Pirate101 Witchdoctor Guide
(Summer 2016)

Ever wanted to be the best summoner around? Well don’t you worry my fellow lvl 70 Witchdoctors, I have just the thing for you! Have a Pirate101 Witchdoctor Guide! Let’s crack open the meta piece by piece together! Here is the official Summer Guide just for you!

This guide will cover :

• Class Pros and Cons
• Practice Points
• Gear (And the best places to farm them)
• Companions
• Power Set Up
• Match ups and Strategies

Just remember this guide is specifically designed for ranked pvp, if the population demands I’ll make a follow up for all you spar fanatics!

Class Pros and Cons

Every class has their own ups and downs obviously but here are the major ones to take note of in Ranked PvP.

Practice Points

First of all, how you spend your Practice Points is very important. At lvl 70, after completing all the Zeke Quests, you should have a total of 21 Practice Points.

So why this set up?

Hidden Trainer:

The idea behind training Forbiddance is simple. There really is nothing else to train into so why not? It can be useful for slower, more grindy matches matches (Specifically in mirror matches and vs Privy)..  You can hold onto it if you want, but I just find that it’s waste of a power for faster matches

Witch Hunter is simple: it’s a great way to deal with shroud as well as Old Scratch’s AoE natural attack,  so why wouldn’t we?

Swashbuckler:

Walk in Shadows is just nice to have because you can time out a Buccaneer’s or Swashbuckler’s hide to avoid the x2 damage. It’s also 2 turns of immunity on its own, which is something Witch needs.

Privateer:

First of all, elusive is straight forward because any dodge is welcome. As such, obtaining a pet which grants Elusive is quite the trend for most classes these days, so they can achieve Elusive Rank 3 on every class. Witchdoctor is no exception, unless you decide to drop it and train Fast Rank 2.  In that case, you should put your other points into Buccaneer for Kraken’s Coil and Triton’s Song.

Their powers as well are completely staple to the meta. While a minor heal is always welcomed with Rouse, Refresh just isn’t worth the 2 extra points, neither is the will buff. While Privateers have those luxury turns to do whatever they want and toss it up randomly, as a witch you won’t have this luxury.

Additionally, Valor’s Shield is also a welcome power to help our low protection problem.  As Witchdoctors we’re always looking for the long lasting Value powers, because with them we can start barraging our enemy into the defensive position while being far away ourselves. Valor’s Shield is perfect for just that!

Musketeer:

Barricade is just a Spar option personally. For the old school or F2P players who want a consistent counter to Swashbuckler, the Barricade strategy (discussed later on) is a way to help lock your opponent out from abusing their Black Fog. In addition, it can be useful vs Buccaneers if you get the chance to use it.

Wind Spirit is also a major factor that I put an extra point into, because we’re almost always using Bonnie. Bonnie is already amazing with Great Juju but getting a 10 turn agility buff is definitely helpful.  My MVP this season so far has been Bonnie, specifically in the Privateer match ups.  She cleans out the board so well with these buffs.  As such, having another buff is gladly welcomed!

The Gear

Now the most important part about PvP: the gear. Great… Fun… Good luck farming fellow Summoners! Or for those who have already survived the grind, enjoy it!

The Companions

Companions are another very important piece to our strategy and decision making. Hence, here are the companions I highly recommend you use as a Witchdoctor, specifically to compliment the play style we’re using with the gear I showed above!

Power Set Up

Much as in Wizard101 with Deck building, Power set up and management is an art form. I’ve always followed my own rule known as the “as I dream” rule set, where you set your powers in the order you WISH for them to show up during the stages of the game. Hence, the powers you want to show up turns 1-4 should be focused and ordered on rows 1-2. You set them in order of priority of what you would prefer to come up the most to what you don’t mind having. You should follow this pattern of 2 turns per row as you go when setting up your powers.

Most of all, don’t feel stressed if you get confused by this. Simply use the pictures below for your bases and replace/add what’s necessary or where you feel it’s comfortable. Also remember it takes trial and error to find what the best slot is for each power, so don’t feel shy to change things up after a couple of matches if things don’t work out. Golden rule is 3 tries before you change it though! We will possibly have another guide in the future going more in depth on this, so stay tuned!

Barricades

You may end up not using the same gear as me and not have access to a Hide piece of gear. If this is the case you should move Barricades up to the spot where the Walk in Darkness is and also move up the Walk in Shadows to slot #20 to help deal with hide #2.

