Firebats is a well-known Witch Doctor skill, used all the way back before Seasons. Further down the road, it has been the META Trash Killer of choice from Season 7 to 9, juggling between Helltooth and Spirit of Arachyr sets.
The latter provides a generic damage multiplier to all Creature skills. In this build we combine this damage boost with the iconic Firebats channeling playstyle and crazy Attack Speed values from the Staff of Chiroptera and Pain Enhancer.
Out of all creature skills, Firebats has the most damage potential with its Attack Speed scaling potential paired with channeling buffs from Taeguk and Mantle of Channeling. On top of that there are high damage multipliers available from Staff of Chiroptera and Bakuli Jungle Wraps.
During Season 24, Ethereals brought an impressive damage potential buff to the setup due to the breathtaking Attack Speed granted by Ghostflame. In Season 25, the build didn't get any benefit from the Spirit of Arachyr rework, being completely outclassed by the new Arachyr Corpse Spiders then by Arachyr Chicken in Season 29.
Unfortunately, Season 30 crushed the potential of the set, cutting by more than half the (6) Bonus damage multiplier while heavily buffing Helltooth Harness. This means that Helltooth is now the way to go when it comes to Firebats build! This guide will cover both variants of the build since the only change is to replace Horrify with Wall of Death and swapping the set.
This is an Area Damage (AD) build, since Firebats Cloud of Bats can proc it. This is further enhanced by the incredible Attack Speed scaling of the setup allowing you to melt monsters in high density (see Mechanics). While the build is fun to play, it lacks damage compared to the best performing Witch Doctor builds. Yet with this potential, it is not entirely excluded that Firebats Witch Doctor becomes once again the META Trash Killer in the future! Anyways, let's get into it!
Fun to Play ✔ Strong Set Identity ✔ Medium Range Build ✔ Crazy Attack Speed Scaling ✔
You get 11,500% Firebats damage from Spirit of Arachyr (6) Bonus as well as 75% damage reduction from the Spirit of Arachyr(4) Bonus.
If using Helltooth Harness, you get 37,500% damage and 60% damage reduction.
Staff of Chiroptera is one of the best items for this build giving 100% faster attacks (more details in the Mechanics section), 75% reduced Mana costs and 150% increased damage.
Bakuli Jungle Wraps give 300% increased damage as long as enemies are affected by Locust Swarm or Piranhas.
Lakumba's Ornament and Sacred Harvester give tremendous toughness and damage buffs by doubling our Soul Harvest stacks.
Ring of Emptiness provides us with a crazy 300% damage buff as long as the target is affected by either Haunt or Locust Swarm.
Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to complement Spirit of Arachyr with Captain Crimson's Trimmings.
Season 32 Ethereals
Ethereals are powerful rare weapons that can only be found during Season 32. They were initially the Season 24 Theme. They have incredible stats, a random Legendary power, and a free passive for your class. Read our Ethereal Mechanics Guide for full details on how they work and our Ethereal Farming Guide to learn how to acquire them. What you should prioritize on them is the following:
TheLegendary Power This build requires Sacred Harvester and Staff of Chiropterato be functional. We need our Ethereal to roll one of these powers so we can cube the other. We also want a good roll on our Legendary power if it has a range. For speed content it is always helpful to have Ethereals with Echoing Fury or In-geom powers, so keep those if you find them.
TheEtherealItself There are 3 different weapons available to us, each with its own benefits:
Ghostflame - This is the Ethereal we absolutely want as it is the only one granting 200% damage to Secondary Skills, which includes Firebats. Its insane Attack Speed is very beneficial to us as well, allowing us to reach the 5 FPA Breakpoint in solo push.
The Gidbinn and Arioc's Needle - These are better than normal Weapons but they're not giving 200% damage to Firebats, hence they are both tremendously weaker than Ghostflame.
The EtherealStat Rolls Each Ethereal comes with its own fixed set of powerful affixes. While some have a static value, many have a wide stat range. This means the difference between good and bad and good rolls is significant and something you should look for.
A Useful Passive This is just icing on the cake because a fifth passive is not going to make or break your build. You're better off hunting for the things above. Check out the Passives section down below to see which ones you're looking for.
Global Stat Priorities
Firebats Attack Speed Breakpoints
Attack Speed provides insane damage benefits for this channeling build and we definitely want to reach certain Breakpoints (see Mechanics). Generally you always want to have 7% Attack Speed rolled on your weapon in this build as this bonus is calculated multiplicatively to other Attack Speed bonuses.
