All i was trying to point out is that its hard to say there are other viable builds since all WD footage we have seen basically revolves around the mongrel / firebomb combo.
I'm just thinking back to the D2 days when i thought i had a bunch of viable builds and then just about none of them worked.... Just because the wd has 5 possible builds does not really make them viable. In fact, i would say having 5 viable builds that way doesn't make sense. Since there are 3 trees you could say 1 tree for each build. I guess that doesn't make sense either since you could essentially put 1 point in each skill and call that possible. Possible builds don't really mean anything since we have no idea if they would be playable (viable).
But yes, i do see a possibility of more viable builds. At the moment though its really looking like the zombie dog is all blizzard has.|||Quote:
All i was trying to point out is that its hard to say there are other viable builds since all WD footage we have seen basically revolves around the mongrel / firebomb combo.
It is all what we saw because that's all there is for now, almost 80% of the WD skills in the latest Blizzcon demo were still being improved, are WIP and not usable, how do you consider that any indication that the WD only viable build is the fire-bomb + zombie dog combo when those are mostly the only two fully finalized abilities !!!
It isn't an indication of anything other than the WD being behind in development schedule.
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there are 3 trees you could say 1 tree for each build. I guess that doesn't make sense either since you could essentially put 1 point in each skill and call that possible. Possible builds don't really mean anything since we have no idea if they would be playable (viable).
Using D2 as an example it is quite obvious that most of those possible builds can be viable, specialization in one tree has always been a viable choice in D2 and seems to be so in D3 as well for all classes (go check the Wiz, Barb, WD trees and see how the skills on each tree complement each other).
Although i don't want to go down the road of pure speculation, i have to since you are already making the assumption that those builds aren't viable ... allow me to ask you what's wrong with a Spirit Doctor Build, investing in spirit tree gives you a balanced set of offensive skills, defensive skill and passives .. i don't see any reason to assume it won't be viable ... same goes for the other two routes of tree specialization (summoner and poison/fire).
Why nobody made a spirit doctor in the Blizzcon demo .. simply becasue it was impossible to do so with more than 80% of the skills locked and WIP.
And as for the Jack of all trades (as in using a rational mix of skills across all trees .. it isn't about putting one point in every skill), it is sill both viable and possible since there are many possibilities here that can work (and some that won't of course).
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But yes, i do see a possibility of more viable builds. At the moment though its really looking like the zombie dog is all blizzard has.
It isn't the only skill we saw used, in earlier demo builds the WD had more skills available for use (like firebats and zombie wall) and people used them back then ... but the Devs later locked them in the latest Blizzcon demo (probably to improve them or becasue of the runes) and we ended up with only zombie dog and fireball with few slight uses of locust swarm, poison frogs and corpse spiders.
How can you say all that they have for the WD is the zombie dogs when we actually never got to see more than half the skills and actually tried out even less than that.
The demo is no indication of anything nor is it a fair way to pass a final judgment over an unfinished character ... the demo provided players with a zomibe dog and fire ball WD (and limited them to it .. so naturally everyone will be using them most often .. although i saw others using the other two skills [poison frogs/corpse spiders] as often too) .. so that doesn't mean in anyway that's the only way to use the WD in the final game.
All in all .. like i said over and over ... it is way too early to pass any judgment over the WD.|||Quote:
What I mean is that runes appear to be a major part of the gameplay and they could potentially resolve any of these concerns...
Runes are a major part of the gameplay, but they shouldn't be needed in order for core concepts of the class to function. With the Barb or Wiz skills, or even the 8 Monk skills known, there is a very solid base of skills that already appear to function properly without skill runes. These skills will only improve when adding a rune. The WD shouldn't need runes for his basics to function.
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Gargantuan (which seems from skill description as an actual tanking, heavy melee attack summon)
It's a tank. That is exactly opposite to what Blizz has been telling us about the WD. They keep hammering on the fact that they don't want a Summoner. That minions should be disposable. That we should view them as transitory. What do they do? They give us a tank. They give us a skill to transform the Zombie Dogs into tanks. That is not promoting the use of minions as spell, that is creating a Summoner.
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Where is the problem in that !!!?
