
Introduction
I know why you're here and it's OK. You're angry and you need a release. What if I told you that the way to release your anger was by being a Chicken? By the end of this guide you will WANT to be the Angry Chicken, you will NEED to be the Angry Chicken and even though you know that you probably shouldn't, you ARE going to be the Angry Chicken!
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 1600% damage buff! Spirit of Arachyr was also buffed from 9000% to 17,500%, your little Chicken of Terror is going to be better than ever before!
This build heavily emphasizes Movement Speed utilizing Horrify Stalker, Spirit Walk Severance and Fierce Loyalty so that you can get through the easy conten as fast as possible. High Cooldown Reduction combined with Captain Crimson's Trimmings, In-geom, Tribal Rites and Grave Injustice will allow you to fly from Elite to Elite in an instant while coming in and out of Angry Chicken 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!
Now before you get too excited keep in mind that this build will be used to speed farm T16 content and very low Greater Rifts at best. If you want to climb the Ranks or push high Greater rifts in a group check out the Mundunugu's Spirit Barrage Guide. But just because this isn't the strongest build in the game doesn't mean it can't offer a fun and unique playstyle! Let's find out below how you can leave everyone in the dust!
One-of-a-Kind Playstyle ✔
You're Literally a Chicken ✔
Massive Toad = Massive Fun ✔
Gigantic Spider is Very Spooky ✔
❌ Feast or Famine
❌ Doesn't Lay Eggs
❌ Zero Ability to Push
❌ We All Love it Anyway
Core Setup
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 17,500% Damage buff for your Hex Angry Chicken.
- Captain Crimson's Trimmings gives a massive Damage boost since you are focused on Cooldown Reduction with this build. The Resource Cost Reduction benefits aren't utilized as much but you still get a slight Toughness buff here.
- 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 that do 25% damage.
- In-geom reduces all of your Cooldowns by 10 seconds after killing an Elite.
- Ring of Royal Grandeur is required to utilize both Spirit of Arachyr and Captain Crimson's Trimmings.
Season 28 Altar of Rites
Season 28 brings a brand new progression feature called the Altar of Rites 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 unbelievable Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops, 3 Potion Super Powers, and the juicy Wings of Terror. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic Season!
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!
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Critical Hit Chance & Damage > Poison Damage > Cooldown Reduction > Area Damage. Cooldown is very important as we want to go in and out of Angry Chicken form as often as possible for maximum explosions, fortunately there are several things at play already helping like Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Grave Injustice, Tribal Rites and In-geom. So for item stats we can focus on the Critical Hit Chance and Damage a bit more at first then top it off with more Cooldown or Area Damage when we find better items.
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.
3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:
- The full Spirit of Arachyr set
- Manajuma's Gory Fetch, Manajuma's Carving Knife
- Gold Wrap and Aquila Cuirass
- Warzechian Armguards & Nemesis Bracers
- In-geom
- Ring of Emptiness, Rechel's Ring of Larceny and Convention of Elements
4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:
- Ceremonial Knife to get Manajuma's Carving Knife
- 1-Handed Sword to get In-geom
- Rings to get Ring of Emptiness, Rechel's Ring of Larceny 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, 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:
- Ring of Emptiness
- Convention of Elements
- Squirt's Necklace
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT | ITEM | STAT PRIORITY |
Main-Hand | Manajuma's Carving Knife In-geom (Cubed) | 1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Damage % 5. Attack Speed 6. Intelligence |
Off-Hand | Manajuma's Gory Fetch | 1. Damage Range 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Hit Chance 4. Area Damage 5. Intelligence 6. Elite Damage 7. Vitality |
Helm | Arachyr's Visage | 1. Socket Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Intelligence 4. Vitality 5. Life % 6. Armor |
Gloves | Arachyr's Claws | 1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Intelligence 5. Area Damage 6. Attack Speed 7. Resource Cost Reduction |
Shoulders | Arachyr's Mantle | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Area Damage 3. Intelligence 4. Vitality 5. Armor 6. Life % |
Chest | Arachyr's Carapace Aquila Cuirass (Cubed) | 1. Sockets Flawless Royal Topaz 2. Intelligence 3. Vitality 4. Armor 5. Reduced Damage from Elites |
Pants | Captain Crimson's Thrust (Crafted) | 1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Armor 4. Sockets Flawless Royal Topaz |
Boots | Arachyr's Stride | 1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Armor 4. All Resistance 5. Movement Speed |
Ring1 | Rechel's Ring of Larceny Ring of Emptiness | 1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Critical Hit Chance 4. Cooldown Reduction 5. Area Damage |
Ring 2 | Avarice Band (A3 Bounties) Convention of Elements Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties, Cubed) | 1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Critical Hit Chance 4. Cooldown Reduction 5. Area Damage |
Bracers | Warzechian Armguards Nemesis Bracers | 1. Poison Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Intelligence 4. Vitality 5. Armor |
Amulet | Squirt's Necklace | 1. Socket 2. Poison Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance 5. Intelligence 6. Cooldown Reduction |
Belt | Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Goldwrap (Cubed) | 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.
