Wondering how to gear up the guise? Well! Our D3 Follower Builds Guide & FAQ should set you straight with any questions about items, skills, builds, and other mechanics you may be wondering about! S23 introduced follower full-builds, and emanate items which made them far more impactful!
Emanate? Means the effect (Even if equipped on follower) will “Emanate”, or simply put, affect your main character too.
Updated Apr 19 2021 – Added tryhard build template, and the FAQ section (which I’ll be adding to soon)
Follower Builds (Main Archetypes)
Again, since this is probably why most people are here, I’ll put this up top. Here are the main follower build templates.
Follower FARMING build (Sage 3 / Cain 3)
This build tries to get as many “farming bonuses” that you can that isn’t really specific for a content type. This is, IMO, going to be the most useful build – since it doesn’t really care what content type you’re farming – it will get almost maximum bonuses while being “thoughtless”.
The bonuses towards Nephs and Bounties.
(Gold, Deaths Breath, Greater Rift Keystones)
| Generic all-content farming follower build (Sage 3 + Cain 3) | ||
| Slot | Item | Note |
| Relic | “Cannot die relic” | Immortality, for obvious reasons. |
| Head | Cain’s | EXP and Rift keys! |
| Shoulders | Homing Pads | No interrupts on teleports. Nice to have. |
| Chest | Goldskin | Low-impact, but helps with Avarice. (Nothing else useful) |
| Hands | Gloves of Worship | God-tier efficiency increase for Nephs. |
| Bracers | Nemesis Bracers | Shrines and Pylons spawn elites = faster clears. |
| Belt | Sage’s Journey | Double Deaths Breath |
| Legs | Cain’s Destiny | EXP and Rift keys! |
| Boots | Sage’s Journey | Double Deaths Breath |
| Amulet | Flavor of Time | Double Pylon duration. |
| Ring | Avarice Band | SPEED. Best w/ Boon of the Hoarder on YOU. |
| Ring | Ring of Royal Grandeur | To allow both Sage 3 and Cain 3 |
| Weapon | follower specific | — |
| Offhand | follower specific | — |
| Gems (Helm) | Ruby / Emerald | for EXP / Gold Find respectively |
| Gems (Other) | Primary Stat gem | Ruby (Templar), Topaz (Enchantress), Emerald (Scoundrel) |
Rerolls? Since this build focuses on farming nephs / bounties, I only care about 2 rerolls (both secondary stats) – taking +gold and +exp. I prefer gold > exp if the piece only has space for one secondary stat.
Honestly, I use this build 99% of the time. The GR XP build is cute, and any tryharding builds make a difference for absolute razors edge progressions, but this farmy build is the SINGLE BUILD I WOULD RECOMMEND EVERY PLAYER GET FOR ONE OF THEIR FOLLOWERS.
Don’t worry putting this on a “throwaway” follower type you don’t like.
You likely only need the free death skill anyway.
Follower Greater Rift Farming / +EXP build
The only reason this build exists is many buffs don’t work in GR’s (Avarice Band, Gloves of Worship, Cain 3, and Sage 3) and can feel like a waste. Sadly, there really isn’t much to take its place. To maximize this build you’re gonna want to roll +exp on secondary stat (which is, I warn you, a tiny bonus).
| GR Farming ‘EXP’ Build | ||
| Slot | Item | Note |
| Relic | “Cannot die relic” | Immortality, for obvious reasons. |
| Head | Leorics Crown / Broken Crown | Socketed w/ Ruby for +XP, or whichever gem you need. |
| Shoulders | Spaulders of Zakara | Or Homing Pads, doesn’t matter. |
| Chest | Any | ASPD and +XP. |
| Hands | Cain’s | Bonus EXP, we only want Cain 2. |
| Bracers | Nemesis | Pylons spawn elites = faster clears. |
| Belt | Any | No relevant pieces. |
| Legs | Cain | ASPD and +XP. |
| Boots | Cain / Ice Climbers | Low impact “uptime” helper. |
| Amulet | Flavor of Time | Double Pylon duration. |
| Ring | Hellfire Ring (Occulus) | Hellfire for XP, Occulus for DPS if needed. |
| Ring | Leoric’s Signet (Unity) | Leoric’s Signet for XP, Unity for toughness if needed. |
| Weapon | follower specific | — |
| Offhand | follower specific | — |
| Gems (Helm) | Ruby | for EXP. (Broken Crown? Use needed gem) |
| Gems (Other) | Primary Stat gem | Ruby (Templar), Topaz (Enchantress), Emerald (Scoundrel) |
Rerolls? Again, since this isn’t geared towards tyharding, I would only get +EXP on secondary stats. I don’t really care about +Gold on this set.
