Legendary Items

• Spirit of Arachyr (5 pieces, Shoulders, Helmet, Chest, Hands and Boots)
  • 2 piece bonus – Corpse Spiders now spawns with health and attacks twice as fast.
  • 4 piece bonus – Summon a permanent Spider Queen who leaves behind webs that lasts for 15 seconds and Slows enemies. You take 75% reduced damage while in the web. The Spider Queen is commanded to move to where you cast your Corpse Spiders.
  • 6 piece bonus – The damage of your creature skills is increased by 17,500%. Creature skills are Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, Firebats, Locust Swarm, Hex, and Piranhas. This aspect of Spirit of Arachyr has not changed.
• Depth Diggers (Pants) – Primary skills that generate resource deal 87% additional damage. [80 – 100]%. We are boosting our generator damage from Corpse Spiders so this is a must have item.
• Spider Queen’s Grasp​ (Weapon) – Corpse Spiders deals an additional 600-800% damage and releases a web on impact that Slows enemies by 80%. This is another major change that will boost your Corpse Spiders damage (currently it’s only a 45-60% boost). Also, they will be issuing out webs in addition to the Spider Queen’s from the 4 piece bonus. However, I don’t think you gain the benefit of damage reduction from your normal Corpse Spiders’ webs.
• Brood of Araneae (Mojo?) – Corpse Spiders deals an additional 75-100% damage, and each spider bite causes the target to take an additional 1% damage from Corpse Spiders for 5 seconds. I talked with some people about what this item could be. At the moment, I’m guessing it sounds as though this item will be a mojo (rather than a belt as I had guessed). It also could be a weapon but a new Mojo would be nice and allow you to choose a different weapon for the Cube or main hand. Otherwise, I think most people would use the Vile Hive, which has less synergy with this build.
• The Witching Hour (Belt) – I’m picking this belt because of the increase in attack speed, which should aid your Corpse Spider attacks. Belt of Transcendence would be an alternate belt but Fetishes don’t synergize as well with Spirit of Arachyr.
• Lakumba’s Ornament – Reduce all damage taken by 60% if your Soul Harvest stack is at least (1-3), and an additional 2% for each stack of Soul Harvest. The change here is massive and will allow you to use Soul Harvest against only one enemy without being forced into using Sacred Harvester for maximizing your stacks of Soul Harvest. You probably still want to get at least 5 stacks of Soul Harvest but you won’t be as gimped in terms of raw damage reduction and everything else is just butter.
• The Endless Walk (Ring/Amulet) – You will be moving around a lot while tossing out Corpse Spiders so this is the perfect set jewelry for this build.
• Ring of Emptiness (Ring) – You deal 279% increased damage to enemies affected by either your Haunt or Locust Swarm. (Witch Doctor Only) [250 – 300]%. This will probably be a must have and you’ll probably be using Locust Swarm with Pestilence to spread this effect.
• Ring of Royal Grandeur (Ring/Cube) – This will allow you to use Depth Diggers
• Mask of Jeram (Voodoo Mask/Cube) – Pets deal 157% increased damage. (Witch Doctor Only) [150 – 200]%. I think with Corpse Spiders gaining a health bar, they should be classified as Pets. So this is just another damage boost.
• Tasker and Theo (Gloves/Cube) – Increase attack speed of your pets by 45%. [40 – 50]%. This is an alternative to Mask of Jeram. I’m not positive which will be better at the moment but with Corpse Spiders staying alive, this option might be better. This is something I need to experiment with.
• Echoing Fury (Weapon/Cube) – Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. I put this here because I think boosting your attack speed will be key with Corpse Spiders and being able to clear areas quickly.
• The Furnace (Weapon/Cube) – Increases damage against elites by 40%. [40 – 50]%. This will probably be the choice for GR pushing.
• Wormwood (Weapon/Cube) – Locust Swarm continuously plagues enemies around you. (Witch Doctor Only). I put this as a quality of life item so that you won’t to actively cast Locust Swarm and pretty much guarantees that your damage boost from the Ring of Emptiness will be 100%. But it does mean you’ll need to be in range of your enemies.

