Female Witch Doctor and Ladder Reset Time Announced

The female version of the Witch Doctor is now viewable from the official Diablo III site!

[flash="width=200 height=200"]http://us.media.bliz...itch-female.swf[/flash]


Official Blizzard Quote:



Female witch doctor has been added to Diablo3.com including 7 screenshots, two concepts, and her in-game model! http://cot.ag/TaIv1


With the unveiling of the female Witch Doctor, we also got a little more information on exactly how the Witch Doctor plays. With the controversy of whether or not the Witch Doctor is replacing the Necromancer of Diablo II (Blizzard has already said he is not but some beg do differ), we got one more morsel of information showing how he is not. A user on Battle.net asked if the Witch Doctor's pets were going to be similar to the Necro's in the sense of being a zoo keeper. Basically, you keep your pets alive while they kill everything. You toss out a spell (curse) or two and then just res more skeletons. Another user commented on the Witch Doctor's spell DiabloWiki.com - Fetish Army Fetish Army, adding to this idea. Bashiok responded with this statement:

Official Blizzard Quote:



Fetish army is really the only mass-summon spell the witch doctor has. The fetish army spell effects are coming along too, it's looking pretty amazing.

But it's really more of an AoE that happens to do its damage by sending out little dudes to fight.

The witch doctor is more about using a small number of summons as damage soaks, and then casting spells for the majority of his damage. Some of which are themselves larger one-off summons. He's not a mass summoner, that's just not the intended flavor of the class.


Basically, Bashiok said that the Witch Doctor's summons are not really meant to lead the fight. Instead, his summons are used more as of a distraction so that the Witch Doctor is free to cast some DiabloWiki.com - Firebats Firebats, DiabloWiki.com - Soul Harvest Soul Harvest, DiabloWiki.com - Plague of Toads Plague of Toads, DiabloWiki.com - Skull Flame Skull Flame or the many other offensive skills at his disposal (See Here).

While the Witch Doctor does have quite a few summons, it looks like these summons such as the DiabloWiki.com - Gargantuan Gargantuan and DiabloWiki.com - Zombie Charger Zombie Charger will not be a huge offensive force like the Necro's legion of Skeletons, Mages and Revived monsters. In my opinion, the Witch Doctor's summons act more like the Druid's summons. Where the Zombie Dogs are equal to his wolves and the Gargantuan acts similar to the Grizzly. While nice companions, anyone who has played a summon Druid (my favorite class build) knows that these pets were not strong enough on their own. They needed the character to be in the action with them. Either mixed with shapeshifting or elemental, the Druid had to continue to fight along with his pets.

This difference once again helps differ the Witch Doctor with the Necromancer, possibly leaving room for his return in an expansion.


Thanks to Dauroth for the PM and credit goes to Ka$h for the awesomely speedy first thread!


Also, Bashiok updated us on the time of the Ladder Reset tomorrow:


Official Blizzard Quote:



The Diablo II realms will be brought down at approximately 9:00 AM PDT, March 23 to reset the ladder and release the 1.13 patch.

We anticipate this maintenance could take as long as six hours from the time the realms are brought down. We'll provide more information if that estimate changes.

Thanks to Marshall for spotting this!



/Written by ScyberDragon

Comments

  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.
Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes