Witch Doctor Builds For Inferno Act 2 & Belial

If it’s not the jumping frog like creatures, it’s the wasps that’ll get you – welcome to Inferno Act 2!

My approach to moving through Act 2 as a Witch Doctor slightly differs than the build used in Act 1 and that’s because having an additional slow is quite useful.

Build – Mouse over for a preview.

Why These Skills

Some of the trash mobs in Act 2 move much faster than the ones in Act 1 and to that end, giving up the mana regen of the skill rune Swallow Your Soul for the slow of Languish when using Soul Harvest means the Witch Doctor now has 2 methods of keeping mobs slowed.

Languish used in conjunction with Spirit Walk works as a great defensive slow when multiple jumping frog like mobs attempt to attack you. Use both as you run away for a quick and effective escape but ensure you begin the habit of using SH first followed by SW second as you begin to move away as it’s good practice for the trash mobs of Act 3 which will often immediately kill the ghost you leave behind when using SW (this ends the effect).

Grasp of the Dead is a good offensive slow for casting on wasps or other fast movers but you should cast it where the mobs are going to be and not where they currently are. If you cast GotD directly onto a wasp, it only needs to move half the distance to get out of your grasp where as if you cast it in it’s path, it will travel through the entire area of GotD which gives your group plenty of time to kill it (8 seconds). You can run at it’s exit point and use Languish as an additional slow if it’s going to escape.

Just like Act 1, the primary attack used for Act 2 is Zombie Charger with the Zombie Bear skill rune but you might run into 2 problems – Magdha and Belial.

Magdha – Bears are effective here but you need to keep a keen eye out for when she begins to cast her wasps. Due to the short range of bears and inability to move until it’s completed it’s casting animation, you will sometimes get stuck in a situation where the wasps are headed towards you yet you’re unable to move for a moment. Taking a stick and move approach works well or just continue chain casting while playing in a 4 man group. If she does cast wasps in your direction, please ensure you don’t run it through the group and get them killed in the process (raging)!

Using this build will carry you through all of Act 2 until you reach Belial.

Killing Inferno Belial As A Witch Doctor

Build – Mouse over for a preview.

Zombie Bears are super effective for phase 1 and 2 of Belial as they tear down the snakes and Belial himself quickly but become effectively useless in phase 3 due to Belial standing behind a ledge which the bears cannot travel over. I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended but because of this, swapping out GotD for Poison Dart with the Splinters skill rune is required. This means you will only have the slow of Languish left, use it effectively by hitting large groups of snakes instead of single targets.

The key to using this build is burning both Big Bad Voodoo and Fetish Army prior to starting the event so that you only need to use SW and SH to maintain the 300% regen of Vision Quest. If you use BBV and FA during phase 1 of the fight, it won’t have refreshed in time for phase 2 – you’ll need both to burn Belial down quickly before becoming over run by the snakes that spawn. FA acts as a good barrier against the poison balls he casts as they’ll surround him. They can 1-2 hits of it so ensure you move to a different angle when he kills some.

Using Jaunt (increases duration of Spirit Walk by 3 seconds – 5 second total) as the skill rune for Spirit Walk ensures you can get away for longer during all 3 phases. If you’re comfortable with it, you can change back to Honored Guest for the mana regen although I found the extended duration of Jaunt to be useful as Belial is a difficult fight for players who experience high latency (250ms average for me in Australia) as you need to immediately move to avoid his ground pound in phase 3.

Avoiding the puddles of exploding poison is also fairly straight forward by moving around the platform as a U turned on it’s side – hug the outside from one end to the other and then hug the inside as you move back the other way. Phase 3 is arguably the easiest of all the phases but due to it’s length and nature of Belial 1 shotting you, it can be quite frustrating but is more than doable (even on higher latency). My best advice is just to remain calm and slowly move from the poison pools to a clear spot – don’t sprint ahead and run around like a headless chicken – it’ll just get you killed.