Diablo® III

Announcement
Major changes to Pet Doctors. Check out the patch notes.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6368188147#2

Pet Buffs

• Pets with passive life regeneration (most notably Followers, Zombie Dogs, and Gargantuans) have had their life regeneration greatly increased from levels 30-60
• Ghom: Pets and Followers should now only take 10% damage from the breath attack
• Ghom: Pets and Followers should now only take 5% damage from Gas Clouds
• Monsters: Pets and Followers should now only take 10% damage from a Fast mummy's Poison Death Cloud
• Monsters: Heralds of Pestilence no longer attack pets and Followers
• Champions and Rares: Plagued, Frozen, and Mortar monsters will now do only 10% of their damage to pets and Followers
• Gargantuan: Force Armor, 150% of player life at level 60 (?), base damage increased 4x from 25% to 100%, damage from most runes doubled.
• Zombie Dogs: Force Armor, +35% of player life, cooldown reduced from 60s to 45s

Pet Nerfs (Procs majorly nerfed)

• Gargantuan can no longer generate procs.
• Zombie Dogs Rabid Dogs proc coefficient reduced from 1.0 to 0.1 (only 1/10th as effective), Burning Dogs reduced from 1.0 to 0.05 (onlt 1/20th as effective).

Force Armor
Do not be misled by the example given on the Preview:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923459/Patch_104_Preview_Witch_Doctor-8_16_2012

Ignoring passive Life regeneration, this means each Zombie Dog will always be able to take at least 5.5 hits (21,200 [Life] / 3850 [damage])

This is not an accurate example!

The example uses really bad armor and resistances, at 45% and 30% damage reduction respectively. The example closely resembles a glass-cannon Witch Doctor which focuses mostly on dps. For them, the zombie dog taking 5.5 hits to die is a pretty good deal.

But for someone who focuses strongly on armor and resistances, dogs will take more than 20 hits to die.

Example of dog survivability using my stats (check my profile):
Damage Reduction from armor: 70.58%
Damage Reduction from Resistances: 74.78%

Dog base health: 10,000
Max damage dog will take per hit= 10,000 * 0.2942 * 0.2522 = 741
20% damage reduction from Jungle Fortitude = 741 * 0.8 = 593.58
Dog modified health: 10,000 + (35% of player 10,000 health) = 13,500
Dogs will take 13,500/594 = 22 hits to die.

Dogs will only take 594 damage per hit with my stats in 1.0.4. They will take more than 20 hits to die, way more than the 5.5 given in the example.
I also have 2381 life regeneration, so in theory, their life shouldn't even take a dent until 4 mobs start to attack each dog.

Current theory is, there is no change in gear stats priority. Best defensive stats are still to increase your damage reduction by stacking armor/resistances, then stack Life Regeneration. But that is just a theory, please share your findings if you disagree with this theory.
__________________________________________

This thread contains useful information about pets, including how to make them survive more than one hit. Yes, pets can survive in Inferno. Feel free to suggest any useful information to be added.

TLDR Version: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6246946715#2

Terihlon#1660 wants to test a 4-Witch Doctor CC-fest for Inferno Act 3. If interested, please add him to your friends list.

Updates
17th August: Witch Doctor 1.0.4 patch preview.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923459/Patch_104_Preview_Witch_Doctor-8_16_2012

Table of Contents
1. My Pets Die In 1 Hit. Pets Suck!
2. Basic Information of Pets
3. The CC Build
4. Inferno Mode

1. My Pets Die In 1 hit. Pets Suck!
No they do not suck. This is a very common misconception about our pets that happens due to wrong gear, and it is precisely why this guide was created to clear this up. Pets currently need some buffs but they are not as useless as people claim.

The reason why your pets are dying is because your gear does not have defensive stats to benefit them. Witch Doctors instinctively stack intelligence to increase their damage. They naturally ignore defensive stats. The problem is our pets scale off our defensive stats like armor and dodge, and because your gear lacks them, that is why they are dying.

To make your pets survive better, stack things that will make YOU survive better, like strength (improves armor), dexterity (improved dodge), intelligence (improves resistances), armor, resistances and Life Regeneration.