Legendary Gems

• Bane of the Trapped – Pretty much your 4 piece bonus and the Spider Queen’s Grasp will guarantee that everything will be hit by some form of a slow. So you’ll gain bonus damage here.
• Enforcer – This is speculation but with Corpse Spiders gaining a health bar, it pretty much should imply that Enforcer will give them not just a boost for pet damage, but keep them alive with 90% damage reduction. I would definitely get this gem to at least level 25 for the secondary effect. Not sure if this also means that your Corpse Spiders will stay alive the entire time nor if there will be a cap on the number of Corpse Spiders. But it should be interesting to see what happens when these two combos occur (server crash from too many?)
• Simplicity’s Strength – This will have a nice double effect of not just boosting your Corpse Spiders’ damage but healing you at the same time.
• Bane of the Stricken – I’m only putting this here because we have yet to see how Enforcer influences this set. However, I think that the single target damage won’t be great here so we might keep this as an alternate option to Bane of the Trapped or Enforcer depending on how things work out.

Active Skills

• Corpse Spiders: Widowmakers – Throw a jar with widowmaker spiders deal a total of 700% weapon damage as Physical. The bread and butter of your damage. From what I can tell, this is the best damaging ability for Corpse Spiders.
• Locust Swarm: Pestilence – Locust Swarm has a 100% chance to jump to two additional enemies instead of one. You will want this to buff your Corpse Spiders’ damage in conjunction with the Ring of Emptiness. If you run a Wormwood, you can just put it on a slot like 3 on the action bar and rune it. But you won’t have to cast it. You just need to get in range, which might be a problem.
• Spirit Walk: Jaunt — Your movement ability.
• Soul Harvest: Languish – You won’t need 10 stacks like before just one will be good enough with the rest being gravy.
• Piranhas: Piranhado – Besides helping to boost up your damage alongside Locust Swarm, this ability will be good for gathering up large groups of enemies so your Corpse Spiders can whittle them down quickly.
• Hex: Jinx – Hex no longer really is great with this build since Arachyr’s does not provide the Toad of Hugeness rune. Nonetheless, you still gain some increased damage through this rune.
• Summon Zombie Dogs: Leeching Beasts – I’m putting this here as a passive healing ability since Hex won’t provide that aspect anymore. You can exchange Hex for this. Also, since we’re using Enforcer, your Zombie Dogs should stay alive for the most part and help clean up some monsters. But they do not benefit from the set.

Passive Skills

• Grave Injustice – Used for the cooldown for Spirit Walk and Piranhas.
• Pierce the Veil – Since you’re using Corpse Spiders for the bulk of your damage, you won’t need mana as much. This will give you a fair damage boost.
• Confidence Ritual – More damage but you need to be in close range. Assuming that your Spider Queen is dumping her webs near enemies, these two abilities go together quite well.
• Spirit Vessel – Cheat death, although we can get another from our Follower.
• Jungle Fortitude – Damage reduction. You can replace Spirit Vessel for this.
• Fierce Loyalty – Mostly used for the bonus to movement speed. This build doesn’t seem fast compared to others so this could be used as an alternative to Spirit Vessel, especially with Adventure Mode and if you choose to use Zombie Dogs.

Followers

I would go with the Templar here just for the life regeneration/healing and the cheat death. You could also go for a Scoundrel for increasing your damage and the cheat death. I don’t think the Enchantress would be that great. You could use a Hand of the Prophet to gain all of her abilities (especially the highly valuable attack speed and cheat death) but you would need to find ways to boost her survivability in higher Greater Rifts.

Final Thoughts

One thing about this build is that it’s similar in some way to Zunimassa’s. You’re very pet focused with the Spider Queen and Corpse Spiders being spawned with a limited range. It’s to be seen how the area effect of this build is especially with your Corpse Spiders last longer. The difference though is that your defense ought to be better than Zunimassa’s just because of the change to Lakumba’s as well as the Spider Queen’s web.

However, in looking at the changes to the Spirit of Arachyr set, I do think Firebats is pretty much a dead build. Also, I’m not sure if the Chicken Bomber build will be a thing since Hex no longer is the ability to act as a defensive mechanism. In both cases, you’ll be forced to use Corpse Spiders to build up additional defense initially, which might be awkward given the button mashing intensive play of both. I’ll have to revisit Firebats at least because I feel that Wormwood would become a de facto standard in that build to help eliminate some of that button mashing.

