Diablo 3 Witch Doctor First 24 Hours Guide

Diablo 3 Witch Doctor First 24 Hours Guide by DeboSc2

Hey guys I’m Debo, I Main the Witch Doctor class, ever since the beta for Diablo 3 Vanilla. Encouraging players to try out the Witch Doctor class, and enjoy Diablo 3 is my major focus. I started to do this by compiling my thoughts in guides, and streaming to provide information to those who seek it.

My Twitch Tag: spsDebo (http://www.twitch.tv/spsdebo)

My armory Profile:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Debo-1782/hero/1274676

Now that the formalities are out of the way:


The 24 Hour Witch Doctor

This Guide, is meant to serve people whom might be new to Diablo 3, or new to the Witch Doctor Class. It provides a structured easy to follow process that will enable the player to maximize the first 24 hours of a New Witch Doctor that is Created.

Getting power leveled, using exploits, or group play will yield faster results in gearing up a Witch Doctor initially. The point of this guide is to provide an option for players to be self sufficient, or use as a itinerary list on what you should be focusing with a new Witch Doctor.

The guide Will be broken up into “Three Phases”

Leveling Phase

  • Getting your WD setup to level quickly to Max Level
  • Efficiency in Bounty Quest Choices
  • Difficulty Settings, Broken down by Levels
  • Skill Choice, Broken down by Levels
  • Tactics for Gearing while Level progressing
  • Appropriate gears choices while Leveling.

Gear Progression Phase

  • Executing the hunt for a boon of the Hoarder, and Solid Jewelry Choices (Rings/Amulets)
  • Identifying a Solid plan to begin gearing for Torment Lv. 1-3 Content
  • Determining (Based upon Drops) which Build to commit to, that will allow you to begin farming higher level torments (Lv’s 5-6)
  • Acquiring 3 Legendary Gems for your build, to begin Gem development in the “GR” System

Grind Phase

  • All the remaining time you have left in the First “24” Hours to push your WD to T6 Farming
  • Finishing off Gem progression, (Legendary Gems, and Non Legendary counter parts)
  • Min-Maxing with Craft-able Sets.

24 Hour Witch Doctor Itinerary List

The following in which you are about to read, is a start to finish Itinerary for our first 24 hours for a “fresh” solo Witch Doctor. If you are in a group, you can use this as a rough outline on what you should be focusing on as you progress through content. The leveling Phase is pretty straight forward, it list what difficulty, and skill setup you should be running at different level intervals. The second phase shows how you should prioritize your time to quickly Progress onward to Torments 1 & 3. The final phase is all about rounding out your build, and gear itemization to have your Witch Doctor Torment Level 5/6 ready.

Part 1 Leveling Phase

Levels 1-12

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Normal Difficulty
  • Hire Enchantress Follower
  • Poison Darts (Level 1)
  • Grasp of the Dead (Level 2)
  • Zombie Dogs (Level 4)
  • Poison Dart “Splinters” Rune (Level 6)
  • Soul Harvest (Level 9)
  • Jungle Fortitude Passive (Level 10)

Level 1-12 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Poison Dart “Splinters”
  • Grasp of the Dead
  • Zombie Dogs
  • Soul Harvest

Passive skills

  • Jungle Fortitude

Levels 12-21

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Master Difficulty
  • Haunt (Level 12) —> Replaces Poison Darts
  • Zombie Dogs “Rabid dogs” Rune (Level 12)
  • Grasp of the Dead “Groping Eels” Rune (Level 15)
  • Spirit Walk (Level 16)
  • Gruesome Feast Passive (Level 16) —> Replaces Jungle FortitudePassive
  • Haunt “Consuming Spirit Rune” (Level 18)
  • Gargantuan (Level 19)
  • Blood Ritual Passive (Level 20)
  • Locust Swarm (Level 21) —-> Replaces Grasp of the Dead
  • Soul Harvest “Siphon”

Level 12-21 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Haunt “Consuming Spirit”
  • Locust Swarm
  • Spirit Walk
  • Soul Harvest “Siphon”
  • Zombie Dogs “Rabid Dogs”
  • Gargantuan

Passive skills

  • Blood Ritual
  • Gruesome Feast

Levels 22-27

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Master Difficulty
  • Gargantuan “Humongoid” Rune (Level 22)
  • Haunt “Resentful Spirits” Rune (Level 23)
  • Spirit Walk “Jaunt” Rune (Level 23)
  • Locust Swarm “Pestilence” Rune (Level 27)
  • Pierce the Veil Passive (Level 27) —> Replaces Blood Ritual Passive

