Is a summoning Witch Doctor build viable in Hell and Inferno?
EDIT: Due to changes in Patch 1.0.4, WD pets have received major buffs. I'm updating my answer to include the new information on pets.
Pets are certainly viable in Hell and even Inferno. With the introduction of patch 1.0.4, pets receive a number of benefits that will make them competitive again:
- Increased base damage: gargantuan base damage is increased to 100% weapon damage, and humungoid, wrathful protector, and bruiser runes receive additional damage buffs
- Decreased damage from elite effects: pets and followers now only receive 10% damage from plagued, molten, and frozen effects
- Increased health: at level 60, gargantuans now receive an additional 50% of the player's maximum health; zombie dogs receive an additional 35% of the player's maximum health
- Decreased max damage received per hit: the amount of damage zombie dogs and gargantuans can take from a single hit has been capped, and the cap both scales with level, and decreases with the player's armor and resistances.
- General availability of the pets has been improved: Zombie Dog cooldown has been reduced from 60 to 45 seconds, Circle of Life passive has been buffed to give a 30% chance for a zombie dog over the old 5% chance, Tribal Rites now also reduces the cooldowns on Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan skills, and Grasp of the Dead's Death is Life rune now gives a 10% chance to spawn a health globe or zombie dog (previously it was 5% for a health globe)
The downside is that pets have a drastically reduced ability to proc abilities from gear, so pet-based crowd control and life on hit is no longer a viable main strategy (gargantuans can no longer proc effects at all, and zombie dogs have had two major nerfs to proc coefficients: rabid dogs went from a 1 coefficient to a 0.10, and burning dogs went from 1.0 to 0.05).
(source)
My original answer remains below:
Pet builds do appear to be viable, at least in Hell:
lv 58 WD here, zombie dogs are ok, i use them with the life leech rune along with my gargantuan plus the passive that allows them to take advantage of my life regen and thorns stats. They do last long enough for me to kill a huge mob, the only thing that kills them in a spilt second in hell is them dam elites and arcane sentries, and poison clouds. Just gotta have good items according to you level, high in armor vit and intel. btw let me know what you guys are rocking..
The issue is proper gear.
Contrary to rumor, Vitality does not impact pet health. However, Strength and Intelligence add armor and resistances. This makes a huge difference in pet durability. A number of people are claiming good results using builds with the Fierce Loyalty passive, stacking health regen to extend pet lifespans. Thorns effects can be stacked to add much needed damage to the pets.
Based on these discoveries, there is speculation that pets are viable through Inferno... with the right gear and build. At least one person claims to be using this tactic in Act 3 of Inferno:
Currently playing as a Minion Reflector WD in Inferno. Stack as much Life Regeneration + Thorn + Int gear as you can.
Left Click - Haunt + Resentful Spirit Rune
Right Click - Firebats + Plague Bats Rune
1 - Spirit Walk + Honored Guest Rune
2 - Summon Zombie Dogs + Rabid Dogs Rune
3 - Gargantuan + Restless Giant Rune
4 - Soul Harvest + Siphon RuneVision Quest / Fetish Sycophants / Fierce Loyalty
I don't have to tank a damn thing. Just stay back, haunt and spray. Reflecting 4k back on damage, and healing back 3k+ health per second which also applies to my minions.
You might read many people dissing summoning, saying that their pets get one-shotted once they hit Hell. Contrary to belief, Vitality doesn't improve pet health! If you wear gear that helps improve your strength (armor rating) and dex (% chance to dodge), you will find the pets will live a little longer.
The real trick with pets is to wear gear that has a chance to cast "fear/blind/freeze" on hit. Also the best pets for this build are flaming dogs and big stinker zombie as they have a further % chance to hit per second with their auras. If you can focus on getting your % chance to hit over 10% you can potentially have 4 dogs, 1 zombie, 2 auras and your own spells creating havoc all over the screen. That is the build I've found works for me and I'm in act 3 Inferno. Have fun!
I've got a level 60 Witch Dcotor and I've been playing in Hell and Inferno for a bit, and honestly I find the pets mostly useless (especially while playing in groups). The only time I find Gargantuan useful is using him for as a stun bot with the Bruiser rune.
You could easily make a Sacrifice AoE build with Zombie Dogs, but you'd probably still be using Zombie Charger or Firebats more anyways. You'd also give up a lot of other survivability options that you'd normally use in a Zombie Charger or Firebats build, though.
There are certain builds that don't really require Vision Quest. Spirit Walk is probably our best defensive ability. Soul Harvest also isn't a requirement if you're using DoT effects because damage gains are not retroactively applied to DoT damage (as in if you gain weapon damage or INT while DoTs are already applied you won't gain any damage on the DoT).
The Witch Doctor summon build is rather weak though IMO, so it is hard for me to think of a useful way to use it in Hell/Inferno. Which is sad because it is a fun build to mess around with.
So far in Hell difficulty (Act III at the time of writing) I have had very few issues with a summoner build. My currently used abilities are:
Left Button: Poison Darts - Splinters
Right Button: Soul Harvest - Soul to Waste (you could use anything that suits you for the rune, i.e. health gain, more damage, etc.)
1: Locust Swarm - Searing Locusts (468% fire damage over 8 seconds)
2: Spirit Walk - Healing Journey (7% max health)
3: Summon Zombie Dogs - Leeching Beasts (For that little extra health for me and my minions :3)
4: Gargantuan - Bruiser (I've used Big Stinker and Humongoid as well, they seem to work just fine, Restless Giant for bosses)
Passives:
Blood Ritual
Zombie Handler
Fierce Loyalty
My Stats are:
Armor: 2974 (50.20%, I do use a shield) Damage: 4302.25 (unbuffed, about 6k fully buffed)
Dodge Chance: 18.1%
Physical Resistance: 507 (63.23%)
Cold Resistance: 477 (61.80%)
Fire Resistance: 511 (63.41%)
Lightning Resistance: 501 (62.95%)
Poison Resistance: 479 (61.90%)
Arcane/Holy Resistance: 505 (63.14%)
Thorns: 193
Life per Second: 1337 (Seriously)
Observations: I didn't focus on Dexterity or Strength and even took gear with some lower Intelligence for +All Resistances. It seemed to make quite a difference. My pets used to die in 2-3 shots, sometimes even in one, and when fighting elites and champions? Wouldn't even stand a chance unless I kited them for what seemed like forever. Now I may lose 1-2 pets if I hit a group of about 20 normals (and that's when I'm not paying too much attention to them :) ) For elites and champions I lose about that many but only on ones that are arcane or have mass amounts of plaque circles about.