Is Tall Man's Finger Basically a Dead Ring for WD?

Witch Doctor
1

Is Tall Man’s Finger Basically a Dead Ring for WD?

Other questions:

  • Tall Man’s mechanic… does the big dog’s damage scale up based on the number of dogs one would have active… thus more dogs more damage?.. If yes, then by what amount/percent is the big dog’s damage increased for each merged lesser dog?
  • Wasn’t the big poison dog good damage (stacking DoT damage) against Rift Guardians?
2

Pretty much.

Yes. The big dog damage increases proportionally to the number of little dogs making it. I believe it gains a multiplier equal to 8*(number of dogs).

So a three-dog big dog is +2400%, a four-dog big dog is +3200%, a five-dog big dog is +4000%, and a six-dog big dog is +4800%.

I don’t think it stacks infinitely or anything, I don’t think there’s any real value there. It does have the highest single target damage of all the runes, but not by a huge amount.

Most dog dps builds would run Burning Dogs I think for the AoE. The big problem with the dog is it’s mostly single target, Burning Dogs help with that.

Excluding Restless Giant, the a 6-dog Tall Man’s Finger big dog doesn’t actually deal that much less single target dps vs. SMF gargs. It just takes 3x passive slots and has significantly worse AoE vs. a trio of cleave gargs. The AoE is the biggest problem with dogs vs. gargs IMO. The dogs could use a bit of a damage boost, but they’ll always be held back by the AoE.

3

Thank you so much Tinne. I haven’t played WD since LoD Spirit Barage was a thing, thus I have a bunch of catching up to do.

I’m just going to plug Anthony Evans here.
Video Title = Diablo 3 Toxic Hound GR75+ Witch Doctor Build! Patch 2.4 !
URL = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6YZ--5KuZY