(Opinion) Fundamental problems with Witch Doctor class.

[fengosa]

I'm still working my way through hell but I've been putting in some thought on how to put a pet build together.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...QTU!XTg!abcYcc

I think the key to making a pet build work in inferno is stacking resists, vit and self healing
-a quick 1h weapon with life on hit is mandatory for the build since it works with splinters.
-stack vitality for blood ritual(1% life per sec)
-none of your abilites outside of darts scale with int so you prioiritize other stats...str, dex, attack speed, and +healing from globes.

You might be better off with jungle fortitude opposed to zombie handler unless you have someone else like a monk who provides the 20% less damage debuff. I'm still not sure how you get around the whole pets standing in bad problem though. You also don't get spirit vessel so that a huge minus as well. Not entirely sure whether it will work or not but I definitely want to give it a try once I get some gear that i think works with the build.

[nixcookies]

I absolutely love the concept of the witch doctor and it's one of the main reasons I bought the game and whilst I do like the witch doctor I was very disappointed the main pets are not viable at harder difficulties.

[Hypro]

People play witch doctor?

That was my thought

[Deleted]

What are people's stats when complaining about pet survivability?
It wouldn't be fair if WD's could just stack full dmg and have their pets take all the hits for them at the same time.

You need to stack resists (and remember physical is also a resist), much like a barbarian has to.

There's tons of discussions about barbarian and inferno, and everyone always post their stats. No one here has yet to post theirs, they matter, a lot.

[juzalol]

What are people's stats when complaining about pet survivability?
It wouldn't be fair if WD's could just stack full dmg and have their pets take all the hits for them at the same time.

You need to stack resists (and remember physical is also a resist), much like a barbarian has to.

There's tons of discussions about barbarian and inferno, and everyone always post their stats. No one here has yet to post theirs, they matter, a lot.

40k HP
600 physical resistance
(450-500 ish all others)

Even the smallest monsters in Act 2, 3 and 4 will 1 shot gargantuan, zombie dogs
and fetishes.
(With Jungle fortitude passive)

If you are lucky one of the summons will reach melee and hit once.

And what's up with Spirit barrage... 190% damage for 100 mana when you get 180% for
10 with splinters -_-

[ambigiouslynamed]

op might be exaggerating a bit/undergeared but on the other hand i do feel as if witch doctors are a weird pet class/caster hybrid

[Krowz]

The WD is in a very good state right now, if not even a bit over powered in some builds. With the amount of different builds you could potentially use, its impossible to balance completely.

Pre release, I was really looking forward to a pet based class like the necro from D2 and even GW. Now post release, its unfortunate to see how abysmal not only the pets damage is, but the fact that they have zero survivability. I feel the problem is their AI. The pet AI is beyond atrocious. They make no effort to avoid simple aoe mechanics and with no way to control them like in WoW, their deaths are avoidable nearly everytime.

This is fixable via 3 ways: Improve the pet AI to dodge AoE effects and other mechanics, Give the player the ability to control the pets movement and buff their damage to compensate for the micromanaging required to keep them alive, give all pets the 90-95% passive AoE damage reduction as in WoW as well.

Balancing a pet based class is difficult in this kind of game, but I feel that it could be better than it is now. I've been saying it for a long time, I'd love to see a Necro style class from GW (minion master) applied to other games likes Diablo 3 and WoW. Where the necro's damage comes almost solely from pets. In Guild wars I'd have 9 pets out at a time and my build would revolve around buffing their damage and keeping them alive.

I wish the Warlocks Demo spec was all about summoning a large number of imps or fel puppies and fel guards and that a pet based build would be viable in D3. I'd like to have a build for pets that do low damage but act as tanks and I use my skills to keep them alive and heal them and another build that focuses on pet damage but weak survivability. With some tweaks to the pets in game now, the WD can become even more versatile and I'd love to see that.

All in all the WD is a great class and truly the only one I see myself playing for my "main" but with a few fixes here and there I could love it even more. Also, I realize its the first week after release and don't expect everything to be 100% across the board, give it time.

[Deleted]

I still feel I have not hit the inferno wall. Not yet farming, closing in on Act 1's end. We have multiple good setups right now. I dare say a lot of people that think witch doctors are too weak/badly designed kind of lack the skill to play one in Inferno.

[Pokot]

Dunno what you guys are doing wrong with your pets. I'm currently level 59 in Hell A3 (inb4INFERNOONLYOMG) with a boomdog spec and kicking some serious ass.

Here's my spec: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...VjT!ZWd!ZccZbc

Stats: http://i45.tinypic.com/xemc2.jpg

My dogs stay up pretty well. Sure, they die here and there, but that's what the sac is for. They start dropping, you sac and resummon. Here's the thing. Each one of my dogs currently explodes for 40k crits (obviously less non-crits, but still ridiculously hard). If I sac four dogs, it's usually at least 100k damage. And that's aaaaaall AoE damage. 100k AoE. Ridiculous. And not only that, I can immediately resummon and sac again for another 100k AoE. 200k AoE damage + an entire mana pool of corpse explosions (somewhere around 80k, again AoE) can kill blue and yellow packs in about 8 seconds. It kills them so fast I don't even get touched. And with my current stats, the big guy never dies in anything other than AoE spells from elites, and rarely then. If he does happen to, I can immediately resummon him because the CD is always available. His slam hits for around 12k noncrits. It's amazing.

All of this is paired with the fantastic roll the bones firebomb damage. Awesome AoE lob attack. I hit 5-9k noncrits and 10-15k crits that bounce three times in an AoE. I am literally shredding everything I come near, and my pets are very hardy and do sick damage. The only tiny downside is no mana regen, but the rest of your damage is so good that you just end up saving corpse explosions as burst DPS to get down elites. Pets are good; you just have to know how to gear/spec.

Haven't tried inferno yet, of course. I don't know yet whether I'll be able to keep this spec or if I'll have to switch. Time will tell.

Edit: Just killed two yellow packs that spawned together and only died once at the beginning when I wasn't ready. After I respawned I double sacked + a couple next of kin procs, instakilled ALL of both yellow's minions, and killed the two yellows together a couple seconds later.

That's an interesting spec. I've tried variation of it but I lack some runes as of level 52 and my stats are way too low - almost 3k dps, 11k hp and no phys resist whatsoever. All in all I think we can conclude that if you want a pet spec you have to stack A. Strength B. Int C. Resists.

[Against the Modern World]

Pets don't scale with difficulty? I mean, let them have the same treatment as mobs with each difficulty change. Titan Quest did this 5 years ago.

[Glorious Leader]

I've been thinking about running a support build. CC and maybe totems. Let me know what you guys think.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...jQW!hVT!YYabbZ

The build is really for parties of 4 but theirs alot of control built in I'm just not sure how effective it would be.