From my reddit post
www.reddit.com/r/Diablo3witchdoctors/comments/3i79n2/my_road_to_rank_1_euns/----------------------------
Hey what's up guys, OraK from Zero Empathy
i'd like to share with you my rank 1 NS-EU telling you what i have done and changed during these 4 months! First of all i want to say a big GZ to all WDs around the world that took part to the leaderboards and also the ones that couldn't reach them, in fact i have pushed so high because we had a very fair and cool competition, so yeah thx, i hope we all had tons of fun first of all
So let's start...
Basically my Road to Rank 1 is composed by 5 GRs: 53-56-57-58-61! I recorded everything, because i usually watch my videos to understand my mistakes and luckily they are also good to show people what's going on! If you take a look at all my videos you will notice that i changed a lot of stuff from GR53 to GR61, i have always tried to evolve my gameplay GR by GR tier by tier. That's something really important that i'd like to share with players new to the GRs system.."Think out of the box"! Every tier is different and you have to adapt, all the classes have Pros and Cons, we are not perfect then we have to do our best with the gear and the skills.
In my GR53 my approach to Carnevil build was really basic. I was using the common build with 2 spenders, Aughild's set and Enforcer, Simplicity, Gogok as gems. Everything went fine, i probably spent just a couple of keys to clear it. I still think that this is the best way to start to play carnevil cause you can fully understand the mechanics of the build. Piranhado will help you to group up everything, Aughild's set gives you a lot of toughness and it helps a lot in killing the packs, moreover there is Gogok gem to reach 1-2 higher breakpoints for more damage. Here is the video.
GR 53:
(rank 4)
In GR56 i made my first changes. First of all i used an immunity amulet to make the gameplay less "fishy", but tbh that's something that can still work in low tier, in fact i didn't use it anymore, but that was worth to try and in GR56 worked. I was still using Aughild's and gogok, the "new entry" was BotTrapped gem instead of Enforcer. I also put GotD as spender to proc the green gem and tbh it was a better choice compared to my previous Acid Cloud. The result was very good and there was nice synergy in the build, but it wasn't perfect..i needed to work on it.
GR 56:
(rank 4)
After clearing GR56 i took a short period to focus on how to improve the build, i saw a big potential to push higher and higher so i decided that i had "to think out the box" to make the difference to climb the leadeboards. The result was sick and "drastic". No more gogok (replaced with Enforcer), no more Aughild's set, i was back to 5 passives (hellfire amulet), but mainly no more 2 spenders! I realised that dps from gogok was nothing compared to a high lvl Enforcer and also because my fetishes began to die quickly so a boost to their toughness was pretty much needed. Then i removed Aughild's because on high tiers you don't want to kill elite packs to do not waste your precious time and also because i thought that we could pretty much fix the loss of dmg vs elites just by reaching higher breakpoints with Lacuni's bracers and a good Zuni Pox, i was right. The real big change was the pass from 2 spenders to only 1! To do that i had to find the perfect mix between Piranhado and GotD, the result was Frost Piranhas! This rune is very nice because it has low cooldown and also because it procs my BotT gem, with some CDR on mask and shoulders i was able to use it every 5 seconds, perfect for Zuni bonus. Ess of Johan on follower worked really fine with his proc around every 10-12 seconds, so no need of Piranhado anymore. Another interesting point of this change was the brand new free slot on my skill bar! I decided to use Soul Harvest (Languish) to fix my lack of dps compared to higher paragons Witch Doctors and also because i was able to run more toughness, the toughness that i dropped from my gear to use 1 spender. That was my winning choice and i'm proud of it! From this moment i stopped uploading my videos on youtube because i really felt i had found something different that could have made the difference to let me reach rank 1.
I uploaded GR 57 and 58 yday, i apologize with my subscribers but i had to do it.
