Witch Doctors are the summoners of Diablo 3, calling forth everything from walls of entangled zombies to swarms of poisonous locusts to gargantuan monstrosities. These Umbaru shaman control the battlefield through the spread of disease, debilitating effects, and an endless horde of minions. Between their command of the undead and vicious creatures alike, the Witch Doctor's playstyle is like an amalgamation of Diablo 2’s Druid and Necromancer.
A Witch Doctor’s resource is Mana, the same resource found on every class in Diablo 2. As one might expect, Mana is a large pool that depletes with the usage of skills and spells. This pool can be significantly increased through leveling and the acquisition of new items. However, though a Witch Doctor’s Mana reserve may become great, the resource replenishes slowly. If spells are impetuously cast, Witch Doctors may find themselves all too vulnerable. For this reason, many spells are persistent, whether they be spirits that haunt targets until death, or spiders that find and rip through everything in sight.
Skill Analysis
POISON DART Shoot a deadly poison dart that deals 100% weapon damage as Poison and an additional 80% weapon damage as Poison over 2 seconds. Costs 295 Mana.
Initially, this skill deals the same amount of damage as your basic attack but in the form of poison (I’m always for alternative damage sources). Then it places a DoT on the target, which nearly doubles the overall damage. Now, DoTs can be frustrating if the duration is clipped (if the effect is reapplied before the damage can actually “tick”, the timer resets and it won’t deal damage that specific second) but can be a good way to take on multiple enemies. If you’re cycling through a pack of zombies, targeting a new one with each cast of this skill, then by the time you get back to the first zombie the duration of this poison effect should have finished. This is all assuming damage-over-time effects work this way in Diablo 3. Maybe the duration just extends back to maximum, like it now does in World of Warcraft. If this is the case, the most optimal way will still be to cycle through targets, though there’s really no penalty for not doing so.
Snake to the Face Transform your dart into a snake that has a 31% chance to clamp on to the target and stun it for 3 seconds.
Do you just throw a snake at the enemy? Where does the Witch Doctor pull it from? While the chance is a little low for a stun, the duration is decent. And Poison Dart seems spammable, so I can see this effect occurring often.
Flaming Dart Ignite the dart, allowing it to deal a full 212% weapon damage as Fire at once.
Not only does this give a solid boost to the damage, the damage also becomes instant. With this runestone, it’s almost like Blizzard is saying, “Here, Witch Doctor, have Fireball.” Sure, this isn’t the most interesting effect, but it’s powerful.
Spined Dart Gain 295 Mana every time a dart hits a target.
This runestone only keeps your mana stable; it does not regenerate any. The cost of the skill and the amount returned is the same. You get a free skill which is nice, though don’t be tricked into thinking you’ll get Mana back from this, as I initially was. If Mana is truly an issue, maybe take this. Maybe. Otherwise, I’d choose a different runestone.
Splinters Shoot 3 darts at once that deal 59% weapon damage as Poison each.
Is this in a cone or do the darts fly one after another? If the former, cool! There’s some AoE utility added to Poison Dart’s runestone selection. If the latter, meh. The overall damage would calculate to a near instant 180%, though what if the final dart misses because the monster moves or is stepped in front of by another enemy? Then your damage drops by a third on your kill target.
Numbing Dart Targets hit by a dart have their movement slowed by 60% for 4.5 seconds.
Slowing effects are generally pretty useful in both PvE and PvP. Versus melee attackers, slows prevent you from being chased; versus ranged, slows allow you to chase the enemy down (though this won’t need to happen much since all of your attacks are also ranged). And the duration is reasonably lengthy. If you find yourself in need of some control, take this.
PLAGUE OF TOADS Release a handful of toads that deal 150% weapon damage as Poison to enemies they come in contact with. Costs 355 Mana.
This skill is cool because you have an army of death frogs at your disposal. Three toads are released, and while they deal 450% weapon damage in total, their movement is erratic, similar to how Twister or Tornado worked for the Druid in Diablo 2. While these frogs can cover a large area (when spammed), there may be frogs that don’t even hit anything, so this spell has its ups and downs. I applaud Blizzard’s creativity though. I can’t think of any games where I’ve used amphibians to dispatch foes. Bravo, Blizzard! Bravo.
