Diablo 3 Zunimassa + Arachyr Build: The True Pet Doctor

Source: https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/494833077778932495/

Amidst all the new patches for Witch Doctors' items, we seemed to forget the reason many went to Witch Doctors as a class when Diablo first came out - the ability to have its minions following it around serving as both shields and swords at the same time. Which build now can boast of having a full blown army of fetishes blowing fires and darts at the mobs, damage dog sponges, coupled with 3 huge-ass Gargantuan following you around you while you clear the rifts? With this yearning in mind, I present to you the True Pet Doctor's build which involves the 6-piece set bonus from Zunimassa's Haunt, and the 4-piece set bonus of Spirit of Arachyr.

As per always, here is a short prelude to the set that you'd be reading:

Giant toad and spider, hexing fetish, tons of pets just simply destroying everything like true piranhas in the Amazons, and you standing there flowing with spirits. Sounds good?

My Pet Doctor's build looks something like this:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/nicomatata-6452/hero/65432033

As you can already tell, I am using 2 different sets for this particular build: Zunimassa's Haunt and Spirit of Arachyr. The 6-piece set bonus for Zunimassa's Haunt is so that we are able to fully let our pets be the main damage dealer - 1500% dmg from pets to enemies hit by your mana spender - and to let your fetishes be the best meat shields you can ask for - fetishes last FOREVER and 3% increased resistance for each fetish. 4-piece set bonus for Spirit of Arachyr allows you to have a random 4000% damage Spider Queen and also increases your survivability when you cast Hex, add an extra toad to your pet army.

In case you didn't realise it, the set items here can be mixed and matched around depending on the which ones do you have as long as you are able to hit the required 6-piece set bonus for Zunimassa's Haunt and 4-piece set bonus for Spirit of Arachyr. For example, you have a Zunimassa's Vision and a Arachyr's Visage, both can be utilised as the "Head" in this build and you simply choose the one with the better stat.

Head: Zunimassa's Vision / Arachyr's Visage; +Int; +Crit Chance; +Socket; +Vit

Torso: Zunimassa's Marrow / Arachyr's Carapace; +Int; +All Resist; +Sockets; +Vit

Waist: Belt of Transcendence; with this item, you'd be able to ensure that you have the maximum number of fetishes at any one time, the more the fetishes, the more your resistance! Since your pets are your main damage dealer, more fetishes also mean more DPS! ; +Int, +All Resist, +Vit, +% life

Legs: Zunimassa's Cloth / Arachyr's Legs; +Int, +All Resist, +% Skills (pets / Spirit Barrage), +Socket

Feet: Zunimassa's Trail / Arachyr's Stride; +Int, +All Resist, +Vit, +Armour / % Spirit Barrage

Shoulders: Arachyr's Mantle; +Int, +All Resist, +Vit, +% life / Cooldown Reduction

Hands: Zunimassa's Finger Wraps / Arachyr's Claws; ; +Int, +Crit Dmg, +Crit Chance, +Attack Speed

Neck: Hellfire Amulet which gives a one of the alternative passive skills shown in the skills section below, in my case was Rush of Essence; +Int +Crit Dmg, +Crit Chance, +Socket

Wrist: Nemesis Bracers; I have not found a good one for this slot yet but having this would allow you to clear rifts faster since you can get more elites. Alternatively, you can also use Lacuni Prowlers like what I am doing now for more damage since they automatically provides you with increased attack speed, the additional boost for movement speed also means you can allocate more of your paragon points to intelligence; +Int, +Crit Chance, +All Resist

Ring (1): Zunimassa's Pox; +Int, +Crit Dmg, +Crit Chance, +Socket

Ring (2): The Short Man's Finger; I chose this because Gargantuan's damage just becomes crazy with this thing on, you may opt for other rings such as Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for quicker cool down of Hex and Spirit Walk or Unity to play it safer, entirely up to your preferences; +Int, +Crit Dmg, +Crit Chance, +Socket

Weapon: Voo's Juicer; this item has been underrated throughout its entire debut, but in this build the 2 additional runes for the Spirit Barrage skill just grants you with impeccable survivability - from the life steal - and constantly ensuring that a vast amount of mobs get hit by a mana spender to proc the 1500% increase in pet damage; +Int, +% dmg, +Socket, +Cooldown Reduction

Mojo: Zunimassa's String of Skulls; ; +Int, +Crit Dmg, +Cooldown Reduction, +Dmg, +Socket

Kanai's Cube:

Weapon: Gazing Demise; I know a lot of people would be disagreeable with this but you are really just focusing on casting as much damage in the area as possible with your pets, having Phantasm circling around for ~750% dmg definitely helps to a certain extent; alternatively one can also go for Starmetal Kukri granting you an almost permanent Big Bad Voodoo = more damage output from your pets

Armour: Mask of Jeram; double your main damage output DPS, just do it

Jewellery: Ring of Royal Grandeur; allow you to have 1 piece less for set bonus which is why you can have the best of both worlds!

Legendary Gems:

1. Enforcer; because you are a pet doctor, and this gem grants you increased damage % for you pets, simple as.


2. Esoteric Alteration; you'd need as much resistance as you can get so as to fully utilise the 60% you get from the Spirit of Arachyr 4-pc set bonus


3. Bane of the Stricken; with the amount of hits you are making to any enemies with your Spirit Barrage and pets, you can easily double up your damage with this legendary gem. You can also consider getting Bane of the Powerful if you feel like you prefer the damage boost from the abundance of elites, especially if you have Nemesis Bracers equipped

Skills:

Active Skills:

1. Spirit Barrage with Well of Souls rune, you'd practically have almost all the runes for this skill if you follow the item and Kanai's guide above. Either way, this combination would grant you the highest chance to inflict as many opponent as you can with you mana spender so that you are able to get your 1500% damage from your pets!


2. Piranhas with Piranhado rune, mobs hit by this skill will take 15% increased damage, and with Piranhado rune, you can consolidate all mobs into the same area and immobilise them for a short period of time allowing you have better crowd control. Another alternative for this skill slot would be Big Bad Voodoo but the long cool down means you will need to have Starmetal Kukri to make it feasible. You can put it in your Kanai's and sacrifice the increased damage from your Gazing Demise if that is your preference


3. Gargantuan with Restless Giant rune, this is by far the highest damage output rune I have seen other than Wrathful Protector. The fact the Wrathful Protector requires a cool down and Gargantuans which are not permanent just sounds dangerous to me, but if you are capable of it, please go ahead to try it and let me know! Humongoid rune is also feasible due to its consistency and area damage so its entirely up to the player's preferences


4. Fetish Army with Fetish Ambush rune, again greatest damage output out of all the runes and by forcing your fetishes to be only melee, they will help serve as better meat shields than having some ranged ones EDIT: As pointed out in this thread although seemingly outdated, the Fetish Ambush rune might not be considered a form of "pet damage" and hence will not be buffed by the Zuni 6P bonus, I had to test-run it several rounds to notice as well since your fetishes are mainly there to serve as meat shields with your Gargs and SB as your main damage. As such, I would recommend using Legion of Daggers rune since it pumps another 3 more fetishes out (3*3% more resistance) for greater survivability as well as slightly more hits for damage output. 


5. Summon Zombie Dogs with Life Link rune, to get more damage mitigation. You can also go for Leeching Beasts rune if you are a fonder supporter of Life on Hit and have enough damage mitigation to prevent one-hit from higher torments!


6. Hex with Jinx rune, I can't stress on how important this skill is in this build, it grants you 60% resistance, immobilises opponent for 12 secs and amplifies damage on mobs! 

Passive Skills:

1. Pierce the Veil; increases your damage out SIGNIFICANTLY. Yes, you will bleed mana quicker but with Voo's Juicer, and if possible Rush of Essence included in the passive skill slot via some flexibility with Hellfire Amulet, mana should be the last thing you worry about


2. Grave Injustice; this is to ensure that you will constantly be able to cast both Hex and Piranhas without fail throughout the entire game. The additional 1% healing for each death also grants you greater survivability


3. Midnight Feast; the damage increase of 50% to your Gargantuan is the main key to this passive slot. You'd see them mowing down mobs easier and quicker with this passive on


4. Fierce Loyalty; I LOVE TO RUN FASTER THROUGHOUT THE MAPS, trust me you'd get hooked onto the increased movement speed from this skill and never ever swap it out again

Paragon Points:

Core: +Movement Speed → +Int; always make sure your movement speed is maxed at 25%, suggest to purely use paragon points to add movement speed so you are able to use an additional slot to increase your toughness with your Zunimassa's Trail / Arachyr's Stride.

Offense: +Crit Dmg → +Crit Chance → +Cooldown Reduction → +Attk Spd; why not do a reduction in cooldown first? Simple, you really only need cooldown for your Hex to get that 60% boost in resistance and Spirit Walk to escape. However, the cooldown for Hex and the duration of the boosted survivability is the same at 15 sec (just a little dangerous and inconvenient that you have to cut it so close to cast Hex). With Grave Injustice, your cooldown for both of the skills will be pretty much instantaneous as well, thats why I chose to max out the two most important damage counter first before going for convenience.

Defense: +All Resist → +Life → +Armor → +Life Regen; the first is probably quite self intuitive, as for Life or Armor, that again is up to the individual. I personally prefer having more life first since that will allow me to have more meat for soaking up damage. However, some will argue that having armor does the same. Either way, since they are all in the form of '%', it would be wise to see your current stats before deciding. E.g., if your build currently has more Vitality, then adding paragon to 'Life' will grant you a greater increase in toughness and vice versa.

Utility: +Resource Cost Reduction → +Area Damage → +Life on Hit → +Gold; reducing the amount of resources needed to cast your mana spender - Spirit Barrage - will allow you to garner more fetishes quicker and cause more mobs to get the 1500% from your pets! Being able to spam Spirit Barrage will also aid you in clearing the rifts quicker as seen in the video. I figured the life steal wouldn't be that important given the natural life steal from Voo's Juicer, so might as well just increase area damage first.

Gameplay: 

I always like builds which are simple to use and effective, so this build is no different:

1. Activate Gargantuan, Fetish Army, and Summon Zombie Dogs. The minute you see the first mob, regardless of how big the crowd is, activate Hex. This grants you the initial resistance you'd need before you get killed immediately by the mobs, especially in higher torments and rifts. 
2. Focus on getting your fetishes up to the maximum, i.e., 15 fetishes so you are able to garner even more resistance to survive throughout the game.
3. Each time when you encounter a new crowd, cast Hex followed by Piranhas and stand not more than 20 yards away while blasting your Spirit Barrage. You should have almost no issues clearing mobs that way.
4. If your pets stray too far away, summon them again so that they will all be able to focus on the same crowd and clear the entire rifts faster!
5. Make sure that ALL your pets are always up, and Hex immediately when it cools down so that you will not DIE.

Thats all for the build, thanks for reading and do feel free to comment or email me if you have any better suggestions to improve this build further!