Tried out the Witch Doctor in D3 last night…  Was not impressed.

Functionally, it’s basically the modern version of the Necromancer from D2.  You get curses and pets and things like that – just like the Necromancer did.  But the Witch Doctor’s minions are slanted more towards zombies than skeletons and golems.  But…  It’s really a fairly similar dynamic.

What I didn’t like was actually the style of the Witch Doctor – the visuals and animation.

The Witch Doctor walks around with this weird crouched/hunched posture.  They’re obviously going for some kind of semi-bestial, lithe, feral sort of thing…  Because Witch Doctors are in-tune with their animal nature and primitive and stuff.  But the posture came across as more constipated than feral.  And it really just didn’t look very pleasing to watch my character squatting around the screen.

The zombie dogs were neat enough…  They looked a little weird, but I guess I’m not sure what the baseline is for undead canines.  The killer frogs were pretty lame – they just kind of hop around at random.  Very hard to use constructively.  And the poison dart was just plain unimpressive.  It does decent-enough damage…  Certainly kills things…  But it is completely lacking in visual flair.

I’ve got to say…  At this point, I’m feeling a little underwhelmed with Diablo III.  Granted, I’m just poking around in a beta…  The level cap is 13, and I can’t even make it out of Act I.  I’m sure the game as a whole is far more impressive than this little slice makes it look.  And I’m sure that all the classes – even the ones I’m not liking so far – become far more interesting as the game progresses.

But, so far, I’m only really liking two of the five classes.

Posted on February 6 at 9:37 AM