Witch Doctor Preview is up

**iAmAhab** · 17-08-2012, 10:28

I just love that the monks passive "one with all" did not get nerfed because it would upset everbody who had geared up with this passive in mind. Well I geared up for a hybrid tank docta that relies on VQ and now I'm getting ****ed. I guess we are lucky since WD gets all his gear for free...

**Nodders** · 17-08-2012, 10:42

Originally Posted by iAmAhab

I guess we are lucky since WD gets all his gear for free...

What does that mean ?

**iAmAhab** · 17-08-2012, 12:12

Sarcasm can be a bit hard to convey via text.

What I mean is that monks who have spent all their gold on gear with one with everything passive in mind don't have to worry because blizzard thinks it would be a shame to nerf that passive. Witch Doctors who have spent all their gold on gear for their acid cloud/zombie bears builds are **** out of luck.

edit: Or we may be out of luck, can't really rage until I've played the new patch I guess.

**Nodders** · 17-08-2012, 12:13

Ahh right lol , bit slow today , just could'nt get it . I see what you mean yeah .

**flint** · 17-08-2012, 12:52

Is anyone else really hoping they buff the hell out of Circle of Life and Fetish Sycophant?

**Kinmaul** · 17-08-2012, 14:18

Originally Posted by iAmAhab

I just love that the monks passive "one with all" did not get nerfed because it would upset everbody who had geared up with this passive in mind. Well I geared up for a hybrid tank docta that relies on VQ and now I'm getting ****ed. I guess we are lucky since WD gets all his gear for free...

Changes to OWE would disrupt monks much more than the VQ nerf (or the Energy Twister nerf for wizards). All of your crit/crit damage/ias gear is going to be just fine after the patch. Mechanics wise I'd say monks are down near the bottom right above witch doctors: Currently, the most effective way to play the monk is spend your resource (spirit) on a passive skill (mantra's on-use effect). VQ forces the WD to take four skills with long cd's and use them indiscriminately just so you could spam a 5th skill. Sure it's effective, but how is that great gameplay? Basically the witch doctor had two skills to actually use and the other four were wasted.

Vision Quest was band-aid for a broken class mechanic and leaving at as-is would have hurt the class in the long run. Did Blizzard get it right with the current changes planned for 1.0.4? We'll have to see, but at least now they are looking at WD mana regen and if the new change doesn't pan out they will try something else. The worst thing they could have done was leave VQ alone and pretend everything was just fine with mana regen. You shouldn't have to give up four skill slots to be able to use a 5th skill; if you thought that was an amazing mechanic then I question your sanity.

**iAmAhab** · 17-08-2012, 14:24

I would prefer them to leave VQ as is so those who want to play that way can. They could have just lowered the mana cost on skills that are not worth the current costs. Build diversity in my eyes is not shutting down some popular builds to make room for others. They should recognize the current builds that are working well and offer other viable builds to encourage people to try something different. Just my two cents.

**magicrectangle** · 17-08-2012, 15:06

Originally Posted by Karth

From what I understand, mitigation is counted for the force armor effect, but the additional life above the base life value (10k at level 60) is not. This isn't as good as max damaged checked before mitigation (I would say this would be overpowered and lead to easily immortal dogs), but it is still very good for ZD survivability.

For a wizard, the maximum hit you can take is 35% of your life after mitigation. That is, it is actually 35% of your life. For pets the maximum hit they can take is 10,000 life, but that is before mitigation. If they have 50% armor mitigation and 50% resist mitigation, the maximum hit they can take is 2,500 life!

**Karth** · 17-08-2012, 15:48

Ah, ahhh, I get it now. They got me thinking on the wrong track with the repeated Force Armor references. Thanks for straightening me out.

I wonder if that scales with Jungle Fortitude too?

**Kinmaul** · 17-08-2012, 16:33

Originally Posted by iAmAhab

I would prefer them to leave VQ as is so those who want to play that way can. They could have just lowered the mana cost on skills that are not worth the current costs. Build diversity in my eyes is not shutting down some popular builds to make room for others. They should recognize the current builds that are working well and offer other viable builds to encourage people to try something different. Just my two cents.

It has nothing to do with build diversity or popular builds. The WD resource system is broken and VQ is a terrible mechanic that covered it up at the cost of four skill slots. Once they get the balance of cost vs regen fixed there is actually no need for VQ in it's current form.