Addling Toads Mutate to yellow frogs that deal 177% weapon damage as Poison and confuse affected enemies for 2 seconds.
From what I’ve been able to find, the “confuse” effect can cause enemies to attack each other. This will be convenient, especially in Inferno and PvP, if it even works on the latter. The damage increase is also nice.
Explosive Toads Mutate to red bullfrogs that explode for 196% weapon damage as Fire.
Not just death frogs, but exploding death frogs. It’s a sizable damage increase and it gives the Witch Doctor a different type of damage. Both positives.
Toad Affinity Reduces Mana cost to 212 Mana.
This is roughly a 40% decrease in cost. Like the song says, “If you’re having Mana problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but it might be better to use a different runestone.” Those were the original lyrics, I promise. Not sure why they were changed. I think they’re catchy.
Rain of Toads Hail a rain of toads down from the sky that deals 144% weapon damage per second as Poison to enemies in the area for 2 seconds.
Other original lyrics: “It’s raining toads! Hallelujah, it’s raining toads!” This is essentially Blizzard but with poor, unsuspecting toads. Or maybe they suspect it. I don’t know. Anyway, yeah, Frog Blizzard. I like it. Of course, enemies could always walk outside of the area, though the duration is short enough to prevent that from happening too often. Also, not only will this runestone make Plague of Toads hit more enemies, it also nearly doubles the damage. This is easily one of my favorite runes thus far.
Toad of Hugeness Summon a giant toad that swallows enemies whole for up to 5 seconds, digesting for 39% of your weapon damage per second as Physical. This rune adds a 5 second cooldown to the skill.
I’ve been debating with myself on whether I like the indigo or obsidian runestone better. While I’ve settled on the indigo, mostly because I can pretend to sing “It’s Raining Men” whenever I cast Plague of Toads, obsidian is a close second. The description says that it swallows enemies whole, though I have no idea how many that is. I can see this saving your ass in tight spots. However, I’d imagine it will be generally better to just kill the enemy outright rather than giving them a gestation period. Again, though, I like how creative Blizzard is being with some of their skills and runestones.
SUMMON ZOMBIE DOGS Summon 3 zombie dogs from the depths to fight by your side. Each dog deals 15% of your weapon damage as Physical per hit. Costs 295 Mana. 60 second cooldown.
While these puppies don’t do a ton of damage, there’s three of them and they last until killed. This skill is sort of fire-and-forget; once it’s cast, there’s no real micromanagement. While I’m normally not a fan of “lazy” skills, the functionality works for this. If you’ve ever play Guild Wars, you know that the Necromancer’s minions naturally die over time. You also probably know how frustrating it can be to constantly recast them.
Leeching Beasts Your zombie dogs gain 50% of damage dealt as Life, half of which heals you.
So the dogs receive 7.5% weapon damage as healing, and the player receives 3.75%. We should keep in mind that if each dog were to attack once per second, players would gain their full weapon damage in healing in just under 9 seconds. This doesn’t seem like enough healing to justify this runestone.
Burning Dogs Light your dogs on fire allowing them to burn nearby enemies for 36% of your weapon damage per second as Fire.
An AoE pulse accompanies your pups. Cool! And it more than triples the single target damage they deal. Plus, differing sources of damage… This seems good all-around.
Final Gift Upon death, your zombie dogs have a 55% chance of leaving behind a health globe.
The skill Sacrifice and a specific passive would work well with this, both of which we’ll talk about in subsequent posts. By itself, however, it’s not that great, unless your doggies are dying left and right. And if that’s the case, you’re probably better off using something other than Summon Zombie Dogs.
Life Link 40% of damage taken is absorbed by your zombie dogs.
Aside from maybe the crimson runestone, this is by far the best of the bunch. This will save your life many times, I guarantee it. Despite that, I can see where this won’t be needed in lower difficulties, though it’ll shine in higher ones and PvP.
Rabid Dogs Your summoned zombie dogs gain an infectious bite that deals 10% of your weapon damage per second as Poison for 3 seconds.
30% weapon damage in total, but again, clipping may occur. And I wonder if this effect is bound to specific dogs, meaning if two puppies are attacking an enemy, that enemy will have two DoTs going at the same time. If so, AND clipping turns out not to be an issue, this could be a good boss killing rune. That being said, I doubt the DoT stacks, and I have a feeling that clipping may be an issue. That’s why I keep bringing it up.