The post Diablo 3: Patch 2.7.2 PTR Witch Doctor Spirit of Arachyr Corpse Spider Build appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Legendary Items

• Spirit of Arachyr set –
  • (2) – Summon a permanent Spider Queen who leaves behind webs that deal 4000% weapon damage over 5 seconds and Slows enemies. The Spider Queen is commanded to move to where you cast your Corpse Spiders. Most likely, when you get your first two pieces, you will be using Corpse Spiders. However, eventually, you will be moving over to Firebats for far better damage.
  • (4) – Hex gains the effect of the Toad of Hugeness rune. After summoning a Toad of Hugeness, you gain 50% damage reduction and heal for 10% of your maximum Life per second for 15 seconds. – You will be running two runes with the 4 set bonus. So you will want to ensure that your Hex is kept up at all times for the damage reduction and healing.
  • (6) – The damage of your creature skills is increased by 17,500%. Creature skills are Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, Firebats, Locust Swarm, Hex, and Piranhas. – Your main damaging skill will be Firebats but until you get a Staff of Chiroptera (or an Ethereal with the same power), you may want to try something else or perhaps use Corpse Spiders for the synergy with the Spider Queen bonus initially.
• Bakuli Jungle Wraps (belt) – Firebats deals 257% increased damage to enemies affected by Locust Swarm or Piranhas. (Witch Doctor Only) [250 – 300]% – This should either be equipped or cubed. But once you get one of these, you will want to group up enemies with Piranhas and apply Locust Swarm for maximum damage.
• Staff of Chiroptera (staff/cube) – Firebats attacks 100% faster, costs 75% less Mana, and has its damage increased by 145%. (Witch Doctor Only) [125 – 150]% – This is my first pick for an item to craft from Death Breaths and possibly the first item you will want to cube. It is also what I consider the #1 choice for an Ethereal property if you manage to discover one.
• Mantle of Channeling (shoulders/cube) – While channeling Siphon Blood, Whirlwind, Rapid Fire, Strafe, Tempest Rush, Firebats, Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate, or Ray of Frost, you deal 24% increased damage and take 25% reduced damage. [20 – 25]% – Because you will be channeling your Firebats, you will want one of these in the cube for additional damage and damage reduction.
• Ring of Emptiness (ring/cube) – You deal 279% increased damage to enemies affected by either your Haunt or Locust Swarm. (Witch Doctor Only) [250 – 300]% – Another high priority item that has huge value from being useful in a variety of builds. You can wear one if you discover it or cube it. But you will want to use this in conjunction with Locust Swarm to help buff your damage for Firebats.
• Sacred Harvester (main hand) – Soul Harvest now stacks up to 10 times. (Witch Doctor Only) – This will be a more valuable item in higher greater rifts. Also, it synergizes with Lakumba’s Ornament in providing general high damage reduction. I will discuss this other option in a separate section of the build guide.
• Vile Hive (off hand/mojo) – Locust Swarm gains the effect of the Pestilence rune and deals 47% increased damage. (Witch Doctor Only) [45 – 60]% – There really isn’t any good offhand options for Arachyr’s so this is one of the better choices since will be using Locust Swarm. In getting the Pestilence rune, you will be getting another rune choice.
• Coils of the First Spider (bracers) – While channeling Firebats, you gain 30% damage reduction and 71,752 Life per Hit. (Witch Doctor Only) [60,000 – 80,000] – This is one of the two bracer choices. It might be easier to use than Lakumba’s Ornament since you won’t have to worry about stacks falling off. But you will get less overall damage reduction.
• Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac (ring/cube) – Reduce the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you hit with a resource-spending attack. – I chose this ring because you will want to keep Hex on cooldown as much as possible. Also, Piranhas, Soul Harvest and Jaunt will be up more often as a result.
• Endless Walk (amulet/ring set) – Since you are channeling your damage by standing still periodically, the Endless Walk set makes for a good way to reduce damage as you are rushing through foes.
  • • While moving, damage taken is reduced by up to 50%.
    • While standing still, damage dealt is increased by up to 100%.
  • The Compass Rose (ring)
  • The Traveler’s Pledge (amulet)

There are some other high end builds that differ slightly in gear choices. So I will post a few extra items that can be taken into consideration here, especially with the Ethereal changing the legendary power game around slightly.