In group, the majority of our Attack Speed comes from the secondary effect of Pain Enhancer. This means we don't need to stack additive Attack Speed rolls on gear to reach the 3 frames Firebats Breakpoint with 47 Pain Enhancer stacks. In the Solo setup we take the Enchantress with Focused Mind to reach the 8 frames Breakpoint. The faster we attack the more Mana channeling Firebats drains. For that reason we need to use Haunt Draining Spirit in the Trash Killer variant and Spirit Walk Honored Guest in Solo Push to regain our Mana.
Cooldown Reduction is not mandatory for this build, but it's helpful to use a Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm and take a "free roll" on your shoulder for Spirit Walk uptime to move, avoid attacks and gain Mana with Honored Guest. We also gain Cooldown Reduction from Grave Injustice in Solo. Area Damage works with Firebats and all its multipliers so this is one of our most important stats to have all items expect amulet! In solo play, crowd control reduction is a valuable stat on your helm and jewelry to avoid interruptions as much as possible.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full Spirit of Arachyr set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Rings to get Convention of Elements, Ring of Emptiness and The Compass Rose
Amulets to get The Traveler's Pledge
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Bounty Turn In: Recipe for Cain's Destiny and Captain Crimson's Trimmings
6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. It's better to spend your materials improving your set pieces, getting ancient weapon etc.
7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. Armor 4. Life % 5. All Resistance
Potion
Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered
To avoid Crowd Control effects during your DPS phases
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is the most common damage gem providing a flat 1.6 damage multiplier. Firebats has 15 yards range so in order to deal damage we have to get within the rank 25 effect on Bane of the Trapped of 15 yards anyways.
Taeguk grants up to 80% additive damage and 20% Armor, making it a great offensive gem since we are a channeling based build with Firebats.
For Solo Bane of the Stricken is needed to kill the Rift Guardian.
Pain Enhancer's secondary effect is our main source of additive Attack Speed in groups. We can hit the 3 frame breakpoint with 47 Pain Enhancer stacks, letting us attack insanely fast. With Locust SwarmPestilence from Vile Hive you will have this bleed on every mob.
Skills
We use Firebats as our main damage dealer. Cloud of Bats is the only rune that turns this skill into an area of effect around the player, dealing large amounts of damage to monsters pulled together by Supporters or Piranhas Piranhado. On top of that Firebats Cloud of Bats damage is increased to 850% weapon damage after 3 seconds of channeling far outperforming every other rune in terms of DPS.
Horrify Frightening Aspect is a must-have for its 50% Armor buff.
Soul Harvest is used in combination with Lakumba's Ornament and Sacred Harvester. Together they offer great offensive (a massive boost to Intelligence) and defensive (Armor from Languish, All Resistance through Intelligence and Damage Reduction from Lakumba's Ornament) buffs.
Spirit Walk is mostly used for Movement Speed and defensive purposes but also can be used offensively by moving to an Oculus Ring. In Solo gameplay the rune Honored Guest together with Grave Injustice are essential to regenerate Mana to keep channeling Firebats.
Locust Swarm is recommended for all variants of this build to engage enemies, reduce their damage done by Cloud of Insects and maintain your Bakuli Jungle Wraps and Ring of Emptiness damage buffs.
In Solo Piranhas Piranhado is used to group up monsters. The debuff also stays up essentially forever with the Creeping Death passive.
In Group Haunt Draining Spirit is used to regain Mana in large pulls at high Attack Speed breakpoints. As Haunt stays up almost forever with Creeping Death, Draining Spirit will search for a new target if the affected enemy dies. Haunt has an unlimited number of targets and at high Attack Speed values quickly generates Mana to channel Firebats!
Passives
Creeping Death increases the duration of Haunt and possibly Locust Swarm to 120,000 seconds (2,000 minutes, or almost 1.5 days). It ensures Bakuli Jungle Wraps and Ring of Emptiness uptime.
Confidence Ritual is used for a multiplicative damage increase in close range combat using Firebats.
We can take one or two defensive passives especially for Solo. Choose Spirit Vessel as a "cheat death" or Swampland Attunement for an insane Resistance boost when fighting huge monster pulls.
In Solo Grave Injustice is used to reduce cooldowns of Spirit Walk Honored Guest to regain Mana and Piranhas Piranhado to pull enemies together for area of effect damage while channeling.
In group, we take in Gruesome Feast for this last passive slot as it is one of the best passives in the entire game if you have a supporter like the zBarb providing you with Health Globes using skills like Threatening Shout Grim Harvest.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Critical Hit Damage
1. Armor
1. Area Damage
2. Intelligence
2. Critical Hit Chance
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Vitality1
3. Attack Speed
3. All Resistance
3. Pickup Radius
4. Maximum Mana
4. Cooldown Reduction
4. Life Regeneration
4. Life per Hit
1 Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 700,000 Life is recommended).
