Okay, been lurking on the site for a while. Somehow this thread made me register and post. Sorry if this is a bit too long.
Everybody look to the wall nearest you. How wide is it? Now how thick is it? The rune isn't "Doubles the width of the wall (when looking down at a vertically placed wall)" The only way that they can use a word like width in the rune description is if it is relative to the Witch Doctor, otherwise it changes depending on how the wall is placed. Also, if the AI is intelligent enough to take the most efficient route around the wall then you place it right in front of them, so that the only efficient route is to follow it around. As far as it being "broken" if it can't be walked through due to the lack of a cooldown, for all we know it has an exorbitant mana cost, meaning you can't just keep a permanent barrier up. Although I will concede that this is speculation, in fact since we haven't actually seen the wall since the original unveiling I will drop that skill, I just wanted to bring those points up.
As far as a "petless" Witch Doctor build. I may need some clarification on this, as I am unsure if the two new passives revealed at Blizzcon count as "petless." However, if you take both of those (Spawning Zombie Dogs and chance of spawning fetishes on kill, although I don't remember the exact details) then almost any build can work.
How about;
Haunt - Good damage over time ability, 3 up at a time and hops from dead enemies to live ones
Poison Dart - Good damage with a poison DoT afterward
Grasp of the Dead - A snare that does damage, awesome in my book
Spirit Walk - Everybody loves a good escape maneuver
Horrify - For those moments when things get a little too hairy
Acid Cloud - Drop this on top of Grasp of the Dead for lots of fun
And then you have 1 free passive spot, to use as you choose, plus I didn't even bother using any rune effects. Sure, it's a fairly slow killing skill set, with a lot of the damage coming from damage over time abilities, but with the two passives you suddenly have pets, without even bothering to use the pet skills. However if you prefer not to take those into account, or if you want a petless build without using those passives, then I'll take a deeper look and see what I can come up with.
1
Everybody look to the wall nearest you. How wide is it? Now how thick is it? The rune isn't "Doubles the width of the wall (when looking down at a vertically placed wall)" The only way that they can use a word like width in the rune description is if it is relative to the Witch Doctor, otherwise it changes depending on how the wall is placed. Also, if the AI is intelligent enough to take the most efficient route around the wall then you place it right in front of them, so that the only efficient route is to follow it around. As far as it being "broken" if it can't be walked through due to the lack of a cooldown, for all we know it has an exorbitant mana cost, meaning you can't just keep a permanent barrier up. Although I will concede that this is speculation, in fact since we haven't actually seen the wall since the original unveiling I will drop that skill, I just wanted to bring those points up.
As far as a "petless" Witch Doctor build. I may need some clarification on this, as I am unsure if the two new passives revealed at Blizzcon count as "petless." However, if you take both of those (Spawning Zombie Dogs and chance of spawning fetishes on kill, although I don't remember the exact details) then almost any build can work.
How about;
Haunt - Good damage over time ability, 3 up at a time and hops from dead enemies to live ones
Poison Dart - Good damage with a poison DoT afterward
Grasp of the Dead - A snare that does damage, awesome in my book
Spirit Walk - Everybody loves a good escape maneuver
Horrify - For those moments when things get a little too hairy
Acid Cloud - Drop this on top of Grasp of the Dead for lots of fun
And then you have 1 free passive spot, to use as you choose, plus I didn't even bother using any rune effects. Sure, it's a fairly slow killing skill set, with a lot of the damage coming from damage over time abilities, but with the two passives you suddenly have pets, without even bothering to use the pet skills. However if you prefer not to take those into account, or if you want a petless build without using those passives, then I'll take a deeper look and see what I can come up with.
Sorry if this ran a little long.