Jade Harvester Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
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 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
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 ( Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle, and either
the
Captain Crimson's Thrust or
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), it offers a baseline of 60% DR that
stacks up to 80% with an easy 10 monster harvest during the Rift clear. Note the
variance in the roll of its legendary bonus — 1 to 3
Soul Harvest
stacks required for the base DR to trigger. Aim for the lowest, 1 stack required
roll.
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.
Two off-hand items offer very valuable bonuses to the build, and can be worn
or cubed depending on your better roll. Shukrani's Triumph makes
Spirit Walk last until you attack 3 times, or an elite is within 20 yards
of you, resulting in outstanding mobility right until you decide to engage in a
fight, putting you in a very advantageous position. It also offers a damage
multiplier while you are in
Spirit Walk; and while you will lose this
form when you attack, you still get a grace period as if you just popped the
skill on its own (2 seconds with base
Spirit Walk, 3 seconds with
Jaunt), giving you another short period of damage multiplication.
Vile Hive increases the damage of
Locust Swarm by up to 60% and
grants you the
Pestilence rune for free, allowing you to slot the
protective
Cloud of Insects on your bar. Simply wear your best rolled mojo
between those two, and cube the other. There is also an all-out offense option
where you equip
Shukrani's Triumph, slot
Pestilence on your bar,
and use
The Furnace in your weapon Cube slot — at the cost of a
chunk of your survivability.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
For Offense stats, try to obtain Haunt % bonus on the Chest, Shoulders
and Off-hand (maximum of 45%), Poison (or Cold) elemental damage on the amulet
and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio
(ideally over 60% and 450%, respectively), and Area Damage of 130%+ (everywhere
on gear you can reasonably get it — both Rings, Shoulders, Gloves and
Off-hand). While Attack Speed is a stat that affects the overall DPS of the
build due to the Jade set 2-piece bonus encouraging Haunt spam, it is
not a reasonable stat to chase after during GR progression; you can settle on
the 30 frame breakpoint with no IAS outside Paragons, a stacked
Gogok of Swiftness and the Enchantress
Focused Mind
attack speed buff. Your IAS breakpoint will improve with
Echoing Fury
during speedruns, where you will be able to reach the 19 frame breakpoint for
significantly faster
Haunt spread.
For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 800k-900k; dropping as much as
you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain
through the Siphon rune of
Soul Harvest, plus some incidental
Life per Second via the Cpt. Crimson 2-piece and
Blood Ritual bonuses.
All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Intelligence.
Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.
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
In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is
done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if
your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot
replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting
your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into
Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Maximum Mana if you want to ease your
Haunt spam, and Vitality if you feel yourself lacking.
In the Offense section, max out Attack Speed, Crit Damage, Crit Chance and Cooldown Reduction in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Globe Radius and Life on Hit.
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, and is otherwise triggered by
Haunt and
Languish.
Gogok of Swiftness offers a spread of three stats, all of which are
valuable to the build; Cooldown Reduction makes your
Soul Harvest
available faster, the scaling Dodge chance helps with survivability, and the
Attack Speed increase helps with the
Haunt spam.
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.
When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the
highest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these
will all be Flawless Royal Topazes as soon as possible. As you grow in
Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and
more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive
Flawless Royal Ruby, scaling the lacking Armor of an Intelligence-based
character (Intelligence scales Resistances). There is no specific breakpoint
where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel
the lack of toughness impede your progress. Since this build is relatively CDR
dependent, you should slot a
Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm. In your
weapon, use a
Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
As previously mentioned, you will wear your better roll between
Vile Hive and
Shukrani's Triumph, and store the legendary power of
your worse rolled item in the Cube.
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 3-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.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the
Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from
Prophetic Harmony, as well as the
Focused Mind attack speed buff. The latter is very helpful in
reaching the attack speed breakpoints described above.
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
The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
(allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede your positioning) and
Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties complement
the naturally high All Resistances stat of Witch Doctors). Pick whichever you
feel helps you out the most.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Enriched the guide and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 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.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 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
Farming Guides
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.
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