Firebats

Firebats is a Witch Doctor skill enabled at level 9. It casts forth a spray of flaming bats, which deal substantial fire damage to enemies in the vicinity.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Firebats
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Enabled at:	Clvl 9
Skill Description
A swarm of fiery bats burn enemies in front of you for X fire damage per second.
Type:	DoT
Resource Use:	Costs Mana/time
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Unknown
Crimson rune:	Unknown
Golden rune:	Unknown
Indigo rune:	Unknown
Obsidian rune:	Unknown

The Witch Doctor spews fire from his mouth whilst bats fly into the flame, sending forth flaming bats to attack enemies in front of the Doctor.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Firebats rune effects page for a more thorough summary of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Skill		Effect
Firebats (Level 9)		A swarm of fiery bats burn enemies in front of you for 57 - 85 Fire damage per second. Cost: 352 Mana per second.
	Dire Bats	Summon fewer but larger bats that travel up to 40 yards and hit for 185 - 249 Fire damage.
	Hungry Bats	Rapidly summon bats to seek out nearby targets for 96 - 217 Fire damage.
	Plague Bats	Enemies in the area are plagued. Damage is slow at first, but can increase over time to a maximum of 195 Poison damage per second.
	Vampire Bats	35% of damage done by the bats is gained as Life.
	Cloud of Bats	Call forth a swirl of bats to damage nearby enemies for 156 - 234 Fire damage per second.

Note: Information is based on a level 60 character and rank 7 runestones.

Skill Design

This skill is a sort of Inferno, dealing fire damage to anything in front of the Witch Doctor for as long as he keeps casting the spell. It takes a moment to start producing damage, and requires the Witch Doctor to remain stationary while he casts it.

There is a steady mana drain while the spell is in use.

Synergies

Firebats swarm a Cultist.

• No synergies with any of the passive skills are yet known.

Skill Rune Effects

The known rune effects for Firebats are:

• Unknown rune: boosts the range and damage of the Firebats.
• Unknown rune: turns Firebats into a sort of defensive field, with the bats constantly swarming around the Witch Doctor and only extending out to damage enemies when they move into melee range.

Development

Firebats was first seen in the WWI 2008 build. It was originally located in the Spirit Skill Tree, then moved to the Voodoo Skill Tree, before skill trees were removed entirely.

The skill's damage and range was lowered with the introduction of skill runes; unmodified Firebats were much less effective in the BlizzCon 2010 build than they had been back in 2008. Flux commented on using this skill:[1]

The other interesting thing about this skill was the firing mechanism. You couldn’t click it. If you did nothing would happen. Literally; sometimes one bat would squeak out, but usually not even that. The spell dealt very good DoT, but you had to hold down the mouse button to let the bats flow forth. It took a second or two for the full flow to get going, and once it did the damage was great, but you had to commit to using it.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Firebats became a level 9 skill.

Previous Versions

See the Witch Doctor skill archive for more details on previous versions of Firebats and other Witch Doctor skills.

Media

Firebats can be seen in action on video here:

• Video: August 2011 Witch Doctor Skill Animations

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Firebats specific gallery contents

• 

  Firebats vs. flaming zombies.

• 

  Firebats on an Unburied.

• 

  Firebats swarm a Cultist.

References

• BlizzCon 2008 Witch Doctor Gameplay Report
• BlizzCon 2009 Full Witch Doctor Skill Trees and Stats
• BlizzCon 2010 Witch Doctor Hands-on Report
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Character Previews From Jay Wilson -- IncGamers 9th Aug 2011

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer primary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer secondary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses