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

The build incorporates the complete bonuses of the Raiment of the Jade Harvester set, taking five of the six available pieces and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur. 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 (which you likely skip) 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.

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.

In your jewelry slots, you will be sporting one of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set. The The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet add 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 aggro 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 Haunt or Locust Swarm, matching the natural rotation of the build.

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 %.

In Season 24, your ideal weapon during Greater Rift solo pushing will be Ghostflame, whose unique damage boost to Secondary abilties and unrivaled skill and pure stat bonuses will outperform any other alternatives. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of Sacred Harvester, and will ideally have the Swampland Attunement passive. Learn more about Ethereal weapons in our Ethereal mechanics guide, and read up on how to farm them in the Ethereal farming guide.

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, 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. Another notable option for this slot is Gogok of Swiftness, whose Attack Speed, Dodge Chance and Cooldown Reduction-scaling bonuses present a compelling alternative for the slot.

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.

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

The power of Echoing Fury in your weapon Cube slot is highly synergistic with the Jade Harvester WD, as it provides a scaling Attack Speed bonus that allows you to spread and stack the pre-burst DoT in a lightning-fast manner. An alternative for this slot in high end Greater Rift progression is The Furnace, providing a very straightforward bonus — damage multiplication against elites.

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 the Jade Harvester / 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 4-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to 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.

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.

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.