[PTR 2.6.10] WD feedback
After testing the WD changes yesterday here some thoughts about the current patch:
[Survivability options for the WD]
Right now, the witch doctor has limited alternatives to mitigate damage. Not counting the sets and LoN/LoD bonus, here’s what we have:
Issues
• Lakumba’s Ornament + Sacred Harvester: When the devs were trying to solve Jade’s survivability back then, they introduced Lakumba’s to solve the problem. But unfortunately the combo was too good to ignore and it became unintentionally mandatory for every single build. They did the same thing with the Ring of Emptiness to solve Jade’s damage and it became mandatory in every build but pets. Although they partially solved the problem in the damage side when they changed RoE affix from both skills to either one, the combo LO + SH never got addressed in the toughtness side. And being a Weapon + Bracer combo, it severely limits de WD options for either damage output or damage reduction.
• Henry’s Perquisition: Excellent at front damage, but terrible at sustained damage. Builds that needs you to stay in place for a while usually don’t do well with it.
• Ukapian’s Serpent: For optimal mitigation it needs a Skill slot and some passives to be effective.
• Captain Crimson’s: it has a good mitigation, but requires RORG to be effective and it’s a no no for LoN/LoD builds.
• Unity: Not a problem at first, but if your build is already compromised by RORG, RoE and Endless Walk you simply cannot use it.
Suggested solutions
Skills and passives:
• Soul Harvest: give it 10 stacks outright. This diminishes the need for Sacred Harvest in every single build. I’ll explain this change further with the other suggestions.
• Gruesome Feast: Make it act like Soul Harvest stack mechanic.
Items:
• Sacred Harvester: Make it add +5 stacks of Soul Harvest to a total of 15. Adding just +5 reduces it’s importance in every build. it will strongly benefit Jade’s and Mundunugu’s survivability but it will become less optimal for other sets and builds (again, I’ll explain later).
• Lakumba’s Ornament: Nerf the damage reduction from 6% to 5% for each stack of Soul Harvest.
• Henry’s Perquisition: Make it reduce enemy damage by 60-75% for 3 seconds and if the enemy is afflicted by crowd control (i.e: stun, fear, frozen and knocked) the bonus is renewed. This will make Piranhas, Horrify, and Mass confusion synergize with it.
• Ukapian’s Serpent: For each Pet skill in your bar or passives it adds 25% damage reduction. if you have Fetishes, Gargs and Dogs in your side you will have 75% damage reduction. This eliminate the need for Sacred Harvester + Lakumba’s Ornament combo in pet builds.
• Thing of the Deep: keep the pickup radius bonus and add 15% damage reduction for each stack of Gruesome Feast to a max of 75% damage reduction. For builds like bears which needs a specific bracer this eliminates the need for SH+LO combo.
• Hwoj Wrap: keep the slow bonus and add a chance to spawn a health globe if the enemy dies under locust swarm effect. This will synergize greatly with Gruesome Feast and Thing of the Deep.
Split Tusk: Casting creature spells reduces damage taken by 75% for 10 seconds.
Conclusion
Note that every single suggestion mitigate damage by 75% evenly. This allow us to choose what to use depending on the build and eliminate the over reliance in Sacred Harvester + Lakumba’s Ornament combo opening up build diversity.
Now you can use SH+LO for Jade’s or Mundunugu’s, TOTD+Hwoj Wrap for caster Helltooth, Ukapian’s for Zuni or Helltooth Gargs, Split Tusk for Arachyr’s and you can use any of these for LoN/LoD builds.
[Items and builds addressed in this patch]
I had time to test Bears only so here is my thoughts:
Issues
• Damage output: Back in patch 2.3, the damage of this build was split between Zombie Charger and Wall of Death. Walls proccing the set bonus and melting mobs with stacked firewalls and bears doing direct damage. They only buffed Bears damage for this patch leaving the build as of now, half baked, to say the least. The damage is there for bears, but without the help of fire wall, the build barely reaches GR 115-120.
• Damage reduction: With SH+LO combo being mandatory, it prevents the use of Jeram’s Bracer for little added damage for the build. Captain Crimson’s adds the necessity for RORG. Ukapian’s add the need to put zombie dogs on your skills or passives or items. If you use Unity, you cannot use captain crimson’s. To sum up, some build needs to chose damage or toughness… Bears can’t have either!
Suggested solutions
• Toughness: Already addressed it in the survivability suggestions above. Or, change the bonus to another item like a belt.
• Jeram’s Bracer: keep the cooldown bonus, increase the damage to 500-600%. If possible, give fire wall rune effect.
• The Grin Reaper: Allow the mimics to fully benefit from your damage bonus from items, sets, skills and passives. This will make the build triple the damage as of now.
Conclusion
I predict that with these suggestions, the build will be capable of reaching GR 130-135.
[Wishlist of changes not addressed in this patch]
Here I will present my wishlist of changes to skills, sets and complimentary legendaries.
Skills
• Big Bad Voodoo: Give the fetish shaman the ability to follow you, which is a feature of Mundunugu’s 2pc bonus to the skill itself. For a skill with 30 seconds duration and 120 secs cooldown, I don’t see how this could be imbalanced. This will open so much build possibilities aside from Mundunugu’s.
• Fire bomb: Change Fire Pit rune to Foul Concoction. Keep the same function but change the damage from fire to poison.
Passives
• Creeping Death: Allow it to function with more sources of Damage over time like Gems.
Sets
• Mundunugu’s Regalia: Now that BBV will follow you regardless, for 2 pieces give BBV all the runes and keep the double duration. Again, not overpowered.
• Zunimassa’s Haunt: Change the 2p and 6p bonuses…
(2) Set:
Your Fetish Army lasts until they die and the cooldown of your Fetish Army, Gargantuan, Summon Zombie Dogs and Big Bad Voodoo is reduced by 80%.
(6) Set:
BBV now can summon up to 3 fetish shamans. Each shaman increases the damage of your pets by 5000% while you are under it’s effect. Your primary skills or your mana spenders directs the aim of your pets.
• Helltooth Harness: In 2 piece bonus, change the damage ticks for Gruesome Feast double it’s duration.
• Spirit of Arachyr: I thought about the theme of the set… Creature spells. 2p we have the spider and 4p we have the toads. for the 6th piece a bland damage bonus. But creature spells revolve around spiders, toads, piranhas and bats, so I thought, it would be cool if we could change the 6p bonus for a bat related bonus:
(6) Set:
A cloud of hungering bats revolves above your head and will fly towards enemies whenever you use a creature spell dealing 3000% weapon damage per second and returning 15.000 life per kill. Enemies afflicted by the bats will receive 17500% increased damage from your creature spells.
Complimentary Legendaries
• Carnevil: The 10 fetishes closest to you will use a powerful primary skill every time you do.
• Ren’Rho Flayer: Your Plague of Toads now seek enemies, explode twice and deal 350-400% increased damage.
• Spider Queen’s Grasp: Corpse Spiders release web on impact that slows enemies by 60% and reduces their damage by 30%. The spiders deal 150-200% increased damage and also explode for 1000% weapon damage when they expire.
• Mordullu’s Promise: Increases the number of Pyrogeist to 7-9. When they expires, they explode for 2000% weapon damage over 15 radius.
[Added feedback]
That’s it for now. if I think of anything more I’ll add it in this section. And any suggestions are welcomed and I’ll be glad to see you guys feedback.