Corpse Spiders

Corpse Spiders is a tier II Witch Doctor skill. It summons a rotting zombie corpse from which spiders swarm out, attacking nearby enemies.

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]

Corpse Spiders Active, 1 ranks
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Skill Description:
Description: Summon X spiders to attack nearby enemies.
Skill Details:
Type:	Summon
Quantity:	Duration
Effect:	Target
School:	Poison
Mana cost:	Unknown
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	10 seconds
Cooldown:	1.5 sec
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

The Witch Doctor summons a defiled Zombie who vomits up spiders that attack nearby monsters.

Skill Design

Carrion Spiders being summoned.

This skill was initially called Carrion Spiders. In the earliest version it summoned three large spiders from the earth wherever the Witch Doctor targeted the spell. They swarmed over nearby enemies, dealing poison damage.

During development in 2009 this skill was changed to Corpse Spiders, and the summon now pulled a Zombie partially out of the earth, from which the spiders were vomited forth.

Skill Rank Table

Figures for this skill were seen in 2009, but they are inaccurate for the final game, due to changes in the number of type of spiders summoned.

Synergies

None known.

Runestone Effects

None are specifically known, but Bashiok mentioned during 2010 that one of the runes now creates a single giant spider, rather than a swarm of smaller ones. It has not been seen and it's not known which rune creates this effect.

Development

The old Spider Totem Spell.

Corpse Spiders was seen in every Diablo 3 game demo to date, and was changed, balanced, renamed and moved, according to the latest demo. This skill was first revealed during BlizzCon 2008, at that time, and up to BlizzCon 2009, it was known as Spider Totem and worked differently. It worked like a trap (the Assassin skills from Diablo II) with a radius of poison damage. When cast a small totem would appear out of the ground, from which hundreds of small spiders emerge, and swarm over nearby monsters, dealing poison damage.

During BlizzCon's 2009 Heroes and Monsters panel, the development team addressed the spell, revealing it's flaws and the changes made to it. The Spider Totem had a noisy look, a player would cast this in a combat situation, and the entire screen was filled with small spiders which made it hard to concentrate. Also, they didn't like the totem thematic, as the Witch Doctor is more dark than that. They addressed the flaws by making a preset amount of bigger spiders (which are creepier) emerge from the mouth of a zombie that came out of the ground.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

Diablo 3 screenshots and pictures

References

Full Witch Doctor Skill Trees and Stats