Sacrifice: This skill should apply to all your summons, and not just your Mongrels (btw, I like "Mongrel" better than "Zombie Dog"!). They've all got to feel "expendable," remember?
Parasite: This skill has the potential to make the Witch Doctor truly shine as a creepy and original character. Here's my suggestion: instead of turning a monster into a Zombie Dog if it dies while under this curse, why not gain control of the monster as a full minion if it dies while parasitized (like the Necromancer's Revive skill)? A key theme of the Witch Doctor's personality is mind control. What better way to achieve that feeling than by commanding an army of monsters that are slaves to your will?
Zombie Charger: Different name, more than just one please!
Corpse Spiders: They should be full minions, and not simply expire after a set period of time. Otherwise, what's the point in summoning them if you can simply use a damage over time skill?|||Hi!
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Sacrifice: This skill should apply to all your summons, and not just your Mongrels (btw, I like "Mongrel" better than "Zombie Dog"!). They've all got to feel "expendable," remember?
The WD has Gargantuan, zombie dogs and the possible charger. If charger is also very limited in numbers i don't see the appeal to explode them. Maybe if you tone up the damage signifigantly from Gargantuan and chargers. Not sure how Gargantuan is implemented but if it has no cd on summon you could just summon it and blow it up for huge damage. I don't think thats the intention.
But yeah, from your suggestions this one is the best one, but i don't see it implemented.
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Parasite: This skill has the potential to make the Witch Doctor truly shine as a creepy and original character. Here's my suggestion: instead of turning a monster into a Zombie Dog if it dies while under this curse, why not gain control of the monster as a full minion if it dies while parasitized (like the Necromancer's Revive skill)? A key theme of the Witch Doctor's personality is mind control. What better way to achieve that feeling than by commanding an army of monsters that are slaves to your will?
Balance issues and huge ones. I'd argue that the mind controll isin't really his thing. Ok he has an spell named after mind controll, but having minions is hardly mind controll. Next to nothing is known from this spell and you reall can't judge it atm. Big questions that arise are will this be able to increase the amount you can have at a time and will this be capped to some amount and will they have timer how long they will live.
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Zombie Charger: Different name, more than just one please!
We don't really know anything about this except the name. Not eaven seen in the game.
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Corpse Spiders: They should be full minions, and not simply expire after a set period of time. Otherwise, what's the point in summoning them if you can simply use a damage over time skill?
They could be full minions, but then they would have to be toned down for balance issues. Also having few active spells during fights adds alot to a minion class that mainly sits in the back and picks his nose. I also haven't seen any information if you can have more than one patch of these running around. Also a dot that moves from target to another if the target dies is a really good thing.
Alot of the WD skills will and should change. But before we eaven know what they do i won't pass my judgement around.|||along with what Typoko said, keep in mind the WD's basic design goal is to have him be an active caster in every fight. His minions are meant to be attack objects; not tanks. Not for him to stand back safely behind a meat wall and cast spells w/o danger. The design team wants him to be more mage like. You could even look at his minions as disposible glass cannons; not very strong each one, but capable of dealing big damage with the right spells.
http://www.diablowiki.net/Witch_Doctor_skills
He'll be recasting mongrels constantly, since they aren't very durable, and they do their best work exploding on your command. Hence parasite, which deals some damage but will also cause some dead monsters to spawn more mongrels. I see this as a recycling type skill; you get your dog into the fray, chuck some firebombs, or the AoE-poison'esque Corpse Spiders, Parasite a few enemies, detonate the mongrel, and poof; many kills and 1 or 2 new mongrels. Rinse and repeat.
I think the devs can make this a fun character with an original play style. What I question is if they can do it while allowing variety in the build and skills in the ideal style. As it is it looks like the WD is designed to have one really fun/effective build with some skill variety, but that's not the D3 char style.
The WD was clearly the least developed/balanced of the first 3 chars, so I'm assuming there will be improvements and many changes yet to come.|||Quote:
Sacrifice: This skill should apply to all your summons, and not just your Mongrels (btw, I like "Mongrel" better than "Zombie Dog"!). They've all got to feel "expendable," remember?
