View Full Version : What else can the Witch Doctor summon?
I personally like the idea of Mongrels a lot. The idea of an undead animal is quite original, in my opinion. That you can empower them with your fire and poison damage skills is doubly awesome.
What other summoned creatures can you see the Witch Doctor bringing into (undead) existence? And how do you see it?
Will we see a return to more traditional undead entities (Skeletons or Revives), or something new, like Mummies and/or Zombies?
How should these other pets be summoned: out of nothing, like the Mongrels, out of a corpse, or out of an item?
Considering that the Witch Doctor is a master at alchemy, it would be interesting if he could summon minions out of certain kinds of potions.
In the spirit of RPG summoning characters, the Witch Doctor probably needs a few different archetypes of minions: the multitude of weak followers, a ranged attacker or spellcaster, and one singularly strong minion to tank monsters.
This is just brainstorming, of course. Blizzard is already showing significant signs of originality in its ideas, and I can't wait to see them bear fruit.
What can you imagine?
I could see him summoning some kind of ghost/wraith/spirit, or something of that nature. I think you'd only be able to summon one of this and it would drain life from enemies which is transferred to you.
Spirits and ghosts are tied heavily with witch doctor voodoo type stuff, so it just makes sense.
I think the Witch Doctor would probably be more used to taking control of things, other than summoning them (vodoo dolls, etc). But I can imagine him summoning spirits.
ill logic
13-07-2008, 05:32
I'd agree. I think they'll be a nice split between fleshy summons and spirits summoned, but no skeletons. I want to see something w/ AoE attacks, perhaps a stunning stomp skill *runs off to get health globe*
There must be a ranged summon.
Lich
- Level 24 required. Skills: Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Bone Armor, Decrepify (lowest frequency)
Necromancers have never been known for their reluctance in exploring arcane arts that some would consider unnatural. Violent battle with the Prime Evils have led some to believe that greater service to maintain the Great Cycle of Being is necessary. Taking their knowledge gained from physical experimentation in mastering the revival of creatures in an inviolate status, some Necromancers have themselves transformed into the immortal undead--tethered to phylacteries on the mortal realm. It is a rite of passage for especially skilled Witch Doctors to steal these vessels and force the liches into servitude. They will, for a time, until they can secure the means of their release.
10 potential curses:
1. River Turned to Blood
2. Frogs.
3. Lice.
4. Flies.
5. Death of Livestock.
6. Boils.
7. Hail.
8. Locusts.
9. Darkness.
10. Death of the First Born.
AxlStrife
13-07-2008, 05:38
10. Death of the First Born.
That sounds so bad*** I want it to be a skill. Possibly "When an enemy affected by this dies, CE effect", of course it would only affect one creature, otherwise it'd be stupid-good.
I wonder if the Mind Control effect be a curse or an effect such as the death of a summon. I can't wait to see the other Witch Doctor stuff.
imjustsomeguy
13-07-2008, 06:30
I'm hoping the WD summons work like the D2 Necro and not the Druid where you had to choose between the wolves and the bear. It would be nice to get a decent sized army going to lag out all the necro/WD hating scrubs :cool:
Both the Necro and Druid had the DPS summons (skellies/mages/wolves) and tank type summon (golems/bear) so I'm guessing the WD will have some kind of tank summon that can survive against bosses, most likely toward the end of the skill tree.
Now that I think about it, Undead Mongrels are kind of a blend of the wolves and skellies, perhaps a large undead animal will act as the tank. Undead woolly mamoth anyone?
10 potential curses:
1. River Turned to Blood
2. Frogs.
3. Lice.
4. Flies.
5. Death of Livestock.
6. Boils.
7. Hail.
8. Locusts.
9. Darkness.
10. Death of the First Born.
All Witch Doctors would have the name "Moses".
Summoning wraiths or ghosts seems like it would be awesome for the flavor of the game.
It's an option I hadn't thought of.
Perhaps another thing they could summon would be ghouls (like in the demo). I think a ghoul seems like a better summon because it's faster than a zombie, it isn't a rehash of the skeleton from the necromancer and it's sort of new to D3 (dscounting the ghoul zombie model).
