Before I start day number 2 of massive D3 playing... I wanted to make a thread about the skills that surprised you (negative/positive)
For me
Positive:
Spirit Walk - Jaunt: I wasn't on the spirit walk is useless band wagon but I didn't think it would be this useful. The speed boost is massive and that makes it a must have for leveling up. Just using it to cruise through cleared content is so useful. The best thing though is that you can use skills while spirit walked so you can get 5 stacks of soul harvest or cast a few spells without getting attacked and it's great for getting out of bad situations.
Hex - Hedge Magic: I didn't think I'd need healing so early... but the healing from this spell is so nice. I LOVE that he'll cast an instant heal the moment you cast the spell so if I need a heal, I cast it... instant heal. The hex part is more helpful than I thought. It actually works on Rares and mini-bosses. Nothing funnier than chain hexing a hard rare.
Spirit Vessel - I'm on Act 2 nightmare right now and there's already a ton of spike damage. Usually, when I die it's a spike of unexpected damage and ever since I put spirit Vessel on... I rarely die.
Wall Of Zombies - hahaha... I had a lot of fun with this skill on the first Act boss. When he would charge... guess what happens if you put up a zombie wall in front of him? It's like hitting a brick wall! Pretty funny to watch but yeah... it does decent damage when you put it up... I approve of this skill.
Garg: Holy crap this guy can tank like a champ. I didn't expect him to stay alive on bosses but even on Diablo himself, this guy would last most of the fight. He does some decent damage as well.
Negative:
Zombie Charger - Undeath: Is this skill broken? First off... the range is pathetic... I was not expecting that. Second.... if it kills something it doesn't appear to summon another zombie to me... what gives?
Locust Swarm: Why is the range on this so small and why does it seem to cast it even if you're out of range and waste your mana and not debuff the mob? Maybe I wasn't noticing the effect on the mobs... but if I cast this on range it appeared that the mob did not get debuffed but it cast it anyway.
Big Bad Voodoo: I wasn't keen on this ability before.... but holy crap I forgot how long 2 minutes really is... I can't stand having this on my bar.
Zombie Dogs: I didn't give them much of a chance since I played Act 1 and 2 with a group so I didn't use them. But when I briefly put them back on my bar in Act 3 they'd die a lot so I removed them and didn't really miss it. The garg was tanking like a champ and kept things off me well enough.
Great idea for a thread OP. You made nightmare sounds like a blast. Also I only got to lvl 16 in act 2 normal so these are only basic skills.
Positive:
Chakram - I saw this skill and in the videos and thought it spun in too odd a pattern and would never be useful. Wow was I wrong you can spam these bad boys for a more than fair damage return add in the AOE. I would drop some entangling shots and just let 5 or 6 of these fly into a mob and they would definately mo them down effectively.
Tactical Advantage (passive) - I felt like I had enigma from D2 lol. I would vault run hyper speed for 2 seconds rinse and repeat. I was always initiating fights as the Demon Hunter heh im sure I wont be doing this past normal, but It was great convering so much ground so quickly.
Negative:
Impale - Was suppossed to be a super powerful spell, and it is. My problem is that it isn't "fun" to use, and I always more efficient and effective using rapid fire for single target. I think it will still be effective for pvp or even in later difficulties, but I am not too sure.
I will join the rest with my disgust with how bad Zombie Charger is.
However. I am very impressed with the potential of Locust Swarm. I didnt use it much until about act 3 or so. Once I started it was kind of weak. But i found a nice 2h Mace with crazy high damage and Int. Put pestilence run on it and it will kill everything pretty much with the exception of bosses / champs and the like. Ive had many 30+ kills with a single move since i started using it. It actually seems like it is something that will get nerfed quickly.
I use Locust swarm to open up and just let it spread like mad and use the poison dart with splinters to kill bigger guys.
I still use Zombie Dogs. they can be great to hang out next to and in case of emergency sacrifice them (only if you have more on cool down, have a garg up or feel like risking it with Next of Kin)
Great Thread Topic! I'm level 20, so keep that in context.
The Gargantuan is AWESOME. Nice to have a powerful tank.
Big surprise was Circle of Life passive w/ NO Summon Zombie dogs.
