Diablo III- Skills Article CVI: Witch Doctor, Defensive Skills- Hex

Hex (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): Summon a Fetish Shaman who follows you around for 12 seconds.  On summoning, the Shaman will turn one nearby enemy who is not an Act Boss or a major Quest Boss into an immobile Chicken who cannot act and takes 10% extra damage.  This transformation lasts until the Fetish Shaman leaves.

Hex is a very useful way to deal with troubling Champion and Elite monsters, and can be fun to fling out there now and again at other times as well.  Since the target becomes immobile and incapable of attacking, you and your allies are free to roast them with impunity- and the increased damage goes that much farther.  Since the monster that got hexed retains its defenses (aside from the 10% damage increase), don’t expect this to regularly give you a free kill, but it should make a lot of otherwise annoying or difficult fights (such as with Mortar, Arcane, or Teleport mobs) a lot less aggravating.

Hedge Magic (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): Summon a Fetish Shaman who follows you around for 12 seconds.  On summoning, the Shaman will turn one nearby enemy who is not an Act Boss or a major Quest Boss into an immobile Chicken who cannot act and takes 10% extra damage.  This transformation lasts until the Fetish Shaman leaves.  The Fetish Shaman will periodically heal you and your allies for an amount of Life based on your level (up to 1861 Life at level 60).

Hedge Magic increases the overall utility of Hex, letting you use it to recover from a drubbing as well as dish one out- not a bad effect at all.  With this rune, players who are not level 60 may want to use Hex more often than just for nasty fights with champions- the healing becomes insignificant as gear improves past level 60, but before then it’s very handy to have.

Jinx (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): Summon a Fetish Shaman who follows you around for 12 seconds.  On summoning, the Shaman will turn one nearby enemy who is not an Act Boss or a major Quest Boss into an immobile Chicken who cannot act and takes 20% extra damage.  This transformation lasts until the Fetish Shaman leaves.

While it may not seem like much, the 10% additional damage from Hex is a pretty big deal- so increasing it to 20% is a natural and wonderful improvement to put on the original spell.  Make sure that you use this form of Hex when there are very few enemies on the screen- since the Fetish Shaman targets randomly, it’s kind of wasteful to Hex a regular Fallen when a set of Champion Fallen Shaman are on the field.

Angry Chicken (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): You turn into a chicken with 15% increased movement speed.  After five seconds or when you press a skill button (whichever comes first), you explode for 215% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within 12 yards and cease being a chicken.  You cannot use your skills when you are a chicken.

This form of Hex is just bizarre.  Foregoing the Shaman in favor of turning yourself into a human (fowl?) bomb is a bit far-fetched, but the damage is fairly nice as long as you can get away after you blow up.  If you use a lot of Mana-intensive skills and need something to occupy time while you wait for your Mana to refill, you may find this useful- otherwise, it’s mostly for playing around.  Cluck.

Painful Transformation (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): Summon a Fetish Shaman who follows you around for 12 seconds.  On summoning, the Shaman will turn one nearby enemy who is not an Act Boss or a major Quest Boss into an immobile Chicken who cannot act, takes 12% weapon damage as Physical damage every second, and takes 10% extra damage.  This transformation lasts until the Fetish Shaman leaves.

While it’s kind of neat to tack damage onto the Hex, the damage is pretty much nothing to the amount of damage that can be pumped into the immobile and helpless target by the Witch Doctor and their allies- if you want more damage on the thing that got Hexed, then you want to use Jinx and not this.  Always.

Unstable Form (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): Summon a Fetish Shaman who follows you around for 12 seconds.  On summoning, the Shaman will turn one nearby enemy who is not an Act Boss or a major Quest Boss into an immobile Chicken who cannot act and takes 10% extra damage.  This transformation lasts until the Fetish Shaman leaves.  If the target is killed while Hexed, they explode and deal 135% weapon damage as Poison damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

This is mostly for the amusement factor- while the damage is nice, anything you really care about Hexing is unlikely to die while it’s Hexed- unless you beat it up a bit before you Hex it.  The area of effect isn’t all that large too, so it’s not really a useful rune.  Fun, though.  Rely on Jinx or Hedge Magic instead.