Zuni Carnevil Poison Dart Witch Doctor Speed Farming Variation

The Zuni / Carnevil Poison Dart Witch Doctor can deal reasonably well with Normal Rift farming all the way through the highest Torment difficulties. The build variation suffers from minor inconveniences compared to top tier speed farming builds. 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
Poison Dart Spined Dart Piranhas Piranhado 1 Horrify Stalker 2 Spirit Walk Severance 3 Soul Harvest Soul to Waste 4 Fetish Army Legion of Daggers
Passive Skills
Fierce Loyalty Grave Injustice Fetish Sycophants Gruesome Feast

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

The DoD build opens up runs with a summon of the Fetish Army, quickly rushing to the nearest fight to open up the Poison Dart barrage and swell the army's ranks via Fetish Sycophants. You will exert control over the enemy via Piranhas Piranhado, pulling the enemies in one spot for the convenience of the Fetishes' destruction. Speed yourself up throughout the rift through a combination of Spirit Walk Severance, Horrify Stalker and Soul Harvest Soul to Waste, and keep your Gruesome Feast stacked with an Avarice Band.

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.

• Your main damage dealer is still Poison Dart Spined Dart, its damage mimicked by Fetish Army Legion of Daggers and their interaction with Carnevil.
• You should alter Mana spender duties for the Zunimassa 6-piece set bonus between Piranhas Piranhado, which remains a reliable source of crowd control, and Haunt Poisoned Spirit.
• While a movement skill is still necessary (if not more) during speed farming, you should adapt Spirit Walk from the safer Jaunt to the faster movement of the Severance rune.
• The same applies to Soul Harvest, which is still a valuable buff, but instead of the overkill toughness of Languish, it should alter to the movespeed bonuses of Soul to Waste.
• Taking out the moderate but consistent damage bonuses of Confidence Ritual for the "higher killspeed, bigger reward" bonuses of Gruesome Feast.
• Since the extra damage from Pierce the Veil will not be required, remove it for the movement speed increase of Fierce Loyalty.

You will still be taking advantage of the full 6-piece set bonuses of Zunimassa, incorporating the same split as you would in progression — running five set pieces and filling the rest of the armor slots with utility legendaries. Of course, you will get the complete Zuni bonuses by using a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube.

The static, positioning-dependent bonuses of the Endless Walk set greatly diminish in usefulness during Normal Rift farming. That progression-oriented jewelry will be better replaced by Squirt's Necklace for the additional damage multiplier, and a Rechel's Ring of Larceny in solo farming, or an Avarice Band in groups. Rechel's Ring of Larceny offers a massive movement boost whenever you Horrify the enemies, and will greatly speed up your clears. Avarice Band's pickup radius bonus is incredibly synergistic with a Witch Doctor, as it benefits not only your movement speed through a socketed Boon of the Hoarder, but also your staple speed farm passives like Grave Injustice and Gruesome Feast. When you farm solo, 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. If you farm in groups, you will have to wear the Avarice Band yourself.

Since the extra DPS from The Witching Hour likely will not be necessary, you can also wear a Goldwrap. Synergizing with Boon of the Hoarder, Goldwrap will render you practically invulnerable and allow you to focus on killing and looting without regards for your safety.

For most of your early farming, you can stick to Lakumba's Ornament as your bracer, as it offers sensible protection that ties nicely with your skill rotation. Once you grow comfortable with the survivability procs from Goldwrap however, you can consider altering your bracer to Warzechian Armguards in solo play, or to Nemesis Bracers in groups. Warzechian Armguards offer environment destruction-based speed boosts that 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 "Emanate" to you ((meaning you gain the benefits of the item as if you wore it yourself).

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.

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random. For this build, we recommend swapping Big Bad Voodoo out for Horrify Frightening Aspect, and aiming for the following power:

• Horrify Sanctification: Horrify becomes an aura that causes enemies to receive 100% more damage and deal 15% less damage in addition to its other effects.

Use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification is The Dagger of Darts.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

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.

Simplicity's Strength and Enforcer both still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming.

Once you are confident with your damage in Torments, you can substitute Bane of the Trapped (or Bane of the Stricken) with Boon of the Hoarder to increase your movement speed and provide near-infinite Toughness through its interaction with Goldwrap.

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

Both Echoing Fury and Mask of Jeram are necessary in the weapon and armor Cube slots respectively, with the former bringing massive Attack and Movement Speed value, and the latter being a direct buff to your summons.

Lastly, in order to maintain the valuable 6-piece bonus of Zunimassa as well as your array of utility legendaries, you will need to cube a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot.

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.