Level 22-27 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Haunt “Resentful Spirits”
  • Locust Swarm “Pestilence”
  • Spirit Walk “Jaunt”
  • Soul Harvest “Siphon”
  • Zombie Dogs “Rabid Dogs”
  • Gargantuan “Humongoid:

Passive skills

  • Pierce The Veil
  • Gruesome Feast

Levels 28-36

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Torment 1 or Master Difficulty
  • Zombie Dogs “Life Link” Rune (Level 28)
  • Gargantuan “Restless Giant” Rune (Level 29)
  • Fetish Sycophants Passive (Level 30)
  • Rush of Essence Passive (Level 36) —–> Replaces Gruesome FeastPassive

Level 28-36 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Haunt “Resentful Spirits”
  • Locust Swarm “Pestilence”
  • Spirit Walk “Jaunt”
  • Soul Harvest “Siphon”
  • Zombie Dogs “Life Link”
  • Gargantuan “Restless Giant”

Passive skills

  • Pierce The Veil
  • Rush of Essence
  • Fetish Sycophants

Levels 37-48

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Torment 1 or Master Difficulty
  • Spirit Walk “Soul to Waste” Rune (Level 39)

Haunt “Poisoned Spirit” (Level 48) Rune

  • Will be available in Patch 2.1.2
  • Poison Property Haunt, Increases Damage on Affected Targets by 20%
  • Very Strong leveling tool, will enable T1/T2 Farming easily until Level 70
  • For now however Resentful Spirits will get the job until the next patch is available

Level 37-48 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Haunt “Resentful Spirits” (Patch 2.1.1) or (Poisoned Spirit Patch 2.1.2)
  • Locust Swarm “Pestilence”
  • Spirit Walk “Jaunt”
  • Soul Harvest “Soul to Waste”
  • Zombie Dogs “Life Link”
  • Gargantuan “Restless Giant”

Passive skills

  • Pierce The Veil
  • Rush of Essence
  • Fetish Sycophants

Levels 49-70

  • Adventure Mode Bounties
  • Torment 2 or Torment 1 Difficulty
  • Piranhas (Level 61) —-> Replaces Soul Harvest
  • Piranhas “Zombie Piranhas” (Level 63)

Level 49-70 Ending Skill Setup

Primary Skills

  • Haunt “Resentful Spirits” (Patch 2.1.1) or (Poisoned Spirit Patch 2.1.2)
  • Locust Swarm “Pestilence”
  • Spirit Walk “Jaunt”
  • Piranhas “Zombie Piranhas”
  • Zombie Dogs “Life Link”
  • Gargantuan “Restless Giant”

Passive skills

  • Pierce The Veil
  • Rush of Essence
  • Gruesome Feast
  • Creeping Death

Phase 2 Gear Progression Phase

In Order or prioritization

Upgrading all Artisans to Max Level

  • Pretty Self Explanatory, Jeweler, Enchantress, Black Smith upgraded all to Max Level

Boon of the Hoarder

  • No way to get around it, you need gold and lots of it
  • Re-rolls on Gear, Crafting Gear, Gem Crafting
  • Shouldn’t Take more then 1-2 Hours to pop a Goblin Rift, if you are farming them correctly

Jewelry Rings,Amulet

  • Rings Take 2 Marquise Diamonds + Gold To Craft from the Jewel Crafter
  • Amulets Require 1 of each Marquise Gem + Gold to Craft from the Jewel Crafter
  • Initial Ring/Ammy Stats: Int, Critical Chance, Socket
  • Optimal Ring/Ammy Stats: Int, Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Socket

Re-Rolling Rare (Yellow) Quality items to decent standing

  • Shoulders –> Int, Vit, Armor, Life %
  • Helm —> Int, Vit, Critical Chance
  • Chest —> Int, Vit, Armor, Socket (3)
  • Pants —> Int, Vit, Armor, Socket (3)
  • Boots —> int, Vit, Armor, Increased Movement Speed
  • Gloves —> Int, Vit, Critical Chance, Critical Damage
  • Belt —> Int, Vit, Armor, Life %
  • Weapon —> 2 Handed Int, Increased Damage %, Socket

