Support Witch Doctor Guide

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. This is a support build, meaning we deal zero damage and need to farm the pieces/materials with a different build/character. We'll use BloodShards and Crafting Materials to acquire the remaining pieces outlined in the steps below.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

1. Gather 3 pieces of the Mundunugu's Regalia set. 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 you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
2. Strongarm Bracers and Nemesis Bracers
3. Aquila Cuirass
4. Oculus Ring and Rechel's Ring of Larceny
5. Stormshield

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

1. Create a level 1 Demon Hunter and upgrade Swords to get In-geom
2. Amulets to get The Flavor of Time
3. Rings to get Oculus Ring and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
4. 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: Illusory Boots
• Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
• Bounty Turn In: Recipe for Captain Crimson's Trimmings
  

6. There is one final required piece that is difficult to acquire, The Flavor of Time. With amulets being so expensive to gamble or craft, we'll have to search for it to drop in Nephalem and Greater Rifts. The biggest hint is to party up with other players and kindly ask them to drop any duplicates they find.

• Gem of Efficacious Toxin is a staple for each support build granting 10% additive damage (stacks) and 10% damage reduction (does not stack). Other supports can also wear this gem because the damage buff stacks.
• Iceblink provides 10% increased Critical Hit Chance to the damage dealers. This effect does not stack and is applied by Wall of Death Communing with Spirits or Spirit Barrage Manitou.
• Gogok of Swiftness gives 15% Attack Speed, 15% Cooldown Reduction and up to 30% Dodge based on the amount of stacks you have. You gain a stack with each hit up to a maximum of 15, and all stacks are refreshed if you attack every 4 seconds.
• Esoteric Alteration for additional toughness or Wreath of Lightning for additional Movement Speed can replace Gogok of Swiftness or eventually Iceblink if another support has it equipped.

• Big Bad Voodoo Slam Dance provides a your group with 15% additive damage and 15% Attack Speed. Ghost Trance can be used to help your group survive. Mundunugu's Regalia (2) Bonus makes it easy to get a permanent uptime on it but you have to pay attention to follow your damage dealers!
• Horrify Stalker is an obvious one since we use Sanctified Horrify to bring a 100% additive damage buff to our group. Frightening Aspect can eventually be used to gain a 50% Armor buff for you.
• Spirit Walk Severance for obvious mobility purposes and to proc Mundunugu's Regalia (4) Bonus damage reduction.
• Piranhas Piranhado is used to apply a 15% additive damage debuff and Strongarm Bracers.
• Wall of Death Communing with Spirits is used in push as an easy way to proc Iceblink on top of applying a 25% damage reduction debuff on monsters.
• Spirit Barrage Manitou is used in combination with Gazing Demise for speed content simply in order to proc Iceblink passively without doing anything.
• Locust Swarm Cloud of Insects allows us to bodypull monsters and proc a 25% damage reduction debuff on them.
• Hex Jinx or Toad of Hugeness procs another 15% additive damage debuff on monsters. It is generally not used because it can be very disruptive regarding pulling and packing.

• Grave Injustice is a Witch Doctor staple. It reduces cooldowns when enemies die, allowing a smoother playstyle by resetting all our skills.
• Spirit Vessel to escape death since a dead support does not support much.
• Bad Medicine provides another 25% damage reduction on monsters. We proc it when we use Piranhas.
• Swampland Attunement for more toughness since there is no real need for Tribal Rites cooldown reduction with this build.

¹ Put all points into Vitality until you reach 3 million HP, then put the rest into Intelligence for All Resistance.
² Do not take Area Damage as we deal no damage and it will lag the game.

Cast Horrify once at the start of the rift, it should be permanent thanks to Sanctified Horrify. Make sure Big Bad Voodoo is active at all times. Grave Injustice should ensure you always have it ready if you do not have enough Cooldown Reduction. Use Spirit Walk to move through enemies or walls that are in the way, for defense, to dodge affixes and projectiles or similar. Don't waste it when you don't need it!

When making a pull, engage several screens of monsters by bodypulling and spreading Locust Swarm. Don't forget to scout the layout and check for Elites while communicating with your party. Check for Pylons when you feel you made enough progress to spawn one. A few seconds before the damage rotation of your damage dealer, use Wall of Death and Piranhas. Crowd Control Resistance should not be an issue as long as you have a zBarb since Sanctified Whirlwind ignores it.

Witch Doctors can be tough to play in Hardcore because they have no immunity to Crowd Control and only limited defensive utility skills with long cooldowns. Witch Doctor's defensive playstyle mainly relies on Grave Injustice and Spirit Walk combination. Nevertheless, this is a support build so should have no big issues if you are mindful about Elite affixes.

Anyway, you can rotate out Gogok of Swiftness (or Iceblink if someone else already provides it in the group) for Esoteric Alteration to tank up even further. Don't forget to use the Spirit Vessel passive at all times! Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

• Horrify is now a permanent aura that causes enemies to take 100% more damage (additive damage debuff) and deal 15% less damage.
• The other effects from Horrify runes becomes permanent as well.

• Locust Swarm now automatically Haunt all monsters affected.
• Casting Piranhas pulls all monsters within 60 yards (1 screen) to the pool.
• If you have Bogadile, a lesser enemy stunned is instantly killed.
• Elites and Rift Guardians are not killed but take significant damage.

• Strongarm Bracers apply their debuff if a monster was attempted to be displaced. Any displacement constitutes a knockback. Whether or not the monster was successfully displaced is irrelevant, as long as an attempt was made to displace it.
• Strongarm Bracers with Piranhas is applied only if the target is moved. Even when the monster is not displaced, as long as it can be moved, it will jump on spot.