Helltooth Zombie Bears Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

This build incorporates the complete Helltooth set bonuses, taking five of the six available pieces and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur. Rolls-wise, this spender-heavy playstyle makes good use of skill bonuses and Area Damage across gear. Zombie Charger % is the perfect fourth primary on the Helltooth Greaves and Helltooth Mask, while Area Damage is desired on both Helltooth Mantle and Helltooth Gauntlets. With the current class design, secondary stats have become quite important for Witch Doctors, and Helltooth builds are no exception: try to offset your Swampland Attunement weaknesses with Lightning or Arcane Resists in your secondaries.

Armor set-wise, you will also be crafting and equipping two of the three pieces of the Captain Crimson set (the Captain Crimson's Thrust, Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and Captain Crimson's Waders). You will complete their full bonus via Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. This set provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and damage reduced according to both stats, respectively — bringing a massive boon to the build.

The ability to store Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube to obtain the full Helltooth set bonus allows you to split between offense and defense in the worn jewelry slots. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This mirrors the Zombie Bears playstyle, which goes from extended periods of drawing aggro into static Zombie Charger Zombie Bears channeling (see this build's skills page for more information).

The Ring of Emptiness will occupy your second ring slot; while seemingly an odd addition to the set, this ring dramatically increases your damage against enemies affected by either Haunt or Locust Swarm.

Introduced in Patch 2.4, Lakumba's Ornament is a targeted bracer for Jade Harvester Witch Doctors. Synergizing with the bonuses of the cubed Sacred Harvester (discussed below), this bracer will cut incoming damage roughly in half, significantly improving the survival chances of this melee spellcaster build.

The reworked Scrimshaw legendary spear has been tailored for Zombie Charger builds, eclipsing any potential competition with a naturally high skill damage multiplier and a massive skill-specific resource cost reduction value. The situation is similarly locked in the offhand, where the dedicated Zombie Charger Zombie Bears mojo Ursua's Trodden Effigy will assist you with both a damage multiplier and a skill-enhancing effect.

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.

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 Languish and the Wall of Death necrosis effect from the Helltooth set.

Gogok of Swiftness indirectly provides you with more damage and survivability by increasing Cooldown Reduction for Spirit Walk, Attack Speed for faster Zombie Bears output, as well as scaling Dodge chance.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. While Zombie Bears WDs do well in 1v1 combat, it is a testament to the quality of the gem that it still comes out as the biggest damage increase for the setup.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Sacred Harvester is weapon Cube power of choice for a Zombie Bears Witch Doctor in Greater Rifts, as its unique bonus extends the number of Soul Harvest stacks from 5 to 10. Aside from the true multiplier from the Intelligence gain, this is a huge boon to your overall survivability with the bonuses of the worn Lakumba's Ornament and the rune Languish.

The Grin Reaper has been consistently buffed, 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.

In the Helltooth / Captain Crimson mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur, a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and an additional 3-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

During Season 22, you are able to add Convention of Elements and enjoy a tremendous boost to your damage during the Poison cycle.

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.

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.