LoD Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor Speed Farming Variation

The Spirit Barrage LoD build is a capable speed farming build — only suffering on unfavorable long distance layouts or bounties, where a Manajuma-based build is able to outrun it to the destination. 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
Spirit Barrage Manitou Locust Swarm Pestilence 1 Horrify Stalker 2 Spirit Walk Severance 3 Summon Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts 4 Soul Harvest Soul to Waste
Passive Skills
Gruesome Feast Fierce Loyalty Rush of Essence Grave Injustice

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

When beginning a run, start with a Phantasm spawn to empower your Manitou; then, Spirit Walk into enemies, pop Big Bad Voodoo into Soul Harvest into Horrify to get their respective buffs up and redo the Spirit Barrage assault. This will implode nearby enemies, resetting your cooldowns via Grave Injustice and In-geom, and you will be ready to start the cycle anew. Cast Locust Swarm on tougher enemies, like Elites and Rift Guardians, to proc the Ring of Emptiness buff. Make sure to recast your buffs regularly, especially Big Bad Voodoo when you change levels — since it does not follow you to the next map.

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.

• Naturally, you will keep Spirit Barrage as your main damage dealer, along with the extra damage rune Manitou. Keep Locust Swarm Pestilence around to proc the effects of Ring of Emptiness whenever you face sturdier enemies like Elites and Guardians. Another piece from the GR solo build that you will keep is Spirit Walk with Severance for the incomparable movement speed it provides.
• Soul Harvest will be kept from the progression spec, but you can alter the defense-oriented Languish rune to the pure movement speed buff of Soul to Waste.
• Enemy grouping from Piranhas Piranhado will not be necessary in the one-shot territories of speed farming, so it is recommended that you swap this slot out for Summon Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts. The summons will be paired with Fierce Loyalty in your passives for extra speed.
• Depending on your build preferences from the progression spec, you will either swap out Big Bad Voodoo, or keep Horrify in its place. The excessive defense of Frightening Aspect however should be replaced by the speed boost from Stalker.
• Our passive lineup recommendation is Rush of Essence (for resource management), Gruesome Feast (for the massive damage bonuses when killing large groups of enemies quickly), Grave Injustice (for the staple Cooldown Reduction), and Fierce Loyalty (for the movement speed buff from the active summons).

The basics principles of constructing your gear remains intact from the GR progression setup. This is still a Legacy of Dreams build, so you run legendary items instead of set pieces and obtain the necessary damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. This will cost a legendary gem slot, but will net you all the jewelry slots for powerful jewelry options. Your weapon and offhand slots remain fixed to The Barber and Gazing Demise,which enable Spirit Barrage builds in the first place. Other gear slots however will have a more optimal, speed-oriented item fit for the purpose of T16s.

Andariel's Visage is preferred in GR progression as it provides the most damage in the slot; its alternative, Leoric's Crown, is preferable in standard rifts and bounties instead, as it provides a consistent source of Cooldown Reduction that is not reliant on procs like In-geom.

You can consider altering Blackthorne's Jousting Mail to Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan, which will provide both a solid damage bonus as well as improve resource management; their only requirement is that you stay constantly on the move, and will penalize you for not doing so. In T16s however, this is trivial considering the overall kill speed of the build.

The combo of Stone Gauntlets plus Ice Climbers should be dropped entirely, as it is way too defensive for farming difficulties. Replace it with St. Archew's Gage, which offers an upfront shield for the (admittedly trivial) challenge of Elite encounters, and use the Act II bounty cache-specific Illusory Boots for unrestricted mobility.

As a side note on the glove slot, you might remember that the base GR build uses either Stone Gauntlets or Frostburn depending on your better rolled item. Frostburn should be dropped from the T16 setup as well, as its Cold damage buff is unnecessary overkill. Use up the Cube slot for extra flexibility in your belts. Both Goldwrap and Krelm's Buff Belt are supremely useful in standard rift farming and bounties. Goldwrap will provide you with near-infinite toughness via its interaction with Avarice Band and Boon of the Hoarder. Krelm's Buff Belt offers excellent mobility, which you will feel especially useful for bounties. Simply wear your better rolled belt between the two, and cube the other.

Pauldrons of the Skeleton King remain relatively useful, as there is no competing legendary shoulder for the slot for solo play. Homing Pads, which are mandatory during farming as they allow you uninterruptible teleporting back to town, can be worn by your Follower, who will "Emanate" them to you (meaning you gain the benefits of the item as if you wore it yourself). That being said, in group farming you will need to wear Homing Pads yourself, since you cannot have a Follower in parties.

