Zuni Carnevil Poison Dart Witch Doctor

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/17/2016 at 9:49 AM, Arkpit said:

Perhaps I can send good vibes with non-pet things because I'm ooooh so with you on being angry at Gargantuan AI. After a few hundreds of hours of Season 6 where Gargs were staring at a wall after re-summon or simply hitting things half a screen away just got to me in the end and I couldn't take it.

Thanks for that detailed post! Hopefully it can help out anyone with the same problem!

[Guest TDB]

cant get the page to display properly. it worked a few days ago when i found it, but now it just loads to #2 Builds and shows poison dart and nothing else. tried different links, and different browsers. is the page broken? finishes loading, but nothing else on the page but what listed above.

[Damien 1,514]

9 hours ago, Guest TDB said:

cant get the page to display properly. it worked a few days ago when i found it, but now it just loads to #2 Builds and shows poison dart and nothing else. tried different links, and different browsers. is the page broken? finishes loading, but nothing else on the page but what listed above.

Yeah, it was my mistake. It's fixed now :p

[Arkpit 101]

Some thoughts from a hardcore perspective using this build so far in Season 8!

First off, I'm paragon 550 in season 8 so far and previously have a few hundred hours of experience playing Jade and Helltooth season 6 & 7.
I've got quite a few ancient items and my ancient Kukri in hand is well rolled as well.

After running GR60 with Poison Darts build in Hardcore I'm thanking whatever diety people believe in that I'm still alive because this is hands down the squishiest build I've ever rifted with.

The main problem I see is that you NEED Grave Injustice to reset your Spirit Walk and Soul Harvest as often as possible which first off isn't even in the recommended skills and the only passive you can safely swap in Hardcore is Pierce the Veil so 20% dmg gone there.
This however doesn't neglect the dmg you recieve which is massive since with all fetishes out (8+15=23*3% ~69% DR) and your 5stacks of Soul Harvest for 50% armor and 30% DR (26% effectively if I recall) you land somewhere at max 150mill toughness. The "Learn2Play" part here is setting up Bad Medicin for the 25% reduced dmg dealth which isn't easy to apply on everything you see with just 1-2 Grasps so you spend some time shooting darts on missed targets just so they won't straight up kill you.

This isn't enough to stay safe beyond even as low as 60. To manage this I've had to be 110% active with using everything and be on the move at all times which means the Endless Walk set is up with another 50% DR but I can't go near anything without losing 50% hp in one hit from a normal mob.

The main issue that follows is that to complete a high GR you NEED to skip trash to find the elites but if you can't reset your Spirit Walk you're dead in the water as soon as it runs out and you end up putting down Voodoo+Grasp and dodge everything while praying your Simplicity gem will keep you alive until another Spirit Walk is up again since keeping yourself at medium-long range is not easy while skipping. Not to mention that while the 4second Grasp CD is short, it's really not short enough and swapping to Acid Rain you can't proc trapped and need to use enforcer which doesn't improve your own dmg.

I honestly don't understand how it's supposed to get 80+ as per recommendation even in Softcore since you are nearly oneshotted in GR60 and trying to get close to anything in GR70 for Grave Injustice resets are basically out of the question. This makes anything that can charge or teleport devestating.

While I fully understand that paragon 550 is not much to grab the 75+ GRs I've got quite a few ancient pieces and toughness have been mildly prioritised due to hardcore and it's rough, very rough. Esotaric Gem also btw is used instead of Enforcer. Trapped is in later GRs replaced by Stricken which in the end means (Simplicity+Esotaric+Stricken)

So on to how this can possibly be made viable on Hardcore?
What I'll try getting off work today is to remove the Endless Walk set (due to constant moving/dodging) and replace with Unity+Hellfire to grab a much needed extra passive so equip both Grave Injestice+Swampland in place of Pierce the Veil together with Corruption for extra pick-up radius.

Next one is to swap the Voodoo rune for the heal+20% DR and MAYBE, just maybe the GR60 will be ok to farm until I get more ancient pieces and paragon levels.

In theory this build is awesome but getting past GR60+ is really showing the many problems this build is facing. I'm still determined however to see this through and hopefully my changes can make this go all the way to my hardcore goal of solo GR75.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Arkpit

[Deadset 108]

For what its worth, I've personally done 75 with it on the... 2.4 PTR I believe, and have seen people in the 80-ish range with it. It was all done with a finalized version of the set too, so there shouldn't be any disparity between then and live. It was, however, done with three times the Paragon, 100+ level legendary gems, and perfected + enchanted pieces. A very, very sick Dagger of Darts too.

And it was still quite squishy. I can imagine it being a huge pain in hardcore. May RNGsus be with you.

[Arkpit 101]

Thanks for confirming at least and I pretty much assumed what you mentioned with the gems and gear :)

I've been running with my changes at 60 a few hours now and it is very much an improvement for me in hardcore to start with before getting crazy items. So far I've got 5 ancient pieces with 3 of them augmented with rank 60 things so Int close to 11k with a few rolls to be perfected in the %dmg department of army/darts.