When approaching mobs, I use spirit walk, surround myself with enemies, Siphon Souls, choose an angle to maximize Firebats AOE, and then hold down the trigger and mow them down. With circle of life, I usually gain a new pup by doing thish. I usually have 2 or 3 dogs at any given time. To get an active trait (zombie dogs) by only spending a passive is nice.
Also I am big fan of Haunt with Consuming Spirit. Against bosses, elites, and others, it's nice to drop a few haunts and I do DOT and heal. The heal is a bit slow so in some situations I have to kite, but for the most part it is sufficient.
Also Blood Ritual does not drain my health, even while channeling firebats. I guess my health regen is too high:)
Not worth starting a thread over this one, but did you notice there is no point of Bad Medicine unless you already have Jungle Fortitude. Jungle fortitude gives you 20% damage reduction unconditionally, where as bad medicine gives you 20% damage reduction ONLY if the enemy is poisoned. So the only point is if you combine Bad medicine with Jungle fortitude. I'm not going to do that, but maybe in inferno it is a good idea. That'll get you 40% damage reduction, not too shabby.
BTW, tough choice between Jaunt & Honored Guest rune for Spirit Walk. Advantage of Jaunt is it is good for clearing levels. But that 30% mana refill is REALLY nice too.
Not worth starting a thread over this one, but did you notice there is no point of Bad Medicine unless you already have Jungle Fortitude. Jungle fortitude gives you 20% damage reduction unconditionally, where as bad medicine gives you 20% damage reduction ONLY if the enemy is poisoned. So the only point is if you combine Bad medicine with Jungle fortitude. I'm not going to do that, but maybe in inferno it is a good idea. That'll get you 40% damage reduction, not too shabby.
those damage reductions dont add up but multiply. so its not 40% damage reduction but rather 36% dr
So far, disappointed with Zombie charger, first rune still loses to unruned Locust. Second is "slightly" better, but require zombies to at worst 2 shot enemies, and even then they move slowly and miss. Waiting for more unlocks.
Circle of Life has way too low chance, it takes ages to get dog, and then it's one shotted by some monster types anyway. Not worth the risk of getting closer than optimal to foes.
Dislike the haunt, Locust does similar job, but faster, and spread to everything by itself, with only downside of having to be closer to apply it. Runes may change it later.
On positives, Locust is what I expected, if not better, sick damage and 'feeling'. Zombie Dogs actually do some decent damage to finish up stragglers (but they add too much chaos to my liking). Acid Cloud is overkill to Locust, but still nice to juggle between those two. I love the Spirit Walk, saves against those wallers and knockback-stunlock mobs.
What no positive on Firebomb! maybe because I just got it, but I am loving it...
abit dissapointed in my zombie dogs dying all the time, but I might try that circle of life without Dogs summoned like Khrull777 mentioned
What no positive on Firebomb! maybe because I just got it, but I am loving it...
abit dissapointed in my zombie dogs dying all the time, but I might try that circle of life without Dogs summoned like Khrull777 mentioned
Circle of Life is a lot of fun, but it has to match your play style or it will be ineffective. For awhile, I was wondering why I hadn't rolled a new dog for quite some time. Then I remembered, I was relying on others tanking too much and wasn't getting in the fray (enemies have to die w/in a few yards of you). When I went back to Spirit Walk into the mobs, siphon, then vampire bats, I started raising dogs again. They're pretty consistent. If you're doing it right, you will usually have more than one dog at any given time.
BTW, tough choice between Jaunt & Honored Guest rune for Spirit Walk. Advantage of Jaunt is it is good for clearing levels. But that 30% mana refill is REALLY nice too.
I picked up Honor Guest once I hit late Nightmare and now on to hell. My current build is rocking it... I didn't even switch up my build on Nightmare Diablo, it took him out no problem.
I will warn you... it's difficult to play well. You need to manage your cooldowns well but if you do, you can spam firebats all day long... even on bosses. Also... Zombie Wall - Pile On is REALLY HARD to aim. It will take some practice but once you get good.... even on Hell I'm nearly 1 shotting unique bosses with it... every time it connects I laugh with glee at how high the numbers are.
BTW, tough choice between Jaunt & Honored Guest rune for Spirit Walk. Advantage of Jaunt is it is good for clearing levels. But that 30% mana refill is REALLY nice too.
