Follower Guide

[Bubble181 14]

4 hours ago, Guest JRHicks said:

What exactly does Cluckeye accomplish for the Scoundrel? Is there some Crowd Control thing that it does?
 

I always thought that item was just a joke item for meme builds.

The chicken explosion disorients for...2 seconds? 3? So yes, it's meant as another form of crowd control. The damage from the chicken is forgettable.

[Guest Dizzytank]

I don't know that I would discredit the broken crown completely.  I found early on it was beneficial in collecting a decent amount of gems early, but agreed after initial gems were collected and crafted it loses its usefulness.  

[Deadset 108]

I  was unsure about Broken Crown as well, but the effect is really rather lackluster after the first few hours in a Season. You can throw it on a follower for some temporary benefits if it comes at the right time, but it loses value really quickly, I'm afraid.

[Bubble181 14]

What I find odd/unfortunate is that the Broken Crown emanate effect is based on what's in YOUR helmet, rather than the follower's. 
It's temporarily useful during the first steps of the Journey, but after that, who needs more gems?

[Guest Myst]

Why is the Hellfire Ring of Intelligence listed for Enchantress solo speed GRs? Unless something major changed and I missed it, that can't be crafted anymore. It and the mats to make it are legacy items and can no longer be obtained—they required going into infernal realms at 60–69, which is no longer possible.

What's the alternative?

[Bubble181 14]

10 hours ago, Guest Myst said:

Why is the Hellfire Ring of Intelligence listed for Enchantress solo speed GRs? Unless something major changed and I missed it, that can't be crafted anymore. It and the mats to make it are legacy items and can no longer be obtained—they required going into infernal realms at 60–69, which is no longer possible.

What's the alternative?

 

Apparently you missed it? The Hellfire ring is still perfectly craftable, just buy the plan from Act II and get the items from the Uberbosses, just like for the Hellfire Amulet. 

I do wonder why you'd bother with it, though.It give 45% XP, so 4.5% at level 70, and I thought XP boosts were only partially transfered from follower to character, so it's even less. I'd think there'd be something more useful to be thought of than 0.45% extra XP or whatever.

[Guest Myst]

10 hours ago, Bubble181 said:

 

Apparently you missed it? The Hellfire ring is still perfectly craftable, just buy the plan from Act II and get the items from the Uberbosses, just like for the Hellfire Amulet. 

I do wonder why you'd bother with it, though.It give 45% XP, so 4.5% at level 70, and I thought XP boosts were only partially transfered from follower to character, so it's even less. I'd think there'd be something more useful to be thought of than 0.45% extra XP or whatever.

The level 70 Hellfire Ring is craftable but the old patterns, Hellfire Ring of Intelligence/Dexterity/Strength/Vitality, are not. The recipe is still there but the mats required only drop from the level 60 uberbosses, and I don't think you can even get into them anymore before 70, unless someone doesn't have the expansion I guess.

The solo GR speed farm Enchantress currently links to the old Hellfire Ring of Intelligence. The new Hellfire Rings aren't guaranteed to have a specific stat, and the effect it different. So I was wondering if that's intentional or if it's meaning to suggest the newer Hellfire Ring.

 

 

 

[Deadset 108]

Thank you for pointing it out, it's actually an erroneous link to the older Hellfire Ring version, as you said. It's getting fixed to the lvl70 Hellfire Ring (and it's taken for the XP bonus, however minor), and should be up on the website shortly.

The ring is taken strictly for XP speed farming, otherwise there's better rings (Unity and Oculus Ring during progression and Ring of Royal Grandeur in T16s for the extra farming sets. Or even exotics like Justice Lantern for a Templar for block-based legendaries like Freeze of Deflection , or a Wyrdward combo'ed with Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker ).

[Guest Samhain]

Ok, yet another stupid question perhaps. The suggestions seem pretty consistent across the board that you would slot a ruby in the helm for other followers besides the Templar (diamond) for the obvious CD benefits that he gets.

