Soul Harvest

Soul Harvest is a Witch Doctor skill unlocked at level 11. This skill has changed a great deal during development, and is now a buff that boosts the Witch Doctor's spell damage when there are numerous enemies in the vicinity.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Soul Harvest
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Enabled at:	Clvl 11
Skill Description
Gain X% increased spell damage per enemy within X feet for X seconds.
Type:	Buff
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 gains strength from the close proximity of his enemies.

Skill Design

This skill was initially a nova-type of attack, one that dealt damage and fed mana back to the Witch Doctor for everything it killed. That changed entirely during development, and the skill now buffs the Witch Doctor's spell damage.

Soul Harvest Video

A video of Soul Harvest, with the original, long-changed visual and effect, can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: Gain X% increased spell damage per enemy within X feet for X seconds.

Synergies

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

Skill Rune Effects

• No rune effects for Soul Harvest are known.

Development

Soul Harvest was first seen at WWI 2008 and BlizzCon 2008, where it was in the Spirit Skill Tree at Tier II. Originally, Soul Harvest was a low-damage, leeching, nova-like attack spell. Flux described using it:[1]

I seldom needed it, and found it to be less than effective as a killing weapon. It wasn’t that damaging, and wasn’t that cheap to cast either; so I had to make sure it was going to kill at least a few monsters to be cost effective.

The old version of this skill created a nova-like ring of blue smoke around the Witch Doctor. All targets within the ring were damaged, and if the damage was enough to kill them, their souls (white/blue ghosts) swirled into the air, then down into the Witch Doctor, where they added to his mana. The skill was just the same at BlizzCon 2009.

Soul Harvest was changed entirely for Blizzcon 2010, becoming a Tier 3 buffing sort of war cry. Unfortunately, there are no gameplay reports detailing any usage of this skill.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Soul Harvest became a level 11 skill.

Previous Versions

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

Media

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Soul Harvest specific gallery contents

References

• BlizzCon 2008 Witch Doctor Gameplay Report
• BlizzCon 2009 Full Witch Doctor Skill Trees and Stats
• BlizzCon 2010 Witch Doctor Hands-on Report
• JudgeHype.com July 2011 Press Event Coverage - The Barbarian (Translated by Zediono)