Torment Level 1

  • Target Toughness 3-4m
  • Target DPS 350-500k
  • Personally I await until 4m Toughness with 500k Dps before switching to Torment 1 @ Lv 70

Legendary Gems

  • Every-time after Defeating a Rift Guardian, you have a % Chance to acquire a Greater Rift token, the chance for it to drop increases with Torment difficulty
  • After Completing a Greater Rift, you receive 1 Random Legendary gem until you acquire all of them.
  • Your goal is to obtain 3 Legendary Gems that are working towards you “Gear Progression” Build
  • “Safe Gems” To Use/Level are as follows: Bane of the Trapped, Bane of the Powerful
  • Usually your 3rd Gem Option is determined by build

Torment Level 3

  • Target Toughness 4-5m
  • Target DPS 600-800k
  • Once you hit Torment Level 3, you should have a good understanding of What build your working towards
  • Getting to this Stage int he first 24 hours as quickly as possible, will allow more time int he final phase to reach T5-T6 Difficulty farming potential at the end of the first 24 hours as a New Witch Doctor

Phase 3 Grinding Phase

Getting into a Routine

  • Farming Rifts
  • Farming Greater Rifts when GR Keystones drop form Regular Rift runs.
  • Upgrading Your Legendary Gems
  • Spending Blood Shards on specific Gear slots to improve your Build

Gambling for specific item Slots to complete your Build

  • Knowing what Build you are committing to and making the correct purchases with Blood Shards
  • Making Purchases between runs, to allow for frequent upgrades

Upgrading Legendary Gems

  • Identifying the 3 Gems that will work with your build
  • Upgrading gems with the 1-1-1 Method
  • Minimize Gem Failing once Gems Reach Level 15

Determining if you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur

  • If running Cains Set, with Aughilds this might be necessary
  • If attempting to Go for a “6” Piece Jade Set this WILL be Necessarry

Min-Maxing your Gear

  • Re-Rolling Sub Par Gear
  • Re-Crafting Sub Par Set Gear

Crafting high level Gems (non legendary)

  • Crafting Topazes to their highest level.

Phase 1 “Leveling Phase” In Depth

This Section will cover these major points: Bounty Choices , Itemization, and Skill Build

Bounty Choices

Bounties are pretty much straight forward. While leveling there certain bounties that we avoid, and specific acts we stay away from. When you start a new Witch Doctor, everyone can start off in “Adventure mode”, granted they’ve completed story mode beforehand.

Why do you only choose Act 1 Bounties Only?

  • Has the most easiest bounties to complete in game
  • Monster A.I. pales in comparison to other ones from Acts 2-5
  • Bounty maps objectives, usually spawn in the same areas

What Bounties should I do, avoid sometimes, or skip all together?

  • Here is a Image the explains it all:

Bounty List

  • Green = You should do these Bounties all the time
  • Blue = You should do these bounties, when it doesn’t involve killing a boss
  • Red = You should never do these bounties…..period

Why am I avoiding these Bounties?

  • One case, is how Difficulty level effects bosses greatly, Last thing you want to do is fight Skeleton King, Queen Araneae, or the Butcher on Masters+ Difficulty or higher, for the amount of time they take, it is not worth it.
  • The area also could just be to large, and random to successfully locate the bounty objective quickly. This rears its ugly head with any bounties that takes place on Caverns of Araneae, or Fields of Misery

What about the Maybe Bounties

  • It is ok to do these bounties, ONLY if the bounty that is given DOESN’T involve killing a Boss Monster.

If you complete all of the bounties, that are on the list, and all that remains are the ones that you should “NOT” do, it is more profitable to simply leave game to “Reset” the bounties.

Pools of Reflection

Whats a pool of reflection

  • Pools of Reflection provide a 25% bonus to experience
  • This bonus persists until you reach a set amount of bonus experience (equal to approximately 10% of the current amount of Paragon experience needed to reach the next Paragon level) or your character dies.
  • Gathering additional Pools of Reflection bonuses increases the amount of total experience bonus a character can receive until character death, stacking up to 10 times

*This experience bonus persists on logout

While doing bounties you will come across these pools of golden goodness, it is very easy to keep these stacks going from levels 1-61. So to increase the rate at which you level stack these pools without dying. From levels 61 onward, things can get a little tough, so be extra careful to not die as the increased exp makes a BIG difference on your way level 70.


Phase 1 – Itemization

What Gear should I be focusing on while leveling up?