I agree with Typoko on this. I think game balance issuse would arise if you let the WD Sacrifice any of his summons.
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Parasite: Instead of turning a monster into a Zombie Dog, if it dies while under this curse, why not gain control of the monster as a full minion if it dies while parasitized (like the Necromancer's Revive skill)?
I like this idea, could make the skill a top tier skill. On a side note, why would you say it would make the WD an original character then say the skill would work just like the Necro? Got to think things through before typing it out.
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Zombie Charger: Different name, more than just one please!
Agree with the name change, and agree with Typoko, can't pass judgment on a skill that we haven't even seen yet.
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Corpse Spiders: They should be full minions, and not simply expire after a set period of time. Otherwise, what's the point in summoning them if you can simply use a damage over time skill?
Although I like how the spell looks, I don't see it working with the way they have it set up now, unless they make the spiders’ full minions. The animation is way too slow. By the time the spiders are out and ready to attack most mobs would be dead already. So why would you use Corpse Spider if you can use a instant damage spell? O Naja, the description of the spell says, the spider's attacks are not Dots they do direct poison based damage.
PS: I liked Mongrels more then I like Zombie dogs. I can think of a few reasons why they changed it but non that (I would say) over weighs the fact that Mongrel is just a far better name.|||Quote:
His minions are meant to be attack objects; not tanks.
And yet they provide us with passives that raise health and damage for the minion skills. There is exactly 1 skill that promotes the use of minions as attack objects and that skill only works with the Zombie Dogs.
The idea behind minions that are worth more in death than in life is neat. However there aren't any skills promoting their use as such. Blizz keeps mentioning that they want the WD to play with disposable minions, but the skills aren't showing it.
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What I question is if they can do it while allowing variety in the build and skills in the ideal style. As it is it looks like the WD is designed to have one really fun/effective build with some skill variety, but that's not the D3 char style.
That was my biggest concern once I read the skill tree. He basically has once build. Throw away pet for minor tanking, heavy nuking spell and some crowd control utility spells. You can choose a different minion, nuke spell or utility spell, but it won't change your playstyle.
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The WD was clearly the least developed/balanced of the first 3 chars, so I'm assuming there will be improvements and many changes yet to come.
He's been the least developed/balanced and even least thought through for a long while now. I'm starting to think that Blizz is in a bind as to what to do with the WD. I think they had a cool concept and a skill or two but no real idea on what to do next. Now they launched the char and the ideas are still not coming. They can't scrap him since he has been introduced and they can't improve him since they have no idea on what to do with the class.
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I agree with Typoko on this. I think game balance issuse would arise if you let the WD Sacrifice any of his summons.
The game isn't even out yet. There is no reason to assume balance problems would arise.|||Well, guys, sorry if i haven't anything constructive to say, but seeing these posts reminded me of Bashiok's all-use reply "and when you put a skill rune into it". What I mean is that runes appear to be a major part of the gameplay and they could potentially resolve any of these concerns... A specific rune can make Zombie Dogs an effective disposable minion (giving neat bonuses to dmg, elemental-plus dmg, etc) or make them valuable additions tank-style.
Another thing is that the WD, as already confirmed by Blizz wasn't as far off in development as the Wiz when they first showed him. So obviously he needs more work. It's too soon to write in stone how many viable builds there are for him because he is still in development (more than the barb and wiz, at least) and we don't know how runes will affext his skills...|||Quote:
Blizz keeps mentioning that they want the WD to play with disposable minions, but the skills aren't showing it.
First let's not forget that the Zombie dogs are the only summon we actually saw at blizzcon08 .. and probably the only one which will get the "disposable" tag.
Giving you a skill specifically to "sacrifice" your zombie dogs is enough ... and giving you another way to quickly gain more zombie dogs (parasite, which makes enemies spawn zombie dogs upon death) since you will be sacrificing them all the time and is encouraged to do so .. all is enough to make it very clear the zombie dogs are disposable !!!