Match Ups

Buccaneer 

First of all, I’ll say this right now to be clear: as a Witchdoctor this is our hardest match up. Buccaneers are the top tier class in ranked pvp at the moment due to the board size and how fast the meta is. They’re the worst class to fight, regardless of what class you are. I had no intention of winning vs Buccaneers as a Witchdoctor but this doesn’t mean just flee then and there. Try your best and do not get angry, upset or discouraged due to a loss against them. Regardless of making the best plays, having the best gear and getting the best powers, you still need A LOT of luck to win this match up.

With that said, here is the best strategy to win vs Buccaneer:

Step 1: First of all set up your trees as fast as possible. If you go first you should slow Goro. If they aren’t bringing Goro/Nausica, slow Pete. If they bring both Goro and Nausica, you need to go Hidden ASAP.

Step 2: If you went first (which is bad in this match up), set up your trees now and move your units behind them. If you already set up trees and you’re not being pressured too much, feel free to drop the Terracotta Warriors at this point. If you’re under pressure and your opponent could get to your Pirate in any way shape or form, Hide.

Step 3: Kill Peter Quint. Peter Quint is the most disgustingly broken Companion alive. Thank goodness he can only move up to 9 Squares with Brutal Charge (+1 if he goes straight) so kill him ASAP. Use a buff to let Bonnie go off on him. In addition, you should absorb your Bonnie or do whatever possible to protect her. Start killing Pete and protecting your Bonnie, because we need Overwatch 3 to stay a threat vs this Buccaneer as long as possible to give us more freedom vs Frenzy.

Step 4: Repeat. If you somehow managed to get a lucky chain and kill Pete, you’re winning. If not then you’re in a stalemate and since this match up doesn’t naturally favor you at all, you’re losing. Hurry up, kill Pete. Then get to work on Goro. If they have a Nausica, fort yours and rush her at their’s.

Step 5: Repeat until you win! You just have to keep running and letting your summons soak up the damage and chains for you, while you Mournsong and use Bonnie to kill their Pirate. Eventually you’ll win from getting them into a life range that is unable to Frenzy you. Also, as long as you’re above 70% health you should live through any chains, as long as you have some sort of protection like an Absorb, Kraken/Levy, Fort on. It also helps if Bonnie stays alive. If your opponent uses Frenzy and you survive it, you also have a greater chance of living because now you just need to stay above the range where a chain kills you. Shroud will be a win condition on its own (assuming you have it) or your vast amount of drains to chip away and stay healthy.

This is the best advice I can give as a Witchdoctor vs Buccaneer. It’s a difficult match up in ranked and will probably always be. I highly suggest to use Ratbeard over Nausica, if you see a lot of Buccaneers in the queue. The same advice applies if Buccaneer ever becomes a clear tier 1 (like Privateer is at the moment).

Privateer 

Privateer is the exact reason Witch is so playable at the moment. The entire meta constantly wrapped around the idea that Blast of Discord is an automatic win. Hence we Witchdoctors can swoop in with our high will to just ignore it and treat it as an epic gunnery turn 1, only to put them into a corner from the start of the match.

Strategy to win vs Privateer:

Step 1: Ocuboros, there really is no better play than this. Unless you’re on the Cool Ranch board or didn’t pull it, slow Nausica.

Step 2: Slow Nausica or Ocuboros if you haven’t already and move up your units.

Step 3: Absorb Bonnie or Nausica, just gotta ensure they won’t die.

Step 4: Mournsong or move up and Trees. If you don’t have trees, just move up. You need to start pressuring them during these 5 rounds, because you have to snowball the game into your favor drastically. Dont way you can set up a late game, which is already tilted into your favor, so you can almost never lose at this point.

Step 5: Use the last few turns to start chipping away their utility units (specifically Scratch first), so you can get your summons out safely. Once units such as Scratch and Toro are off the board, your summons are safe from dying to them and to bombs from the enemy pirate.

Step 6: Chip, chip baby. All the way! At this point in the game it’s just chipping away at the units health and keeping up the pressure. Don’t give them any breathing room and before you know it they’ve fled or are too far behind to come back.

This is a pretty straight forward match up, as long as you ocuboros before they can pressure you. You almost always win this match up, unless RNG is really against you or you make a major misplay.

