Corpse Spiders (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases 4 spiders that attack nearby enemies at your attack speed for 16% weapon damage per hit and last roughly five seconds before dying.
Corpse Spiders is the second skill available to a Witch Doctor that summons something, and while not in the same class as the more major summons (which last until killed), it’s a very fun and interesting skill. The spiders themselves, particularly when the skill is spammed, will not only serve as a source of damage but often surround and thereby slow or stop whatever enemy you’re throwing the jars at. Additionally, they’ll move on to new targets if their original target is overcrowded, dies, or otherwise becomes unavailable. This makes them exceptionally useful in mass-combat situations, despite the tiny amount of damage dealt per hit by each spider. Sadly, their movement speed is unimpressive, as is their sight range, but the skill has such a small cost to use and fires so quickly that it hardly matters all that much that they can’t move from one cluster of foes to another over longer ranges.
Leaping Spiders (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases 4 spiders that attack nearby enemies at your attack speed for 19% weapon damage per hit, can leap up to 24 yards to attack a target, and last roughly five seconds before dying.
This rune pretty much repairs everything there is to worry about with the original Corpse Spiders, although the damage still is relatively low per-spider. The leap range is very nice, and since it essentially replaces the poor walking speed of the original spiders, it makes Corpse Spiders an invaluable way of making sure you’re going to hit something, even when you don’t have time to move your mouse cursor over to the enemy. While you still can’t control what the spiders target, it hardly matters- everything’s going to get spidered before long.
Spider Queen (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases a Spider Queen, who wanders towards enemies and deals 16% weapon damage as Physical damage to all enemies within a small distance. The Spider Queen dies after 15 seconds or when you use this skill to summon another Spider Queen.
This rune is, frankly, rather sad. The Spider Queen is fairly large, but she moves even more slowly than the Corpse Spiders. The damage is the same- but it’s an aura, so while she may sometimes hit more enemies for the same amount of damage, each enemy only takes damage as if they were being attacked by a single Corpse Spider. Finally, since only one may be in existence at a time, you can’t impede enemies or improve the damage any, and the low Mana cost of the skill (which usually makes it an excellent constant-use choice) ceases to mean anything at all. Not a rune you’re liable to enjoy or find useful.
Widowmakers (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases 4 spiders that attack nearby enemies at your attack speed for 16% weapon damage per hit and last roughly five seconds before dying. Each time one of these spiders hits an enemy, you regain 3 Mana.
If you’re looking for a skill to use to recharge your Mana, this is pretty much it. The Mana pool is so large that with only a single mana-regenerating item, you can basically stand around throwing Corpse Spiders forever and never run low on Mana. Since the skill is highly spammable even without that consideration, the amount of potential mana regained this way is huge. On the other hand, you -are- using a Corpse Spiders skill, so you shouldn’t need something to do to refill your Mana- you can just throw Corpse Spiders whenever you’re low, it isn’t as though it’s a bad skill. Really, it’s up to you whether this rune is worth it or not- if you’d rather focus on other stuff and use the skill slot to regain Mana, this rune is great. If you prefer actually using Corpse Spiders on a regular basis, stick with Leaping Spiders.
Medusa Spiders (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases 4 spiders that attack nearby enemies at your attack speed for 16% weapon damage per hit and last roughly five seconds before dying. Each attack these spiders make has a 25% chance of Slowing the movement of any enemy it hits by 60% for 1 second.
While the chance per-hit of slowing is low, remember that you’ve got four Corpse Spiders from each jar. If you keep your spiders together in a single area, then Medusa Spiders can pretty much guarantee that anything that walks into or through them is getting slowed. This makes it almost an area-effect sort of spell. Unfortunately, the spiders -really- like to gang up on a single target, so it’s not as nice as it could be- but it’s still a decent controllish effect.
Blazing Spiders (5 Mana): Throw a jar at the target enemy, object, or location. On impact, it breaks and releases 4 spiders that attack nearby enemies at your attack speed for 21% weapon damage as Fire damage per hit and last roughly five seconds before dying.
This isn’t the best rune available for Corpse Spiders. While the damage is noticeably higher than that of Leaping Spiders, it’s Fire damage, which is rather frequently resisted. What’s more, without the leaping effect from the earlier rune, the Blazing Spiders aren’t nearly as efficient at dealing out damage and often won’t reach their next target if the enemies are spread out at all. While pretty, they’re also pretty much inferior to Leaping Spiders in most cases.
