[CLASS BUILD] The Witch Doctor (mid-ranged dps monk disabler)

[Boeroer]

A witch doctor is originally a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. The term witch doctor is sometimes used to refer to healers, particularly in the region of Old Vailia, who use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine. In monks' societies, "witch doctor" is sometimes used derisively to refer to a warrior who hates magic and witchcraft which is not done by kith. this monk absolutley loathes all forms of non kith casters like Pŵgras, Ogre Druids, Vithracks, Cean Gŵlas and so on and tries to purge them from the face of Eora as fast as possible.

 

 

 

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The Witch Doctor

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Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02

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Class: Monk

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Race: Boreal Dwarf

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Background: The Living Lands - Explorer

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Stats:

MIG: 21

CON: 10

DEX: 16

PER: 10

INT: 18

RES: 03

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Skills: Stealth 4, Athl. 7, Lore 8, Mech. 0, Surv. 10

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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

Weapon Focus: Peasant

Two Weapon Style

Lightning Strikes ®

Ghost Hunter ®

Beast Slayer ®

Wilder Hunter ®

Primal Bane ®

Apprentice's Sneak Attack

 

Abilities

Hunter's Instincts (a)

Transcendent Suffering 4 (a)

The Long Pain (!)

Torment's Reach (!)

Swift Strikes ®

Force of Anguish (!)

Skyward Kick ®

Stunning Blow ®

Second Whind (a)

Knock Down (a - Girdle of the Driving Wave)

Long Stride

Flagellanth's Path or Resonant Touch

 

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Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended):

 

Weapon set 1: Fists/The Long Pain

Weapon Set 2: Danulya & Irfarn Byrngar's Solace

 

Boots: Echoing Misery

 

Head: Maegfolc Skull

 

Armor: Maneha's Armor (*Durgan Reinforced, INT+2, Slash-Proofed)

 

Neck: Cloak of the Frozen Hunt

 

Belt: Girdle of the Driving Wave

 

Rings: Ring of Thorns, Bartender's Ring

 

Hands: Gauntlets of Swift Action or Mourning Gloves or Blood Testment

 

Quick slots: Scroll(s) of Tanglefoot, Binding Web, Plague of Insects, Prayer against Restraint

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After "The Long Pain" was introduced to the game I thought that soon there would pop up some builds around that in this forum. But until today, I saw none specific build. Nerdcommando did a video about this, but it had some errors and didn't point out some of the most amazing features of The Long Pain. So I went out and did some testing to verify what works with this awesome abilitiy and what doesn't. Here are my results and the character I build around that. But first of all I have to explain an important fact: The Long Pain is considered a dual wielded ranged weapon - but for whatever reason it also works with most (not all) melee abilities. This allows for some crazy and relaly powerful combinations, have a look:

 

What abilities, talents and items work/don't work with The Long Pain?

Abilities:

+ Swift Strikes (makes flying fists hit faster)

+ Stunning Punch (stunning at a range of 12m without using wounds? Aweseome! Also: Full Attack!)

+ Skyward Kick (like above, but only Primary Attack - still good when you have no wounds left and want to take somebody out of the game fast)

+ Force of Anguish (pushing enemies away - but keep on hitting them at a distance. So much fun!)

+ Knock Down (from the Girdle of the Driving Wave; works like in melee but at 12m range. Only primary attack, but +20% damage!)

+ Torment's Reach (it's so easy to hit a lot of enemies when you stay in the back row, firing off Full Attacks(!) that do great AoE damage - this is the most powerful thing you can combine with The Long Pain - however, you need wounds)

+ Flagellanth's Path (like with fists - range 10m - but great to escape a mob - works even if you're stuck)

- Enervating Blows (don't work with The Long Pain)

- Turning Wheel (no fire damage gets added)

 

Talents:

+ Lightning Strikes (+25% shock damage - since the base damage of The Long Pain is very high, this is awesome)

+ Two Weapon Style (The Long Pain is considered dual wielding - you get faster with this, tested and confirmed)

+ Weapon Focus Peasant (and I guess every other weapon focus, too, because The Long Pain is "universal" as all the other summoned weapons)

+ Marksman

+ Runner's Wounding Shot

+ Envenomed Strike

+ Apprentice's Sneak Attack

+ All the hater talents like Primal Bane and so on

+ Penetrating Shot (but I think with that high damage per hit speed is more important than 5 DR bypass)

- Savage Attack (no damage added, no ACC malus)

- Dangerous Implement (nope - but worth a try )

 

Items:

+ Blood Testament (will add raw damage per wound - but you will spend your wounds fast)

+ all items that spped you up like Gauntlets of Swift Action or Mourning Gloves

+ Bartender's Ring (20% more damage against vessels and spirits)

+ Archer's Gloves or Cloak of the Frozen Hunt (+10% damage)

- Sandals of the Forgotten Friar (although titled unarmed, those sadly don't work with The Long Pain)

 

Genereal thoughts:

As usual a monk doesn't have many things that can boost ranged damage besides MIG, Archer's Gloves, Lightning Strikes and the hater talents. The Long Pain have enormous base damage and you want to add as many dmg modifiers as you can get to squeeze the most out of them. So maxed MIG sounds good. At the same time you want to have them as long as possible, so high INT is also good. High INT is also great for the cone of Torment's Reach and for all the disabling stuff you can have - like from Force of Anguish and Stunning Blows and so on.

 

Because of this I took all the hater talents except Sanctifier - because you will also have St. Ydwen's Redeemer in your party and maybe also a priest. Those are great against vessels so we can skip Sanctifier. Talent points are scarce. And there's also the Bartender's Ring which gives us +20% against vessels anyway.

 

I didn't take Marksman because most of the time I was not fighting at max range. In fact I was running around a lot and fought at melee or mid range most of the time. Standing right behind the front line, intercepting rushing enemies, catching some wounds or just running past some mobs in order to eat disengagement attacks for wounds before firing at the enemy spellcasters with the Long Pain. Also, with the camping bonuses I didn't feel the need for +5 ACC. The Long Pain also has a huge ACC bonus that seems to scale with level. At lvl 16 they have +20 ACC.

I chose boreal dwarv as race because of the same reason: I wasn't doing ranged combat exclusively, so it felt like a waste to take wood elf. +15 ACC against two creature groups seemed to be better.

 

I chose the second weapon setup because the shield, combined with the Ring of Thorns, gives you +100 to all defenses when you are prone or stunned. THis can be a lifesaver when you get cc'd and surrounded. Just switch to the second weapon set then and you get nearly untouchable. Once the cc effect wears off, use Force of Anguish to break free. Flagellanth's Path is also good for this. I didn't take it but I consider it a better choice than Resonant Touch actually.

 

Damage, ACC and Speed:

The Long Pain's base damage is 24-36 at lvl 16. I can add +10% from the Cloak of the Frozen Hunt (or Archer's Gloves) and also +42% from 24 MIG. The result is 37-55 crush damage against every enemy I meet.

When I add the hater talents, it's another +25% against all enemies except kith and vessels. Now add the Bartender's Ring with +20% against spirits and vessels. Apprentice's Sneak Attack will add +15% from time to time.

My ACC will get boosted by my racial ability (+15 against wilder and primordial), Weapon Focus (+6), the Long Pain itself (+20) and by resting bonuses (+15, not kith) as well as the cloak (+6 against beasts).

So my damage and ACC bonuses would look like this:

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Wilder: +77% (42-64), +92% with Appr. Sneak; +56 ACC

Primordial: +77% (42-64), +92% with Appr. Sneak; +56 ACC

Spirit: +97% (47-71), +112% with Appr. Sneak; +41 ACC

Vessel: +72 (41-62), +87% with Appr. Sneak; +41 ACC

Beast: +77% (42-64), +92% with Appr. Sneak; +47 ACC

Kith: +52% (37-55), +67% with Appr. Sneak; +26 ACC (here you could use to use the bonus damage against flanked targets)

 

On top of that, add +25% shock damage with Lightning Strikes... so much damage...

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With Mourning Gloves or Gauntlets of Swift Action and Two Weapon Style, combined with Swift Strikes you can reach 0 recovery. So imagine very fast hits at 12 m range with more than 50 damage. It's like a gunshot from an arquebus, but with 0 recovery - you're basically a gatling gun.

Now add the fact that you can do Full Attacks with Stunning Blows and Torment's Reach and it really gets ridiculous. If you have wounds and are at range - just use Torment's Reach - Full Attacks with a huge AoE at 0 recovery against a horde of enemies (also debuffing them) is pure fun. I never - really never - saw anything that powerful in my entire PoE "career". Too bad it only works as long you have some wounds left. But your auto-attacks are also pure destruction.

