Dumb question: I remember reading there will be a 7 skill limit for all classes. I thought that meant only 7 hot keys available. Does it actually mean each class can have no more than 7 skills?
This means exactly that. You start out being able to pick 1 skill. Every few levels another skill slot opens up. In total you will be able to select 7 skills.|||So the WD has about 11 attack skills (depending on how rigidly you define that term) but they all do different things, and it doesn't seem like any of them do everything. I think WD players will want to pair 2 or 3 to use them appropriately, for different circumstances.
A quick run down, largely ignoring skill rune effects, since they're largely unknown:
Plague of Toads: Like charged bolt. Lots of semi-random moving small damage frogs. Good for crowd control, but short range and can't hit anything in the back row.
Firebomb: Bigger damage single projectile. good for hitting back row enemies, but not effective against large groups.
Firebats: Inferno like; slow to start dealing damage, but great DoT over the affected area.
Zombie Charger: Heavy poison damage but only on close range enemies, and slow. not suitable for moving enemies.
Poison Dart: Fast projectile, good damage to a single target, but can't hit back row enemies.
Haunt: DoT to a single target, with potential to spread. Fire and forget. Rune it for multi-attack?
Locust Swarm: Good damage, esp against big groups, but only front row enemies, and all DoT. Fire and forget, since it spreads on its own.
Corpse Spiders: Spiders come up out of the ground on the targeted spot. So basically it's AoE on the targeted location, but with DoT effect.
Sacrifice: blows up a mongrel. High damage, but you can't really control where the mongrel is, (they appear right at your feet when you summon them, not where you target the click) so it'll generally be damaging nearby enemies.
Acid Cloud and Spirit Barrage: Not yet tested. Both seem to be AoE on the targeted spot.
Conclusion:
Poison Dart and Firebomb are the only 2 that deal damage instantly and move to the target fairly quickly. Poison Dart, absent some sort of piercing rune, won't be useful for enemies who aren't right in the front row. Firebomb is interesting since it's thrown like a grenade, so you can hit the front, or the back, but not both, though the bouncing effect of one runestone can partially offset that, though you'd be giving up higher damage or AoE by choosing that rune.
From the way these different skills work/target, it looks like any WD will need at least 2 or 3 attack skills to cover all situations, and I'm not even thinking about damage types/monster resistances/immunities. Just spell range and speed. If you go with Zombie Charger, or FireBats, or Poison Dart, or Plague of Toads, you'll also want one or the targetable AoE spells, so you can hit the back row.
Firebomb might be the most versatile, since you can aim it wherever you want, but it's not a huge fire explosion and doesn't seem like a great weapon against big mobs. So you'd want to pair it with one of the bigger AoE, or a fire and forget like Haunt or Locust Swarm. And you'd probably want one of the stronger AoE skills, or maybe Sacrifice, for boss battles.
It'll be fascinating to see which work best together, and how the unknown summons deal damage, and what all the runes do. So many unknowns at this point|||So, my first hypothetical WD build. I'll ignore the higher level pets since they're too unknown.
Mongrels, Sacrifice, and Spirit Walk I'm taking as defaults. Gotta have some tank, I want to make them explosive, and I need the escape/movement skill. That leaves me 4.
Swarm of Locusts, Spirit Barrage, Soul Harvest. I'll plan on soul harvest all the time to buff up my spells. SL and SB are both DoT, AoE. I figure they'll be general purpose useful against the mobs that get up on my goggies. And I can blammo the goggies for more direct attack/damage, as needed.
Honestly, I'm surprised at this build. I generally like more direct casting attacks, not AoE/DoT stuff. But if I"m going with this style, then I'll pick Mass Confusion for my 7th skill. That'll effectively give me more minions short term, and they'll all stand in the AoE and cook together. Plus I can probably blow up more mongrels this way, since I won't always need them for the tanks.
I'm not sure about mana needs on this. Sacrifice is pretty expensive, especially since you need to summon a new mongrel every time you use it. The others are mostly DoT though, with casting delays, which should pair nicely. I don't know if something like Sacrifice + Firebats + plague of toads would work, since you'd always be casting something and would be out of mana constantly.|||There's always a thread about this.
|||My Fetished WDWith an ultimate goal of being a Fetish focused WD, and an assumption of 60-65 skill points with a max of 15-20 for any skill, here is my build:
Corpse Spiders
Grasp Of The Dead
Hex
Wall Of Zombies (if required)
Pit Of Fire
Spirit Walk
Fetish Army
Corpse Spiders: I figure most people will start with Mongrels to tank and Toads for fun. Zombie Charger will be grabbed for the Bear rune. So I picked this skill mostly to be different, and because I don't enjoy having tanking pets like Mongrels and myself dealing the damage. I prefer to play where my pets are the damage dealers and I'm their support. I will likely re-spec this skill when I get higher level. It will be my only skill until level 6, with 5 points instantly pumped into it.
