Arachyr Corpse Spiders Witch Doctor Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation
Nephalem Rift Speed Farming
The Arachyr Corpse Spiders Witch Doctor can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, managing to retain the core strengths of the GR progression build but also able to adapt numerous movement speed adjustments in the setup. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.
Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Adapting Rotation
When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.
While playing standard Nephalem Rifts for key farming, the build still retains
similarities to the GR solo rotation, but pretty much every aspect of the build
is reworked for extra speed an utility, throwing you from fight to fight with
reckless abandon. You still try to maintain Soul Harvest stacks, at least
up to the baseline damage reduction of
Lakumba's Ornament (if you decide
to wear it at all), but the skill itself is flipped into a movement speed boost
with the rune
Soul to Waste — much like what happens with
Horrify, with the rune
Stalker.
Shukrani's Triumph keeps
you flying through Rifts at high speeds with near-permanent
Spirit Walk,
and during T16 keyfarm you can be a lot more frivolous with how you spend its
buff — usually at the nearest clump of enemies, where you blast away with
Corpse Spiders as
Pestilence auto-spreads around from
Wormwood and guarantees you the
Ring of Emptiness damage bonus.
You will
Summon Zombie Dogs once at the start of your runs in order to
obtain the movement speed buff of
Fierce Loyalty.
Adapting Skills
Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.
- Your main damage dealer remains
Corpse Spiders, taken with the hard hitting
Widowmakers rune.
Ring of Emptiness remains a valuable source of damage multiplication, meaning
Locust Swarm
Pestilence still finds its spot in the build during GR speed farming. You will be free of the concern to manually cast it however, as a cubed
Wormwood can take care of that for you.
- Due to the lightning-fast kill speed in T16 keyfarm, the staple grouping
tool from GR progression and farming
Piranhas
Piranhado will give way to
Summon Zombie Dogs. They are simply taken for the movement speed buff of
Fierce Loyalty, but you can add some damage reduction utility from the rune
Life Link.
- The duo of protective skills from GR progression,
Soul Harvest and
Horrify, keep their value during T16 key farm as well. Protection from
Lakumba's Ornament can still be very helpful in T16s if your gold-related buffs (see below) drop, but even if you decide against this extra defensive layer, you get a decent chunk of movement speed with the
Soul to Waste buff.
Horrify retains some defensive value due to its base effect, but it doubles down on movement speed utility through the rune
Stalker and the skill interaction with
Rechel's Ring of Larceny.
- With its immense movement speed power and added offensive angle because of
Shukrani's Triumph,
Spirit Walk remains in the build during T16 key farming. Adjust to the rune
Severance for even more speed.
- Parts of your passive lineup retains its value during GR speed farming;
Confidence Ritual still matches your fighting range, while
Grave Injustice offers invaluable cooldown and regenerative bonuses. Due to
Wormwood autocasts, you can drop
Creeping Death and insert another movement speed boost with the interaction of
Fierce Loyalty with
Summon Zombie Dogs. Another good adjustment is replacing the additive
Pierce the Veil damage buff with the stronger, but clear speed reliant
Gruesome Feast — a trivial buff to maintain during T16 key farming.
Adapting Gear
The foundation of your gearing will match the GR progression build, as you
still rely on the 6-piece set bonus of Arachyr to deal damage and continue to
wear 5 of the 6 available pieces, swapping Arachyr's Visage for
Mask of Jeram (you will be losing
Depth Diggers from the progression
build, so this will be your only viable Arachyr swap). You will retain the full
6-piece bonus of Arachyr by using
Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. The
remainder of your major equipment slots is split between
Corpse Spiders-synergistic items with
The Spider Queen's Grasp and
Brood of Araneae, and generically useful Witch Doctor items with
Lakumba's Ornament and
Shukrani's Triumph.
The actual adaptation and changes will happen in your jewelry, where you need
to swap from the slow paced, rotation-oriented combo of the Endless Walk set
( The Compass Rose and
The Traveler's Pledge) into more
speedfarm-appropriate gear.
You will keep Ring of Emptiness from the GR progression build, as it
provides a time- and pacing-agnostic damage bonus at the mere cost of including
Locust Swarm in the build. Another great ring for GR speed farming is
Rechel's Ring of Larceny, whose movement speed bonus will be triggered
constantly via
Horrify. The third required ring for the setup is
Ring of Royal Grandeur, but due to its weaker innate primary rolls it is
recommended as a Cube item; nevertheless, if your
Ring of Emptiness rolls
badly on its legendary property, it is quite viable to equip the RoRG and cube
the RoE due to the former's uniform legendary power.
Finish off the jewelry with the powerful damage multiplication from
Squirt's Necklace. Take heed of its downside (increase in damage taken,
as well as loss of the damage buff as you take hits) and try to safeguard its
bonus with
Goldwrap, as well as crowd controlling monsters prior to
engagements with
Horrify, rendering them unable to retaliate.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Head |
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Shoulders |
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Torso |
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Wrists |
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Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Ring #1 |
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Ring #2 |
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Amulet |
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Weapon |
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Off-hand |
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To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.
Adapting Gems
Most of your legendary gem selection from GR progression retains its full
value in GR speed farming as well. Both Enforcer and
Simplicity's Strength still bring excellent damage multiplication value to
the build while farming keys. While
Bane of the Trapped is also quite
usable, you should drop its superfluous damage multiplication for
Boon of the Hoarder. Paired with a worn
Goldwrap, and an
Avarice Band worn by your follower in solo play (or yourself in groups,
in the place of Rechel's), this legendary gem increases your movement speed and
provides near-infinite Toughness through its interaction with the aforementioned
items.
Slot | Gems |
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Jewelry | |
Helm |
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Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Adapting Kanai's Cube
You will replace the staple Sacred Harvester from progression in this
slot for the automated convenience of
Wormwood, which casts
Locust Swarm on its own and procs
Ring of Emptiness for you.
The ultimate protective piece in T16 key farming is Goldwrap, which
is part of the triumvirate of gold bonuses with
Avarice Band (on your
follower in solo play, or in Rechel's place in groups), and a socketed
Boon of the Hoarder. Note that this slot is interchangeable with
Brood of Araneae; simply wear your better rolled item, and cube the
other.
Your jewelry Cube slot will be occupied by your worse rolled item between
Ring of Royal Grandeur (necessary to maintain the 6-piece bonus of Arachyr
while only wearing 5 pieces), and
Ring of Emptiness (massive damage
multiplication).
The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during T16 key farming is the
Enchantress due to the myriad of helpful buffs from all her skills,
which you will attain by equipping her with Hand of the Prophet and then
decking her out in survivability gear. Her most important buff remains
Focused Mind, since it is very helpful in reaching the attack
speed breakpoints described in the GR progression build.
For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
(allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede your positioning) and
Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties complement
the naturally high All Resistances stat of Witch Doctors). Pick whichever you
feel helps you out the most.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Guide revised according to the latest changes to the Arachyr set.
- 07 Nov. 2021: Guide added.
More Witch Doctor Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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