Helltooth Grasp Witch Doctor BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

This build incorporates the complete Helltooth set, taking all six available pieces and freeing the jewelry slots for synergistic offensive choices. Rolls-wise, this Grasp of the Dead-centric playstyle makes good use of skill bonuses and Area Damage across gear. Grasp of the Dead % bonus is sought after on the Helltooth Tunic, alongside Toughness stats; on the Helltooth Mantle, it is ideally paired with Area Damage. The Helltooth Leg Guards and Helltooth Greaves should be devoted purely to Toughness stats. Your head piece, the Helltooth Mask, will ideally have high Crit Chance alongside solid Intelligence and Vitality rolls. Lastly, the Helltooth Gauntlets is a critical offensive piece with the potential to roll high Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Area Damage all in the same slot.

Wearing all six pieces of the Helltooth set allows you to invest in powerful offensive jewelry. One of the 2.4 reworks, the Endless Walk set — The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge amulet — adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This dynamic fits the Grasp of the Dead WD playstyle, which alternates quick bursts of scouting with Spirit Walk with periods of stationary Grasp of the Dead spam (see this build's skills page for more information). Your remaining ring slot is best taken by the rotating elemental damage increase of Convention of Elements. Pay close attention to its cycles and make sure your Helltooth set is empowered, that your Endless Walk set is stacked, and that you are ready and spamming during the Cold element duration.

The best-in-slot belt for the build when pushing Greater Rifts is the glass cannon favorite, The Witching Hour. What this belt lacks in unique properties, it makes up in unique rolls: it is the only item in the slot that can roll Attack Speed and Critical Damage. Both stats are immensely beneficial to your damage output, so seek as close to the maximum 7 IAS and 50 Crit Damage as you can.

Introduced in Patch 2.4 and mostly targeting the Jade Harvester rework, Lakumba's Ornament is nevertheless an excellent bracer for a Helltooth Grasp of the Dead Doctor as well. Synergizing with the bonuses of the cubed Sacred Harvester (discussed below), this bracer will add 46% Damage Reduction to the build (6% per stack, multiplicative), significantly improving the survival chances of this close-range spamming build in Greater Rifts.

A duo of Grasp of the Dead-specific legendary items will occupy your weapon and offhand slots. Deadly Rebirth is the dedicated ceremonial knife, increasing Grasp of the Dead damage by up to 60% and adding the Rain of Corpses rune (the only one that stacks with spam, interestingly) for free. In your other hand, Wilken's Reach will provide a similar skill bonus (up to 60% for Grasp of the Dead), along with the irreplaceable removal of the skill's cooldown.

In Season 24, your ideal weapon during Greater Rift solo pushing will be Ghostflame, whose unique secondary skills ability bonus and unrivaled skill and pure stat bonuses will outperform any other alternatives. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of Deadly Rebirth, and will ideally have the Swampland Attunement passive. Learn more about Ethereal weapons in our Ethereal mechanics guide, and read up on how to farm them in the Ethereal farming guide.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property, and is otherwise triggered by Unbreakable Grasp, Communing with Spirits and Languish.

Considering the spam-heavy nature of the build (devoid of resource spending and cooldowns on its main damaging ability), Pain Enhancer is a logical second inclusion. Its own physical DoT is dwarfed by the stacking Attack Speed increase it offers on affected close-range enemies, feeding nicely into the melee spellcasting nature of the build.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket in Greater Rift progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Helltooth Grasp of the Dead Doctors are no exception.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

The appropriately named Sacred Harvester is the best-in-slot weapon for a Helltooth Gargantuan Doctor in GRs, as its unique bonus extends the number of Soul Harvest stacks from 5 to 10. With no other synergistic weapon to take up the slot and the opportunity to buff up for 30% Intelligence (true damage multiplier) and reduce incoming damage in half from a simple Soul Harvest, this Ceremonial Knife is hard to pass up.

The Grin Reaper spawns mimics that are able to cast nearly all of your selected skills at a decent rate and range. The mimics will also benefit from the Helltooth 6-piece bonuses, turning into a significant, independent source of damage for the build.

Functioning exactly as if you wore it, the cubed Unity ring offers 50% damage reduction when paired with another on the follower, plus an immortality item for them (e.g. Enchanting Favor).

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Scoundrel due to his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage that are well suited to the strengths of this build.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Witch Doctors (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.