Just got your Witch Doctor to Level 70 Witch Doctor? Now what? Look no further. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what to do for each step for Seasonal Jounery, Haedrigs Gift, Builds & Items,and ultimately leading to the end-game as your Fresh 70 Witch Doctor. (Not 70 yet? See: WD Leveling Guide)

Curious? Well.. we’re going Chicken. Basic LoD into chicken.
For years, I would never recommend chicken because I thought the people at large wouldn’t be too happy with the build. But I’m done hiding. I love chicken and it’s a legit early/mid SPEED farming build. Try it, if you haven’t yet. It’s KFC time.

In Season 28, the Witch Doctor free set is: Mundunugu’s Regalia. While decent, will be completely ignored for the purposes of this guide. I’m serious, we’re going chicken.

D3 Season 28 Rites of Sanctuary and YOU. How does it affect?

S28’s unique mechanic is the Altar of Rites. I made a separate Altar of Rites guide because it’s there’s a few choices and timings you want to know about. A basic rundown, though:

The Altar of Rites is unlocked from the get-go. For each node (“seal”) you want to unlock, you need to sacrifice a specific set of items to unlock a seal. These increase in difficulty for each step of the way, regardless of which path you choose. IE, Unlock 5 will cost the same no matter if you went down one path or the other.

In return, each specific node grants you a passive power corresponding to the seal you unlocked. It’s kind of like a passive skill tree from other games. These range from the wildly exciting “Pets can pick up and salvage white, blue, and yellow gear”, to basic stat increases like 15% dodge.

While it may seem unexciting at first, the bonuses all pile up to become wildly out of hand.

While this notably changes the leveling pattern quite a bit, we won’t be talking about it here. Instead, check out the leveling guides if you’re not 70 yet and somehow found yourself here.

For this guide we have a few couple overarching steps that dictate our plan.
– Gear up our “super basic LoD generic build”.
– Aggressively look for Arachyr 6 and the chicken weapon set.
– Refine the build a little, and you have a godly speedfarming build. Yes, there is a downside, it doesn’t exactly scale very well into the very very late game.
– Transition into any other build you like. The only “non-recyclable items” are chicken weapons, and the Arachyr 6. A small price to pay to be a chicken.

If you’re not convinced, trust me, ‘There’s a chicken build for everyone’. It’s a very nuanced build that you can fit to your purposes as long as you understand its, uhh, limitations.

Early game WD Sanctified powers – a heads up

Every time you get an angelic crucible to sanctify an item, you’re gonna want to use it ASAP to boost your power levels.

What item do I sanctify? If you can, use it on a main-hand weapon. Ideally, in your case, a Sacred Harvester, or any useful utility one-hander. Sanctifying makes into a primal ancient tier weapon.

While the sanctified power you want is Gargantuan / Dogs / Pets, you can potentially use the others during your “way up”, depending on how mature your build is. Horrify is always fringe usable. The haunt one is ok. Long story short, you’re not sad to “waste” a crucible on a wrong power.


Step 1) Initial Build & Getting Legacy of Dreams

Don’t get stressed out, yes, LoD builds might seem a little daunting but let me tell you that it’s a fun and exciting process. Ultimately you need two things right now: The actual LoD gem, and a basic build to get you going.

Generic Starter build (slightly related to our ‘final build’)

WD Fresh Level 70 No Set Build
Skills Rune
Haunt
Resentful Spirits (Any)
Locust Swarm (Open)
Cloud of Insects (Searing Locusts)
Soul Harvest
Languish (Soul to Waste)
Spirit Walk
Severance (Jaunt)
Summon Zombie Dogs
Leeching Beasts
Gargantuan Humongoid
Passives
Fierce Loyalty
Rush of Essence
Pierce the Veil Midnight Feast

It’s a very open build. This double-DoT, double pet setup is a classic WD generic build that I’ve enjoyed for years.

The above build is meant to be Easy to edit – that hopefully game-changing legendaries can fit in no matter what.

Getting Legacy of Dreams ASAP

The first three gems will always be Bane of the Powerful, Legacy of Dreams, and one random one. So thankfully, there’s no RNG there.

Get 3 rift keys → Run 3 rifts → Wear three gemstones on your gear. That’s about as simple as it gets. DO NOT try to “tryhard” the nephs and GR’s. SPEED is the key here. Get your keys on Easy if you must!

Step 2) Easy power-ups. Huge gains for little effort.

You can go all of these things “simultaneously”, basically small tasks here and there that you should keep in mind right now that will greatly increase your power for little to no effort.

