Thank you for Listening (WD-2.7.2)

Its not lost on me that I’ve often criticized Blizzard in their handling of the Witch Doctor Class over the years after nerf and nerf and seeing WD lose its identity in the process.

In contrast, I am VERY MUCH EXTREMELY PLEASED (happy and elated) to see these preliminary patch notes regarding the WD class/item changes.

PTR is Nov 4th and I definitely will be taking part and I urge the Witch Doctor community to do so also.

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The reworked Lakumba is just fabulous.

Now, we have a real defensive item and this rework brake the boring “Lakumba/Sacred Harvester” duo!

I retrieved an idea :stuck_out_tongue:

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Great change!

I miss a bit more love for the gargantuan pet build. :frowning:

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That’s awesome to see the community feedback really being taken seriously now.

And to Travar - “I miss a bit more love for the gargantuan pet build. :frowning:

I do too, I also miss using frogs, sacrifice (0dog) and still want something for Mass Confusion and a zdps build but I’m happy with these proposed changes. I’m looking closer and see even Chicken Run (Manajuma’s Way) is getting a buff. I’d been side-eying " Shukrani’s Triumph for years now hoping for a buff.

Shoutout to Erica “Shukrani” Luttrell who is the female voice actress for Witch Doctor, did a fantastic job and this small buff means a lot to the black community more than some realize.

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Pretty cool to see, that they took your suggestion one to one. :smile:

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We must not be in a hurry, but hey, some things change, so it’s good

Maybe I’m a pessimist, but the Lakumba / Harvester combination is still set in stone. That one damange reduction item, and the 10 stacks for boom. We get more tanky.

Yeah - I still hold out hope that Blizzard can change the WD cat mojo to just be permanent 80 damage reduction. or introduce something new to break that up. I still think too that we need an item that gives all Big Bad Voodoo runes.

Even though my suggestions for the Arachyr set were not implemented I am kind of happy with the changes.

I am really hoping that spiders will now be considered as pets so we can cube Mask of Jeram and have more skill rune choices than when we need to cube Depth Diggers and can only go for the fire spiders which give resource…

For years I have been calling for a Depth Diggers change but to no avail.

Not really, the new mojo change for Shukanri’s pretty much makes you invulnerable forever while giving a 100% damage buff. Very easy to keep active in a build like spirit barrage.

Phantasm x3 and then spirit walk. Watch everything blow up without the chance of dying

So Spirit Barrage doesn’t attack?! Really?!

Huh? Spirit barrage will still attack.

The break after 3x attacks was added specifically for the phantasm max 3 summons. The phantasms and Manitou last after cast, so all you need to do is summon them then spirit walk.

These are welcome changes overall, but I am reserving judgement on the new Arachyr set.

To get the new Arachyr 4-piece damage reduction bonus, the WD must be in the web of the Spider Queen. That places what could be a serious restriction on the WD’s movement. If I can ever get into the PTR, I’d really like to test that.

I didn’t completely hate the Firebats build, but it did need improving. It would have been nice if the devs had made FB builds more viable, AND added this new Corpse Spiders-based build. sigh

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It’s “funny” because, IHM, the best set will be the Jade set (:heart:).

We’ll see that in few hours.

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Yeah Jade got a nice defensive boost :slight_smile:

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I was thinking about the defense a little bit overall for WD and while it’s nice that Lakumba’s got fixed, I still feel overall both defensively and offensively that Witch Doctor is not where it needs to be in comparison with all other classes. Only build I can think of that is worse is Trag’oul’s but the Necro overall has more power and versatility than WD by a great deal.

2.7.2 Prelim patch notes are a good start, but blizz can do (and should do) more while the time is right) to fix the issues that remain.

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I know current Arachyr iteration is clunky, but we will get 2 more changes.

I might play WD next season (or Barb).

CHEERS!

Linking this here because this poster named Helm has the best overall well written feedback regarding the state of 2.7.2 WD in it’s initial iteration.

The problem I have with the Arachyr rework is its more interesting in the patch notes than actually playing it. I like a lot of the other Witch Doctor changes, though.

I really like that there is a pet shard now, but I’m afraid with some of the “non pet classes” having overtuned PTR builds that they’ll nerf that which would be a real shame.

The core of a Witch Doctor to me is in the pets and creature skills and sadly that wasn’t touched. There are so many that are still very weak. The extra mobility of the mojo is nice, the overall extra toughness is nice and ring of emptiness is a very welcome change. This season will be pretty fun for Witch Doctors if the final patch notes don’t change much, but I feel the class’s core issues still very much remain.

Looks like they listened to community about the depth diggers too. That was a nice surprise.

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