Patching 1.0.2c -- potentially nerfed mob damage

[Elric of Grans]

Thus, I directly responded to your message. First, I noted that I have played with many witch doctors who use a variety of skillsets and then mentioned that Frag is even using a no-pets Witch Doctor who we think will also be Inferno viable. So, that's another example of a class that has a wide variety of builds and skillsets that allow the character to play quite differently and still be successful.

I never said it has only one viable build, I said it has a large number of skills that are not viable. Both our statements are true and do not contradict in that regard. In addition, a no-pet build is nothing special as most Witch Doctor players complain that the pets are useless anyway. I believe Spirit Walk/Soul Siphon with Bears or Bats and Darts/Splinters is the standard build.

In addition, my comments regarding the viability of the Witch Doctor responded directly to your comments about the Witch Doctor having "almost no viable skills past Nightmare." That was a foolish comment that was false on its face. Again, anyone who has trouble playing a class past nightmare that has tanking pets, strong crowd control, good dps, and good damage mitigation and prevention skills simply needs to l2p.

Once again, you are stating `the class can complete the game' as a response to my statement that `certain skills are not viable'. How am I failing to read your post when it is so blatant here? Surely, this is the most obvious example of a straw man that anyone can find! I already acknowledged that Witch Doctor players have gotten to, and through, Inferno difficulty: I am at no point making a statement about the viability of the class.

How many Witch Doctors use Toads? Too expensive for a skill that is supposed to be used when you are waiting for your mana to regen (the other Primary Skills are less than 1/3 of the cost); Toad of Hugeness in particular does not even serve its purpose due to a variety of reasons (which are best kept to a Witch Doctor-specific discussion). Basically every Witch Doctor uses Bats or Bears as their damage skill: how many Sacrifice builds have you seen? The class is viable, but pets do not scale properly and there is a severe design issue which Blizzard have admitted was a problem from the beta they could not resolve (mana regen, if you are not aware) that limits it to a small number of builds. Compared to the Wizard, the whole core of this discussion, the Witch Doctor has a lot less viable builds. Witch Doctor builds typically focus on addressing the issue of their mana regen so they do not have the `five seconds of awesome, 55 seconds of useless' that many Witch Doctor players complain about.

I don't know enough about Monks to discuss skillsets, but I can say that there are monks in hardcore Act 2 Inferno, so I know they are quite viable as well. [...]

So, here I am partially agreeing with you. That is, from my limited knowledge of the Monk, it seems like some of the same skills, certainly that one passive, does seem to be pretty much on everybody's build. However, my comments regarding the viability of the class in general respond directly to your comment that "the class tends to get panned a lot as horrible."

Once again, you are responding to me claiming that you are arguing the class is viable instead of the skills, and you respond to it by saying the class is viable. I very clearly was not making a specific claim about the class, as I commented on general sentiment. I lack the personal experience, as you do; neither of us can make any comment on specifics. I never said the class was not viable, I said the general feeling about it was that it was `horrible', in a paragraph where the context of discussion was about internal skill balance. The context of that `horrible' should have been more than obvious. As you respond, there are many skill selections that are, essentially, must-have to be viable. Once again, in relation to my core contention, the Monk has inferior internal balance when compared to the Wizard.

Before it looks as though I am sitting back and going `oh, the Wizard is over powered, blah, blah, blah,' I am not. If we go back to the origin, I stated that you should not use the Wizard as your sole point of view when talking about internal skill balance. You should not shoot people down when they complain about their class because your class clearly does not have the issues they complain about. You have been very quick to shoot people down with a `learn to play' when they complain that certain skill options were not viable. Sure, they can use the same build as everyone else, but that does not mean their point is invalid nor deserves your harsh dismissal of them. The Wizard needs only tweaks (for the most part) to have an entirely viable skill-set; other classes may require considerably more work.