- 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.
- Esoteric Alteration can replace Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard when running with The Flavor of Time instead of Squirt's Necklace while doing Greater Rifts.
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.
- Horrify Stalker is used with Rechel's Ring of Larceny for another 60% Movement Speed Bonus.
- Soul Harvest Soul to Waste gives 3% Intelligence per enemy affected and increases Movement Speed by 5% per stack, up to 5 stacks or 10 with Soul Harvester equipped.
- Summon Zombie Dogs Life Link is used for the Movement Speed buff from Fierce Loyalty as well as the Damage Reduction it provides.
- Piranhas Piranhado gives you a way to "pixel" enemies together if your first Chicken blast doesn't kill the pack you dove into.
- Spirit Walk Severance can be used to get out of harm's way if you end up waiting on your Hex Cooldown and to get close to enemies for Soul Harvest. It also gives another 100% Movement Speed bonus before going into Angry Chicken.
- Locust Swarm Pestilence is what allows you to get the 300% Damage buff from the Ring of Emptiness if needed for damage.
Passives
- Grave Injustice is an amazing Passive 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.
- Fierce Loyalty is also great in speeds for the 15-30% increase to Movement Speed based on if you're in combat or not.
- Tribal Rites reduces the Cooldown of your Hex by 25%.
- Spirit Vessel is the Witch Doctor's Cheat Death and can be used to provide an extra layer of protection if you're constantly getting turned into a Chicken Nugget. Take away Fierce Loyalty if you use it.
Paragon Points
Core | Offensive | Defensive | Utility |
1. Movement Speed | 1. Cooldown Reduction | 1. Armor | 1. Area Damage |
2. Intelligence | 2. Critical Hit Damage | 2. Life % | 2. PIckup Radius |
3. Vitality | 3. Critical Hit Chance | 3. All Resistance | 3. Life Per Hit |
4. Maximum Mana | 4. Attack Speed | 4. Life Per Second | 4. Resource Cost Reduction |
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
Speed GR 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.
Gameplay
This build is very easy to play and have some success with, you will however notice that some of the skills don't synergize with Angry Chicken as well as one might expect. Simple things like having to go in and out of Angry Chicken form to cast other skills can make it a bit clunky, so timing of your skill cycle is important to really maximize the Movement Speed bonuses and make the most of the build. It's also important to note that this build performs much better in solo than in groups, in a full party even T16 can feel quite overwhelming so keep your Angry Chicken to yourself if you really want to see where it thrives.
- Always cast Summon Zombie Dogs LIfe Link at the start of a Bounty of Rift as they provide Damage Reduction as well as a Movement Speed Bonus from Fierce Loyalty. After this you're going to want to use your Spirit Walk to get close to enemies before casting Soul Harvest and Horrify.
- At this point you have all of the buffs and are ready to cast Hex Angry Chicken and pursue your first elite! Angry Chicken will last a very long time and the Cooldown starts right when you cast it, not when you explode. So it's fine to be patient as you search for a sufficient amount of enemies or an Elite before detonating, this can also be used to detonate twice in quick succession when you get to your first Elite as the Cooldown will be over so you can explode, cast Angry Chicken and explode again in an instant.
- 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.
