Witch Doctor Discussion

So what do you guys think of the WD since the game released?

I feel that the WD is the character stuck in limbo for being used as a melee or a ranged character so it can be difficult to figure out what you want to do with him. I've heard suggestions by just making him a pure melee character. He has the stat and abilities to do that somewhat, but right now I am at a loss with him.

It seme like the WD is the hardest to start out with but it get much better as you level up. This could be my frustation in the early levels. I had the hardest time defeating the butcher for some reason.

I've been told to spam spiders but I don't like that idea.

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adwodon United Kingdom. May 18 2012 02:28. Posts 418

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WD is insanely good for powering through Normal, I just hit level 30 and the last thing I did was + Show Spoiler +.

My current set up is

Darts - Splinters
Firebats - Direbats
Hex - Hedge Magic
Soul Harvest - Siphon
Spirit Walk - Honoured Guest
Gargantuan - Humungoid

Basically just walk into every encounter, get surrounded, hit 2, murder everything in about 2 seconds by holding down the DireBats button and spinning. If I run low or get worried hit Spirit Walk. Hex is just funny and the Gargantuan has better staying power than the dogs.

Overall its hilarious, I know I'll probably have to change a few things or at the very least play more conservatively in later difficulties. To be fair I haven't been worried about gear, there isn't much point in normal but I guess he might be better suited to a melee style + shield or something.

Overall 10/10. Just realized I haven't tried Wall of Zombies yet... brb

udgnim United States. May 18 2012 02:29. Posts 6446

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I love Acid Rain

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Daray May 18 2012 02:31. Posts 2831

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I've been mostly just using acid rain to kill everything. Nightmare Act 1 so not that much experience yet but hopefully i'll need to learn to play soon, everything so easy atm.

wUndertUnge United States. May 18 2012 02:44. Posts 459

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I'm maining a Monk, but the WD is my secondary character. While I haven't gotten very far, I find his skillset incredibly satisfying. The zombie dogs plus that grasping spell for simultaneous kills is oh-so-satisfying.

Edit: Not to mention the hilarity of 3 WDs casting the frog spell incessantly against the Skeleton King.

Last edit: 2012-05-18 02:45:24

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Carapas Canada. May 18 2012 02:48. Posts 242

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im level 45 right now and I have completly switched to caster. All I is dire bats and the slowing thing. But this require level 40 for vision quest.

Mastermind Canada. May 18 2012 02:48. Posts 7092

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Using soul harvest will allow you to kill any pack of monsters in 1-2 shots of your Firebat skill. Thats what I have been doing. Use Haunt on rares, uniques, and bosses. Every rare will just die from that single spell if you are using soul harvest too. Or using the dogs with sacrifice can take care of rares and uniques instantly as well. Ive actually been disappointed in how easy champions/rares/uniques are to kill with the WD.
To kill the Butcher easily just use soulharvest and then haunt him. sacrifice your dogs next. Summon dogs again. Keep your distance and use the firebat skill with the rune that allows you to shoot bigger bats at a farther distance. When your dog cooldown is almost done, sacrifice them again. Make sure to haunt the butcher every 12 seconds as well.

daredpanda United States. May 18 2012 02:52. Posts 55

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On May 18 2012 02:28 adwodon wrote:
WD is insanely good for powering through Normal, I just hit level 30 and the last thing I did was + Show Spoiler +.

My current set up is

Darts - Splinters
Firebats - Direbats
Hex - Hedge Magic
Soul Harvest - Siphon
Spirit Walk - Honoured Guest
Gargantuan - Humungoid

Basically just walk into every encounter, get surrounded, hit 2, murder everything in about 2 seconds by holding down the DireBats button and spinning. If I run low or get worried hit Spirit Walk. Hex is just funny and the Gargantuan has better staying power than the dogs.

Overall its hilarious, I know I'll probably have to change a few things or at the very least play more conservatively in later difficulties. To be fair I haven't been worried about gear, there isn't much point in normal but I guess he might be better suited to a melee style + shield or something.

Overall 10/10. Just realized I haven't tried Wall of Zombies yet... brb

Correct me if I'm not mistaken but you can't have both Spirit walk and Hex. You have to choose one.

Ty for your feedback. I'm going to give WD another shot xD

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Carapas Canada. May 18 2012 02:53. Posts 242

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On May 18 2012 02:52 daredpanda wrote:

Show nested quote +

Correct me if I'm not mistaken but you can't have both Spirit walk and Hex. You have to choose one.

Ty for your feedback. I'm going to give WD another shot xD

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raf3776 United States. May 18 2012 02:54. Posts 1857

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On May 18 2012 02:52 daredpanda wrote:

Show nested quote +

Correct me if I'm not mistaken but you can't have both Spirit walk and Hex. You have to choose one.

Ty for your feedback. I'm going to give WD another shot xD

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zul Germany. May 18 2012 03:08. Posts 4050

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since my internet nick is zul (which comes for the Warcraft 3 Shadowhunter Hero), it was a no-brainer to play witch doctor. finish the game on normal and only the endboss manage to kill me twice before getting owned. every thing else just died first try.

for pack is use the aoe-slow (playing the german verions, so I don`t know the english terms) with the right mouse button and then spam acid + harvest and autoattack with the bouncing bombs. I use hex on CD for the heal and always have my big fat zombie buddy out to help me.

