Well I guess I better expand my original post since there is a lot of debate here. First off, I have never played any of the other classes beyond beta so if you're looking for someone who can compare classes by experience, stop reading.
What I meant by awesome is that, to me, the WD is the most unique class in D3 like the necro was in D2. All other classes have been somewhat 'done' before in other video games and D2. <- This is obviously strongly opinionated so don't interpret it as me stating a fact.
What I meant by powerful is that I've cleared the game on it's hardest difficulty with the WD (and with 20k less DPS than what I currently do) and I can farm wherever I please. This, to me, is a sufficiently successful class in D3. Sure the DH and Wiz can probably do more damage, but from experience that do lack some better attributes that the WD has. I've duo'd with DH's in inferno whimsyshire (some with almost double my reported 'DPS' on the character sheet) and yet I still found that they died way more often and did pretty much the same damage as I did.
WD DOES have the best crowd control in the game. With Spirit Walk, Hex, Grasp and Wall of Zombies, I barely die anymore and can escape from almost any situation. People who say they should lower the CD on Spirit Walk to make it more like smoke screen, NO. Use your skills properly and they become better than smoke screen.
For people who say that the WD is very 1-dimensional and the only viable build is with poison darts I do agree mostly. But how is this different from the DH spamming tentacles which is what I see all of them do. However, I actually enjoy the darts play-style and with enough AS it becomes a pretty fun machine gun. If you're looking for a wide range of skill viability then WD is probably not your class. Zombie bears is fun but I don't see it useful outside of boss fights due to its high mana costa and close range, therefore having no long-term viability.
And now for the obligatory 'WD pets suck' comment. They do suck. Hard. And it's sad because I perceived them to be the most unique and characterizing aspect of the WD before I realized they were useless in inferno. However I am extremely hopeful about them getting a buff. This isn't something Blizzard would shake off and ignore. And if they do, the wrath of thousands of fanboys will continue to rain fire on them via forum posts. I look forward to using them again when Blizz fixes their stats, and then truly the WD will be the best ranged everrrrrr.
My next class will be monk since the WD is all I'll ever need in a ranged class and sufficiently performs all of my goals regardless of whether the DH or Wiz can do it faster and with more stylei
I stopped playing my witch doctor as soon as i cleared act 1 inferno (cleared it with boring bear spec within hours of hitting 60). The primary reason I rolled this class versus wizard or DH was for the pets. I had fun all the way up to 60 then it lost the most appealing aspect for me.
The fact is that in the current state everything pretty much forces witch doctors to take poison dart - splinters build.
Few examples:
1) The other primaries are worthless in comparison to poison dart
2) You get 3 chances to crit instead of just one with splinters rune
3) Poison dart has the highest range
4) You need to stay as far away as possible because you get 2-shotted at best.
5) DoTs don't scale with attack speed, the best one is melee-ranged and they don't even have cooldowns to be useful in VQ-builds.
6) Pets are worthless in the endgame
7) Most skills cost too much mana and / or have long cooldowns.
Sure I kid around with DoTs and other uncommon skills like spirit barrage in Act 2 and 3, but poison dart is much more effective and works better in most situations.
PS: Vision Quest and Zombie Bears is viable at least from Act 1 to Act 3 and it works well. I haven't played Act 4 yet.
How the hell you make VQ and zombie bears viable on elite packs and such, you can only dps effectively every 2 minutes and the other time you are useless.
Saying Zombie bears works well past act 1 is just a horrible lie.
"viable" for some people probably means they can clear the act over 10 hours. for me, it means running through rare/champion packs and getting a rare item every minute or two (which is why i am a DH now)
I have a level 60 monk, and I must say I am having twice as much fun on my 54 wd leveling than I did as a monk. This isn't to say monk was boring at all, I thought it was also very fun.
after reading Scrim's post I really hope he is a bit incorrect and just hasn't played around with the class enough, but I'm throroughly enjoying (and blasting through) the pre-inferno content. I agree about the lengthy cooldowns though, but that's something I feel needs to be reworked on all classes. (there should not be wow-length cooldowns in a diablo style game, honestly.)
I have a level 60 monk, and I must say I am having twice as much fun on my 54 wd leveling than I did as a monk. This isn't to say monk was boring at all, I thought it was also very fun.
after reading Scrim's post I really hope he is a bit incorrect and just hasn't played around with the class enough, but I'm throroughly enjoying (and blasting through) the pre-inferno content. I agree about the lengthy cooldowns though, but that's something I feel needs to be reworked on all classes. (there should not be wow-length cooldowns in a diablo style game, honestly.)
The WD is amazing fun all the way up until act 2 inferno. I have high hopes that it'll be fun again with the damage reduction nerf to inferno.
@ Xago... I agree with pretty much everything you said but I enjoy spamming darts much less than you sadly. I picked the WD because it was the most unique class and it WAS the most unique class... until level 60. Here's hoping that more builds than darts will start to become viable in future patches.
I have a 60 Wizard and a 60 WD and WD is better by far. People who call him underpowered don't know how to play him. Wizard is weak as fuck, he has no good disables, and even his slows are mostly garbage. He is reduced to kiting people infinitely while chipping away with hydra and mm.
WD can deal stupid damage, has better escapes and disables, and has much better passives; 20% DR vs everything, 20% damage increase without defense drop, and Vessel which is stupidly good.
I don't even understand how this is an argument. The only class that could be called better is DH, and that's debatable (especially for HC).
as wizard I must say that you guys dont rly know what you are talking about, like the guy above said, the wizards passives are all more or less shit in a can, so we have to chose which one to eat it. Other than that we are all forced to use force armor unless you have godlike resists and armor to use prismatic, but then your dps will be a joke as you will need a shield and need lots of life reg in gear also.... other than that remember that the DPS most wiz say they deal(which appears in the char screen) is not the real damage they deliver as force weapon is bugged, so maybe u can take out some 10/15% of that damage.... and finally our slow sucks and yeah we have to kite forever against rares, so to conclude we can take down vanilla mobs and bosses fine, but when it comes down to some annoying rares/elites then we just simply dont have that burst damage other ranged classes have...
Ah yes, because you can't accomplish something anyone saying that it's possible HAS to be ignorant. Stop making things up to try and support your point. Obviously if you don't know what you are doing, the WD won't keep up with other classes.
How the hell you make VQ and zombie bears viable on elite packs and such, you can only dps effectively every 2 minutes and the other time you are useless.
Saying Zombie bears works well past act 1 is just a horrible lie.
Again, because you can't do it means it's not possible? With the correct spells Bears and Bats are almost spammable. VQ is a passive and Bears don't have a cooldown, so this 'can only dps effectively every 2 minutes' statement of yours is vastly wrong. The fact of the matter is that it works for plenty of people. There are many videos around showing how good Bears are past Inferno Act 1. Either your gear isn't up to par or you just aren't that good at playing the class. That's just a fact that several in this thread need to come to grips with.
That's certainly not a knock on you or anyone else. I suck at baking. The difference here as that I don't yell at the mixer for putting in too much flour or blame the oven for burning my cookies.
Bears worked great in Act 1 because you could actually take a few hits without dying. Trying to use bears past act 1 is only good if you don't care about graveyard zerging.
They are horrible in Act 2 because a lot of things run away or jump around so it's really hard to hit them with bears. Wasps and Lacuni are beyond annoying compared to a dart build.
In act 3/4 you get 1 shot by pretty much anything so it's WAY WAY too risky to use bears compared to staying at ranged and using darts. I'm not saying it's impossible to use bears in Act 3/4 but it's way too dangerous and not a very good choice compared to using Darts. Darts are the safer option and that's the reason a majority of players in Act 3/4 use Darts.
With the correct spells Bears and Bats are almost spammable. VQ is a passive and Bears don't have a cooldown, so this 'can only dps effectively every 2 minutes' statement of yours is vastly wrong. The fact of the matter is that it works for plenty of people.
For me, Bears and Bats are spammable, unless under Frenzy Shrine or BBV effect. Although at the moment, I do have a little to much MPS, 200, with VQ up. Regardless, I've used Bears/Bats in Act 2/3/4 and the pony level with great success. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ckUTQP!UVe!aaaZbb
Sometimes I swap Garg for MC with cd reduction rune or for Hex with increased dmg rune.
Hey, level 60 WD here, at Act 2 of Inferno. Also it is my main and only class.
I really think the class is fun, good variety of skills, interesting design. But what bothers me is that you have just some really viable skills.
For example, I love playing Acid Cloud... Just love to see demons melting. The graphic effect of Acid Cloud on the floor is amazing. The sound effect is also amazing ("tsssssssssssssss!"). I have used Acid Cloud untill I unlocked the Bears. And, that's what bothers me... after unlocking it, there is no reason to use Acid Cloud anymore... Bears are cheaper and do more damage.
Of course you can say that the range of Bears is shorter than AC, but every rune of AC that allows you to cast it anywhere on the screen just have a terrible damage output... The only one that is closer, but still lower damage, is Kiss of Death... which has almost the same, if not the same, range of Bears. And it costs more mana... So... you are almost obligated to play Bears.
Add to that the "darts dependency", "useless pets", "mana starvation" and you can have a picture of WD class... Unfortunately...
Hope Blizzard addresses some of these aspects in future patches...
See ya!
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http://www.diablofan...inferno-videos/
I know how powerful they are, i just find my WD extremely boring to play sadly
What I meant by awesome is that, to me, the WD is the most unique class in D3 like the necro was in D2. All other classes have been somewhat 'done' before in other video games and D2. <- This is obviously strongly opinionated so don't interpret it as me stating a fact.
What I meant by powerful is that I've cleared the game on it's hardest difficulty with the WD (and with 20k less DPS than what I currently do) and I can farm wherever I please. This, to me, is a sufficiently successful class in D3. Sure the DH and Wiz can probably do more damage, but from experience that do lack some better attributes that the WD has. I've duo'd with DH's in inferno whimsyshire (some with almost double my reported 'DPS' on the character sheet) and yet I still found that they died way more often and did pretty much the same damage as I did.
