Well, Barb and Monks needs serious defensive gear to stand chance in Inferno. Wizzards also needs some so their Force Armor work after the nerf fix. If they made WD pets tankish enough when you load some hp and resist yourself, it could, in theory, allow to more bearable Inferno play for them. That would leave DH as only class that stacking vit/res is 100% pointless.
Although myself, I don't really see dogs working even after vit scaling. Sure, you can kill trash packs in less tedious way, but they will still get one shotted by elites that you have to kite for next 5 minutes, just this time with one less skill on your bar.
My dogs (w/o vit scaling) are not getting one shotted by elites (act 2 inferno).
They are not intended to last 1 minute, specially in an non tanky gear (imagine how ridicoulsy overpowered that would be).
Monk pet is about on par with Gargantuan (and dies just as much in Inferno), yet he can work without cooldown.
You might also didn't met 'right' elites. Wasps will kill them with projectiles, Fallen Overlords will smash them, Desert Golems will laught at them, male catman, axeman skeletons etc. They shouldn't last full minute, but if I can't take down at least half hp of elite before they die, I'm better with Fear.
On top of that, act III damage also skyrocket. I shelved WD for now for DH (day after I dinged him I'm already progressing in Act III, skipped maybe 3 packs out of 50 I encountered), and small (white/normal) Fallen grunts are hitting me for 50k per swing.
The thing about the WD that I didn't fully realize until I actually played the game for a while is that it's basically a melee caster. A lot of people may be in the same boat. All of our best abilities are essentially melee range. If you're going to play the WD to its full potential I think you have to be in melee range.
It's probably true that WDs have the highest damage potential though if we're allowed to just spam spells, which is how you get 8sec Inferno boss kills. But you're never able to do that consistently. And damage bonuses are more difficult for us to get compared to the DH for example.
No doubt the WD has a lot of potential, perhaps more than other classes. But it's just not possible to stand in melee range and use our best spells the majority of the time.
And so most people stick with Dart / Hex / Grasp / Spirit Walk / Zombie Wall builds.
A lot of people see what the DH can do (and I guess Wizard to a degree) and may wish they went with that class instead. I don't really feel that way, but I can understand it. It seems really easy to make a Steady Aim / Archery build with Multishot, etc and be instantly really successful just stacking IAS/crit and damage without worrying about defensive stats at all.
Monk pet is about on par with Gargantuan (and dies just as much in Inferno), yet he can work without cooldown.
Yo'ure problably comparing a monk's pet with 10k armor, 35% dodge and 800 all resist with your gargantua (less then half of each of those stats problably).
You might also didn't met 'right' elites. Wasps will kill them with projectiles, Fallen Overlords will smash them, Desert Golems will laught at them, male catman, axeman skeletons etc. They shouldn't last full minute, but if I can't take down at least half hp of elite before they die, I'm better with Fear.
If my pet can tank a pack for half of their HP pets would be pretty OP cause i can easilly recast then for the other half HP and could kill the entiry elite pack w/o kiting at all. Not a single class plays this game w/o struggling against packs.
If pets allows me to kill one minion/champion (around 25% of the damage i gotta do to kill then all) in the pack they are more then excelent skill. Ressummoning means i can problably kill another one or even more (each monster you kill in the pack reduces their overall damage, making my summons more able to tank then). If pets allows me to take care of worst half of the pack (the first half) they are already worthy imho. The other half i can take care myself and as soon as their cooldown reset i can recast then and kill the rest.
This is more or less how my pets are working on right now. Ususally i don't recats then if there are 4 champsion or all the minions, as the group of mobs kill then fast. The summons i'm using allows me to quickly kill one enemy and i struggle a little until i kill another one. Then i use my packs, in this case they last longer and allows me to safely and easily kill the rest of the pack.
On top of that, act III damage also skyrocket. I shelved WD for now for DH (day after I dinged him I'm already progressing in Act III, skipped maybe 3 packs out of 50 I encountered), and small (white/normal) Fallen grunts are hitting me for 50k per swing.
So does Act II in relation to Act I.