During standard rift speed farming, the cyclical damage bonuses of Convention of Elements and the damage reduction of Unity are greatly diminished in usefulness. In their place, wear a Squirt's Necklace and either Rechel's Ring of Larceny (in solo play), or Avarice Band (in groups). Ring of Emptiness remains a universally useful damage amplification item, but should be stored in the Cube; in its place, wear a Cold damage Stone of Jordan for the consistent elemental and elite damage amplification.

• Avarice Band is an Act III bounty cache legendary ring that increases your gold and health globe pickup radius as you pick up gold — stacking to the massive, half-screen circle of 30 yards for a generous 10 second duration. Its legendary power will greatly assist you in maintaining the movement speed bonuses from both a socketed Boon of the Hoarder and the near-invulnerability from Goldwrap. In solo play, you can equip your Follower with the Avarice Band and it will "Emanate" to you (meaning you gain the benefits of the item as if you wore it yourself), opening the slot for Rechel's. In group play, you have to wear the Avarice Band yourself.
• Rechel's Ring of Larceny brings a massive movement speed buff any time you fear your enemies, which you will do quite often with Horrify.
• Squirt's Necklace brings a massive multiplicative damage increase, but comes with an "increased damage taken" drawback. You can use it almost without repercussion however, due to the Goldwrap armor bonuses stacking your toughness sky-high as you farm.

During low tier GRs or normal rift speedruns, an optimized character can avoid the overkill of toughness in the bracer slot by swapping to Warzechian Armguards, whose environment destruction-based speed boosts will greatly improve your rift clear speeds. The former favorites for the slot, Nemesis Bracers, are still quite useful in the build, but during solo farming they can be equipped on your follower, and their power will carry over to your character via the Emanate mechanic.

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.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification gem, and Legacy of Dreams is a required gem for LoD builds that enables their existence altogether.

In speed runs, taking down Champions and Rift Guardians no longer requires chewing through a near-insurmountable wall of health like in high Greater Rift progression. Thus, you can take off Bane of the Stricken for Boon of the Hoarder, which increases both your gold income (necessary for empowering GRs), as well as your movement speed and survivability (through its interaction with Goldwrap).

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

In lower tier difficulties, chaining elite kills in the matter of seconds will not be uncommon. As such, In-geom will provide the biggest boon in your weapon Cube slot by practically nullifying all your vital cooldowns ( Spirit Walk, Piranhado).

If you choose to slot Boon of the Hoarder in your sockets while running regular Rifts, your biggest source of survivability easily becomes Goldwrap. This belt renders you practically invulnerable as long as you maintain your killing streak and pick up the streaks of gold from the gem. In lower tier GRs, simply swap this slot back to Lakumba's Ornament.

As previously discussed, you will either have Ring of Emptiness or Rechel's Ring of Larceny (in solo play) / Avarice Band (in groups) in this slot. Wear your better rolled ring between the two, and cube the weaker.

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.

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Witch Doctors (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For class-specific items, Witch Doctors should consider Lakumba's Ornament; this is a powerful damage reduction item that incentivizes you to be mindful of maintaining stacks of Soul Harvest. This synergizes well with the killstreak theme by improving survivability while in the middle of large enemy packs.
• For additional options that balance between defense and offense, the class-specific offhand Shukrani's Triumph greatly extends the duration of Spirit Walk, giving you the freedom to reposition optimally. Other helpful cross-class jewelry includes Unity (combined with the same ring on the follower plus a follower immortality token), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose).
• Situational items that can bolster your defenses include Stone Gauntlets, the drawbacks of which are negated via CC-immunity effects like Ice Climbers, or the Altar of Rites CC-immunity node. The class-agnostic Aquila Cuirass is a powerful and popular choice for low Mana-spending builds, especially ones built around generators like LoD Poison Dart. Niche options for protection are found in Vile Hive, allowing for an easy spread of Locust Swarm Cloud of Insects, or the incidental tanking of the Belt of Transcendence meat shield summons.
• Utility items like Nemesis Bracers are essential as more elites mean more killstreak maintenance and faster progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), Strongarm Bracers (extra damage vs. displaced enemies), and Rechel's Ring of Larceny in speedfarming builds that employ Horrify. To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill tool like Spirit Walk, ideally in conjunction with an Shukrani's Triumph, and an enemy-pulling tool like Piranhas Piranhado.Take a look if you can include passives like Spirit Vessel (for a cheat-death), Grave Injustice (for cooldown reduction and resource regeneration on kill), or enemy density-beneficiaries like Confidence Ritual and Gruesome Feast.