The only misgiving I would have with that is that the ghoul looks an awful lot like the mongrels in general.
I'm really a fan of the Blood Golem concept, of having a tank summon that is tied in with the caster's health. It forces you to accept risks, and serves as an effective trade-off. It was one of the most original concepts in D2.
The only problem was that it (along with the other Golems) never did any real damage past Act 3 Normal, and its health never scaled.
If the Witch Doctor had a summon like the Blood Golem that actually did relevant damage and had adequate hit points, it would be a pretty cool development for the game.
I got this idea from a post I made earlier today. As I posted it, I realized, hey this sounds like a cool skill idea!
I have no negative feelings about the Witch doctor really. His role of using Zombies fits since in Haiti (I think) there were incidents of witch doctors manipulating people using puffer fish poison and forcing them to do work (which are considered slave zombeis).
In Boma Congo the tribes used the Nkisi Nkonde, a nail figurine to communicate with the dead. Not really in an evil sense, but for people to communicate with their dead loved ones. Witch Doctors used these Nail figurines for evil, communicating with demons. Perhaps this could be an item for the Witch Doctor class :)
How about a Demon Manipulation skill? Control maybe, a Max of 1-3 Demon type monsters only. Depending what level your summon mastery is (if that exists) provides an X number of bonuses for your manipulated demon. Just a thought for a skill, not really a summon skill but close! :)
Actually some kind of voodoo doll made of dirt which is targeted at an enemy unit and when it takes damage or gets affected by an enemy spell it directs it to the targeted enemy unit would be great for the WD.
That and an ancient spirit or ghost.
And as a tank summon a meat doll would look somewhat interesting (something like the grotesques from the trailer perhaps)
Sein Schatten
14-07-2008, 14:53
There must be a ranged summon.
Lich
- Level 24 required. Skills: Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Bone Armor, Decrepify (lowest frequency)
Necromancers have never been known for their reluctance in exploring arcane arts that some would consider unnatural. Violent battle with the Prime Evils have led some to believe that greater service to maintain the Great Cycle of Being is necessary. Taking their knowledge gained from physical experimentation in mastering the revival of creatures in an inviolate status, some Necromancers have themselves transformed into the immortal undead--tethered to phylacteries on the mortal realm. It is a rite of passage for especially skilled Witch Doctors to steal these vessels and force the liches into servitude. They will, for a time, until they can secure the means of their release.
Me like it. :D
Make it happen. :D
Doctrinaire
14-07-2008, 23:06
Since we have already seen a Witch Doctor disease spell buff the zombie dogs, what about a zombie that reacts in some way to fire spells? Maybe one that is lit on fire and deals AoE damage, or a zombie that is healed with fire.
For some reason zombies and fire seem compatible to me. Think Doom 3.
Captain Marvel
15-07-2008, 05:30
Witch Doctors should get the ultimate summon spell - Summon Pygmy. Those little ratmen always almost gave me a heartattack the first time I ran into them with each new character. As a bonus, for every 2 that the Witch Doctor summons, they form up a shaman, which will change to a ranged attack unit!
Since we have already seen a Witch Doctor disease spell buff the zombie dogs, what about a zombie that reacts in some way to fire spells? Maybe one that is lit on fire and deals AoE damage, or a zombie that is healed with fire.
For some reason zombies and fire seem compatible to me. Think Doom 3.
They already are! ;)
Look again at the gameplay trailer: the female Witch Doctor attacks the Goatmen with Mongrels that are flame-enhanced.
Mad Mantis
15-07-2008, 10:33
Witch Doctors should get the ultimate summon spell - Summon Pygmy.
The small pygmys do really go with the whole WD theme. I'd be really interested in seeing them brought back. Kind of curious to see what Blizz can make out of them for D3.