The monsters gets stronger but my gear gets stronger too. The progression from Act II, Act III and Act IV are more or less linear. You need gear and alot of farming to progress, unlike Act I were you can rape it with hell gear easilly (only Bucther requires some real lvl 61 gear). I just feel that if i can progress in Act II i will be able to progress in the rest of the game. I know you play Splitters build and thats why you problably disagree with me. Kiters do not need the right gear to progress (you can do Act II with lvl60 or less item, you don't need a full set of min/maxed lvl61 pieces for exemple). You start to get one shotted by everything, but thats because your play style (undergeared).
My brother have a melee wizard and he can pretty much tank everything in Act III, even in multiplayer. I'm the only WD whos doing Act II on inferno using both dogs and gangantua i guess =/
Monk pet is about on par with Gargantuan (and dies just as much in Inferno), yet he can work without cooldown.
Monk pet gets 1-2 shot in Act 3. So pets are generally in a bad spot.
P.S. Although what can we ask from pets when i get 3-4 shot myself with 40K hp/800 resist/9K armor heh. Yestoday got instagibed by lashers champions packs like 3 times (triple lick...), kinda tells you the story of how usefull defensive stats are most of the time;/
There is bigger difference between 2nd and 3rd, than 1st and 2nd act. Unless you don't rely on AH at all, you are able to buy gear from later acts. With that, not every gear piece you have have to include all-res, because rest of them have it high enough.
Other way, getting ~600-700 resist all is way, way easier, than obtaining 1000+ for later act.
If your brother is doing that without Force Armor, then I may indeed be wrong with ranged and defensive stats, if he does, then just n/c. For a WD to do that, you must be able to take minimum 3 hits from elites each 13 seconds of Spirit walk cd (to get break), and regain somehow all hp in that time. FA for Wizz effectively make their defensive stats THREE times more valuable than for us.
But do try to get to Act III, if you manage to make pet works decent enough there (before 1.03), I will admit I may be wrong about complete worthlessness of them.
I think it's pretty much the case that no one, or at least very very few, have used pets successfully in Act 3 at this point. And very few people have been able to use pets they don't have to consistently resummon past Act 1. I'm still deciding whether I should get the gear to try a pet build...
Of course you have to stack CC items for them to survive. But even with max CC and very good gear, I don't think they can survive without resummons past Act 1 and in Act 3 they can get killed too fast to make resummoning a good strategy. However, it's rare to see a person with all the right gear using a summon build, so perhaps they're capable of more than this.
Honestly what they're going to probably do is buff pets survivability in 1.03 but nerf CC either at the same time or soon after. Which I'm sure will be fun for people who have dumped tons of gold into a non-vitality based build with max CC on items...
I agree with pretty much everything but a few things that others already pointed out (hex jinx imo the best rune, etc)
The thing is, I think it's a bit unfair to talk about skills only inferno-wise. Sure, it's the endgame and there is no reason to re-roll a WD and level one again up to inferno. However, seems to me that other classes also have tons of useless skills when they hit act II inferno. and devs stated repeatedly inferno will be a grind.
and even if talking about inferno, not sure how you can ignore the infinite mana regen builds just because you don't like em...
in inferno, there are two main tactics for the 3 ranged classes in the game.
1. Kite (and be able to take a hit or two)
2. Burst damage kill em all/glass cannon build
demon hunters can use 1 and 2 at the same time so theyre the most played for farming.
for WDs, we at least have the choice in either 1 or 2 (splinters or VQ with bear spams)
now as far as clearing content faster, I think VQ with bears if you max your damage is actually better and will cost you less in spending on gear.
we as WDs get two chances with spirit walk and spirit vessel so thats 6 'free' seconds right there to spam bears if using the jaunt rune (and assuming theres no double attack for SV to fail procing)
and you're kinda ignoring that build (I mean, rain dance BBV is NOT a B )
either way, I think this is a great writeup, very detailed skill analysis. my point (kinda incoherent I know) is that most classes end up pigeonholed on inferno past Act I as well...yes it can get boring when youre choosing between dart kiting and 4 cool down watch/burst damage spamming...but its not like other classes are very diverse to play in inferno as well...to me, demon hunters become boring starting on nightmare.
