LoD Spirit Barrage Witch Doctor Group Progression Variation
Group Greater Rift Pushing
This variant is archived, meaning that we are leaving it on the site for documentation purposes, but it will no longer be actively updated.
The Spirit Barrage LoN build is the top tier group Greater Rift pushing build for the Witch Doctor class. This variation is no longer the preferred AoE DPS spec for groups, but you can still build it and play it in your group with a reasonable degree of success.
Adapting Skills
Active Skills |
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Haunt Poisoned Spirit Locust Swarm Pestilence 1 Grasp of the Dead Death Is Life 2 Sacrifice Provoke the Pack 3 Spirit Barrage Phlebotomize 4 Soul Harvest Languish |
Passive Skills |
The following skill selection alterations will be necessary:
- Changing Piranhas Piranhado and Spirit Walk Severance from the soloing build into Grasp of the Dead Death Is Life and Sacrifice Provoke the Pack. The former two are a monster grouping and a survival tool respectively, and both these tasks are taken care of by Support teammates in groups. The latter combination will net you a nice 20% increase of damage.
- Changing Grave Injustice (mainly a reset tool for your soloing invulnerability cooldown, Spirit Walk) into Gruesome Feast — a staple DPS passive that gets fed by globe spawning support teammates.
Adapting Gear
You will simply need to exchange The Barber for Voo's Juicer. This is the other Spirit Barrage-related legendary that only gets overlooked when soloing due to the power of Sacred Harvester in keeping you alive. Voo's Juicer has a natural Spirit Barrage damage roll however, edging over the competition when survival is no longer a concern. You will still retain the powers of The Barber in the Cube.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Head |
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Shoulders |
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Torso |
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Wrists |
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Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Amulet |
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Ring #1 |
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Ring #2 |
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Weapon |
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Off-hand |
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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.
Altar of Rites
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.
Adapting Gemming
In a group Greater Rifting setup, your role will be the AoE damage dealer. Since killing the Rift Guardian will no longer be your concern, you need to exchange Bane of the Stricken for Pain Enhancer. Due to Spirit Barrage's excellent scaling with Attack Speed and the clumps of monsters created by Support teammates, this "APS per bleeding enemy in radius" gem will net you the highest DPS gain.
Slot | Gems |
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Jewelry | |
Helm |
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Torso and Pants |
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Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Adapting Kanai's Cube
As previously mentioned, you will be cubing The Barber in order to retain the damage accumulating powers of the ceremonial knife.
Due to the numerous stuns and freezes available to your Support teammates, you can take advantage of one of the strongest damage reduction sources in the game by cubing Ancient Parthan Defenders.
In Season 33, where you get a 4th slot for the Kanai's Cube, you can introduce additional damage to the build by slotting Shukrani's Triumph there.
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.
Legendary Potion
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.
Changelog
- 23 Oct. 2024: Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 10 Apr. 2024: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
- 10 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Added potion recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Archived variant.
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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