Jade Harvester Witch Doctor Skills and Runes

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 explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Jade Harvester Witch Doctor in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6 and Season 11.

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

Active Skills
Locust Swarm Pestilence Haunt Resentful Spirits 1 Soul Harvest Languish 2 Spirit Walk Jaunt 3 Piranhas Piranhado 4 Horrify Frightening Aspect
Passive Skills
Spirit Vessel Grave Injustice Confidence Ritual Creeping Death

1. Rotation

The combat strategy of the Jade Witch Doctor opens battles by casting Piranhado to clump your enemies and apply the Piranhas debuff, amplifying the damage of the skills to follow. Cast a single Locust Swarm, and as it spreads start applying Haunt on the enemy until all combatants are affected. Then dive into the fray with Spirit Walk and activate a devastating Soul Harvest, consuming the active DoTs. Getting used to the short 16-yard range of Soul Harvest and timing it with a proc of Convention of Elements is a skill acquired over time, but once you do, it will be to a devastating result. In Greater Rifts the enemies grow exceptionally tough, so protecting yourself with Horrify will also become part of the rotation. Always keep in mind that Soul Harvest does not consume the entire length of the DoT, but a 300 seconds worth of it per cast. It will take you multiple Soul Harvests to fully deplete the DoTs, so manage your Mana and focus on Haunting the enemy, rather than spamming Locust Swarms.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Soul Harvest is the primary damage dealer of the build. While a utility skill by default, it takes on the role of a nuke with the 6-piece bonus of the Jade set, which allows you to consume the active DoTs on the enemies at once when you use Soul Harvest. Due to the 4-piece bonus of the Jade Harvester set, you will be receiving the benefits of all runes at once, so you can base your pick according to your Haunt element of choice: Languish if you go Cold with Resentful Spirits, or Swallow Your Soul if you go Poison with Poisoned Spirit. Whichever you pick, you will still receive the Mana from Swallow Your Soul, the life from Siphon, the armor from Languish, the movement speed from Soul to Waste, and some additional damage from Vengeful Spirit. While Soul Harvest will be frequently reset from the 4-piece bonus as you spam Haunt and Locust Swarm, it is important to get at least one cast off during the appropriate elemental rotation of your Convention of Elements.

There are two major DoTs to be consumed, out of four in total.

Haunt is the strongest one, with an impressive 4000% weapon damage. Cheap with its 50 Mana cost, lengthened by the Creeping Death passive and consuming 120 seconds worth of the DoT at once with the Jade 2-piece set bonus, it is an obvious fit for the playstyle. Depending on your preferences, you can go for a Cold or Poison variation of the build. The Cold rune Resentful Spirits spreads the DoT twice as effectively, and is a great soloing choice due to its better Mana management; it is also highly recommended for speedfarming. The Poison rune Poisoned Spirit adds a 20% additive damage bonus against affected enemies, applied to the entire party, making it a better grouping choice. Note that the remainder of the guide assumes you take Resentful Spirits, so adjust elemental damage rolls to Poison if you plan on using Poisoned Spirit. Regardless of your choice, constant Haunt spam will be required to reset Soul Harvest.

Second in the DoT hierarchy is Locust Swarm, with respectable 1040% weapon damage and quick, efficient spread through the Pestilence rune. There is a notable itemization choice here, depending on your desire for more Damage or more Toughness. To increase your damage, pick the Pestilence rune on your bar so you can run The Furnace in the Cube. For better Toughness, get Pestilence for free by equipping or cubing the Vile Hive mojo, an pick up the Cloud of Insects rune for the 25% Damage Reduction.

While it applies a minor DoT of its own and can be considered part of the Jade consumption, Piranhas is mostly used as an opener in fights for the Piranhado crowd control and the innate damage increase against affected enemies.

To position for Soul Harvest, keep himself safe and for general mobility purposes, the Jade Witch Doctor uses Spirit Walk. A versatile tool on a low cooldown, Spirit Walk makes you invulnerable, allows you to walk through enemies, and speeds you up for a generous 3-second period with the Jaunt rune. If you value mobility over a lengthier invulnerability window, you can freely alternate into the Severance rune — especially preferred in speedruns.

Completing the build with defensive utility, the Horrify crowd control helps when the tough enemies of Greater Rift progression survive your Soul Harvest rotation and swarm you, thirsting for vengeance. The recommended choice for GR progression is the Toughness-oriented Frightening Aspect, buffed to the impressive 50% additional armor for 8 seconds.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

The pivotal passive of the Jade build is Creeping Death, which extends the duration of Haunt, Locust Swarm and the damage amplification of Piranhas from several seconds to an hour. The Quetzalcoatl helm shortens that duration to 30 minutes, effectively doubling the damage of your DoT skills upon the Soul Harvest consumption. Notice that the 6-piece Jade set bonus consumes 300 seconds worth of DoT damage. Because of that, speeding up the damage dealt by using a Quetzalcoatl helm is critical for the build.

Grave Injustice is an elegant source of Cooldown Reduction, synergizing with the bursty nature of the Jade Harvester playstyle. For each enemy killed in a 20-yard radius of the Witch Doctor, it not only reduces your cooldowns by a second, but also replenishes your health and Mana reserves by 1%. Take notice of the pickup radius synergy and try to obtain that stat in the secondaries of your gear.

Spirit Vessel is a standard cheat death passive, saving you from a lethal situation once every minute and applying a Spirit Walk-like invulnerability state for 2 seconds, coupled with a 50% life refill.

A logical final addition to the build, Confidence Ritual increases your damage by 25% against enemies within 20 yards. This relatively matches the fighting range of the build with Soul Harvest in mind, so you will get great uptime on this passive.

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.