You need gear and alot of farming to progress, unlike Act I were you can rape it with hell gear easilly (only Bucther requires some real lvl 61 gear).
eh the butcher doesnt really require extra gear imo...at least when playing against him as a WD. all my items bought on AH for less than 90k each, except the weapon (800 dps blue dagger). I killed him really fast with crappy HP pool, and someone with a worse weapon would kill him a bit slower but surely theyd kill him before enrage timer kicks in.
two health pools, spirit walk and spirit vessel (+potion) work real well to replenish your hp and amend mistakes. if you can avoid the hook you don't really need any special gear to beat him at all IMO.
The thing is, I think it's a bit unfair to talk about skills only inferno-wise. Sure, it's the endgame and there is no reason to re-roll a WD and level one again up to inferno. However, seems to me that other classes also have tons of useless skills when they hit act II inferno. and devs stated repeatedly inferno will be a grind.
Oh, maybe I didn't express myself clear enough. This is a writeup from Inferno for Inferno. As I stated before, I absolutely loved leveling my Zecora the female Witch Doc. My DH leveling was pretty much multishot spam all the way, and Monk is interesting only in generators field (/yawn on spenders, better get more defenses). For WD, I switched playstyle from nuke to pet to dot to nuke/dot to pet/nuke... etc, builds done from scratch each ~5 levels. That felt great!
However, you will spend most time in Inferno, this is where gear drop, patterns/unlocks for crafters drop, where you actually gear up for challenge rather than steamroll on Soul Siphon buff. That's why this is where the most skills should be usable, or else we end up getting really boring playstyle and unfinished class. Other classes sharing those problems doesn't mean it's a good design, and I don't mention them since it's, well, WD specific forum, they have their own pros and cons (no diversity in DH builds was even directly addressed by blues).
I didn't ignore VQ build, I just stated I dislike the idea behind it, and I don't accept Zombie Bear build a valid one. Deadrushing/spawnressing isn't a gameplay tactic! Sure, I may die on my DH, but I have 6+ god mode buffs against one (and half from passive) with cd that goes on and on. Dire Bats, that could work, but we have many high mana skills, and relying on one (imo unfun) passive to make them work is broken.
- Severance: Why would you want to run INTO enemies? I can't take hits, remember? C
Well, when you are kiting in a hallway, I often run thru enemies when I spirit walk if I'm near a dead end. I don't use this rune; but I see it's usefulness. Situationally. Very situationally.
At Inferno, I'm like (╯ಠ益ಠ)╯︵ ┻━┻
Yeah, pretty much. I'm petless now. Act 2, everything 1 shots my gargantuan too. What's the point? Sadly, without pets, it's near impossible to kill the ninja nagas and lacuna before they kill me. Waiting to see how they change damage in Act 2-4 in 1.0.3. I just farm Butcher all the time. Exciting.
Problems/Fixing: Even not scaling, this ability is incredibly powerful self-buff at max level. It goes from amazing to over-risky when you can't get into melee range at all though. Worhtless on boss fights with no adds, but for shear power on trash, I think it's fine.
Problem is, you don't need soul harvest on trash. You need it on bosses, where it's useless. So it's useless.
- Devolution: More Zombie Dogs! If they were good, this rune would be great. They aren't, so you are hurting yourself using it. B
You are obviously meant to use this with sacrifice. Get em; blow em up. Rinse/repeat.
I didn't ignore VQ build, I just stated I dislike the idea behind it, and I don't accept Zombie Bear build a valid one. Deadrushing/spawnressing isn't a gameplay tactic! Sure, I may die on my DH, but I have 6+ god mode buffs against one (and half from passive) with cd that goes on and on. Dire Bats, that could work, but we have many high mana skills, and relying on one (imo unfun) passive to make them work is broken.
well it's not that terrible a tactic when the only alternative is to run around kiting stuff with darts. it's as viable really. also you won't spend as much time as when you are kiting with darts. what's the big difference as to when you will get one/two-shot ?
