Witch Doctor Jade Harvester Build With Soul Harvest

Last updated on Jul 10, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 31 comments
Build Variations Updated for Season 32, Patch 2.7.7 Main Build Solo Greater Rift Progression Nephalem Rift Farming
1.

Introduction

Dedicated to the hex-casting rather than summoning Witch Doctor fantasy, Raiment of the Jade Harvester is one of the signature playstyles of the class. This bursty, melee range spellcaster playstyle is available in both solo progression (the present guide) and speed farming (see link above) variations.

2.

Quick Reference

2.1.

Skill Setup

The basic skill setup of the Jade Harvester Witch Doctor is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Haunt Icon Haunt Poisoned Spirit Poisoned Spirit Right Mouse Button Locust Swarm Icon Locust Swarm Cloud of Insects Cloud of Insects 1 Soul Harvest Icon Soul Harvest Languish Languish 2 Spirit Walk Icon Spirit Walk Jaunt Jaunt 3 Piranhas Icon Piranhas Piranhado Piranhado 4 Horrify Icon Horrify Frightening Aspect Frightening Aspect
Passive Skills
2.2.

Gear Setup

The required gear setup for the Jade Harvester Witch Doctor is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.

2.3.

Season 32 Theme — Ethereal Weapons

With this Season's addition of Ethereal Weapons as a theme, your ideal weapon during Greater Rift solo pushing will be:

  • Weapon: Ghostflame
2.3.1.

Altar of Rites

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

Altar of Rites Planner

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

2.4.

Legendary Gems

2.5.

Kanai's Cube

3.

How to get this build going?

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the Jade Harvester set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystal Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breath Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Soul Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breath Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a Jade Harvester Witch Doctor, you should do the following.

  • Gather the full 6-piece Jade Harvester set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Pants, Gloves, Chest, and Helm. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
  • Gamble or upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Bracers for Lakumba's Ornament Lakumba's Ornament, a massive source of damage reduction and a staple for almost all Witch Doctors and types of gameplay. Gambling/upgrading rares in the Bracer slot can also net you other valuable pieces like Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers or Warzechian Armguards Warzechian Armguards.
  • Gamble helmets or upgrade rare Witch Doctor Voodoo Masks for Quetzalcoatl Quetzalcoatl. This is a build-defining legendary item that practically doubles your damage output by halving the duration, but not the damage dealt, of your DoTs.
  • Gamble or upgrade rare Witch Doctor Mojos for Shukrani's Triumph Shukrani's Triumph and/or Vile Hive Vile Hive. Both off-hands will bring some form of damage multiplication; Shukrani's Triumph Shukrani's Triumph increases mobility and multiplies your damage, while Vile Hive Vile Hive adds survivability and boosts your Locust Swarm Locust Swarm DoT.
  • Craft lvl 70 Ceremonial Knives at the Blacksmith and use the "upgrade rare" recipe to obtain Sacred Harvester Sacred Harvester, a cornerstone legendary weapon for most Witch Doctor builds (this one included), with a vital interaction with Lakumba's Ornament Lakumba's Ornament. Gambling is also possible, but undesirable due to the high Blood Shard costs of weapons.
  • Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Cpt. Crimson) as described in the Gear page. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
  • While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Ring of Emptiness Ring of Emptiness, Convention of Elements Convention of Elements, and Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace will all bring massive damage bumps to the build, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Unity Unity, or Oculus Ring Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
4.

Changelog

  • 10 Jul. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Jul. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
  • 10 Jul. 2024 (this page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
  • 10 Apr. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
  • 10 Apr. 2024 (this page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (gear page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
  • 10 Jan. 2024 (this page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
  • 13 Sep. 2023 (this page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
  • 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
  • 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 14 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Enriched the guide and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Revised skill and passive recommendations.
  • 06 Dec. 2021 (this page): Added build assembly advice.
  • 23 Nov. 2021 (this page): Enriched the guide and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 24.
  • 22 Jul. 2021 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 01 Apr. 2021 (gear page): Added follower recommendation.
  • 01 Apr. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 23.
  • 01 Apr. 2021 (this page): Added follower recommendation.
  • 19 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
  • 19 Nov. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 22.
  • 19 Nov. 2020 (this page): Added Cube recommendations for Season 22.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 01 Jul. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 22 Nov. 2019 (this page): Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Item recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Skills have been reviewed and approved for Season 18.
  • 23 Aug. 2019 (this page): Item recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
  • 17 May 2019 (gear page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 May 2019 (skills page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 May 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
  • 18 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
  • 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
  • 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
  • 27 Oct. 2017 (this page): No changes necessary for Patch 2.6.1.
  • 29 Jun. 2017 (this page): Updated for 2.6 and moved to new format.
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