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Jade Harvester Witch Doctor Guide

Last Updated: January 7th 2024

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Introduction

Jade Harvester Solo Push
View all variants

Raiment of the Jade Harvester was one of the best Witch Doctor builds at Reaper of Souls release. It has its own unique playstyle as it revolves around harvesting Damage over Time (DoT) skills to deal instant damage.

The main skill that is played is Haunt in combination with Soul Harvest to instantly consume the DoT effect left on enemies. These effects are further enhanced by Creeping Death and Quetzalcoatl.

These days it's not one of the strongest builds for the Witch Doctor, but it has a long history of being one of the most powerful sets in the entire game back from the times before seasons were released. Back then it was heavily used in T6 farming for its massive burst damage potential to oneshot Elites with Soul Harvest and quickly kill Rift Guardians with the help of Legacy The Furnace and its Crushing Blow ability.

Over time it has fallen behind other Witch Doctor builds but got updates that made it stronger with a more active playstyle by giving Haunt the ability to deal extra damage on reapplication, effectively turning it into a spammable damaging skill. Season 30 offers a welcome buff to the build by more than doubling the potential of the (6) Bonus.

This is an Area Damage (AD) build, since Jade (2) & (6) Bonuses can both proc it. In its current form, Jade Harvester is playable with both Cold (faster setup) and Poison (higher damage) with almost equal performance. Near the top end of the Jade leaderboards you will usually find Poisoned Spirit more often, but Resentful Spirits allows for faster pull setups and is better for farming. Both variants can be found below. Let's get into it!

Flavourful ✔
Unique Playstyle ✔
Big AoE Damage ✔
Instant Burst Damage ✔

❌ Low Mobility
❌ Low Toughness
❌ Long Setup Time
❌ Requires Practice

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

  • The Raiment of the Jade Harvester (2) & (6) Bonuses are the core source of our damage. These effects are unique in the game: Some of the DoT duration on the target is taken away and the damage is dealt instantly instead.
  • Quetzalcoatl is effectively doubling the DoT damage ticks as they deal their full damage in half the normal duration.
  • Lakumba's Ornament and Sacred Harvester combo is used to gain up to 80% damage reduction, as well as a massive amount of Intelligence, Armor, Life Recovery and Movement Speed from all the Soul Harvest runes.
  • Ring of Emptiness is another core item we do not want to miss out on as it provides us with a crazy 300% damage buff as long as the target is affected by either Haunt or Locust Swarm. This should always be the case as Haunt is our main damage dealing skill.

Season 30 Soul Shards

Soul Shards are powerful socketable items that initially dropped during Season 25 but they are returning for Season 30! There are 4 available for Weapons based on the Lesser Evils, with another 3 for Helmets based on the Prime Evils. They drop at Rank 0 and be upgraded three times with the brand new Hellforge Embers to unlock additional powers, or be used in the Kanai's Cube as Augments. Here's how they progress:

  • Rank 0: Soul Shards begin with a unique static Legendary Power. Creates a Rank 50 Augment.
  • Rank 1: Gives all powers from the normal gems. Creates a Rank 75 Augment.
  • Rank 2: Grants one additional powerful stat. Creates a Rank 100 Augment.
  • Rank 3: Unlocks 1 of 3 bonus Legendary Powers unique to that Soul Shard. Creates a Rank 125 Augment.

Warning: Leoric's Crown and Broken Crown do not work with Soul Shards!

Read our Soul Shards Guide written by Chewingnom for full details on how they work. What you should prioritize on them for Solo Pushing is the following:

  1. The Correct Soul Shard & Rank 3 Power
    The best shards for Solo Pushing are:
    • Helmets: We want to use Sliver of Terror for the massive damage buff from our abilities on cooldown. For the Rank 3 power take the additional Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance to further boost your character's power.
    • Weapons: We want to use Essence of Anguish for the Movement Speed and Cooldown Reduction. For the Rank 3 power take the 50% increased Poison Damage, which actually applies to all damage done. Hint: Make sure to get a Poison Damage Range on your follower's Weapon so it can stack the buff automatically.
  2. The Rank 2 Stat
    The stats that come from the second upgrade are not equal. Here's what we're looking for on them:
    • Helmets: We want either Main Stat for damage or Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction to survive. Avoid Armor and All Resistance as their stat ranges are far too low compared to the other options.
    • Weapons: We want either % Damage or Poison Damage to boost our character's power the furthest.
  3. The Stat Ranges on the Rank 1 and 2 Powers
    This is just icing on the cake because the ranges will not make or break your build. Still, look for the Soul Shards with the best stat ranges, especially on the offensive stats.

For the other game modes, other Soul Shards can be used. Check the Variants below to see what's used there.

What about extra Soul Shards? Either salvage them for gems, or upgrade and use them in Kanai's Cube for Augments.

