Helltooth Gargantuan Witch Doctor Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Helltooth Gargantuan Witch Doctor in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
The build starts runs with an activation of Gargantuan; keep them up
throughout the rift and do not hesitate to resummon if their numbers dwindle.
You might also find it beneficial to reapply the pets if you get a good pack of
enemies, but the pet AI refuses to cooperate and gets stuck somewhere to the side
or behind — using the ability resummons them right at your side, so they
can focus on the important targets. As a pet-centric spec, you will be expecting
the majority of your damage to come from
Gargantuan, and you will focus
on buffing yourself, debuffing the enemy and creating density with
Piranhas
Piranhado.
A vital part of your defense and offense comes from constantly capturing enemies
within a Wall of Death circle, whose interaction with the 4- and 6-piece set
bonuses of Helltooth halves
incoming damage and makes affected enemies more susceptible to
Gargantuan
damage respectively. The remainder of your protection will be split between
regular
Soul Harvests of the enemy for the armor buffs of
Languish,
and evading spikes of damage with the temporary invulnerability of
Spirit Walk. In fights, position yourself relatively close to the pull
in order to trigger the bonuses of
Confidence Ritual, preferably inside
an
Oculus Ring proc from your Follower, and weave in regular casts of
Locust Swarm to apply the damage bonuses of
Ring of Emptiness.
Against Guardians, use
Piranhado,
Locust Swarm and
Wall of Death on the boss regularly to stack
Bane of the Stricken
faster.
Due to the powers of Shukrani's Triumph, you have near limitless
mobility and safety in your
Spirit Walk state, so you can pick and choose
where and when to fight. Even better, you gain a damage multiplier while you are
in
Spirit Walk form. While you will exit the form when you attack or
approach an elite (as per the offhand legendary power), you have an additional
grace period that will be as long as your default cast of
Spirit Walk,
which we can lengthen via the
Jaunt rune. Make sure you have the pull
prepared to maximize the length of the damage bonus from the mojo.
Skills and Runes
The driving force behind the build is Gargantuan, with the number of
summons and each individual's damage multiplied by
The Short Man's Finger
and
Mask of Jeram. With the passive cleave coming from the rune
Humongoid (provided by the worn or cubed
Spite), you should pick
the rune
Restless Giant for its superior single-target damage potential.
With your reliance on
Gargantuan in mind, keep close track of your
active
Gargantuans and promptly resummon them if one or more fall in
combat, or get sidetracked from the main battle.
Since the massive damage multiplication of Ring of Emptiness now
applies to non-Fetish summons, you can viably choose between implementing
Haunt or
Locust Swarm in your build in order to trigger the ring;
our default recommendation is
Locust Swarm, for the superior spread with
Pestilence.
A vital cog in the Helltooth machine comes with the inclusion of
Wall of Death; while it will not be providing the majority of the DPS in
this build, it is still mandatory to spread the Necrosis debuff. Interacting
with all three set bonuses, the
Wall of Death-induced Necrosis will slow
down and damage your enemies over time, reduce your own damage taken by 60%, and
skyrocket the DPS of your summons. You will be cementing your safety with the
cold rune
Communing with Spirits, decreasing the damage potential of
affected enemies by a quarter for 3 seconds.
One of the strongest utility cooldowns of Witch Doctors, Soul Harvest
is almost universally a great addition — but especially in builds that
take advantage of
Sacred Harvester, doubling the number of possible
stacks.
Soul Harvest acts as a damage buff by default, increasing your
Intelligence by up to 30% for the reasonable requirement of 10 harvested enemies.
With the
Languish rune and the worn
Lakumba's Ornament bracers, it
nets you additional crowd control and damage reduction properties, solidifying
its place in this mid-range playstyle. The naturally overlapping duration simply
sweetens the deal.
The place for a movement skill in any endgame build is practically uncontested,
and Witch Doctors make no exception with the inclusion of Spirit Walk.
The skill is on the upper end of mobility cooldown lengths, but compensates by
packing utility: briefly rendering you invulnerable, removing enemy collision and
increasing movement speed by 50%. You have some freedom in your rune of choice.
With the default recommendation of
Jaunt, you have a lengthier period of
safety and extra damage from your
Shukrani's Triumph power. An alternative
for the slot is the rune
Severance, whose 100% additional movement speed
will allow you to reposition more easily and skip entire unfavorable GR floors
with ease.
Ever since the Area Damage mechanics revision that enabled it for pets, enemy
grouping skills grew tremendously in value. Witch Doctors' take on that type of
utility is found in the Piranhas skill, using the vortex effect of the
Piranhado rune. Considering the great damage increase
Gargantuans
get from cleaving down closely grouped monsters,
Piranhado is almost an
automatic inclusion and greatly incentivizes taking
Grave Injustice as
well, in order to reset the vortex cooldown faster.
Passives
Midnight Feast supplements the summoner part of the build, enhancing
overall pet damage by 50%.
Confidence Ritual is another straightforward addition, increasing your
damage by 25% against enemies within 20 yards — arguably a dangerous bonus
to keep up, but relatively easy to maintain due to your close proximity behind
the
Gargantuan frontline.
Grave Injustice is an elegant source of Cooldown Reduction, synergizing
with the mid-range playstyle of the Helltooth Gargantuan build. For each enemy
killed in a 20-yard radius of the Witch Doctor, it not only reduces your
cooldowns by a second, but also replenishes your health and mana reserves by 1%.
Take notice of the pickup radius synergy and try to obtain that stat in the
secondaries of your gear (see this build's gear
page for more information).
Spirit Vessel is a mainstay for
Greater Rift pushing, being the Witch
Doctor cheat death passive. It saves you from the death screen once every minute,
healing you back to 50% of your maximum Life and puts you in a
Spirit Walk-like state, allowing you to quickly reposition. A glassy
alternative for this slot is
Pierce the Veil, which ramps up your damage.
If you are not confident in your survivability, you can also deviate into
Swampland Attunement; this passive is a play on the selective resistance
mechanic (also observed on the Tal
Rasha set), and offers considerable defenses — but only against
elements Witch Doctors can use. Protecting within a starting radius of 20 yards
and extendable by Pickup Radius on gear, this passive is yet another reason to
pay close attention to secondary stats. Note the absence of Lightning or Arcane
Resistance, and strive to obtain it wherever you can on gear.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Revised skill and passive recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
- 01 Apr. 2021: No changes required for Season 23.
- 19 Nov. 2020: No changes required for Season 22.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Skill recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019: Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
More Witch Doctor Guides
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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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