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[[Image:Wd-1.jpg|thumb|150px|left|The Male Witch Doctor is in.]]The Witch Doctor is a new character type added in ''Diablo III''. Hailing from the Torajan Jungles, southwest of Kurast, the Witch Doctor looks a bit like the top half of one of D2's Flayer Shaman, especially when equipped outfitted in one of his oversized, colorful tribal masks. Judging by the [[Witch Doctors are more mages than fighters and they battle with Doctor Skills|skills thus far demonstrated]], the WD fights a lot like a Necromancer, using cunning and guile, using not rather than direct physical attacks, but . Witch Doctors possess a number of mind control spells, summoning the ability to summon and control undead servants, using and attacking with fire, locusts, and other strange magical powersa variety of direct damage elemental attacks.
=Character Design=
The D3 Team has described the Witch Doctor as old and grizzled and fanatical. His magic is not clean and easy, like the fire or lightning a Sorceress can produce with a snap of her fingers. Witch Doctors get dirty. They summon walls of zombies that rip apart attacking enemies, they call forth undead demon hounds that they can detonate to deal heavy damage to their enemies, and they fashion the skulls of the dead into explosive grenades. The D3 team discussed the Witch Doctor's design concepts in the [[WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel
|Denizens of Diablo panel]] at the [[WWI 2008]].
:For the Witch Doctor, we wanted to get a rich, voodoo vibe. We wanted to avoid straight up master-caster feel. He's not just conjuring things out of thin air. WDs don't just channel magic. They take real world objects and infuse them with voodoo magic. Our spell descriptions for the WD were like, "He's going to throw a shrunken head filled with a chemical concoction." Or "He's going to create insect swarms by blowing voodoo dust from his palms." Or "He's going to sprinkle dust in the air and cause illusions and frighten monsters away."
:Of course you're not a real witch doctor unless you're doing zombies. WD and zombies go together naturally. We didn't want normal slow wandering zombies either, so we took the typical zombie concept and smashed them up with other skill ideas. Like firewall, we smashed that with zombies and came up with zombie wall.
The WD is clearly Necromancer-like, in his mixture of summonings, mind control curses, and sub-mage quality magical attacks, but the D3 team [[WWI_2008:_D3_Design_Fundamentals_Panel|does not view the character as a replacement]] for the Necromancer.
:Q: Is the witch doctor a replacement or spiritual successor to the Necro? They seem to have rather similar skills.
:A: We don't view the Witch Doctor as a replacement. The Necromancer is a very cool char. We thought about him as a class and tried to see if we could improve on him, which is something we did with every class, and that led us to create the Witch Doctor. If we ever decided to make a Necromancer, the Witch Doctor wouldn't prevent us from doing so.
The Witch Doctor class comes from the jungles of Torajan, an area just southwest of Kurast, where Act Three took place in Diablo II. ([http://www.diii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=716 D3 world map].)Their society and culture is detailed on the [http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/witchdoctor.xml Blizzard WD page], from which the following excerpt was taken:
:Upon further discussions with my hosts, I discovered that these tribes define themselves by their belief in the Mbwiru Eikura, which roughly translates to "The witch doctor Unformed Land" (this is where we went to town. He's a grizzled old vet. He's been out there and through it all. He's oldan imprecise translation, hunched over, he's a great example of physical contrast as this concept is completely foreign to barb. He's old our culture and frail; he's not going to smash anyone with a hammerlanguage). He's been hit and he knows he doesn't like This belief holds thatthe true, so he's going to be smartersacred reality is veiled behind the physical one we normally experience. He's going Their vitally important public ceremonies are centered upon sacrifices to mess with the minds of his enemies. He throws powders in life force that flows from their facegods, he confuses them so they fight each otherwho inhabit the Unformed Land, he summons zombie hordesinto this lesser physical realm.
: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. This idea, so foreign to our culture, struck me as something I wished to delve into much more deeply.
=Resources=
* [[Witch Doctor Skills]].
* [http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/witchdoctor.xml Blizzard's Witch Doctor] page has plenty of plot information, and short videos of some skills in action.
==Media=Male and Female Witch Doctors are featured frequently in the Image Gallery.=
* [http://www.diii.net/gallery/showgallery.php?si=doctor&x=0&y=0&limit=&thumbsonly=0&perpage=24&cat=546&ppuser=&thumbcheck=0&page=1&sortby=&sorttime=&way=&cat=546 Witch Doctor Screenshots].
* [http://www.diii.net/gallery/showgallery.php?si=witch&x=0&y=0&limit=&thumbsonly=0&perpage=24&cat=563&ppuser=&thumbcheck=0&page=1&sortby=&sorttime=&way=&cat=563 Witch Doctor Concept Art].
* [http://www.diii.net/gallery/showgallery.php?si=witch&x=0&y=0&limit=&thumbsonly=0&perpage=24&cat=550&ppuser=&thumbcheck=0&page=1&sortby=&sorttime=&way=&cat=550 Witch Doctor Wallpapers].
[[Image:Wd-concept1.jpg|frame|center]]