Dota 2: Witch Doctor Builds Guide

Zharvakko, better known as Witch Doctor, is a humanoid being of short stature and exotic appearance that brings African influences to both his design and his skills. Originally from the mountains of Arktura Island, he uses his magical powers to heal his allies and destroy his enemies. His primary attribute is Intelligence, and his abilities make him an excellent support or ganker.

Being an intelligence character, Witch Doctor can attack from long range, bombarding enemy heroes while staying at a safe distance or hiding in the jungle.

Paralyzing Cask

You will use this skill to paralyze enemies, preferably heroes, and its effectiveness is greater depending on the number of enemies present and the level of this skill. It can hit the same unit multiple times, as long as a nearby unit has been hit.

Voodoo Restoration

With this skill, you can regenerate your health and that of allied units, consuming an amount of mana per second while it is active. This one makes the Doctor very useful as a support hero, as he can not only bombard enemy heroes, hindering their advances in lane, but can also ensure that the Carry regenerates if they are low on health.

Maledict

One of the Doctor's most powerful abilities. With it, you will apply a curse to all enemy heroes present in the area of effect. This curse will deal a certain amount of damage per second and additional damage based on the difference between the enemy's current amount of health and the amount of life they had at the time they received the Maledict, inflicted every four seconds.

This skill is perfect for use as soon as combat begins, ensuring enemies hit suffer extra damage as they receive attack damage in combat. It is common to use Paralyzing Cask to stun enemies and make them easy targets for Maledict, but it can be used in reverse order, taking advantage of the damage caused by Paralyzing Cask.

Death Ward

Doctor conjures a deadly totem that launches projectiles at nearby enemies, causing damage to targets hit, its conjuration lasts a maximum of 8 seconds. Death Ward has a 50% accuracy bonus.

This ability should be used after Maledict, thus ensuring the damage caused to enemies is significant and almost always resulting in some kills.

Voodoo Switcheroo

This ability is only acquired through the use of Aghanim’s Shard. Witch Doctor temporarily transforms into a Death Ward with reduced attack speed and invulnerability during the time this skill is used.

Voodoo Switcheroo is very useful to be used in combat where enemies are very close to the Doctor, forcing them to choose between escaping the range of attacks to try to survive or staying and facing the consequences. You can even use it after casting Death Ward, if you are attacked by enemies, or are stunned by them during the casting.

As a support hero, playing as a Witch Doctor, it is preferable to stay behind, launching your skills at enemies while the combat is happening or ganking an unsuspecting opponent. With this in mind, I will recommend the following build, built based on the current Dota Metagame and my personal experience with this hero.

Upgrading Talents and Skills

The build will be focused on maximizing the effects of Maledict. For this, you will need to acquire specific talents from the Talent Tree, in addition to strengthening the right skills at each level of your hero. Paralyzing Cask and Maledict will be the focus in the first few levels, before reaching level 6 and the Doctor's ultimate skill.

Basic Items

Tango

Regenerates life by consuming a jungle tree, or grants extra regeneration if consumed a tree generated with Ironwood Branch.

Essential Items

Final Items

Situational Items

Witch Doctor is my favorite hero in the game, and I hope this guide can help you understand a little more about his skills and strategies. I hope you enjoyed reading. Leave your opinion, questions or suggestions for future articles about Dota 2 in the comments.

See you next time!