It sort of seems as though they essentially view the one class as a replacement for the other.īefore we start in on yet another round of “Class Warfare, a’ la Diablo”, let me make it clear: none of this is the fault of Necromancer players.

Blizzard has basically put the spotlight on Necromancer, while turning out the lights and locking the door on Witch Doctor. In comparison, Necro, since its release, makes up 21.2% of groups in Seasons and 14.9% of groups in Eras. After Necromancer, those numbers are reduced to 3.0% and 4.3%, respectively. Well, it sure looks like: Necromancer happened.īefore this 7th class was released, in Era 8 / Season 11, Witch Doctor accounted for 22.4% of groups in Seasons, and 28.0% of groups in Eras. In fact, Witch Doctor was once one of this game’s most dominant classes in groups, filling 996 out of a possible 4400 spots (about 23%) in Seasons 1-11, and 886 out of a possible 3200 (about 28%) in Eras 1-8. In groups, things were not always this bad. In terms of overall solo clear potential without Season themes, WD’s strongest build is Arachyr, roughly the 14th strongest build in the game.

The same thing holds true in the current season (27), where, of course, Bell Monk is extraordinarily powerful, and the current top WD clear would come in at 1819th place on the Monk board alone. The past year has not been any kinder: WD had 1 spot in the solo top 100 in Era 15, 1 spot in Era 16, and 0 (so far) in Era 17. In solo clears, WD has essentially been bad forever, which was something I explored and discussed quite a lot about a year ago, in this thread. And in non-season 4-person groups, from Eras 9-17, WD has filled only 72 of the 3600 possible spots. But in the eight Seasons before that (12-19), WD filled 0 of the 3200 available spots. The Season before that (20) was a bright spot for the class, when Mundunugu filled 99 of the possible 400 spots. In the last seven Seasons combined, WD has filled 8 of the total possible 2800 spots. This is not some aberration confined to only this Season or Era- it has been going on for a while. WD currently occupies 0 of those 400 spots in Era 17, and 5 out of 400 in Season 27. There are 400 possible spots to fill in the top 100 4-person groups for each Era or Season (4 people per group * 100 clears). Just like the title says: Witch Doctor is in bad shape.

Diablo 3 witch doctor leaderboard