Nice work. Only suggestion I have is to make it a bit easier to distinguish between the description of skills and your commentary on them (likely through colors). Not that it's hard to tell which is which, but I think it would just make it a tad easier to read.
speculation thread is specuation thread. analysis of runed skills and how they work and which is better is impossible until release. your just analyzing the skill calc which anyone can go see and think for themselves because the runes already have descriptions. so this should be changed to "analysis of WD skill calc"
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
speculation thread is specuation thread. analysis of runed skills and how they work and which is better is impossible until release. your just analyzing the skill calc which anyone can go see and think for themselves because the runes already have descriptions. so this should be changed to "analysis of WD skill calc"
I understand what your saying, But all I'm doing is an analysis of the info we have at hand, and your right this is my OWN opinion and people can take it how they may. The title of the post is fine I don't really see a big difference in what you have suggested.
POISON DART
Shoot a deadly poison dart that deals 100% weapon damage as Poison and an additional 80% weapon damage as Poison over 2 seconds. Costs 295 Mana.
Initially, this skill deals the same amount of damage as your basic attack but in the form of poison (I’m always for alternative damage sources). Then it places a DoT on the target, which nearly doubles the overall damage. Now, DoTs can be frustrating if the duration is clipped (if the effect is reapplied before the damage can actually “tick”, the timer resets and it won’t deal damage that specific second) but can be a good way to take on multiple enemies. If you’re cycling through a pack of zombies, targeting a new one with each cast of this skill, then by the time you get back to the first zombie the duration of this poison effect should have finished. This is all assuming damage-over-time effects work this way in Diablo 3. Maybe the duration just extends back to maximum, like it now does in World of Warcraft. If this is the case, the most optimal way will still be to cycle through targets, though there’s really no penalty for not doing so.
I have just done some testing, and from what I can tell it works just as it does in WoW. When you reapply a DoT, it takes on the new duration, but does not reset the current DoT Ticks timer.
If the effect is reapplied before the damage can actually “tick” we would expect to see the faster cast speed here actually prevent one of the DoT ticks, thus lowering dmg output. However, as you can see we end up with the exact same values as above, 15-16 dmg, despite the fact we have faster attack speed. Thus showing that the timer does not reset on the current DoT tick.
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Do you want to get scammed? Perhaps a nice keylogger?
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
Splinters
Shoot 3 darts at once that deal 59% weapon damage as Poison each.
Is this in a cone or do the darts fly one after another? If the former, cool! There’s some AoE utility added to Poison Dart’s runestone selection. If the latter, meh. The overall damage would calculate to a near instant 180%, though what if the final dart misses because the monster moves or is stepped in front of by another enemy? Then your damage drops by a third on your kill target.
You're missing the point of this skill, first of all, it does fire 3 in a row(there's a vid of it on youtube somewhere from blizzcon) and its extremely fast, so the chance of someone walking in front of them are pretty slim.. but the reason why this skill is important, is because it does instant up front-damage.. but the fact it's poison damage lets it benefit from your poison passive abilities, while if you still like having a Dot with poison, keep it unruned.
I agree with most of your opnions. I think you give some solid tips (like shoot different targets with poison dart). But i think you miss a few points we can debate!
Transform your dart into a snake that has a 31% chance to clamp on to the target and stun it for 3 seconds.
Do you just throw a snake at the enemy? Where does the Witch Doctor pull it from? While the chance is a little low for a stun, the duration is decent. And Poison Dart seems spammable, so I can see this effect occurring often.
The stun duration is 3.0 seconds. With daggers your do 1.5 aps, wich means 4.0 attacks in 3.0 seconds. The probability of stunning someone in 4.0 hits is 77,66%. So once you apply your stum you have almost 80% chance to net a second one!
This is the closest you will get from a stum lock in D3, as far as I know. Multiple stums will surely not work in PvP and Bosses, but i think this ability is incredible useful to control monster individualy. D3 is not made of small weak monster all the times (far from it!). Big and strong white named ones exist (Unbiered, for example) and i think the ability to almost stum lock then is something to take in consideration.
Splinters
Shoot 3 darts at once that deal 59% weapon damage as Poison each.