Broken Crown is also great since many GR’s likely means augmenting.
Boots? Cain or Ice Climber? Ice Climber is BARELY useful especially if you’re making a build that’s for “farming”. So I just use Cain so I get extra keys if I accidentally take this into nephs. Yep. Human Error is a larger factor than Ice Climbers for a farming build, for me.
All things said and done, this build is best if you know you’re gonna sit down and hammer out a ton of GR’s – and get a few bonuses on the side. The only thing you can even REMOTELY benefit from a long string of GR farming is +EXP, and even then it’s not that huge.
Tryharding Follower Build
There are only a few MUST HAVE tryhard items.
The rest are either irrelevant or EXTREMELY BUILD SPECIFIC.
| Tryhard build template | ||
| Slot | Item | Note |
| Relic | “Cannot die relic” | MUST HAVE TRYHARD ITEM. |
| Head | (Low prio) Leoric’s Crown | Might as well gain extra EXP. |
| Shoulders | (Low prio) Homing Pads | It might rarely help. |
| Chest | (Low prio) Tal Rasha | TRE chest gives ASPD. lol. |
| Hands | (Low prio) Cains | ASPD. Might as well gain extra EXP. |
| Bracers | Nemesis Bracers | MUST HAVE TRYHARD ITEM. |
| Belt | (Low prio) Any | No notable piece in this slot. |
| Legs | (Low prio) Cains | ASPD. Might as well gain extra EXP. |
| Boots | (Low prio) Ice Climbers | Prevents some things that stop your follower. |
| Amulet | Flavor of Time | MUST HAVE TRYHARD ITEM. |
| Ring | Oculus Ring | MUST HAVE TRYHARD ITEM. |
| Ring | Unity / Other | If your build uses Unity. |
| Weapon | follower specific | — |
| Offhand | follower specific | — |
| Gems (Helm) | Ruby | for EXP. (Broken Crown? Use needed gem) |
| Gems (Other) | Primary Stat gem | Ruby (Templar), Topaz (Enchantress), Emerald (Scoundrel) |
Basically, as long as you have Oculus Ring, Nemesis Bracer and Flavor of Time is 99.99% of a followers power level when tryharding.
Rerolls? Make sure you have the primary stat amounts (and sockets to help you reach them, if needed). Aside from that, it’s really really miniscule…
Personally, a tryhard follower build should reroll
Stats & sockets >>>> ASPD? >>> Any other needed stats? >> +EXP > +Gold
Other Builds?
Honestly every other build is niche (“EXP Nephs?” “Templar Cooldown?” Meh). The tryhard template should serve your needs, as it should be edited to fit your build (with microscopic gains in a majority of cases).
Templar also have some extremely niche rerolls that honestly are barely worth talking about (block change for Freeze of Deflection).
Follower Build Notes – Weapon Choice
Since we’re on the topic of build, here’s a rundown of the best weapons choices for each follower, and what type of weapons they can use.
D3 Follower & FAQ Mechanics
Here we list down some of the major questions regarding followers.
What’s the best follower? Which follower should I use?
If you want to know my personal opinion on the generic “best” one if there was a gun to my head? Well, too bad – I’ll answer that at the end. Each follower has a few skills that are “unique” to it, which makes a case of whether it’s the best one for your build or not.
Templar – Great CC, most stable “Free Death”, Increased Resource.
Chunky CC is great for some builds which translates mostly to more survivability. Same for the Free Death which gives a long Invulnerability period. Increased Resource generation is the Templars only truly unique trait.
Enchantress – CDR, ASPD, “anti-melee defensive aura”.
If your build DESPERATELY needs CDR, or a little bit of ASPD to reach certain thresholds then the Enchantress is literally “another item slot / reroll” which is worth a TITANIC amount of power. The defense aura is actually pretty good too.
Scoundrel – Critical Hit Chance / DPS
Basically, this is a little one dimensional. DPS via increasing your CHC. But it isn’t as unexciting as it sounds – the Scoundrel allows for a short duration of 100% CRITICAL HIT CHANCE with his ultimate skill.
Does Cooldown Reduction work on Followers?
CDR only works with the Templars Heal skill. I will say it in the reverse form for clarity, in case you are in disbelief, shock, or denial.
CDR does not work with Enchantress, Scoundrel, or any Templar (aside from Heal).
More Follower Info to come!
ADDING MORE INFO THIS WEEK. I’ve been adding little bits here and there, and hope to call this guide complete in a few days. It’s annoying hard to write about followers for a long period of time per sitting. Haha.
Check out our D3 Guide Directory for anything D3 related you might need!
