Sacrifice: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards.
Sacrifice is a very sad skill. This is not because its effect is bad- its effect is frankly amazing- if your three (or four) dogs are clustered around one boss, the damage is very impressive, and even in a spread out combat, the areas of effect can overlap nicely. The problem is that it pretty much hinges on your using the Zombie Dogs skill, which as mentioned before is currently unusable at later levels. While it is possible to keep it on tap anyways and just blow the dogs up shortly after summoning them, that’s a pretty big waste, considering you’re essentially consuming two of your six skill slots for the sake of one skill (Sacrifice). So, while powerful, Sacrifice really lacks utility and general usability. That said, if Zombie Dogs ever get fixed into a viable state, this skill will immediately become relevant and very strong, particularly as, while it costs Zombie Dogs, it costs no Mana and has no cooldown.
Black Blood: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards. Enemies in this area are covered in foul blood and have their movement Slowed by 60% for 8 seconds.
The slow effect from this rune is very powerful as a result of its duration. Should Zombie Dogs become usable, this rune will turn Sacrifice into an excellent way to ditch virtually any combat and gain a bit of breathing room, as it will stop enemies from successfully following you- which is exactly what you are likely to need if you get desperate enough to blow up a set of working Zombie Dogs.
Next of Kin: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards. Each Zombie Dog sacrificed in this way has a 35% chance to spawn a replacement Zombie Dog immediately.
This rune has two purposes- either it allows you to detonate your Zombie Dogs and still have your computer-operated tanks available (if the Zombie Dogs get fixed), or it lets you blow up your Zombie Dogs again right away and maybe deal even more outrageous damage to your main enemy. For now, it just helps keep Zombie Dogs/Sacrifice relevant, since the dogs themselves really aren’t likely to do much of note past around level 30.
Pride: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards. Each Zombie Dog you sacrifice in this manner restores 294 Mana.
Because of the steady growth of your Mana pool as you gain levels (the Witch Doctor being the only class to have a growing resource pool), this rune turns Zombie Dogs essentially into a Mana fountain that can be a very effective way to both kill anything assaulting you directly and grant yourself more resources to blast enemies with. Just don’t rely on keeping the Dogs around for a while between shots of Summoning/Pride.
For the Master: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards. For each Zombie Dog exploded by this skill, you heal an amount of Life based on your level (6202 Life at level 60).
The flip side of Pride, For the Master makes Zombie Dogs into a fairly useful panic button, provided you have time to trigger both skills- crippling if not eliminating enemies that happen to be nearby and going a long way towards patching you up at the same time. Even the gear increases post level 60 only reduce the total healing amount from ‘huge’ to ‘nice’. Definitely a good option if you want Dogs just so you can blow them up.
Provoke the Pack: All Zombie Dogs you control immediately explode, each dealing 275% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards. Each time you sacrifice a Zombie Dog in this manner, you gain a stacking 5% damage buff that lasts 30 seconds.
This rune makes Sacrifice into a fairly good damage buff- while it really doesn’t compete with a well-timed Soul Harvest (whose higher Intelligence buff amounts generally increase your damage notably further than the raw-damage buff of Provoke the Pack), that doesn’t prevent it from being worthwhile and significant. Pride or For the Master are still better options here in most cases, but that 15-20% damage buff (depending on what skills, exactly, you have on tab) isn’t something to sneer at.
