Since Witchdoctors don’t have many abilities to regain their mana after it is lost, a pet heavy build is much more effective for long term farming. While you won’t have as great of an ability to generate high burst damage, you shouldn’t ever have a problem with running out of mana either.

The Witch Doctor Farming Strategy

Before you even think about fighting anyone you need to be prepared.

• Summon all of your Zombie dogs and your Gargantuan.
• Have all of your pets attack a group of enemies.
• After the enemies are engaged it’s time to lay down some damage.
• Use Acid Cloud over top of the group of enemies.
• Then cast Haunt on the most powerful enemies in the group.

Continue to chain cast Acid Cloud and Haunt until all your enemies are dead or they get past your pets.

• If they start to get past everyone use Wall of Zombies to hold them back.
• If the situation becomes really drastic you can use Sacrifice to burst down your enemies, but be prepared to run if it doesn’t finish them off.

As long as you don’t challenge enemies that are too strong for you, your pets shouldn’t have a problem holding them back from you while you burn them down.

Quick Look Witch Doctor Skill Rotation

• Zombie Dogs  –  4x
• Gargantuan
• Acid Cloud – Try to keep this spell up over all your enemies constantly.
• Haunt – Use this on all the more powerful enemies.
• Wall of Zombies – Cast on enemies that make it past your pets.
• Sacrifice – Use as a last resort to finish off enemies.

Diablo 3 Witch Doctor Passive Abilities

Your passive abilities will only serve to strengthen the pets that defend you even more. Circle of Life will help you build up the number of Zombie Dogs protecting you. Over time you should be able to replace most of the lost dogs with new ones. Zombie Handler makes it possible to start with four dogs which will make farming easier and more manageable. Fierce loyalty is your last passive ability and it will really help keep your pets alive over the long term. With your life regeneration your pets can rejuvenate between battles. The longer they live, the more mana you have to spend on damage spells and the faster you can farm.

Diablo 3 Witch Doctor Gem Selection

The most important gem to your farming efforts is the topaz gem because it will boost your chances of finding rare items. Since item drops are completely random the best way to get better items is to get as many possible magical drops as possible. With the best Topaz gems you will see more items and have better odds at finding something great.

Place emerald gems in your weapon sockets to maximize your farming ability. Since your character will be dealing a series of slow but powerful spells the best way to take advantage of that damage is to increase your odds of getting a critical hit. When you do you will have a huge boost of damage that will overshadow the small amount you would get from a ruby.