 

CC:

I also put together all the CC abilities a monk can have. Because the all work at range you now have a perfect disabler. Another reason is you just don't need all the other defensive stuff at all. You are not a pore front liner like most other monks - you just go in, get some wounds and retreat in order to summon the Long Pain and the start the gatling gun. So who need Crucible of Suffering and stuff? Some othjer things like Enervating Blows and Turning Wheel don't even work, so all is left are those CC things - and the synergy is perfect. Not only is this guy a dps monster when he has lots of sounds - he also can CC when he hasn't any: 2 Stunniung Blows, 2 Skyward Kicks, 1 Knockdown - all without wounds at range with The Long Pain - awesome! And it also triggers Apprentice's Sneak Attack.

 

Theme:

I wanted high MIG and the Skull is best for this. Unbending is also good because you want to get hit from time to time in order to get wounds (but you can also shoot this monk in the back to get them of course) and Unbening prevents a knockout when you get surrounded. Together with Maneha's Armor your char will look like a Witch Doctor from Diablo and so I chose this theme. The Mourning Gloves and Unbending work quite well togeher with the armor and high MIG by the way. You will get healed by ~27 points each time you kill an enemy - which was enough for my "non-frontliner" playstyle. Unbending will do more healing. And it all looks funny of course. I added some druidic scrolls which fit into the theme and are also great for CC - Binding Web for example stop the enemies from chasing you. This can happen if you're out of CC attacks for the moment.

 

All in all this is a very powerful combination of DPS and CC. When you let per-rest spells aside, I think this is one of the most powerful dps/cc combinations you can build at the moment. Because you don't have to move at all while you send them all to the ground or hit them with mighty force. And this guy's also not too flimsy.

Another good thing is that all the abilities and talents also work with your normal fists. So you're never helpless even if you didn't have time or wounds to summon your Long Pain.

 

Thanks for your time! I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

 

edit: Whoo! Tons of typos! Will fix that later...

 

Added Pen. Shot to the list of talents.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

I didn't think so many things worked with Long Pain ! Awesome.

 

I think you meant Two Weapons Style, not Two Handed by the way.

 

By chance, do you know wether Zahua Fist speed bonus apply ?

[Boeroer]

Right! Two Weapon Style. Thanks for telling me, I corrected that.

 

If I recall correctly: when The Long Pain was introduced it didn't work with all that stuff. It seems to have changed in one of the late patches. I remember that it used to work with Turning Wheel for example - like Nerd COmmando said - but not anymore. But the situation now is clearly better.

 

Zahuas Anitley thing should work, but I don't know for sure because I didn't test that. But why shouldn't it? All the other speedup-things did work with the Long Pain so far.

[MaxQuest]

Thanks for your time! I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

had to change something

Thanks for your build

 

As for comments: I would probably substitute Long Stride with something.

How much does it speed up the monk? Wiki says 5% which is.. like nothing at all.

Default running speed being 4, would result in 4.2. While with Fast Runner it would be 5 instead.

Other alternative would be to take one more of those "hated" talents, namely Wound Binding. He's a monk, and has 21 might. It gonna heal nicely

Or just take Envenomed Strike.

 

Btw, if at any time you will find lacking wounds because of standing at range, a cipher with Mind Wave got your back)

Edited May 27, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Long Stride is a monk's abilitiy and adds a flat +2 bonus to movement speed - which stacks with Maneha's Armor (+1) or Boots of Speed (+3) and the camping bonus as well as with Fast Runner (which I didn't take). It helps you immensely to outrun foes who want to catch you and makes positioning for ranged Torment's Reach really easy and quick. Besides that: there's nothing else you can take...  And you can't substitute Long Stride with a talent... since it's an ability.

 

The thing with this build is that talents are very scarce but abilitites are plenty (because so many don't work with the Long Pain or are simply not needed). So Long Stride is a good option for this build I think.

 

Wound Binding can be awesome with the right healing mods - as I showed in the chanter build I posted before this one. You can heal over 132% health with it.

But for this guy who doesn't get beaten a lot it's not my number one choice. 

Edited May 27, 2016 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

Long Stride is a monk's abilitiy and adds a flat +2 bonus to movement speed

Aha, so it's a flat +2, not x1.05.

Updating the wiki.

 

Wound Binding can be awesome with the right healing mods - as I showed in the chanter build I posted before this one. You can heal over 132% health with it.

Yeap, I remember your writing that. And as I understood it also scales with might.

But yeah, if you didn't feel needing it during the playthrough, it's not that needed.

