"The Crawling Chaos" - Crowd Control Witch Doctor

[420]

Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos - Crowd Control Witch Doctor


Biography
Every story of the apocalypse tells that the end times will be accompanied by plagues and pestilence. Most people interpreted these prophetic visions of insects and vermin scouring the lands of crops and livestock while spreading death and disease, as either heavenly punishments or demonic scourges.

However, the truth was far stranger. Only a few madmen guessed that these portents actually told of weapons, wielded by mortal hands, that would be directed against the invaders from the burning hells. Weapons powerful enough to cripple demons and cleanse their corrupting taint from the lands, both formed and unformed.

After the defeat of Mephisto the Fetish demons that infested the jungles of Kehjistan were decimated by a series of plagues that seemed to be spread by a particularly virulent species of locust. Eventually, a Witch Doctor named Nyarlathotep emerged from the now receding jungle, claiming to have brokered a peace deal with the spirits of the Fetish shaman, and set out on a quest to rid the lands of Sanctuary of the demons that infested it.

Concept
Nyarlathotep is my first and only pure crowd control build, while he has fair offense and defense, he excels at neither. Instead he uses gear with a % chance to apply a negative effect on hit combined with continual damage dealt by the Locus Swarm skill. As such, he's most effective in a party with at least one tank and one nuke.

I got the idea for this build when I discovered how quickly Locus Swarm could spread to every creature in range using the Pestilence rune. When combined with the Bad Medicine passive skill, the poison damage dealt every second ensures that every attacking creature will always be dealing 20% less damage.

In addition to the above combo, I chose active skills that applied crowd control effects like slow, confuse, and polymorph (Hex) and items with % chance to apply effects on hit.

Current Crowd Control Effects from Items:

• Stun on Hit: 4.0%
• Slow on Hit: 4.1%
• Blind on Hit: 4.5%
• Freeze on Hit: 3.4%
• Chill on hit: 3.8%

Build: Skills (Old)

Build: Skills (Current)

Profile: Nyarlathotep


Weapons

Primary: Ceremonial Knife (with life steal or life on hit, and critical damage) and mojo (with critical hit chance)

Secondary: Ceremonial Knife and Shield


Strategy
Run around and spread chaos, let other party members handle the jobs of primary offense and defense. The name of the game with this build is to stay alive and skirt the perimeter of the battle, applying or refreshing crowd control effects where needed.

Passive Skills: Passive skills focus on reducing enemy damage, reducing damage taken, or reducing skill cooldown.

Before Combat: Keep Hex (Jinx rune) active at all times. This will ensure that one enemy is always turned into a pig (can't move/attack and takes 20% more damage). (Warning: Some enemies are immune to the polymorph effect of the Witch Doctor's Hex and Enchatress's Mass Control skills!)

Entering Combat: First cast Grasp of the Dead (Unbreakable Grasp rune) where it would be most effective to slow down the enemy's advance. Next, hit an enemy with Locus Swarm. This skill has a very short range, a narrow cone (narrower than the skill's vfx), and an expensive casting cost, so it's best to target the enemy that has been hexed into a pig. A single hit of Locus Swarm is enough to infect all on-screen (and many off-screen) targets.
 
Combat: While Locus Swarm spreads, pick a relatively stationary target (usually the pig) and cast Spirit Barrage (Phantasm rune) on it 3 times. (Only 3 Phantasms can be active at a time.) Continue to recast Hex, Grasp of the Dead, Locus Swarm, and Spirit Barrage when those effects end.

Against very large groups and elites mobs use Mass Confusion (Paranoia rune) to get some of the enemies to fight for you while every enemy in the effect's radius takes additional damage. (I believe the increased damage effect from Paranoia works on bosses even if the confusion effect doesn't, but not sure.)

For any extended battles whip out the Big Bad Voodoo (Ghost Trance rune) to give the party a massive offensive and defensive boost.


Preferred Follower
I went with the Enchantress because she sports the most crowd control effects of any follower and that's right up Nyarlathotep's alley. Also, it's pretty fun to watch a confused pig, surrounded by confused chickens, being eaten alive by a swarm of diseased insects.


-420

EDIT: Skill change and Crowd Control % updated.[/list]

[420]

I did some extensive testing last weekend then posted on the D3 forums this week. It turns out that Locus Swarm doesn't trigger Crowd Control effects OR Life on Hit (though it does work with Life Steal for some reason). So I ended up switching to the 2nd most used WD attack (next to Zombie Bears of course): Acid Cloud (Slow Burn rune).

Like my other two attacks, Spirit Barrage (Phantasm rune) and Grasp of the Dead (Unbreakable Grasp rune), Acid Cloud triggers Crowd Control effects and Life on Hit on the initial cast and during the subsequent Damage over Time. Even better, you can stack Acid Cloud as long as you have the mana to cast it. AND since it does poison Damage over Time I still benefit from the passive skill Bad Medicine.

In short, this has made a huge difference in my Witch Doctor's effectiveness. For example, I can farm MP1 now where I couldn't solo with him in MP0 before.

Hopefully they will fix Locus Swarm in the future because it's useless as it is now.

-420