Spirit Walk

Spirit Walk is a Witch Doctor skill enabled at level 12. It's a very useful escape/movement skill, one which lets the Witch Doctor move without being seen by other players or monsters for several seconds. This can be used to bypass dangerous monsters, and it's essential in the Battle Arena.

This is the Witch Doctor's movement ability.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Spirit Walk
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Enabled at:	Clvl 12
Skill Description
The Witch Doctor travels unseen and untouched through the spirit realm.
Type:	Buff/Movement
Resource Use:	Costs Mana
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Unknown
Crimson rune:	Unknown
Golden rune:	Unknown
Indigo rune:	Unknown
Obsidian rune:	Unknown

The Witch Doctor enters the spirit realm through a trance, and can move unseen and untouched, passing through enemies, but still grabbing health orbs while he's there.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Spirit Walk 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
Spirit Walk (Level 12)		Enter the spirit realm for 3 seconds. While in the spirit realm, your movement is unhindered. Cost: 176 Mana. Cooldown: 15 seconds. Your link to the spirit realm will end if you cast any spell or your physical body sustains 50% of your maximum health in damage.
	Severance	Enemies you walk through in spirit form take 121 - 135 physical damage per second.
	Jaunt	Increases the duration of Spirit Walk to 10.0 seconds.
	Umbral Shock	When Spirit Walk ends, your physical form bursts for 135 - 249 Fire damage to all enemies within 10 yards.
	Honored Guest	Gain 11% of your maximum Mana every second while Spirit Walk is active.
	Healing Journey	Gain 16% of your maximum Life every second while Spirit Walk is active.

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

Skill Design

The Witch Doctor vanishes from the sight of all, leaving an empty husk of a body behind, floating in the air as a decoy. While in the spirit realm the Witch Doctor can run without being hindered by other characters or monsters, moving to a safe place before the duration wears off and he reenters the corporeal world.

Synergies

Spirit Walk decoy left behind in the Battle Arena.

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

Skill Rune Effects

The known rune effects for Spirit Walk are:

• Unknown rune: Applies DoT to monsters the Witch Doctor walks through.

Development

Spirit Walk was first seen as a Witch Doctor skill at BlizzCon 2009, as a Tier V skill in the Spirit Skill Tree. However, it wasn't yet implemented.

This was one of the skills on the pre-made characters in the PvP Arena demo at BlizzCon 2010, and soon proved itself as one of the best skills in the entire demo. It was the best escape skill possessed by any of the characters. Flux wrote about using it in a lengthy hands-on PvP report:[1]

I’ve raved about this one already, but it was really an awesomely useful skill. The Witch Doctor leaves a decoy of himself behind and has several seconds to run free, invisible to everyone. Best of all he can grab health orbs in this mode. He can’t cast other spells though, so no detonating Sacrifices. Almost everyone used this to run to safety, and then recast their three Mongrels in some distant corner before returning to the battle.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Spirit Walk became a level 12 skill.

Media

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Spirit Walk specific gallery contents

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Witch Doctor Skill Trees and Stats
• BlizzCon 2010 PvP Hands-on Report
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011

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