  • 2 Handed weapons are the best due to our skill choices, their accessibility, and how well their damage scales as we level up.
  • The weapons scale Very well, and make it so we don’t have to worry about finding a proper Off Handed weapon
  • Equipping anything that increases the Damage for your Witch docotor. (Armor more specifically)
  • Any type of gear, that increases the amount of experience you receive
  • Level 61+ Any Helmet that has a Socket for a Marquise Ruby Gem

What options do I have if I can’t find a decent weapon?

  • NPC Merchants, believe it or not they do carry nice Weapons, and Jewelry
  • If your Weapon begins to start lacking, and you need to replace it to keep a good leveling pace, Checking the Merchants in each Act will help your out A TON. So don’t neglect this option.

Things you don’t need to worry about from levels 1-60

  • Breaking down Items at the Black Smith
  • Picking up, or using Gems
  • Learning any Pre-61 Crafting Plan
  • Keeping, or saving any Pre- Level 60 Legendary
  • Upgrading any Artisan Pre- Level 61

What about when I hit level 61?

  • Pick up everything you can Pre- 61, and sell it for gold
  • Once you reach level 61 Start picking up EVERYTHING, because these items are the “End Game” Crafting items.
  • If you get any Level 60-70 Voodoo Witch Doctor Helmet save them!

Phase 1 – Skill Build

What is the most optimal Build in your opinion to level with?

  • Haunt, and Locust Swarm by far
  • Damage over Time spells are very powerful tools while leveling, and scale Dramatically well with 2 Handed Weapons.
  • The build that I have below is a build that works well into level 70, and beyond. If you need the level by level on what skills to you, you can check out the 24 Hour Witch Doctor Phase 1 Itinerary section located at the beginning of the guide.

2 Handed Dot/Pet Build Pre-61

2 Handed Dot/Pet Build Level 61-70

2 Handed Dot/Pet Build Level 70


Phase 1 Recap

Here are the important things to remember:

  • Only do the bounties that are “Green” or “Blue”
  • Pick up everything, and sell it to vendors until Level 61
  • If you are out leveling your weapon, Npcs can provide Excellent Weapon & Jewelry options, make sure to check all of the merchants in each Act
  • Remember to adjust Skills, game difficulty, passives, and runes as you are leveling.
  • Get a Socket-ed helmet for Levels 61-70, and place a Marquise Ruby inside it!
  • Pools of reflection are you friends, don’t waste them by dying!

Here are my 1-70 Times for all 4 Test sessions I conducted:

Test Session 1

Test Session 2

Test Session 3

Test Session 4 Screen shot was lost but final time 1-70 was 6 hours 28 minutes

Test Session 4 Video proof Fast Forward to “10:45:00” Mark

Phase 1 “Leveling Phase” Video Tutorial:

Phase 1 Tutorial Video/Recap


Phase 2 “Gear Progression” In Depth

Phase 2 begins immediately after you obtain level 70. Setting ourselves up to progress towards torment Difficulty levels 1-3 while also identifying (based upon what Items have dropped ) which build would be the most efficient for our Witch Doctor to run. With a little crafting, and some luck this phase will go smoothly.


Phase 2 – Upgrading all Artisans to Max Level

  • Once your level 70 you will have more than enough Gold, and some Last breaths to upgrade these artisans to max level.

Black Smith

  • Crafting anything other than set items from the black smith is a little bit of a waste
  • Aughilds Power, and Cain’s Set give you the greatest potential out of the items you can craft.
  • Crafting any items from the Black Smith give it the potential to roll “Ancient Level Stats”

Jewel Crafter

  • Would not advise to craft your gems higher then Marquise, unless you are using them as a crafting material when your re-rolling legendary Jewelry.
  • We will be using this Artisan mostly for the “Rare” Jewelry crafting option

Rare Ring Crafting

  • Requires 2 Marquise Diamond, and Gold per Rare Ring Crafted
  • Optimal Stats wanted: Int, Critical Hit Chance, Increased Critical Damage, Socket(1)
  • Stat alternative that is “ok”: Int, Critical Hit Chance, Socket(1)

Rare Amulet Crafting

  • Requires 1 Marquise Gem of each Color excluding Diamonds, and Gold per Rare Amulet Crafted
  • Optimal Stats wanted: Int, Critical Hit Chance, Increased Critical Damage, Socket(1)
  • Stat alternative that is “ok”: Int, Increased Critical Damage, Socket(1)

Enchanter

  • Pretty simple here with this artisan, she allows you to re-roll one Stat of your choice. for crafting materials
  • Only thing to say about here, is that Chest, Pants, Belts, Shoes are fairly expensive to re-roll stats on so be careful.
  • Gloves, and Wrist are by far the cheapest to re-reoll.
  • Any items you continual re-roll has their base gold cost increased every time the enchantress is used, this is however excluded when re-rolling Legendary Jewelry (Rings/ Amulets) the cost for these items are consumed in the forum of Gems.

