What stats are best for casters (Wizard/Witch Doctor) doing Inferno?
Here are some general things I've observed from playing with a friend who runs both a Wizard and Witch Doctor (both glass cannon builds).
- Wizard damage sources relies more on critical damage rather than straight up dps, so favors not only int but also crit.
- Witch doctors relies on dps and mob control, and thus does not care as much about crit.
Since int + crit gear is a lot more expensive than int gear, and since your budget is only 1.5m, I'd highly recommend going the WD route.
Just from a few searches in the AH, I can piece together a fairly decent WD that can tackle up to a2 inferno(~40k dps and 25k health) just by going for the int + vit gears totaling roughly 1.5m. If you want to survive beyond act 2, you'll have to spend 1-2 mill (minimum) per piece of gear and go for the really good stuff with res all along with int/vit.
Just beat act 3 inferno as a wizard, cant talk about wdoctor, heres a useful tip and rule to stand by. Act 1 needs about 400 resistences across the board, act 2 is 700 or so act 3 900 to 1100 and act 4 is prolly around 1200 plus, please note that includes the bonus from energy armour.
Life on hit is also big if you can get it as is a socket for critical damage, preferably with base critical and high int on weapon, you want at least 33k dps to beat the first 2 acts with a fair amount of ease. Archeon is also a very good option, as is diamond skin, a hydra of some sort is also good for kiting.
As for the money it really depends if you happen to find the right gear at the right price, it is possible to gear for act 1 and 2 with 1.5 mill or so gold you want to look for things with 60 all resist at least and ideally as much critical hit chance, and damage, as much armour as possible and as much vitality and int as possible, but remember health without resistence is pretty much useless
As a ranged class, make sure that you have runspeed on your boots - won't help you to outrun fast soul lashers, but it is very useful in a lot of places. Try to also get Life on Hit from gear, it works way better than life leech (80% penalty) in Inferno. I also like life regen so my health refills while running around between fights, and it can make a difference in those long drawn out fights where you survive with a few hp.
Don't forget the importance of defensive skills; and using Elective mode if nobody pointed that out yet.
So, a shopping list of gear attributes for Wizard may look like:
- Intelligence
- Vitality
- Higher Run Speed
- Resist All
- Armor
- Life on Hit
- Life Regen
To raise DPS once you have the basic survivability needs covered, you should consider:
- Critical Chance
- Critical Damage
- Attack Speed (note: this can increase resource usage depending on your skills, so unlike melee classes it is lower priority to get AS for wiz/wd)
Post-1.0.4; Witch Doctor pets now scale with their Vitality to make them viable in later difficulties. Their desired attributes are similar to that of wizard above, with some caveats:
- Pet builds should aim for balance between Vit and Armor/Res; as pets benefit from (fixed amount + )35% of player hp and all their damage reductions. This implies that a build focused solely around pets may go for a bit of extra Vit that is more expensive to add, to balance it with the DR from armor/res.
- Life on Hit doesn't help pets; but life regen does (with
Fierce Loyalty). A WD caster build would prefer LoH for self healing, minion build should prefer regen instead.
Note that there are of course some stats more useful for specific builds; e.g. CritChance for the CM (Critical Mass) wizard build.
I am currently about half way through act2 inferno with my wizard. I have been experimenting with more and less defensive builds.
One thing that I am sure of now, is that high resist-all is not the answer! even with 1k resist-all, death happens all to quickly. What seems to get most people through, and what has worked for me is the following:
- 30 to 40k dps self buffed
- Some (200 to 300) resist all
- 30 to 40k health
- A GREAT kiting build (what you use is up to you)
The trick is to be quick on your feet, and simply avoid as much as you can. Unfortunately inherently fast champion packs with "Fast" added will destroy you regardless, so when you meet them, simply kite them to a corner of the map, and never go there again :)
Good luck out there in the Inferno.
Looking at your witch doctor build, I use the pets build.
Witch Doctor Pet Build
Now I cruised through Act1 INF with only 27,000 life, 3,000 Armor and 11,000 DPS with about 200 per Resist. I use a one handed axe and a shield right now which helps with the occasional block
I did get my butt kicked a little in Act 2 by the Lacuni Huntress just because of speed but with 6 pets and the Templar shooting from a range was easier then working with my Demon Hunter.
Still working on Act 3.
Edit: I dropped Big Bad Voodoo for Grasp of The Dead (Raining Corpses)