Build Objective: Turn Witch Doctor and its Zunimassa Set into a veritable horror.
Source of RR:
Piranhas - 28 flat RR
Witch Doctor’s Mass Confusion - 36% Cold & Acid RR
Hunting’s Study Prey - 30% Elemental & Acid RR
Rumor - 23% Cold RR, 30% Acid RR
Mythical Persephone’s Ring - 10% Cold & Acid RR
Spear’s Study Prey Modifier - 12% Elemental RR
Total RR - 138 Cold RR, 133 Acid RR
Equipment
Weapon: Divine Queen Zenobia’s Spear
Components: Seal of Might
Off-Hand: Mythical Zunimassa’s String of Skulls
Component: Seal of Might
Head: Mythical Zunimassa’s Helm
Component: Living Armor
Shoulders: Mythical Fiendflesh Mantle
Component: Living Armor
Hands: Mythical Zunimassa’s Finger Wraps
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Feet: Mythical Fiendflesh Greaves
Component: Ugdenbog Leather
Belt: Divine Pythia’s Bindings
Component: Spellscorched Plating
Pants: Mythical Zunimassa’s Chausses
Component: Scaled Hide
Chest Armor: Mythical Zunimassa’s Marrow
Component: Titan Plating
Amulet: Skillful Amulet
Component: Aether Soul
Rings: Divine Persephone’s Ring + Skillful Ring
Components: Royal Topaz + Ectoplasm
Medal: Dreeg Mark of Chills
Component: Black Tallow
Relic: Bysmiel’s Domination (3% DA bonus)
Devotions
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V07YBr2
Devotion Bindings:
Rumor to Tiki Warriors
Whirlpool to Zombie Dogs
Shephard’s Call to Mass Paranoia
Howl of Mogdrogen to Study Prey
Harp to Swampland Attunement
Zunimassa’s has received numerous nerfs and has become somewhat of a joke: an overabundance of Cold and Vitality resistance while lacking any other resistances, barely any pet speed, percent bonuses to Physical, Acid, and Fire damage (what?) and only +1 to Witch Doctor when other D3 full sets give +2. That being said, I wanted to find some way to show off the set, and thankfully, Hunting Mastery was there to patch up what I needed.
Normally it’s not very wise to use two damage types, especially with pet builds, but Cold and Poison are naturally paired together with devotions and items, and with Zombie Dogs doing primarily Cold damage and Dreeg’s Mark of Chills providing 100% Fire to Cold conversion, using the two damage types together made perfect sense. I was looking for a second Mastery that provided RR to both types & healing without using many skill points. Occultist was the first choice, but it would have interfered too much with the equipment choices. Hunting Mastery made the perfect compliment, adding Energy Regen, a great heal, summoner OA, pet Health, and valuable secondary resistances, all while allowing us to gear primarily towards giving +All Skills through the Skillful Ring + Amulet combo.
Zunimassa’s Set gives some, but not many, bonuses to Zombie Dogs, so I let the set focus on those pets as well as the Tiki Army; even without other pets, the two are great for hunting down enemies, and with your huge pet %Health, you have little worries about them dying frequently. The player’s health is not too shabby either; even with no Stun Resistance, over 40% Physical Resistance (which goes to 70% when Bysmiel’s Domination buff is running!), Spirit Walk, and frequent healing through Herbal Remedy makes it capable of tanking whatever comes through it. Resistances are tight all around, but once Grimarillion is updated with the proper resistances on Spellscorched Plating, you can swap your Augments around to give you more Aether and Chaos resistances.
Pierce the Vessel gives you and your pets 15% OA and a 1.15 total damage buff after RR, but it comes at a steep cost of 210 Energy / second. We take devotions such as Harp, Harvestman’s Scythe, & Leviathan to increase our passive Energy Regeneration, but Witch Doctor’s passive provides 60% Energy Regeneration all by itself, and Hunting provides an additional 25% when we use a Spear. This gives us a total of over 150 Energy Regeneration, which is perfectly suitable for running Pierce the Vessel as long as you occasionally turn it off while you’re moving around to get your Energy back on track before the next Harp buff.