- If you detonate your Angry Chicken without an Elite or enough enemies around you won't get a buff from In-geom or Grave Injustice and might end up with some downtime. This is very undesirable as you want to spend as much time going in and out of Angry Chicken form since all of our damage comes from that explosion. You're also very squishy and want to spend very little time hanging around enemies without the ability to blow them up quickly.
- 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 Horrify and 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 virtually nothing so don't count on them helping out here either. This is a great time to take advantage of our ability to explode twice in quick succession that we discussed in the second bullet point. Evade during the Hex Angry Chicken Cooldown and be prepared for Rift Guardians to require a few explosions to take down.
- Keep your buffs up and keep moving!
Hardcore
99% chance of being turned into a chicken nugget, would not advise.
Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn how to dominate hardcore on other builds!
Variants
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
This is the Variant discussed in the main portion of the guide. A quick summary: Summon Zombie Dogs at the start and 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
For Nephalem Rifts use Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra Elites when in a group and use Warzechian Armguards when with your follower. In-geom is in the Cube so you have as much Hex uptime as possible. We use Horrify Stalker and put on Rechel's Ring of Larceny to get a tremendous Movement Speed buff.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard can be used to gain a shield buff in T16 runs in combination with Squirt's Necklace for double Damage, providing some additional Toughness & insane Healing. The final touch is the combination of Goldwrap, Avarice Band and Boon of the Hoarder which make you immortal once gold starts dropping.
Concept
In this build Movement Speed is the primary focus as it's somewhat of a MEME build and the point is to highlight what it is good at, going fast! However it's very easy to remove Movement Speed to take on more Damage if you find that you aren't able to kill things. This version will likely be more viable early in a Season, but once you get higher Paragon you should be able to go with the faster version exhibited in the majority of the guide.
Gameplay
The only difference here is that you're changing Piranhas for Locust Swarm. You'll still need to cast this periodically so that it can spread and apply your Ring of Emptiness Buff. So really it's the exact same thing but now you'll do quite a bit more damage at the cost of a bit of Movement Speed.
Setups
To give the Nephalem Rift build extra damage you can drop Rechel's Ring of Larceny and Piranhas to pick up Ring of Emptiness and Locust Swarm, this reduces your Movement Speed to give you 300% more Damage against affected enemies.
Take note that Horrify Stalker isn't as great here without Rechel's Ring of Larceny but it's worth keeping as this is a speed build. If you find that you're having to drop all of the Movement Speed bonuses to find Damage and Toughness it may be wise to look into another option for T16 farming or to lower the difficulty of what you're doing.
Concept
You can utilize this build quite well in very low tier Greater rifts, perhaps up to around GR 90 with pretty solid gear and Paragon. This really is an insanely fast build so this can be useful to upgrade very low Legendary Gems until you reach your ceiling. However keep in mind this still is very likely not a good use of your time since you can be using a much simpler and smoother build to farm Greater Rifts just as fast but 10+ tiers higher. See GoD Demon Hunter or WW Rend Barb as examples.
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. When played right you can really blast Elites with this at the right Greater Rift level and clear them in around 60-90 seconds consistently.
Setups
Now there is no gold that you can utilize for Toughness and Movement Speed so you'll be dropping Avarice Band, Boon of the Hoarder and Goldwrap and instead use Convention of Elements, Bane of the Powerful and Aquila Cuirass. With these changes you will be a bit slower and more fragile but you will do significantly more damage. If you need more Toughness take Unity instead of Convention of Elements and replace your Follower's Hellfire Ring with it as well.
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 any T16 build.
- 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 will cap out at 30 yards but this otherwise will scale continuously if you keep a consistent flow of Gold coming in.
- If you're playing T16 with any build this should be incorporated at all costs. PICK UP THE GOLD!
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
- Summon Zombie Dogs LIfe LInk at the start of every Rift or Bounty for the Damage Reduction bonus.
- Use Horrify and Spirit Walk to get insane Movement Speed buffs 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.
Contributions by Northwar & wudijo.
Reviewed by Northwar, Raxxanterax & wudijo.
Changelog
Updated for Season 28 / Patch 2.7.5.
Updated for Season 27 / Patch 2.7.4.