Bosses, I dot and kite. That one spell gives you a heal over time when you put it on a target, which is immensly helpful. Whenever I can I attack with the slowing arrow and use whatever spell is available. great fun so far.

btw. the hounds/dogs die way too far.

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Dommk Australia. May 18 2012 03:27. Posts 4462

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Anyone find a satisfying build that isn't Dire bat spam or Soul Harvest + Locus Swarm?

I honestly thought this class was going to be very flexible and have many options, but really it just seems that no matter what build you go, it will always be better with Soul Harvest than without...

Right now I'm just trying to grind my way to level50 for the passive that reduces cooldown for each enemy killed so I can actually make an interesting build using Mass Confusion and the other 2min cooldown spells (sans Garg)

Carapas Canada. May 18 2012 03:36. Posts 242

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On May 18 2012 03:27 Dommk wrote:
Anyone find a satisfying build that isn't Dire bat spam or Soul Harvest + Locus Swarm?

I honestly thought this class was going to be very flexible and have many options, but really it just seems that no matter what build you go, it will always be better with Soul Harvest than without...

Right now I'm just trying to grind my way to level50 for the passive that reduces cooldown for each enemy killed so I can actually make an interesting build using Mass Confusion and the other 2min cooldown spells (sans Garg)

The game is all about AoE except bosses. But, WD are pretty restricted to what you said for aoe since summon is not viable, sacrifice is like a 1 second burst 30 second CD. Hopefully lvl50 will make WD more fun.

udgnim United States. May 18 2012 03:37. Posts 6446

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you can still use Soul Harvest effectively at the higher difficulties?

I just entered Act 1 NM and it's apparent that I'm going to have to be a lot safer with my Soul Harvest usage than just running in like I did against most things on Normal

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DeltruS Canada. May 18 2012 03:46. Posts 2069

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On May 18 2012 03:37 udgnim wrote:

Show nested quote +

My build right now is this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#eSUdRT!cVb!ZaaZaZ

Locust swarm --> soul harvest --> spirit walk --> hex

Everything just dies and you can use resentful spirit runed haunt to dps down rares. For boss battles with no aoe, I replace locust swarm with splinters poison dart.

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Dommk Australia. May 18 2012 03:46. Posts 4462

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On May 18 2012 03:36 Carapas wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well, I wouldn't say pets aren't viable, I thought they weren't but after getting some decent upgrades/weapon they aren't bad...but they pale in comparison to Soul Harvest + Locus Swarm/DireBats/w.e

Right now I changed my build to Fire Blast (+2 rolls), Acid Cloud, Garg, Fetish Army, the AOE fear and Zombie wall.

Yeah the build sucks compared to Rift Walk->Soul Harvest->Locus Swarm + Darts or Vision Quest + Dire Bats, but at least it is interesting and I've actually died a few times trying to get the hang of it, though at this stage I feel like I'm trying to force myself to like this class, not sure if I should just consider rolling another character before I invest more time into it tbh

I thought so too at one point, but I just found out my gear was lacking. When I entered nightmare I was sitting at like 390damage, so I invest around 6k into items from the AH and got my self a very high quality Ruby gem for my weapon, atm I'm sitting at almost 700dmg unbuffed + gained another 1k HP and everything is back to being the same old same old...

Last edit: 2012-05-18 03:52:45

Tal0n United States. May 18 2012 03:54. Posts 170

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i just recently got the 4th (i think?) rune for plague of toads which suddenly makes me a high-ranged type of class. i used the second rune all the time before that, making it feel like i was melee. i definitely think im more effective now!

also i love zombie charger on the 3rd rune. its so sick. clears any amount of weak minions! its a good way to spend all your mana to deal as much dmg as possible in a short amount of time as well.

PeT[uK] United States. May 18 2012 04:28. Posts 411

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OK wall of zombies is op. U can literally go to a corner of a room, use wall of zombies so that ur untouchable from all sides and then aoe spam with rain of frogs, acid rain, dire cats, etc and everything is dead. Hex is too good too.

what do you guys think about rain of frogs. it seems really really good if you can get them to stay in it.

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TheUltraViolent United States. May 18 2012 05:31. Posts 19

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I've been playing more conservative than you guys, mainly abusing the crap out of the AoE stun, Zombie wall, and then using the multi-hit firebomb to do lots of damage. Soul harvest is really good and can boost your dmg up by a ton, at level 39 you get a rune for it that increases its duration by a minute.

I'm going to get the passive mastery at level 40 where when you have 4 spells on CD, your mana regen is bumped up by 300%.

Slow, Confuse, Wall, Soul harvest then burn all your mana on your favorite, high mana cost DPS (bats, locusts, haunt... w/e you like)

Last edit: 2012-05-18 05:31:55

Jermstuddog United States. May 18 2012 10:33. Posts 2051

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There are spells other than harvest and dire bat?

Also: why would you cast anything else?

At level 17, a fully stacked dire bat hits for over 250 and crits for over 500 damage... To everything in a straight line...

That's a one-shot-kill to pretty much anything.

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