D3 Follower Builds Guide & FAQ (Skills, Mechanics etc)

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.

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!