Vitality and Block do not benefit your pets.

With proper gear, it is possible for your pets to survive comfortably up to Inferno Act 1. They can survive in Acts 2, 3 and 4 but it will be difficult. Pets currently cannot work against bosses like Belial and Ghom.

2. Basic Information of Pets
Approximate Health of Pets at Level 60
Dog = ~11000 life (11355.85 according to data mining sites)
Gargantuan = ~31500 life (32445.3 according to data mining sites)

Defensive Stat Priority
Note: The ideal ratio of Armor to Resistances is 10:1. Don't follow this rule, use it as a guide.
E.g. 7500 armor and 750 resistances has the same overall damage reduction as 6000 armor and 926 resistances. 7500 armor and 750 resistance is slightly more efficient, but it is not necessarily easier to aim for than 6000 armor and 926 resistances.

• 1. Stun/Freeze/Fear/Knock Back
  Stops an enemy from attacking your pets, thus completely avoiding damage. See the CC Build section below for more information.
• 2a. Armor/Strength
  Armor reduces all damage, not just physical damage. Armor is a more efficient stat because it exists in higher numbers than Strength.
• 2b. Resist All
  Resist All reduces not just magic damage, even physical damage because there is a Physical Resistance stat.
• 3. Life Regeneration (Must take Fierce Loyalty Passive)
  Due to diminishing returns of damage reduction from either armor or resistance, and due to there being a max to how much you can get, it is not possible to stack enough to reduce damage to a manageable amount for your pets.
  After reaching a certain damage reduction, Life Regeneration will be a more efficient stat to keep your pets alive.
• 4. Intelligence
  Increases all resistance by 10% of the Intelligence value. Also increases your damage.
• 5. Vitality (Must take Fierce Loyalty Passive)
  Note, vitality DOES NOT increase your pets' health. It does not benefit your pet directly.
  But, it can indirectly help your pets by using Spirit Walk (Healing Journey), which converts 7% of your Maximum Life into Life Regeneration, which does benefit your pets if you have the Fierce Loyalty Passive.

Optional Defensive Stats

• Individual Resists
  Outside of Resist All, you can get additional individual resists. Poison, Fire and Electric are more important because champions with Plagued, Desecrated and Electrified affixes do very high aoe damage.
• Dexterity
  Dodge completely stops and attack but it is unreliable. It also suffers from heavy diminishing returns. Up to 100 Dexterity, 1 dexterity = 0.1% dodge. But from 100 to 500 Dexterity, 1 dexterity = 0.025% dodge.

Offensive Stat Priority

• 1. Intelligence
  Intelligence is the main offensive stat.
• 2. Bleed
  Bleed is a good offensive stat because it stacks. Due to the proc nature of Witch Doctors that can trigger something as low as 5% into something that happens 80% of the time, something like Bleed chance which can be as high as 33%, will stack to very high amounts. A single bleed tick of 60 damage can stack up to 1000+ damage if lucky.

3. The CC Build

Warning: Procs from Witch Doctor spells will be majorly nerfed in patch 1.0.4. This build will no longer be as effective.

The CC Build was discovered during brainstorming in the previous thread as people tried to make the Witch Doctor's pets work in Inferno.

CC stands for "Crowd Control", which is something that temporarily disables an enemy like stun or freeze. The CC Build thus involves stacking CC stats in order to apply lots of CCs to enemies.

The small % chance of CCs like stun and freeze are deceptive, because the Witch Doctor can make it happen like 80% of the time. This is due to the unique fact that the Witch Doctor has pets, and can generate relatively more hits than other classes through them. The Witch Doctor can apply CCs through his spells, his pet attacks, and his pet auras.

With the CC build, a single boss can even CCed so much that he barely gets out an attack, resulting in a slow but safe victory.

The CC build should also work well in co-op games because ranged classes like the wizard and the demon hunter will enjoy safely killing enemies from a distance while your pets tank and CC them.

CCs From Gear
Not all gear can have all possible CCs. Most of the item slots can have only one possible CC, with the exception of weapons and off-hands which can have all types.

Here are the CCs that you can get from gear. It is not necessary to get all, but the more the better because certain enemies are immune to certain CCs.

• Amulet - Chance to Blind on Hit (Stat exists but search criteria isn't available)
• Belt - Chance to Freeze on Hit
• Boots - Chance to Immobilize on Hit
• Bracers - Chance to Knockback on Hit
• Gloves - Chance to Stun on Hit
• Helm - Chance to Fear on Hit
• Pants - Chance to Slow on Hit
• Shoulders - Chance to Chill on Hit
• Weapon - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs
• Off-Hand - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs

Important CCs

• Stun
  To stop enemies from moving or attacking your pets, increasing survivability.
• Freeze
  Same as Stun, but has a chance to be removed if a frozen enemy is damaged.
• Fear
  Makes enemies run away from you. Fear is as good as stun or freeze in stopping enemies from attacking you, only that it makes enemies run away.
• Blind
  Causes enemies to miss their attacks on you. More enemies are immune to it and currently there is no search option for amulets for that stat in the AH.
• Knock Back
  Makes your enemies fly away from you, briefly delaying their attack while airborne.

Optional CCs

• Chill
  Slows attack speed and movement speed. Useful to prevent enemies from running away or reaching you, and slows down enemy dps.
• Immobilize
  Stops enemies from moving. Useful to stop enemies from running away or reaching you.
• Slow
  Slows movement speed. Useful to prevent enemies from running away or reaching you.

Abilities to Use
Not all spells have the same chance to make a CC happen. Some abilities can make CCs happen more than others. The chance to apply CCs seems to loosely follow the numbers found in the Witch Doctor Life Leech Per Hit, By Skill thread by Karisu.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5271499223

Important Abilities and Runes

• Gargantuan + Big Stinker Rune (15% area poison damage per second).
  Best area damage rune for Gargantuan to trigger CCs.
• Summon Zombie Dogs + Burning Dogs Rune (2% area fire damage per second).
  Best area damage rune for dogs to trigger CCs.
• Firebomb + Fire Pit Rune (8% area fire damage per second for 3 seconds).
  Cheap main attack spell to generate CCs.
• Plague of Toads + Rain of Toads Rune (130% area poison damage over 2 seconds).
  Expensive main attack spell to generate CCs. Better in damage and can do damage over obstacles like walls. But costs more mana than Firebomb. Use this instead of Firebomb if you have a lot of mana.
• Spirit Walk + Healing Journey (7% of Maximum Life converted to Life Regeneration)
  Almost compulsory ability for all Witch Doctors to escape danger. Combined with Fierce Loyalty passive skill, this is your pets' health pot! It will heal them for a lot.

Optional Abilities and Runes

• Corpse Spiders + Spider Queen Rune (16% area poison damage per second).
  Good "damage-over-time" aoe to generate CCs, lasts 15 seconds per cast.
• Horrify + Frightening Aspect (Extra 100% armor for 8 seconds)
  Good defensive ability that will chase away enemies that get close to you. Also keeps your pets alive longer by increasing their armor for short periods of time.
• Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance Rune (Heals 2% health per second for 20 seconds).
  Faster personal attack speed means your main ability will trigger CCs more, and the heals are useful to keep your pets alive.
• Hex + Hedge Magic (Periodically heals allies.)
  Good defensive ability that will hex any enemy that gets close to you. Also keeps your pets alive through heals.

Recommended Passive Skills

• Jungle Fortitude (Reduces damage taken by you and pets by 20%).
  Keeps pets alive longer. Dead pets don't generate CC.
• Zombie Handler (Extra dog and health of pets increased by 20%).
  Extra dog is useful to generate extra CC. Also keeps pets alive longer.
• Fierce Loyalty (Pets benefit 100% from Life Regeneration and Thorns).
  The only way to heal pets to keep them alive longer.

