Jade Harvester Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. Changelog
• +Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• ×Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube

General Information

Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Jade Harvester Witch Doctor in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for patch 2.6.1 and Season 15.

The other pages of our Jade Harvester Witch Doctor guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build incorporates the complete Raiment of the Jade Harvester set, taking all six available pieces and opening up the jewelry for the Endless Walk set and its damage multiplication bonuses. Crit Chance is necessary along with Intelligence and Vitality on Jade Harvester's Wisdom. Cooldown reduction is important for the Jade Witch Doctor, and it is advisable to get it on the Jade Harvester's Mercy, where it accompanies the Crit stats, as well as on the Jade Harvester's Joy. The latter will also provide you with skill damage, as Haunt % can be rolled on both the Jade Harvester's Joy and the Jade Harvester's Peace. Jade Harvester's Courage and Jade Harvester's Swiftness remain pure toughness slots, prioritizing high Vitality and Armor. Note that stacking Armor benefits you because of the balancing of sources of mitigation, as All Resistance is already abundant on an Intelligence-based character.

Not skipping on any of the six available set pieces to obtain the full Jade Harvester set bonus allows you to split between offense and defense in the 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 Jade Harvester playstyle, which goes from extended periods of drawing agro with Haunt spam into a more static Soul Harvest, Piranhado and Horrify rotation. The Ring of Emptiness will occupy your second ring slot; this legendary jewelry piece dramatically increases your damage against enemies affected by both Haunt and Locust Swarm, matching the natural rotation of the build.

The general recommendation for the belt slot is the Haunting Girdle, releasing an extra Spirit when you cast Haunt for added burst. While Jade Harvester is far from a pet build, the Belt of Transcendence is another viable belt due to its amazing unique bonus — basically, 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 fetishes that act as a solid meat shield and distraction for your enemies.

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

The appropriately named Sacred Harvester is the best-in-slot weapon for a Jade Witch Doctor in Greater Rifts, as its unique bonus extends the number of Soul Harvest stacks from 5 to 10. Considering that the build benefits from all Soul Harvest runes, the Damage, Toughness and Utility bonuses gained from this Ceremonial Knife are second to none when it comes to progression content.

There is some wiggle room in the offhand slot, depending on your needs for better survival or damage. The standard choice is equipping Henri's Perquisition, offering a significant source of upfront damage reduction and crowd control. Note that if you choose the survivability route in gearing, this slot is interchangeable with a Vile Hive, depending on your better item roll. In the stats, look for high damage range, Intelligence, Vitality, Crit Chance, and increased Haunt %.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Jade Harvester's Wisdom	Socket Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Vitality All Resistance
Shoulders	Jade Harvester's Joy	Intelligence Vitality Cooldown Reduction Haunt Damage Armor
Torso	Jade Harvester's Peace	3 Sockets Intelligence Vitality Haunt Damage Reduced damage from Elites
Wrists	Lakumba's Ornament	Cold Damage Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Vitality Armor
Hands	Jade Harvester's Mercy	Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Vitality
Waist	Haunting Girdle (Best in Slot) Belt of Transcendence (Alternative)	Intelligence Vitality Life % Armor All Resistance
Legs	Jade Harvester's Courage	2 Sockets Intelligence Vitality Armor All Resistance
Feet	Jade Harvester's Swiftness	Intelligence Vitality Armor Movement Speed All Resistance
Amulet	The Traveler's Pledge	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Cold Damage Intelligence
Ring #1	The Compass Rose	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Intelligence
Ring #2	Ring of Emptiness	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Area Damage Intelligence
Weapon	Sacred Harvester	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) High Damage Range Intelligence % Weapon Damage Vitality Cooldown Reduction
Off-hand	Henri's Perquisition (Best in Slot) Vile Hive (Alternative)	High Damage Range Intelligence Critical Hit Chance Vitality Haunt Damage Cooldown Reduction

2. Paragon Points

Slot	Paragon Points
Core	Movement Speed up to 25% cap Intelligence Vitality Maximum Mana
Offense	Cooldown Reduction Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Attack Speed
Defense	Armor Life % All Resistance Life Regeneration
Utility	Area Damage Life on Hit Resource Cost Reduction Gold Find

3. 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, and is otherwise triggered by Haunt and Languish.

Esoteric Alteration is the strongest mitigation gem available, and its impact is noticeable in this close 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.

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. Jade Harvester Witch Doctors are no exception.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Bane of the Trapped Esoteric Alteration Bane of the Stricken
Helm	Flawless Royal Amethyst (Toughness)
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Topaz (Damage and All Resistance)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

4. Kanai's Cube

To improve your damage, the best choice for the weapon slot in the Cube is The Furnace, the strongest generic two-handed weapon in the game. With its 50% additional elite damage affix it speeds up clear times greatly, as Champion and Rift Guardian fights are the usual GR bottleneck. Alternatively, you can cube a Vile Hive mojo to get a free Pestilence rune, allowing you to run the Toughness-oriented Cloud of Insects rune on your bar.

Tucked away in the armor slot of the Cube, the Quetzalcoatl voodoo mask is a key piece that doubles the pace of your Haunt and Locust Swarm DoTs, ties into the Creeping Death passive bonus and produces the signature Jade burst.

In GRs, the jewelry slot will be best taken by the pure damage boost of Convention of Elements, whose rotation of elemental bonuses you will have to keep under close scrutiny to take advantage of the short-lived Cold proc. Alternatively, you can use Unity for its 50% damage reduction when paired with another on the follower, plus an immortality item for him (i.e. Enchanting Favor) — a great choice for hardcore, or when lacking in toughness.

5. Follower

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.

About the Author

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.