LoD Carnevil DoD Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your LoD Carnevil DoD 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
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.
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 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.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
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.
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 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.
Follower
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.
Legendary Potion
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.
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: Minor gearing revision and added follower recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: Revised cube recommendations to better reflect the meta.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Item recommendations are revised for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019: Guide added.
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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