Hey Witch Doctors, Don’t Forget About Soul Harvest

Many people don’t realize or understand how powerful Soul Harvest can actually be. In my experience, Witch Doctor party members have seriously underutilized this ability.  The only character I’ve played up until now is the Witch Doctor and I feel that Soul Harvest is one of my most powerful spells against monsters.

What Does Soul Harvest Even Do?

The Witch Doctor is currently one of the least played classes by Diablo 3 players. For this reason, many of you may not even know what it does. Basically Soul Harvest explodes in a medium sized ring around the Witch Doctor. Every enemy affected grants the Witch Doctor X amount of Intelligence (X based on CLvl of Witch Doctor) for a maximum of 5 enemies. At level 60 you will receive a maximum of 650 Intelligence (130 * 5) for 30 seconds. This equates to a 650% increase of your weapon damage. With a 1,000 DPS weapon that is 6,500 damage increase!

Runestone Effects of Soul Harvest Even though the main effect of Soul Harvest is powerful enough, you will also be able to choose 1 of 5 different runestone effects. You can either gain Mana or Life from harvested enemies with Swallow Your Soul or Siphon. Languish will reduce the movement speed of affected enemies or you can damage harvested enemies with Vengeful Spirit. I choose the Soul to Waste Skill Rune effect as it increases the duration of Soul Harvest.

How To Use Soul Harvest Effectively

Now with most good things there is a “catch”. With Soul Harvest the “catch “ is that you must be close to enemies in order to feed on their life force. The Witch Doctor cannot take much damage (especially in Inferno where you can get 1 shotted)  so here are a couple of tactics I use to deploy Soul Harvest. 

#1. Pets/Zombie Wall- Use your Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan to keep enemies busy, run up to the blocked monsters, use Soul Harvest and then run back to safety. Wall of Zombies can also be used as protection when you use Soul Harvest.

#2. Spirit Walk- This is a tactic that I use most often. When you Spirit Walk is active you cannot be hit for a few seconds and your movement is unhindered. The best thing is that you can still use abilities while Spirit Walk is active. Spirit Walk to a group of enemies, use Soul Harvest, then run back before the Spirit Walk effect wears off.

Other Notes:

Spirit Vessel (Passive Skill) will reduce the cooldown of your Horrify, Spirit Walk and Soul Harvest spells. In addition, the next time you receive fatal damage you automatically enter the Spirit Realm for a few seconds and heal to a % of your maximum Life. This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 seconds.

Soul Harvest is great because the majority of monsters you face will travel in packs. Although it will not be as effective in PvP against single enemies, Soul Harvest will give you a serious damage boost against groups of monsters.

Your damage will be exponentially increased as you continue to obtain higher DPS weapons. For example, a 1000 DPS weapon with a 650% damage boost from Soul Harvest will equal a 6,500 damage increase. A 1100 DPS weapon with a 650% damage boost will equal a 7,150 damage increase.

If you have a Witch Doctor make sure to at least try out Soul Harvest! Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment below with any questions or concerns you may have.