Revision as of 13:04, 17 July 2008

Male Witch Doctor.

The Witch Doctor is a new character type 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 outfitted in one of his oversized, colorful tribal masks. Judging by the skills thus far demonstrated, the WD fights a lot like a Necromancer, using cunning and guile, rather than direct physical attacks. Witch Doctors possess a number of mind control spells, the ability to summon and control undead servants, and a 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.

=Necromancer Replacement?

The WD is clearly Necromancer-like, in his mixture of summonings, mind control curses, and sub-mage quality magical attacks, but the D3 team 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.

Story

The Witch Doctor class comes from the jungles of Torajan, an area just southwest of Kurast, where Act Three took place in Diablo II. (D3 world map.)Their society and culture is detailed on the 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 Unformed Land" (this is an imprecise translation, as this concept is completely foreign to our culture and language). This belief holds that the true, sacred reality is veiled behind the physical one we normally experience. Their vitally important public ceremonies are centered upon sacrifices to the life force that flows from their gods, who inhabit the Unformed Land, into this lesser physical realm.

The witch doctors are finely attuned to this Unformed Land and are able to train their minds to perceive this reality through a combination of rituals and the use of selected roots and herbs found in the jungles. 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. This idea, so foreign to our culture, struck me as something I wished to delve into much more deeply.

Resources

Witch Doctor Skills.
Blizzard's Witch Doctor page has plenty of plot information, and short videos of some skills in action.

Media

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Image:Wd-1.jpg|thumb|left|The 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 in one of his oversized, colorful tribal masks. Witch Doctors are more mages than fighters and they battle with cunning and guile, using not physical attacks, but mind control spells, summoning undead servants, using and attacking with fire, locusts, and other strange magical powers.
+[[Image:Wd-1.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Male Witch Doctor.]]The Witch Doctor is a new character type 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 outfitted in one of his oversized, colorful tribal masks. Judging by the [[Witch Doctor Skills|skills thus far demonstrated]], the WD fights a lot like a Necromancer, using cunning and guile, rather than direct physical attacks. Witch Doctors possess a number of mind control spells, the ability to summon and control undead servants, and a 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 [[Witch_Doctor_Skills|skills]] so far revealed are somewhat Necromancer-esque, with a variety of summoning skills and some curse-like mind control effects. The Witch Doctor possesses very different attack spells than the Necromancer, though.
+==Necromancer Replacement?=
+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.
-http://www.diablowiki.net/WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel
+=Story=
+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:
-The witch doctor is where we went to town. He's a grizzled old vet. He's been out there and through it all. He's old, hunched over, he's a great example of physical contrast to barb. He's old and frail; he's not going to smash anyone with a hammer. He's been hit and he knows he doesn't like that, so he's going to be smarter. He's going to mess with the minds of his enemies. He throws powders in their face, he confuses them so they fight each other, he summons zombie hordes.
+: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 Unformed Land" (this is an imprecise translation, as this concept is completely foreign to our culture and language). This belief holds that the true, sacred reality is veiled behind the physical one we normally experience. Their vitally important public ceremonies are centered upon sacrifices to the life force that flows from their gods, who inhabit the Unformed Land, into this lesser physical realm.
-What kind of char do you have to be to summon a wall of zombies? That's his driving force. But he needed to be different enough form the other classes, from the necromancer, to give him a fresh take. So visually he's more stunning. Big vibrant cloaks of feathers to scare enemies His facemask is designed in a way to be dark and brooding looking. Even though he's old and frail, he presents this massive structure because of the plumage and the large mask. That's what he's all about. Messing with your mind so that he doesn't get his physically.
+:The witch doctors are finely attuned to this Unformed Land and are able to train their minds to perceive this reality through a combination of rituals and the use of selected roots and herbs found in the jungles. 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. This idea, so foreign to our culture, struck me as something I wished to delve into much more deeply.
-Witch Doctor: Firebomb
-Interesting evolution of this skill. It was one of our first skills for him. Originally it was a sort of fireball spell; when cast it traveled in a direct line from the WD to the target and would hit anything in the path. It exploded nicely. Explosions are cool. Everyone likes them.
-Problem was, not really problem, but we've all seen that kind of Fireball spell before. The artists came back said we didn't imagine him that way. We saw Firebomb as more of a physical magic. Like concocting some alchemical recipe in a skull and hurling that, and it explodes.
-Once it was a physical projectile designers liked. It became a physical thing to throw, could go over walls. Become different tactics and use. Great example of how art and design can work together to iterate to make cool skill.
-Last thing artists wanted to do was put the image of the witch doctor into the fire effect. When fire goes off it's big form of his hands and face in the flame. We thought that idea was so cool that we put that into the graphics of his other skills. Horrify, Mass Confuse. Just shows how one skill can inform whole class.
-This is how we develop skills. Rinse and repeat this idea. First few are hard and time consuming, but the rest come easier and makes for a really cool character.
-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.
-Other ideas were more straightforward. Man's best friend is dog. WD's best friend is zombie dog. Mongrel. Only thing better than zombie dog is an exploding zombie dog. So let's blow them up!
-http://www.diablowiki.net/WWI_2008:_D3_Design_Fundamentals_Panel
-Q: Is the witch doctor a replacement or spiritual successor to the Necro? Similar skills.
-A: We don't view WD as a replacement. Necro 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. If we ever decided to make a Necromancer, the WD wouldn't prevent us from doing so.
+=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==
-=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].
-=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.
 [[Image:Wd-concept1.jpg|frame|center]]

Difference between revisions of "Witch Doctor"