LoD Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your LoD Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
As this is a Legacy of Dreams setup, the rest of your gear slots will be comprised entirely of legendary items. As a rule of thumb, focus on synergistic stats like Attack Speed, Average Damage and skill bonuses, and remember the setup's requirements for ancient items, as well as its restriction on other set bonuses. You can run individual set pieces with beneficial stats, as long as they do not form any set bonus.
The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination
while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with
the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older
way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer
(and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry)
method is the
Legacy of Dreams legendary gem.
In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing your two best
rolled rings and cubing the third between
Convention of Elements,
Unity, and
Ring of Emptiness.
Unity will cut
incoming damage in half when paired with another on the follower, along with an
immortality relic for him (i.e.
Enchanting Favor).
Ring of Emptiness
greatly amplifies your damage as you spread at least one of the two DoTs
associated with its power,
Haunt and
Locust Swarm.
Convention of Elements simply provides a massive damage increase during
the Cold cycle of its rotation.
The recommended amulet is The Flavor of Time, whose revised legendary
power now doubles the duration of Pylons — an extremely potent power that,
with careful timing, can turn the progressively harder fights in Greater Rifts
greatly in your favor. The former recommendation for the slot,
Hellfire Amulet of Intelligence, remains a viable option, especially if you
obtain a roll with a synergistic fifth passive like
Spirit Vessel.
With the changes in Patch 2.6.9, the Spectres from the Phantasm rune
no longer benefit from pet bonuses, effectively ending our previous recommendation
for the slot —
Mask of Jeram. In its stead, we recommend that you
equip
Leoric's Crown for the additional Toughness with a socketed Amethyst.
Rolls-wise, aim for Intelligence, Spirit Barrage %, Crit Chance and an open
Socket.
In terms of gearing outside the jewelry, we can roughly divide gear into four
categories: offense, defense, utility and Spirit Barrage-specific.
Your offensive armor equips will be evenly split between boosting elemental
damage and pet damage, working in unison to boost your primary skill. A
straightforward addition to the build, Frostburn will increase Cold
damage (affecting both
Phlebotomize and
Phantasm), as well as
bring circumstantial survivability to the build via the 50% chance to freeze
affected enemies.
Swamp Land Waders are a well-known addition to LoN Witch
Doctors, who completely disregard the
Sacrifice properties of the item
for the universally useful elemental damage roll. Finally, the glass cannon
staple
The Witching Hour brings its unique Crit Damage and Increased Attack
Speed rolls to a great benefit for
Spirit Barrage.
Your two defensive items bring the bulk of the survivability in the build,
requiring you to pick skills, passive and Cube choices to cater to their
mechanics. Aquila Cuirass reduces damage in half as long as you do not dip
below 90% of your resource pool, which is main reasoning to use
Draining Spirit early on as you get used to the build. On the other hand,
Lakumba's Ornament is a class cornerstone that reduces incoming damage
significantly as you
Soul Harvest your way through fights (see this
build's skills page for more
information).
As far as utility picks are concerned, you will focus on maneuverability and
cheating death with Illusory Boots and
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King
respectively.
Illusory Boots are an Act 2 cache legendary item that
enables you to move through enemies (ignoring collision), as well as through
Waller affixes. In a build that relies on
Soul Harvest for much of its
survival, this freedom of movement cannot be understated; you could, however,
find temporary substitutes in similarly synergistic legendaries like
Boots of Disregard (Act 3 cache item) and
Ice Climbers. Lacking any
truly synergistic shoulders, your best bet for the slot are the
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King — an Act 1 cache legendary that gives you an
independent, yet minor chance for a cheat death proc.
You have two options for the weapon slot: the Spirit Barrage-specific
The Barber and the generic utility staple
Sacred Harvester. Both
are necessary in the setup and you will be wearing your better rolled one and
cubing the other.
The Barber forms a unique interaction with
Spirit Barrage, turning it from a directly damaging skill to an
accumulated one, where you choose when the damaging detonation actually occurs;
it enforces a rather unique playstyle where you try to buff up during the
accumulation phase rather than lining up buffs during the detonation.
Sacred Harvester simply extends your
Soul Harvest stacks to 10,
and coupled with
Lakumba's Ornament forms the basis of your survivability
in this generally squishy build.
In your other hand, the Gazing Demise will be a crucial piece in the
formation of the build; it brings the "pets" of the
Phantasm rune for
free and multiplies their damage for each spirit in the field. The item has an
unfortunate base Life Regeneration roll and lacks a natural Crit Chance stat,
making it hard to obtain with a good roll and a high priority gamble target.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
---|---|---|
Head |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
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.
Paragon Points
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Bane of the Stricken is a frequent part of Greater Rift solo progression
builds, as it is meant to aid strong AoE builds against their nemesis — high
health, single target Champions and Rift Guardians. Its stacking damage mechanic
is a mechanical guarantee for taking down bulkier enemies in high progression,
making it a natural inclusion in
Spirit Barrage builds.
With the changes in Patch 2.6.9, the Spectres from the Phantasm rune
no longer benefit from pet bonuses, effectively ending our previous recommendation
for the slot —
Enforcer. In its stead, we recommend that you
use
Gogok of Swiftness which indirectly provides you with more damage and
survivability by increasing Cooldown Reduction for
Spirit Walk, Attack
Speed for faster
Spirit Barrage output, as well as scaling Dodge
chance.
Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem,
which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you
have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal
quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares
(
The Wailing Host and
Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This
potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic
legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot; in the older LoN setup, this socket
would be occupied by
Bane of the Trapped.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
Sacred Harvester brings a deceptively simple, yet quite potent effect
— extending your
Soul Harvest stacks from 5 to 10. Not only does the
base effect of the skill scale quite nicely with that extension, but also in
conjunction with a powerful rune like
Languish and the
Lakumba's Ornament bracer this combo will form most of your survivability.
This slot is theoretically interchangeable with
The Barber depending on
your better rolled item.
While a less obvious choice, a cubed Belt of Transcendence brings a
stronger version of the
Fetish Sycophants passive to the build (guaranteed
proc on cast vs. chance based). In turn, this provides you with a sizable army
of Fetish companions, who bring indirect survivability in the form of a meath
shield that distracts enemies and soaks affixes and spells.
While bringing nice damage and survival buffs of their own, the true purpose
of including Haunt
Poisoned Spirit and
Locust Swarm
Cloud of Insects
is to proc
Ring of Emptiness — a powerful, DoT-reliant damage
multiplier.
During Season 22, you are able to add Voo's Juicer and gain some nice
mana and life restoration properties on your main damage dealing skill.
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.
Changelog
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 01 Jul. 2020: Guide revised to reflect the changes in pet damage calculation.
- 14 Mar. 2020: Gear selection adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Item recommendations are revised for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019: Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 16.
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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