I don't have a problem with Summoners. I like huge armies and strong minions. I think that it is odd if Blizz keeps saying that minions should be disposable and then giving us skills that do exactly the opposite. That makes me question if Blizz know what the hell they want with the build.
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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.
Fire and Poison builds have a disturbing lack of passives to make them completely viable, as you already noticed. They also don't have a different playstyle. You can even group the Spirit build under this. It also has high DD and DoT spells. The difference is that Spirit has passives to increase the damage and there are a lot of utility skills and useless (at first glance) skills in that tree.
The only other build that actually plays differently is the Summoner build. This one also seems pretty well developed. There are skills that increase life and damage and make it easier to maintain an army. There are a few options of minions for different situations. There is even a CC spell. However this is assuming a Summoner will be a viable proposition, something which Blizz keeps saying they don't want.
For me this is a disturbing lack of variety. Only two builds that actually play differently. It is a problem I had with the Sorc in D2. All the builds basically play the same except for an Enchantress. The only difference was when you faced immunes. Same with choosing between a Bonemancer or a Poisonmancer. The difference in playstyle comes from DD vs DoT. And since DoT was very short for the Poison tree it was basically DD. So the only real difference was in immunities. Since there will be no immunes in D3 this aspect of play disappears so that all the different types of damage will have the same playstyle. The only difference is in the visuals.
What I'd really like to see is skills that allow the creation of four or five builds that actually require you to play the char differently. Blizz had a good idea with the Barb in D2. There was a difference between a Singer, a WW-er, a Concentrate build, a Frenzybarb and a Leaper. However these builds still agreed with the core concept of the class. I'm sure they CAN do it for the WD, but right not it isn't there.
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Really, is that why he has a full skill tree !!!?, i think he is just fine .. just needs more time.
The WD does have a full skill tree. He does not have a coherent design. The Zombie skill tree is the best thought out of the bunch. They work well together and give several options. The skills also look like they belong to a WD. There could have been more diverse minions but overall it looks solid.
The Voodoo skill tree lacks in direction. You have some summon-based DD and DoT skills. Then you have some non-summon based DD and DoT skills. There is a single passive that boosts damage based on the availability of health globes. There is a hell of a lot of overlap in this tree. Why didn't they go all out and focus on summon-based DD and DoT skills? It seems terribly appropriate for a WD. Solidify this concept and diversify the effects and damage types for the various skills.
The Spirit tree is really an odd one. It has DD and DoT skills, passives to increase the various skills, CC skills and some utilities. The skills have a common theme and seem to work well together. However other than the brief mention of the spirit realm in the lore this tree doesn't connect to the whole evil, jungle-commanding, undead summoning WD vibe they have going with the other trees. There is also overlap between the DD and DoT spells of the Spirit and the Voodoo tree. Choice between these only affects the aesthetics of your WD and not his playstyle.
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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".
Blizz said they wanted the WD to sacrifice his minions. They specifically said they didn't want another Summoner. They wanted something that plays differently. They aren't bringing in the skills to allow people to do that.
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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.
When it comes to Sacrifice there can be a lot less overlap than you imagine. First of all the consequences of sacrificing a single Zombie Dog or your only Gargantuan are vastly different. There are tons of ways to replace Zombie Dogs even without you doing anything. Replacing a Gargantuan is harder, but you will get more damage.
Another possibility would be to add a different effect upon death. For example lets say that the Zombie Dog does a normal explosion. The Gargantuan could release a could of Parasites or create an effect similar to Grasp of the Dead. Different effects lead to tactical decisions.
Right now the only reason the Gargantuan and Zombie Dogs are different is because you can explode one of them. They already overlap a lot in function and purpose. Both are tanks. A strong one or a few lesser ones. Presumably you can have both at the same time. There is nothing that differentiates them. I really wish Blizz would look more into this and give both skills a more unique feel.
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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.