I was kiting a wasp champ pack (reflect damage/arcane/molten/some other crap) yesterday and Ive killed all the minions and the yellow one was down to like 5% health when the enrage timer kicked in and styled on me...that took some time. now I know with reflect damage its pretty much impossible to run the bears tactic but in most other cases...it proves to be faster and you only die a few more times.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm petless now. Act 2, everything 1 shots my gargantuan too. What's the point? Sadly, without pets, it's near impossible to kill the ninja nagas and lacuna before they kill me. Waiting to see how they change damage in Act 2-4 in 1.0.3. I just farm Butcher all the time. Exciting.
maybe champ packs, but regular lacuna and nagas are trivial imo. takes some time to get used to avoid their attacks but its not that bad.
Im currently running 29k HP/30k damage (that includes the pierce the veil passive) and its not that bad. I'm not even running VQ right now.
against nagas (all of them) bears are great. in sewers when its tougher to maneuver standing with your back to the wall gives you a line of bears. in open space running away from them and counting then casting bears where they might appear is effective as well.
hex is also beastly in these situations.
Problem is, you don't need soul harvest on trash. You need it on bosses, where it's useless. So it's useless.
no way ! when you kite champs packs around youre bound to run into trash. and trash hits as hard as any mob really...so getting 5 stacks off a random shaman and his imps...gives you a great boost.
as far as bosses, I think the consensus is they're generally easier (even in inferno) than random elite packs with random affixes because they have clear patterns. unless you really want those five stacks of NV you can always switch SH off for bosses. lots of other useful abilities (grasp, hex) are kinda useless on bosses as well.
Im currently running 29k HP/30k damage (that includes the pierce the veil passive) and its not that bad. I'm not even running VQ right now.
I'm running 14k health. Maybe that's my problem. My resists are at the 400 range or so. I'm at 25k DPS (with pierce the veil). Act 1 is completely trivial. Only things that kill me are the frog dudes as elites. Fast little bastards.
I tried Act 2 with the gargantuan (I'd dumped dogs early in Act 1 inferno as being a waste of a slot). First fight, where you get the enchantress, he was killed by a wasp. He stood in the path of the things it shoots out. Dead. Next summon was a lacuna jumper from the cliffs - dead in 2 hits.
At least the fetish dudes (passive) tank -and- cannot be killed. They have no health bar. I'm trying that out.
I was dorking around with a "sacrifice" build - getting everything that could summon a dog and doing it; but you sacrifice at least 4 of your 9 slots. And 3 of your 6 actives. That'd be a weird, spiky build. And kind of incompetent at times, I fear. I'm gonna mess around with it in Act 1 tonight and see how it goes.
I disagree that GoD is useless on a boss, especially one that moves. It does a minor DoT and slows them down. For the butcher, I start off with wall of zombies and GoD. Back away and fire at him till he charges. Then I hit it on every CD. If you put a wall of zombies in the direction the butcher charges; he'll stop right at that wall. It's kinda sweet if you are too lazy to move. GoD is a cheap, easy DoT that lets you reposition the fight to your liking.
Fetishes DO die, and they do so routinely in act II, especially from stuff like arcane beams.
The reason why the'yre the only viable pet skills (both passive and active) is cuz they aggro elite so much they damn nearly stop in their tracks to finish the little guys off.
Speaking of fetishes, the ambush rune works great with the said bear/glass cannon/vq build. The amount of burst you can create by popping slam dance BBV, 5 stacks of SH, then fetish ambush and then bear spam (also can do WoZ in the middle somewhere) is quite incredible. sure, sometimes you'll die with both SW and SV as well as potion procing, but a lot of times you'll mow the pack down easily or at least will be able to finish them off by kiting hopefully.
I do agree that Garg is useless in act II. it started being useless for me in act 4 hell actually. dogs started become useless in act 4 normal
But do try to get to Act III, if you manage to make pet works decent enough there (before 1.03), I will admit I may be wrong about complete worthlessness of them.
