Witch Doctor Pet Guide

Taken from the Diablo 3 forums (March 2014): You have a 20% flat chance to cause X% amount of area damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target. New to Diablo III? Ask some questions and receive advice from experienced players here! Use the following paragraphs for a longer description, or to establish category guidelines or rules.

submitted by Peter.
Updates
Inferno Acts 2, 3 and 4 will be nerfed in patch 1.0.3. Pets may be viable beyond Inferno Act 1 in future.
Table of Contents
1. My Pets Die In 1 Hit. Pets Suck!
2. The CC Build
3. Summary
4. CC Information
1. My Pets Die In 1 hit. Pets Suck!

No they do not suck. This is a very common misconception about our pets that happens due to wrong gear, and it is precisely why this guide was created to clear this up. Pets need some buffs but they are not as useless as people claim.
The reason why your pets are dying is because your gear does not have defensive stats to benefit them. Witch Doctors instinctively stack intelligence to increase their damage. They naturally ignore defensive stats. The problem is our pets scale off our defensive stats like armor and dodge, and because your gear lacks them, that is why they are dying.
To make your pets survive better, stack things that will make YOU survive better, like strength (improves armor), dexterity, intelligence (improves resistances), armor, dodge and resistances. Vitality and Block do not benefit your pets.
With proper gear, it is possible for your pets to survive comfortably up to Inferno Act 1.
Stat Priority to Increase Pet Survivability

1. Stun/Freeze
Stops an enemy from attacking. See the CC Build section below for more information.
2. Intelligence
Increases both pet damage and survivability (resistances). Best stat to stack.
3. Armor/Strength
Armor reduces all damage, not just physical damage. Armor is a more efficient stat because it exists in higher numbers than Strength.
4. Resist All
Resist All reduces not just magic damage, even physical damage because there is a Physical Resistance stat.
5. Individual Resists
Poison, Fire and Electric are more important because champions with Plagued, Desecrated and Lightning Charged stats do very high aoe damage.
6. Dexterity
Dodge completely stops and attack but it is unreliable. It also suffers from heavy diminishing returns. Up to 100 Dexterity, 1 dexterity = 0.1% dodge. But from 100 to 500 Dexterity, 1 dexterity = 0.025% dodge.

2. The CC Build

The CC Build was discovered during brainstorming in the previous thread as people tried to make the Witch Doctor's pets work in Inferno.
CC stands for 'Crowd Control', which is something that temporarily disables an enemy like stun or freeze. The CC Build thus involves stacking CC stats in order to apply lots of CCs to enemies.
The small % chance of CCs like stuns and freezes are deceptive, because the Witch Doctor can make it happen like 80% of the time. This is due to the unique fact that the Witch Doctor has pets, and can generate relatively more hits than other classes through them. The Witch Doctor can apply CCs through his spells, his pet attacks, and his pet auras.
With the CC build, a single boss can even CCed so much that he barely gets out an attack, resulting in a slow but safe victory.
The CC build should also work well in co-op games because ranged classes like the wizard and the demon hunter will enjoy safely killing enemies from a distance while your pets tank and CC them.
CCs From Gear
Not all gear can have all possible CCs. Most of the item slots can have only one possible CC, with the exception of weapons and off-hands which can have all types.
Here are the CCs that you can get from gear. It is not necessary to get all, but the more the better.

Diablo 3 Area Damage Paragon

Amulet - Chance to Blind on Hit (Stat exists but search criteria isn't available)
Belt - Chance to Freeze on Hit
Boots - Chance to Immobilize on Hit
Bracers - Chance to Knockback on Hit
Gloves - Chance to Stun on Hit
Helm - Chance to Fear on Hit
Pants - Chance to Slow on Hit
Shoulders - Chance to Chill on Hit
Weapon - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs
Off-Hand - Bleed Chance + all of the above CCs

Guide continued after the page break.
Recommended CCs

Stun - To stop enemies from moving or attacking your pets, increasing survivability.
Freeze - Same as Stun, but can be removed if attacked.
Immobilize - To stop those pesky enemies from running away from you. E.g. Fallen Shamans that like to res enemies from afar.
Slow - Slows movement speed of enemies to prevent them from running away or reaching you if Immobilize doesn't trigger.
Chill - Slows attack speed and movement speed. Delays attacks from reaching your pets if stun or freeze doesn't trigger. Helps prevent enemies from escaping if Immobilize or Slow doesn't trigger.
Bleed - Supplementary damage over time to increase your overall damage.

Abilities to Use
Not all spells have the same chance to make a CC happen. Some abilities can make CCs happen more than others.

Recommended Abilites and Runes

Gargantuan + Big Stinker Rune (15% area poison damage per second).
Best area damage rune for Gargantuan to trigger CCs.
Summon Zombie Dogs + Burning Dogs Rune (2% area fire damage per second).
Best area damage rune for dogs to trigger CCs.
Corpse Spiders + Spider Queen Rune (16% area poison damage per second).
Good area damage.
Firebomb + Fire Pit Rune (8% area fire damage per second for 3 seconds).
Good area damage.
Plague of Toads + Rain of Toads Rune (130% area poison damage over 2 seconds).
Good area damage but costs more mana than Firebomb. Use this instead of Firebomb if you have a lot of mana.
Spirit Walk.
Almost compulsory ability for all Witch Doctors. Escape danger.
Big Bad Voodoo + Ghost Trance Rune (Heals 2% health per second for 20 seconds).
Faster attack speed will trigger CCs more, and the heals are useful to keep your pets alive.

Recommended Passive Skills

Jungle Fortitude (Reduces damage taken by you and pets by 20%).
Keeps pets alive longer. Dead pets don't generate CC.
Zombie Handler (Extra dog and health of pets increased by 20%).
Extra dog is useful to generate extra CC. Also keeps pets alive longer.
Fierce Loyalty (Pets benefit 100% from Life Regeneration and Thorns).
The only way to heal pets to keep them alive longer.

3. Summary

Do Stats Benefit Pets?

Defensive Stats

Strength: Yes (through increasing armor)
Dexterity: Yes (through increasing dodge)
Intelligence: Yes (through increasing resistances)
Vitality: No
Block: No (but you want to use shield anyway for the extra armor that pets do benefit from)
Dodge: Yes
Armor: Yes
Physical Resistance: Yes
Cold Resistance: Untested
Fire Resistance: Untested
Lightning Resistance: Untested
Poison Resistance: Untested
Arcane/Holy Resistance: Untested
Missile Damage Reduction: Untested
Melee Damage Reduction: Untested

Offensive Stats

Intelligence: Yes (through increasing your damage)
Attack Speed: Yes (through increasing your damage)
Critical Hit Chance: Yes (increases pet crit chance)
Critical Hit Damage: No
Thorns: Yes (Must take Fierce Loyalty Skill)

Stat Priority to Increase Pet Survivability
1. Stun/Freeze

Diablo 3 Area Dmg