Why is witch doctor the least popular class?

[Karth]

They maybe are less effective in inferno than other classes...

The only builds I really find more powerful than my WD are my WW/sprint barb and my critical mass wizard. Other than those, the WD seems about as effective as other builds I've tried with the wizard and barb and all the builds I've tried with my monk and dh.

[Vooodu]

I think it depends on what people consider effective.

My current WD build is kind backwards in what I thought I was gonna make. I can't really kill anything fast but i can live forever. In public inferno games range classes love me because i can take the biggest possible beating by crowd controlling with my body.

Its kind of funny when im pretty much getting 40000+ health from my LoH in a second while getting smacked around by packs of monsters. Watching 10+ arcane lazersrip through me and almost kill me feels like im gear checking the monsters..lol


Im like.. NO. Im NOT gonna move. Im gonna stay right here and LoH a million health while you puny monsters waste your freakin time.

[Nodders]

I have all 5 classes in inferno but my WD pet build is my favourite and also my MF farmer, roll on the patch at the end of the month to make my pets more sturdy , can't wait

[Tryzx]

I also have all classes in inferno (except monk he's level 55) and I'll definitely go back to playing my WD once the pets are buffed. That's really what kept me away from him.

[droppin]

#1 reason witch doctors aren't played... spamming poison dart for 54 levels is hella boring. My issue is the mana cost. I love my wd build but I'm always low on mana and vision quest won't work with my build. If vision quest stacked based on 1-4 skills and not just only 4 skills on cd, would be much nicer. The pets was also a big one for me. First toon I created in d3 was wd and I was gonna be super pet/super cc guy. Then I realized pets die in 1 hit and much of the cc doesn't work on bosses. I'm still havin fun with him but they could use some work.

[jamesL]

be awesome to see some mana gems (either max or regen)
or some that reduce cooldown by 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%, 12%, 15% and so on

[torand]

I have all 5 classes in inferno but my WD pet build is my favourite and also my MF farmer, roll on the patch at the end of the month to make my pets more sturdy , can't wait

You have a pet build that actually works in Inferno? You should share IMO, because I am really curious.

My Witch Doctor was my first 60 because I LOVE pet classes. I was sad when my zombie dogs started dying in one hit in hell, but I still had my gargantuan, so I was OK with that. Then he started dying in a couple hits towards act 4 Hell. Got to inferno and all the pets seemed completely unusable, so I leveled other characters. I now have almost 4 classes at 60 (One is in their 50s), and I really miss my WD. If they fix pets, I am bringing him back!!

[jamesL]

yeah, zombie dogs and gargantuan should be the recipient of the positive effects of Life on Hit and the negative effects of Reflect Damage

[droppin]

You have a pet build that actually works in Inferno? You should share IMO, because I am really curious.

My Witch Doctor was my first 60 because I LOVE pet classes. I was sad when my zombie dogs started dying in one hit in hell, but I still had my gargantuan, so I was OK with that. Then he started dying in a couple hits towards act 4 Hell. Got to inferno and all the pets seemed completely unusable, so I leveled other characters. I now have almost 4 classes at 60 (One is in their 50s), and I really miss my WD. If they fix pets, I am bringing him back!!

The build is basically:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...hYT!agX!aaaZcY
You can switch out skills here and there. acid rain gives u instant aoe damage reduction+damage (also nice for loh/lifesteal). poison dart, grasp and spirit walk can be switched out for w/e. Some people use locust swarm but that instant HUGE aoe acid rain is baller .

This requires certain gear to use. You need some life regen 600+ and high armor/allres 5k/600+. My buddy is runnign something like this in act2/3 atm so I'm guessing it works :P. I'm gonna try it soon but I have to win an auction to get the gear first :/, dang snipers.

[deya]

Well, for me, the answer is really simple:

Witch Doctor doesn't fill the spot he was designed to. IMO his skill set is close ranged/melee casters set but he doesn't have the tools to withstand the huge damage output Inferno monsters dish out. Pets and mana costs currently both sucks big time.

There's only 2 options:

A) Overgear the content, I mean, you need to have EXTREMELY good gear to play WD with Bears/Locusts etc close ranged abilities at Inferno A3-A4
B) Stick to the few long ranged abilities he has, such as Darts & Bats.

Option A) is EXTREMELY expensive and you need to be super rich to gather such a good gear.
Option B) DH/Wiz just does this so much better. They are a lot better kiters, have better tools for that and they also have better damaging abilities such as Piercing Orb/Elemental Arrow to get the job done.

WD also suffers from extremely harsh Mana costs which makes him the only class who really really struggles with his resources. You can play VQ build with mana regen from gear and do OK but again, you need to gimp your build AND get some great gear to pull this off.


Three things that would greatly improve WD:

Improve base manaregen/lower mana costs a lot so that he can actually spam stuff and not be dry in 2 seconds.
Give him ability like Energy Armor/Prismatic Armor to make him sturdier.
Make pets usable and let this game have one effective summoner.

I would love to see WD a better class but right now I feel silly to play my WD. The gear I have is rather highend and I struggle at Act 3, the same gear used on my Wizard makes him immortal and I can clear the game inside out with exactly same gear. As much as I love WD, he is just in a bad spot right now and Blizzard needs to buff him by fair margin.