Get these three to L25 ASAP:

Bane of the Powerful can sit at 25 for a long time and you wouldn’t care! A great gem which gives massive bang for buck. 25 ASAP then get workin’ on the others.

Moratorium is a very good filler. It will help you push upwards since defense is what you’ll be lacking for quite a while. When you feel like it’s getting old, just use it for augments! Self-healing builds push this gem to absurd power levels! If you prefer more DPS gems, check the next tab. It will almost never make it to endgame builds, but that’s not where we are yet, right?

I highly recommend a double defensive gem setup for now! USE ESOTERIC ALTERATION for more defenses. Moratorium + Esoteric Alteration will ease up your squishiness quite a bit, while Trapped won’t really help you YET.

Bane of the Trapped fits in to “walking up to them and using Soul Harvest“. Worth every upgrade! Dump as many points into this as you can, after you get 3×25 gems.

Any other gems worth it?

Bane of the Stricken is good to own for any non-support build. While Haunt’s single target damage is pretty good, there will come a point in time where Stricken is just plain needed. When RG’s take a good few minutes – you know it’s time. It won’t be for a while, though.

Esoteric Alteration is great for the lategame, but as I mentioned in the previous tab defense is such an issue I would consider banging this one in early.

Boon of the Hoarder: You need this for speedfarming.
(See: Speedfarming General | Witch Doctor Speedfarming | Best WD Speedfarming Build)

Haunt to pull and gather.
Locust Swarm when they’re piling up.
Piranhado!
(optional: Spirit Walk in for invul), Soul Harvest.
Haunt Stragglers.
Repeat.

Haunt spam single target is crazy. It’s a bit annoying since the spirits aren’t super smart. Highlight the guy you wanna Haunt to be sure. Every enemy you engage should be Haunted, as it’s the main source of your damage.

Locust Swarm is slow and expensive, only use it on clumps which haven’t been swarmed and you’re about to Harvest.

Creeping Death keeps your dots on “forever” so sometimes just let ’em bleed out if they’re really low. This is much more prevalent in the early game.  If you’re curious, “forever” means 5 minutes, lol. Oh Piranhado’s vulnerability is part of this forever, too.

Soul Harvesting puts you in danger. Spirit Walking in to get invulnerability is an obvious “workaround”. Luckily, Grave Injustice helps you spam this for both combat AND travelling. Value. Haunting reduces the CD of this in case you didn’t notice – which really contributes to your DPS.

More offense or Mana needed?

Offense is usually categorized in Damage or, indirectly, Resource Gain.

Rush of Essence is the best mana generator for us since we spam Haunt. It’s included in the base build and while you’re using it no other mana regen options are needed or should even be considered. You can remove this later on with some weird build evolutions but this will carry you hard for a long, long time (even forever).

Creeping Death is mandatory as I’ve mentioned in the build table.

As for other things, it’s very difficult to increase our DPS without some kind of penalty.

Locust Swarm damage actually sucks, which is why I recommend Cloud of Insects. It’s surprising how much Haunt does in comparison. Trying to increase Locust Swarm damage is a TRAP. Haunt represents more than 80% of the Soul Harvest burst, and over 99% of our single target spamming damage.

Haunt-Poisoned Spirits can seem good… but honestly, the Cold options are much, much more reliable since our Soul Harvest also shares an elemental rune with it.

Pierce the Veil is amazing if/when you can fit it in. The tiny mana gains you get from Grave Injustice actually helps a lot when picking this up without Rush of Essence.

More defense needed?

Defense is usually categorized in either Toughness or Self-healing capability.

The build is pretty tight and can’t really fit more defense in the skill bar. While you have great defensive passives, you also have quite a few important ones. I’ll just discuss a bit here…

Witch doctor’s main defense is modifying your Armor via Soul Harvest-Languish. It won’t work well if your base Armor rating is CRAP, so get those Armor rolls going. Spirit Walk-Jaunt is absurdly OP as you’re invul and Grave Injustice helps you out here. Leeching Beasts has been mentioned enough, but again, the self-healing is insane.

So please socket Rubies  and Emerald on your body sockets, and get a few LpH rolls.

Swampland Attunement is king of defensive passives. Pickup radius is relevant for WD’s, if you haven’t noticed. Note that this doesn’t increase Lightning and Arcane resist. I recommend it in the base 4 passives since defense will be holding you back right now, not damage.