• Captain’s Crimson Trimmings – Used for additional cooldown and resource reduction as well as generic damage reduction and increase from cooldown and resource reduction.
  • Captain Crimson’s Silk Girl (belt) – You use the cubed version of Bakuli Jungle Wraps
  • Captain Crimson’s Thrust (legs)
• Ring of Royal Grandeur – This is used if you end up going with the Captain’s Crimson Trimmings two piece. If you choose this, you’ll probably end up dropping the Ring of Obsidian Zodiac because you’ll want to keep the Ring of Emptiness. However, you will want to have as much c0oldown on your gear as possible.
• Lakumba’s Ornament – This is a popular option to use with the Sacred Harvester for the massive damage reduction. The difference is the damage reduction that requires more maintenance through re-applying Soul Harvest to keep up 10 stacks. I imagine high GR pushing requires this.

With regards to Ethereals, I have a few additional thoughts about the best choices. The main Ethereal I think will go well with this build is The Gidbinn as you gain more movement speed as you pick up health globes. I value this quite a bit because I find this build to be slow and more melee oriented, so the health globes will help greatly in farming.

For the legendary power of choice, I suggest the Staff of Chiroptera because it’s mandatory and a 2-handed item which means normally preventing you from using an offhand. So if you get an Ethereal with this power, you will have a little more flexibility in what you can use in your cube.

One interesting choice for the cube is a Wormwood to turn Locust Swarm into a passive effect that automatically applies the ability onto foes. The reason I like this idea is that it ensures with the Pestilence rune from the Vile Hive that you will be able to keep up Pestilence. Since you already will be channeling Firebats in melee range, it makes things much easier and saves you some mana as well.

Two other choices are The Furnace and Messerschmidt’s Reaver. Both weapons become an option as they are two-handers and normally would not be a possibility without sacrificing your offhand mojo. Here, you can use one or the other (similar to a Wormw0od). The Furnace would work well in high greater rift pushing situations while a Messerschmidt’s Reaver would be good for farming to keep your cooldowns up more often. However, you won’t be able to get the extra damage reduction bonuses from the Sacred Harvester and Lakumba’s Ornament so this really depends upon what you need.

Legendary Gems

• Bane of the Trapped – You will be in melee range most of the time so your enemies will be impaired for the damage bonus.
• Taeguk – As you are channeling your main ability, you will want this gem for the armor bonus.
• Bane of the Stricken – To improve your single target damage.
• Gogok of Swiftness – Farming gem for keeping your cooldowns up.

Active Skills

• Firebats: Cloud of Bats – Your primary damaging ability. Note that it uses Fire so you will want to make sure your bracers and possibly amulet also roll fire% damage.
• Locust Swarm: Cloud of Insects – Once you obtain a Vile Hive, you will swap to this rune for additional damage reduction. Otherwise, stick with Pestilence.
• Spirit Walk: Jaunt – Your main movement skill. Unless you swap to the chicken weapon set version of this build, you will be very slow, which is why I prefer using a Gogok and Obsidian Ring to further bring down your cooldown abilities.
• Piranhas: Piranhado – Use this as much as possible to group up enemies to burn them down with Firebats.
• Hex: Jinx – Increases damage against your enemies and provides a little CC. Don’t choose Toad of Hugeness though because it’s automatically provided upon using the 4 set bonus from Arachyr’s Spirit.
• Soul Harvest: Languish – Another damage reduction ability. Has a short range but can be tough to keep up if you aren’t on top of your cooldowns.

Passive Skills

• Grave Injustice – An absolute must have. Try to get this ability on an Ethereal. But this is the other major part in keeping your mana and cooldowns up.
• Creeping Death – For your Locust Swarm and Piranhas to last forever.
• Confidence Ritual – Since you will be using Firebats in melee range, this will help provide you with extra damage.
• Tribal Rites – Mostly to keep Hex going by improving its cooldown.
• Gruesome Feast – I chose this since you will be gaining a 5th Passive ability through your Ethereal. But if you manage to get The Gidbinn, this passive will synergize very well.

Followers

For the most part, I think either the Templar or Enchantress will be ideal here. The Templar will provide either regeneration or some CC while the Enchantress offers more cooldown reduction, some armor and a cheat death. I would lean more towards the Enchantress just because of the cooldown reduction.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been slowly trying to assemble the gear for this build. I’ve done it before and found it to be a decent starting build. It is a little slow for my taste and you will be pausing a lot in grouping things up to apply Pestilence, Firebats, etc. But the damage is pretty high. Also, it works very well with the Manajuma’s Way for speed runs if you need a faster version but you will need to change your Hex rune to Angry Chicken to get it to work. Because Manajuma’s Way got buffed, you can use that for higher difficulties but not upper tier but it might be good for cases like farming bounties or doing some Conquests that require speed.

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