Grasp Of The Dead: Once I hit level 6, the game will get tougher, and I know I will need more skills. For this reason I have chosen Grasp of the Dead. To compliment my Spiders in damage I had the choice between Haunt and Grasp. Its Grasps extra slowing ability that sells it for me to help my Spiders keep the enemy at bay.
Hex: First step on the path to ultimate Fetishism. Hex will help my Spiders and GotD do extra damage, as well as stall the enemy advance. Alternating GotD and Hex with Corpse Spiders doing my main damage should be a challenge, which I enjoy.
Wall Of Zombies: Ultimately, the key for my early game will be to find Skill Runes that compliment a strategy of period retreat and stalling. The goal is to reach level 20 for Pit Of Fire while only using Corpse Spiders, Grasp of the Dead, and Hex. If this is not possible due to monster difficulty, I will resort to using Wall Of Zombies. I decided on WoZ because it fits the playstyle I am aiming for (holding back the enemy while my Spiders do the damage) better than other skills such as Horrify.
Pit Of Fire: Finally, a main attack. Step 2 on the road to Fetishism, this skill should mesh well with all my other spells that have focused on limiting enemy movement. Planting Pit Of Fire on a monsters mob thats been frozen in place by Grasp Of The Dead or Wall Of Zombies will be glorious.
Spirit Walk: If all else fails, run.
Fetish Army: The final peice of the puzzle. By effectively replacing Corpse Spiders with Fetish Army through re-spec, I will synergize with Hex and Pit Of Fire, and shall have my perfect set up.
By end game, a typical battle will be Hexed monsters being held back by a massive Army of Fetish, all roasting in a Pit Of Fire. Depending on maximum stat allocation per skill, Spirit Walk and Grasp Of the Dead will be at various states of power as support skills. Wall of Zombies will be re-speced into these.
This build should also function nicely in PvP, especially with Rune swapping.
As for traits, they must aid my end game "mass Fetish" goal, and support my playstyle of stalling the enemy until that end. Because of the recent change in stats from str/vit/dex/mag to Attack/Precision/Vitality/Defence/Willpower, I cannot comment much on exact traits to take because they have likely changed conciderably since last reveal.
Use of Fetish Leader, however, is obvious.|||Quote:
I'm imagining his gameplay a bit like this: a mob approaches, the WD and his Gargantuan confront them. The Gargantuan goes in ahead as the WD casts Mass Confusion. He then uses Soul Harvest, followed by Haunt and/or Spirit Barrage depending on the situation. He then begins slashing and gouging at the monsters closest to him, putting up a wall of zombies to divide the mob or cut of any archers or casters, casting another Haunt or mass confusion as necessary.
Well, if those are the skills he picks, yes. Most of the other skills the WD has seem just as viable, and will probably result into a different kind of gameplay. Even two characters with the same skills but different runes in them might play very differently.
Quote:
My Fetished WD
[Snip]
As for traits, they must aid my end game "mass Fetish" goal, and support my playstyle of stalling the enemy until that end. Because of the recent change in stats from str/vit/dex/mag to Attack/Precision/Vitality/Defence/Willpower, I cannot comment much on exact traits to take because they have likely changed conciderably since last reveal.
Use of Fetish Leader, however, is obvious.
I want to do one of these too.
Maybe they will classify Poison Dart as a fetish skill as well?I kind of hope they wouldn't release the game with all the "increase the damage of your X skills" traits. At least I will easily gravitate towards building characters with all animal or fetish or whatever skills in that case. Though on the other hand I do want to see the Meditation trait in the game although it is essentially the same type. Meh.|||Summon Zombie Dog
Locust Swarm
Firebomb
Gargantuan
Mass Confusion
Spirit Walk
Spirit Barrage
This is tough, because there are more than 7 skills that I consider to be essential in a Witch Doc build.
Anyway, traits: Unbreakable Will, Spirit Vessel, Leader of the Pack, Meditation, Rituals, Unrelenting Assault, Just... Stay... Dead!, Spirit Link, Plagued, Zombie Master, Care of the Master.|||Quote:
Summon Zombie Dog
Locust Swarm
Firebomb
Gargantuan
Mass Confusion
Spirit Walk
Spirit Barrage
This is tough, because there are more than 7 skills that I consider to be essential in a Witch Doc build.
Anyway, traits: Unbreakable Will, Spirit Vessel, Leader of the Pack, Meditation, Rituals, Unrelenting Assault, Just... Stay... Dead!, Spirit Link, Plagued, Zombie Master, Care of the Master.
I know what you mean, I have personally come up with 3 different pvp/pvm specs, it really just depends on how you want to play, and which certain traits you want, like do you want mana conservation traits, or raw dps output? it's so tough to decide man. I just hope they give us more than 1 damn respec per difficulty (normal, nightmare, hell)|||Firebomb. That is all.
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