What else can the Witch Doctor summon?

**Naja** · 12-07-2008, 21:41

I personally like the idea of Mongrels a lot. The idea of an undead animal is quite original, in my opinion. That you can empower them with your fire and poison damage skills is doubly awesome.

What other summoned creatures can you see the Witch Doctor bringing into (undead) existence? And how do you see it?

Will we see a return to more traditional undead entities (Skeletons or Revives), or something new, like Mummies and/or Zombies?

How should these other pets be summoned: out of nothing, like the Mongrels, out of a corpse, or out of an item?

Considering that the Witch Doctor is a master at alchemy, it would be interesting if he could summon minions out of certain kinds of potions.

In the spirit of RPG summoning characters, the Witch Doctor probably needs a few different archetypes of minions: the multitude of weak followers, a ranged attacker or spellcaster, and one singularly strong minion to tank monsters.

This is just brainstorming, of course. Blizzard is already showing significant signs of originality in its ideas, and I can't wait to see them bear fruit.

What can you imagine?

**Dimmu** · 12-07-2008, 23:01

I could see him summoning some kind of ghost/wraith/spirit, or something of that nature. I think you'd only be able to summon one of this and it would drain life from enemies which is transferred to you.

Spirits and ghosts are tied heavily with witch doctor voodoo type stuff, so it just makes sense.

**DeadorK** · 13-07-2008, 01:06

I think the Witch Doctor would probably be more used to taking control of things, other than summoning them (vodoo dolls, etc). But I can imagine him summoning spirits.

**ill logic** · 13-07-2008, 03:32

I'd agree. I think they'll be a nice split between fleshy summons and spirits summoned, but no skeletons. I want to see something w/ AoE attacks, perhaps a stunning stomp skill *runs off to get health globe*

There must be a ranged summon.

Lich
- Level 24 required. Skills: Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Bone Armor, Decrepify (lowest frequency)
Necromancers have never been known for their reluctance in exploring arcane arts that some would consider unnatural. Violent battle with the Prime Evils have led some to believe that greater service to maintain the Great Cycle of Being is necessary. Taking their knowledge gained from physical experimentation in mastering the revival of creatures in an inviolate status, some Necromancers have themselves transformed into the immortal undead--tethered to phylacteries on the mortal realm. It is a rite of passage for especially skilled Witch Doctors to steal these vessels and force the liches into servitude. They will, for a time, until they can secure the means of their release.

10 potential curses:
1. River Turned to Blood
2. Frogs.
3. Lice.
4. Flies.
5. Death of Livestock.
6. Boils.
7. Hail.
8. Locusts.
9. Darkness.
10. Death of the First Born.

**AxlStrife** · 13-07-2008, 03:38

Originally Posted by ill logic

10. Death of the First Born.

That sounds so bad*** I want it to be a skill. Possibly "When an enemy affected by this dies, CE effect", of course it would only affect one creature, otherwise it'd be stupid-good.

I wonder if the Mind Control effect be a curse or an effect such as the death of a summon. I can't wait to see the other Witch Doctor stuff.

**imjustsomeguy** · 13-07-2008, 04:30

I'm hoping the WD summons work like the D2 Necro and not the Druid where you had to choose between the wolves and the bear. It would be nice to get a decent sized army going to lag out all the necro/WD hating scrubs :cool:

Both the Necro and Druid had the DPS summons (skellies/mages/wolves) and tank type summon (golems/bear) so I'm guessing the WD will have some kind of tank summon that can survive against bosses, most likely toward the end of the skill tree.

Now that I think about it, Undead Mongrels are kind of a blend of the wolves and skellies, perhaps a large undead animal will act as the tank. Undead woolly mamoth anyone?

**DeadorK** · 13-07-2008, 05:05

Originally Posted by ill logic

10 potential curses:
1. River Turned to Blood
2. Frogs.
3. Lice.
4. Flies.
5. Death of Livestock.
6. Boils.
7. Hail.
8. Locusts.
9. Darkness.
10. Death of the First Born.

All Witch Doctors would have the name "Moses".

**5zigen** · 13-07-2008, 09:55

Summoning wraiths or ghosts seems like it would be awesome for the flavor of the game.

It's an option I hadn't thought of.

Perhaps another thing they could summon would be ghouls (like in the demo). I think a ghoul seems like a better summon because it's faster than a zombie, it isn't a rehash of the skeleton from the necromancer and it's sort of new to D3 (dscounting the ghoul zombie model).

The only misgiving I would have with that is that the ghoul looks an awful lot like the mongrels in general.

**Naja** · 13-07-2008, 18:35

I'm really a fan of the Blood Golem concept, of having a tank summon that is tied in with the caster's health. It forces you to accept risks, and serves as an effective trade-off. It was one of the most original concepts in D2.

The only problem was that it (along with the other Golems) never did any real damage past Act 3 Normal, and its health never scaled.

If the Witch Doctor had a summon like the Blood Golem that actually did relevant damage and had adequate hit points, it would be a pretty cool development for the game.

**Hodl Pu** · 13-07-2008, 19:19

I got this idea from a post I made earlier today. As I posted it, I realized, hey this sounds like a cool skill idea!

Originally Posted by Hodl Pu

I have no negative feelings about the Witch doctor really. His role of using Zombies fits since in Haiti (I think) there were incidents of witch doctors manipulating people using puffer fish poison and forcing them to do work (which are considered slave zombeis).

In Boma Congo the tribes used the Nkisi Nkonde, a nail figurine to communicate with the dead. Not really in an evil sense, but for people to communicate with their dead loved ones. Witch Doctors used these Nail figurines for evil, communicating with demons. Perhaps this could be an item for the Witch Doctor class

How about a Demon Manipulation skill? Control maybe, a Max of 1-3 Demon type monsters only. Depending what level your summon mastery is (if that exists) provides an X number of bonuses for your manipulated demon. Just a thought for a skill, not really a summon skill but close!