Utility skills

First things first. In D2 I really enjoyed trying to make alternative builds for the necromancer...meleemancer, bowmancer, etc. Right when they announced the WD I knew that I wanted to do the same with him. Since we got a list and description of most of his skills now, I thought it'd be cool to try and guess (since we don't know exactly how all the skills work) which skills can be used for these different builds as well as different ways to use certain skills to complement the builds.

If anything I'm starting this so that we can maybe find some hope somewhere that we're not all going to be skull throwing zombie dog owners.

It may help to have the full skills post open in another tab as I just gave their uses here, not their descriptions. They are listed in the exact same order too.

Combat Witch Doctor (any cool name ideas for the melee or ranged builds?) surgeon?

melee weapons or ranged weapons

Zombie skill tree

Mind and Body

I'm sure we're going to get hit...a lot. Health and mana regen is always welcome. If using a ranged weapon we might not have to worry about swooping in for health globes.

Spirit skill tree

Haunt

Not so much for killing, but to keep enemies from regenerating health while you hack away at them....especially if the damage we deal is pitiful.

Spirit Vessel

For gaining mana for the few skills we use...

Soul Harvest

Same as above

Rituals

We'd definitely need this to give our skills more oomph. Hopefully this affects passives too...

Spirit Sense

The definition said damage, not spell damage, so this would be crucial if it works with melee attacks.

Horrify

Being up in the mess of things I'm sure we'll need this one to get outta sticky situations sometimes. Might also be helpful in boss/stronger monster fights to get all the lesser monsters away so you can focus on just the one.

Spirit Walk

Offensively this could be used to close in and take out a shaman who keeps resurrecting. Could also be useful for closing in on ranged attackers unharmed. Defensively this can be one of our bail out maneuvers.

Meditation

Not sure how much mana we'll use, but in case we need all the mana we can get our paws on this one might be useful.

Death Pact

Yet another bail out technique if things get too hairy. I guess if you were fighting a boss you might be able to strategically allow your health to get low enough to activate this during the battle and tank instead of running around (if running around is necessary of course). I bet if you were careful this could be a very useful offensive weapon.

Mass confusion

Help us from getting overwhelmed by too many enemies and soften them up for us. Great for the ranged weapons as you won't have to worry about anyone coming after you...for a little while anyway.

Voodoo skill tree

Jungle Fortitude

Hey, the more health the better right?

Hex

not sure how this works exactly, but if the caster somehow weakens or debuffs enemies this could be crucial to our survival and/or killing speed.

That's all I've got for now. If anyone has any other ideas on ways to use the skills differently or different WD builds we'll be able to make please share them!