LoD Carnevil DoD Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

As this is a Legacy of Nightmares / Legacy of Dreams setup, the rest of your gear slots will be comprised entirely of legendary items. As a rule of thumb, focus on synergistic stats like Attack Speed, Area Damage and skill bonuses, and remember the setup's requirement for ancient items, as well as its restriction on other set bonuses. You can run individual set pieces with beneficial stats, as long as they do not form any set bonus.

The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer method is the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem. In this GR progression setup, the older Legacy of Nightmares setup pulls ahead, as it allows you to incorporate Bane of the Stricken in the build to take down the massive health pools of high GR Guardians. You can still play a Legacy of Dreams version of this build (with Convention of Elements and Unity equipped, and a worn Hellfire Amulet of Intelligence with the Squirt's Necklace cubed).

Rounding out the jewelry, the neck slot is best taken by a Squirt's Necklace. Aside from the general DoD playstyle, this item will also incentivize you to keep your distance from enemies — it rewards the evasive playstyle of a Fetish summoner with a massive damage bonus, but also punishes the unwary with an amplification of damage taken.

The optimal chest for the build is Aquila Cuirass, whose unique bonus will halve incoming damage as long as Mana does not dip below 90% of its reserve, which is effectively a permanent bonus in this pure generator spec.

Depth Diggers increases the damage of all primary attacks by up to 100%, making it a natural inclusion in this Poison Dart-centric build. The desired stats are Intelligence, Vitality or Armor, 2 Sockets and Poison Dart %.

The best-in-slot belt for the build is the glass cannon favorite, The Witching Hour. Naturally sporting the unusual combination of Attack Speed and Crit Damage, the optimal roll would also include Poison Dart %. Another viable, but noticeably weaker option is Belt of Transcendence, which allows you to free up the Fetish Sycophants passive slot for another of your choosing.

Lakumba's Ornament will reduce incoming damage by 60% per Soul Harvest as baseline (with some variance — aim for the lowest, 1 harvested enemy requirement roll), plus additional 2% damage reduction for each stack.

Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor in 50% increments as you get hit, but with a similarly stacking mobility penalty — a downside you will be completely negating with the unique property of Ice Climbers, which make you immune to immobilization effects. Lacking any truly synergistic shoulders, your best bet for the slot are the Pauldrons of the Skeleton King — an Act 1 cache legendary that gives you an independent, yet minor chance for a cheat death proc.

The Carnevil voodoo mask is a key legendary item that allows the 10 closest Fetish summons to shoot Poison Darts along with you. The mask sports the standard four primary stats and is interchangeable with a Mask of Jeram — so pick your better rolled helm and store the powers of the other in Kanai's Cube. Still, a good Carnevil is much easier to obtain as it has no range to roll on the unique property (unlike Mask of Jeram, which has a massive range on the possible legendary roll), and comes as the default recommendation.

You have two options for the weapon; either The Dagger of Darts, which produces the signature piercing effect of Poison Dart, or Sacred Harvester for the extension of Soul Harvest stacks to 10; simply wear your better roll and cube the worse one. Your ideal offhand is the Zunimassa's String of Skulls; it will be your only item from the set, and thus will not break the LoN/LoD bonus, and will bring a % bonus to Fetish Damage as an innate roll. An alternative for the slot emerges if you opt for a tankier build, by dropping Big Bad Voodoo and taking Summon Zombie Dogs. This way you can equip Uhkapian Serpent and enjoy some extra damage reduction.

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.

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 Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Adding to Maximum Mana should not be necessary.

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 Globe Radius first, then finish off with Life on Hit and Resource Cost Reduction.

Simplicity's Strength is one of the best DPS gems you can take for the build, as it was changed into a separate damage multiplication source to primary skills in Patch 2.4.1. Affecting both your and your Fetish's attacks, and upgrading with a steady pace of half a percent per gem level, it quickly becomes a priority and a fixture in your gem choices. Its buffed healing secondary effect is just the icing on the cake.

Enforcer is a pet-oriented gem that both increases Fetish damage and lessens the damage the summons take. Note that the damage bonuses of this gem have been changed from additive to multiplicative in Patch 2.4.1, reinforcing it as a pet build staple.

You have some wiggle room in your final gem slot. For the absolute highest tiers of Greater Rift Progression, you will have to use Bane of the Stricken for its scaling damage bonus, in order to get you through the GR Guardian fight; this necessitates the use of the Legacy of Nightmares set rings. Alternatively, you can use a tankier version with the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped — identically to The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted rings set bonus.

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

As previously mentioned, you will be cubing your worse rolled item between The Dagger of Darts and Sacred Harvester. The same applies to Mask of Jeram and Carnevil in the armor slot of the Cube.

Tucked away in the jewelry slot of the Cube, Convention of Elements will provide a massive elemental damage bonus in cycles, forcing you to pay close attention to its current state and to be ready to burst things down 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.

Both the Scoundrel and the Enchantress are viable followers for GR progression with this build. Scoundrel can be used for his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage output. Enchantress offers an attack speed buff that can be useful when reaching for the attack speed breakpoints outlined 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.

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.