I will problably need some epic farming.
Also, i'm not using the AH to buy items i don't have access. I allways play attention to item's icon and allways buy stuff with the same icon i drop (i feel like buying act III and Iv gear is like cheating the game and i don't want to cheat !).
Not trying to antagonize you or prove you wrong. Im' just saying, the vast majority of WD pick a glass cannon build and throw a summon there, while summons depends on armor, physical resistance and health globes to be of any use.
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"In time the hissing of her sanity
Faded out her voice and soiled her name
And like marked pages in a diary
Everything seemed clean that is unstained
The incoherent talk of ordinary days
Why would we really need to live?
Decide what is clear and what's within a haze
What you should take and what to give" - Opeth
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My dogs (w/o vit scaling) are not getting one shotted by elites (act 2 inferno).
They are not intended to last 1 minute, specially in an non tanky gear (imagine how ridicoulsy overpowered that would be).
You might also didn't met 'right' elites. Wasps will kill them with projectiles, Fallen Overlords will smash them, Desert Golems will laught at them, male catman, axeman skeletons etc. They shouldn't last full minute, but if I can't take down at least half hp of elite before they die, I'm better with Fear.
On top of that, act III damage also skyrocket. I shelved WD for now for DH (day after I dinged him I'm already progressing in Act III, skipped maybe 3 packs out of 50 I encountered), and small (white/normal) Fallen grunts are hitting me for 50k per swing.
It's probably true that WDs have the highest damage potential though if we're allowed to just spam spells, which is how you get 8sec Inferno boss kills. But you're never able to do that consistently. And damage bonuses are more difficult for us to get compared to the DH for example.
No doubt the WD has a lot of potential, perhaps more than other classes. But it's just not possible to stand in melee range and use our best spells the majority of the time.
And so most people stick with Dart / Hex / Grasp / Spirit Walk / Zombie Wall builds.
A lot of people see what the DH can do (and I guess Wizard to a degree) and may wish they went with that class instead. I don't really feel that way, but I can understand it. It seems really easy to make a Steady Aim / Archery build with Multishot, etc and be instantly really successful just stacking IAS/crit and damage without worrying about defensive stats at all.
Yo'ure problably comparing a monk's pet with 10k armor, 35% dodge and 800 all resist with your gargantua (less then half of each of those stats problably).
If my pet can tank a pack for half of their HP pets would be pretty OP cause i can easilly recast then for the other half HP and could kill the entiry elite pack w/o kiting at all. Not a single class plays this game w/o struggling against packs.
If pets allows me to kill one minion/champion (around 25% of the damage i gotta do to kill then all) in the pack they are more then excelent skill. Ressummoning means i can problably kill another one or even more (each monster you kill in the pack reduces their overall damage, making my summons more able to tank then). If pets allows me to take care of worst half of the pack (the first half) they are already worthy imho. The other half i can take care myself and as soon as their cooldown reset i can recast then and kill the rest.
This is more or less how my pets are working on right now. Ususally i don't recats then if there are 4 champsion or all the minions, as the group of mobs kill then fast. The summons i'm using allows me to quickly kill one enemy and i struggle a little until i kill another one. Then i use my packs, in this case they last longer and allows me to safely and easily kill the rest of the pack.
So does Act II in relation to Act I.
The monsters gets stronger but my gear gets stronger too. The progression from Act II, Act III and Act IV are more or less linear. You need gear and alot of farming to progress, unlike Act I were you can rape it with hell gear easilly (only Bucther requires some real lvl 61 gear). I just feel that if i can progress in Act II i will be able to progress in the rest of the game. I know you play Splitters build and thats why you problably disagree with me. Kiters do not need the right gear to progress (you can do Act II with lvl60 or less item, you don't need a full set of min/maxed lvl61 pieces for exemple). You start to get one shotted by everything, but thats because your play style (undergeared).
My brother have a melee wizard and he can pretty much tank everything in Act III, even in multiplayer. I'm the only WD whos doing Act II on inferno using both dogs and gangantua i guess =/
Monk pet gets 1-2 shot in Act 3. So pets are generally in a bad spot.
