Zombie Bears

Zombie Bears are one of the skill effects enabled by socketing a runestone into the Witch Doctor skill, Zombie Charger.

The bear effect was created by Julian Love and revealed at Blizzcon 2010, where it became something of a meme or running joke, where the Diablo III devs referred to it in interviews and panels with unbearable frequency. [1]

Slashdot: I was playing a Witch Doctor, and I used the spell that summons a zombie for you, and I got a rune that turned it into a swarm of bears. We got a real kick out of that.

Julian Love: Yeah! Zombie Bears! It’s kind of funny, that’s one of the skills that came up – the way we work is that we sit down and throw a lot of crazy ideas out, and sometimes it’s a little scary, throwing an idea that you think “I’m not sure how the group will react. This is kind of wacky.” And I remember sitting in the group and they were saying, “What are we going to do? We need something else.” And I said, “I’m not even sure why this works, but I’m just going to say it: Zombie Bears!” And everybody went, “Yes!” And that was it. Look at the way to it feels to play that skill in the game – it just sounds fun, right?