Phase 2 – Boon of the Hoarder

  • Boon of the Hoarder is a Legendary Gem in Diablo III. It can only be socketed into Amulets and Rings, and, unlike other Legendary Gems, only drops from Greed in the Treasure Realm.
  • This gem gives a chance to cause any killed enemy (even if killed by a pet or a minion) to drop several large piles of gold in addition to their normal loot. The explosion does not cause any damage. Upgrading the gem increases the chance to proc, though for realistic purposes, it is not worth upgrading after reaching rank 50.
  • At rank 25, it also gives a brief movement speed boost after picking up gold.
  • This gem will have no effect in Greater Rifts. It will also not trigger off of kills made by anyone other than the Nephalem hero who uses this gem, even their own followers. It is also the only gem that gives no real combat effectiveness by itself. The massive quantities of gold offered, however, do prove very potent when coupled with items like Goldwrap and the Custerian Wristguards.
  • The Boon of the Hoarder is one of the three gems (the others being Gogok of Swiftness and Invigorating Gemstone) that actually have a limit of effective ranking at 50.

How do you go about getting a Treasure Realm?

  • By setting the game Difficulty to Normal, and targeting areas in Adventure mode (non rifts), where Goblin spawn rates are high.

Can I get a Treasure Realm to spawn from goblins in rifts?

  • No you cannot, it has to be in Adventure mode, you must be level 70, and it is only Goblins that are NOT inside of a rift.

Do you have a list of Areas where you go to hunt goblins?

  • The goblins I target it are in these Areas: Act 1 Araneae, Tower of the Cursed level (1 & 2), Core of the Arreat

Map of Goblin farming areas

Why is it so important to get this gem right away after hitting level 70?

  • Gold is the sole reason, due to the fact that Crafting, Gem Crafting, and Using the enchanter for re-rolls is can get VERY expensive.
  • Securing this item early on, will grant you easy gold for a lifetime.

Phase 2 – Re-Rolling Rare (Yellow) Quality items to decent standing

While Hunting for goblins, or simply running rifts to farm for gear, and mats, your going to come across a lot of Rare (Yellow colored) items. These pieces of gear can help you gear up quickly to getting started on torment farming. I’ve included a basic list on what stats you want on each individual piece of gear (Excluded are Jewelry pieces as that was covered int he section above)

  • Shoulders –> Int, Vit, Armor, Life %
  • Helm —> Int, Vit, Critical Chance
  • Chest —> Int, Vit, Armor, Socket (3)
  • Pants —> Int, Vit, Armor, Socket (3)
  • Boots —> int, Vit, Armor, Increased Movement Speed
  • Gloves —> Int, Vit, Critical Chance, Critical Damage
  • Belt —> Int, Vit, Armor, Life %
  • Weapon —> 2 Handed Int, Increased Damage %, Socket
  • Weapon —> 1 Handed Int, Increased Damage %, Socket
  • Off Hand —> Int, Vit, Crit Chance, Increased Skill Damage

Phase 2 – Torment Levels 1 & 3

In regard to what target numbers I go for before progressing towards a higher level of difficulty, these are simply what worked for me, A.K.A My opinion. If you find your able to start Torment Level 1 sooner than what target Toughness/Dps then by all means go for it!

Torment 1

  • Target Toughness 3-4m
  • Target DPS 350-500k
  • Personally I await until 4m Toughness with 500k Dps before switching to Torment 1 @ Lv 70

Torment Level 3

  • Target Toughness 4-5m
  • Target DPS 600-800k
  • Once you hit Torment Level 3, you should have a good understanding of What build your working towards
  • Getting to this Stage int he first 24 hours as quickly as possible, will allow more time in the final phase to reach T5-T6 Difficulty farming potential at the end of the first 24 hours as a New Witch Doctor

Phase 2 – The Two major, introductory Witch Doctor Builds

No specific gear is required to do these builds

2 Handed Dot/Pet Build Level 70

  • All you need to run this build is a Solid 2 handed weapon, and sub-par Rolls on your gear.
  • Can get you into Torment 3 Farming very easily, and with the help of few items do Torment 6 easily.

