Characteristics | Witch Doctor Diablo III Guide

Last update: 01 February 2017

After a 12 year break the Necromancer from Diablo II returns in an entirely different form. Black magic, charms, summoning zombies and fetishes - this is what you can count on when playing as the most original and dark class in Diablo III. Witch Doctor should be an ideal choice for players that like to surround themselves with various types of allies, rely on magic based on the forces of nature, poison their enemies and make them scared.

Blizzard has managed to create a very interesting character. The Jamaican shaman knows English very well and on one hand it's based on warlock/druid/shaman characters and on the other hand it presents lots of similarities to pirates and members of the old cultures of Latin America. This character class has its own style, mixing dark humour with dark powers of the voodoo. Playing as a Witch Doctor may prove to be a challenge at first glance and it may seem that this character isn't easy to develop and control, however sooner or later you'll start recognizing the amazing usefulness of his deadly skills. There's tons of abilities to choose from. For example, you can shoot poison darts, throw frogs and jars filled with spiders, weaken enemy units with charms and voodoo magic, use fetishes known from act III of Diablo II and summon powerful allies, like zombie dogs or bats. There's also a chance to call a colossal toad for help, to create a wall made of zombies or to build a tower made of ghouls which falls down on enemy monsters. To summarize, there's plenty of options and the variety of the skills makes the Witch Doctor a universal warrior, unlike anything you may have seen in other hack'n'slash games.

Playing as a Witch Doctor is an art of finding balance between ranged attacks, summoning monsters which help out the main character and using charms in a proper way. You also have to pay a lot of attention to cooldown times of all available skills. This character class uses the traditional mana as the energy source. Mana regenerates on its own and it happens both during combat as well as between fights. The Witch Doctor has one important similarity with the Wizard, because his most important attribute is Intelligence. Increasing Intelligence allows to inflict more damage.

The Witch Doctor can use three types of unique items. Ceremonial knives come in handy in melee combat. They also often increase the Intelligence attribute, mana regeneration and the main character's resistances. A mojo is a good choice for the other hand. This category of items contains voodoo dolls and jars filled with eyes, snakes and other nasty stuff. All these objects can also increase main attributes and resistances of the Witch Doctor. The bonuses mentioned above are so useful that it's recommended to equip mojos even if using bows or two-handed weapons may seem like a better choice. As for third category, Witch Doctors can use unique voodoo masks which come in various and often hilarious shapes and forms.

Let's do a quick summary. If you liked to play as a Necromancer in Diablo II, then you should definitely consider the Witch Doctor as your top pick in the game. It doesn't mean that the choice is restricted to the necromancer fans, because all players can enjoy the humour, style of play and skill variety of the Witch Doctor. I strongly recommend giving this character class a chance. Even if you won't like it at least you'll have good memories from seeing a toad swallowing enemies or a group of small fetishes stabbing demons with knives.