Why the Witch Doctor?

[:1]I'm assuming the people reading this forum are highly interested in playing a WD. That he/she'll be your first or 2nd char played, and that you plan on playing the WD a lot. So... why?

What draws you to the character? Makes you want to spend your limited gaming time driving a WD around, rather than a Barb or a wiz or whatever?

Do you like the lore and the character bio, or just want to defy all of the "WD sux" haters, or does the unique gameplay style intrigue you, or do you pine for the Necro and this is as close as D3 lets you get, or are there some skills you really want to play with, etc?

There are no right or wrong answers to this; I'm just curious.|||Personally, the WD is probably my 2nd choice at this point, entirely for the gameplay. I always liked the idea of Necros in D2, but I got too bored waiting for my lame *** minions to gnaw monsters down, and having 50 minions at once always seemed silly. I liked to play with a few and use spells, but his magical attacks were too weak to be viable in big games in v1.09. CE was a lot of fun, but got monotonous, and it just felt indirect and thus less satisfying.

The WD's play style, coincidentally, is very much what I always wanted from a Necro. Few minions, and weak ones, but useful as tanks while I use my killing spells. The spells aren't as powerful as the Wiz's, but they're pretty good, when used in conjunction with pets and positioning. The WD seems like a fast reflex, skill-required character, and that's the type I generally prefer.|||Mainly I look at the WD as the replacement of the Necromancer. I've always liked the minion and cursing style of the Necro. There is something to be said for commanding an army.

My best bet for replicating that playstyle in D3 will be the WD. He comes equipped with minions and a few AI spells. Hopefully his minions will be actually useful in being meatshields and/or the damage department. Can't say I'm too excited about all his DoT spells. DoT spells have the annoying habit of taking way too long to kill stuff with the added benefit of generally being a lot harder to upgrade than DD spells.

Besides the playstyle there is something to be said for his look. Especially when you take a look at the other characters. With the exception of the Monk they all seem quite bland and uninteresting. Can't say I'm all that crazy about the Monk as well.|||The Witch Doc is my second choice as well. I just like his whole tribal theme in general, which Blizzard managed to blend well into the lore of Sanctuary. And no one can dispute that he's a very unique and bold choice as a character class.|||Witch Doctors are likely going to be my first pick. I like the gameplay offered by the class, where you control your enemies actions with you minions and spells and then finish them off with your own attack spells. I'm especially interested in seeing what applications skill runes will have.|||The whole tribal voodoo scene got me all in a frenzy hahaha. He looks so cool and not to mention he can summon pets along with disease and burn things. This will be my first choice unless the 5th unannounced class totally blows me away.|||The gory side of the witch doctor is pretty cool imo. It also seems to have some nice crowd control skills which I'm seriously hoping will turn certain parts of the game into a blood and gore fest similar to what corpse explosion did for necro. It will be interesting to see how this character ends up.|||For me, the WD was love at first sight :].

I love him purely from a flavour standpoint - I absolutely dig the aesthetics of his voodoo-themed repertoire.

In terms of actual gameplay, I'd rather he not have any summons, but I don't think that Blizzard would shoehorn the WD into so narrow a playstyle and that spell-themed builds devoid of Zombie Dogs (or Chargers or Gargantuans) will be just as viable.|||The WD appeals to me because the WD skills give me the impression that the WD will have the capacity to be more hardy than the Wizard while simultaneously doing larger damage with less time used to cool down.

I say this because I see a nice mix of crowd control and damage-over-time spells along with skills like Jungle Fortitude which emphasize the importance of survivability.

The larger damage claim will only hold true against bosses and other enemies with large amounts of hit points, simply because the WD seems to have the skills and resources to continue casting with less attention to be paid to resource management, and more attention to be paid to skill management, such as re-applying DoTs or re-summoning monsters.|||Its the only thing that resembles the necromancer in playstyle.

But, after looking at the gameplay vids, I think I'll be doing one of the other classes.

RIP Necromancer.

However, I do want to at least try the class to see if the "ooga booga" he says when he casts something is hilarious or actually works.