Diablo III Beta Patch 13 introduced the class runes for testing. The Witch Doctor is a bit slow dealing damage in comparison with the Wizard and the Monk, but it’s really good at crowd control, and AOE damage.

In its arsenal of crowd control are:

  • Corpse Spiders
  • Grasp of the Dead
  • Zombie Dogs
  • Hex
  • Horrify

I personally like the combo of Firebomb (Primary), Corpse Spiders (Secondary), Summon Zombie Dogs (Defensive) and Horrify (Terror). Some might want the Firebats instead of Corpse of Spiders. Firebats seems to do more damage than Firebomb, but Firebats is for short range AOE in a frontal-cone. Firebomb is for long range, which comes handy when you want to kill those annoying archers or the Tomb Guardians which like to summon zombies and flee away from reach.

Corpse of Spiders comes handy to throw it at elusive mobs standing away from you, causing them to be surrounded and halted long enough to toss a Firebomb. These also stop the tiny childlike Fiends which spawn after killing a Harvester (the fat grotesque monsters that explode like a piñata). The fiends like to move away really fast, then hit and run. Kind of annoying to chase them down all over the place. The Corpse of Spiders neatly leap at them for you.

The primary spell is assigned to the left-button, the secondary spell is the right-button, defensive is the 1-button, and terror is the 2-button.

If you have the SteelSeries Diablo III Gaming Mouse, it’s very easy to use all the four spells without the need to use the keyboard.

Corpse of Spiders has a rune that allows the four spiders to leap 25 yards toward the nearest monsters.

The Zombie Dogs have the Life Link rune which transfers 10% of the damage taken to the three minions. The dogs have a redish intermitent-glow when this rune is active. When the Witch Doctor is hit, you can see three redish lines jumping from the Witch Doctor toward each zombie dog as a special effect that damage taken was transfered to the minions.

You can only reach level 13 in beta, so the amount of runes are limited to only five.

Video available in HD 1920×1080 and other resolutions. This video is going to really show off some of the Witch Doctor’s spells and runes. Hope you enjoy. More B-rolls are coming for each class. Check out also the official Game Guide: Witch Doctor Skills / Rune page.