Need some clarifications on followers

[Deleted]

Ok, so I'm a new player that's been playing Diablo 3 for about 3 weeks now, and I've understood most of the stats and how they work but with followers I can't quite seem to find a decent guide on them. I enjoy playing with followers a lot and I wish I'd be able to find more info. For instance I just recently found out their critical damage caps at 150% to my horror, after kiting them with around 400% hehe.

So, trying to minmax my follower stats, specifically my enchantress, I've come to ask myself a couple of questions that need answers I can't seem to find, preferably uptodate RoS info.

What other caps do they have on their stats? Do followers like the enchantress who mostly does arcane damage with her autoattack spell (this I presume) and her damaging spells benefit from +X% elemental damage affixes on items? Do they benefit from cooldown reduction?

I've heard they can't use area damage on their gear and resource cost reduction (this one's obvious).Any other limitations I should know about followers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also as an aside, I have a lvl 70 puzzle ring that doesn't spawn a goblin when equipped on her, yet I seem to remember the lvl 60 one working.

[Denizly]

The followers are a utility, cuz their dmg is too low to matter, and they tend to die often.

Only use you have from them are their CC and buffs.

So to wrap it up: stack vit + all resist on them so they live longer; forget their dmg all together; equip them with stuff that have +exp / mf / gf as you get 20% of those values for yourself

That would be all tbh, you can use them to soak dmg sometimes, just position yourself right :P

[Bigbazz]

The above isn't true if you get a legendary relic (I've had one for templar and scoundrel so far), the ones I've had on both make the followers immune to damage. My Templar has 333k damage, it's not a great deal in actual practice and it's by no means a big damage bonus, still better than nothing. I'm not sure if it's still doable but you could at once put a unity on the follower + on yourself and your follower would absorb half your damage taken.

[Denizly]

The above isn't true if you get a legendary relic (I've had one for templar and scoundrel so far), the ones I've had on both make the followers immune to damage.

I assumed he'd wanna go with the leg relic that gives access to all skills, but yh the other one you mentioned ain't too bad either

[Mamut]

The followers are a utility, cuz their dmg is too low to matter, and they tend to die often.

Properly geared Follower can easily achieve 300k and more dps. Add to this legendary that make them immune to damage (they cant die) and you can go afk in lower difficulty levels.

But I dont care about them. Im just using templar for boosting my MF so he still using lvl 60 gear with MF stats (replaced only ring because I got the 70 lvl one with MF).

[Deleted]

My enchantress has around 320k dps with the legendary relic that gives her access to all her spells. I am interested it minmaxing them as much as I'm interested in minmaxing my character. So while comments about their usefulness may have merit, it's not exactly what I was looking for when I asked the above questions. I am specifically looking for answers with regards to their stat capabilities and caps.

I am not interested in gearing them with +magic find at all because only 10% of your magic find applies to legendaries, I run none, so 10% of 20% of their magic find is too small a number to take into consideration, especially given the multiplicative nature of your total magic find.

I am solely interested in gearing them for DPS and seeing how far I can go with just those 5 slots (6 for templar if 1h+shield). As I've said above it turns out their critical damage caps at 150% so the best place to max that from, I've found is either relic+1 ring (since relic can only roll main stat and critical damage (up to 100%) as damage stats).

I've gone and made a tentative list of ideal stat usage for my enchantress, any observations would be nice. This list assumes she's equipped with all legendaries. The one thing I'm unclear about is if she benefits from the 25% arcane damage on the necklace, given that her two damaging skills deal Arcane and her auto-attack looks to be a purple magic missile.

follower item: 750 int, 750 vit, 100 allres, 100% ChD
neck: +25% arcane (moonlight ward), 750 int, 10% crit, 7% AS / 120-160 bonus damage
ring 1: 500 int, 6% crit, 50% cd, 7% AS
ring 2: 500 int, 6% crit, 7% AS, 120-160 bonus damage
wep: 2h high dps w/e element, 1125 int, +10% dmg/ +7% AS (not sure here), socket with red gem or diamond

[zoomgpally]

follower item: 750 int, 750 vit, 100 allres, 100% ChD
neck: +25% arcane (moonlight ward), 750 int, 10% crit, 7% AS / 120-160 bonus damage
ring 1: 500 int, 6% crit, 50% cd, 7% AS
ring 2: 500 int, 6% crit, 7% AS, 120-160 bonus damage
wep: 2h high dps w/e element, 1125 int, +10% dmg/ +7% AS (not sure here), socket with red gem or diamond

Unless blizzard finally fixed it, +X% damage on weapon only applies to black damage, making it pretty much useless if the weapon has elemental damage.
Also not so sure about attack speed being better than bonus damage(ring 1)

[Deleted]

wep: 2h high dps w/e element, 1125 int, +10% dmg/ +7% AS (not sure here), socket with red gem or diamond

+Damage (regardless of type), intelligence, +% damage, +% attack speed and socket would mean a weapon with 5 primary slots. People tend to forget that the +damage actually takes one primary slot. There are some 5 primary items but I can't say for certain there's one that's a 2H weapon the enchantress can use.