TheDarkSide
15-07-2008, 11:56
The WD class is kind of interesting to me as I was always a fan of the paisty white Necromancer in D2 .. I could also see them tying in the Act 3 Flayer aspect as he is from the Jungle and having Necromancer type skills . I really liked that wall of zombies they show in the demo --> :thumbup: !! If he has other summons besides the dog looking things , pygmies would be a nice tie in to act 3 flayer jungle .. It will be interesting how he turns out for sure ...
ill logic
15-07-2008, 23:43
I could see him summoning some kind of ghost/wraith/spirit, or something of that nature. I think you'd only be able to summon one of this and it would drain life from enemies which is transferred to you.
Spirits and ghosts are tied heavily with witch doctor voodoo type stuff, so it just makes sense.
Hmm, what if we combined that with how some skills show an image of the WD. How about having him summon an ancestral spirit WD who would "drain life from enemies which is transferred to you," like a Blood Golem as someone said. To summon it would req. a sacrifice of HP ofc.
I'm confident WDs will have melee skills or buffs to melee, as all PCs had some form of them (eg. Enchant, Poison Dagger etc). Honestly, this ancestral spirit could work like the Shadow Master or Shadow Warrior but w/ randomized gear like Valkyries. It seems to fit the sacrifice, spirits thing. Anyway, I don't really care, as long as the ghost hits w/ more OOMPH than those flying ones that drain HP slowly in Chaos Sanctuary.
What should happen if you make it explode? How should we be able to buff this life-draining summon?
Sein Schatten: If only I could, my friend, if only :) It reminds me of how the Necromancer's Skelly Mages were once human mages they got bent to the PC's will...
Leugi: OMG that's f'n awesome. Combine that w/ the pygmy idea (or maybe those bony things in Durance before fighting Mephisto). Imagine if you could draw attacks w/ it, like if Baal spawn attack it, then a nearby monster gets knocked back. If you're in Chaos Sanc, then it could redirect curses to other monsters.
ciprialex
17-07-2008, 11:20
well, i would love to see some cool summons at higher levels, and really hope blizzard follows the pattern from dekaron/2moons(musfel and agareth summons) , for example,much like the did with the barbarian and god of war series.
for those of you not familiar with the game i'm mentioning, just check the video, it's plain amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn1vZrMeugk
AlexanderM
18-07-2008, 01:37
well, i would love to see some cool summons at higher levels, and really hope blizzard follows the pattern from dekaron/2moons(musfel and agareth summons) , for example,much like the did with the barbarian and god of war series.
for those of you not familiar with the game i'm mentioning, just check the video, it's plain amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn1vZrMeugk
The large and varied summons are cool, but that was too colorful and busy for me. All those numbers, while informative, made me feel like I was having flashbacks to vector calculus while in a rave :balloons: Definitely larger-than-player stature for high level summons, it would just be more epic that way :D.
mince pies
20-07-2008, 02:21
Mokeys. I mean, WDs originate from the jungle don't they? Some sort of undead monkey/gorilla would be nice :)
nicro tower
20-07-2008, 18:39
Flesh Atronach. Now.
How about combining things you kill together. Think of skinning dead monsters but... instead you extract essences or limbs of 4 monsters you kill then you choose an item, and BRAHHJAIUH!!! A monstrosity that you created (has a skill and looks depending on what monsters you used), and it stays with you like an Iron Golem.
Iono, I just pulled an idea out of my ***, haha.
I wonder if your allies can empower your minions with elements other than fire and poison.
For example, if there are characters that have cold or lightning elemental attacks...could they buff up your Mongrels with those elements, much like the Witch Doctor empowering his own minions with Locust Swarm (poison) or Fire Bomb (fire)?
Mad Mantis
21-07-2008, 09:48
Flesh Atronach. Now.
One of the very few cool summons from Oblivion. I support this idea.
I love the WD as soon as I saw the demo videos. Until they release some other classes, I'm for sure playing a WD.
While summons would be cool, it's not so much my cup of tea. I don't want it to turn into the d2 necro with hordes of mobs around me. I'm actually more of a melee player and didn't get very involved with spell casters in d2. I really like how in the demo when the WD is crossing the bridge and one enemy gets right in the WD's face, how he slapped the **** out of him with his wand thing. Either he was low life or he wtfpwned him in one hit.