I picked up Honor Guest once I hit late Nightmare and now on to hell. My current build is rocking it... I didn't even switch up my build on Nightmare Diablo, it took him out no problem.
I will warn you... it's difficult to play well. You need to manage your cooldowns well but if you do, you can spam firebats all day long... even on bosses. Also... Zombie Wall - Pile On is REALLY HARD to aim. It will take some practice but once you get good.... even on Hell I'm nearly 1 shotting unique bosses with it... every time it connects I laugh with glee at how high the numbers are.
Nice job on your build. Bold decision to not go with a standard primary attack. I was wondering how you fit all those cool abilities into your build.
Multi shot. I knew it would be a big arc of arrows, what I didn't know is that it would be a couple ROWS of big arcs at once. They don't pierce but they do hit separately, so if the first row of demons die your one shot will continue on.
Ice arrow rune for elemental arrow. The description didn't add that after it hits it seeks pretty damn far onto the next guy, while also slowing everything around it. Found it awesome =D
Edit; Oh and twin chakrams. Those fucking decimate at the low level you get the rune.
Multi shot. I knew it would be a big arc of arrows, what I didn't know is that it would be a couple ROWS of big arcs at once. They don't pierce but they do hit separately, so if the first row of demons die your one shot will continue on.
Ice arrow rune for elemental arrow. The description didn't add that after it hits it seeks pretty damn far onto the next guy, while also slowing everything around it. Found it awesome =D
Edit; Oh and twin chakrams. Those fucking decimate at the low level you get the rune.
Somehow I don't think that was intended for this thread?
Wait, why hasn't anyone mentioned Soul Harvest yet? I never sat down and thought through how powerful it was until now. I mean, with no runes it can more than double your damage (last I checked it was like 150% extra). Plus the heals/mana/whatever other runes there are. That thing is just insane. Of course, it'll probably be tempered in Hell/Inferno by the WD being too squishy to get close to anything to use it.
I never expected to see Next of Kin & Sacrifice being as powerful as they are. I'm lv36, towards teh end of act 2(skipped some >.>) and the damage is just phenomenal. 60 second CD is painful, but I had one fight earlier where I sacced all 4, got them all back, did it again, got 3 back, sacced em again, and 1 lone dog walked up to me with a dead miniboss. 'twas awesome.
All around how I expected it, except for sacrifice, it's amazing.
I was surprised by Hex quite a bit. I didn't try it until NM mode when my group was getting our asses handed to us by elites. There is only a 2 second down time between uses with it and it makes elites too easy! The added damage to the chickened mobs is a nice bonus too. Before using it I thought the hedge magic rune would only heal allies and not turn monsters into chickens but I was wrong - you get chickens and heals! It appears to target the person with the lowest HP for heals (as long as they are close enough) but I need to test that out more to be certain. I am sure I will be using this in inferno mode to take down elites.
Also, soul harvest is almost OP! As long as I have it on I seem to be doing a very large chunk of the damage in groups.
Zombie Charger - Undeath: Is this skill broken? First off... the range is pathetic... I was not expecting that. Second.... if it kills something it doesn't appear to summon another zombie to me... what gives?
It's not broken, just doesn't work the way you would want it to. If they the zombie kills an enemy it spawns the other zombies where the enemy died not at you. I agree this skill is not as good as I expected, mostly because how slow and how small of a range the zombies have. Has potential for close quarters perhaps.
Also, I am using the same exact build as you except for 1 passive (which I'm going to switch when I get back in game and test it) and Jaunt and Garg rune. I was using the Cleave Garg rune for all of normal but the tougher elites in NM makes Restless Giant rune better IMO. Most non-elite mobs die pretty fast from a few dire bats so the cleave isn't really necessary. Restless Giant also works to signal when an elite comes near as it grows HUGE, I find it very usefull when I'm busy fighting and don't notice the elites about to gank me! The 120 second cooldown is stupid because you can just recast the Garg every 60 seconds and it starts the effect over again. I can usually use it 2-3 times on most elite monsters, this is grouped up mind you.
