Second time I've just given up on the witch doctor before finishing the season journey. I think I tried the first time back in season 5, so Arachyr and HT Garg are the most recent improvements/additions.
I don't understand how players push grifts with builds that depend on pets to do the majority of their damage. They're frustratingly dumb and attack the wrong shit.
The base mechanics for many witch doctor builds is quite clunky. The survivability of firebats depends on you standing still and channeling. Paradoxically, moving to avoid shit is actually risky. Or stopping casting to refresh your hex DR. It's essentially the same reason most WW barbs don't use rend, but at least they aren't rooted.
Ring of Emptiness is enticing, but getting pestilence and a few haunts up after melee contact on a new pack is extremely dangerous. I had to switch to using Spirit Walk preemptively which just feels wrong. A lot of WD builds have this general problem where it requires you to do risky stuff in quasi melee range while not offering much to survive that danger.