Optional Passive Skills

• Bad Medicine (Reduces enemy damage by 20% for 3 seconds if you inflict poison damage to them)
  Keeps pets alive longer. Dead pets don't generate CC. But it is a bit limited because you are forced to use poison damage, and there is no guarantee that you will hit enemies with it before they hit your pets. Due to dogs having only 11000 health, Zombie Handler passive will give your pets roughly the same effective health as Bad Medicine, but Zombie Handler gives you an additional dog for dps and CC.
• Blood Ritual (1% of Max Life as Life Regeneration)
  Use in combination with Fierce Loyalty and a very high Life for good pet healing.
• Pierce the Veil (Damage increased 20%, mana costs increased 30%)
  The best defense is a good offense, kill your enemies before your pets die.

Recommended Follower

• Level 1 to 45: Templar
  The Templar's Loyalty skill is the only ability that can reliably heal your pets before you get Fierce Loyalty at level 45.
• Level 45 to 60: Sorceress
  Once you get Fierce Loyalty, you can get a much higher Life Regeneration for your pets than what the Templar can give at level 60 (only 155).
  The Sorceress' Power Armor (+15% armor) is thus more valuable after that point in keeping your pets alive.

4. Inferno Mode
This section will attempt to guide you with a CC build in Inferno Mode.

For Inferno Mode, enemy damage and defenses are increased, but their damage is increased far more than their defenses. This means that ironically, your damage is the key to your pets survival, where the best defense is a good offense comes to mind. You kill enemies long before they can kill your pets.

Keep in mind that Inferno is the hardest difficulty mode and it is not possible to steamroll it unless you have superior gear. You are still expected to die despite your best efforts, but it is not impossible.

Ways to Combat Elite Affixes

• Arcane Enchanted - Surprisingly, pets are nearly immune to arcane sentries and can stand in them. They are considered "environmental damage" which pets take reduced damage from. Move away if one spawns near you.
• Avenger - Harmless.
• Desecrator - Desecrator tends to target YOU rather than your pets. Heavy CC may reduce the frequency of desecration on the ground. Move away if one is on your feet. Navigate yourself in such a way that pets won't step on them when attacking elites.
• Electrified - Difficult because despite being CCed, they will still throw out electric charges. Prepare to move back often to give your pets breathing space while Life Regeneration heals them. Try to push them back through Fear and Knock backs. Use Spirit Walk and Horrify as much as possible.
• Extra Health - Harmless. Just takes longer to kill them.
• Fast - Your pets should keep them pinned down and prevent them from reaching you most of the time.
• Fire Chains - Try to keep them at the edge of your screen through firebombs which will trigger fear and knockback. This will ensure that your pets are always in front of them and won't be in the path of fire chains too much.
• Frozen - Heavy CC may reduce the frequency of frozen orbs. If they do spawn, time your Horrify and Spirit Walk so that your pets take reduced damage.
• Health Link - Harmless. They take longer to die, but they die together.
• Horde - Be prepared to move back to prevent minions from swarming you.
• Illusionist - Be prepared to move back to prevent illusions from swarming you. Kill illusions off quickly.
• Invulnerable Minions - These are difficult because they often ignore your pets and aim for you. Be prepared to escape a lot using Spirit Walk and Horrify, while trying your best to kill the main elite.
• Jailer - Harmless on its own, but can be dangerous with other dangerous affixes like Arcane Enchanted and Desecrator. Save Spirit Walk to escape.
• Knockback - Harmless.
• Missile Dampening - Harmless, but be prepared to move in to damage elites, since fire bombs are dampened.
• Molten - Use fire bombs to keep elites at the edge of the screen so that your pets can pin them there and prevent them from getting molten. Watch out for their explosions once they die.
• Mortar - Move in to avoid damage, but can be very dangerous when combined with other affixes like Arcane Enchanted. Try to pin them against a wall while you dps down, to prevent them from getting feared or knocked back.
• Nightmarish - Harmless.
• Plagued - Heavy CC can reduce the frequency of plague pools. When one spawns, quickly use Horrify to save your pets, and Spirit Walk one screen away so that your pets will respawn next to you. Be prepared to kite a lot to move your pets out of plague pools.
• Shielding - Not as bad as invulnerable minions but can be annoying. Shielded elites can still be CCed. Focus fire on non-shielded elites to kill them off faster.
• Teleporter - Harmless on its own but can mess up your attempts to herd all the elites together. Use Horrify, Spirit Walk or Hex to escape if one teleports near to you.
• Thorns - Harmless because a Pet CC Build naturally has low dps and any reflected damage can be healed by Life Regeneration easily.
• Vampiric - Harmless on its own but can be problematic if combined with aoe affixes like electrified, desecrator and plague pools, all of which can heal them. Be prepared to kite to prevent pets from taking too much damage.
• Vortex - Can be very dangerous if combined with Arcane Enchanted. Save Spirit Walk to escape once vortexed. Try to stay far off screen to prevent from getting vortexed.
• Waller - Can be dangerous if combined with Arcane Enchanted and Desecrator. Also annoying because Fire Bombs cannot pass through walls but Rain of Toads can. Save Spirit Walk to escape dangerous situations.