Is this in a cone or do the darts fly one after another? If the former, cool! There’s some AoE utility added to Poison Dart’s runestone selection. If the latter, meh. The overall damage would calculate to a near instant 180%, though what if the final dart misses because the monster moves or is stepped in front of by another enemy? Then your damage drops by a third on your kill target.
The DPS potential of this rune is underwhelming, sure. It pales compered to the fire dart.
But you have to take overkill in consideration. If one or two of the bolt kills it's first target, the other ones will go on and it the enemy right behind him. So even if this skill shoots 3 bolts in straight line, it still have multitarget potential, because this skill, unlike the fire dart, avoid overkilling.
Overall, shooting 3 missiles rapidly is better then a cone shaped area. In order for 3 darts hits 3 enemies you need then to be spread around, wich is circustantial. Also, cone shapes will never hit twice the same target or never hit a target behind the first target.
The way this skill works will net you multiple hits in most cases (enemies one behind the other + enemies who can take all the 3 hits without dying).
I think you should definetly consider this rune if your "mana intensive" skills are not that great in killing multiple enemies at once. With this rune you gain some AoE potential without loosing any single target potential.
Final Gift
Upon death, your zombie dogs have a 55% chance of leaving behind a health globe.
The skill Sacrifice and a specific passive would work well with this, both of which we’ll talk about in subsequent posts. By itself, however, it’s not that great, unless your doggies are dying left and right. And if that’s the case, you’re probably better off using something other than Summon Zombie Dogs.
In general I think people are being naive (not you). They are ignoring the absolute importance of being able to recover HP. In short words, i think noone will beat Inferno without a good survival strategy. Deals 800% weapon damage and netting up to 4 health globes, wich will not only heal you but fuel other offensive strategy is a solid survival strategy. And Final Gift is a core engenee of this (theorycally) important WD combo.
The problem with all these starter skills unruned is that none of them really feel as awesome (first awesome skill is perhaps Firebats) as other classes' starter skills.
Speak for yourself! I went in the beta with the Witch Doctor ranked last in interest (absolutely hated the D2 Necro), but it's been by far the most fun! I love vomiting out toads and decaying zombies! XD
As for being "meat grinders", part of the fun I had with WD may well be how overpowered they are at low levels. None of my other characters could solo catherdral 4 in a full game so quickly at level 8 with a 17 DPS weapon. I also was a level ahead of where I'd be with other characters due to the number of massacre XP bonuses pulled off with Haunt. They are not a "support class", it's just that most of their damage is difficult to aim - but to me that's what makes the class so insanely fun, because they do yield great results when you "aim" well.
You want to know who's real boring and weak until lvl 9 or so? Wizards...
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Diablo 3 Witch Doctor Skill Analysis Part 1 Source
Class Overview
Witch Doctors are the summoners of Diablo 3, calling forth everything from walls of entangled zombies to swarms of poisonous locusts to gargantuan monstrosities. These Umbaru shaman control the battlefield through the spread of disease, debilitating effects, and an endless horde of minions. Between their command of the undead and vicious creatures alike, the Witch Doctor's playstyle is like an amalgamation of Diablo 2’s Druid and Necromancer.
A Witch Doctor’s resource is Mana, the same resource found on every class in Diablo 2. As one might expect, Mana is a large pool that depletes with the usage of skills and spells. This pool can be significantly increased through leveling and the acquisition of new items. However, though a Witch Doctor’s Mana reserve may become great, the resource replenishes slowly. If spells are impetuously cast, Witch Doctors may find themselves all too vulnerable. For this reason, many spells are persistent, whether they be spirits that haunt targets until death, or spiders that find and rip through everything in sight.
Skill Analysis
POISON DART
Shoot a deadly poison dart that deals 100% weapon damage as Poison and an additional 80% weapon damage as Poison over 2 seconds. Costs 295 Mana.