GR 57:
(rank 7)
GR 58:
(rank 3)
After GR58 i took another break, this time a bit longer. My build was working fine, but sadly i realised that my paragon lvl was not enough to compete for rank1, even if i don't think is needed (rng, mobs, map come first), i felt that i should have invest the last 90-100 days of Era3 in grinding paragons. Another good thing of speedgrifting was that i was able to gamble tons of stuff and that really helped me to make my gear perfect. I had what i wanted, trifecta Pox, nice Lacunis and pretty much better stuff in every slot. After my 90 days of grinding i felt i did a good job with my gear and also with my paragons (around 200 more, so 250k+ dps). I also had time to farm bounties and find a perfect Skeleton King shoulders (a must have, boys). I was ready to come back on the battleground!
I took a look at the leaderboards and in that moment rank 1 was Gr60. I trained so hard, i felt tier 60 was not the highest possible, so i decided to go ALL-IN and farm 61s keys only! That was a risky decision, by the end of the Era i could have been rank 20 or rank 1, but that was worth to try, better nothing than a rank 2.
With the help of my amazing clanmates and also some friends from friendlist i farmed a total of 250x61s and i spent them in around 15 days. I must say that wasn't that chilling. Sadly to reach rank 1 you are not free to open and play, you have to fish for the right Grift so the first days were really frustrating. I was looking for Unburieds, Summoners or Zombies mainly and obv the perfect boss. Actually WD doesn't have a "perfect boss", you just want to avoid Stonesinger (the worst), Crusader King, Rime, Bloodmaw, Voracity, Perdition and stuff like that. Well guys, during my first 180 keys i spawned only 3 bosses (yeah i got only 3 playable grift) and i got Stonesinger and Crus King x2. I got rekt, but i had no time to feel sad, i had to push, era was coming to an end and the guy on rank1 improved his rank clearing Gr61 in around 15 mins.
I still felt i could do it, i had eveything i needed.. gear, my personal build, and why not my ability to play the class (i've always played WD since day 1). I farmed 100 more keys for the last push.
I did small changes after failing those keys, i decided to go full glass cannon (like removing all res from boots, etc), i had 9m toughness unbuffed. Toughness wasn't an important thing for my build. Everything could 1 shot me and i have a short cooldown to fetish army (59 sec).
Well, 2 days before the ending of Era i had MY chance. I opened an arreat crater with godly density, i took a deep breath and i started to fight. Right at the beginning i had the worst possible nightmare, reflect dmg + ghosts pack! I decided to proc my Spirit Vessel for a double chance to skip it and i was right..proc + spirit walk and i disappeared from their radar. Since that moment i only had 1 thing in my mind, rank 1 and i did it!
In my GR61 i introduced a new kind of gameplay that really made the difference in terms of rift progress. I started playing MELEE so i was able to cast BBV against big groups and restore the cooldown for the next group. You basically have to play in 5 yards max from the mobs with fetishes bodyblocking for you. It's risky and a big gamble but this stuff makes the difference to reach higher tiers, yeah once again "think out the box". I mastered this gameplay during my 90 days break doing speedgrifts as boss killer.
GR 61:
(rank 1)
I'm not so happy with my performance tbh, i could have done much better. I made a mistake on boss fight, i didn't have the perfect double rotation with BBV+CoE, but who cares now...the final result is what i prefer.
So guys, as you can see, my GR53 is really different compared to GR61 and that's what i enjoyed the most during these months. The evolution of my character and, first of all, of myself. I'd really like that more people will join us on the leaderboards especially now that trials are gone. I have big plans for Era 4, i can't wait to compete with you guys with our new carnevil (and HT as well).
WD is amazing, we are having hard times in 2.2 because of our lacks (no aoe skills, no burst dmg while running, slow mechanics and movement speed), but i would never change my class with anything else. I strongly prefer to play a grift and be alert 100% of the times, watching everywhere because everything can 1 shot you. That's why we play, we want fun and adrenaline. I love my class
I hope you guys enjoyed my road to rank 1, i wish you good luck for next Era and the game in general.
cya in game!
OraK
www.zeroempathy.net
in which direction should I struggle ? better stuff ? I try to create new Dod with the cube, but no luck yet... I tried also to create/rework my carnevil, but I ended loosing crafting materials a lot....