1 Handed Per Build

  • Straight forward Pet build, can get you farming towards Torment Levels 1-3 Easily
  • Does take a little bit of luck, and effort to take this build T6 However
  • Only thing bad about pet builds, is that their initial gearing works well for lower torments, but takes a while to obtain the all the items that push it to the end game.
  • However once said items are acquired, many Pet builds can easily push Great Rift Level 40 + Content Easily

Due to Drops being fairly luck based, and random, I prefer to go with the 2 Handed Dot/Pet Build, due to the fact that it doesn’t require item specific drops. Haunt, and Locust swarm also scale VERY well with 2 Handed weapons, and the right Increase Skill Damage/Elemental rolls on your gear. If you want less of a headache I’d advise to use the 2 Handed Dot build first, to help you farm efficiently, then proceed into a Jade, or one of the End game pet builds once you’ve acquired some nice build specific loot drops.


Phase 2 – Greater Rifts/Legendary Gems

  • Every-time after Defeating a Rift Guardian, you have a % Chance to acquire a Greater Rift token, the chance for it to drop increases with Torment difficulty
  • After Completing a Greater Rift, you receive 1 Random Legendary gem until you acquire all of them.
  • Your goal is to obtain 3 Legendary Gems that are working towards you “Gear Progression” Build
  • “Safe Gems” To Use/Level are as follows: Bane of the Trapped, Bane of the Powerful
  • Usually your 3rd Gem Option is determined by build

Phase 2 – What Witch Doctor Builds to be focusing towards

The guides inside my WD compendium showcase the different Builds for Witch Doctors, and the versatility of what options we have for T6/GR 30+ Farming.

WD Compendium (Scroll to the bottom for Guides/Videos)

List of Legendary Items that Can take you to T6 Easily, without requiring additional items

  • Jeram (Voodoo helm) 9.09% Drop Rate
  • Grin Reaper (Voodoo helm) 18.18% Drop Rate
  • Worm Wood (Season 2 Patch 2.1.2 Weapon) 18.18% Drop Rate
  • Quetzalcoatl (Voodoo helm) 9.09% Drop Rate
  • Rhen’ho Flayer (Ceremonial Knife) 7.04% Drop Rate

Drop rates mean the following:

  • The % Chance Drop is for when a legendary drops for that specified slot
  • I.E.: A legendary Sword drops, Doom Bringer Drop Rate is Roughly 5-6%, so basically out of every 20 Legendary Swords that drop you “SHOULD IN THEORY”, have one of those drops be a Doom Bringer.
  • Keep in mind you could go through 40 Legendary Swords, and see no Doom Bringer, then on your next two Legendary Sword drops you get two Doom Bringers in a row, that is what we call “RNG” or Random Number Generator.

Phase 2 “Gear Progression Phase” Video Tutorial:

Phase 2 Tutorial Video/Recap


Phase 3 – “Grinding Phase” In Depth

The final phase is mostly coming to terms with what build to lock down (focusing on a specific build) so that by the end of 24 hours (in game time) your Witch Doctor will be able to farm T5-T6 easily. If you followed the correct steps listed in Phase 2, you should have a clear idea of what build your working towards, and only need to “Min/Max” the final pieces of your gear.

Debo what is Min/Maxing?

  • From the Game Theory Wiki Definition:
  • Min-maxing is the practice of playing a role-playing game, wargame or video game with the intent of creating the “best” character by means of minimizing undesired or unimportant traits and maximizing desired ones.[1] This is usually accomplished by improving one specific trait or ability by sacrificing ability in all other fields. This is easier to accomplish in games where attributes are generated from a certain number of points rather than in ones where they are randomly generated.[2] Min-maxing is particularly common in games where the cost of traits does not reflect their expected usefulness; for instance, in a combat-heavy game a player may focus on physical traits, giving a character abnormally low mental and social skills so that the remaining points can all be channeled to physical statistics that are more likely to come into play.[citation needed] Some video games have guides dedicated to building the absolute “best” character. Min-maxing in video games is considered expert-level play as it requires a perfect understanding of the game’s mechanics and systems, but once it is achieved, a game is no longer challenging.

Does Min Maxing make a difference?