Initially, this skill deals the same amount of damage as your basic attack but in the form of poison (I’m always for alternative damage sources). Then it places a DoT on the target, which nearly doubles the overall damage. Now, DoTs can be frustrating if the duration is clipped (if the effect is reapplied before the damage can actually “tick”, the timer resets and it won’t deal damage that specific second) but can be a good way to take on multiple enemies. If you’re cycling through a pack of zombies, targeting a new one with each cast of this skill, then by the time you get back to the first zombie the duration of this poison effect should have finished. This is all assuming damage-over-time effects work this way in Diablo 3. Maybe the duration just extends back to maximum, like it now does in World of Warcraft. If this is the case, the most optimal way will still be to cycle through targets, though there’s really no penalty for not doing so.
Snake to the Face
Transform your dart into a snake that has a 31% chance to clamp on to the target and stun it for 3 seconds.
Do you just throw a snake at the enemy? Where does the Witch Doctor pull it from? While the chance is a little low for a stun, the duration is decent. And Poison Dart seems spammable, so I can see this effect occurring often.
Flaming Dart
Ignite the dart, allowing it to deal a full 212% weapon damage as Fire at once.
Not only does this give a solid boost to the damage, the damage also becomes instant. With this runestone, it’s almost like Blizzard is saying, “Here, Witch Doctor, have Fireball.” Sure, this isn’t the most interesting effect, but it’s powerful.
Spined Dart
Gain 295 Mana every time a dart hits a target.
This runestone only keeps your mana stable; it does not regenerate any. The cost of the skill and the amount returned is the same. You get a free skill which is nice, though don’t be tricked into thinking you’ll get Mana back from this, as I initially was. If Mana is truly an issue, maybe take this. Maybe. Otherwise, I’d choose a different runestone.
Splinters
Shoot 3 darts at once that deal 59% weapon damage as Poison each.
Is this in a cone or do the darts fly one after another? If the former, cool! There’s some AoE utility added to Poison Dart’s runestone selection. If the latter, meh. The overall damage would calculate to a near instant 180%, though what if the final dart misses because the monster moves or is stepped in front of by another enemy? Then your damage drops by a third on your kill target.
Numbing Dart
Targets hit by a dart have their movement slowed by 60% for 4.5 seconds.
Slowing effects are generally pretty useful in both PvE and PvP. Versus melee attackers, slows prevent you from being chased; versus ranged, slows allow you to chase the enemy down (though this won’t need to happen much since all of your attacks are also ranged). And the duration is reasonably lengthy. If you find yourself in need of some control, take this.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
PLAGUE OF TOADS
Release a handful of toads that deal 150% weapon damage as Poison to enemies they come in contact with. Costs 355 Mana.
This skill is cool because you have an army of death frogs at your disposal. Three toads are released, and while they deal 450% weapon damage in total, their movement is erratic, similar to how Twister or Tornado worked for the Druid in Diablo 2. While these frogs can cover a large area (when spammed), there may be frogs that don’t even hit anything, so this spell has its ups and downs. I applaud Blizzard’s creativity though. I can’t think of any games where I’ve used amphibians to dispatch foes. Bravo, Blizzard! Bravo.
Addling Toads
Mutate to yellow frogs that deal 177% weapon damage as Poison and confuse affected enemies for 2 seconds.
From what I’ve been able to find, the “confuse” effect can cause enemies to attack each other. This will be convenient, especially in Inferno and PvP, if it even works on the latter. The damage increase is also nice.
Explosive Toads
Mutate to red bullfrogs that explode for 196% weapon damage as Fire.
Not just death frogs, but exploding death frogs. It’s a sizable damage increase and it gives the Witch Doctor a different type of damage. Both positives.
Toad Affinity
Reduces Mana cost to 212 Mana.
This is roughly a 40% decrease in cost. Like the song says, “If you’re having Mana problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but it might be better to use a different runestone.” Those were the original lyrics, I promise. Not sure why they were changed. I think they’re catchy.
Rain of Toads
Hail a rain of toads down from the sky that deals 144% weapon damage per second as Poison to enemies in the area for 2 seconds.
Other original lyrics: “It’s raining toads! Hallelujah, it’s raining toads!” This is essentially Blizzard but with poor, unsuspecting toads. Or maybe they suspect it. I don’t know. Anyway, yeah, Frog Blizzard. I like it. Of course, enemies could always walk outside of the area, though the duration is short enough to prevent that from happening too often. Also, not only will this runestone make Plague of Toads hit more enemies, it also nearly doubles the damage. This is easily one of my favorite runes thus far.