I'd love to see a melee'ing WD with exploding mongrels/whatevers and throwing fire balls when neccesary. Summons are fine with me as long as it doesn't become excessive.
Sein Schatten
26-07-2008, 22:15
One of the very few cool summons from Oblivion. I support this idea.
That summon is lame. Check out the Balrog summon. :thumbup:
SmokeTwoSeven
26-07-2008, 22:38
The Idea of Voodoo Controlling certain monsters would be plausable.
The Zombie Wall skill would suggest a possibility of maybe a pre-requisit/synergie of a single summon zombie, a bit like Necromancers Golem.
Mad Mantis
27-07-2008, 13:18
That summon is lame. Check out the Balrog summon. :thumbup:
Damn, that thing looks cool. The modding just doesn't stop. Well, there are a lot of things wrong with Oblivion so it is good to see the community still alive and kicking.
bone dragon anyone?
The bone dragon from Guild Wars looks awesome imo (sorry for the large picture)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/8/80/Bone_Dragon.jpg
But dragons seem so awefully big. I would like the WD to have more smaller summons like the mongrels. Maybe a snake that attacked the enemies with venomous fangs or big creepy spiders. And to make them extra terrifying, give them a touch of undead :D
I also really like the idea of undead monkeys. Like the one from pirates of the caribbean, just a bit bigger..
ill logic
27-07-2008, 23:19
Pygmy Doll
- Periodically takes curses, chill/frozen/stun and poison effects on the Witch Doctor or other pets and applies them to enemies
- Add skill points to increase the chance that enemy spells aimed at the doll will be amplified and redirected to an enemy unit
- Thorns aura (low value, but which increases additively with more Pygmy Dolls summoned--3 max)
Ghost Trance Summoning
Level 30 required. Steals life. The spirit has access to all of the Witch Doctor's skills, including skills you don't have yet.
"They call the state in which they interact with this other world the Ghost Trance.
Alongside the primacy of the belief in the life force and the Unformed Land, the second most sacred belief of the tribes is their philosophy of self-sacrifice and non-individuality, of suppressing one's self-interest for the good of the tribe."
Having reached the pinnacle of skill in summoning, Witch Doctors perceive even the gods inhabiting the Mbwiru Eikura. With a small sacrifice of the summoner's life, one of these spirits may be made manifest in the lesser physical realm. It appears as an apparition of an ancient Witch Doctor thriving on the lifeblood of slain enemies, and may even deign to share the bounty with the summoner himself. Of course, should the god lose its body, the Witch Doctor will learn the true meaning of sacrifice.
Undead Monkey
Kick ***, nuff said
Spiders anyone? Poison seems to be one of the themes for the WD so huge poisonous spider(s) would be a nice addition. Either as a powerful tanking minion or ranged poison spitter. They could utilize skills like poison nova and some of the amazon's stuff like multiple shot/strafe with poisonous projectiles.
Or we could have both options at the same time and the player could switch to ranged/melee tactics for his minion depending on his gameplay style.
Fetishes. Since WD is linked to the jungle theme fetishes would be awesome. I always liked the hordes of these running at me with huge knives and shooting from their blowpipes. Sure they were annoying, but with a bit of tweaking and changes they could be fun summons. With 2 types of them (ranged/melee) they could be changing their tactics at the summoner's command or you could summon both types separately depending on your gameplay style. They should be rather fragile, but formidable summons and they'd make up for their weakness in numbers (up to 10-20). If the shaman got inferno skill (fire seems to be one of his themes as well) and these little guys I will finally be able to play as a fetish shaman. Almost a dream come true, lol. Unfortunately mongrels already seem to be the speedy/weak summon. Life sucks :(
A gorilla - summoning a huge monkey (preferably bigger than player character) would be just plain awesome. It could be a tanking minion with some skills taken from a bear/barbarian.
Sein Schatten
29-07-2008, 00:19
Fetishes. Since WD is linked to the jungle theme fetishes would be awesome. I always liked the hordes of these running at me with huge knives and shooting from their blowpipes.
And I thought I am the only one. :) I loved it to cast revive on them and make an army of undead flayers. :)
I second the Spiders idea. Poisonous giant spiders would be awesome beyond words.
Mad Mantis
31-07-2008, 09:39
The spiders from DII weren't all cool. I found them rather dumb looking. Although giant spiders can be made to look good.
Mizantrop
31-07-2008, 16:39
A gorilla - summoning a huge monkey (preferably bigger than player character) would be just plain awesome. It could be a tanking minion with some skills taken from a bear/barbarian.
with this special skill:
Fate is like a caged gorilla. It will pelt you with dung if you mock it.
-Warriv
The spiders from DII weren't all cool. I found them rather dumb looking. Although giant spiders can be made to look good.
I'm sure they could be made to look very cool with D3's graphics.
Besides, they would perfectly fit with the WD's poison/jungle theme.
Spiders would be an absolutely perfect summon for the Witch Doctor. So much so that I'm going to create a poll right this second to see how popular the idea is. Hopefully, Blizzard might take notice! ;)
In my haste, I made a new topic, sorry for that..
Anyway, as I said in my topic, a cool tank summon would be a combining ritual to make a tank, imagine 3 mongrols, swirling togheter and make a beefy hound with 3 heads, add some jungle voodo touch on it and viola!
rrrrathmaberollinhisrs
06-08-2008, 10:47
It'd be cool if he could make trees in the environment come alive and start fighting for him.
Or some variation of the Necromancers attract curse (he already has terror) that turns one of your enemies into a high-pitched-gibbering, spitting, savage to fight for you. His most deadly attack: he flings his groin-shrub at a enemy. Specifically at the enemy's head.
Ewwww..... Groincloth :cry:
I hope he wore his black censor box under those things.
LupusPhoenix
07-08-2008, 21:34
Mokeys. I mean, WDs originate from the jungle don't they? Some sort of undead monkey/gorilla would be nice :)
Ghost of a pissed off Gorilla that's 20' tall to go with the pygmies and the mongrels. :cool:
Edit: It would be hard/wrong to make a skill that uses things such as "trees in the environment come alive". Sure this might be a cool effect but it would be spotty since there would have to be appropriate "targets" around. Corpses are easy targets in a game like diablo because there are going to be plenty of those. Making it affect other objects as well in different areas would be hard as well.
rrrrathmaberollinhisrs
08-08-2008, 15:26
Huge Gorilla. I love it.
Cast_Raider
09-08-2008, 02:11
I'm really a fan of the Blood Golem concept, of having a tank summon that is tied in with the caster's health. It forces you to accept risks, and serves as an effective trade-off. It was one of the most original concepts in D2.
The only problem was that it (along with the other Golems) never did any real damage past Act 3 Normal, and its health never scaled.
If the Witch Doctor had a summon like the Blood Golem that actually did relevant damage and had adequate hit points, it would be a pretty cool development for the game.
Yeah. And here's the thing. I think Blizz has a bias against overly powerful minions, because otherwise you get a situation where you've got a spellcaster who can own without having good gear and without risk. You just sit back and watch the action and collect goodies as your minions take the heat. It's too passive. A naked sorc can own, that's true enough; but they are also extremely frail without good gear. They have to be very careful and use teleport constantly.
And I agree with that philosophy. But the way around it is not to nerf minions ala druid summons and 1.09 necro summons; the answer is to introduce some element of risk. Like the blood golem. The basic concept is good, anyways.
In fact, you might even throw something in where the summon's physical characteristics are mirrors of your gear. In other words, your golem will hit much harder if you are carrying around a fleshripper rather than a wizardspike, much less a wand. Likewise if you want him to have good defense, you'll have to wear good armor yourself.
As far as summon ideas go, spiders seem obvious. Or a swarm of spiders. Then again, we already have a melee summon with mongrels. Maybe an airborne summon, for scouting? Vultures?
vBulletin® v3.7.4, Copyright ©2000-2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.