Act 1
Here are the bare minimum numbers that I had to beat the Butcher in Inferno Mode. It is recommended to get higher numbers, but if it is too expensive, it is still possible to beat the Butcher.

Entry-Level Numbers

• Damage: 10,000
• Armor: 3200
• Dodge: 19%
• Resistances: 550
• Life: 15,000
• Life Regen: 500
• 11% combined chance for Stun and Freeze

Abilities

• Firebomb + Fire Pit
• Hex + Hedge Magic
• Summon Zombie Dogs + Burning Dogs Rune
• Gargantuan + Big Stinker Rune
• Spirit Walk + Jaunt
• Horrify + Frightening Aspect

Passive Skills

• Jungle Fortitude
• Fierce Loyalty
• Pierce the Veil

Follower

• Sorceress

Strategy
The main strategy of the CC build is to CC-lock your mobs to death. This build should be effective against 99% of normal mobs, simple Champions and bosses, so they are not an issue.

Champion Packs
Against Champion Packs with strong aoe combinations like plagued, molten, electrified and frozen, you have to semi-kite them. You cannot CC lock them because your pets cannot survive too much aoe damage from them, and you have to keep moving away in order to force them to move out of dangerous aoe.

While you are moving away, the Champions will try to move towards you. During that brief kiting process, your pets are still attacking them, and their damage is pretty good if you have at least 10,000 damage. But you should try to stop and throw a few fire bombs at them to help out your pets.

Your pets will still die with this strategy, but you must keep kiting till the cooldown is up to re-summon them. It is possible to kill most champions before the "Out of time" debuff appears, even those with Extra Health modifier.

Use Horrify to chase away Champions that reach you, or use them for the huge armor bonus once you know your pets is about to take heavy damage, like frozen orbs materializing or a plague pool is spawned.

Use Spirit Walk to escape dangerous situations.

Hex will occasionally heal your pets and also hex any Champion that gets near you.

Butcher
Stay in melee range.

By staying in melee range, you will prevent him from doing his hook which is followed up by a hook smash. You may survive it, but your dogs won't. And you need your dogs alive in order to CC lock him. In melee range, he will just do his normal melee attack and a rabbit-hop followed by a smash.

Always position him so that he is facing away from his pets, so that when his charge happens, it won't hit any of your pets.

If 10,000 damage is not be enough before the entire room fills with fire (soft enrage), you can swap out Hex and Horrify for other damage abilities.

In order to compensate for the low suggested stat numbers, you have to be more pro-active in avoiding damage and keeping your pets alive in Inferno. Obviously bigger numbers are better and will make life easier.

Act 2
This setup can get you to Kulle.

Numbers

• Damage: 10,000
• Bleed: 33.6% for 1471-2618 damage
• Armor: 6500
• Dodge: 22%
• Resistances: 650
• Life: 20,000
• Life Regen: 1500
• 15.5% combined chance for Stun, Freeze, Fear, Knockback

Abilities

• Firebomb + Fire Pit
• Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance
• Summon Zombie Dogs + Burning Dogs Rune
• Gargantuan + Big Stinker Rune
• Spirit Walk +Healing Journey
• Horrify + Frightening Aspect

Passive Skills

• Jungle Fortitude
• Fierce Loyalty
• Zombie Handler

Follower

• Sorceress

Strategy
The bees at the start are probably the most difficult mobs in the game due to their bullets which should be avoided. Strategically use Horrify, Spirit Walk and even Big Bad Voodoo to help your pets last a few seconds of those bullets.