I'll be augmenting the other pieces and slowly take myself upwards by swapping out 1 defensive thing for an offensive as my gear and skill becomes comfortable at the GR in question.

Not sure why I'm doing this to myself considering this is probably one of the worst of the builds to choose for reaching hardcore 75 but I guess I just wanted a challange for season 8 ^^

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/27/2016 at 9:50 PM, Arkpit said:

Not sure why I'm doing this to myself considering this is probably one of the worst of the builds to choose for reaching hardcore 75 but I guess I just wanted a challange for season 8 ^^

The things we do for the builds we love! 

[Guest EndarKeN]

How does Swampland Attunement compare to Bad Medicine?

[Valks 2,373]

6 hours ago, Guest EndarKeN said:

How does Swampland Attunement compare to Bad Medicine?

It is worse. No reliability due to mobs moving, it will give less reduction when the most powerful enemies are still alive (elite packs/bosses), it doesn't do much on Rift Guardians. BM is just a straight reduction on anything you poison. It's great.

[Deadset 108]

Swampland Attunement is a wonderful passive, but it's hard to fit it in this particular build. You're constantly trying to position yourself in a frontal cone to the enemy, instead of getting surrounded; the army of Fetishes will also block enemy pathing on the regular, making it even harder to benefit from the passive. Bad Medicine is just fire and forget, instant damage reduction.

[Guest Batti]

Quick question about using Gidbinn instead of Dagger of Darts in this build?

[Deadset 108]

17 hours ago, Guest Batti said:

Quick question about using Gidbinn instead of Dagger of Darts in this build?

It's not viable sadly, but you can temporarily work with Gidbinn and gain minor benefits from the set because of it. The piercing effect from the Dagger of Darts is an incomparably stronger damage effect though, especially for AoE (which describes the majority of the fights in D3 :) )

[Guest Kampe24]

I have a question, why use grasp of the dead as your spell to trigger the Zuni's 6p ability?  You handicap yourself by having a 4 second cooldown.  Why not use something like acid cloud that you can spam a little more and then not be sitting around waiting for you spell to come off of cooldown.  I was running GotD with Grave Injustice and was still finding myself waiting to cast it again so I could kill an elite faster.  Switched to Acid Cloud and found that I can kill a lot faster.

[Arkpit 101]

On 2016-11-06 at 5:14 AM, Guest Kampe24 said:

I have a question, why use grasp of the dead as your spell to trigger the Zuni's 6p ability?  You handicap yourself by having a 4 second cooldown.  Why not use something like acid cloud that you can spam a little more and then not be sitting around waiting for you spell to come off of cooldown.  I was running GotD with Grave Injustice and was still finding myself waiting to cast it again so I could kill an elite faster.  Switched to Acid Cloud and found that I can kill a lot faster.

The reason why Grasp is used is largely based on the fact that you not only trigger your Bad Medicin passive but ALSO yout Bane of the Trapped gem which Acid Cloud doesn't. You don't need the extra *umph* in your dmg while spedrunning so that is why Acid is used instead of Grasp when running like Sanic!

Added benefit of Grasp is survivability in higher GRs to gain control over the field which is very handy considering how squishy the build is past 65+. I used Grave Injustice most of the time so the 4seconds is basically spammable.

[Deadset 108]

Ark is correct, you will indeed notice the speedrun version using Acid Cloud, whereas Grasp of the Dead is used in GR progression (for better control + proc of Bane of the Trapped and Bad Medicine).

[MrHandsome 5]

Was rerolling the Zunimassa's Trial, but cannot roll the "All Resistances" on it. Got Int, Vit & Movement, but can only roll for the 4th: Armor, Regen life per sec, Spirit Barage %, Acid Cloud %, Zombie Charger %, Sacrifice % and Firebats %.

Opted for armor, to aid in the soul harvest.

[Arkpit 101]

On 2016-12-10 at 2:12 PM, MrHandsome said:

Was rerolling the Zunimassa's Trial, but cannot roll the "All Resistances" on it. Got Int, Vit & Movement, but can only roll for the 4th: Armor, Regen life per sec, Spirit Barage %, Acid Cloud %, Zombie Charger %, Sacrifice % and Firebats %.

Opted for armor, to aid in the soul harvest.

You should nearly always opt for armor for the Int classes due to their already high all resist from the primary stat.

The small % you would get from rolling resist on gear is barely noticable compared to the extra armor which can severely boost your armor not only through Soul Harvest but if/when using Horrify as well (an extra 50%).