Global Stat Priorities

Jade (2) Bonus Haunt Spam DPS &
Jade (6) Bonus Soul Harvest Nuke

Due to the Raiment of the Jade Harvester (2) Bonus Attack Speed does matter and we want to reach certain Breakpoints. The faster we can spam Haunt on enemies, the more often the damage from the (2) Bonus will be applied. In speedruns with 5 Echoing Fury stacks we reach the 18 frames Breakpoint. For the push setup we can remain at way lower Breakpoints around the 28 frames mark without needing any Attack Speed rolls on our gear.

Aim for as much Area Damage as possible as this will allow you to deal massive burst damage with Soul Harvest through the Raiment of the Jade Harvester (6) Bonus. Both (2) & (6) Bonuses of Jade Harvester can proc Area Damage. Extra Cooldown Reduction is also helpful to do this more often and cast Spirit Walk more often.

Assembling the Build

Item Stat Priorities

Gems

Skills

Passives

Paragon Points

Altar of Rites

Follower

Gameplay

Hardcore

Variants

GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
Echoing Nightmare
Jade Solo Speeds

Concept
In this speed focused setup we use Echoing Fury to significantly buff our attack speed. This in combination with Haunting Girdle and Resentful Spirits and allows us to release 3 Haunts at a time and DoT up enemies much faster!

Gameplay
Be quick, keep up your toughness buffs and pay attention to Elite affixes as you want to keep up your Squirt's Necklace to maximize damage output. Maintain Soul Harvest and Horrify Frightening Aspect buffs. Group on Elites and Spirit Walk as often as you can for unhindered movement. Spam Haunt, Big Bad Voodoo and Soul Harvest after creating a pull with Piranhas Piranhado.

Setups
If you want to play on really low Greater Rift levels you can also add in Wormwood to automatically apply Locust Swarm to enemies every second while moving through them and Soul Harvest the DoT damage with the Raiment of the Jade Harvester (6) Bonus.

Select Build Version

Cold Variant
Jade Cold Solo Push

Concept
This is the setup described in the main sections of the guide. Soul Harvest should have a low cooldown that is further reduced by Grave Injustice and the Raiment of the Jade Harvester (4) Bonus.

Gameplay
Keep up your Horrify Frightening Aspect and Soul Harvest buffs at all times. Create huge pulls and use Piranhas Piranhado to group them tightly for Area Damage. Spam your Haunt and Soul Harvest as much as you can to maximize Raiment of the Jade Harvester (2) Bonus and Raiment of the Jade Harvester (6) Bonus. Kite around a lot due to the low toughness of this build and utilize Oculus Ring buffs whenever you can. Ideally you move in there with Spirit Walk to burst enemies down.

Setups
To add a lot more toughness, you could replace Ring of Royal Grandeur and Captain Crimson's Trimmings for Unity and Haunting Girdle. As an offensive option, you can replace Horrify with Big Bad Voodoo Slam Dance or Ghost Trance.

Echoing Nightmare Setup

Concept
For more information, check out our full Echoing Nightmare Guide and take a look at our Echoing Nightmare Build Tier List and our META post for the best builds and strategies! This build is bad for this game mode. Typically we utilize a Greater Rift speed build with a few tweaks.

Changes

  • Drop Horrify for Big Bad Voodoo to increase damage.
  • Replace Piranhado with Wave of Mutilation to increase the range at which you apply the damage debuff.
  • Swap Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard for Bane of the Powerful since you have Spirit Walk to keep Squirt's Necklace.

Gameplay

  1. Click Speed Pylon instantly to boost your mobility and dodge Green Meteors.
  2. Around Wave 90, click Channeling Pylon and Power Pylon.
  3. After Wave 100, use Conduit Pylon.
  4. At Wave 122, stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.

We have awesome Echoing Fury, Big Bad Voodoo and Spirit Walk uptime as we are constantly killing enemies with Grave Injustice. You can spam Soul Harvest but unfortunately this build heavily lacks AoE. For maximum damage output keep on Haunting the enemies to proc Raiment of the Jade Harvester (2) Bonus. Use Spirit Walk wisely to damage burst with Shukrani's Triumph.

Mechanics

Creeping Death

Raiment of the Jade Harvester + Haunt

Shukrani's Triumph

Piranhas Piranhado

Gruesome Feast

Summary

  • Put together the core items and acquire the full Jade Harvester set.
  • DoT enemies up as much as possible and use Soul Harvest on cooldown.
  • Scales with Area Damage but lacks large AoE damage.
  • A half decent speed build with Echoing Fury.

This build is fun to play but lacks damage in comparison to other builds such as the Mundunugu Witch Doctor. If this unique playstyle is buffed it can well make it into quite the different group META. Cheers!

Credits

Introduction by Chewingnom.
Guide by Rob with help from wudijo.
Updated by Chewingnom.

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