I'm not doubting the usefulness of increasing the Zombie Dog's life for increased damage. I just find it odd that there is a skill that increases their life and damage. This will make them better tanks. If they are better tanks why would I want to Sacrifice them? They do a better job holding off the monsters while the WD can concentrate on lobbing DD and DoT skills. Unless their damage when Sacrificed becomes so large that DD and DoT skills pale in comparison it is better to have tanks and do the damage yourself. That seems completely opposite to what they want to achieve.|||This discussion made me think Skill Runes are a really bad mechanic publicity-wise:
I mean, as Bashiok keep saying "and then you put a Rune into it" and your skill looks awesome, but meanwhile, in demos and gameplay videos (some of) the non-Runic skills look highly unimpressive. And as this is the first impression for many gamers- That's pretty bad.
On topic- Mantis is too right. I'm confused how Blizz haven't seen these stuff themselves. I have strong belief in Blizz that they WILL fix this and make the WD awesome, and that's the main reason I'm currently disappointed they still haven't made anything about this.|||Quote:
I'm not doubting the usefulness of increasing the Zombie Dog's life for increased damage. I just find it odd that there is a skill that increases their life and damage. This will make them better tanks.
Fact is they will never be a better tank because you already have one, yes .. the "Gargantuan" is the best tank, and that skill increases the HP and damage of both so it won't make zombie dogs better tanks at all, it will just make them better "sacrifices".
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That seems completely opposite to what they want to achieve.
We can't claim to fully understand what they want to achieve with the WD now .. maybe they changed their minds about some things and want to make him a summoner/caster hybrid .. which is fine, but without any WD related official statements there is no way to be sure which direction the WD is going now ... IMO don't put too much thought into this.|||One thing to keep in mind about fire/poison direct damage spells is that the Witch Doctor has some pretty unique, "all-purpose" passive buffs:
Leader of the Pack: +1-5% spell damage per Mongrel
Spirit Sense: +10-50% spell damage against monsters with less than 25-45% of their health
Rituals: Increases spell damage by 10-50% of your vitality (aided by Jungle Fortitude, which seriously buffs your vitality)
Blood Rites: 5-25% boost to your spell damage for 12 seconds after taking a health globe
I wonder if this also applies to minion damage. I doubt it, but it would be an interesting feature, and would make summoner builds much more viable.
The Witch Doctor looks like he's going to play a lot like the Warlock from WoW. Powerful damage over time spells, reasonably powerful direct damage spells, and whole bunch of minions and mind control spells to tinker with.
I do believe that a summoner build will be viable. Whether you can swarm the map with a strong minion army or just play like D2's Fishymancer (in which a summoner Necromancer would simply use his army to produce corpses, which would then be used for Corpse Explosion - I imagine you could create a similar chain with the Witch Doctor by using Parasite on mobs, and using Sacrifice on your Mongrels, which would only produce more Monrels to continue the chain) in unclear at this time.
I agree with Mantis that you need more than two viable builds to keep a character interesting, however. It's not enough to just say that you can choose fire or poison; a fire WD and a poison WD are still centered around nuking the enemy and using minions or crowd control spells as a distraction. As far as I'm concerned, they're both the same build, which is centered around direct damage.
What if we had a viable mind control Witch Doctor that could wreak havoc using skills like Mass Confusion and Hex (whatever Hex does)? Maybe Blizzard made Mass Confusion a top-tier skill for a reason. With a third, more unorthodox (but still reasonably competitive) build like that, the Witch Doctor would feel more complete and flexible.|||THE WITCHDOCTOR ISN'T FINSIHED PEOPLE! Mantis, you don't realize that they are still working on the game do you? They have already messed around with the skill trees making them smaller by getting rid of passives, meaning they have to make sure they get all the passives right. Im almost 100% sure there will be a fire or poison build. Also for the people saying that mongrel/firebomb is the only viable build do you not realize those are level 1 skills? I highly doubt blizzard would want the first skill you use to be the only skill you use, kinda defeats the purpose of creating higher level skills.
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Right now the only reason the Gargantuan and Zombie Dogs are different is because you can explode one of them. They already overlap a lot in function and purpose. Both are tanks. A strong one or a few lesser ones. Presumably you can have both at the same time. There is nothing that differentiates them. I really wish Blizz would look more into this and give both skills a more unique feel
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Do you not remember D2?? The nec had skele warriors and mages, do they overlap? or wait he also had 4 different golems?? wow that went into the game but 2 different skills that you haven't even seen yet (gargantuan) are overlapping?? Or how bout the druid? He had 2 different kinds of wolves and a bear?? they "overlapped" didnt they?? So i don't see how you can complain about 2 summons that don't even sound close to being the same.
