by Hotstreak - 9 years ago     show comments

Books have often been society’s only bastion of light for passing along knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time or convoluted by the oral tradition. In order to provide new and old adventurers with as much knowledge of what to expect on their journey in Sanctuary, we created this tome of knowledge – Ars Arcanum. We will regularly feature a Legendary weapon or armor piece, discussing its stand-alone powers and capabilities, as well as how it may synergize with new builds or other items.

Ever since Diablo 3 first released I have been waiting for a viable Witch Doctor pet build. Since the WD is suppose to fill the Necromancer void as a summoner of pets, it’s all I have ever wanted from the WD. At the beginning of RoS it got better with the Zunimassa Set rework but still wasn’t quite there as it got outclassed by other builds. But much like the Crusader’s Golden Flense (which I covered in last weeks article) Pet builds didn’t have any real items to synergize with. Now we’ve got an item that a lot of summoner WD’s are after and it’s Starmetal Kukri.

Why is it good?

The cooldown reduction that you get for Big Bad Voodoo and Fetish Army is awesome. Every single time your fetishes deal damage, they reduce the cooldown of those two abilites by 1 second. This really good for a couple of reasons, you will for the most part be able to keep 100% up time on your fetishes and you will be able to use BBV much more frequently which always helps as it is a great utility spell. What makes this item really interesting for pushing Greater Rifts is it gives you the freedom of not having to use Zunimassa’s.

Since the CDR allows you to have near 100% uptime on your fetishes, there isn’t a huge reason to get the Zuni’s set bonus. So what set do you get in it’s place? Blackthorne’s seems like the best choice, which is funny because that set hasn’t been used for any endgame builds. But it really makes sense here because it makes you immune to a few of the deadliest elite abilities which are Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued. Along with that you get 10% more damage to elites and you take 10% less damage from elites, it’s actually a very good set defensively for pushing Greater Rifts but it never really found a place in the meta until recently. I feel like the extra survivability that you get from Blackthorne’s is too good to pass up as you can never have enough survivability when pushing Greater Rifts.

Who is it good for?

Since this is a Ceremonial Knife, it is only usable by Witch Doctor’s as it is their class weapon. This is also a very good item for people who don’t want to use Zunimassa’s as it opens up the ability to use other sets.

Where can I find it?

This item is not season exclusive so it can be found in any mode.

The Fluff

“Szab the necromancer was the first outsider to meet the people of the Teganze. He attempted to explain the philosophy of the necromancers to them, but the language barrier proved to be too great—instead of relaying his philosophical beliefs, he told them he was Trag’Oul, and that he lived among the stars.” —Abd-al Hazir