However, while the XP bonus is probably the biggest benefit to most players at this point, I am wondering if I shouldn't switch out my enchantress with a Amethyst for the extra Life% instead since I don't have her using the immortality token. I am still building main gems on some of my toons so Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard aren't priorities for me right now on them. I still slot the gems in my Enchantress, and she seems to survive normal rifts without too much problem, but she does sometimes die still. I don't want to give up the utility with Hand of the Prophet for the fairly rare follower death, but I'm not sure if the extra Life% is actually meaningful on T16 at all or if she'd just be one-shotted regardless of the gem. My guess is that if there was a caveat, then the theory crafters probably would have mentioned it, but I'm just trying to get the most out of my followers since I mostly solo play.

[Guest MatadorBID]

On 4/2/2021 at 11:22 AM, Guest Samhain said:

Nevermind, I found the answer. For anyone else that's wondering about this and didn't already know: Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic Find and Gold Find stats from equipped items to the player. It might be useful to state this in the guide if it's not already there (I freely admit that I may have overlooked this before posting). In any case, the bonus experience wouldn't amount to much, but followers won't ever contribute meaningful damage even with stellar gear, so might as well gain QoL boosts where you're able.

Reposting this for the benefit of the person above who had the same question as me, and for anyone else that might be looking through every page of this thread, like I was. 

 

Thanks, Samhain!

[Guest Samhain]

17 hours ago, Guest MatadorBID said:

Reposting this for the benefit of the person above who had the same question as me, and for anyone else that might be looking through every page of this thread, like I was. 

 

Thanks, Samhain!

No worries, I'll reiterate that I think this should be added to the guide for posterity's sake.

However, I just keep coming up with problems. I know that I am overthinking this, but I just don't know why some suggestions are being made and I would like to understand the underlying mechanics.

For example: Maxroll suggests slotting Wall of Man for the Templar with Freeze of Deflection as a secondary. My thinking is that Freeze's CC might be undesirable for some builds, but I am trying to puzzle out why Wall of Man is being suggested instead. While it's nice to be able to use a craftable shield, I assume that Maxroll has min-maxing reasons apart from the ease of obtaining Wall of Man that makes it more desirable than say...Lidless Wall. I am assuming that the Bone Shield from Wall of Man does not proc to your toon, instead only proc'ing on the Templar in this case, but if he's already using the immortality token, why care about giving him a bone shield proc? Does anyone have an explanation on this? I understand that this isn't Maxroll, but they don't seem to have a comments section like Icy Veins does, but I respect the theory crafting of both sites, but get confused when the theories differ. Most of it I can piece out myself, but other times I find that further elaboration is necessary.

[Deadset 108]

A note about experience sharing has been added in the Introduction and Basics section, thank you all who pointed out its omission in the previous update.

To my knowledge the only benefits of the Wall of Man is its craftable nature (making it easier to perfect stats), and the damage reduction proc that might make it somewhat useful in a non-immortality relic setup (say if you want to roll a Templar during farming for some reason). It could also be a generic signifier that any shield will do the trick, as long as it has the correct stats (sometimes theorycrafters do that when there simply isn't a great option for the respective item slot).

I have immense respect for my colleagues over at Maxroll, I'm sure they can elaborate at their respective streams.

[Guest Chris]

I see in the guide it mentions you can't change follower skills. I don't know if it's new with this patch (I don't think it is...), but you can change their skills. You just have to click on the other skill and it swaps. Not sure if it's only in town or not, haven't really tested but I know right now on my char in town I can swap it skills around.

[Deadset 108]

Hey there! Actually, the guide states that the follower skills "can be chosen and re-specced at any time, but cannot be unlearned, barring the creation of a new character." Which is correct! 🙂

You can definitely re-spec your follower, but once a selection has been made between two skills from a tier, they can never be unlearned, meaning you can never force him to not use either. And in some cases, that can be desirable, especially if you want a follower that throws around less crowd control and is simply there for the buffs!

[JBelle 0]

There is a good (arguably better) alternative to "The Witching Hour", the crafted belt "Fleeting Strap", it also has an innate attack speed roll, but doesn't also have an innate crit damage roll. You usually already got close to 100% crit damage through token/relic and since crit damage is capped at 150% you probably already got that maxed through other other items.
and since fleeting strap is a crafted belt it's also easier to get an ancient quality one with the stats you need.
(although, since followers basically need the the "can't die"-relic, stats like lif/vit and armor are superfluous anyways, so you might want to get witching hour with crit damage and try to get other stats on other gear. in any case, it's at least an alternative.)

Edited July 22, 2021 by JBelle