WD Buff Proposal

Witch Doctor
1

Witch Doctors lack on three things.

1. The need of a great Speed build for T16, Solo Exp speeds, etc.

2. Outdated toughness values on the older sets.

3. A lot of not adjusted legendary powers, etc.
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1. WD has the fantastic Chicken Build that lacks damage to really shine.

  • Manajumas:
    Your Hex - Angry Chicken explosion damage is increased by 2000% 4000% and slain enemies trigger an additional explosion.
    Your Hex - Angry Chicken lasts 15 seconds and movement speed as a chicken is increased by an additional 100%.
    While you are an angry chicken, you spawn a two chicken every second that seeks enemies and deals 25% 40 % of your Angry Chicken explosion damage.

And only for the speed purpose give Locust Swarm some love.

  • Vile Hive
    Locust Swarm gains the effect of the Pestilence and Cloud of Insects rune and deals 45-60% 450-600% increased damage.
    .
  • Quatzelcoatl
    Locust Swarm and Haunt now deal their damage in half of the normal duration and deal 400-550% more damage.
    .
  • Wormwood
    Locust Swarm continuously plagues enemies around you. And has a 25-50% chance to deal 16 seconds worth of damage instantly (after casting Hex - Angry Chicken).

2… Toughnes updates to the sets.

Just a little update to have the damage reduction between 75-80% for all WD sets.

3… Updates to alot of forgotten legendaries and playstyles.

Gargantuans and Zombie Dogs, this seasons sanctified power is just amazing and should find a home on a Weapon or Mojo.

  • Weapon or Mojo or Homunculus
    You summon two Gargantuans and three Zombie Dogs periodically. Gargantuans gain the effect of the Restless Giant rune. Zombie Dogs gain the effect of all runes. Enemies hit by Sacrifice are Immolated, causing them to take 100% 150-250% more damage from your Pets. + 1 Zombie dog limit.
    .
  • The Tall Man’s Finger
    Zombie Dogs instead summons for every two zombie dogs a single gargantuan dog wich is bigger in size, deals 600-750% more damage and attacks 50% faster. +1 Zombie Dog limit.
    (Would be cool if zombie dogs would puke some acid that deals xxx% amount of damage for some seconds)

A bunch of legendary updates follow. All of the values should be taken with a grain of salt it’s just to show wich skills/items need some love.

Wall of Death

  • Jeram’s Bracers
    Wall of Death increases your damage reduction by 15-20% and can be cast up to three times within 2 seconds before the cooldown begins. It also gains the Communing with Spirits Rune.
    (I don’t see Wall of Death become meaningful in dealing damage, some alternative damage reduction for WD isn’t that bad, right?)

Firebats

  • Coils of the first Spider
    While channeling Firebats, you gain 30% 60% damage reduction and 60.000-80.000 Life per Hit.
    .
  • Bakuli Jungle Wraps
    Firebats deals 250-300% 400-550% increased damage to enemies affected by Locust Swarm or Piranhas. You also have a 50% chance on attack to summon two hungry bats that deal 1500% weapon damage and prefer to hunt elites/bosses.
    .
  • Staff of Chiroptera
    Firebats attacks 100% faster, costs 75% less Mana, and has its damage increased by 125 - 150% 450-600%.
    .
  • Weapon or Mojo
    Firebats deal 2-3% more damage for how much mana it cost to cast in the last 3 seconds. Maximum mana cost is 210. (F.e. mana cost is 36 per second times 3 times 2 = 216% damage increase, so maximu benefit is 70 *3 *3 = 630%)

Zombie Bears

  • Just two things need to happen.
    First have the Zombie Damage multiplier on Scrimshaw in orange text (maybe some small % increase). Second the collision of Zombie Bears has to be fixed. Perhaps they should just (be able to) run through obstacles.

Acid Cloud & Grasp of the Dead

  • Suwong Diviner
    Acid Cloud gains the effect of the Lob Blob Bomb rune and deals 600-850% more damage.
    .
  • Wilken’s Reach
    The initial damage of Acid Cloud is increased to 3000% weapon damage for enemies that are touched by the ghoulish hands of Grasp of the Dead.
    .
  • Deadly Rebirth
    Grasp of the Dead gains the effect of the Rain of Corpses rune and the corpses rain now for 5 seconds. While it’s raining corpses Acid Cloud deals 550-800 % more damage.

What else would be cool to see? Some love for Toads (the huge Toad) and Fire Bomb for sure. And some kind of rework/update of the Jade Harvester set.

3 Likes
2

Why 2 different damage multipliers here? Just change the item to “deal the damage in one fifth of the normal duration”, that’s now flat 5x damage multiplier.

3

The devs are always free to do what they want. Just wanted to push a little eye on some cool skills that don’t cut it anymore. Besides stating the obvious that WDs need a speed build, and some little toughness pump.

I can live with either updated version.

And I just saw an insane clear of Helltooth Garg. GR 144 @3000 paragons.

4

Yes, WD does need an overall boost. That wasn’t my point.

Why add second damage multiplier to Quetzalcoatl? Just modify the existing damage multiplier. The current iteration “LS and Haunt deal their damage in half of the normal duration” is already a flat 2x damage multiplier. Having 2 separate multipliers that effectively do the exact same thing in a single item is dumb

2 Likes
5

When you would have to reapply it every 1 seconds. This would make Jade not great to play.

6

Quetzalcoatl does not shorten the duration, it increases the damage per tick.

Besides the Creeping Death already extends the durations to “infinite”. Technically it’s 120k seconds which is close enough. The duration of DoTs isn’t an issue.

7

That’s not true it shortens the duration and deals more damage like it. Locust Swarm deals it’s 1040 % damage in 4 seconds instead of 8. You can go into the game and test, if you like.

8

Even then with Creeping Death the actual duration is irrelevant. No spamming needed.

2 Likes
9

That’s right I guess. :+1:

10

They should make the powers from this seasons theme standard

The Gargantuan power makes the Helltooth build pretty decent as WD builds go and also makes the chicken doc amazing this season. To those saying WD needs a good t-16 build go play Hellchicken before the season ends.

The Piranha pull should be what Piranhado does and the Bogodile should eat a bigger chunk of the RG and elites

The Horrify power could just be baseline for the horrify skill.

1 Like
11

This proposal/wish is true for allmost all classes. But for WD especially, cause all three are good.

Helltooth set + Manajuma set + Gargantuan?

1 Like
12

Yep, it is the classic chicken doc build that has been around forever. I’m sure there is a guide for it somewhere. This season we also got the Guardian set which really helps the build.

1 Like
13

All of the points listed in this thread are minor nuisances compared to the atrocious soul harvest maintenance of every build, and the locust swarm spamming (or wormwood cubing) of every build except fetishes. Perhaps we should call the weapon cube slot the wormwood slot for WDs.

Bonus points for D3 having little if any easily recognizable debuff management (like locust swarm) on enemy monsters in a typical “i can’t tell what the hell is going on” high GR fight.

The Ring of Emptiness is the worst thing that ever happened to this class.

14

S28 PTR patch notes out today. Looks like yet another season of mandatory soul harvest, mandatory locust swarm, mandatory wormwood (if you don’t want to cast locust swarm), mandatory ring of emptiness, getting wrecked by crowd control effects, and other wonderful features of being a WD player.

1 Like
15

the actual duration is important for jade build… they just need to up the infinite …

16

Manajuma’s Way - now spawns 10 chickens and does 2500%

BRING CAPTAIN AMERICA and CHICKEN BOMB BACK!!!

1 Like