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Summon Zombie Dogs

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[[File:IconSummonZombieDog.png|left]]
[[File:wd-mongrel1.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Good dogs.]]
'''Summon Zombie Dogs''' is a Defensive [[Witch Doctor skill]] unlocked at [[clvl|level]] 4. It summons several zombie dogs, commonly known as "mongrels" which [[tank]] for the Witch Doctor. The dogs fight and damage enemies, but their damage is quite low, making their main function that of tanks or distractions. The best way to deal damage with them is via the [[Sacrifice]] skill, which detonates all of the dogs, dealing potentially enormous damage, when stacked with other skills and passives.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/zombie-dogs-sacrifice-possibly-best-burst-aoe-damage-in-the-game] At the time of Diablo III's launch, the hit points and defense of Mongrels and other Witch Doctor [[pets]] did not scale up adequately, making them useless by Hell difficulty, since any monster would kill them in a second. Fans requested much improved minions, a much reduced cooldown, or both, and Blizzard admitted that the pets were not functioning as planned at higher levels and said they would look into adjusting their value in a future balance patch.
Mongrels can also be detonated by the [[Sacrifice]] skill, dealing substantial damage to anything in the vicinity. This is their most effective way of directly damaging monsters.
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==Background==
Zombie Dogs have good foot speed and are fearless, if not very damaging with their hand to hand combat. Sacrifice deals far more damage than the mongrels ever will.
 
They are also useful as tanks or distractions, detaining monsters in combat and allowing the Witch Doctor to get in free shots at stationary enemy targets.
==Skill Rune Effects==
The following is a very quick summary. See Refer to the [[Summon Zombie Dogs rune effects]] page for a more thorough description descriptions of all five rune effectsin this skill, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, including screenshots, blue quotesvideos, and much morestrategy tips.
{{skill description header}}
Summon Zombie Dogs is the first summoning [[skill]] most Witch Doctors will ever use, and forms the backbone of early Witch Doctor strategy. The dogs are not very strong individually, either in giving or taking damage, but they are effective meat shields, allowing the Witch Doctor to use his attack spells from the back row.
At higher levels Players assumed the dogs would be viable tanks or even weapons throughout the game, but shortly after Diablo III's launch it was discovered that Mongrels can deal decent damage, and in a swarm they may be useful against individual enemies, especially when their damage is boosted by a [[runestoneGargantuan]]s were underpowered and had far too few hit points to survive more than a few seconds on higher difficulty levels. As a result all early Witch Doctors in Hell and Inferno were forced to play petless builds. Blizzard vowed to adjust this unfortunate reality in a patch.
<skill class="WitchDoctor">Zombie Handler</skill>
<skill class="WitchDoctor">Fierce Loyalty</skill>
 
Shortly before release, a strategy article on Diablo.IncGamers.com did some theorycrafting and revealed that Zombie Dogs + Sacrifice, when stacked with the right passives and other skills, could deal amongst the highest damage output in the entire game.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/zombie-dogs-sacrifice-possibly-best-burst-aoe-damage-in-the-game]
 
The math was sound, and damage from 10,000-25,000% weapon damage is possible, but at least partially due to the underpowered survivability of Mongrels on higher difficulty levels, this strategy was not much pursued in those early days.
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