As for the skill the increases the hit points of the zombie dogs and the Gargantuan .. actually this one is really great .. with zombie dogs getting more HP sacrificing them causes more damage (as sacrifice damage is based on minion HP) ... and for Gargantuan (which seems from skill description as an actual tanking, heavy melee attack summon) giving it more HP makes it gain more durability and becomes more effective in melee combat .. perfect example of how a skill could have dual varied effects even if it simply does one thing (i.e ... increase HP).
Where is the problem in that !!!?
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That was my biggest concern once I read the skill tree. He basically has once build. Throw away pet for minor tanking, heavy nuking spell and some crowd control utility spells. You can choose a different minion, nuke spell or utility spell, but it won't change your playstyle.
Personally i made a couple of theoretical builds for the witch doctor, one focused on fire skills, one on poison skills, one on summons and a jack of all trades.
All we need is few passives that makes a poison or a fire WD more viable and interesting than the summoner or the jack of all trades build.
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since they have no idea on what to do with the class.
Really, is that why he has a full skill tree !!!?, i think he is just fine .. just needs more time.
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The game isn't even out yet. There is no reason to assume balance problems would arise.
Sometimes it is too obvious we don't need to have the game to grasp it, for example .. on the subject of making WD sacrifice all his summons, who said all of them should be like that, only the Z.dogs where called "disposable".
Making other summons disposable will overlap their function and will make the other summons (like Gargantuan) more effective as a sacrifice since it will naturally have much more HP, and (More HP = much more sacrifice damage) .. i'd rather each summon serves a unique purpose.|||Quote:
And yet they provide us with passives that raise health and damage for the minion skills. There is exactly 1 skill that promotes the use of minions as attack objects and that skill only works with the Zombie Dogs.
The idea behind minions that are worth more in death than in life is neat. However there aren't any skills promoting their use as such. Blizz keeps mentioning that they want the WD to play with disposable minions, but the skills aren't showing it.
I do see a benefit from increasing life of zombie dogs for sacrifice. Since sacrifice is based off of percentage of health, increasing zombie dogs health will also increase damage from sacrifice.
We aren't really sure what the percentage gain for each skill will be, but if the passive health gain is significant enough I think it could greatly increase sacrifices damage. Especially depending on the % damage from sacrifice.
I searched the trees (minus the voodoo one that is down?) and i was not able to find a skill increasing mongrel damage (though i might have missed it).|||Quote:
Personally i made a couple of builds for the witch doctor, one focused on fire skills, one on poison skills, one on summons and a jack of all trades.
All we need is few passives that makes a poison or a fire WD more viable and interesting than the summoner or the jack of all trades build.
I agree with your other points, i was thinking the same thing about the gargantuan and life gain as well. However.... this statement just seems a bit foolish to me (no offense meant).
What they are trying to say is that there appears to be only 1 viable build. You can make up your own little builds all you want but it is impossible to say they are viable.
Sure there could potentially be more builds (and i have faith there will be in time) but right now there looks to be only one viable build.|||Quote:
However.... this statement just seems a bit foolish to me (no offense meant).
What they are trying to say is that there appears to be only 1 viable build. You can make up your own little builds all you want but it is impossible to say they are viable.
Well, there is nothing foolish about it really, if anything it works both ways, there is no way to tell if any build is viable or not .. we can only try out "possible" builds and stop at that ... there is no way to measure any viability now.
And as for "possible" builds, the WD has enough Active skills to support 4-5 different build setups, since all his trees have offensive and defensive skills.
We can Have
-Fire doctor
-Spirit Doctor
-Poison Doctor
-Summoner
-A Jack of all trades
Regardless of whether they are viable or not they are still possibilities ... the only real problem is that actually he got passives to support Spirit skills and Summons but none for fire or poison (probably they are depending too much on skill runes here), but still passive are used effectively for the Wiz storm tree (and the WD needs the same treatment for his voodoo [fire/poison] tree),
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I searched the trees (minus the voodoo one that is down?) and i was not able to find a skill increasing mongrel damage (though i might have missed it).
It is called
Ferocity - Increases the health and damage of your Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan by 8%.
It increases both ATK and HP for both summons .. and of course the (8%) increases with skill level.
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