Diablo III- Skills Article CV: Witch Doctor, Defensive Skills- Spirit Walk

Spirit Walk (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 2 seconds, you are semi-immaterial and your movement cannot be restricted.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.

Spirit Walk is a bit of an odd defensive skill, sort of an inverted version of the Demon Hunter’s Smoke Screen- while enemies can still spot and attack you, you cannot be stopped from moving.  This can be really handy for escaping sticky situations or breaking free of effects like Imprison or Slow.  Whether or not you have to worry about such effects to begin with is up in the air- most Witch Doctors shouldn’t really ever be targetted enough to need this skill on a regular basis.  As an emergency button, though, it has its uses.

Jaunt (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 3 seconds, you are semi-immaterial and your movement cannot be restricted.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.

Jaunt extends the duration of Spirit Walk, making it even more of a GTFO button than it already was.  There’s really not much more to say about it, though.

Honored Guest (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 2 seconds, you are semi-immaterial, your movement cannot be restricted, and you regain 15% of your maximum Mana each second.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.

Honored Guest turns Spirit Walk from an escape maneuver into a passable combination of minor repositioning and a slight Mana restoration.  While the duration isn’t long enough for big moves (like escaping a fight entirely) and it doesn’t really do anything about incoming damage, having your Mana restored can be useful enough to occasionally use it while standing still.

Umbral Shock (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 2 seconds, you are semi-immaterial and your movement cannot be restricted.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.  When the effect ends, you unleash an explosion of flame that deals 85% weapon damage as Fire damage to all enemies within 10 yards.

This rune is a bit quirky- on the one hand, it’s most effective if you use it to wander into the middle of a group of enemies.  On the other hand, as a Witch Doctor, you don’t want to ever be in the middle of a group of enemies.  It’s a bit of a quandary, but can be a useful finishing strike if you just need to tack on a tiny bit more damage.

Severance (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 2 seconds, you are semi-immaterial and your movement cannot be restricted.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.  Any enemy you walk through while this effect is active takes 100% weapon damage as Physical damage.

As with Umbral Shock, this rune is a bit quirky since you shouldn’t be using the skill to get into the middle of a group of enemies.  On the other hand, if you want to hand out a little damage as you flee using Spirit Walk, this can be an okay side-effect.  Just don’t rely on it to kill things too much, or you’ll find you’ve stranded yourself in the middle of a large mob for 13 seconds- more than enough time to die.

Healing Journey (49 Mana, Cooldown 15 Seconds): For the next 2 seconds, you are semi-immaterial and your movement cannot be restricted.  This effect will end if you sustain 50% of your maximum Life in damage.  Each second that this effect is active, you heal 7% of your maximum Life.

As an alternative to the Mana-restoration of Honored Guest, Healing Journey is most useful when you need Spirit Walk to let you flee and come back to the fight- Life rarely heals, after all, and your Mana is constantly returning to you.  Try not to rely on it too hard, though, or you’ll find you haven’t got it when you need it most.