The Witch Doctor Sucks!!!!

The new update is to be applauded and so far hats off to midoki!!! However, please, please, please immediately revert whatever you have done to the witch doctor!!! He has now become one of the most pointless pirates in the tavern. From being the most essential for big battles, to the least effective is quite a fall from grace.

Please revert.... There was nothing wrong with the way he was!!!!

No more tweaking of the witch doctor..... Pretty please even!!

 

People complained about him before, and he would go running off after one lone gunner all too often, or turn around and walk backwards away from a nice juicy pile of corpses to go protect one freshly-deployed troop. The new behavior may yet have room for improvement or perhaps there can be a toggle on how he works, but the new AI allows him to be much better controlled than before simply by pairing him with a high HP troop such as a jugg (or two if you plan to have a ton of other troops nearby that you don't want distracting him).

I spent a little time yesterday tweaking my attack strategy to take advantage of the new behavior, and reached #13 global last night with no Academy 8 trainings yet - a new record PR for me. So he can definitely be used effectively! However it does require rethinking your attacks a bit, and maybe throwing in some troops you are not accustomed to using. IMHO Skellywags help a lot!

 

A good thread to read about people being upset:

http://forum.plunderpirates.com/index.php?threads/witch-doctor-runs-off.6794/

And I agree with OP, the previous WD worked well for me and was very predicable. Not so much the case now with the new AI.

 

@Raptelan thanks for your points. You are clearly a great player and I've seen your thoughtful posts elsewhere.

I am not a great player, but I do enjoy the game. All I would say with regards the WD protecting juggs is that i can't understand why I would want a situation where my toughest pirates are being protected over my weaker ones. All that has resulted from this for me is a few lone juggs being protected by a WD while my army lies slaughtered in a mass grave after 1 hit from a mortar.

It seems illogical.... But I take onboard your points.

 

No, you are absolutely correct. It is illogical. I'm afraid we are stuck with it though until the next update. Egad!

 

Think of it like this - with the new AI the primary value of the WD is his resurrect ability, not his protect ability which becomes secondary. A good resurrect over a big pile of corpses makes a very effective distraction for the defenses, which is far more valuable than the WD's protection spell. Since skeletons (and skellywags, hint hint) are melee troops, they rush in ahead of gunners, *and* of slower juggs. When timed correctly, the defenses will stay occupied with the resurrected melee troops while your gunners easily survive and destroy them. More often than not, my juggs and WD will stay alive until the end of the battle as well, though I do take a second WD along to deploy just in case the first one dies early on a difficult base.

 

@Raptelan I will need to try this although I do always use at least 10skellys. Will take some practise I'm sure.

 

Raptelan, you reached №13 only because its update time, everybody down nobody attack you and attack you back. I'll see your rank after all the tops will be maxed.
Whatever you say protecting your first (false) statement, WD AI doesn't work correct now even by what Lynsey stated. I've seen many times when he go for one weak unit or make circles unable to decide where to go! And when he (mostly) do his sick task to protect "largest pool of health" its worst of all because he dies instantly on forefront!
So please stop justify biggest Midoki's blunder.

 

Switching how the WD is used from primary protect to primary resurrect is quite a huge change if you ask me. Since we have been using the WD this way for many moons now and for Midoki to up and change it willy nilly (not even listed in the release notes) is just plain LAME!

But I do thank you for listing your troop combo's which I will now have to mimic if Midoki doesn't fix this asap.

 

Personally I would like to see his ai change when you hit second chance rather then be a instantaneous cast it's timed. So when I hit second chance his ai changes to revive troops then for next 3-5 seconds he walks towards revivable troops maximizing revival instead of you trying to count how many bones are jumping and try and hit it at the perfect time. As for protect I think should be largest group of pirates and always behind them.

 

I haven't been to the forum in a while but had to come on now, I absolutely hate the new WD AI, my whole attack strategy hinged on him protecting my group of Gunnerz while the rest of my crew went about their business. Now he will not stay with them, he runs straight past them, WAY OFF to the other troops. It's a horrible fix, for the love of god!! switch it back Midoki.

 

No, don't switch it back. That way sucked for another previously mentioned reason.

The new idea is a good one, it simply gives too much weight to high-HP troops. Fix that, and we'll really have something good.

 

Completely agree with this comment, it's exactly what's happening to me, my weaker troops are getting slaughtered as the WD rushes past them & on to the strongest troops, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, What also happens is the WD ends up being cut to pieces as he is going into where the melee troops are, not out with the ranged Gunners & HG'ers.
This is by far the worst tweek Midoki have every done, switch it back & quick.

 

Please go vote on my new thread with WD AI survey. Voice your opinion!
http://forum.plunderpirates.com/index.php?threads/witch-doctor-fix-cast-your-vote.6829/

 

Witch doctors are now terrible! Sorry Midoki. You have made this game not not fun. New update looks great but, the WD is awful.

My juggs who have tons of hit points don't need the Witch Doctor. My gunners and people that die need the witch doctor.

Oooooh btw the witch doctor dies faster then ever because, guess what they follow the troops that are slammed in the beginning of the battle by everything. Oh but that's ok because they have the most hit points?????????????? Doesn't make sense

If the witch doctor just simply stated with the troops I sent them in with there would be no issues and it would be my error.

 

I think the WD problems are also more widespread than the AI tweak to follow juggs. I just watched my WD moon walk (literally walk backwards) towards the red zone of a GP where no troops needed protecting.

 

I can't see how you can say the new AI is good but fix it in the same sentence. The AI needs to either be returned to the old way or completely redone. As it sits now its a joke.

 

Exactly!!!!!! So dumb juggs don't need help. They are supposed to be a distraction troop

 

Oh right, it's update time and that makes all the tough bases in the 700's and up suddenly easy to beat, even the ones with PH9-enabled defense upgrades and/or lv12 walls already complete. And 3-star victories easier too. You sure do have creative ideas, I'll give you that! Unfortunately completely bogus, but don't let that stop you from calling me a liar!

LOL!

 

There is no question you are good player, a great player in fact. You have spent a lot of time figuring this game out to a "T" and your skills are much higher than the rest of us mere mortals. That's great and you nailed how to use this new WD, but for the rest of us that were getting by with old WD and making it work, this current change has really set us off. Its not easy for people to just up and change their complete attack strategy around a very odd AI change. This is not a simple tweak that Midoki did, the WD is basically a totally different character now.

I got it, they could rename the new WD to WD2 and bring back WD1 and let us choose who to recruit for battle.