[Guest Guest]

Please mark this build as not viable or remake it for gargantuan build made by bigdaddyden which is a lot better or just add more toughness stuff. There is no survivability!! http://www.diablofans.com/builds/79210-2-4-1-zuni-garg-gr90-solo

[Arkpit 101]

15 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

Please mark this build as not viable or remake it for gargantuan build made by bigdaddyden which is a lot better or just add more toughness stuff. There is no survivability!! http://www.diablofans.com/builds/79210-2-4-1-zuni-garg-gr90-solo

Let's start by mentioning that the zuni-garg build is a very different style and shouldn't really be compared with the poisondarts and for the actual build? It is very much so viable but it depends on a lot of things being described in my posts above that are a little longer and also answered by Deadset.

Softcore or Hardcore?
This would be an important question because this build as it is described in the guide is not suited for hardcore play at any level honestly. I am a hardcore player 100% and made my own adjustments to stay alive while still being able to run GRs.

With mediocre gear (600paragon and 60'ish gems) and by no means any perfect gear and maybe 3-5 augmented ones I could run between 65-70GRs solo in hardcore. I fully believe that you could, even in hardcore, push the 75GR conquest with the build making some personal adjustments to survivability but as Deadset already pointed out, you'll need 1k+ paragon with augments all over the place and perfect rolls.

I almost gave up on the build myself because I found it incredible hard to both have enough dmg and still surviving but it is a playstyle that requires you to almost re-learn the class. Extreme cation is always required to selecting a proper placement of GotD in case you don't get a reset with Grave Injustice and anything that is missed by the grasp needs to be instantly shot at by the darts to apply bad medicin.

This build IS in the end viable by all right, HOWEVER, it IS one of the most squishy and most challanging styles to play. This build is probably not for those wanting to push the highest GRs or want an easy and strong build to go with. I chose this path because I like how it's played and I wanted the challange to see how far I could take it in hardcore.

What it offers you is a unique style of play that does not include the worst AI in the game (gargs). Compared to Jade Harvester it also includes the viability of group play that Jade is lacking (You don't want friends killing packs before you can reset your CDs in a "boom" in hardcore).

Instead of pointing out your personal opinion that is is not viable, try finding a way to make it work for you that feels better. Like you mention, zuni-garg is more your style, then by all means, go that instead, it should be about what you want to play but I for one really enjoyed the poison dart style of play which does work with enough practise and gear!

Happy building ^^

[Guest Witch doctor]

Well I would definitely swap some things for top builds stuff like Sacred Harvester and Piranhado. I'm being 1shot on gr 60 with pretty good gear and I do a lot better with more survivability

[Arkpit 101]

6 minutes ago, Guest Witch doctor said:

Well I would definitely swap some things for top builds stuff like Sacred Harvester and Piranhado. I'm being 1shot on gr 60 with pretty good gear and I do a lot better with more survivability

I don't really see a way to replace either the Dagger of Darts or the Kukri. You really want the reset on Big Bad Voodoo and the Dagger of Darts is 100% a must.

The steps I took to reach GR70s on hardcore was to swap out the "Pierce the Veil" passive with "Jungle Fortitude" and instead of the "Enforcer" gem I ran with "Esotaric Alteration". 

Making these changes instead of the weapon makes sure you always have the BBV up at every fight, spammable, and if you are running softcore I would try first to only swap the BBV rune to the one that gives dmg reduction. In hardcore the Esotaric is a must though.

But try the BBV rune swap first, if you still feel too squishy, swap out the passive for a jungle fortitude and last go with the gem swap.
Still though, you have 3 viable survivability swaps without sacrificing the weapons which I really think is needed for the build :)

[Guest zwerg]

build is "ok". It lacks sustanability. and it pretty particulat on gear. Unless you you everything right, there is still a huge lack of raw defense. Getting one shot lal the time

[Arkpit 101]

The build is not the best  by a long shot, there are many more viable options but it's a more "fun" build since it's not like the others to me.

But again, if your problem is getting oneshotted, swap out something to survive 2 hits and you're solid, change that BBV rune to damage reduction and it just might be enough to keep your dmg up high while surviveing one more hit.

[Neogeo 0]

I am looking forward to play this build in season 9. Running around with 20+ fetish seem like a lot of fun. I never run a pet build before, just wondering why is enforcer is the gem of choice instead of stricken? 

[Arkpit 101]

23 hours ago, Neogeo said:

I am looking forward to play this build in season 9. Running around with 20+ fetish seem like a lot of fun. I never run a pet build before, just wondering why is enforcer is the gem of choice instead of stricken? 

The build is lots of fun and very challanging (It's very squishy) so it's good choice!

(I'll leave @Deadset  to correct me on this)
The Stricken vs. Enforcer is most probably because pets do not increase the Stricken stacks and there isn't any DoT in the build to help out either which means only your own auto-attacks will stack the % and it will take you a while to get up to the same dmg increase as the Enforcer gem.

For a boss, or, certain bosses, the Stricken gem will pull ahead sometimes if it's long enough but the Enforcer will be a constant bonus through the entire clear of the GR which makes it a better overall choice.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Arkpit
tag