  • Lets look at 6 pieces of gear, with a Stat cap of 500 INT. With those 6 Pieces you average 440 Int per piece of gear, bringing you to 2,640 Int Count. If you were to able to bring the average to 460 Int per piece of gear gear, your new Int count would be 2,760 an improvement of 120 Int. If you were able to average 490 Int Average per piece of gear 2,940, that’s a 300 Int Difference from the 440 Avg we started with. So with 13 Item slots in Diablo 3, improving your gear piece by piece, maximizing your Stat rolls on each individual pieces of your gear makes a huge difference in character development.

Phase 3 – Getting into a Routine

Pretty Straight forward here, establishing a routine a to maximize your time to acquire the most amount of crafting materials, Gear, and Blood Shards.

Here is an example of a “routine” I used when I was in Phase 3

  • Farming Regular Rifts (Torment 3)
  • Farming Greater Rifts when GR Keystones drop form Regular Rift runs.
  • Upgrading Your Legendary Gems, after completing the Greater Rift
  • Spending Blood Shards on specific Gear slots to improve your Build, or Min-Max certain items
  • Repeat the steps above.

Phase 3 – Gambling for specific item Slots to complete your Build

During phase 2 prioritization on Witch Doctor Voodoo helms is key initially, but after acquiring one of the Build changing Witch Doctor Helms, it is all bout rounding out the items that will improve your build. I.E. Maybe you have 3-4 Pieces of Jade Set, but your lacking the gloves, or Your running a poison Grin Reaper build, and you attempt to gamble for a Swamp Waders for additional poison damage.

  • Knowing what Build you are committing to and making the correct purchases with Blood Shards
  • Making Purchases between runs, to allow for frequent upgrades
  • Gambling for items that “realistically” get is easily, (High Drop % chance items)

Phase 3 – Upgrading Legendary Gems

For the most part the following gems are commonly used for most builds: Bane of The Trapped, Bane of the Powerful, Enforcer, and Efficacious Toxin gems. For the most part these gems are would you should be upgrading first with a “New” Witch Doctor. The 1-1-1 Method I use, is to upgrade each gem one Level at a time to Maximize successful upgrades. By the time all your Gems reach level 15, you should have solid gear, and proper itemization with your build to already be clearing Greater Rift levels 25-30.

  • Identifying the 3 Gems that will work with your build
  • Upgrading gems with the 1-1-1 Method
  • Minimize Gem Failing once Gems Reach Level 15

Determining if you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur

  • If running Cains Set, with Aughilds this might be necessary
  • If attempting to Go for a “6” Piece Jade Set this WILL be Necessary

Phase 3 – Crafting high level Gems (non legendary)

Towards the end of the 24 Hour Witch Doctor Run, items should have solid rolls, and your Jewelry should be min maxed to a decent level. Most of your gear will be complete, and Gems should be stacking up due to the probability your jewelry re-rolling is complete. Not to mention your Gold count should be solid allowing you to craft all your gems to “Royal” or “Flawless Royal” very easily.

  • Crafting Topazes to their highest level.

Screen Shots of the Test Session Witch doctors after 24 hours.

Test Session 1 End Results

Test Session 2 End Results

Test Session 2 End Results (2nd Screen Shot)

Test Session 3 End Results

Test Session 4 End Results

Test Session 4 End Results (2nd Screen Shot)

Phase 3 – “The Grind Phase” Video Tutorial:

Phase 3 Tutorial Video/Recap


In closing

Hope you guys enjoyed this guide! I hope a lot of new players can utilize it to make their time more efficient with the game, become better players, and teach other players on how they can improve their Witch Doctors. More future guides to come, how your looking forward to them1

Links to all Recap/Map Images/Compendium Links:

Phase 1-3 Video Recaps

Phase 1 Tutorial Video/Recap

Phase 2 Tutorial Video/Recap

Phase 3 Tutorial Video/Recap

Map images used

Bounty List Map of Goblin farming areas

Phase 1 Test Sessions

Test Session 1

Test Session 2

Test Session 3

Test Session 4 Screen shot was lost but final time 1-70 was 6 hours 28 minutes

Test Session 4 Video proof Fast Forward to “10:45:00” Mark

Phase 3 Test Session Result

Test Session 1 End Results

Test Session 2 End Results

Test Session 2 End Results (2nd Screen Shot)

Test Session 3 End Results

Test Session 4 End Results

Test Session 4 End Results (2nd Screen Shot)

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