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For me
Positive:
Spirit Walk - Jaunt: I wasn't on the spirit walk is useless band wagon but I didn't think it would be this useful. The speed boost is massive and that makes it a must have for leveling up. Just using it to cruise through cleared content is so useful. The best thing though is that you can use skills while spirit walked so you can get 5 stacks of soul harvest or cast a few spells without getting attacked and it's great for getting out of bad situations.
Hex - Hedge Magic: I didn't think I'd need healing so early... but the healing from this spell is so nice. I LOVE that he'll cast an instant heal the moment you cast the spell so if I need a heal, I cast it... instant heal. The hex part is more helpful than I thought. It actually works on Rares and mini-bosses. Nothing funnier than chain hexing a hard rare.
Spirit Vessel - I'm on Act 2 nightmare right now and there's already a ton of spike damage. Usually, when I die it's a spike of unexpected damage and ever since I put spirit Vessel on... I rarely die.
Wall Of Zombies - hahaha... I had a lot of fun with this skill on the first Act boss. When he would charge... guess what happens if you put up a zombie wall in front of him? It's like hitting a brick wall! Pretty funny to watch but yeah... it does decent damage when you put it up... I approve of this skill.
Garg: Holy crap this guy can tank like a champ. I didn't expect him to stay alive on bosses but even on Diablo himself, this guy would last most of the fight. He does some decent damage as well.
Negative:
Zombie Charger - Undeath: Is this skill broken? First off... the range is pathetic... I was not expecting that. Second.... if it kills something it doesn't appear to summon another zombie to me... what gives?
Locust Swarm: Why is the range on this so small and why does it seem to cast it even if you're out of range and waste your mana and not debuff the mob? Maybe I wasn't noticing the effect on the mobs... but if I cast this on range it appeared that the mob did not get debuffed but it cast it anyway.
Big Bad Voodoo: I wasn't keen on this ability before.... but holy crap I forgot how long 2 minutes really is... I can't stand having this on my bar.
Zombie Dogs: I didn't give them much of a chance since I played Act 1 and 2 with a group so I didn't use them. But when I briefly put them back on my bar in Act 3 they'd die a lot so I removed them and didn't really miss it. The garg was tanking like a champ and kept things off me well enough.
Here's what I'm running on my lvl 38 WD in Nightmare. http://us.battle.net...RdUT!bXV!aaaZaa. Works freaking great... 2 shot almost everything.
What skills surprised you?
Positive:
Chakram - I saw this skill and in the videos and thought it spun in too odd a pattern and would never be useful. Wow was I wrong you can spam these bad boys for a more than fair damage return add in the AOE. I would drop some entangling shots and just let 5 or 6 of these fly into a mob and they would definately mo them down effectively.
Tactical Advantage (passive) - I felt like I had enigma from D2 lol. I would vault run hyper speed for 2 seconds rinse and repeat. I was always initiating fights as the Demon Hunter heh im sure I wont be doing this past normal, but It was great convering so much ground so quickly.
Negative:
Impale - Was suppossed to be a super powerful spell, and it is. My problem is that it isn't "fun" to use, and I always more efficient and effective using rapid fire for single target. I think it will still be effective for pvp or even in later difficulties, but I am not too sure.
However. I am very impressed with the potential of Locust Swarm. I didnt use it much until about act 3 or so. Once I started it was kind of weak. But i found a nice 2h Mace with crazy high damage and Int. Put pestilence run on it and it will kill everything pretty much with the exception of bosses / champs and the like. Ive had many 30+ kills with a single move since i started using it. It actually seems like it is something that will get nerfed quickly.
I use Locust swarm to open up and just let it spread like mad and use the poison dart with splinters to kill bigger guys.
I still use Zombie Dogs. they can be great to hang out next to and in case of emergency sacrifice them (only if you have more on cool down, have a garg up or feel like risking it with Next of Kin)
The Gargantuan is AWESOME. Nice to have a powerful tank.
Big surprise was Circle of Life passive w/ NO Summon Zombie dogs.
When approaching mobs, I use spirit walk, surround myself with enemies, Siphon Souls, choose an angle to maximize Firebats AOE, and then hold down the trigger and mow them down. With circle of life, I usually gain a new pup by doing thish. I usually have 2 or 3 dogs at any given time. To get an active trait (zombie dogs) by only spending a passive is nice.
