So this is a repost of one of my threads from my clan forums. Thought you guys might appreciate it.

Warning for those who haven't read my threads in the past. I tend to go on a bit when theorycrafting so this may get long.

First I want to point you to http://ptr.d3planner.com/. So if you are the TLDR type, that is the site I was going to mention. It allows you to build entire character layouts with gear and everything and is pretty awesome. Now on to the meat...


I've been bouncing back and forth between several team comps as the PTR progressed. Early on IK pet barbs were very appealing and that set was changed, then Nats DH was looking good and that set just got hit. The entire time I was also considering 4 WD's. I have finally decided to do the docs as my multibox team next season.

The main reasons for me finally settling on the docs is the playstyle of some of the other class options would be hard to manage I feel from past experiences and there are a few new things that make a Doc team very appealing.

The first new thing is the Homonculus mojo got updated. It now spawns a zdog every 2 seconds. With this item on only 3 WD's I can use it to keep a RG or any other mob stunlocked permanently. That is because with a full 3 person round robin the first sacs at 0 sec, then 2 sacs at .7 seconds, 3 sacs at 1.2 seconds and by the time 1 needs to sac again 2.1 seconds has passed so he has his dog replaced (in actuality the way the mojo works is the first saccers dog would spawn immediately after the sac then a 2 second timer starts until another dog will pop out as long as your entire rotation takes more than 2 seconds you will never be down a dog).

Black Blood sacrifice rune is a 3 second stun which means you only need to hit the target with a zdog sac every .9 seconds (due to min threshold and CC resistance calculations). Since the mojo allows you to sac as fast as every .7 seconds it works out with just 3 WD's using it.


The second new thing is the Zuni and Jade set changes.

Here is a link to a build for my Tiki Zuni WD for the team:
http://ptr.d3planner.com/187529503

This character's job is obviously to use Tiki to control elite pack affixes, but rather than being a pure zdps I went offensive with him. The new Zuni set pieces allows you to wear 6p zuni while still using TnT gloves and Tiki helm. Ofcourse it requires Zuni ring and a Rorg to pull off but in exchange you get to have fear lock, 275% pet damage buff on targets hit by your spenders (in this case haunt and Piranhas Wave of Multiation spread that buff). So this is a pet doc that also locks. Haunt, zdogs and piranhas all provide group damage buffs and wave of mulitation also procs strongarms for the party so it is still a solid buffer. This is the only doc a Starmetal is required on as he is the BBV Slam Dance provider for the party. (Prior to obtaining a SMK I can run BBV Slamdance on all 4 docs and round robin it, but that is not ideal).


My other three Docs will run the following build:
http://ptr.d3planner.com/780791157

Looking at the gear probably has you confused a little. I don't use a full set on these guys because of one reason. 2p Jade is amazing now. They fixed it so the Quetz helm actually buffs the damage of the 2p properly. In my testing I was getting upwards of 100 million damage crits on a WD with no Haunt% damage, not stacking a proper element and wearing total mix matched gear with a sheet dps of 363k with the FnR buffs up (which are easy to maintain with this build using Haunt for spender and Spider Queen for generator buff). Each haunt basically does 1/4 of what a Soul Harvest does with no cooldown and since dot damage is calculated by a combination of damage, ias, and crit hit and crit damage it greatly benefits from ias. So this build focuses on that. The downside is the damage is mostly single target. Currently I have witching hours listed on the belt slot but the new belt that makes haunt hit a second target would probably be better for clearing speed.

From my testing using the rune that lets haunt hit two targets, both hits trigger the 2p jade bonus dmg. Also it seems that Area damage works on the damage proc from 2p as well. Those two facts will make up somewhat for the single target nature of the builds. I can hit 70-90% area dmg pretty easily with this build without giving up much because it has virtually zero reliance on CDR and no reliance at all on RCR. So other than focusing on getting as much IAS as possible this build gears pretty much like and normal crit hit and crit damage dps build.


Xeph ammies all around to protect from lightning packs are probably the best. Hellfire ammy has little benefit to this team setup as there are only so many good WD passives.

I can't wait to see this full team in action because it's buffing potential is crazy. I've tested the poison haunt buff, piranhas buff, and the cold dogs and they all stack party wide. That means because of 4 characters that:

Haunt 80%
Piranhas 60%
Cold Zdogs 60%
Toxin gems 40%

That is a 240% constant damage modifier, If I change the Piranhas to Nado on the 3 Jade docs and round robin it for more mob herding potential that is still a constant 195% buff without factoring in those 3 docs (since they won't all be stacking it every time it would vary between 210-240% on packs, but due to creeping death it would get and stay at 240% for large single targets or sturdy packs).

Then BBV Slamdance from the lock doc is another 30% dmg and 20% attack speed and all 4 characters will benefit from both the IAS and the damage due to having builds that scale with the IAS.

The loc doc will also be applying a strongarm buff to anything that can be bounced up by Wave of Mutilation. This may not be worth it though so I could easily swap this out for Nem bracers to be able to spawn more elite packs in rifts and grifts. Strongarms only really work on trash and some smaller elites so I am not certain the extra 20-30% is worth it when the base damage buffs are already so high.

The three Haunt spamming Jade docs are also using the FnR ring set and keeping it up with a simple macro rotation that casts a Spider Queen followed by 5 seconds of Haunt spam works perfectly and on the lock doc I can just set up his skill bar to do Piranhas followed by Haunt spam for the same effect. (If I get the lock doc to 40% cdr Wave of Mutilation has a 4.8 sec cooldown so it would fit perfectly in that spot).

The Jade docs are also all using TnT gloves and Fetish Sycophants for extra damage and little meat shields. Pets from other characters don't seem to block now with the fade out mechanic they have for other peoples pets so this seems to work out nicely to provide some nice extra damage. Haunt procs Fetishes from the passive so fast because of its 100% coefficient so it certainly isn't an issue getting 15 out on each character. With FnR, TnT and the change to make fetishes take on the highest element you have stacked they should be almost as strong as old Mask of Jeram pet docs (FnR is 100% bonus and the elemental change makes up for no enforcer gem). So the extra damage should be noticeable and outside of Pierce the Veil is probably the only good dps passive for WD.