[Elric Galad]

A few considerations :

- This build probably out-DPS Ranger at Ranger, even counting pet. Various lashes and speed buff approximatively doubles Damages, and Long Pain does about the same damages as a melee weapon (wich hits around 1.66 more than ranged, but with suffering, you can count twice). This is a bit more than the benefits of twinned arrows plus pet. But you got to get the wounds for it...

 

- Constant mobility seems very important for this build and wounds would be precious. Long Stride seems an excellent choice. Running into melee just to feed upon engagement attacks is certainly a good option.

 

- Long Pain is a bit more damaging and slower than fist. Better investment for torment reach.

 

- Range helps switching target without killing, which makes resonant touch quite interesting

 

 

Is Long Pain giving +20 Acc ??? Or is it just from suffering ?

Edited May 27, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I didn't do any tests to compare the dps of The Long Pain with other weapons or classes - but I can't imagine any setup (except spamming spells) which does that much dps in ranged and melee combat (as long as you have wounds for Torment's Reach and the target is not immune to crush). THe per hit damage is very high and the attack speed is very fast. 

 

I don't know if The Long Pain is slower than normal fists. With Swift Aim and Two Weapon Style I can see no difference when I auto attack. Every attack takes less than 1 second and there's no recovery. And the base damage is way higher than on any one handed melee weapon (which is why high MIG is so good with this ability).

 

I rarely need Resonant Touch because the enemies die so quickly that it's easier to keep using autoattacks than walking into the mob and trigger Resonant's Touch. It's only 10 raw damage per touch and you only cause 1 touch per attack maximum - not 5 when you hit for 50 damage for example. 

 

When you hover over your ACC on the char sheet it says +20 The Long Pain - while Transcendent suffering only gives you +18 (when you have your normal fists "equipped"). When you look at the Long Pain Weapon description (right click on the weapon) it also says "x crush damage | +20 ACC against deflection". So I guess it has nothing to do with Transcendent Suffering. The Long Pain weapon just gets a +20 ACC bonus.

[Dr <3]

I have to try this build and confront it with my illuminated master build; because i'm really curious to test all' the dmg you can deal with this guy. I was quite sure to have made the final dps machine ( over 100 dmg most of attacks in a cone because of sabre + 50% dmg for crit + 50% dmg for annilation, +25% swift stikes, + 50% fire for maxed turning wheel, +50% crush for torment reach, +25% lash, + xx% for str value --> ~ + 300% dmg) but i think that the higher base dmg of long pain could actually outperform my major dmg multiplicators

[Boeroer]

I don't think that The Long Pain can outperform the pure damage of the dual annihilation sabres (your setup is very powerful) - but it's a huge advantage that you don't have to position yourself in order to spam Torment's Reach in really quick succession without getting into trouble. You can reach every enemy within 12m without having to move. You will "only" have damage numbers around 80 with Torment's Reach - but you lose no time with positioning and your normal attacks - when you're out of wounds - are also great - especially when you compare them to other ranged auto attacks. 

[Elric Galad]

I've finally found an advantage to Skyward Kick by the way. Duration is low, it's a single attack, Knockdown is worse then Stun... But at least the "fly" part is only linked to Initial hit, not fortitude roll. So you're pretty much guaranteed to have the ennemy controlled for 1-2s.

 

That's not great, I won't pick it instead of Stunning blows, but at least it is not strictly worse

[Boeroer]

Well I picked it AND Stunning Blows.

Because there's not much else to take that makes a lot of sense... and it's nice for breaking engagement and run away.

[MasterCipher]

Novel and nasty idea on force of anguish! Correct on the DPS of long pain > bow ranger in most situations even with pet. Fists are the highest dps ranged weapons in the game - solidly ahead of a warbow with annihilation. As for Ranger + pet damage, I think pet damage is a little overrated because the attack recovery is so low even; with slow, high 100 damage hits and damage gets wasted on low health mobs. Bow ranger + pet combo *can* still out dps somewhat if you ignore pet overkill, and melee ranger + pet *can* out dps solidly because have good modifiers only behind rogue. However, practical dps where time isn't wasted on positioning, especially coordinating with a pet to reap 50% from stalker link (which also eats an item slot). 12m duel wield is sick.

 

I've plugged a lot weapon damage ranges to derive averages and added a lot of modifiers into excel formulas assuming 100% recovery, but I don't have clean data in a presentable format on the forum. Gonna close by saying dps isn't everything. I think the devs did a good job on itemizing lower dps items with valuable effects.

[Elric Galad]

Pet has exactly the same speed as a 2 hander, except for bears ans lions (see MaxQuest attack speed thread). People often takes bears so they see pet as slow. They biggest problem is that they can't decrease their recovery...

