Diablo III- Skills Article CIV: Witch Doctor, Defensive Skills- Horrify

Horrify (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 12 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 4 seconds.

Like a Nightmarish monster, you can use this skill to force enemies to turn and flee- both stopping their offense and weakening their defense.  Since you have no control over the directions the enemies go in, and the effect is always centered on your Witch Doctor, this skill is tactically difficult, if not crippling, to use.  On the other hand, there are ways to use it to your advantage- ranged characters can hit them very easily, melee characters with charging attacks can take massive advantage, and if the path the enemy tries to flee in is blocked, it will stop and cower in place.  You are safest using this skill in one of two ways- as a debilitating debuff to force enemies to do nothing while your skills and allies continue dealing damage to them, and as an emergency button to force any number of enemies to stop beating you into the floor.  Be aware that if they aren’t prepared for it when you use it, all your party members will be cursing at you in their heads when you scare everything- running enemies are a massive tactical issue and general annoyance.

Phobia (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 12 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 6 seconds.

This form of Horrify lasts longer- which is both a boon and a curse, as the base effect is.  At 6 seconds of fear, many enemies will flee completely out of sight range if not followed, making it easy to forget them and where they went.  At the same time, that’s two more seconds they spend essentially defenseless, particularly if they run into a corner.

Stalker (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 12 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 4 seconds and increasing your move speed by 20% for 4 seconds.

This spell alleviates one of the deficiencies of Horrify- with your boosted movement speed, it’s easy to follow something you just scared off and beat it to death without losing track of it.  Not as useful as it could be- since you can only really follow enemies who fled in the same direction- but still a nice improvement on the original effect.

Face of Death (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 24 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 4 seconds.

The form of Horrify for when you’re -really- in deep, Face of Death will even affect some ranged attackers, so it’s an excellent method of self-protection.  As a debuffing effect, though, it’s just that many more things to chase after and/or lose track of, so you should save Face of Death for when you’re in neck-deep and sinking.

Frightening Aspect (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 12 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 4 seconds.  Your Armor is increased by 100% for the next 8 seconds.

A weird defensive alteration of Horrify, Frightening Aspect is nice for scaring off melee mobs so you can open fire on their ranged backup- because it improves your Armor, it protects you to some degree against anything that you didn’t scare off- and the duration of the buff means it may even be useful against whatever you decide to chase down, or anything that comes back from where it ran.  This effect is best when using Horrify as a debuff, rather than pure self-defense.

Ruthless Terror (37 Mana, Cooldown 20 Seconds): You briefly don a horrifying mask, causing all enemies within 12 yards to flee in a straight line without defending themselves for 4 seconds.  For each enemy you hit with this effect, you gain 27 Mana.

Ruthless Terror is good for using with Horrify as a debuff as well- by recouping probably more Mana than you spent to use the skill to begin with, Ruthless Terror lets you use it mid-fight to not only get a breather but power yourself up for a strong offensive strike.  Be careful not to abuse this in party play.