Act 2 in the Desert is legitimately the worst thing in the world for my Witch Doctor. I try and kite an elite pack of Mortar/Jailer and up pops WASPS and then those friggin monsters that leap over my Unbreakable Grasp. So I run from those and I run into a pack of bugs and before it's all said and done I've got 30 mobs on me.
I switched over to Monk and this same area was a cakewalk.
So to Red/Solf what skills did you guys do when leveling up? Everyone says to use Vision Quest and spam Toads but that is just so damn boring. I picked Witch Doctor because they have so many cool moves but the only thing I ever see is
A.Splinters Builds with 5 Defensive Skills for kiting
B.Vision Quest and spamming Bears or Plague of Toads Tanking
Like, Acid Rain and Fire Bats are sweet, but you cast it 3-4 times and you're OOM and your kiting moves still cost a good amount of mana as does Plague of Toads. It just seems like the mana costs are ungodly high for the one class that has no resource generator.*
*Wizard's source regens pretty fast and one of their spammable moves has no costs.
Weird, I never really had problems with Nightmare (aside from the last fight which gave me a run for my money). Back in NM, I think I ran a Splinter Darts/Dire Bats/Life Link Dogs/Siphon Harvest/Jaunt Walk/Restless Gargantuan set. Dogs had no survivability, but were useful for drawing aggro away. One thing I like to do is to move in the center of a big pack of enemies, and combo Soul Harvest and Spirit Walk. That means three seconds of invincibility and increased damage, and thus Bats galore. Obviously, doing this in Inferno is a very bad idea, but it works well for Nightmare. Darts are also very useful after the Soul Harvest boost.
Soul Harvest and Spirit Walk are a must against Lacuni (jumping enemies). The second they jump next to you, you Harvest/Walk, let them hit your clone, and proceed to pummel them with bats. Or you just run away behind your Gargantuan and throw Darts from afar.
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When you have nothing to say, quote yourself ~ Solfadore