The only PRACTICAL defensive I can suggest is Horrify-Frightening Aspect. If you can fit it in your build, great.

Increasing your INT increases your Resists. So, augments and gearing up is a huge factor. In terms of your actual kit, there’s not much practical defenses you can gain…

More mobility needed?

Mobility and speed simply make farming faster. If you’re slightly newer, you may underestimate just how important this is!

Fierce Loyalty is too good. Brainless movespeed increase and it’s HUGE. I guess you can replace Swampland for speed, if you over gear the difficulty level.

Grave Injustice, included in the build, is fantastic with the build playstyle. You will always have Spirit Walk up after each chunk dies!

Any other changes for speed at this point is too greedy, and I can’t recommend it.

(See: Speedfarming General | Witch Doctor Speedfarming | Best Witch Doctor Speedfarming)

Using Blood Shards:

What slots to spend blood shards on, by loose order of “importance”.

Helm: The very first item to fish for and one of the very few core items of Harvester is none other than Quetzalcoatl (you MUST HAVE CREEPING DEATH PASSIVE). This basically doubles the DPS of your DoTs but halves the duration. Since our DoT’s are “infinite” – Straight up double damage with a single item.

Bracer: Lots of useful stuff here. Nemesis Bracers for speeds and Lakumba’s Ornament for tryharding. If Quetzalcoatl wasn’t so good, I’d go for bracers first!

Belt: has Haunting Girdle, among other things like Goldwrap and String of Ears. Haunting Girdle might feel a little underwhelming but the choices for tryhard belt slots are slim. Hwoj Wrap is not a bad defensive choice either.

Mojos are solid. Have a 1-hander to pair ’em up with! Uhkapian Serpent, Henri’s Perquisition and Thing of the Deep are all end-game viable! Vile Hive is a good early game boost.

From here, try your luck getting a Ring of Emptiness!
There’s lots of good rings out there (CoE, Unity, etc) so don’t feel bad “failing”.

There are some non-endgame fillers like Aquila Cuirass and Frostburn. Generic power bumps like Leoric’s Crown… nothing that relevant. You’re gonna need Royal Grandeur or a cube slot for ’em.

Using Death’s Breath – Rare to legendary:

There are really only three weapons I want with this build:

• Sacred Harvester (from Ceremonial Dagger): I feel this is the correct choice 1st.
• The Furnace (from 2H Mace): The ultimate power jump for tryharding.
• Wormwood (from Staff): To allow a speedier build or save a skill slot.

Honestly, yeah, Sacred Harvester is just that good. Furnace and Wormwood are just luxuries compared to it. You’ll be wearing/cubing a mix of these 3 99% of the time.

If you’re desperate for Quetzalcoatl, you can try for it by upgrading Voodoo Masks! It’s a critical key component to our build! Don’t be stubborn if Kadala won’t give it to you!

Again, Ring of Emptiness is a one-slot jackpot. However, trying to obtain rings via Death’s Breath is not exactly the most pleasant of practices. This is a great “2nd goal”.

Mojos – have lots of defensive choices. Thing of the Deep, Henri’s Perquisition, Uhkapian Serpent are all end-game viable! ANY OF THESE THREE ARE AMAZING DEFENSIVELY. Here’s a short discussion on ’em:

• Thing of the Deep needs Swampland Attunement to be good.
• Uhkapian Serpents needs Zombie Dogs – Leeching Beasts to be good.
• Henri’s works out on its own, but isn’t so good in the early game.

The Classics: Good for any type of newer character, and even the most battle-hardened of builds.

Ring of Royal Grandeur: “Break” your 6-piece to make space for a good filler item! Or you know… Mask of Jeram! (Tasker and Theo, too)

Accessory Sets: Focus–Restraint or Traveler’s Pledge. Completing any of these 2-sets is a vast power jump. +100%++ is substantial for only 2 slots.

Convention of Elements: Good ‘ol CoE. Wear it, Kanai it, as a filler or till the end of time. Learning to maximize CoE in any build you choose is a turning point for higher GR’s.

Unity: Straight 50% damage reduction in the cube. Too bad you need two of ’em.

Just reminding you of the bounty rings:
– Ring of Royal Grandeur: Act I bounties, to fit all our greed.
– Avarice Band: Act III bounties, for speedfarming.

Goldwrap + Avarice + Boon of The Hoarder: I don’t care how many times I have to remind you about this combo.