Also I am big fan of Haunt with Consuming Spirit. Against bosses, elites, and others, it's nice to drop a few haunts and I do DOT and heal. The heal is a bit slow so in some situations I have to kite, but for the most part it is sufficient.
Also Blood Ritual does not drain my health, even while channeling firebats. I guess my health regen is too high:)
Not worth starting a thread over this one, but did you notice there is no point of Bad Medicine unless you already have Jungle Fortitude. Jungle fortitude gives you 20% damage reduction unconditionally, where as bad medicine gives you 20% damage reduction ONLY if the enemy is poisoned. So the only point is if you combine Bad medicine with Jungle fortitude. I'm not going to do that, but maybe in inferno it is a good idea. That'll get you 40% damage reduction, not too shabby.
Circle of Life has way too low chance, it takes ages to get dog, and then it's one shotted by some monster types anyway. Not worth the risk of getting closer than optimal to foes.
Dislike the haunt, Locust does similar job, but faster, and spread to everything by itself, with only downside of having to be closer to apply it. Runes may change it later.
On positives, Locust is what I expected, if not better, sick damage and 'feeling'. Zombie Dogs actually do some decent damage to finish up stragglers (but they add too much chaos to my liking). Acid Cloud is overkill to Locust, but still nice to juggle between those two. I love the Spirit Walk, saves against those wallers and knockback-stunlock mobs.
abit dissapointed in my zombie dogs dying all the time, but I might try that circle of life without Dogs summoned like Khrull777 mentioned
Circle of Life is a lot of fun, but it has to match your play style or it will be ineffective. For awhile, I was wondering why I hadn't rolled a new dog for quite some time. Then I remembered, I was relying on others tanking too much and wasn't getting in the fray (enemies have to die w/in a few yards of you). When I went back to Spirit Walk into the mobs, siphon, then vampire bats, I started raising dogs again. They're pretty consistent. If you're doing it right, you will usually have more than one dog at any given time.
I picked up Honor Guest once I hit late Nightmare and now on to hell. My current build is rocking it... I didn't even switch up my build on Nightmare Diablo, it took him out no problem.
Here it is... http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ckRdUT!bUV!aYaYZZ
I will warn you... it's difficult to play well. You need to manage your cooldowns well but if you do, you can spam firebats all day long... even on bosses. Also... Zombie Wall - Pile On is REALLY HARD to aim. It will take some practice but once you get good.... even on Hell I'm nearly 1 shotting unique bosses with it... every time it connects I laugh with glee at how high the numbers are.
Nice job on your build. Bold decision to not go with a standard primary attack. I was wondering how you fit all those cool abilities into your build.
Multi shot. I knew it would be a big arc of arrows, what I didn't know is that it would be a couple ROWS of big arcs at once. They don't pierce but they do hit separately, so if the first row of demons die your one shot will continue on.
Ice arrow rune for elemental arrow. The description didn't add that after it hits it seeks pretty damn far onto the next guy, while also slowing everything around it. Found it awesome =D
Edit; Oh and twin chakrams. Those fucking decimate at the low level you get the rune.
Somehow I don't think that was intended for this thread?
All around how I expected it, except for sacrifice, it's amazing.
Also, soul harvest is almost OP! As long as I have it on I seem to be doing a very large chunk of the damage in groups.
It's not broken, just doesn't work the way you would want it to. If they the zombie kills an enemy it spawns the other zombies where the enemy died not at you. I agree this skill is not as good as I expected, mostly because how slow and how small of a range the zombies have. Has potential for close quarters perhaps.
Also, I am using the same exact build as you except for 1 passive (which I'm going to switch when I get back in game and test it) and Jaunt and Garg rune. I was using the Cleave Garg rune for all of normal but the tougher elites in NM makes Restless Giant rune better IMO. Most non-elite mobs die pretty fast from a few dire bats so the cleave isn't really necessary. Restless Giant also works to signal when an elite comes near as it grows HUGE, I find it very usefull when I'm busy fighting and don't notice the elites about to gank me! The 120 second cooldown is stupid because you can just recast the Garg every 60 seconds and it starts the effect over again. I can usually use it 2-3 times on most elite monsters, this is grouped up mind you.