P.S. Although what can we ask from pets when i get 3-4 shot myself with 40K hp/800 resist/9K armor heh. Yestoday got instagibed by lashers champions packs like 3 times (triple lick...), kinda tells you the story of how usefull defensive stats are most of the time;/
Other way, getting ~600-700 resist all is way, way easier, than obtaining 1000+ for later act.
If your brother is doing that without Force Armor, then I may indeed be wrong with ranged and defensive stats, if he does, then just n/c. For a WD to do that, you must be able to take minimum 3 hits from elites each 13 seconds of Spirit walk cd (to get break), and regain somehow all hp in that time. FA for Wizz effectively make their defensive stats THREE times more valuable than for us.
But do try to get to Act III, if you manage to make pet works decent enough there (before 1.03), I will admit I may be wrong about complete worthlessness of them.
Of course you have to stack CC items for them to survive. But even with max CC and very good gear, I don't think they can survive without resummons past Act 1 and in Act 3 they can get killed too fast to make resummoning a good strategy. However, it's rare to see a person with all the right gear using a summon build, so perhaps they're capable of more than this.
Honestly what they're going to probably do is buff pets survivability in 1.03 but nerf CC either at the same time or soon after. Which I'm sure will be fun for people who have dumped tons of gold into a non-vitality based build with max CC on items...
The thing is, I think it's a bit unfair to talk about skills only inferno-wise. Sure, it's the endgame and there is no reason to re-roll a WD and level one again up to inferno. However, seems to me that other classes also have tons of useless skills when they hit act II inferno. and devs stated repeatedly inferno will be a grind.
and even if talking about inferno, not sure how you can ignore the infinite mana regen builds just because you don't like em...
in inferno, there are two main tactics for the 3 ranged classes in the game.
1. Kite (and be able to take a hit or two)
2. Burst damage kill em all/glass cannon build
demon hunters can use 1 and 2 at the same time so theyre the most played for farming.
for WDs, we at least have the choice in either 1 or 2 (splinters or VQ with bear spams)
now as far as clearing content faster, I think VQ with bears if you max your damage is actually better and will cost you less in spending on gear.
we as WDs get two chances with spirit walk and spirit vessel so thats 6 'free' seconds right there to spam bears if using the jaunt rune (and assuming theres no double attack for SV to fail procing)
and you're kinda ignoring that build (I mean, rain dance BBV is NOT a B )
either way, I think this is a great writeup, very detailed skill analysis. my point (kinda incoherent I know) is that most classes end up pigeonholed on inferno past Act I as well...yes it can get boring when youre choosing between dart kiting and 4 cool down watch/burst damage spamming...but its not like other classes are very diverse to play in inferno as well...to me, demon hunters become boring starting on nightmare.
two health pools, spirit walk and spirit vessel (+potion) work real well to replenish your hp and amend mistakes. if you can avoid the hook you don't really need any special gear to beat him at all IMO.
I don't fell like I have enough control over the battle.
However, you will spend most time in Inferno, this is where gear drop, patterns/unlocks for crafters drop, where you actually gear up for challenge rather than steamroll on Soul Siphon buff. That's why this is where the most skills should be usable, or else we end up getting really boring playstyle and unfinished class. Other classes sharing those problems doesn't mean it's a good design, and I don't mention them since it's, well, WD specific forum, they have their own pros and cons (no diversity in DH builds was even directly addressed by blues).
I didn't ignore VQ build, I just stated I dislike the idea behind it, and I don't accept Zombie Bear build a valid one. Deadrushing/spawnressing isn't a gameplay tactic! Sure, I may die on my DH, but I have 6+ god mode buffs against one (and half from passive) with cd that goes on and on. Dire Bats, that could work, but we have many high mana skills, and relying on one (imo unfun) passive to make them work is broken.