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The Voodoo skill tree lacks in direction. You have some summon-based DD and DoT skills. Then you have some non-summon based DD and DoT skills. There is a single passive that boosts damage based on the availability of health globes. There is a hell of a lot of overlap in this tree. Why didn't they go all out and focus on summon-based DD and DoT skills? It seems terribly appropriate for a WD. Solidify this concept and diversify the effects and damage types for the various skills.
The Spirit tree is really an odd one. It has DD and DoT skills, passives to increase the various skills, CC skills and some utilities. The skills have a common theme and seem to work well together. However other than the brief mention of the spirit realm in the lore this tree doesn't connect to the whole evil, jungle-commanding, undead summoning WD vibe they have going with the other trees. There is also overlap between the DD and DoT spells of the Spirit and the Voodoo tree. Choice between these only affects the aesthetics of your WD and not his playstyle.
I highly doubt all of the skills in those trees will stay in that tree, they will still have to edit the trees to make them feel together as a whole.
As for me, my favorite skill so far is plague of toads, it just seems cool.
Oh and someone said that the witchdoctor's spirit tree doesn't fit? (sorry couldnt find to quote) thats ridculous, the witchdoctors in indian tribes were there to go into the spirtual realm and heal people, so saying that a witchdoctor using spirts doesn't fit is like a wizard not using magic.|||Quote:
It is all what we saw because that's all there is for now, almost 80% of the WD skills in the latest Blizzcon demo were still being improved, are WIP and not usable, how do you consider that any indication that the WD only viable build is the fire-bomb + zombie dog combo when those are mostly the only two fully finalized abilities !!!
You really don't understand what i'm trying to say at all do you? I was saying that this is all Blizzard has right now. I also said that i'm sure the WD will have more viable builds. I just thought it seemed pretty clear that this was all blizzard has at the time.
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It isn't an indication of anything other than the WD being behind in development schedule.
This is also what i beleive.
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Why nobody made a spirit doctor in the Blizzcon demo .. simply becasue it was impossible to do so with more than 80% of the skills locked and WIP.
Again, this is what i'm saying.......... Blizzard will get some more builds but right now they are really struggling for ideas, or not working on the WD enough. To disagree with what i'm saying would be disagreeing with what you just said.
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And as for the Jack of all trades (as in using a rational mix of skills across all trees .. it isn't about putting one point in every skill), it is sill both viable and possible since there are many possibilities here that can work (and some that won't of course).
I completely understood what you meant by the Jack of all trades build. I was just trying to point out that just because the build was possible does not mean it is viable. I don't see why you can say a build is viable when we have no idea how it works, and blizzard hasn't even worked it out yet.
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How can you say all that they have for the WD is the zombie dogs when we actually never got to see more than half the skills and actually tried out even less than that.
How can you say that these builds you are thinking up are viable yet also say "we have never got to see more than half the skills and actually tried out even less" ???? its a bit hard to say builds are viable when the game is not even completed.
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All in all .. like i said over and over ... it is way too early to pass any judgment over the WD.
Apparently it is too early to criticize current development, but early enough to say the WD has plenty of viable builds.|||Quote:
What I'd really like to see is skills that allow the creation of four or five builds that actually require you to play the char differently. Blizz had a good idea with the Barb in D2. There was a difference between a Singer, a WW-er, a Concentrate build, a Frenzybarb and a Leaper. However these builds still agreed with the core concept of the class. I'm sure they CAN do it for the WD, but right not it isn't there.
This is what i'm hoping for as well.
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I'm not doubting the usefulness of increasing the Zombie Dog's life for increased damage. I just find it odd that there is a skill that increases their life and damage. This will make them better tanks. If they are better tanks why would I want to Sacrifice them? They do a better job holding off the monsters while the WD can concentrate on lobbing DD and DoT skills. Unless their damage when Sacrificed becomes so large that DD and DoT skills pale in comparison it is better to have tanks and do the damage yourself. That seems completely opposite to what they want to achieve.
