Zombie Dogs CD

[pcguy]

The dogs gain durability with level, I believe. Depending on how they scale, they may be very tough in the later difficulties.

There is one rune affect which directly impacts the dogs' survivability:
Leeching Beasts, available at level 54, will allow the dogs to regain lost life. The more damage that is dealt, the more life is recovered. This skill is complemented nicely by passive skills such as Gruesome Feast and Pierce the Veil.

There are three Passive Skills which will affect Zombie Dogs directly:
1) Jungle Fortitude
Jungle Fortitude will decrease the damage the dogs take by 20%.

2) Zombie Handler
Zombie Handler will increase the durability of the dogs and add one extra dog.

3) Fierce Loyalty
Fierce Loyalty will apply thorns and life regeneration equipment bonuses to pets.

There are several other passives that will complement the dogs indirectly.
1) Gruesome Feast
Gruesome Feast will increase the amount of damage the dogs do. Picking up health globes heals the dogs, so choosing skills and equipment which increases health globe drops is important to both the power of the dogs and the dogs' survivabilty.

2)Bad Medicine
If enemies are hit by poison damage, they will do less damage to the dogs for 3 seconds afterward. Choosing the Rabid Dogs rune complements this skill quite nicely.

3)Pierce the Veil
The dogs will do 20% increased damage, but cost additional mana to summon.

4) Grave Injustice
When an enemy dies in close proximity to the character, the cooldown of Zombie Dogs is reduced.

[Karpalo]

Will be interesting to see if leeching beasts share synergy with fierce loyalty. That kind of synergy could create some pretty interesting builds.

[Darkmere]

You guys are insane, they are dieing like flies when you met any stronger opponent, Skeleton King killed once all my dogs with one WW.

I'd be disappointed if a starter summoning skill with no/few passives backing them was able to tank a major quest boss. ZD's are crowd control; I assume Gargantuan will be the bigger solo-tank.

[Thrakhath]

One of the possible item effects is:

Summon Zombie Dogs: Cooldown reduced by 1-9 seconds (see the Witch Doctor Skill Affixes thread).

Obviously this is a small bonus, but definitely enough to make a difference.

[Soval]

Dogs aren't a one-size-fits-all solution, they are not supposed to be able to handle every situation you come across. Of curse tehy are going to die when they face bosses-- it's up to you the player to compensate for though opponents, not you pets.

If you need them on demand, if you want them to survive longer, if you need a stead supply for Sacrifice, you will have to go out of your way to pick the right runes and passives that fit those specific roles. It's not just going to happen by itself, you need to make the effort.

[Smash]

I'd be disappointed if a starter summoning skill with no/few passives backing them was able to tank a major quest boss. ZD's are crowd control; I assume Gargantuan will be the bigger solo-tank.

You on purpose ignored my part where i said that they die to mini-bosses and champions too? And what is wrong if they could tank SK to some degree? Barb with bash can nearly stun-lock him, making fight very easy and that is okey?

Dogs aren't a one-size-fits-all solution, they are not supposed to be able to handle every situation you come across. Of curse tehy are going to die when they face bosses-- it's up to you the player to compensate for though opponents, not you pets.

If you need them on demand, if you want them to survive longer, if you need a stead supply for Sacrifice, you will have to go out of your way to pick the right runes and passives that fit those specific roles. It's not just going to happen by itself, you need to make the effort.

They are weak on CC, weak on tankish and very weak on damage add to this ridiculous long cd and we can close the coffin.

Funny how people ignore how much you have invest into this dogs just to make them VIABLE... when other classes spells are just good to go.

If we were not limited in spells that maybe wasn't that big deal but it is.

[pcguy]

Funny how people ignore how much you have invest into this dogs just to make them VIABLE... when other classes spells are just good to go.

If we were not limited in spells that maybe wasn't that big deal but it is.

Smash, why are you hostile towards this idea? If people want to play as a class which focuses mainly on their pets, should they not be allowed to? It's just a playstyle difference. I see no reason why foregoing offensive casting capability for stronger pets would be a bad idea.

Once you get your pets to a point where they are extremely tough to kill, the usefulness of the skill should be inherent. If the Diablo 2 Necromanacer is anything to go by, the durable pets will be there to distract and damage enemies while you sit back and cast spells in relative safety.

What this ultimately means is that the WD will not have to equip as many defense-oriented items because the WD has used summons to help with that role. Perhaps the WD can now take some pieces of gear that would otherwise be deemed too risky by a character without durable summons. The gear equipped can have more offensive affixes on it because the pets are the ones who will be taking damage.

[Darkmere]

You on purpose ignored my part where i said that they die to mini-bosses and champions too? And what is wrong if they could tank SK to some degree?

No, I ignored what you said because I didn't have a problem with dogs dying constantly when I played beta. And I already answered the tank thing, but here it is again: You shouldn't be able to rely on a single spell for every enemy. Barbs can't efficiently bash their way through huge crowds, WD's can't use dogs to tank bosses. "Viable" doesn't mean "the single solution for every problem."

[Greymouse]

They are weak on CC, weak on tankish and very weak on damage add to this ridiculous long cd and we can close the coffin.

Funny how people ignore how much you have invest into this dogs just to make them VIABLE... when other classes spells are just good to go.

If we were not limited in spells that maybe wasn't that big deal but it is.

I understand what you're suggesting about the investment issue, that if they choose to make a build centered around dogs, they'll end up with a toon that needs two or three different ZD skill selections just to have the same killing power and benefits of maybe a single skill from another class. In that light, it would seem like a major opportunity loss. Because we don't know about some of the higher level skill mechanics, for either the ZD skills, or the alternate ones that one could equip instead, it's hard to debate the issue thoroughly right now.

Based on the open beta play though, I feel comfortable saying that I think the dogs are actually an effective CC, at least in the early game. I thought they were pretty good. They quickly sought out and aggro'd enemies, were easily able to tank regular mobs, and (at least in my play experience) made the WD less squishy of a caster class in the start game, before equipment adds. By the time the weekend ended, I was happily plowing through mobs, champs and skelly kings with 3 rabid dogs, sacrifice, haunt and splinter darts at the same speed as other classes I made or teamed up with.

Granted, by then, it was at a higher level than necessary for SK, but it was the mob/boss-clearing speed that was being compared to the other builds. Perceptually, it was just as fast, and didn't feel like the WD was any worse off. Even on the first solo SK kill, when one is getting a real sense of durability (i got to him at level 9 in a non-speed run, randomly exploring and collecting blues, so your mileage may vary), it didn't feel like it was a bad thing to lose the dogs in one or two swipes. When I resummoned them, they effectively kept the skeleton waves off of me, giving me more room to concentrate on SK. CC was effective then. It was just on that initial attack that they gunned for SK with no other targets around. Had to run around the throne room just as much as a wiz or DH during that first cooldown.

Anyways, I guess we'll see when we have a chance to build these things and find out if any of us are right. =]

[HardRock]

Funny how people ignore how much you have invest into this dogs just to make them VIABLE... when other classes spells are just good to go.

Despite what people saying that dogs are weak, my dogs never died in the beta outside the Leoric fight. Not once. I don't know where this idea came from that we'll need to invest heavily into ZD's to make them viable, but it has no basis in reality so far in my experience.

If you want to rely on just one defensive skill to stay alive then you should damn well be ready to invest into it, but that's true for any class as I doubt any of them will have a skill that will be a life saver in every single situation you'll encounter in the game.