Sounds cliche but here’s the “three easy steps!”:
A) Obtain and L25 your three (LoD+2) Legendary Gems most useful to you.
B) Power up Legacy of Dreams with ANY Legendary Items in all slots.
C) Fix your gear with Basic Rerolls and normal gems, remove trash stats.

Usually I place a note here about reapers and Topaz. Most experienced WD’s won’t need them at all, but just in case you need a little help with resources:

  • Make a Reaper’s Wraps: Speaking of no effort to big returns. Make this ASAP. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael. This build might need is early on.
  • Socket Topaz on Helmet similarly helps out with your resources too.
3x LGems to 25Power up LoDEZ Rerolls & Gems

What three Legendary gems? L25 them ASAP.

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get repeat the cycle of Nephalem Rift for a Key -> Do a Greater Rift until you get them, and do the absolute minimum level you need to level them up. Get them and level them quickly – do not feel pressured to “maximize” your rift keys by inflating the difficulty.

Legacy of Dreams is mandatory, as mentioned in the basics segment! Level this up as much as you can.

From here you have some choices

Specifically, you want some defensive gems right now. Molten Wildebeests Gizzard and Moratorium (only needs L25) come to mind as the ultimate early-game defense duo. You can use them for augments later. Gizzard however, we can use in tandem with Squirts Necklace later on…

The next best gems are Bane of the Powerful (L25 only) which is great for such a small investment. Ultimately we will be using Bane of the Trapped for our DPS needs, and it’s perfect with the chicken build.

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming.

Legendary Items in ALL SLOTS

LoD gets stronger with each legendary item you have equipped – so get to it! You should aim to get this done “passively” by natural item drops, but you can also craft items if you’re desperate.

Simply wear whatever junk you find eventually
replacing them with useful pieces as you get them!

Spending Blood Shards is “OK”, but only use Death’s Breath to fill up the slots if you’re absolutely desperate. You’ll get an item for each slot in no time (you can even craft them). Save your resources for finding SPECIFIC items that will greatly boost your power. We talk more about this in the next segment, refinement.

Ancients DOUBLE this bonus, and they’re a welcome boost to consider.

Defense Type & Gems

Wizards / WD’s / Necros are INTELLIGENCE classes (they get free ALLRES from INT). So, in the face of all this free allres, your prime defensive stats are ARMOR > VIT. So try to reroll Armor on your gear if you need defense – it’s your best defensive stat by FAR. REMOVE AS ALLRES (it’s pretty useless as a rolled-in stat).

Slot in your best Rubies or Emeralds, as they give Armor.

Basic Rerolls

Since legendaries are a little expensive to reroll EARLY ON, try to make the most by REMOVING GARBAGE STATS, and getting anything “remotely usable”.

INT VIT Armor are you basic stats that are welcome everywhere.

Life per Hit is AMAZING ON WD’s since we abuse Zombie Dogs – Leeching Beasts. You can socket amethyst on weapon, or reroll it on pretty much anywhere. This leeching beast and LpH combo is amazing.

Hex% DOESN’T EXIST so don’t sweat it.

The Element% you want will eventually be Poison%, found typically in Bracers and Amulet.

Remove useless stats

  • Life Regeneration – garbage for any build.
  • Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
  • Excess Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
  • Excess Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
  • Unused skill% – literally USELESS.
  • All Resists – Useless for us, take Armor and VIT instead.

Take better stats

  • INT VIT– can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
  • ARMOR Life% Great defensive stats.
  • Sockets are essentially MANDATORY.
  • Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
  • CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.
  • Skill and Elemental% – that you use.

FOLLOWER GEAR!

Do not forget to fully equip your follower for farming. You can start by crafting Sage or Cain’s NOW and worry about the rest later.

Step 3) Refining, Using Resources -> ‘Full Build’

So you can easily see what items you’ll need, and you can get an idea of what we’re trying to do here.

aggressively try to transition into Arachyr 6!
And find the weapon set quickly too.

LoD Basic WDArachyr 6 Chicken

Full Build Preview: Basic LoD WD

S28 Fresh 70 WD: Basic LoD build, no items needed – build template
Head Any Leorics Crown Skill Rune
Shoulder Any Haunt Resentful (many viable runes)
Chest Any Aquila Cuirass Locust Swarm Pestilence (many viable runes)
Arms
Any Archews, Theo, Stone
Spirit Walk Severance / Jaunt
Legs Any Swampland Waders Soul Harvest Languish
Boots Any Ice Climbers Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts
Belt Any Goldwrap / other Gargantuan Humongoid
Bracer Lakumba’s Ornament Passives
Amulet Any Hellfire / Squirt Rush of Essence
Ring Any Ring of Emptiness Grave Injustice
Ring Unity Midnight Feast
Weapon Sacred Harvester Fierce Loyalty / Jungle Fortitude
Offhand Any Uhkapian Serpent
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Any Furnace Legacy of Dreams
Any Moratorium / Bane of the Powerful
Any Molten Wildebeests Gizzard / Bane of the Trapped

I’m not kidding, this is a “no-item” build that can fit most things you can find, and is a very easy to edit build for when you find a banger legendary to help you.

The only purpose of this build is to tide you over while you farm for
Arachyr 6, Sacred Harvester, Lakumba’s Ornament, and Manajuma weapon set.

The items in bold are the only useful ones you’ll be using in your next build.

Full Build Preview: Arachyr 6 Manajuma CHICKEN

S28 Fresh 70 WD: Arachyr 6 ANGRY CHICKEN build template
Head Arachyr Skill Rune
Shoulder Arachyr Corpse Spiders Blazing Spiders
Chest Aquila Cuirass Locust Swarm Devouring Swarm
Arms Arachyr Spirit Walk Severance / Jaunt
Legs Arachyr Soul Harvest Languish
Boots Arachyr Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts
Belt Guardians Hex Angry Chicken
Bracer Guardians Passives
Amulet Squirts / Hellfire Pierce the Veil
Ring Ring of Emptiness Grave Injustice
Ring Unity Fierce Loyalty
Weapon Manajuma’s Carving Knife Gruesome Feast
Offhand Manajuma’s Gory Fetch
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Sacred Harvester Bane of the Powerful
Lakumba’s Ornament Bane of the Trapped (Any, Defense, Hoarder)
Ring of Royal Grandeur Boon of the Hoarder (Any, Defense)

This whole build revolves around making your chickening process smoother. It’s a very “Restricted” build that MUST have certain things, but at the same time has enough flex slots and mini evolutions that you can enjoy.

You can definitely use the Arachyr 6 set without Manajuma if you got it first!

You’re gonna need the RoRG to fit in Guardian. Guardian is crafted btw

Get CORE ITEMS asap. The heart of your build

Items are obviously very important for you build!
Here’s a couple of the best way on how to get your best ones.

The absolute core of your build are these: Arachyr 6pc, the Manajuma’s weapon set, and to a lesser extent Lakumba’s Ornament (Bracer) + Sacred Harvester (Ceremonial Knife).

Spending Blood Shards and Death’s Breath

Blood ShardsDeaths BreathRings, amulets

Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance:

Lakumba’s Ornament (Bracer) is is your best “normal” defensive item. Try to get this asap as Nemesis is also in this pile, for your follower.

Aquila Cuirass (Chest) is another solid defensive option, which can definitely be used in the final build.

Arachyr Set Pieces (various). Find the set pieces using blood shards, and hopefully finding special fillers along the way!

Mojo for Manajuma. Once your build is starting to come together, try and get this ASAP. There are, naturally, many great universal DEFENSIVE mojos.

EVERYTHING ELSE is pretty much “filler gear” for your LoD build.
Feel free to use anything useful, check the full build previews.
almost every slot has ‘something’ you can use!

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Deaths Breath rare item upgrades (Kanai’s Cube Recipe: 25x Deaths Breath convert a rare into random legendary of same type), roughly in order of importance:

Ceremonial Knife for Sacred Harvester is always a great option, increasing Soul Harvest stacks gives us alot of stats. Manajuma’s knife is here too.

Mojo for Manajuma. If you just can’t find it with shards – get it with DB’s!

You can reroll set items to another slot (example, Helm to Shoulders)
using DB’s FS’s in the cube. Just a reminder, if you want your Arachyr 6.

Nothing else is really WORTH spending DB’s for, and would rather spend to try and get jewelry you might not have yet.

Rings and Amulets are tough to get from either BS or DB’s (due to the large amount of possible outcomes), but if you’re done getting your core items from these currencies – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them. Typically you’ll just find these as you grind – then use currency if you’re desperate. Anyway, if I had to rank the importance of your rings and ammys…

Ring of Emptiness is used in the final build to kill pesky elites or bosses.

Unity is a decent defensive option, but you need the follower immortality relic, and another Unity for the follower!

Squirts Necklace is amazing for speedfarming.

As an aside – Ring of Royal Grandeur and Avarice Band are BOUNTY ONLY rings (respectively ACT I and III), which DO NOT APPEAR FROM any other source. They, like any other bounty item, DO NOT DROP from monsters, gambling, upgrades or any other source outside of their respective BOUNTY CACHE.