I was just thinking about this. Maybe zombie dogs can act as minor tanks during very very early parts of the game. This could be a balancing issue that helps WD get through until they get more active spells. I think a good idea would be to give the zombie dogs very poor armor and resistance scaling. This would greatly encourage the WD to explode them, and they wouldn't be able to tank.
However, if they don't do this i am also confused. If the zdogs can tank why would the WD want to explode them?|||Quote:
I don't have a problem with Summoners. I like huge armies and strong minions. I think that it is odd if Blizz keeps saying that minions should be disposable and then giving us skills that do exactly the opposite. That makes me question if Blizz know what the hell they want with the build.
The skills don't do the opposite, they make them better sacrifices like i said above .. and make the Gargantuan (who they never mentioned as a disposable minion) a better attacker and tank .. there is no problem here at all.
They never said all his minions will be disposable .. that is meant for the Zombie Dogs only.
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Blizz said they wanted the WD to sacrifice his minions. They specifically said they didn't want another Summoner. They wanted something that plays differently. They aren't bringing in the skills to allow people to do that.
Again, they only said they wanted the WD to be able to sacrifice his Zombie Dogs when they have outdone their usefulness, not all his minions, the difference is obvious, go watch the D3 debut video again.
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However other than the brief mention of the spirit realm in the lore this tree doesn't connect to the whole evil, jungle-commanding, undead summoning WD vibe they have going with the other trees.
Why is that !!!, theme wise it fits perfectly, entering the spiritual world and dealing with spirits is something Witch Doctors in all cultures and lore do (in which they also deal with the undead, curses and poison) .. it fits 100%.
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Right now the only reason the Gargantuan and Zombie Dogs are different is because you can explode one of them. They already overlap a lot in function and purpose. Both are tanks. A strong one or a few lesser ones. Presumably you can have both at the same time. There is nothing that differentiates them. I really wish Blizz would look more into this and give both skills a more unique feel.
Sorry but that's totally incorrect, they are nothing alike.
Zombie dogs:-
-Low Damage (compared to Gargantuan)
-Have low HP (compared to Gargantuan)
-Best used for a distraction
-Can be sacrificed
-Fast moving
-Come in numbers (4 or 5)
Gargantuan:-
-High Damage
-Have lots of HP
-Probably Slow
-Best used as a Tank
-Single monster
Aside from all those differences above even more can be added by using skill runes, but even without them they are still nothing alike.
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I'm not doubting the usefulness of increasing the Zombie Dog's life for increased damage. I just find it odd that there is a skill that increases their life and damage. This will make them better tanks. If they are better tanks why would I want to Sacrifice them?
As i mentioned few posts above, they will never be better tanks as the role is reserved for the Gargantuan .. it clearly outdoes them as a tank and is better suited for it, Zombie dogs getting more HP and ATK only make them better distractions and sacrifices, but not tanks.
As to why sacrifice them, that's the only logical thing to do with them, their damage and HP are low compared to the Gargantuan, blowing them up before they die or near low HP parasited enemies makes a lot of sense.
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They do a better job holding off the monsters while the WD can concentrate on lobbing DD and DoT skills. Unless their damage when Sacrificed becomes so large that DD and DoT skills pale in comparison it is better to have tanks and do the damage yourself. That seems completely opposite to what they want to achieve.
The Gargantuan will do a better job holding off enemies and damaging them directly, you don't have to babysit it, unlike the Zombie dogs .. they need your attention if you plan to use them correctly.
There is a reason skills like Parasite exist, you use your Zombie dogs as distractions (not tanks) and as soon as the enemy/s are down to 25% or less of their HP you parasite them and sacrifice the Zombie Dog/s near them to kill them and create new Z.Dogs in the process.
Not to mention using this cycle you can increase you spell damage using the skill that increases you spell damage depending on how many Z.Dogs you have, meaning when you have them all your spells do more damage and you will be able to bring the HP of enemies down quicker and then parasite, sacrifice, more Z.dogs born .. etc etc .. which is totally differernt from how a Gargantuan works.
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