Spirit Barrage Mundunugu WD BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Last updated on Sep 13, 2023 at 09:00 by Deadset 89 comments

Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Spirit Barrage Mundunugu WD in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.6 and Season 29.

1.

Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build takes advantage of the full 6-piece Mundunugu's set bonus, incorporating five of the six available items and completing the requirements via a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. Rolls-wise, you will be aiming to obtain Spirit Barrage skill bonuses on both the Mundunugu's Headdress Mundunugu's Headdress and Mundunugu's Dance Mundunugu's Dance, alongside the usual Crit and Intelligence recommendations for the former and the toughness staples on the latter. Mundunugu's Descendant Mundunugu's Descendant will ideally feature both Cooldown and Resource Cost Reduction stats, while Mundunugu's Rhythm Mundunugu's Rhythm needs to have both Crit stats as a baseline, Cooldown Reduction for a trifecta, and will replace Intelligence for Attack Speed at very high Paragons. Mundunugu's Robe Mundunugu's Robe and Mundunugu's Decoration Mundunugu's Decoration (or your other set pants — see below) will be dedicated purely to toughness stats.

Armor set-wise, you will also be crafting and equipping two of the three pieces of the Captain Crimson set (Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and either Captain Crimson's Thrust Captain Crimson's Thrust, or Captain Crimson's Waders Captain Crimson's Waders). You will complete their full bonus via Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. This set provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and damage reduced according to both stats, respectively — bringing a massive boon to the build.

For your jewelry, you will be splitting between defense and offense with a combo of the Endless Walk set and Ring of Emptiness Ring of Emptiness. The Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This dynamic mimics the Spirit Barrage WD playstyle, as you alternate between Spirit Walk Spirit Walk bursts of movement in search of the next important fight with extended periods of stationary Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage spam. Seek double Crit stats, Cooldown Reduction and an open Socket for The Compass Rose The Compass Rose and double Crit stats, Cold elemental damage and an open Socket on The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge amulet.

Your other ring slot will be taken by Ring of Emptiness Ring of Emptiness; this legendary item provides a massive damage multiplier as long as you affect targets with either Haunt Haunt or Locust Swarm Locust Swarm. The latter will be included in this build, so you will have an easy proc to the ring's tremendous damage increase.

In your bracer slot, Lakumba's Ornament Lakumba's Ornament is a class cornerstone that reduces incoming damage significantly as you regularly use Soul Harvest Soul Harvest, that can be further empowered by a cubed or worn Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester.

You have three options for the weapon slot: the Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage-specific The Barber The Barber and Voo's Juicer Voo's Juicer, and the generic utility staple Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester. The Barber The Barber forms a unique interaction with Spirit Barrage 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 Sacred Harvester simply extends your Soul Harvest Soul Harvest stacks to 10, and coupled with Lakumba's Ornament Lakumba's Ornament forms the basis of your survivability in this generally squishy build. We generally recommend wearing the Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester due to its fixed power, and extracting The Barber The Barber to enjoy its maximized legendary power in the Cube. Lastly, Voo's Juicer Voo's Juicer adds to the Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage damage and nets you the Phlebotomize Phlebotomize and The Spirit Is Willing The Spirit Is Willing runes for free; it should be considered over Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester when you reach a higher Paragon level and comfort with handling the build, as you will gain a tier or two worth of extra damage by including it in the setup.

In your other hand, the Gazing Demise Gazing Demise will be a crucial piece in the formation of the build; it brings the "pets" of the Phantasm 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.

1.1.

Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes

For Offense stats, try to obtain Spirit Barrage % bonus on both the helm, boots and offhand (maximum of 45%), Cold elemental damage on both the amulet and wrists(maximum of 40%) and Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 60% and 450%, respectively). This build attempts a careful balance between Attack Speed, Cooldown and Resource Cost Reduction stats. A suggested (but not mandatory — test and see what split you are comfortable with) setup would be to reach 55%+ CDR (achieved through Paragons, Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond in the Helm, the Cpt. Crimson set bonus, as well as CDR on your Offhand, Shoulders, and Gloves); 47% Resource Cost Reduction (Paragons, Cpt. Crimson bonus, Blood Ritual Blood Ritual and Shoulders); and reaching the 2.31 Attack Speed breakpoint with two Attack Speed rolls on Rings, Paragons, active Big Bad Voodoo Big Bad Voodoo, and a stacked Gogok of Swiftness Gogok of Swiftness. Area Damage is useless in this build.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool around 850-900k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. Your sustain will come from Life per Hit rolls on your bracer or weapon (or both), as well as the Grave Injustice Grave Injustice passive effect and Ghost Trance Ghost Trance, should you pick it as your Big Bad Voodoo Big Bad Voodoo rune.

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Intelligence.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Socket
  2. Spirit Barrage %
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Intelligence (or Mana Regeneration at high Paragon)
  5. Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Cooldown Reduction
  3. Resource Cost Reduction
  4. Armor
  5. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Intelligence
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Armor
  4. Reduced damage from Elites
  5. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Cold % Damage
  4. Vitality or Life per Hit
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Critical Hit Chance
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. Intelligence (or Attack Speed at high Paragon)
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. Life %
  5. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Spirit Barrage %
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Critical Hit Chance
  5. Cold % Damage
  6. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  7. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Arcane or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. High Weapon Damage
  2. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  3. Intelligence (or % Weapon Damage at high Paragon)
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Cooldown Reduction
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. High Damage Range
  2. Intelligence
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Spirit Barrage %
  5. Mana Regeneration
  6. Cooldown or Resource Cost Reduction
  7. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)

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.

2.

Paragon Points

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness (very likely). Investing points into Maximum Mana should not be necessary, but can be considered if you decide to play with a cubed Aquila Cuirass Aquila Cuirass instead.

In the Offense section, max out Crit Damage, Crit Chance, Attack Speed and CDR in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Resource Cost Reduction and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Globe Radius. Skip Area Damage, especially if you intend to play in groups.

Slot Paragon Points
Core
  1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap
  2. Intelligence
  3. Vitality (up to personal preference)
  4. Maximum Mana (up to personal preference)
Offense
  1. Critical Hit Damage
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Attack Speed
  4. Cooldown Reduction
Defense
  1. Armor
  2. Life %
  3. All Resistance
  4. Life Regeneration
Utility
  1. Resource Cost Reduction
  2. Life on Hit
  3. Globe Radius
  4. Area Damage (skip)
2.1.

Season 29: Paragon Cap

Season 29 introduces a season-specific cap to stat benefits from Paragon levels, all while updating how Paragon point distribution is handled. For the duration of this Season, you can only assign 800 Paragon stat points to your character, removing the long-standing practice of main-stat stacking (with some gearing implications — see below) after you reach Paragon 800.

On top of that, you could only allocate 50 Paragon stat points to each of the four stats in a given Paragon category (Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility). In Season 29, you can allocate up to the full 200 points per category into any attribute, allowing you to more easily reach necessary build breakpoints (as outlined in the Gear page of the guide) for Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, etc.

With the changes to Paragon in mind, we recommend using the following Paragon distribution for this build:

  • Core: Movement Speed: 200 points.
  • Offense: Attack Speed and Critical Hit Damage: Allocate enough points to reach the 2.27 Attack Speed breakpoint as displayed in your Character Details sheet, which puts you at the desirable 21 Frames-per-Animation breakpoint for Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage. Spend the rest on Crit Damage.
  • Defense: Life and All Resistance: Allocate points to maximize survivability; for Witch Doctors, this is usually achieved by evenly splitting 100 points into Life (directly increasing your Health pool) and Armor (to complement the naturally high All Resistance stat of Intelligence-based characters).
  • Utility: Resource Cost Reduction: 200 points.
2.1.1.