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Node 7: Take Vigor to help your build sustain its resources.
Nodes 8-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(3) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
GR Enchantress
GR Enchantress
For Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Cooldown Reduction from Prophetic Harmony, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind. Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight, Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
Start off by using Spirit Walk to run towards enemies and use Soul Harvest Languish to get the offensive & defensive buffs up. Cast your Locust Swarm to DoT up monsters and group them up using Piranhas Piranhado. Always cast Soul Harvest when you are in close combat and the skill is off cooldown. Stand on the Spider Queen's Web to get the Spirit of Arachyr (4) Bonus toughness buff or don't forget to use Wall of Death if using Helltooth Harness.
Cast Firebats to spawn an Oculus Ring and move there using Spirit Walk for the additional damage buff. Channel Firebats for a longer period of time to reach the maximum damage of Cloud of Bats after 3 seconds before the Oculus Ring buff runs out after 7 seconds. If you are lucky enough to have the new Oculus Ring spawns under you, channel as long as you can survive. Else proceed by pulling, moving and casting Piranhas Piranhado again to repeat your damage rotation.
Hardcore
This build is a bit squishy and it is hard to add additional toughness buffs. For Hardcore, make sure to stack extra Vitality and always use the Spirit Vessel passive. Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
GR Solo Push Helltooth
GR Solo Push Arachyr
Group Trash Killer
Echoing Nightmare
Helltooth Firebats Solo Push
Concept The Helltooth Harness Solo build takes the awesome monster grouping power of Piranhas Piranhado and combines it with the strong AoE attack of Firebats Cloud of Bats. With Grave Injustice this setup has tremendous Cooldown Reduction as well as Life and Mana recovery rates if the monster density is high and the kill speed is fast. Bane of the Stricken is mandatory to kill the Rift Guardian.
Gameplay Keep up your Soul Harvest and Wall of Death bonuses at all times and use Spirit Walk to skip bad map layouts, dodge attacks and projectiles, and to regenerate Mana with Honored Guest. DoT up enemies with your Locust Swarm to ensure the damage reduction from Cloud of Insects and the damage buffs from Bakuli Jungle Wraps and Ring of Emptiness. Cast Piranhas Piranhado to group up enemies and start channeling Firebats. Keep pressing Spirit Walk to survive but never stop channeling until you want to move to keep up Taeguk and Cloud of Bats.
Setups At lower Paragon (below 1,000) Piranhas can be replaced with Summon Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts for insane recovery. Also feel free to change Confidence Ritual to Spirit Vessel for better survivability.
Arachyr Firebats Solo Push
Concept The Spirit of Arachyr Solo build takes the awesome monster grouping power of Piranhas Piranhado and combines it with the strong AoE attack of Firebats Cloud of Bats. With Grave Injustice this setup has tremendous Cooldown Reduction as well as Life and Mana recovery rates if the monster density is high and the kill speed is fast. Bane of the Stricken is mandatory to kill the Rift Guardian.
Gameplay Keep up your Soul Harvest all times and use Spirit Walk to skip bad map layouts, dodge attacks and projectiles, and to regenerate Mana with Honored Guest. DoT up enemies with your Locust Swarm to ensure the damage reduction from Cloud of Insects and the damage buffs from Bakuli Jungle Wraps and Ring of Emptiness. Cast Piranhas Piranhado to group up enemies and start channeling Firebats. Keep pressing Spirit Walk to survive but never stop channeling until you want to move to keep up Taeguk and Cloud of Bats.
Setups At lower Paragon (below 1,000) Piranhas can be replaced with Summon Zombie Dogs Leeching Beasts for insane recovery. Also feel free to change Confidence Ritual to Spirit Vessel for better survivability.
Arachyr Firebats Group Trash Killer
Concept In this high Greater Rift focused setup we use full Area Damage and the insane Attack Speed from Pain Enhancer to deal tremendous amounts of AoE damage to enemies. Our zBarb enhances our damage by adding Health Globes with Threatening Shout Grim Harvest and creating pixelpulls with Ground Stomp Wrenching Smash.
Gameplay Keep up Soul Harvest and Spirit Walk to survive and move through enemies unhindered. DoT up emeries with Locust Swarm and Haunt to get all your damage multipliers up and and regenerate Mana from Draining Spirit. Position yourself with Spirit Walk next to your Supports in dense monster pulls, cast Piranhas and start channeling Firebats. It is important to keep channeling Firebats until your group wants to move again. Do not let go off Firebats before that or else you lose your Attack Speed snapshot (further explained in the mechanics section below). Pray to RNGesus to get an Oculus Ring spawn right under you to increase your damage even further!
