Most people considered the necromancer to be a pure summoner, and while he was my favorite D2 class, I seldom actually played him as a zookeeper. Poisonmancers and bonemancers were way more fun to play, and were just as viable. I expect the WD will be able to completely maim and eradicate at all difficulty levels without dogs or the gargantuan.
in D2 summon necros were useless if they werent in solo play because the skeletons did such horrible damage. only revive was good but to actually kill anything with your skellys in hell took ages. bone necros actually could kill stuff.
in D3 the WD pets are a lot more viable than D2 summons since they are based off of your wpn dmg and you can rune them to do more. i think the WD is like the druid / necro hybrid only even better. in D2 if you tried to do summons AND poinson or bone you would gimp one tree or another too much and be overall not effective in later difficulties so you had to basically specialize in one or the other, in D3 the WD can easily do both at the same time without sacrificing either making him a lot more powerful class
Right but wrong. My summon necro could be pretty handy to a group. 20 skele 20 improved minions 20corpse explosion, lots in clay golem and golem mastery and viola you can solo hell difficulty practicaly naked and have lots of support abilities for group play. Your clay golem can slow bosses and corpse explosion is amazing. Plus a couple points in a curse here and there and your a pretty handy support for group play. Even if your skeles are only good for soaking up damage.
Actualy im sure i have seen blizzard show a WD that didnt use summons on either hell or inferno... it was when they were talking about viable builds i think. He definatly has the tools..
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#eYRUgV!daS!bZbZZa
This is my "look at me im a jungle mage!" build.
http://us.battle.net...ZSgV!YeZ!bZaaaZ
Work in progress. Once i learn how he actualy plays i will have to make tweaks im sure but looks fun to me.