Witch Doctor Needs Attention!

I feel as if the blizzard team is ignoring the fact that wd gameplay has grown stale and obsolete. Season after season I sit in wait for something really interesting… yet nothing! Having no real sets to compete with meta builds like crusader monk and barbarian. Monk gets a huge aoe power with mobility. WW barbarian does aswell with the crusader condemn. Wd lacks real aoe speed farm Like the old Locus swarm speed farm. As other classes have grown in power over time the wd has fallen into an endless pit of nothing. I feel like the team has definitely forgotten the witchdoctor. Only to appease us they give us a meh offhand or item at the beginning of seasons. Gargantuans are very nice pets to utilize they need to be able to teleport to focus on elites. There are other skills in our arsenal like Bears, locust swarm, spiders, spirit barrage, parranahs. all under buffed abilities that sit on the sideline as firebats and darts get stronger. Pet builds should be more noticed I think as well as the class is mostly pet oriented. i feel like i should call out for an entire rework on some skills.

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While I agree that it’s disappointing that the Witch Doctor got nothing new in patch 2.6.7/season 19, I don’t quite agree that it’s been season after season with nothing at all.

The introduction of the Legacy of Dreams gem made season 18 a very strong one for WDs, WDs being the 3rd strongest class on the solo leaderboards at the end of that season. The addition of legendary affixes to items like Echoing Fury, The Flavor of Time, and Squirt’s Amulet also helped us a lot. Prior to that, in season 17, the changes to Carnevil and The Dagger of Darts made both the Zunimassa and non-set versions of this build viable, and they remain our strongest builds right up until now.

I’m not surprised that WD has kind of fallen to the wayside in season 19, they were one of only two classes who didn’t receive any attention - neither buff nor nerf - in the most recent patch, and with all the fun new stuff Barbarians, Crusaders and Monks got, this doesn’t make WDs particularly attractive to play except for WD mains. The fact that no one wants a WD in a meta group doesn’t help either.

I do definitely agree with you that WD has a bunch of really interesting skills that are seriously underutilised and underappreciated, and I very much hope that Blizzard addresses some of these with the new set that has been promised, or with slight tweaks to existing legendaries like we’ve seen them do with the Barbarian in the most recent patch. As for an entire rework of some skills, I think that’s extraordinarily unlikely at this stage in the game’s life.

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In my opinion, what the WD seriously needs is a speed build to rival WW barb, UE DH etc. I hope that a future change, either the new set or a tweak to one of the current sets addresses this.

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Speaking as someone who came back after many years of not playing, i think the witch doctor is very fun. I might possibly be the only one playing jade harvest build at the moment but i managed to do a 108 solo on the season leaderboards and I’m not really that good at the game yet. It feels super tanky and I’m really enjoying it. I think your complaints are less about witch doctor itself and more about the fact that diablo 3 end game revolves around an infinitely scaling time trial. This paradigm highlights imbalances with all classes and builds and it greatly narrows the options people feel they have because if you look at leaderboards, you might think that if you’re not able to do a GR 130+ solo by now, the class is broken and we won’t be invited to groups. So this has been up to blizzard to decide what the “meta” classes are and it feels pretty bad when you’re loyal to a class you love to play but isn’t doing well. Believe me i feel it. I started this season and bought the necromancer because I’ve never seen it play before and quickly realized it’s the worst class currently. Hopefully diablo 4 will have more end game depth so it doesn’t narrow the scope of what “viable” means because currently we have exactly one way to measure that.

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I agree.
I’d like a set that would make our chicken form dealing damage in AOE but that would cost mana…

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Well, as someone who plays mostly solo. I don’t get affected by this personally, but definitely understand what you’re saying. Thing is, Necromancer while not being able to push as high right now, definitely has a place in the group speed meta (Rat Runs). At least, I think that’s still the case lol

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Yes WD has been left out. Meteor wizard has been meta trash killer for many seasons now. I miss when WD was the meta trash killer.

Meteor wizard to me is finicky with the timing of arcane torrent before meteor and not my play style of a trash killer, after like 6+ seasons of it it’s time for WD to get back in the mix.

I was top 10 solo WD in my season, but fbwd was the meta trash killer my season and made me want to play alot.

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