Diablo III- Skills Article CXXIV: Witch Doctor, Theorycraft Two- The Bad Touch

One of the odd things that the Witch Doctor can do despite being a ranged class with very little in the way of personal defense is put out a startlingly large amount of damage at short range.  The intent of this build is to use a lot of effects that hinge on the Witch Doctor being near to enemies- either while injuring them or when they die- and using that to increase their damage output even further.

Primary Skill: Corpse Spiders (Medusa Spiders)
Secondary Skill: Firebats (Cloud of Bats)
Defensive Skill: Spirit Walk (Umbral Shock)
Terror Skill: Soul Harvest (Languish)
Decay Skill: Spirit Barrage (Manitou)
Voodoo Skill: Fetish Army (Fetish Ambush)
Passive Skills: Grave Injustice, Spirit Vessel, Jungle Fortitude or Pierce the Veil

Several of the choices here are obvious- Manitou, Cloud of Bats and Umbral Shock are all excellent ways to deal damage to a number of nearby enemies.  Soul Harvest is always great on a close-range Witch Doctor, and the use of Languish makes it easier to keep things clustered together once they converge on you, so that you can do still more damage to them.  Fetish Ambush is used as an occasional emergency button- if the crowd of enemies is handing out too much damage, not only do the appearing Fetish do massive damage to them (likely taking out a few of the lower-Life offenders), but the Fetish themselves then both deal out even more damage and soak up attacks that would have been hitting you.  Medusa Spiders stack nicely with any of these effects, slowing enemies and letting you spend more time near them without actually being in melee reach, and giving you an alternative to Cloud of Bats for when your Mana runs low.

Grave Injustice does you a lot of good with things dying near you, particularly in keeping Spirit Walk ready to let you skip out to a slightly more distant spot much more often and letting you have your Fetish Ambush more often.  Spirit Vessel protects you against occasional accidents and accelerates your re-use of Spirit Walk, which in this situation serves both as a way to avoid being killed by slows and as a way to hand out even more damage.  Jungle Fortitude is for players who take a lot of damage while doing this, reducing the risk inherently, whereas Pierce the Veil lets you kill things that much more quickly- though it can be hard on your Mana pool with this build’s lack of a Mana-recharging rune.