Zoltun Kulle
Zoltun Kulle is as easy as elites, except for his ceiling debris and tornadoes.

At the start, use Big Bad Voodoo and position yourself in such a way that both you and your pets are in it. Kill the 2 golems first. You should survive almost anything that Kulle throws at you while Big Bad Voodoo lasts.

After Big Bad Voodoo expires, if you see tornadoes, quickly move away. Tornadoes will kill your pets quickly. If Horrify and Spirit Walk are ready, use them to move away faster.

Once both golems are dead, pin Kulle against a wall and CC/dps as normal. Move away from tornadoes if they appear.

Belial
Currently I do not know the strategy to beat Belial with the pet CC build. I had to switch to spamming zombie bears to beat him.

Summary (TLDR)
Pet Health
Dog = ~11000 life (11355.85 according to data mining sites)
Gargantuan = ~31500 life (32445.3 according to data mining sites)

Do Stats Benefit Pets?
Defensive Stats

• Strength: Yes (through increasing armor)
• Dexterity: Yes (through increasing dodge)
• Intelligence: Yes (through increasing resistances)
• Vitality: No
• Block: No (but you want to use shield anyway for the extra armor that pets do benefit from)
• Dodge: Yes
• Armor: Yes
• Physical Resistance: Yes
• Cold Resistance: Untested
• Fire Resistance: Untested
• Lightning Resistance: Untested
• Poison Resistance: Untested
• Arcane/Holy Resistance: Untested
• Missile Damage Reduction: Untested
• Melee Damage Reduction: No

Offensive Stats

• Intelligence: Yes (through increasing your damage)
• Attack Speed: Yes (increases pet damage)
• Critical Hit Chance: Yes (increases pet crit chance)
• Critical Hit Damage: No
• Thorns: Yes (Must take Fierce Loyalty Skill)
• Bleed Chance: Yes, through their auras, but not their melee attacks. Each separate Bleed also stacks and does not overwrite one another.

Defensive Stat Priority

• 1. Stun/Freeze/Fear/Knock Back
• 2a. Armor/Strength
• 2b. Resist All
• 3. Life Regeneration (Must take Fierce Loyalty Passive)
• 4. Intelligence
• 5. Vitality

Optional Defensive Stats

• Individual Resists
• Dexterity

Offensive Stat Priority

• Intelligence
• Bleed

Can Pets Be Healed? (must take Fierce Loyalty Skill)
From Stats

• Life Regeneration: Yes
• Thorns: Yes (Only for Zombie Dogs. Must use Leeching Beasts. Thorns count as THEIR damage. Be warned that the amount healed from Leeching Beasts will be reduced from 50% to 10% in Inferno mode.)
• Life Steal: No (needs more testing)
• Life On hit: No (needs more testing)
• Life Per kill: No (needs more testing)

From Abilities

• Firebats + Vampire Bats Rune: No
• Haunt + Consuming Spirit: No
• Spirit Barrage + Phlebotomize: No
• Spirit Walk + Healing Journey: Yes

From Passive Skills

• Blood Ritual Skill: Yes

CC Information
CCs From Gear

• Amulet - Chance to Blind on Hit
• Belt - Chance to Freeze on Hit
• Boots - Chance to Immobilize on Hit
• Bracers - Chance to Knockback on Hit
• Gloves - Chance to Stun on Hit
• Helm - Chance to Fear on Hit
• Pants - Chance to Slow on Hit
• Shoulders - Chance to Chill on Hit
• Weapon - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs
• Off-Hand - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs

Important CCs

• Stun
• Freeze
• Fear
• Blind
• Knock Back

Optional CCs

• Chill
• Immobilize
• Slow

Important Abilities for CC Build

• Gargantuan + Big Stinker Rune
• Summon Zombie Dogs + Burning Dogs Rune
• Firebomb + Fire Pit Rune (Or Plague of Toads + Rain of Toads Rune if you have a lot of mana)
• Spirit Walk + Healing Journey