WD DOES have the best crowd control in the game. With Spirit Walk, Hex, Grasp and Wall of Zombies, I barely die anymore and can escape from almost any situation. People who say they should lower the CD on Spirit Walk to make it more like smoke screen, NO. Use your skills properly and they become better than smoke screen.
For people who say that the WD is very 1-dimensional and the only viable build is with poison darts I do agree mostly. But how is this different from the DH spamming tentacles which is what I see all of them do. However, I actually enjoy the darts play-style and with enough AS it becomes a pretty fun machine gun. If you're looking for a wide range of skill viability then WD is probably not your class. Zombie bears is fun but I don't see it useful outside of boss fights due to its high mana costa and close range, therefore having no long-term viability.
And now for the obligatory 'WD pets suck' comment. They do suck. Hard. And it's sad because I perceived them to be the most unique and characterizing aspect of the WD before I realized they were useless in inferno. However I am extremely hopeful about them getting a buff. This isn't something Blizzard would shake off and ignore. And if they do, the wrath of thousands of fanboys will continue to rain fire on them via forum posts. I look forward to using them again when Blizz fixes their stats, and then truly the WD will be the best ranged everrrrrr.
My next class will be monk since the WD is all I'll ever need in a ranged class and sufficiently performs all of my goals regardless of whether the DH or Wiz can do it faster and with more stylei
http://www.diablofan...inferno-videos/
"viable" for some people probably means they can clear the act over 10 hours. for me, it means running through rare/champion packs and getting a rare item every minute or two (which is why i am a DH now)
after reading Scrim's post I really hope he is a bit incorrect and just hasn't played around with the class enough, but I'm throroughly enjoying (and blasting through) the pre-inferno content. I agree about the lengthy cooldowns though, but that's something I feel needs to be reworked on all classes. (there should not be wow-length cooldowns in a diablo style game, honestly.)
The WD is amazing fun all the way up until act 2 inferno. I have high hopes that it'll be fun again with the damage reduction nerf to inferno.
@ Xago... I agree with pretty much everything you said but I enjoy spamming darts much less than you sadly. I picked the WD because it was the most unique class and it WAS the most unique class... until level 60. Here's hoping that more builds than darts will start to become viable in future patches.
WD can deal stupid damage, has better escapes and disables, and has much better passives; 20% DR vs everything, 20% damage increase without defense drop, and Vessel which is stupidly good.
I don't even understand how this is an argument. The only class that could be called better is DH, and that's debatable (especially for HC).
Ah yes, because you can't accomplish something anyone saying that it's possible HAS to be ignorant. Stop making things up to try and support your point. Obviously if you don't know what you are doing, the WD won't keep up with other classes.
Again, because you can't do it means it's not possible? With the correct spells Bears and Bats are almost spammable. VQ is a passive and Bears don't have a cooldown, so this 'can only dps effectively every 2 minutes' statement of yours is vastly wrong. The fact of the matter is that it works for plenty of people. There are many videos around showing how good Bears are past Inferno Act 1. Either your gear isn't up to par or you just aren't that good at playing the class. That's just a fact that several in this thread need to come to grips with.
That's certainly not a knock on you or anyone else. I suck at baking. The difference here as that I don't yell at the mixer for putting in too much flour or blame the oven for burning my cookies.
They are horrible in Act 2 because a lot of things run away or jump around so it's really hard to hit them with bears. Wasps and Lacuni are beyond annoying compared to a dart build.
In act 3/4 you get 1 shot by pretty much anything so it's WAY WAY too risky to use bears compared to staying at ranged and using darts. I'm not saying it's impossible to use bears in Act 3/4 but it's way too dangerous and not a very good choice compared to using Darts. Darts are the safer option and that's the reason a majority of players in Act 3/4 use Darts.
For me, Bears and Bats are spammable, unless under Frenzy Shrine or BBV effect. Although at the moment, I do have a little to much MPS, 200, with VQ up. Regardless, I've used Bears/Bats in Act 2/3/4 and the pony level with great success. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ckUTQP!UVe!aaaZbb
Sometimes I swap Garg for MC with cd reduction rune or for Hex with increased dmg rune.
I really think the class is fun, good variety of skills, interesting design. But what bothers me is that you have just some really viable skills.
For example, I love playing Acid Cloud... Just love to see demons melting. The graphic effect of Acid Cloud on the floor is amazing. The sound effect is also amazing ("tsssssssssssssss!"). I have used Acid Cloud untill I unlocked the Bears. And, that's what bothers me... after unlocking it, there is no reason to use Acid Cloud anymore... Bears are cheaper and do more damage.
Of course you can say that the range of Bears is shorter than AC, but every rune of AC that allows you to cast it anywhere on the screen just have a terrible damage output... The only one that is closer, but still lower damage, is Kiss of Death... which has almost the same, if not the same, range of Bears. And it costs more mana... So... you are almost obligated to play Bears.
Add to that the "darts dependency", "useless pets", "mana starvation" and you can have a picture of WD class... Unfortunately...
Hope Blizzard addresses some of these aspects in future patches...
See ya!