Follower Gear odds and ends

More of a reminder than anything, once you start farming you will be running into those little bonuses for your follower farming build. Keep an eye out!


Summary & Outro

Welp, that’s about it. I’m liking these seasonal bonuses that remove the augmentation grind – makes the game a lot more humane. From here, you can easily do the Seasonal Journey if that’s your thing, or transition into literally any other build you like – the it’s exactly what the S27 fresh 70 LoD builds for each class are made for.

GL out there and check out our D3 Guide Directory if you need anything else!

32 COMMENTS

  1. Also when is a good time to start replacing the season set? Like how much of an increase should the item be before I swap it in to replace a piece of the seasonal set?

  2. What are your thoughts on the ancient legendary pig sticker? I got one with cdr skills 6%/reaource cost 10%/dmg to beasts 19%/dmg to humans 26%.

    • Pig sticker isn’t typically used by Witch Doctor. Sacred Harvester is a better all-purpose 1hander. It gets pretty insane once you augment it. But if you feel like it’s well rolled, save it.

      • Right after I posted about pig sticker I got the wormwood lol. That staff is so good I HAD to unequip it to complete the set dungeon. It would kill everything before I could do anything lol. Its gonna be hard to let this staff go.

  3. Brilliant guide! Perfect and exactly what I needed for the new ladder.
    Only suggestion would be advice to slowly transition into what looks like the most powerful build this season, which seems to be Jade Harvester.

  4. I am using Z6 and have tried to follow this guide as closely as possible but I just can’t seem to get my fetishes up past 8. I am using haunt and I spam it liberally and move around and stuff. I tried acid rain but it just doesn’t work for me that well because it is not fire and forget like haunt (targeting issues) and I run out of mana so quickly and then stand there twiddling my thumbs. So not sure what I am missing because I am trying different things but since my gems got to 25 I can’t get past GR40 (T7) in time and that feels like I am behind the curve.

    Advice? Suggestions? Appreciation in advance and thanx for the bitchin’ guide 🙂

  5. last time I played diablo 3 was at the auction house disaster.Now I am back,taking a break from overwatch and the game completely change,without thinking about my build its already enormous,You helped me a lot and I really appreciate the time and effort you put on this.
    Thank you very much

  6. Am I using acid cloud wrong if I am not getting Fetishes up to the passive max? I can do it easily with haunt but that is also much easier to spam.
    Love yalls guides btw, third season using them and it is always great.

    • You’re absolutely correct and that’s why I mentioned both of those skills. Fetishes are much easier to gather with Haunt compared to Acid Rain. But alas, the Haunt coverage is pretty bad. Honestly there’s no way around suffering usability issues of Z6 early on.

    • Yes, you get them up faster. Also, in the eventual Darts build keep in mind that the belt only triggers off SPENDERS. The Passive works with all attacks. It can be suboptimal to have them both, but in the early game – them working in tandem can be a load off your mind.

  7. Ok nervermind, i send a post before but because I didnt know how the Kunai’s Cube works. Now I do (didnt play for a long time).

  8. I have a doubt.
    I just got the set of 6 free pc, but, before completing the set, I got the Quetzalcoatl, so it’s worth losing the 6 bonus level?

  9. Thank you so much for this guidea. It helped me out a ton. I am new to seasonal and Diablo 3. I am confused when you say ‘GR 38 is enough to 25 a gem.’ Does that mean I need to get to GR38 to get a gem up to 25? Thanks again.

    • hi! its just the basic paragon priorities.
      Core – Primary stat > Vit > Move speed (depends, 25 points at most) > Max Resource (optional). all other points will be placed in primary
      Offense – CHC > CHD > CDR > Attack Speed
      Defense – Res All > Life > Armor > Life Regen
      Utility – Area Damage > RCR > LoH > Gold Find

  10. Which gems should you level ASAP? You list Zei’s, Powerful, and Trapped but only talk about Trapped and Enforcer which isn’t listed.

  11. So what do I do once Ive followed the above? Unless im missing something here all you do is talk about build and playstyle?

    • You can now start farming for items (getting ancient legendaries, death’s breath, materials for kanai-ing). Long term goals are up to you really. You can aim to climb the WD leaderboard, complete the season journey (shift+J) to get stash tab/s or just complete achievements (Y). It depends on you.

      This guide is to help you somehow beef up your fresh 70 witch doctor, with or without the free set, so you could go clear higher torments asap. Once you’ve completed the above, you can even try other Witch doctor set builds or classes.

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