I enjoyed the witchdoctor class but it’s unreal that blizzard again did almost nothing for the class for them this season (so far) honestly did they bring out the necromancer and forget the witchdoctor class altogether? Oh well.
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Another season of mandatory soul harvest maintenance, mandatory locust swarm, mandatory wormwood cube slot (unless you want to manually spam locust swarm to get carpal tunnel), garbage pet AI, getting wrecked by crowd control, etc.
Even if they kept all S27 WD powers the class would still be a dumpster fire for S28.
Crusader may be also considered a “dead class”, but i personally find it way more fun than WD because i don’t have to jump through 10 hoops each time to kill something. Imagine the following:
- hitting an enemy with blessed shield debuffs the target to take 300% more damage from all abilities for 10 seconds
- blessed shield now hits one target regardless of rune
- a weapon power is available to automatically hit one target around you every 5 seconds with blessed shield
Sounds fun, right? Now every crusader build needs to take blessed shield, like every WD Build (except fetish builds) need locust swarm or wormwood for debuff management to be viable. Wait, wait, one more idea:
- casting blessed shield on the same target increases your damage reduction by 60% for 10 seconds
Are we having fun yet?
That’s my point, WD has so many fun skills but blizzard neglects every one of them. Fetish and spider build is the only way to kind of keep up…and it’s boring basic skill sets. WD used to have an epic support style at least but they nerfed mimics. Season 27 was the first time they kinda tried to make the class fun and “good” but all it did was showcase how long they have neglected giving anything a decent buff.
Bottom line is so many cool ways WD could have been played if they bothered to buff a set and a few items each season like every other class.
Buffing items and/or set bonuses for WD still makes the class a dumpster fire to play, unless one of those bonuses remove the ring of emptiness requirement. Wormwood does that, except that means that every build (except fetishes) must sacrifice a weapon cube slot, or get carpal tunnel from spamming debuffs (that you can’t even clearly see) on enemies.
My previous post with the crusader blessed shield idea was an analogy to soul harvest and locust swarm on WD’s. Yes the crusader idea sounds terrible, as is the soul harvest and locust swarm gameplay for WD’s.
But hey, maybe if they implemented that blessed shield requirement for all crusader builds, the forums would be filled with “thanks blizz for not neglecting crusader!” posts. After all, there sure are a lot of masochists in gaming.
A reword would be easy enough, make it like necro ring with slow or stun for example. Wouldn’t be that hard, I’ve seen way bigger reworks for other classes. Hell I’ve played the game since release and even just getting support doctor back would make the class useful again which would be nice.
Personally don’t find locust swarm tough to maintain without wormwood hit it once and a while and you are fine with pestilence on.
Well, I heard a rumor that I just made up just now that they are going to replace the WD with the druid.
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Reverse this patch, problem solved.
Witch Doctor
+Active Skills
•Big Bad Voodoo
The attack speed bonus has been reduced from 20% to 15%
Skill Rune-Slam Dance
•The damage bonus provided to allies has been decreased from
30% to 15%
Haunt
Skill Rune-Poisoned Spirit
•The damage increase provided to your allies has been removed. The skill will now benefit your own damage and your
pets’ damage
Hex
•No longer increases the damage taken by the target
.Skill Rune-Jinx
• The damage bonus to the target has been reduced from 30% to
15%
•Skill Rune-Toad of Hugeness
The damage bonus to the target has been reduced from 25% to
15%
•Mass Confusion
.Skill Rune-Paranoia
*Can no longer stack with casts from other sources
Piranhas
Can no longer stack with casts from other sources
+Spirit Barrage
Skill Rune-Phantasm
• Damage increased from 675% over 5 seconds to 750% over 5
seconds
•Summon Zombie Dogs
Skill Rune-Chilled to the Bone
•No longer increases damage done to targets by 15%
I hope the druid has the following so that I enjoy the authentic Diablo 3.5…erm, Diablo 4 experience:
- a debuff that must be maintained on a target
- without the debuff my damage output is a joke
- the debuff has no visual indicator or timer
- all builds must use the debuff
Maybe they can call the debuff “savage wild wolf roar” or something.
Yeah it sucks. WD and Sader are my two favorite classes but I guess blizz is prioritizing the more played classes. I can’t get excited for the new season unless those two classes are fixed up a bit.
Would be fun to have a season that’s not just zdh, zbarb, and wiz/necro over and over again.