Thinking of trying this build out as sort of a Witch Doctor. Anyone have thoughts/suggestions?

From what I've tried so far..

 

You can go Soul Blade/Lifegiver, which gives you a serviceable melee DPS who can heal himself. Make sure you also pick Storm spells, they are very useful for a melee character. I like running WotEP on this character and stacking Deflection so I can generate Focus with both Offensive Parry hits and standard melee swings. Not the best use of Soul Blade, but playable.

 

A better option however is to go full support with Beguiler/Lifegiver. This character takes care of all CC and healing needs of your group. You can also pick Animist instead, so you don't lose access to creature summon spells, but you should judge yourself if you need them or not (I'm not a big fan of Druid summons tbh).

Hmm good ideas, wondering how I can make it work from a RP perspective.

That I can't help you with, but best of luck

Haha thank you.

tried fury/cipher - was clunky even with bonus penetration to all spells through cipher. individually the classes are decent put there is limited synergy

shifter/soulblade or shifter ascendant is good from what I hear if you want to gen focus from spirit shift and afterward do soul annihilation or use spells in ascendant form. 

Cool stuff thx!