Back in Season 22 Manajuma's Way was buffed to launch mini-Chickens that blow up for 25% damage as well as the set receiving a 1,600% damage buff! Spirit of Arachyr was also buffed from 9,000% to a tremendous 25,000%!
In Season 29 the build finally became more than a meme, being heavily buffed with changes to Manajuma's Way Set and a rework of Cluckeye. The build skyrocketed to one of the best Witch Doctor builds out there!
In farming content, High Cooldown Reduction combined with Captain Crimson's Trimmings and Grave Injustice allows you to fly from Elite to Elite in an instant while switching into your Angry Chicken form whenever you need to. Once stacked up it's so fast that it can be almost hard to control and who doesn't see the fun in that!
Unfortunately, Season 30 crushed the potential of the build, cutting by more than half the (6) Bonus damage multiplier.
This build is an Area Damage (AD) build, since Hex Angry Chicken and all the chickens spawned by Cluckeye can proc it. This build develops a completely unique playstyle where you need to manage your timings very carefully to wreak havoc on your opponents. This guide goes over everything you need to know about how to manage your own Chicken army!
High Mobility ✔ One-of-a-Kind Playstyle ✔ Good Damage Reduction ✔ You're Literally a Chicken ✔
❌ Sensitive to Fishing ❌ Limited Gearing Choices ❌ Chickens do not stack Stricken ❌ Requires Enforcer for Pet Survivability
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
Spirit of Arachyr (4) Bonus and (6) Bonus are what you're interested in as they give 75% damage reduction from the Web and a 11,500% damage multiplier for your Hex Angry Chicken.
Guardian's Jeopardy gives a massive Damage boost from main stat.
Manajuma's Way is the heart of the build and it gives Hex Angry Chicken 2000% increased Damage, a 15 second duration, 100% increased Movement Speed, chain reaction explosions from your detonation and spawns mini-Chickens.
Cluckeye is a massive damage multiplier for the build.
Lakumba's Ornament is used for its massive damage reduction buff.
Ring of Royal Grandeur is required to utilize both Spirit of Arachyr and Guardian's Jeopardy.
Season 33 Shades of the Nephalem
For the duration of Season 33, you gain one extra slot in Kanai’s Cube that allows to choose any Legendary Powers for a total of 4 slots. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, now you can add a second of one of these categories! Some builds enjoy major damage buffs while others are able to run completely different setups, for example through otherwise impossible combinations of weapon effects.
In addition, whenever you press a shrine or pylon, you spawn a Shadow Nephalem of your class to assist you for 1 minute. These use various abilities and provide helpful extra damage in the early game and for lower tier Greater Rifts. Learn more in our Season 22 overview.
In this build, most setups gain a free The Furnace to deal more damage to Elites and Rift Guardians.
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Critical Hit Chance & Damage > Poison Damage > Area Damage. For speedfarming, Cooldown Reduction takes the place of AD instead. Attack Speed and Resource Cost Reduction aren't important on this build so you can focus on Intelligence and Vitality more. You unfortunately don't have any Crowd Control immunity on a Witch Doctor so try to roll at least 1-2 Crowd Control Reduction Secondary Stats on your Helm or Jewelry.
Assembling the build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full Spirit of Arachyr set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If your last missing set piece is a weapon, ring or amulet - don't gamble for them! Instead gamble for a cheap and easy item, like the Shoulders, and once again covert it with Recipe 4. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Rings to get Ring of Emptiness and Convention of Elements
Amulets to get Squirt's Necklace
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Act 2: Gloves of Worship
Act 3: Avarice Band
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Guardian's Jeopardy, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny
6. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Armor 4. Life % 5. All Resistance
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
For breaking walls if you get trapped!
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is the most powerful DPS gem in the game and provides a 1.6x Damage multiplier.
Bane of the Stricken helps us kill the Rift Guardian. As long as you don't need more than 2 minutes to kill it you can equip Bane of the Trapped instead.
Enforcer is strictly used for its secondary effect to make Fetishes survive long enough to get the damage buff from Cluckeye.
Boon of the Hoarder gives you 30% Movement Speed for 2 seconds after picking up gold as well as making enemies have a chance to drop gold on death.
