Follower Guide
General Information
Critical hit damage is virtually useless for your follower becauase it caps at 150% (and your follower already has 50% base crit damage); a 100% roll on the relic (preferably) or amulet is all your follower needs.
The only relics that matter are the ones that have the "Your follower cannot die" ability: Enchanting Favor, Skeleton Key, and Smoking Thurible. This ability also makes stats like vitality, life on hit, and health regeneration useless. Unity combos with the relic to provide 50% reduced damage to you and makes the ring a common choice.
Bul-Kathos Wedding Band and Band of Hollow Whispers are more consistant than Oculus Ring (but Oculus Ring provides a bigger damage boost) because your follower must kill the target in order to proc the Oculus Ring's passive. Wydward works on any follower as long as the follower's weapon provides lightning damage.
Most of the amulets in the game don't work well with the follower. Ess of Johan is the only real choice with Overwhelming Desire in a distant second for preferred amulets.
As for gems... Weapons should have rubies, jewelry/relics should have primary stats (rubies for the templar, emeralds for the scoundrel, and topazes for the enchantress). Legendary gems do not work on followers (and neither do set items for that matter).
Followers share 20% of their magic find, gold find, and experience stats with you. Worst case scenario for gear, look for Leoric's Signet and craft a Hellfire Ring for your followers; the 0.5%-1% increased experience adds up since followers don't have too much to offer for itemization.
You should use templar most of the time, the enchantress when you need the 3% attack speed buff, and the scoundrel only for his entertainment value.
Templar
The templar is arguably the best follower in the game due to the Inspire skill and additional equipment slot provided by the shield; the equipment available to him also makes him a bit better than other follower choices as he gets a somewhat temporary rift guardian stunlock with Eun-Jang-Do or consistent AoE stuns with Thunderfury. Since he's melee orientated, he has no issues keeping Bul-Kathos Wedding Band up.
Skills
| Level | Skill | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Heal | Heal helps you manage damage spikes. |
| 10 | Intimidate Loyalty (Alternative) |
Intimidate triggers Bane of the Trapped. Loyalty is situationally useful with builds that make use of life regeneration |
| 15 | Charge | AoE stun |
| 20 | Inspire | Restores your main resource, the best follower skill in the game and one of the primary reasons the templar is the follower of choice. |
Gear
| Slot | Item | Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker Eun-Jang-Do |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Strength Socket (Ruby) |
| Shield | Freeze of Deflection Defender of Westmarch Stormshield |
Strength Cooldown (if Stormshield) Block Chance Crit Chance Socket (Ruby) |
| Amulet | The Ess of Johan Overwhelming Desire |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Strength Crit Chance Socket (Ruby) |
| Rings | Unity (with character Unity) Justice Lantern (with Freeze of Deflection) Wydward (with Thunderfury) Oculus Ring Bul-Kathos Wedding Band |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Block Chance (if Justice Lantern) Strength Crit Chance |
| Relic | Enchanting Favor | Strength Block Chance Crit Damage Socket (Ruby) |
Scoundrel
The scoundrel provides minor crowd control and minor damage buffs, he's the worst of the three followers but provides the most entertainment through dialog.
Skills
| Level | Skill | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Crippling Shot | Crippling Shot offers more utlity than Poison Bolts. |
| 10 | Dirty Fighting | Vanish is useless. |
| 15 | Powered Shot | Guarenteed stun |
| 20 | Hysteria | Offers more damage than Anatomy. |
Gear
| Slot | Item | Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Buriza-Do Kyanon Hellforce (Alternative - Snare) Windforce (Alternative - Knockback) |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Dexterity Socket (Ruby) |
| Amulet | The Ess of Johan Overwhelming Desire |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Dexterity Crit Chance Socket (Ruby) |
| Rings | Unity (with character Unity) Wydward (with lightning damage weapon) Oculus Ring Bul-Kathos Wedding Band |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Dexterity Crit Chance |
| Relic | Skeleton Key | Dexterity Crit Damage Socket (Emerald) |
Enchantress
Situationally speaking, the enchantress is the second best follower; even though she has some of the best crowd control skills in the game, she's only really useful when trying to hit certain attack speed thresholds with Focused Mind.
Skills
| Level | Skill | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Forceful Push Charm (Alternative) |
Charm's cooldown is too long. If knockback bothers you, charm is fine. |
| 10 | Missle Ward | Basically a free secondary stat; melee reduction is more common. |
| 15 | Disorient | AoE CC |
| 20 | Mass Control Focused Mind (Alternative) |
One of the best AoE CCs in the game; if your build requires attack speed breakpoints, Focused Mind's 3% could help (sometimes). |
Gear
| Slot | Item | Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | The Sultan of Binding Sand Maximus (Alternative - Damage) The Furnace (Alternative - Elite Damage) |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Intelligence Socket (Ruby) |
| Amulet | The Ess of Johan Overwhelming Desire |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Intelligence Crit Chance Socket (Topaz) |
| Rings | Unity (with character Unity) Wydward (with lightning damage weapon) Oculus Ring Bul-Kathos Wedding Band |
Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed Intelligence Crit Chance |
| Relic | Smoking Thurible | Intelligence Crit Damage Socket (Topaz) |