Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Build Guide.

[Guest Mike]

the Bastions of Will set,  Focus and  Restraint. This ring set adds an impressive 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you alternate between a primary and spender attacks;

 

 

1.25   not 2.25 multiplier

[Deadset 108]

the Bastions of Will set,  Focus and  Restraint. This ring set adds an impressive 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you alternate between a primary and spender attacks;

 

 

1.25   not 2.25 multiplier

 

The math figures your own damage (100%) in it!

[Warden 8]

 

the Bastions of Will set,  Focus and  Restraint. This ring set adds an impressive 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you alternate between a primary and spender attacks;

 

 

1.25   not 2.25 multiplier

 

The math figures your own damage (100%) in it!

 

 

 The age old confusion between an increase and a multiplier.

 

Focus and Restraint provide a 125% increase in damage, so it's 125% on top of the 100% you already do (as Deadset said) for a total damage of 225%.

 

A multiplier is a number that gives you your total damage.  So if your damage was 500...

 

500 + 125% = 500 + 625 = 1125 total damage

500 * 2.25 = 1125 total damage

[Guest huldu]

How come the build doesn't use Sage's Journey, didn't it use to do that in s4? I mean, sure you're damage will most likely be higher using a complete set but this is s5 after all and even with pretty standard gear you're breezing through t10. Unless there is something that I'm unaware about, like a nerf to the Sage's Journey set?

[Warden 8]

Just tried this out a couple days ago.  It's a lot of fun!  Still a little fragile and underpowered for T10--T9 is the sweet spot--but with a bit of gear tweaking it will get there.  Problem at T10 is twofold: First, I don't do quite enough damage to reliably one-shot the trash mobs, which keeps the chicken from resetting fast enough and lets the armor from Goldwrap drop off.  Second, I get one-shotted too often by elites.

 

But the speed makes it totally worth it.  Being able to run indefinitely at almost 3 times base speed is amazing, especially for bounties and keywardens. :D

[Guest Jon]

I just started using this build, and I wanted to only go with Torment 9 just in case. I quickly found out that it's not very sturdy at all, and the damage simply is not there I was so hyped up to try this build, too! I guess it's back to my Helltooth pet speedrunning build. 

[Warden 8]

I just started using this build, and I wanted to only go with Torment 9 just in case. I quickly found out that it's not very sturdy at all, and the damage simply is not there I was so hyped up to try this build, too! I guess it's back to my Helltooth pet speedrunning build. 

 

I changed it up a bit.  I was not getting any use out of Focus and Restraint because I would normally be in chicken form already as I approached a group of mobs.  Unable to toss a Corpse Spider until *after* I exploded the chicken meant the only time I could use F&R was if I did not one-shot the mobs--and my whole point was to one-shot the mobs.  Maybe there's a better way of playing it, but I wasn't getting it to work.

 

So I went with Convention of the Elements and Unity.  I one-shot the weaker trash mobs no matter which element is boosted by CotE, but for the tougher ones I try to time my explosion with the Poison boost.  Works pretty well.

 

F&R was more useful against tougher elites and Rift Guardians, where there's time to work in the Corpse Spiders.  Here's what I do instead: The rotation of CotE puts Fire and Poison opposite of each other, so there's always an unused element between them.  Change Firebats to a rune that does Fire damage, then hit with Firebats during the Fire cycle.  As soon as the Fire cycle is over, change into chicken form, run grab a health globe if needed, then back in to explode during the Poison cycle.  You now have about 5 seconds to get back to channeling Firebats.  If you've chosen the Cloud of Bats rune, which takes 3 seconds to reach maximum damage, you can start channeling before the Fire rotation hits, so you can be at max damage for the full 5 seconds.  Though you may run out of mana. :D

 

By alternating like this, I find the elites and guardians go down pretty fast.  Plus, I can do good damage while Angry Chicken recharges, and then let my mana recharge while I'm in chicken form.  All while wearing Unity for toughness.

 

I also swapped out one of my legendary gems for Esoteric Alteration for more toughness.  But I can't remember if it was Bane of the Powerful or Bane of the Trapped that I replaced.

 

One last thing, I went with Coils of the First Spider for the toughness and healing during Firebats.

 

As I get better gear, I will try changing some of these things back until I find the right balance between damage and toughness.  I still have hopes of speedfarming T10 effectively.

