this nerf, we will see the nightmare again. But as it can always get worse … SP / Bazooka can come back, so we would have Bazooka + Thorns (fishing by bligther)
At least you got your one season of fun, unlike Hydra wizzard which was gutted before it was launched.
8 Likes
This. 100% this. I think most people would agree that a nerf to the SB build for WDs was warranted, but what they are proposing now threatens to make the build underperforming compared to other builds that existed prior to the SB one. Testing will tell the tale, of course, but at first glance this seems like an overreach.
What’s doubly concerning (this applies to Crusaders as well) is that these nerfs are occurring during a patch focused on two other classes. Blizzard has frequently been either unwilling or unable to really address classes outside of the focused classes per patch, and I’m worried that even if testing during PTR shows this to effectively destroy the SB build, Blizzard simply won’t do anything to address it because they are too focused on the DH and Necro sets.
What really annoys me is that if it turns out that the nerf makes the SB build worse then, say, Zuni or Darts, then the end result will pretty much be a complete waste of the prior patch for WDs. It’s great that Blizzard wants to boost underused skills, but frankly WDs could have used a whole host of changes to other items/sets last patch; however, all they got were changes focused entirely on the SB set - take away that set’s power compared to others, and you end up with a whole lot of wasted effort and disappointment.
Who knows, maybe the testing will show the SB build/set can still work out just fine, but at first glance it doesn’t feel that way, and I have practically zero confidence Blizzard can or will do anything to fix it should that be the end result.
3 Likes
Mask of Jeram and Enforcer are Additive.
200% + 60% (Enforcer at 150)
HP per added GR
GR +1 = 1.17x
GR +2 = 1.369x
GR +3 = 1.602x
GR +4 = 1.874x
GR +5 = 2.192x
GR +6 = 2.565x
GR +7 = 3.001x
GR +8 = 3.511x
GR +9 = 4.10x
Tickrate only applies to Manitou and Phantasm which don’t benefit from AS. 80%-90% of your damage was coming from accumulating Phantasm ticks before the explosion with the pet bonuses.
Now the Phantasm will do about 15% of the damage. Most of your damage will come from accumulated explosions during the Cold COE cycle. The rune of choice will no longer be Manitou.
AS only benefited Phantasm up 2.381 ias so you could get for 4 ticks if you continuously channeled. Faster than that and you would only get 3 ticks and lose damage. But then no one spammed SB during gameplay - you wanted all 10 seconds of tick damage.
I’ve been using Spirit Is Willing for solo pushes. After the nerf, I’ll switch to Well of Souls which will benefit from Pain Enhancer.
After the nerf, most of the damage will come from Well of Souls Barber explosions so I’ll want to accumulate as much damage between Cold COE which means more attack speed.
A -6GR loss for me will put it in the same range as WW barb and post nerf Aegis crusader.
More than likely, I will replace Enforcer with Pain Enhancer. And you would replace MoJ in the cube with Frostburns.
For rifting and bounties, you have plenty of damage without pet bonuses. I run for speed so for rifts, I’m running hoarder, trapped, gizzard (with squirts necklace) and krelms belt in the cube for speed. I don’t rely on pet bonuses at all for rifting or bounty builds.
Mundu will still be the fastest WD farming build.
5 Likes
Given that their target for solo is about GR140 and 'saders were doing 150s with that build, you’re either incorrect in the scope of the nerf, or they didn’t nerf 'saders enough - in which case expect more.
Yes, it does depend. I can only assume the mean to stay at their GR140 @ P10,000 target. To that end 8-9 GR’s lower is probably their target for WD’s.
Was the 147 on Asia? There are some Barb outliers to be sure, but I don’t know that there’s enough of them to warrant a major nerf.
On the US the highest Barb is 144 and only five are above 140. Three of those are 141.
On EU the highest is 145, plus three 144’s, and 18 are above 140. Most are 141-143.
Clearly, there are far more WD outliers (US-37, EU-91) with a pretty egregious margin of 3 to 10 GR’s above 140.
So, yeah. SB needed a nerf to reduce those top clears. It’s still going to suck hard for the average player currently in the GR120-130 range.
Bringing SB down to GR110-120 probably means it will be out performed by Darts or Jade. That will have to be tested on PTR of course. But that’s pretty harsh for a brand new set that had so much promise, and generated so much excitement for WD players.
2 Likes
We don’t have to wait until PTR to test. Just run a build without Jeram and enforcer now and see how you do.
I’m busy today but I’ll test my post nerf build tomorrow and see how many GRs I lose in reality.
2 Likes
come on bro its WD we all know how the world feels about the Dark 
Are you sure?
I’ll admit I’ve never tested it myself, but I’ve been under the assumption that Enforcer has been multiplicative since 2.4.1, as stated in the 2.4.1 patch notes. While MoJ is still additive with elemental damage.
https://us.diablo3.com/en/game/patch-notes/2-4-1
- Enforcer
- Pet damage reduction increased from 25% to 90%
- The damage bonus granted to pets is now multiplicative with other sources of bonus damage
Is that wrong or did it revert at some point?
2 Likes
Damage is
Base + (base x enforcer) + (base x Jeram)
1 + (1x.6) + (1x2) = base + (base x 2.6)
1 Like
I never liked pet damage effecting Mundungus. It wasn’t intuitive at all. I’d only like to see something else getting buffed a bit to compensate for the loss of Mask of Jeram.
3 Likes
Many people are assuming that removing pet status from Phantasms will also remove the attack speed multiplier. I don’t think this is intended.
Attack speed multipliers are not exclusive to pets. Tempest Rush Flurry and Chantodos both have attack speed multipliers. If Phantasms keep the attack speed multiplier, the nerf is worth about 5-7 GR levels, which seems more appropriate.
Heaven’s Fury got nerfed by 5 GR levels, so it makes more sense that Blizzard intends to nerf Phantasms by 5-7 GR levels, than 10-15 levels.
Maybe we can get a confirmation from a blue post here.
4 Likes