#1 - May 17, 2012, 5:25 a.m.
The Witch Doctor
Witch doctors are spiritual warriors who summon dead souls and crawling creatures to do their bidding. By surrounding themselves with conjured zombies and vermin, witch doctors are free to assault their enemies with exploding skulls, acrid poison clouds, and wasting curses.
The ability to infect, slow and terrify their enemies gives witch doctors unprecedented control over a battlefield. They can manipulate opposing attacks and movements with debuffs and crowd control spells, rendering enemies easy prey for hungry pets. Witch doctors can also lay down fields of fire and venom that slowly leech life from advancing foes.
Although some witch doctors avoid melee combat in favor of augmenting their pets and crippling their enemies from afar, they are also more than capable of slaying weakened foes with their own hands.
Videos
- Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise - Witch doctor story and gameplay pre-launch preview
- Skill Rune Preview - An example of how skill runes augment an ability like Acid Cloud
- Diablo III Gameplay Preview - Worldwide Invitational 2008 Diablo III first-ever gameplay trailer featuring the barbarian and witch doctor
Gameplay
Images
Character Background
Doubtwalker (Excerpt)
Each season, after the Igani, the emptied husks of tributes were carefully sewn together in the shapes of dogs, their bodies filled with herbal composts and dried leaves. A boiled skull of a beast was used as the head, attached just above a mane of feathers. With the blessing of the spirits, these zombified beings served as loyal minions at a witch doctor's beck and call.
Champions of the Unformed Land
The dark and distant lands of the eastern continent are home to countless mysteries and exotic cultures with strange and frightening ways. Beyond the deserts of Aranoch, across the Twin Seas, and deep within the teeming jungles of Toraja lie the vast tribal territories of the Teganze. There the umbaru people live, much as they have for centuries, in a nomadic state of hunting, spiritual musing, and constant savage warfare.
War amongst the tribes of the umbaru is a ceremonial affair, a ritualized part of everyday life that allows each tribe to vie for respect, honor, and acclaim in the eyes of their gods. Enemies taken in battle are then deemed worthy of sacrifice, and their lives are given to the umbaru deities—powerful spirits who reign over the Unformed Land.
Known as the Mbwiru Eikura to the tribes of the Teganze, the Unformed Land is believed to be the true and sacred reality, the purest form of existence. To the umbaru, their mortal duration is but a pale shadow of the Unformed Land, a testing ground for those wishing to ascend to the higher plane. And only the witch doctors are able to look upon the Mbwiru Eikura, through mastery of potent herbs, bloody rituals, and an intense focus known as the Ghost Trance. Their combined spiritual and military acumen has earned the witch doctors a place of status and reverence amongst the tribes. Theirs is a calling that requires an incredible degree of courage, self-sacrifice, wisdom, and foresight.
It is that same sense of foresight that has brought the umbaru's attention to the distant village of New Tristram. The Ghost Trance has revealed terrible signs and portents for Sanctuary and the Unformed Land. Only the boldest of witch doctors would dare cross the far horizons to the west, braving incalculable odds to bring answers back to their tribe.