 

Fun fact: While wearing Goldwrap, I killed a Gilded Baron and picked up 43.9 million gold all at once.  I quickly hit "I" and got a screenshot of my toughness--it was 134,009,913,344.  Yeah, 134 billion.    Too bad it only lasts five seconds...

[Guest Xotli]

Get a Helltooth set with ring of royal grandeur, add tasker and teo instead of the gloves,use manajuma set as weapons, replace dogs with angry chicken. Travel with angry chicken pop elites with gargantuan frost cleave in 2 second travel further with angry chicken... thats how to speedfarm in 2.4. Rings short man's finger, elements. Cube furnace, mask of jeram.

[Warden 8]

Tip: When using Goldwrap, if you have access to a pet that picks up gold for you (like those from a Season reward), make sure to use it.  I started using mine a couple days ago.  It feeds a steadier stream of gold so the toughness bonus is more consistent.  Plus it's great when jailed or walled, unable to pick up gold myself.  I haven't since died from a molten explosion, even if frozen in the middle of 4 of them.

 

And besides...they look comical running fast enough to keep up with the chicken.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Warden

[Guest Danny]

after using this build for about a month, I can solo GR 54 and up to 56 if I change a few things to survive more. I am not a veteran player as this is my first diablo game and only playing for the last 2 months.  I have all ancient gear except my bracers with two augmented with higher intellect  one with +190 and the other with +290.  my base damage is over 1 million. I use slam dance over soul harvest. I also play on PS4 so I don't know if that has any significant changes.  I am looking for ways to take this build to GR 60 but I think I have hit my max as my damage is not enough and my life is so small.  

 

    

[Guest Khatasa]

Get a Helltooth set with ring of royal grandeur, add tasker and teo instead of the gloves,use manajuma set as weapons, replace dogs with angry chicken. Travel with angry chicken pop elites with gargantuan frost cleave in 2 second travel further with angry chicken... thats how to speedfarm in 2.4. Rings short man's finger, elements. Cube furnace, mask of jeram.

 

yea... i also use this one... just use regular set of hell garg... and change the weapon to majuma set..., instead i replace soul harvester with angry chicken... no need to change anything... simple.. change from high gr set to speedfarm set in second..

[Warden 8]

after using this build for about a month, I can solo GR 54 and up to 56 if I change a few things to survive more. I am not a veteran player as this is my first diablo game and only playing for the last 2 months.  I have all ancient gear except my bracers with two augmented with higher intellect  one with +190 and the other with +290.  my base damage is over 1 million. I use slam dance over soul harvest. I also play on PS4 so I don't know if that has any significant changes.  I am looking for ways to take this build to GR 60 but I think I have hit my max as my damage is not enough and my life is so small.  

This build is not really designed for GRs, but rather for speedfarming regular rifts at Torment 10.  If you do GRs with it, at the very least change out the Goldwrap belt and the Avarice Band ring (in the cube) as they only work when you pick up gold, and there's no gold in a GR.  The other builds that you find under "END-GAME" will go much higher in the GRs though.

[Guest Nova]

This build is not remotely powerful enough for T10 unless the average person is expected to have fully ancient gear or something. If that is the case then fair enough but for the normal people among us this build is basically for t8 or t9 if you're really careful as it's SO DAMN FRAGILE. I love the build and the idea but advertising it as t10 ready is just kind of misleading in my opinion.

[Guest Guest]

Came here to see if anyone had a fix for taking forever to kill bosses.

 

Saw all the comments about fragility and not being t10 ready.

 

Will be using a different build.

[Dallium 2]

 This build is not remotely powerful enough for T10 unless the average person is expected to have fully ancient gear or something...

 

Umm, yeah, that's kind of the idea. These aren't beginner builds. Every speed running build on this site (and mostly throughout the web) was built under the assumption that you're modifying an extant end game set to grind TX faster. These builds don't really work without at least a handful of ancients that have, if not perfect rolls, then all the recommended stats. Most of them have mandatory CDR breakpoints, and the builds just don't click until you hit them.

 

Now granted, this is never outright stated on the guides themselves, and it probably should be, but it's generally somewhere in the comments, in response to a "this build is terrible i die all the time wtf" comment.

[Deadset 108]

The t10 guides do assume best case scenario for gear (correct rolls on good items), but I do maintain they require nothing extravagant (top tier Paragons, high tier augments and the like). I am quite puzzled anyone is struggling with this Arachyr setup, I'll make a point to do a video demonstration of an average run. Perhaps it's an issue of not rotating the skills well.

[Warden 8]

The t10 guides do assume best case scenario for gear (correct rolls on good items), but I do maintain they require nothing extravagant (top tier Paragons, high tier augments and the like). I am quite puzzled anyone is struggling with this Arachyr setup, I'll make a point to do a video demonstration of an average run. Perhaps it's an issue of not rotating the skills well.

I'm particularly interested in how you effectively use Focus and Restraint when you can't cast anything in chicken form (thus your chicken explosion seldom benefits from the buff.)  I use this build for speedfarming T10 now and it's very effective, but I modified it a bit including Unity/CotE instead of F/R.  I also have mostly ancient items and quite a few augments, and I still can't do T10 rifts in less than about 4 minutes, sometimes 3.5.

[Deadset 108]

The initial burst of Angry Chicken is unlikely to benefit from F&R directly, that much is true - I found the set, skill damage and elemental bonuses sufficient to burst most enemies down. F&R came into play with a quick Corpse Spiders - Firebats combo whenever I was out of Chicken form. If you were to augment the explosion directly, you can definitely make a case for a Poison SoJ / Unity combo, considering how hard it is to time and benefit from CoE in Torments.

[Guest Unholychaos]

On paper, the build seems like it would work amazingly in the proper hands. I have the set built with decent stat rolls, but 0 ancients. Also, I have a habit of spamming hex so I screw up the rotation, and it takes time to get used to the breakneck speed as well.

Just be patient and give it a few tries.

[Guest Diplomat]

The t10 guides do assume best case scenario for gear (correct rolls on good items), but I do maintain they require nothing extravagant (top tier Paragons, high tier augments and the like). I am quite puzzled anyone is struggling with this Arachyr setup, I'll make a point to do a video demonstration of an average run. Perhaps it's an issue of not rotating the skills well.

I'm particularly interested in how you effectively use Focus and Restraint when you can't cast anything in chicken form (thus your chicken explosion seldom benefits from the buff.)  I use this build for speedfarming T10 now and it's very effective, but I modified it a bit including Unity/CotE instead of F/R.  I also have mostly ancient items and quite a few augments, and I still can't do T10 rifts in less than about 4 minutes, sometimes 3.5.

  I used this build without almost none ancient and found that focus and found F&R can really shine when you run into elites, do quick 2 casts of spider and bats, and then quickly reaply chicken explosion. This generally helps in situation when i cant oneshot enemies, also I tried to make it work without avarice band cubed(dropped at maybe 20th try on bounties) but it turns out its core item.

[Warden 8]

I used this build without almost none ancient and found that focus and found F&R can really shine when you run into elites, do quick 2 casts of spider and bats, and then quickly reaply chicken explosion. This generally helps in situation when i cant oneshot enemies, also I tried to make it work without avarice band cubed(dropped at maybe 20th try on bounties) but it turns out its core item.

I will probably go back and try F&R again, when I get done messing around with my new seasonal monk.  As for Avarice Band, I agree--it plus the Goldwrap belt is what makes you invulnerable, and without it, you're fragile.  But did you read my post about gold-gathering pets?  Any of the cosmetic pets now gather gold, and with Goldwrap belt, that's a real advantage.  With a pet, I bet you could get by without Avarice, and even with it, I always use a pet because they can gather gold and boost your armor even when you are frozen or jailed or feared, etc.  With Avarice + pet + Goldwrap I just quit paying attention to any damage sources--including molten corpse explosions--and I practically never die.  I rarely drop below 90% health.

[Guest Blitze]

Is there a Playstyle/Guide Video for this specific build out there? did anyone even tried to use locus swarm with specific runes for easier farming?

[Guest EndarKeN]

In regards to the speedrun variation of the build, equipping avarice band instead of stone of jordan and cubing ring of royal grandeur to wear swamp land waders would allow you to have both crit stats on the ring while providing the same amount of elemental (poison) damage.

You could also potentially replace locust swarm with sacrifice, as you'd only be giving up pestilence, but wormwood alone could reasonably spread it quickly enough. Despite the fact that you won't have a homunculus, grave injustice with angry chicken could reset the cooldown in a reasonable amouhnt of time, but if not, then you could pick the next of kin rune instead of provoke the pack.

[DutchRide 3]

So is the staff SUPPOSED to have +Dex on it, or is that incorrect? Like a got one with pretty good rolls and I'm wondering if I should be rerolling the +Int to +Dex - thanks