Hero Build - Witch Doctor

Depending on how one builds him to complement your team, and the opposing teams heroes, witch doctor can be a tremendous hero killer as well as a great support caster. He has an aoe heal, bouncing stun, a damage over time aoe spell, and a chaos damage, fast attacking ultimate. Due to these spells he is very versatile in his build and how you choose to level him. In this post, I will level him primarily as a hero killer, which will influence some of my item choices. All item selections will be based on a -rd mode. It really only affects beginning purchases because one starts with less gold in -rd, than -ar, or any -em mode.

Spell Selection by level
1. Paralyzing Cask
2. Maledict
3. Paralyzing Cask
4. Maledict
5. Maledict
6. Death Ward
7. Paralyzing Cask
8. Maledict
9. Paralyzing Cask
10. Attribute Bonus
11. Death Ward
12-15. Attribute Bonus
16. Death Ward
17-21 Attribute Bonus
22-25 Voodoo Restoration

Because the goal of this build is hero killing, heal is passed off until the end. Cask and maledict must be leveled ASAP along w/ ultimate to get the full spell combo that witch doctor is capable of delivering. Then attributes in order to supply the extra mana and survivability needed to start and finish your spell combos.

Ending Items
Slot 1: Boots of travel
Slot 2: Dagon level 1 (this slot depends on opponents hero selection, if lot of strength heroes do not get)
Slot 3: Black King bar
Slot 4: Aghanims Scepter
Slot 5: Blink Dagger (this slot depends on opponents hero selection and skill level, can be swapped with lothars depending on opps. Aoe stuns and skill)
Slot 6: Heart of Tarrasque or Eye of Skadi or Shivas Guard or Guinsoo
(just depends on lineup)

Item Selection by Duration
At start: 1-2 circlets, 2 ironwood branches, 1 tango set

First Item (0-20 minutes in): I farm incredibly fast with WD due to his good damage and attack animation, and also paralyzing cask damage to creep w/ each bounce. Because of all this, I rush my dagon by first getting staff of wizardry, for mana help to spell combo, then blades of attack, then recipe. A 15 minute dagon should be a decent goal to set, although 20 is not too bad. Also here make your 1 –2 circlets into bracers for life and battle survival. The dagon will allow you to easily combo kill basically any hero at this point in the game by stunning, maledict, dagoning, then if need be ult, or an attack or two.

Next Items (20-40? minutes): Boots, then start making soul booster parts for your aghanims. I usually go mana or point booster first, then the other, then vitality booster last. After these I get my blink dagger, making it easy for me to do my mass damage combos and much easier to land maledict with. Also it provides nice escapability limiting your deaths.

Final items (40-end): Here I finish my Aghanims by purchasing a mystic staff, as I will most likely be level 16 or higher, making it most effective. Then I finish boots of travel. Then, if they have a lot of stuns, I will get a Black King Bar allowing me to be protected when I lay my ultimate. The final slot is up to you, and how you are farming and what you feel will complement your team best (skadi, heart, guinsoo, shivas).

Total Cost of Items
Boots of Travel – 2700
Blink Dagger- 2150
Dagon - 3000
Aghanims- 6000
BKB - 3800
Variable slot - ?

Total $17,650 plus other variable slot

Lets say you farm with an average creep kill of $50 gold (takes into account the much greater amount for siege and some higher level neutrals), and assume a team tower kill every 20 minutes, and you are making 8 gold every 10 seconds being -rd (believe this is correct, could be wrong) , and the game lasts 60 minutes. The tower kills add up to $600, plus the 8 gold every 10 seconds adds up to $2880, these summed equal $3480. This subtracted from $17650, leaves $14,170 that you must farm from creep. In case you are interested, the final creep slay number you would have to have at $50 a creep comes out to about 283 creep kills. Broken down to creep kills per minute you would need, it would come out to be around 4.5 per minute. This seems ridiculously high, I know, but taking into account the items, and the fact that we are not considering hero kills, or even last hit tower kills which are major revenue factors for a hero, this cs count could very well be in the 160-190 range for a good player, which would reduce your needed creep kills per minute to around 3, which is very reasonable for a good wd player. Also this is the gold needed for the COMPLETE build in a 60 minute game, which rarely happens. So just BoT, blink dagger, and aghanims are sufficient ending items and the big 3 I would focus on if playing.