Toad of Hugeness
Summon a giant toad that swallows enemies whole for up to 5 seconds, digesting for 39% of your weapon damage per second as Physical. This rune adds a 5 second cooldown to the skill.
I’ve been debating with myself on whether I like the indigo or obsidian runestone better. While I’ve settled on the indigo, mostly because I can pretend to sing “It’s Raining Men” whenever I cast Plague of Toads, obsidian is a close second. The description says that it swallows enemies whole, though I have no idea how many that is. I can see this saving your ass in tight spots. However, I’d imagine it will be generally better to just kill the enemy outright rather than giving them a gestation period. Again, though, I like how creative Blizzard is being with some of their skills and runestones.
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SUMMON ZOMBIE DOGS
Summon 3 zombie dogs from the depths to fight by your side. Each dog deals 15% of your weapon damage as Physical per hit. Costs 295 Mana. 60 second cooldown.
While these puppies don’t do a ton of damage, there’s three of them and they last until killed. This skill is sort of fire-and-forget; once it’s cast, there’s no real micromanagement. While I’m normally not a fan of “lazy” skills, the functionality works for this. If you’ve ever play Guild Wars, you know that the Necromancer’s minions naturally die over time. You also probably know how frustrating it can be to constantly recast them.
Leeching Beasts
Your zombie dogs gain 50% of damage dealt as Life, half of which heals you.
So the dogs receive 7.5% weapon damage as healing, and the player receives 3.75%. We should keep in mind that if each dog were to attack once per second, players would gain their full weapon damage in healing in just under 9 seconds. This doesn’t seem like enough healing to justify this runestone.
Burning Dogs
Light your dogs on fire allowing them to burn nearby enemies for 36% of your weapon damage per second as Fire.
An AoE pulse accompanies your pups. Cool! And it more than triples the single target damage they deal. Plus, differing sources of damage… This seems good all-around.
Final Gift
Upon death, your zombie dogs have a 55% chance of leaving behind a health globe.
The skill Sacrifice and a specific passive would work well with this, both of which we’ll talk about in subsequent posts. By itself, however, it’s not that great, unless your doggies are dying left and right. And if that’s the case, you’re probably better off using something other than Summon Zombie Dogs.
Life Link
40% of damage taken is absorbed by your zombie dogs.
Aside from maybe the crimson runestone, this is by far the best of the bunch. This will save your life many times, I guarantee it. Despite that, I can see where this won’t be needed in lower difficulties, though it’ll shine in higher ones and PvP.
Rabid Dogs
Your summoned zombie dogs gain an infectious bite that deals 10% of your weapon damage per second as Poison for 3 seconds.
30% weapon damage in total, but again, clipping may occur. And I wonder if this effect is bound to specific dogs, meaning if two puppies are attacking an enemy, that enemy will have two DoTs going at the same time. If so, AND clipping turns out not to be an issue, this could be a good boss killing rune. That being said, I doubt the DoT stacks, and I have a feeling that clipping may be an issue. That’s why I keep bringing it up.
Gonna move it over to WD section for you.
Waiting for more.
I understand what your saying, But all I'm doing is an analysis of the info we have at hand, and your right this is my OWN opinion and people can take it how they may. The title of the post is fine I don't really see a big difference in what you have suggested.
I have just done some testing, and from what I can tell it works just as it does in WoW. When you reapply a DoT, it takes on the new duration, but does not reset the current DoT Ticks timer.