Also, as far as the enchantress goes, if you want her to do the absolute most damage, then don't bother with vitality and such stats. She's ranged and often far enough from the action to survive with less survivability, but if possible, get the immortality focus, Smoking Thurible. Beyond that, you'll want rings and an amulet with +intelligence, critical hit chance, critical hit damage and attack speed, legendary of course, to get the highest stats, and if they've got more than four primaries because they're legendary, you may add something else useful.

As for Hand of the Prophet, the focus that gives her all skills, don't bother. You don't really need the CC skills for anything if you're going for straight up damage.

[announced]

best advice given above. ^ my enchantress on my wiz has the grand vizier staff with a royal ruby for like 300+ wep dmg, smoking thurible, and some hand me down legendary rings that i no longer use, but she still is at 330k+ dps. its quite decent. forceful push does 410% dmg which is over 1.2m currently. its not bad combined with erosion, doing 1.2m over 5 seconds. althought the disorient is kinda nice too considering its on a 6 second CD.

stack as much int and damage on her as u can. it helps.

[Deldavala]

I am running Templar most of the time and he is spotting 422k DPS with a Thunderfury and an all skill relic atm. His utility is really good. He does decent damage(not at higher torments though) and is always nice to have around.

[Hellfury]

Followers love the main stat is what increases they DPS the most

Running a Templar with a TF, moonlightward rolled to Str, imunity relic is obligatory on T4+ else they die everytime, rest is rings with str, cc, CHD and AS

[Deleted]

+Damage (regardless of type), intelligence, +% damage, +% attack speed and socket would mean a weapon with 5 primary slots. People tend to forget that the +damage actually takes one primary slot. There are some 5 primary items but I can't say for certain there's one that's a 2H weapon the enchantress can use.

Also, as far as the enchantress goes, if you want her to do the absolute most damage, then don't bother with vitality and such stats. She's ranged and often far enough from the action to survive with less survivability, but if possible, get the immortality focus, Smoking Thurible. Beyond that, you'll want rings and an amulet with +intelligence, critical hit chance, critical hit damage and attack speed, legendary of course, to get the highest stats, and if they've got more than four primaries because they're legendary, you may add something else useful.

As for Hand of the Prophet, the focus that gives her all skills, don't bother. You don't really need the CC skills for anything if you're going for straight up damage.

There's a backslash there indicating one or the other, it's why I said I wasn't sure what was better, percentage damage increase or attack speed. Same thing with the necklace, I'm not sure which one is better, attack speed or average damage (I said bonus damage there but I learned the term in the meantime).

I haven't gotten Smoking Thurible yet but I've found her CC skills quite useful when doing higher torments than my gear allows and I'm planning to stick with it for the time being, sure she dies once in a while but I can pick up the slack. I just wish my potion worked on her as well when I use it.

If anyone has any thoughts on my ideal stats I put there, I'd be very grateful.

[bals]

Sockets on the rings/necklace are possibly much better than other stats for the +int gems for enchantress

[Deleted]

Sockets on the rings/necklace are possibly much better than other stats for the +int gems for enchantress

Did not consider that, sounds pretty sound, what would you say the replaceable stat would be to get a socket? Attack speed or average damage?

[Tharkkun]

I must be the only one using the scoundrel.

[Matt0193]

I must be the only one using the scoundrel.

Problem with the Scoundrel is that his CC is lackluster. Sure he blinds mobs in front of him but that means he'd need to be in melee ranged to start with, which is something he'd want to avoid. The Enchantress does all her spells from ranged and is rarely at risk of moving into the melee range meat grinder. That said I've started using the Templar over the Enchantress. While the DPS gain from attack speed is nice, the healing from the Templar is incredibly undervalued. I would say the Scoundrel with high crit chance, both he and you, would yield more DPS than the Enchantress because of Hysteria but the Scoundrel is only really useful with the immortality token, otherwise he's simply too much of a liability.

[Simulacrum]

Problem with the Scoundrel is that his CC is lackluster. Sure he blinds mobs in front of him but that means he'd need to be in melee ranged to start with, which is something he'd want to avoid. The Enchantress does all her spells from ranged and is rarely at risk of moving into the melee range meat grinder. That said I've started using the Templar over the Enchantress. While the DPS gain from attack speed is nice, the healing from the Templar is incredibly undervalued. I would say the Scoundrel with high crit chance, both he and you, would yield more DPS than the Enchantress because of Hysteria but the Scoundrel is only really useful with the immortality token, otherwise he's simply too much of a liability.

I wouldn't call the healing from the templar underrated. With a low health/high-mitigation build his 1-2 heals are almost the strength of potions, and his passive regen is very strong.

I also gave mine a nutcracker with 8.5% stun, which means that combined with his other CC, he locks down even bosses for large amounts of time, and frequently interrupts their big attacks as they're charging up.

[Dazu]

Scoundrel + windforce with all skills is pretty powerful if he lives. Mine at 200k damage shoots for 1mil and usually lives well except for mobs who jump across the screen.

I usually pick depending on what im playing though, scoundrel with my mage or dh feels weak compared to a Templar as he reduces my need for movement on those ones, on my tanky monk however the enchantress is super strong and compliments well.

Main stat and vit imo are the best for them along with weapon damage.

[Deleted]

Apparently, I took all her gear off the enchantress and she still had 50% crit damage, also double-checked without paragon levels and on an alt's enchantress to confirm. So you only need +100% crit damage and the best place to get it is the follower relic.