Out of the 5 Diablo III classes, witch doctors are accepting the a lot of absorption

in application 1.0.4. The ambition for this patch, like for abounding of the added

classes, was simple: analyze the abhorred or hard-to-use skills, amount out what’s

not working, and again accomplish them better. In some cases, abilities alone bare

slight affability — a little added accident here, or some added durations there. In

added cases, added cogent changes were required. For the purpose of this preview,

we’ll focus on the bigger changes, which can be torn down into the afterward

categories:

Pet survivability
Vision Quest design flaws
Splinters and Zombie Bears are way more appealing than most other skills
Pets
One of the amount play styles for the witch doctor (and absolutely the acumen

abounding humans chose to play a witch doctor to activate with) is to accept pets.

Unfortunately, while witch doctor pets do appealing able-bodied in Normal difficulty,

their survivability has been about non-existent in Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno. From

our perspective, this isn’t acceptable, so we’re authoritative some cogent buffs to

pets in 1.0.4. The ambition of these buffs is to accomplish pets not alone added

applicable in those after difficulties, but aswell added agreeable for players who

adopt to abject their builds about them.

From a architecture perspective, we wish your pets to be abiding abundant so they can

catchbasin for you, but we don’t wish them to just be automatically immortal. The

cooldown on summoning pets is there for a reason. Speaking added specifically, we’d

like for there to be times if your pets accept died, your cooldowns haven’t active

yet, and you accept that aeon of added astriction as you delay for the bearings to

balance again. On the added hand, we’d aswell like for there to be apparent

improvements for players who put anticipation and accomplishment into their

accomplishment and accessory selections to accomplish their pets as able as possible.

Trial and Error:
One of the aboriginal things we approved internally was to accept Zombie Dogs

calibration their Life anon with their owner’s Life (Zombie Dogs already accede Armor

and Resistance from their owner). This had alloyed results. For example, if the

amateur ample a ample bulk of Life, Armor, and Resist, it was accessible to accept

Zombie Dogs catchbasin a lot of of Act I and locations of Act 2 in Inferno. As

abundant as it fabricated faculty to accept Zombie Dogs calibration anon with your

gear, it in fact inhibited a absolutely altered playstyle: players who capital their

witch doctor to be added of a bottle cannon, but still accept their Zombie Dogs able

to tank. And with that we went aback to the cartoon board.

The next time about we gave the Zombie Dogs a abject bulk of Life, and in accession

to this abject value, they would aswell accept 35% of their owner’s Life. So, you had

a Zombie Dog that could calibration with your gear, but if you were congenital as a

bottle cannon you’d still accept that abject bulk of Life to abatement aback on. To

advice with accepted survivability, we aswell gave Zombie Dogs some congenital

acquiescent Life regeneration. This analysis was abundant added successful. The

Zombie Dogs could survive through a lot of locations of Act I and Act II of Inferno

just accomplished and died alone occasionally to absolutely difficult encounters. In

Act III and Act IV, however, they could yield maybe one or two hits, but the

aftereffect was consistently the same: asleep Zombie dogs. We approved accretion the

benefit to 100% of their owner’s Life — and even to 150% at one point, just to see

what would appear — but it was to no avail. The admission accident just scaled up

too top in those after Acts.

So, we fabricated some added adjustments to their scaling, we gave them added

acquiescent regeneration, and we fabricated pets aggressive to even added AoE

furnishings (such as Plagued, Frozen, and Mortar). The aftereffect was positive, but

not perfect: Zombie Dogs could now boxy out Acts I and II of Inferno, but they were

still melting in Acts III and IV.

The Final Product:
Our final abundance was to accord Zombie Dogs their own adaptation of the astrologer

accomplishment Force Armor, which banned the bulk of accident a astrologer can yield

in a individual hit up to 35% of their best Life. Much like the account for

abbreviation accident for AoE effects, pets yield added accident from affray than

players. Pets aswell don’t aback off if they’re low, accomplish use of doorways, or

abstain big attacks.

When advice “Force Armor” over to Zombie Dogs, we capital to accomplish abiding they

could still calibration with the player’s Life, Armor, and Resistances. So, rather

than a collapsed 35%, the accident cap per hit is based on affiliated Armor and

Resistance values, and rather than ascent with the absolute Life, the acknowledgment

bulk is affected on the abject bloom of the Zombie Dogs, acceptance added Life to in

fact calibration awfully well.

This ability be a bit confusing, so let’s set up an archetype application a akin 60

witch doctor. Let’s say this witch doctor has 32,000 Life, 45% acknowledgment from

Armor, and 30% acknowledgment from Resistances. (For clarity, this agency that 55% of

admission accident gets accomplished the player’s Armor, and 70% of the admission

accident gets accomplished Resistances.)