Swashbucklers 

First of all, if you see a lot of Swashbucklers queuing up or you’ve been queuing into the same Buckler’s over and over, I highly suggest swapping out Bonnie or Nausica for Toro at this point. His buff is very helpful for your summons to hit and he also won’t be targettable by Fog companions or will just be a punching bag for Fog Nausica. It is much better for us to have Toro die to Nausica, because then our Nausica has a chance to not die to their hidden Nausica. Toro also isn’t too bad in trading vs other melee units (specifically Goronado) in this match up.

Strategy to win vs Swashbucklers:

The main win conditions are 1. Survive Fog; 2. Survive Assassin’s Shroud. If you have Soul Shroud, after surviving these 2 win conditions, you should be able to simply tank out the rest of the enemy team with Soul Shroud and your Drains.

Step 1: React. Sometimes you won’t have your pet spawn nor will you be blue. If you’re Blue and your pet spawns, you pretty much win by just following it around the entire game LOL! But if it doesn’t spawn, you have the back up protection to survive the first win condition Swashbuckler’s have, Black Fog. So the first strategy is to just use Walk in Darkness. This way – even if they rush you before you can set up the Barricade strategy – you will simply just survive with your pirate, which is still the best case scenario.

What is the Barricade Strategy you ask? It this:

 

Color Code:

Blue : Bonnie (If you’re not using Bonnie, Scratch)

Green : Pirate

Red : Old Scratch (If you’re not using Bonnie, Nausica)

Yellow : Punching Bag, so Nausica (If you’re not using Bonnie/Nausica, Toro or Scratch) 

Pink is where the Barricades will go when you place them

At this point you sit out the Black Fog. If they rush without the Black Fog, great!, because now you kill them based on their priority rate.

The Priority for killing Swashbuckler’s companion pool is as so: Fan, Goronado, Toro, Any Buccaneer Unit, Bonnie, Nausica. While Nausica is the least threatening unit they can bring her, it still does damage with Fog. However, after that she just does chip damage. As such, she doesn’t really chain compared to other Buccaneer units or Bonnie, so that’s why I placed her last. Fan has the most damage burst potential so obviously a target to fear. Goronado and other Buccaneer units are also very scary. Due to us being a Witchdoctor they can easily get a full chain on us even without buffs on them. Toro is pretty scary, but because he’s a swashbuckler and the Pirate may bring powers to synergize with other Swashbucklers (specifically if they’re bringing 2 or bring a full team of agility units) we should get rid of that potential burst damage ASAP.

 Musketeer

Musketeer is again an easy match up for us due to Ocuboros being such a powerful tool in our tool kit. It’s the same strategy like when fighting Privateer except this time we rely a lot more on Nausica.

The strategy to win vs Musketeers:

Don’t rush Nausica on her own, Ocuboros turn 1 then move up with everyone, get into a position where you can also summon your Terracotta warriors offensively to avoid overwatch, might as well also summon trees as you move up just to keep them back. At this point barrage them with Mojo Storm, drains, mournsongs and a Forted Nausica. Don’t give them breathing room to freely purge kill your Nausica. If they decide to do that at least be moved up enough to punish them with a boosted mojo storm on everyone.

All in all, this is a simple match up, almost 100% win in most cases, you can also just sit back and force them to rush you then Mournsong everyone down constantly and stay out of range then rush Nausica in when they miss place a unit or they’re all low and she takes a kill guaranteed.

 Witchdoctor (Mirror Matches) 

In the mirror match, only use Scratch’s +25%. Mojo Burn can be devastating against us. If the opponent goes first and ocuboros you, do it right back. During these 5 turns focus on getting out your summons. I’ll gladly state this right now: the Witch on the offensive will win this match up 80% of the time. Moving up with your summons to use your companions to help kill their summons is extremely important. Killing them as fast as possible helps as well.

The strategy to win against Witchdoctors is quiet simple:

• Avoid Mojo Burn
• Ocuboros ASAP
• Set up summons
• Kill the enemy summons quickly with mojo storms/drains and your companion’s chains
• Push the enemy back
• If they use Scratch’s 100%, Mojo Burn and rush their face to death!

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the only rule in mirror matches is to summon control.

Overall that’s really everything you need to know about Witchdoctor. Witchdoctor has been probably the most entertaining class to play for me personally, so I hope you find it the same or even better. Remember, although winning may be everything but at the same time you should be trying to have fun as well! Mostly if you’re winning, nah I’m joking. I hope to see you fellow summoners in the Brawling Hall soon.

But one last question…

What’s your favorite part about being a Witchdoctor?

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•