Optional Abilities for CC Build

• Corpse Spiders + Spider Queen Rune
• Horrify + Frightening Aspect
• Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance Rune
• Hex + Hedge Magic

Recommended Passive Skills for CC Build

• Jungle Fortitude
• Zombie Handler
• Fierce Loyalty

Optional Passive Skills for CC Build

• Bad Medicine
• Blood Ritual (With Fierce Loyalty & High Maximum Life)
• Pierce the Veil

Recommended Follower

• Level 1 to 45: Templar
• Level 45 to 60: Sorceress

Testimonials of Pet Performance in Inferno Mode

Diablo
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6246946715?page=5#88 weesheng

Useful Links and Sources
Old Versions Of This Thread
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5271500086 Research Data
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5594214282 Version 1.0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5978460209 Version 2.0

Comprehensive Witch Doctor Build Guide
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4927183159

Witch Doctor Life Leech Per Hit, By Skill
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5271499223

Blue Post Hinting At Plans To Buff Pets.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5271506353?page=19#366

Explanation of Stats
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5594214282?page=2#28

Great guide by Peter and a must-read for all Witch Doctors regardless of whether you use pets or not. His guide is a excellent source of information for:

- Pets in general
- Proc effects
- What effects stack on pets
- Basic entry level requirements for each inferno act

Thumbs up for the effort and sticky requested

Great guide as always hope this one gets sticky.

just a few notes, i noticed d3lexicon and other datamining homepages has the pets hp data so here are the correct values.

zombie dogs has exactly 11355.85 HP
and gargantuan has 32445.3 HP

the estimate by trial and error is very close tho.

one other thing i have never seen spider queen proc CC effects on anything the jar hit does tho.
its still great for stacking Bleed and LoH hits tho.

hopefully patch 1.0.4 will bring some love to out pets HP and maybe aoe survivability.
im pretty much hoping fierce loyality gets built in to the pets as standard.

Thanks for the more accurate pet health numbers. Gonna update the guide.

one other thing i have never seen spider queen proc CC effects on anything the jar hit does tho.
its still great for stacking Bleed and LoH hits tho.

I can vouch for that Spider Queen dont Proc CC other than the jar, as i have test it before. I also agreed that Spider is Great for Stacking Bleed / LOH since it can't be killed

Critical Hit Chance: Yes (increases pet crit chance)
Critical Hit Damage: No

Hi Peter, I have done test on the Critical Hit / Critical Hit Damage, i have done some test and test show that it does not increase Pet Damage for CC & CD,or there are at a very high reduction (95% or higher)

Maybe other CC Pet user can test & clarify on this area.

Also request for sticky, this is 1 of the main guide that i use for information since Guide v1.0 and it been a great help to my WD itemization

i'm not of the same opinion of the inheritance of LoH on pets: I saw my dogs health's flicker up and down fast without health regeneration and fiercy loyalty, I had in that moment only LoH...and at the level 40 they can't regenerate so fast without that passive, i think...

08/06/2012 07:20 AMPosted by BaRaBBa

i'm not of the same opinion of the inheritance of LoH on pets: I saw my dogs health's flicker up and down fast without health regeneration and fiercy loyalty, I had in that moment only LoH...and at the level 40 they can't regenerate so fast without that passive, i think...

Zombie Dogs do not have any default life regen or any way to heal themselves, unless you picked the leaching beast rune (particularly with thorns).Gargantuan has some life regen on default.

Did you by chance pick up any health globes? They do benefit from that.

@BaRaBBa

LoH does not heal pets.

It used to a long long time ago, but you had to take a passive for that. Blizz deemed it a bug and so fixed it in a patch soon after.

Only way to heal pets now is to get health regen and take up the fierce loyalty passive.

Of course you can also pick up health globes(since they heal allies and pets) or just used the leeching beasts rune for your zombie dogs.

That said, LoH is relatively important for pet builds, because of how much it heals you when it procs. This assuming you pick up the aoe runes for pets.