Season 29: Gearing Considerations

In terms of gear, keeping the Paragon cap in mind is paramount, as it stymies the traditional endless supply of main stat after Paragon 800. This means re-rolling mainstat off your gear is no longer desirable, and full equipment augmentation with your main stat is even more critical. Additionally, you should take a careful look at your build and consider if you can fit the following changes to strengthen your damage and survivability:

  • Guardian's Jeopardy: This is a craftable armor set, and the recipe for its creation drops from Bounty farming. Guardian's 2-piece provides a decent damage reduction bonus, but the true powerhouse of the set is the 3-piece bonus, which nets you an additional 100% of your main stats from equipped items. This is a tremendous benefit in an 800 Paragon capped Season. If the Guardian set can fit into the build with minimal sacrifices (other craftable sets, tertiary damage multipliers, etc.), consider its implementation. The available pieces are Guardian's Aversion Guardian's Aversion (Wrists), Guardian's Case Guardian's Case (Waist), and Guardian's Gaze Guardian's Gaze (Head). Of course, you can wear 2 pieces of the set and complete the full 3-piece bonus with a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
  • Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and The Compass Rose The Compass Rose (Ring), and is randomly found through farming, gambling Blood Shards, and/or Kanai's Cube recipes. The Endless Walk set is a nice compromise between damage bonuses (building up while stationary) and defensive bonuses (building up while moving). It can replace glass cannon choices like the Bastions of Will set (Focus Focus and Restraint Restraint) and Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
  • Unity Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another Unity Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e., Enchanting Favor Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%. Unity Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.
3.

Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will easily proc this gem with the slows from Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage and Soul Harvest Soul Harvest Languish Languish, as well as the gem's own level 25+ effect in short ranges.

With the changes in Patch 2.6.9, the Spectres from the Phantasm Phantasm rune no longer benefit from pet bonuses, effectively ending our previous recommendation for the slot — Enforcer Enforcer. In its stead, we recommend that you use Gogok of Swiftness Gogok of Swiftness which indirectly provides you with more damage and survivability by increasing Cooldown Reduction for Spirit Walk Spirit Walk, Attack Speed for faster Spirit Barrage Spirit Barrage output, as well as scaling Dodge chance. Pain Enhancer Pain Enhancer can also be considered in this slot for high end pushing and group play, as Attack Speed is a massive multiplier to your damage output.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket in GR progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is tremendously helpful even in single target-heavy builds such as this one.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

4.

Kanai's Cube

As previously noted, the weapon slot is interchangeable between The Barber The Barber and Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester; you will wear your better roll, and cube the other. We generally recommend having The Barber The Barber here due to its variable legendary power. If you choose to run Voo's Juicer Voo's Juicer, equip it in your hand (the skill bonus roll cannot be extracted), and run The Barber The Barber in the Cube.

With the changes in Patch 2.6.9, the Spectres from the Phantasm Phantasm rune no longer benefit from pet bonuses, effectively ending our previous recommendation for the slot — Mask of Jeram Mask of Jeram. In its stead, you have several options that bring up various aspects of the build. To bolster your damage, use the Frostburn Frostburn power in this slot (our general recommendation); to bolster defenses, you can swap to Aquila Cuirass Aquila Cuirass.

In this Mundunugu / Captain Crimson mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and an additional 3-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

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.

5.

Follower

For Greater Rift progression with this build, we recommend the Templar for his essential heal and cheat death abilities. The Templar is a preferable choice due to the lacking sustain in this build, as well as the general squishiness of Witch Doctors.

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.

6.

Legendary Potion

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower 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.

7.

Changelog

  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 06 Dec. 2021: Enriched the guide and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
  • 19 Nov. 2020: Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
  • 04 Jul. 2020: Slight revision to Cube recommendations.
  • 01 Jul. 2020: Guide revised to reflect the changes in pet damage calculation.
  • 10 Mar. 2020: Guide added.
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