Witch Doctor: The "Chill" Class?

Just follow along with me

First of all, I have played Diablo 2 since the beginning of time. (Well, the beginning of D2 time at least.) Over the years, I have tried virtually every class in the book. I have gotten quite a few different characters through hell. I had a fully decked out hammerdin last ladder/a few ladders ago. I had an uber sorc before that. A pwn-ur-face zon before that. And an amazingly sexy f***-ur-stuff-up elemental/summoning (I forget) druid before that.

During all this time, I have always.. ALWAYS.. had a Necromancer. Many times I have wondered WHY the Necromancer was my favorite character, even through the hard times of early diablo when the Necromancer was considered a kiddie class by many . I could never put my finger on it. Sure, the whole "I love death" concept first turned me on to the class, but soon honestly I got tired of it. But the Necro was STILL my favorite class.

But.. why?

Today I found out the reason.

The Necromancer fits an important archetype (to me at least) - The "Chill" Class. This may not be a widely known archetype, but it is my FAVORITE FING ARCHETYPE. Let me describe what constitutes a "Chill" Class:

1) Ability to "Chill". The description of this is simple, but if you are still at loss just play a necro already and you will understand. A necro doesn't need an active player - all you need if you have a fully geared necro (well this ladder at least ) is: 1) tp next to mobs, 2) run away, 3) cast amp, and 4) corpse explosion corpse explosion corpse explosion. Any of these steps can be taken out, but efficiency is lost. The order doesn't really matter.

Now, one may argue that I just want an "easy" class. Oh, but I wholehartedly disagree my friend. I do not classify the Necro as "easy" - there are many many options besides the above you have, mostly due to your enormous arsenal of curses. Need crowd control? Attract. Big nasty thing that kills more than a few skellies? Decrepify. Mobs pestering the Necro? Terror. Grouping with 7 sorcs? Lower resists. And the list goes on.

But I'm straying off the topic.

What I want to ask you, oh faithful diii readers, is do YOU think that the Witch Doctor classifies as The "Chill" Class archetype? I cannot conclude anything from the gameplay videos I have seen, but I seriously hope so.

The things that worry me:

1) No more than 1 summon! Oh Blizzard, what have you done!! My favorite thing to do when I get bored playing my Necro is to get a full army, go into rogue encampment with a friend/another likely target in game, and fill the entire first act town with skellies that usually bogs down lower end pcs enough for them to be annoyed . While a "Chill" Class doesn't necessarily NEED a lot of summons (the WoW "Chill" class is the Warlock and he gets 1 pet - nothing says chill like you can't touch me because I just feared you and now I just wait and watch your life drain away!) it certainly helps.

2) Possible lack of some core "Chill" skills. Now, the "terror" (or w/e the fear is called) looks VERY VERY interesting. However, I am worried that it won't be a viable tactic later in game to terror everything .. but you never know.

3) A "Chill" class shouldn't have to lob balls of fire to kill things (oh what a horrid skill IMO whatever it is called), he should have either 1) DOTs (think poison for you non MMOers), 2) summons, or 3) massive aoe kill skills. One of these (and just one) needs to qualify for a main kill skill for a "Chill" class. But it needs to qualify as a main kill skill, not an interesting gimmick like some of the current d2 skills are.



OKAY now maybe I'm just not having enough faith in Blizzard's ability to incorporate the "Chill" class into Diablo 3. I'm sure as hell hoping the Witch Doctor qualifies, though. What do you think, Mr./Ms. Reader-who-has-made-it-this-far-and-should-be-given-a-cookie-but-too-bad-its-the-internetz-huh.

Thank you for your input. And if you have no input for me, thank you for reading the thread.

NOTE: If you are not understanding anything in the thread, please post, and I will try my best to explain more. It can be argued that ANY class qualifies as The "Chill" class. (For example, a summoner druid or maybe a traps sin (never played one of the latter.. just doesn't sound "Chill" enough) could qualify as The "Chill" class for some.)

Also, if you don't like the word I chose for this archetype, too bad I like it! I'm happy with my epiphany so hah!

(ANY of you who have actually played the Witch Doctor at blizzcon or w/e PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me how "Chill" it was =) =).)

((And, I understand that the game may not support being "Chill" the whole time - thats fine!! - I just want a CHARACTER that gives the "Chill" feeling if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't. OK now go replies go!))

EDIT: AFTER reading some posts in this forum, my hope is increased to about 90% that this is The "Chill" class of D3!!! I'm very happy. One post in particular said this (if its your quote feel special, you are awesome):


Quote:




I feel that the direct damage skils are a bit lacking. He has some cool DoT, AoE, and pets. But he doesn't have many big, direct bangs. It seems that he relies too much on others to do his dirty work. After the skull and the bats (unless it isn't a gruesome version of Inferno) are about all he has here. The other "direct" attacks seem to be weak Charged Bolts (the toads, the spiders). Now, I like the toads a lot and the spiders can be fun, but if there are easy to control and direct...maybe the character would feel more solid. If they are random like charged bolts (or worse) BUT you do not get the carpet effect (and just a small seeking ability), the witch doctor would feel like he is lacking control in the battle.




NO DIRECT DAMAGE!? DOT, AOE, AND PETS?? This. Is. Awesome. I could care less about direct damage, psh, as long as there is damage its all good =) (indirect damage is my favorite kind of damage anyway

This thread is probably pretty useless. But comment away |||OKAY I admit I haven't watched much (any..) witch doctor videos.

I am now stoked. Thank you very much for this amazing as crap class blizzard

I almost like it more than my necro :O

(If people want to comment on the usefullness of the CC abilities of the witch doctor/"Chill"-ability, please please do - especially the blue guys I would love you even more!)

Ok bed time now

And I feel bad - that fire lob skill actually looks like it'll be a fun alternative to all these CC abilities