Naked 3.42 DPS @ 1.00 APS
1 Poison Dart = 3.42(1+0.8)= 6.2 Dmg
Shooting Mobs with 2 consecutive darts,
115 -> 104 = 11 dng
104 -> 94 = 10 dmg
89 -> 79 = 9 dmg
79 -> 69 = 10 dmg
26 -> 15 = 11 dmg
60 -> 48(11dmg) -> 37(11dmg) -> 25(12dmg) -> 16(9dmg) -> 5(9dmg)
Dmg calculations
+3.42
+0.4*3.42
+3.42
+0.8*3.42
Total: 10.944 dmg
Shooting Mobs with 3 consecutive darts,
116 -> 100(16dmg) -> 84(16dmg) -> 68(16dmg) -> 53(15dmg) -> 38(15dmg) -> 22(16dmg) -> 7(15dmg)
Dmg calculations
+3.42
+0.4*3.42
+3.42
+0.4*3.42
+3.42
+0.8*3.42
Total: 15.732 dmg
+9% atk speed 3.72 DPS @ 1.09 APS
1 poison dart = 3.42+3.42*0.8 = 6.2 dmg
Shooting Mobs with 3 consecutive darts,
131 -> 115(16dmg) -> 100(16dmg) -> 85(15dmg) -> 70(15dmg) -> 54(16dmg) -> 39(15dmg) -> 24(15dmg) -> 8(16dmg)
If the effect is reapplied before the damage can actually “tick” we would expect to see the faster cast speed here actually prevent one of the DoT ticks, thus lowering dmg output. However, as you can see we end up with the exact same values as above, 15-16 dmg, despite the fact we have faster attack speed. Thus showing that the timer does not reset on the current DoT tick.
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
Shoot 3 darts at once that deal 59% weapon damage as Poison each.
Is this in a cone or do the darts fly one after another? If the former, cool! There’s some AoE utility added to Poison Dart’s runestone selection. If the latter, meh. The overall damage would calculate to a near instant 180%, though what if the final dart misses because the monster moves or is stepped in front of by another enemy? Then your damage drops by a third on your kill target.
You're missing the point of this skill, first of all, it does fire 3 in a row(there's a vid of it on youtube somewhere from blizzcon) and its extremely fast, so the chance of someone walking in front of them are pretty slim.. but the reason why this skill is important, is because it does instant up front-damage.. but the fact it's poison damage lets it benefit from your poison passive abilities, while if you still like having a Dot with poison, keep it unruned.
I agree with most of your opnions. I think you give some solid tips (like shoot different targets with poison dart). But i think you miss a few points we can debate!
The stun duration is 3.0 seconds. With daggers your do 1.5 aps, wich means 4.0 attacks in 3.0 seconds. The probability of stunning someone in 4.0 hits is 77,66%. So once you apply your stum you have almost 80% chance to net a second one!
This is the closest you will get from a stum lock in D3, as far as I know. Multiple stums will surely not work in PvP and Bosses, but i think this ability is incredible useful to control monster individualy. D3 is not made of small weak monster all the times (far from it!). Big and strong white named ones exist (Unbiered, for example) and i think the ability to almost stum lock then is something to take in consideration.
The DPS potential of this rune is underwhelming, sure. It pales compered to the fire dart.
But you have to take overkill in consideration. If one or two of the bolt kills it's first target, the other ones will go on and it the enemy right behind him. So even if this skill shoots 3 bolts in straight line, it still have multitarget potential, because this skill, unlike the fire dart, avoid overkilling.
Overall, shooting 3 missiles rapidly is better then a cone shaped area. In order for 3 darts hits 3 enemies you need then to be spread around, wich is circustantial. Also, cone shapes will never hit twice the same target or never hit a target behind the first target.
The way this skill works will net you multiple hits in most cases (enemies one behind the other + enemies who can take all the 3 hits without dying).
I think you should definetly consider this rune if your "mana intensive" skills are not that great in killing multiple enemies at once. With this rune you gain some AoE potential without loosing any single target potential.
WD Health Globe Combo
In general I think people are being naive (not you). They are ignoring the absolute importance of being able to recover HP. In short words, i think noone will beat Inferno without a good survival strategy. Deals 800% weapon damage and netting up to 4 health globes, wich will not only heal you but fuel other offensive strategy is a solid survival strategy. And Final Gift is a core engenee of this (theorycally) important WD combo.
Speak for yourself! I went in the beta with the Witch Doctor ranked last in interest (absolutely hated the D2 Necro), but it's been by far the most fun! I love vomiting out toads and decaying zombies! XD
As for being "meat grinders", part of the fun I had with WD may well be how overpowered they are at low levels. None of my other characters could solo catherdral 4 in a full game so quickly at level 8 with a 17 DPS weapon. I also was a level ahead of where I'd be with other characters due to the number of massacre XP bonuses pulled off with Haunt. They are not a "support class", it's just that most of their damage is difficult to aim - but to me that's what makes the class so insanely fun, because they do yield great results when you "aim" well.
You want to know who's real boring and weak until lvl 9 or so? Wizards...