Bane of the Powerful is a good option for speed Greater Rift runs as it provides a consistent, long lasting Damage and Damage Reduction buff without requiring you to slow down or position yourself to get the buff.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard gives a giant Life per Second boost and is used to give a shield based off your Life per Second which protects our Squirt's Necklace. This gives double Damage, some additional Toughness & insane Healing.
Skills
Hex Angry Chicken is your main source of damage. Step 1 - Turn into a Chicken. Step 2 - Boom. The range of this explosion is unfortunately small so get nice and close to what you want to blast.
Locust Swarm is mandatory in order to proc our Ring of Emptiness massive damage multiplier.
Spirit Barrage Manitou is used to help proc Fetishes from Fetish Sycophants as well as stacking Bane of the Stricken on the Rift Guardian since Chickens do not stack it.
Soul Harvest Languish for massive damage and damage reduction buffs with Lakumba's Ornament.
Piranhas Piranhado gives you a way to "pixel" enemies together if your first Chicken blast doesn't kill the pack you dove into. A more advanced option is Wall of Death Wall of Zombies to move large packs of enemies around at once.
Spirit Walk Jaunt or Severance for mobility and survival purposes.
Soul Harvest Languish adds extra damage and tons of damage reduction together with Lakumba's Ornament.
Horrify Stalker is used in Nephalem Rifts with Rechel's Ring of Larceny for another 60% Movement Speed Bonus.
Passives
Fetish Sycophants is used to spawn Fetishes in order to get damage buffs from Cluckeye.
Pierce the Veil is a 20% additive damage buff at the expense of increased Mana costs which has no effect for Hex.
Confidence Ritual is a staple for its 25% separate damage multiplier.
Spirit Vessel as a cheat death mechanic because dying always sucks, right?
Grave Injustice is an amazing Passive in speed content that restores 1% of your Life and Mana as well as reducing all skills Cooldowns by 1 second every time an enemy dies within 20 yards. This bonus is also impacted by your Pickup Radius, increasing the range of the effect.
Gruesome Feast can be utilized for a consistent Damage boost as you'll pick up a lot of Health Globes due to the massive Pick up Radius boost from Avarice Band.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Critical Hit Damage
1. Armor
1. Area Damage
2. Intelligence
2. Critical Hit Chance
2. Life %
2. Pickup Radius
3. Vitality
3. Cooldown Reduction
3. All Resistance
3. Life Per Hit
4. Maximum Mana
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Per Second
4. Resource Cost Reduction
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
With these in mind, let’s get into our recommendations for this build.
T16 Enchantress
T16 Enchantress
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:
Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
Speed GR Enchantress
For speed Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is speed content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:
Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Hellfire Ring, Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
Gameplay
When you enter a Greater Rift, start off by using Spirit Walk to run towards enemies and use Soul Harvest. Never let it drop!
Start to gather several screens of monsters with Locust Swarm and Spirit Barrage which will also proc Fetishes that turn into Chicken.
Wait for Poison cycle on Convention of Elements to release the explosion.
Keep in mind that your explosions trigger a chain reaction when enemies die, so making sure there is a decent amount of trash around an Elite before detonating is crucial to killing them in one shot.
After detonating on a pack, one of two things will be the result; either everything around you will be dead or you'll have some Trash / Elite still alive.
If everything around is dead and there are no enemies to get buffs from, you can use Spirit Walk to quickly find some enemies to cast Soul Harvest on before going back into Angry Chicken and finding the next Elite pack. If it's going to cost you several seconds to slowly walk to find an enemy in a Sewer, Cave or other terrible map, just cast Spirit Walk before Angry Chicken and get to the next pack ASAP.
If post detonation there are many enemies alive, cast Piranhado to gather everything around any Elites that you didn't kill, especially on to an Oculus Ring circle as there should be one from the previous carnage. Recast your buffs then blast them away with another explosion! The explosion from Angry Chicken has a surprisingly small area of effect so make sure you're getting very close to Elites before detonating.
You'll notice against high HP Elites or Rift Guardians that your damage falls off significantly, due to the lack of chain reactions and Area Damage. We have our mini-Chickens but they do little damage so don't count on them helping out here either. Evade attacks as much as possible while waiting for the CoE cycle to gain the maximum benefit of Squirt's Necklace and be prepared for Rift Guardians to require a few explosions to take down.
None of your abilities besides Spirit Barrage Manitou stacks Bane of the Stricken very well, so make sure to cast it once every cycle and keep the boss in range as you fly around it.