Reason pets can survive with a CC build in inferno, is not because of the LoH but because of the CC procs you can get with the aoe runes. When the mobs get cc-ed, their attacks either stop, get interrupted or get delayed, so this effectively means your pets take 0 damage from that mob.

Now if you built your WD properly, you can chain CC quite a bunch of mobs at the same time, including elites and bosses.

This is how pet builds survive up to inferno act 3(or act 4 if the rumors of a few players completing the game with a pet build holds true)

Remember to thumb up and click Request Sticky guys.

dunno if any of you proctologists have seen this, but i was in a pub group vs. maghda in inferno and had her proc locked to the point that her health bar froze and the group could do no more damage until we let off her and let her do the whole shield/summon sequence she does.

had to call the dogs off a coupla times to let her do her thing, she was stuck at 50% health for over a minute before i realized what was happening. anybody else seen this? do any other bosses or enemies bug out like that?

i know, but i didnt pick up any globe, really.

@nightcross
while bug? that they cant inherit LoH?
I'm using that build, but when I saw it i had no CC, no more dodge, and no that passive skill (so no health regeneration on pets)

dunno if any of you proctologists have seen this, but i was in a pub group vs. maghda in inferno and had her proc locked to the point that her health bar froze and the group could do no more damage until we let off her and let her do the whole shield/summon sequence she does.

Yup, have noticed this before. Essentially, CCing her resets her animation/timer to activate her shield and summon the adds. If your CC is high enough, she essentially cannot get her shield off. This happens at the 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 health mark and she is invulnerable until she activates her shield.

Easiest way is to simply walk to the other side of the map, unfortunately it does not always work as it seems she will prioritise following you to a certain distance before activating her shield.

Edit: @Sam Your gear is seriously sick! Just like to inform everyone profile pages are up, so no need for external screenshots anymore.

CC also bugs siegebreaker.

If you get picked up by him, and your pets continue to CC, it will interrupt his sequence but he will not let go. You will stay alive, he will die slowly until enrage. Only thing you can do is dismiss a few pets. Its pretty funny.

Whats new in 3.0???

And-- I'd be up for some 4 CC pet WD's in act 3 now!

still in act 2 but i'm down for 4 CC pet WD as well, so if any of the pre-med docs are looking for a proc party, just send me an invite with something about procs or pets in the message and we'll get busy.

oh, and veterans, please yell at me about my gear/build! What gear do I need? What should I replace Spirit Vessel with once I stop dying all the dang time? YOU BE THE JUDGE/JURY/EXECUTIONER!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/capntao-1291/hero/3830541

hopefully i'll be able to trick out my bling if the set ring i found last night pulls me any gp from the ah.

dunno if any of you proctologists have seen this, but i was in a pub group vs. maghda in inferno and had her proc locked to the point that her health bar froze and the group could do no more damage until we let off her and let her do the whole shield/summon sequence she does.

had to call the dogs off a coupla times to let her do her thing, she was stuck at 50% health for over a minute before i realized what was happening. anybody else seen this? do any other bosses or enemies bug out like that?

yep i have seen the exact same thing, as well as siegebreaker can't drop it's victim.

Great guide P. Been following it since hitting Inferno. Using these tactics got Act I on farm even in full MF gear. Act II is fine as well, just not in MF set up. The only question I have is how on earth are you cats getting the mixture of stats that you are posting? "X" amount of health WITH "X" dex WITH "X" Life regen, etc. I've been trying to get the recommended minimums for progression and just can't seem to reach all of them. There is always a sacrafice for one over the other. If anyone can help out with gear selection, especially in terms of actually being able to kill something in ACT III, it would be appreciated.
(BTW, using standard CC/Pet Build from above) http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Cullagan-1954/hero/3133132

Also, normally online for several hours a day if you want an invite.

Heheh hey cool check out my profile.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Peter-1403/hero/5983291

I dont know how this isnt a sticky yet...and I'm not sure how this hasnt made front page yet either....but Peter, and everyone else involved in the creation of this wonderful series of guides...THANK YOU SO MUCH! You alone have enabled me to want to play my WD way more than I do/should. WD are one of the most fun and interesting class available and I cant wait to see what they do with the improvments to be had in 1.04.