Helltooth Acid Cloud Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Helltooth Acid Cloud Witch Doctor in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.1 and Season 24.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
This build incorporates the complete Helltooth set, taking all six available pieces and opening the jewelry for the damage multiplication of the Bastions of Will set. Rolls-wise, this DoT playstyle makes good use of skill bonuses across gear. Wall of Death % bonus is sought after on the Helltooth Tunic, alongside Toughness stats; on the Helltooth Mantle, it is ideally paired with Area Damage. Acid Cloud % is the perfect fourth primary on the Helltooth Greaves, and can be considered on the Helltooth Mask — if you can spare the Vitality loss. The Helltooth Leg Guards are strictly a source of protection, and the Helltooth Gauntlets adopt either Vitality or CDR alongside the usual Intelligence and double Crit stats.
Not skipping on any of the pieces required to obtain the 6 set bonus allows you to use a powerful offensive combo in the jewelry: the Bastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint. These rings provide an impressive 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you alternate between primary and spender attacks, so discipline yourself to intertwine the Slow Burn assault with a regular primary attack. On both rings, aim for Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Area Damage, and an open Socket.
You have two viable options for the amulet slot; either using Squirt's Necklace for an additional damage multiplier, or a Hellfire Amulet of Intelligence for a synergistic fifth passive like Bad Medicine, Jungle Fortitude, or Pierce the Veil. The former favorite The Flavor of Time should now be slotted on your follower, and its power will be transferred to your character via the Emanate mechanic.
Seemingly an odd fit for the build, Belt of Transcendence simply gives you a better Fetish Sycophants passive at the cost of a gear slot. With its guaranteed trigger, this belt will quickly take you to the cap of 15 summons that act as a solid meat shield and distraction for your enemies.
Undeniably best-in-slot, Jeram's Bracers increase the damage of Wall of Death by up to a 100%. As if that was not enough, they also enable the use of Wall of Death thrice within one cooldown period, allowing you to cover an entire room in incinerating flames. Stat-wise, seek Intelligence, Crit Chance and elemental damage — either Cold or Fire.
While it deprives you of several potent Mojo combinations, the SuWong Diviner staff more than makes up for it with the high, two-hander damage range, rolling up to 100% Acid Cloud damage, and adding the Lob Blob Bomb rune for free. While the skill bonus is certainly impressive, the added rune is not to be underestimated, as Lob Blob Bomb stacks the slimes and excels at single target.
In Season 24, your ideal weapon during Greater Rift solo pushing will be Arioc's Needle, whose unique damage bonuses to Decay abilities and unrivaled skill and pure stat bonuses will outperform any other alternatives. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of SuWong Diviner, and will ideally have the Spirit Vessel passive. Learn more about Ethereal weapons in our Ethereal mechanics guide, and read up on how to farm them in the Ethereal farming guide.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
---|---|---|
Head |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.
Paragon Points
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in range, and is otherwise triggered by Haunt.
Esoteric Alteration is the strongest mitigation gem available, and its impact is noticeable in this mid-range caster build. Improving your elemental resistances with every gem level and adding an emergency toughness spike through the level 25 property, Esoteric Alteration ensures that enemies will have a hard time bursting you down.
Bane of the Stricken builds up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and has a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, making it perfect for AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Acid Cloud Doctors are no exception.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm | |
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
Cubing The Furnace provides you with an incomparable source of bonus elite damage, significantly shortening fights with champion packs and Rift Guardians — arguably the most dangerous fights in Greater Rift progression attempts.
The Grin Reaper has been consistently buffed throughout the 2.3 testing phase, casting almost the entirety of your skill selection at an improved rate and range. The mimics will also benefit from the Helltooth 6-piece bonuses, turning into a significant, independent source of damage for the build.
The Ring of Emptiness takes a firm slot as your jewelry in the Cube, dramatically increasing your damage against enemies affected by Haunt or Locust Swarm. The former is part of your rotation, making the ring an easy inclusion in the build.
The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Scoundrel due to his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage that are well suited to the strengths of this build.
For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.
Legendary Potion
Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Witch Doctors (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.
Changelog
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 14 Mar. 2020: Item recommendations adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Item recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
More Witch Doctor Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
- Season 32 Launches Today! Here Is Everything You Need to Know!
- Diablo 3 Season 32 Starts on July 12th
- Diablo Immortal x WoW Crossover Event: Frostmourne in Sanctuary!
- Blizzard at Gamescom 2024
- Icy Veins Seeking Writers for Zenless Zone Zero: Apply Today!
- No BlizzCon in 2024
- Season 31 Guides: Everything You Need to Know
- Blizzard Games Return to China: New Agreement Signed With NetEase