Hi all,
I’ve been wanting to play WD as my secondary toon and I’m still a little confused a after watching some YouTube videos.
The only new video for S21 is by BigDaddyDen76 which uses the Voos+Aquila combination and all the other videos were made for S20 using Sacred Harvester
Which would be the correct setup currently after S21 WD changes? I had a quick look at the leaderboards and practically all the top clears are still using Sacred Harvester
Lastly, how does the class perform for speed farming GR100-110 and pushing. GR 130 possible for average player non season @P3500?
Thanks so much all for pointing me in the right direction
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Yes, sacred harvester/frost burn is the current “BIS” combo. I utilized voo’s/Aquila a lot and completed 119 GR with that combo. I then switched to my other set up with sacred/frostburn and completed 120. This is where I stopped as I’m not a huge fishing for gr type of guy but, I say try both and use both.
Armory allows you to do this easy specially since the only thing changing is a couple items. Voo’s is awesome as you can actually utilize it now which gives up to 60% more damage to SB on wep as well as life on hit from rune and mana regain allowing for different passives.
Big daddy is a WD enthusiast and knows what he’s doing…on the other hand, he also has and uses very good rolled items and is very skilled at the mechanics and play style.
As for speed, I always just do gr 90-100 and at this level you can pretty much just randomly cast SB and let the friend above your head kill as you run around. WD does not have the beat mobility skill…so you can’t tele/spin your way through. @3.5k paragons, with the right rolls and augments, 130 is very doable.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply Grim.
I think I have a slightly better idea of what is going on now. Would I be correct to conclude that Voos/Aquila would be the more beginner friendly setup?
Still don’t quite fully understand the spirit barrage mechanics yet 
Eh, maybe? With harvest/frostburn you end up with 60% DR from the 10 stacks. Voo/Aquila you end up with 80%. Aquila 50% and 5 stacks of harvest/bracers equaling another 30% But not sure if the DR differs on calculations of the different items.
Voos you get the life on hit rune so sustainability is better. Sacred has the high proc chance of freezing mobs which is better CC. The passives don’t have to change much at all so you don’t get a benefit on one versus the other. The only passive that “changes” due to the weapon is blood ritual versus essence and this is just for the mana.
I find voo’s easier to run for speeds/grinding as I only have to worry about getting 5 stacks up for the bracers versus 10. For the pushing I find sacred actually easier because your freezing tons of mobs around you so you can avoid things and position yourself a lot easier.
I can’t say every nerdy aspect of how SB works but in a nutshell, this SB set up works kind of like Jade harvester build in that your building up your damage over a certain amount of time. Once the time limit hits or you cast three SB, all of the accumulated damage you did to the mob blows up for one big one.
So Imagine you had something that dealt 5000 poison damage over 60 seconds. That’s around 83 damage per second. But you have to wait for the full minute for the whole 5000 damage. This set up makes that 5000 damage go off in one explosion of the whole 5000 damage in three seconds Or after three casts of SB instead of little bits over 60 seconds.
Think this is what the SB is doing in this set up. I’m also not playing while I type and don’t feel like researching while I’m typing this on my phone 
. So the times/amount of SB casted might be different as I can’t remember, I have played it so long I just know the setup and play…never look anymore on the set bonuses to remember the exact times.
Well, “correct” is what suits you more i guess. I 've watched his videos and he is truly passionate about witch doctor. As a player, personally, i always favor toughness and try to get it wherever i can afford it, so i am sticking with Aquila in the cube. If you go that road make sure you can keep the buff up all the time with the correct spells and passives. If you want to go full toughness you can use both Aquila and Sacred Harvest (either cubed or equiped). You will lose some of the damage output that frostburn offers but still… WD is kind of squishy in nature so getting some additional layers of damage mitigation is always nice. Especially if you are a new player or someone that came back after a long time and feel a little rusty. Some times i chose the middle ground by equiping Voo’s Juicer (+ Barber in the cube) and cubing Aquila which is both somewhat tanky (relatively) and deals tones of damage, plus it is more interesting and unique cause you get to play something different than Sacred Harvester which is used in 99% of Witch Doctor builds. Voo’s Juicer is the only wd weapon that can roll with Spirit barrage damage and it gives you 2 free runes for that skill. That’s why you can see it used in some SB builds.
Also, very important here, a lot of this builds survivability comes from good usage of Spirit Walk. That is 2-3 seconds of pure invincibility for you, so timing that right is going to make a difference. So keep that in mind, when you see some videos of WD veterans like Big Daddy Den, a lot of the time the stay alive becuase of good management of that spell, not only becuase they are using a more defensive setup.
Lastly, speeds are certainly doable with this setup. In fact i think that it is the best WD build for GR100+ speeds right now and one of the top in the game overall. GR130 is definitely doable for paragon 3500. I did 120 last season with Aquila + Barber + Harvester with less than 1500 paragons and if i remember correctly i still had a couple of minutes left. Most of my gear was augmented with level 100 gems. I also used to do GR105 effortlessly even without Aquila and instead i cubed Nemesis bracers for more elites from pylons. Make sure you get some good gear for high pushes. Spirit barrage damage on helmet/boots/offhand, high multipliers in Gazing demise or barber if you chose to wear it, crit %, attack speed % on rings/gloves, etc… all the good stuff.
Thanks for the inputs as well Yukos!
Silly me. I didn’t realise Big Daddy made another video about pushing with Sacred Harvester/Frostburn.
Seems like such a waste that Voos is not the top weapon choice. The secondary affixes on the weapon all seem handmade for this build.
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Unfortunately, WD has been stuck with 2 staple items for 99% of the builds and that’s sacred and ornament bracers. Even if Voo’s could technically squeeze out more damage and be more viable for the top clear…most will just stick with what they know about harvester so you will see it more on the LB than anything else.
I got on the LB with 119 clear with Voos, but try finding that in the top 1000 when at least 600 of the builds around me are using harvester. A new player to the WD would have to click every 1000 LB player to see the builds to find out there’s a different option other than sacred.
A lot of people just use the LB to copy builds from. Yuk made a good point too on SW with WD’s. It is very important to keep tabs on not only for getting out of trouble, but also keeping the DR buff up on mundun set.
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That is so true!!! And the worst part is that it is a weapon of all items, so all of the time your weapon slot in the cube or the weapon that you have equiped is taken by SH. If this legendary affix came with a ring, for example, or a belt or shoulders it would be so much better cause you would have more freedom and choices to itemize. Not to mention that in order to get the full advantage you also need the bracers, so that is 2 items taken 99% of the time, so that limits the choices even more. Appart from that, i find WD very fun to play, as a class overall.
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