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Increase Witchdoctor's boost skill range

AuthorMessage
Lieutenant
Dec 19, 2012
173
Witchdoctor's need their skills that boost stats range increased.

As it stands now you have to keep your companions next to you in order to get the buffs on them. When i say next to you i mean the squares that are connected to the square your PC is standing on.

This brings a problem in both pvp and pve since skills are random as to which shows up it could take a few rounds for a witchdoctor to have say the chicken buffs to show up even using the discard method. It becomes longer for witchdoctors who have gear that have skills and are at the lvl cap with all PP used.

Since this class can't take the dmg when a player or boss is close they need their companions out away from them fighting to draw the enemys away.If i have to stand there a few rounds just for a buff then that gives time for enemys to crowd around the witchdoctor(very risky in pvp). If i skip the buff then the buff becomes another useless skill the witchdoctor has (and we have 3 chicken buffs alone,I have 5 total atm agility and will buff).Not only does it make the skills useless but sometimes the buffs is what makes or breaks a battle.

Its also odd that a witchdoctor has a really really short buff range(even thou he is a ranged class) while his companions like El Toro can buff all units no matter where on the battle grid they are.

Can KI plz look into increasing the buff range on witchdoctors?
Petty Officer
Oct 04, 2012
67
Developer
The difference in buff ranges is one of the key distinctions between the Privateer and the Witchdoctor. The Witchdoctor just isn't as good at buffing as the Privateer.

I find it interesting that you claim that the buffs are both useless, and yet at the same time, they have the capacity to make or break a battle for you.

Otherwise, you've zeroed in on the challenges of playing a Witchdoctor very well. There are no plans to change the range of the Witchdoctor buffs, so I recommend you take the excellent analysis that you have put together so far and start working out strategies to compensate.
Community Leader
I dont think this would be beneficial to game balance.

Witchdoctor buffs (ie Juju/chickens) are some of the best in the game. They are the only ones that buff what the Player/companion needs most. Most (if not all) the buffs other classes have, are stat specific (ie Strength, Agility, or Will ONLY). This IMO makes the witchdoctors buffs more efficient/powerful than all others from the very start.

Its true that the buffs dont always make themselves available on the first couple rounds. These are usually the times the buffs get discarded when im playing, as once the battle is underway its seldom worth using a round to cast them even if they did extend further across the board. Honestly I dont see that such a change would be worth the developers time.

Just an FYI on Buffs/Boosts.
I have found that Buffs/boosts are based solely on a pirates (or targets) BASE statistic, it does not take additional gear boosts into account. So if your base will is 50, and your gear gives you 80, that 50% buff will raise your will to 105, adding 50% of the base will which would be 25. I personally do not think it should work this way, but thats how it appears to be working.
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Petty Officer
Oct 04, 2012
67
Ratbeard on Jan 24, 2013 wrote:
The difference in buff ranges is one of the key distinctions between the Privateer and the Witchdoctor. The Witchdoctor just isn't as good at buffing as the Privateer.

I find it interesting that you claim that the buffs are both useless, and yet at the same time, they have the capacity to make or break a battle for you.

Otherwise, you've zeroed in on the challenges of playing a Witchdoctor very well. There are no plans to change the range of the Witchdoctor buffs, so I recommend you take the excellent analysis that you have put together so far and start working out strategies to compensate.
Re: the second paragraph. If the skill pops at the beginning of a fight so you can buff all your companions it can be a game changer. If it pops halfway through when your companions are further away then it is useless. At least I think that is what he meant.

But I can see why you keep the mechanic, a part of the game is the luck of a skill popping at the right time or a discarding skills wisely.
Admiral
Nov 23, 2011
1407
My witchdoctor consistently runs with a privateer. If my buffs were as good as hers, the privateer would definitely be a weaker character/class. The juju spells are, in my opinion, the best buffs in the game - and they are ours (witchdoctors'). If I have a juju spell* on the initial draw, I will hold it until the privateer and as many of her crew as possible can crowd around for it - we find it well worth "losing" a turn.

-Michael

*We call them Little Chicken, Big Chicken, and Super Chicken.