What does the "protection" mean? Reduced damage taken in the area of effect? The game doesn't really tell.
... I'm fairly sure they aren't working as expected. Here's my experience of them. I drop 2 brutes (cannon soak) and the witch doctor, wait for them to land and then send in about 10 buccaneers spread out a little (secondary cannon fodder), once they've landed I send in the rest of the allowance of gunners (actual damage dealers). When the brutes and the witch doctor land the brutes head off and the witch doctor stands where he lands waving his stick around... the brutes start taking damage and the buccaneers land and head into the fray... the witch doctor remains standing on the beach where he landed waving his stick around... the gunners land and head in... the witch doctor decides to wake up and follows the last gunner around. And by follow around I mean the gunner walks outside of the radius of the effect, usually gets shot at this point, and then the witch doctor ambles forward to cover his "bestest buddy at the back". It has happened 3 times in the 3 deployments since I unlocked the witch doctors... needless to say I've stopped recruiting witch doctors since they are being totally worthless at 5k grog a pop (2.5k base cost + 2.5k per upgrade is a little steep!!!). If they followed the close combat guys grouped up at the front they would be useful, but only following around the last guy who isn't actually in danger is totally worthless.
I think you have to upgrade them a little more to see better protection (expensive). They normally get crushed under mortar attack before they do much. But if they do follow the brutes they help a little. I notice they follow whomever is last to be deployed around them. So the lead group gets no protection. You can see with the graphics the protection zone they caste around the guy they are protecting. But the default Witch doctor is weak and doesn't take much damage. They also take up a lot of slots. More for the advanced armies me thinks.
Tell me about it - a "little" steep. It's totally ridiculous especially with eg. the first upgrade giving you less than 4% more HP and nothing else while increasing the recruit cost by 100%. I've tried the doctor once or twice, but have currently no interest in using him more. I thought about putting a general balancing issues topic which would also mention this witch doctor upgrade ridiculousness, but since the reception for my other thread with a lengthy opening and less sexy topic ( http://forum.plunderpirates.com/ind...-how-the-game-communicates-to-the-player.360/ ) didn't really get much responses from the community nor even answers from the staff, I thought why bother.
He didn't really answer to LeftyRighty's problem. LeftyRighty was explaining how the Witch doctor behaves stupidly, and special abilities don't really help with that. Increasing the range will probably make the problem smaller at least regarding the gunner walking outside the area of effect, but I don't think that takes the whole problem away either.
I find the Witch Doctor and the Bomber both do weird things in an attack. The Bomber attacks a building like 3 times and then moves on to another before its destroyed. So he runs way ahead and dies. The "Human Bomb" upgrade may make this behavior usefull. Or maybe you just need multiples. The Witch Doctor hangs too far back, but he gets a range improvement twice early and that would solve the issue since he tends to stay about one tile too far back. Both units are currently to awkward to use in a 35 unit raid. In 50 it might make more sense with more troops around them.
Indeed but I'll take a good tip wherever I find it & credit where it's due. SirVin has been dropping them all over the shop.
I have the same problem, ill send out brutes and gunners and the doctor stands there, looking up in the sky trying to bite his elbow. Twirling his stick around trying to keep as far from everyone as possible. And yes he has a damage rating.......but does no damage! He needs much higher speed to keep up with e other peeps and should work similar the healer in COC. Following around the largest, most important groups of peeps. Plz fix cause as it stands, the witch doctor just acts like my uncle charlie who we keep locked in the basement with chains!
So let me get this straight. In order for them to become useful they require 5 upgrades (to reach first special ability.) This increases the cost to 12,500 grog per, and a hire time of 7 minutes. Yeah, I'll pass.