Setups Without zMonk in the party, you cannot keep up Squirt's Necklace, which is why we go for Captain Crimson's Trimmings. At higher Paragon, you can replace Endless Walk with Squirt's Necklace and Convention of Elements. On the Passives feel free to change Swampland Attunement to Spirit Vessel if you prefer playing with a Cheat Death.
Drop Horrify for Big Bad Voodoo to increase damage.
Replace Piranhado with Wave of Mutilation to increase the range at which you apply the damage debuff.
Swap Bane of the Stricken for Pain Enhancer since we are fighting hordes of enemies.
Gameplay
Click Speed Pylon instantly to boost your mobility and dodge Green Meteors.
Around Wave 90, click Channeling Pylon and Power Pylon.
After Wave 100, use Conduit Pylon.
At Wave 122, stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.
We have awesome Big Bad Voodoo and Spirit Walk uptime as we are constantly killing enemies with Grave Injustice. Cast your Locust Swarm to DoT monsters. Always cast Soul Harvest when you are in close combat and the skill is off cooldown. Since Firebats has a 3 seconds damage and AoE ramp up, try to stand still and channel as much as possible. Stand on the Spider Queen's Web to get the Spirit of Arachyr (4) Bonus toughness buff. Use Spirit Walk wisely to damage burst with Shukrani's Triumph.
Video Guide
S7 Arachyr Firebats GR115 World #2 4man Action (zMonk PoV)
Mechanics
Firebats Cloud of Bats
Has a range of 15 yards around the Witch Doctor.
Has a ramp up time of 3 seconds to reach the full potential of 850% weapon damage.
Has an Attack Speed Coefficient of 2.0. The highest possible Breakpoint (3 Frames Per Attack) is achieved at 3.7501 sheet APS with Staff of Chiroptera at 47 Pain Enhancer stacks in this setup.
Attack Speed is snapshotted at the start of the channel, which means that if you start channeling a 3 FPA Firebats, it will continue attacking at that increased rate as long as you don't stop channeling.
Staff of Chiroptera
Gives Firebats a 150% separate damage multiplier which equals a 2.5 multiplier.
Halves Firebats Frames per Attack (FPA) but does not affect its mana cost. Firebats mana cost per tick is calculated this way:
Firebats base mana cost is 125 and its Attack Speed Coefficient is 2.0. In our situation, we have 10% Resource Cost Reduction (RCR), and benefit from the 75% less mana cost (Resource Coefficient) from Staff of Chiroptera. This mana cost per tick is then multiplied by our APS Breakpoint (without taking Staff of Chiroptera in consideration) to get the total mana channeling cost per second. For instance when the 3 FPA Breakpoint is reached, our mana cost will be 120.54 mana per second:
Shukrani's Triumph
The 100% Damage bonus while in the Spirit Realm from Shukrani's Triumph is an additive damage buff, meaning its effect is additive with other buffs such as Pierce the Veil.
You are in the Spirit Realm when in Spirit Walk and when Spirit Vessel procs.
After the initial duration of Spirit Walk (2 seconds or 3 with Jaunt), you stay indefinitely under Spirit Walk until you attack 3 times or until you have any Elite enemy within 20 yards.
A very interesting property of Spirit Walk is that you do not generate aggro under this effect, which means you are invisible to all monsters. This mechanic can be used at your advantage on some Rift Guardians which need a target to perform some abilities (Bloodmaw's Jump for instance).
Locust Swarm
When applied, Locust Swarm jumps to another nearby enemy once every second. With Creeping Death, this effect stays permanently as long as you are in range. It fades when you move ~1.5 screens away.
The Cloud of Insects rune can be used to apply bleed to enemies for Pain Enhancer, as any Physical DoT effect provides the extra Attack Speed effect.
Piranhas Piranhado
This ability is one of the few ways in the game to pixelpull enemies.
If used on top of enemies, it pulls them close together but does not pixelpull most of them. In order to get the best pull possible, it has to be used on a spot with no other nearby enemies.
Gruesome Feast
Each stack, received upon picking up a Health Globe, has its own duration.
You need 5 globes every 15 seconds or one Health Globe every three seconds to keep it at full power.
The Intelligence bonus stacks additively with Soul Harvest's bonus.
Summary
Put together the core items and acquire the full Spirit of Arachyr set.
Iconic and fun playstyle with Firebats.
Scales with Area Damage and can snapshot Attack Speed.
Lightning fast channeling ticks but cause of many server issues & lags (the DoT effect of Spirit of Arachyr(2) Bonus adds even more strain on servers).
DoT enemies up as much as possible and keep up Soul Harvest at all time.
Fire away!
Enjoy Arachyr & Cheers everyone!
Credits
Written by Rob with special help from sVr, wudijo & Chewingnom. Updated by Chewingnom.