Keep your buffs up and keep moving!
Hardcore
Always make sure to use Spiritual Vessel and you can swap your last Legendary Gem for Esoteric Alteration.
Concept The goal of this build is to be one of the fastest ones around to farm Bounties and Greater Rift Keys. You take advantage of this builds feast and famine playstyle by hunting down Elites and large groups of enemies as an Angry Chicken then blowing them to pieces in an instant once you arrive. With a focus on Cooldown Reduction and Movement Speed you're able to get right back into Angry Chicken form and get to the next pack in an instant.
Gameplay Similar to the main variant, but more laid back. Keep your Soul Harvest stacks up. Use Horrify and Spirit Walk to get insane Movement Speed buffs and sprint from Elite to Elite as an Angry Chicken. Cast Piranhado to gather everything up around any Elites that you don't kill in the first blast, then rinse and repeat!
Setups In groups, repalce St. Archew's Gage with Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra Elites.
Arachyr Angry Chicken Solo Speeds
Concept You can utilize this build quite well in solo Greater rifts. This really is an insanely fast build so this can be useful to upgrade very low Legendary Gems until you reach your ceiling.
Gameplay Playing in speed Greater Rifts should feel exactly like your T16 play with the exception that now you don't have to pick up any items or materials from the ground so you can focus on moving forward at all times! You'll be a bit stronger with this build and can time your Angry Chicken Explosions with your Poison cycle on the Convention of Elements for a 200% damage buff. For extra damage, also apply Locust Swarm for Ring of Emptiness when possible. When played right you can really blast Elites with this and clear GRs in around 90-120 seconds consistently.
Setups For better survivability, use Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard instead of Enforcer or Bane of the Powerful.
Arachyr Angry Chicken Solo Push
Concept Spirit of Arachyr uses the amazing pull from Piranhas Piranhado and combines it with Hex Angry Chicken for massive damage explosions.
Gameplay Keep up your Soul Harvest and use Spirit Walk to skip bad map layouts, dodge attacks and projectiles. DoT up enemies with your Locust Swarm to ensure the damage buff from Ring of Emptiness is active. Cast Piranhas Piranhado to group up enemies. For a step-by-step gameplay description on how you should sequence your skills, check out the "Gameplay" section above.
Setups You can swap Piranhas Piranhado for Wall of Death Wall of Zombies to push monsters forward and pack them if you prefer.
For extra damage, you can replace Spirit Walk with Haunt Poisoned Haunt but beware: In large pulls you need to aim precisely on Elites and other valuable targets to get a benefit out of it because you want to spend most of the time in Chicken form.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Goldwrap - Avarice Band - Boon of the Hoarder
A simple concept that's worth mentioning, this combination of items is a core part of many T16 builds.
Boon of the Hoarder makes enemies drop gold, Avarice Band increases your Pickup Radius when you pick up Gold and Goldwrap gives an insane Armor boost based off the amount of Gold you've picked up. The Pickup Radius bonus caps out at 30 yards but this otherwise scales continuously if you keep a consistent flow of Gold coming in.
Manajuma's Way
This set allows your Hex Angry Chicken to last for 15 seconds, meaning you have that long before it will automatically explode if you don't manually activate it.
A great thing about this is that your Hex Angry Chicken Cooldown actually starts the moment you become a Chicken and not when you explode.
This can be used to your advantage in that you can let the Cooldown finish while still running around as a chicken then explode, recast Angry Chicken and explode once more in an instant once you find an Elite.
Gruesome Feast
Each stack, received upon picking up a Health Globe, has its own duration.
You need 5 globes every 15 seconds or one Health Globe every three seconds to keep it at full power.
The Intelligence bonus stacks additively with Soul Harvest's bonus.
Summary
Cast Soul Harvest Languish at the start of every Rift or Bounty for the Damage Reduction bonus and keep it up.
Use Spirit Barrageand Locust Swarm to aggro monsters and spawn Fetish Sycophants.
Use Spirit Walk between your Angry Chicken Explosions and make sure that you are maintaining your Soul Harvest stacks as these provide Damage and Movement Speed.
Sprint from Elite to Elite as an Angry Chicken and cast Piranhado to gather everything up around any Elites that you don't kill in one blast.
Rinse and repeat!
Credits
Written by Facefoot & Chewingnom. Contributions by wudijo.