Well, when you are kiting in a hallway, I often run thru enemies when I spirit walk if I'm near a dead end. I don't use this rune; but I see it's usefulness. Situationally. Very situationally.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm petless now. Act 2, everything 1 shots my gargantuan too. What's the point? Sadly, without pets, it's near impossible to kill the ninja nagas and lacuna before they kill me. Waiting to see how they change damage in Act 2-4 in 1.0.3. I just farm Butcher all the time. Exciting.
Problem is, you don't need soul harvest on trash. You need it on bosses, where it's useless. So it's useless.
You are obviously meant to use this with sacrifice. Get em; blow em up. Rinse/repeat.
well it's not that terrible a tactic when the only alternative is to run around kiting stuff with darts. it's as viable really. also you won't spend as much time as when you are kiting with darts. what's the big difference as to when you will get one/two-shot ?
I was kiting a wasp champ pack (reflect damage/arcane/molten/some other crap) yesterday and Ive killed all the minions and the yellow one was down to like 5% health when the enrage timer kicked in and styled on me...that took some time. now I know with reflect damage its pretty much impossible to run the bears tactic but in most other cases...it proves to be faster and you only die a few more times.
Im currently running 29k HP/30k damage (that includes the pierce the veil passive) and its not that bad. I'm not even running VQ right now.
against nagas (all of them) bears are great. in sewers when its tougher to maneuver standing with your back to the wall gives you a line of bears. in open space running away from them and counting then casting bears where they might appear is effective as well.
hex is also beastly in these situations.
no way ! when you kite champs packs around youre bound to run into trash. and trash hits as hard as any mob really...so getting 5 stacks off a random shaman and his imps...gives you a great boost.
as far as bosses, I think the consensus is they're generally easier (even in inferno) than random elite packs with random affixes because they have clear patterns. unless you really want those five stacks of NV you can always switch SH off for bosses. lots of other useful abilities (grasp, hex) are kinda useless on bosses as well.
I tried Act 2 with the gargantuan (I'd dumped dogs early in Act 1 inferno as being a waste of a slot). First fight, where you get the enchantress, he was killed by a wasp. He stood in the path of the things it shoots out. Dead. Next summon was a lacuna jumper from the cliffs - dead in 2 hits.
At least the fetish dudes (passive) tank -and- cannot be killed. They have no health bar. I'm trying that out.
I was dorking around with a "sacrifice" build - getting everything that could summon a dog and doing it; but you sacrifice at least 4 of your 9 slots. And 3 of your 6 actives. That'd be a weird, spiky build. And kind of incompetent at times, I fear. I'm gonna mess around with it in Act 1 tonight and see how it goes.
I disagree that GoD is useless on a boss, especially one that moves. It does a minor DoT and slows them down. For the butcher, I start off with wall of zombies and GoD. Back away and fire at him till he charges. Then I hit it on every CD. If you put a wall of zombies in the direction the butcher charges; he'll stop right at that wall. It's kinda sweet if you are too lazy to move. GoD is a cheap, easy DoT that lets you reposition the fight to your liking.
The reason why the'yre the only viable pet skills (both passive and active) is cuz they aggro elite so much they damn nearly stop in their tracks to finish the little guys off.
Speaking of fetishes, the ambush rune works great with the said bear/glass cannon/vq build. The amount of burst you can create by popping slam dance BBV, 5 stacks of SH, then fetish ambush and then bear spam (also can do WoZ in the middle somewhere) is quite incredible. sure, sometimes you'll die with both SW and SV as well as potion procing, but a lot of times you'll mow the pack down easily or at least will be able to finish them off by kiting hopefully.
I do agree that Garg is useless in act II. it started being useless for me in act 4 hell actually. dogs started become useless in act 4 normal
I will problably need some epic farming.
Also, i'm not using the AH to buy items i don't have access. I allways play attention to item's icon and allways buy stuff with the same icon i drop (i feel like buying act III and Iv gear is like cheating the game and i don't want to cheat !).
Not trying to antagonize you or prove you wrong. Im' just saying, the vast majority of WD pick a glass cannon build and throw a summon there, while summons depends on armor, physical resistance and health globes to be of any use.