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.)
