Wizard is god-like in hell/inferno. They're doing it wrong if they are complaining. It's the undisputed best damage class right now, both solo and in groups. Demon Hunter possibly/probably pumps out more raw damage, but it has worse survivability and utility by a lot. Smoke Screen is cool though.
Witch Doctor does not stack up well at all after you get past act1. Act1 is a joke and witch doctor does great with a few minor exceptions. Witch Doctor is good on all of the boss fights, although
phase 3 is sketchy for witch doctor on inferno. It won't matter though as long as you bring a wizard, and WD has sick utility as well as consistent damage (but subpar damage for actually killing the mobs) for the first two phases.
Once you get to act3, WD gets benched for pretty much anything else, and then you can bring it in again for
runs. I'm not sure if they ever tried casting spells with witch doctor in testing, but you go oom almost instantly and even a 24/7 zombie bears, which isn't realistically possible, is not exactly out damaging the other damage dealing classes. And you have to dedicate 2 skill slots to it, constantly spam your defensives at bad times leaving you vulnerable, and use two passives to power it, sacrificing your ability to not get one hit in the process. And there's a bad range requirement. And it's not even that much better than blow darts on single target.
I could go on for a long time about the various class mechanics that just don't work, most passives being effectively useless, and the majority of the skills bordering unusable for one reason or another. I really think witch doctor just wasn't really tested well. It's full of stupid design concepts where someone went "oh that sounds cool" and then no one actually made it work within the context of the game. For example, Haunt ticks back 155 health in inferno. That's not even 1% of your health, and even if it ticked 1% it wouldn't be overpowered because survivability is currently a lot more about not getting one shot or having outs. Another example, Blood Ritual is worse than the other two or three mana regeneration talents and 1% hp regeneration is not good at any point in the game.
I enjoy witch doctor anyway. The skills that are usable are fun, and we have a few great skills. Spirit Walk, Grasp of the Dead, and Soul Harvest are nice. Poison Darts are a necessary evil as far as I know. Spiders can technically out damage it, but in practice it doesn't happen. Haunt isn't bad single target, the 288% arcane one is actually sick, but I haven't found a way to reasonably power it. It's not actually good enough to give things up to power it, especially because it doesn't work good on groups like damage over time skills did in WoW. Giving haunt a small area effect or upping its damage would be nice. Locust Swarm and Grasp are decent abilities, but with the 6 skill limit and a lack of feasible things to back them up with (like some short cooldown aoe that doesn't cost a ton of mana) they put you in an awkward place choice wise. It just doesn't add up to even remotely competitive area damage, and if you create a build that does your single target will be terrible and/or run you out of mana which makes you useless.
A lot of things are like that, or have some really dumb drawback. Spirit Barrage Manitou's range is practically point blank, Spirit Barrage's phantasm does pathetically low damage for how impossible the positioning requirements are (it matches Haunt/Locust Swarm damage per second, and Locust swarm costs less mana if 3 or more monsters are there and propogates itself for guaranteed damage), the zombies that charge out from you for decent weapon damage have no range at all for a 25s cooldown that only does 475% weapon damage once, mana spiders don't seem to be designed to actually work with any ability well (although they are cool and if Spirit Barrage or a few other abilities get "fixed" they could be used as mana regeneration filler), acid cloud can't really be spammed effectively but doesn't have a cooldown so it can't trigger vision quest and isn't too great in single target fights (giving it a cooldown and some higher damage per cast would be nice), and there's a ton of skills that are practically identical and all subpar in their own way. Support wise you don't bring enough support to be pure support, especially because of enrage timers and regeneration. You have to bring some level of damage. Overall, you are just left feeling incomplete no matter which build you try to make. Other classes really don't feel that way.
You can make builds for specific fights that work, and you do have some amazing things. I mean WD has been present for most of the inferno progression boss kills because it does bring a nice something to the table. It's a viable class and I have no intention of switching. I enjoy playing it in fights, and you can do some very clutch things with it. Just don't expect paradise or even being able to solo well after act 1 inferno. The build situation is disappointing. There are no wd builds. You just grab whatever for the situation and rely on other classes to fill the gaps.
edit: I've tried Zombie Bear build, summoning builds (although not with really stacked summoning gear), the build I use which is fairly close to the one method's wd and a few others came up with, and a whole bunch of other things today. I spent most of the day trying to come up with a situational build that is better for something, and I really came up short. Witch Doctor just feels like a WoW class shoved in to diablo, and because of the skill limit and different game mechanics nothing really works out as it should. It does have a few great strengths, and you can solo stuff fine for a while. It has great group utility at times as well. It just doesn't mash together to make something complete in area appropriate gear.
