While my set up for this build isn’t original by far, I absolutely had to write a blog post about this build just because it’s one of those things that really is a signature Blizzard thing. For lack of a better way of putting it, this is a CRAZY build. Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun as hell and you’ll die laughing playing this the first time around.
The new Spirit of Arachyr set strangely focuses around mostly spiders and your hex ability. For the most part, you can call this a pet build type of set and you’ll be running around with all types of pets. So when you factor that aspect in along with the redesigned Manajuma’s Way ceremonial knife/mojo set, you have to wonder wtf was Blizzard smoking in coming up with this nutty build?
The 2 piece bonus summons a queen spider that moves wherever you target your corpse spiders ability. She shoots out deadly webs that slows and damages enemies over a period. The 4 piece bonus is your defensive aspect where Hex gains the Toad of Hugeness rune. You gain life over 10 seconds after its meal is digested and a 40% damage reduction while it’s active. Finally, your 6 piece bonus buffs your creature damage by 800%.
The basics sound pretty self-evident. But the way people are playing this set is to use it in conjunction with the Manajuma’s Way. Since you’re already casting Hex as part of the 4 piece bonus and gaining the free Toad of Hugeness rune for defense, people add the Angry Chicken rune which now does poison damage. Manajuma’s Way boosts your Angry Chicken speed by an additional 100% and increases your uptime by 15 seconds as well as triggering more damage by 100% and blowing things up when creatures die. So in some ways, it’s similar to Monk’s exploding palm and Gungdo Gear. However, the primary difference is that you’re a spaced out chicken running around at insane speeds and nuking things around you while not taking damage.
That last part is what made me such a huge fan of the build. Whether or not this build becomes a top tier build is irrelevant. It’s that you’re a funky chicken running around at top speeds blowing the hell out of opponents. It’s so crazy you have to try it.
And it’s such a weird build because at first it seems really serious when you’re assaulting enemies with your spiders and your toads. But you add a chicken right out of the blue and the build goes nuts.
So the thing is that there’s other gear that works with this build. Most people end up using Firebats to trigger Bastion of Will. As a result, you’ll probably want to use the new Coils of the First Spider to gain more healing and defense while you channel Firebats.
Quite honestly, I think that Bastion of Will doesn’t really work all that great with this build. Most of the time, you’ll be flipping in and out of chicken mode so you won’t get that many chances to trigger Bastion of Will. Instead, what you really want to do is go balls out on the pets aspect. So I think some things you can do here is use a Ring of Royal Grandeur along then get Tasker and Theo for the increased attack speed for your pets on your hands slot. Your belt slot probably can be taken up with a Belt of Transcendence for the auto generated fetishes or a Hwoj Wrap. I’ve seen some builds use the Wormwood weapon since the set buffs your Insect Swarm ability. Then people also cube a Quetzalcoatl to do more auto damage. That works well since you’ll be running around and smashing into enemies as a chicken.
If you go pure pet, you could just take the Mask of Jeram for the head cubed slot and use The Tall mans Finger or The Short Mans Finger in the cube. Since Hex though is a cooldown ability, you’ll probably end up using an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac to help with keep Angry Chicken up all the time. If you go pure pet, you’ll definitely want to use the Enforcer gem as one of your chief legendary gems. Also, Gogok will be good to add more cooldown reduction to Hex.
Skill-wise, you pretty much will want Corpse Spiders to control your Queen Spider and Hex with Angry Chicken. Firebats will be what you use in conjunction with the Obsidian Ring to swap in and out of Hex. You really won’t need Fetish Army with this build since you can use the Belt of Transcendence for a similar effect. Instead, you might consider using Zombie Dogs or the Gargantuan depending on which ring you decide to go with. In the rare instance, that you feel you have enough CDR to keep Hex up most of the time, you can probably ditch the Obsidian ring and try rolling with both pet rings just for fun. The final skill can be dedicated to Piranhado just for a little more CC or Spirit Walk to get you out of trouble (such as jailer or waller).
You could get rid of Piranhado and just go with Big Bad Voodoo in a more support oriented spot. In this case, you would get rid of the Wormwood staff in the cube slot in favor of the Starmetal Kukri effect. That way with your fetishes summoned from the Belt of Transcendence, you’ll have a very high uptime on your Big Bad Voodoo buff.
For passive skills you will choose Tribal Rites for the cooldown reduction to Hex, Grave Injustice for more cooldown reduction to Hex, Pierce the Veil for the damage buff and Gruesome Feast for the intelligence buff and mana regeneration.
Your only real mana spender here is going to be Firebats but the purpose is only to get back into Angry Chicken form. For the most part, you’re going to be focused on cooldown reduction on your shoulders, hands, weapon and offhand. Fortunately, you’ll be in Angry Chicken form most of the time and by the time you’re out, it’ll be off cooldown.
Ultimately, this build is just about pure fun. It’s madness and most likely might end up becoming a troll build in group play. It can be a more support oriented build if you focus on other items like cubing a The Spider Queen‘s Grasp for slowing enemies. But what’s the fun in that? I feel that this build isn’t about being serious and just climbing rifts but having a ton of fun and changing up the playstyle a bit. The build might be one of the fastest speed runners around, only possibly topped by a Delsere/Tal Rasha wizard who cubes an Aether Walker. I say make this build about being crazy and doing nutty things rather than just raw damage.
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