Edited May 28, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

They hit like trucks - so maybe that would be too powerful. But I would like to see equipment slots on the pet like in Torchlight II - where you could give them a collar (which might have some magical effects like speeding the pet up, raising stats, giving it spells or causing bleeding damage and so on).

[MasterCipher]

MaxQuest pointed out that pets have -40% recovery penalty from armor. There are very limited options to buff: hastening exhortation, npc paladin (short duration), vengeful grief (high lvl and your ranger has to die first to trigger). You can boost pet recovery to -20% which is a long way from positive 100% haste that kith can get.

[KDubya]

You should have waited to post this build until after the next and last balance patch

 

Great find in identifying that Long Pain was changed from the initial version where it was not worth taking. Ranged Torment's Reach, and Force of Anguish is just crazy good, especially with the high base damage.

 

This should make for a powerful solo build. Or teamed with Zahua as the Juggernaut and the MC as the Witch Doctor.

 

Does the auto attack with Long Pain out DPS fists with Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack?

[Boeroer]

Hm... can't say. I guess fists are a bit better - once you engaged. The base damage is comparable, the ACC would be +20 for Long Pain and +13 for fists. Maybe the +7 ACC outweigh the +20% damage from Savage Attack a bit. The Long Pain can be buffed with the cloak without losing Gauntlets of Swift Action - but on the other hand the fists can profit from the sandals - and Turning Wheel of course.

 

The real advantage of the Long Pain is that you don't have to waste precious time with moving/positioning/engaging while having nearly the same damage as fists. And you can give your monk stats that you would normally only use for a squishy in the back row - optimized for damage.

[nem0]

The description for the long pain says their attack speed is average but it seems like it hits at fast speeds like fists do. I slowed the combat down and just used a timer to try and check and it seems to match the fist and was faster than my saber in my 2nd slot as long as my button pressing skills are on point.  Also, blood testament does not appear to add any damage regardless of wounds or weapon type.  I tried sabers, fists, and the long pain and no extra damage in the combat log or overhead pop up.  I remember it not working back in 2.03 but I have not used it again until now. Also, penetrating shot works just in case someone wanted to be sure.

Edited May 29, 2016 by nem0

[Boeroer]

I also had the feeling that it's as fast as fists and faster than average one handed weapons.

I also remember they were not considered dual wielding (and Two Weapon Style didn't work) when they were introduced and that the attack animation was different. You would only use your right fist back then. Now the animation is like with fists where you punch right-left-right and so on. But maybe my memory is not correct in this case.

 

Blood Testament are a bit bugged. Have always been. Sometimes they don't work when you equip them for the first time. If you save & reload they do - at least for me. Also with the Long Pain. And sometimes thwy just refuse to work at all. Don't know what triggers this. But as I said they are inferior to other options because with this build you won't accumulate a lot of wounds and then sit on them like a tanky build would do.

 

Yes, Pen. Shot works. Thanks for adding this - I forgot that in my list above.

 

Edit: added pen shot to the list

Edited May 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[nem0]

I tried loading a save and got blood testament to work like you said.  Do you have any idea how on hit weapon effects work when it comes to torrent's reach?  The damage past the initial is purely crush and doesn't seem to add melee modifiers(like turning wheel) but I managed to prone an additional target with the we toki in hand.  Also, sometimes a target in the blast takes an two hits in the blast for a total of three.  It is probably buggy in some way but it is hard to tell what it is meant to do.

 

Here is a pic I got from it happening.

 

Zahua is in the bottom right hitting the ogre and the protector goes down to an additional effect and gets hit twice, one graze and one crit off of the first strike of torment.

[Boeroer]

Yes, Torment's Reach AoE works with on-crit effects at the moment. Tried Godanstunyr a while ago and it causes stun in an AoE - like carnage does.

 

I think that's not intended but who knows...

 

I have no idea why that Protector got hit twice from one strike - but as I posted some while ago there were severe bugs with Force of Anguish and Torment's Reach on enemies' monks. Sometimes a monk would use Force of Anguish against me and

a) hit the whole party and

b) caused multiple hits with one strike.

So I guess there's still a ton of bugs in that abilities.

[Dr <3]

Tested the build, absolutely amazing. He is a monster of dps & cc and have a cool look too. One of your best works.

[TWPE]

... One of your best works.

 

Hard to decide what his best works are when all of them are so ridiculously creative and effective.

[Boeroer]

Wow, thanks!