Followers are an important part of the Diablo III meta, but their proper optimization is often undervalued. Following the guidelines below, you can take your follower performance to a new level, and you will definitely notice the improvement in your solo Greater Rifting attempts.

1. Follower Skills

1.1. Templar

A well rounded choice for any character, the Templar offers a good balance between healing and crowd control. The recommended abilities for him are:

1.2. Scoundrel

A kiting-oriented follower choice is the Scoundrel, bringing minor crowd control and damage buffs. The recommended abilities for him are:

1.3. Enchantress

A crowd control-heavy choice is the Enchantress, providing you with AoE crowd control and defense buffs. The recommended abilities for her are:

2. General Follower Gearing

When gearing your follower, you have to make a conscious choice between utility and damage oriented gear. While it can be tempting to focus on their damage potential (however limited), it is highly recommended that you focus on their crowd control and protective capabilities.

Stat-wise, followers are capped at 150 Critical Hit Damage and start out at 50 by default, making it easy for you to reach the limit with a single 100 Crit Damage roll on the follower item. This makes Crit Chance the more valuable of the crit-related stats, but keep in mind the natural limits of the follower DPS potential and focus on utility instead. Increased Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction rolls affect followers accordingly, and are infinitely more useful in Greater Rifts.

The recommended follower-specific items for all followers are the immortality ones: Enchanting Favor, Skeleton Key and Smoking Thurible. Immunity to damage is too powerful to be passed up in high Torments and Greater Rifts, where lackluster AI and few Toughness options mean certain death for followers within seconds. On top of that, the immortality items allow you to ignore Toughness rolls on follower gear, easing decisions when rerolling. Note that the combination of Unity on yourself and the follower, along with an immortality item for him, will halve your incoming damage without hurting him — making for a powerful mitigation combo. If your ring slots are occupied by other rings, take two from the follower ring recommendations below, instead of just one.

The rings are best occupied by utility-oriented combinations; as previously mentioned, if you wear a Unity ring, equip one on the follower too. Damage-oriented rings such as Bul-Kathos's Wedding Band and Nagelring are viable options to occupy the second ring slot, but the updated Oculus Ring offers the most damage potential. Since the circles that trigger from the ring spawn from assistances as well (the follower does not have to inflict the killing blow), characters (mostly melee) can reposition and take decent advantage of the buff.

The Ess of Johan is the recommended amulet for followers, as it offers a long-range pulling effect on a decent, 20 second internal cooldown. Piling the enemies on top of the targeted area and applying up to 80% slowdown on all of them offers great utility, offering momentary safety to ranged characters and maximizing your AoE spells. The only other amulet that offers decent utility on followers is the Overwhelming Desire, whose impressive 35% damage buff is unfortunately set back by the low proc rate and its inability to affect Rift Guardians. Nevertheless, it remains a viable second option, somewhat sweetened by the fact that it is easily farmable from Act III bounty caches.

3. Stat Priorities per Gear Slot

The main stats for the followers are as follows: Strength for Templar, Dexterity for Scoundrel, Intelligence for Enchantress. To match that mainstat, whenever a socket occurs in a follower item, you should use a Flawless Royal Ruby (or the highest available) for Templar, a Flawless Royal Emerald (or the highest available) for Scoundrel, or a Flawless Royal Topaz (or the highest available) for Enchantress. The weapon socket should be filled with a Flawless Royal Ruby (or the highest available) for the flat damage increase.

Slot Stat Priority Weapon Cooldown Reduction Increased Attack Speed High Damage Range Primary Stat Socket Shield (if Templar) Primary Stat Block Chance Critical Hit Chance Socket (gemmed with Primary Stat) Vitality Follower Item Primary Stat Block Chance (if Templar) Critical Hit Damage Vitality All Resistance Amulet Cooldown Reduction Increased Attack Speed Primary Stat Critical Hit Chance Socket (gemmed with Primary Stat) Ring (Any Ring) Cooldown Reduction Increased Attack Speed Block Chance (if Justice Lantern Primary Stat Critical Hit Chance

4. Specific Follower Gearing

4.1. Templar

The Templar makes good use of Weapons such as Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker and Eun-jang-do. Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker offers a lot of crowd control through the weapon proc, which the Templar triggers consistently in fights, and synergizes with the unique property of the Wyrdward ring. In general, this weapon offers the most utility during a Rift clear, while you are still fighting trash and elite packs; it also fits well into long range builds, since they strive to outrange Rift Guardians and their affixes as a whole.

Few shields can be called truly synergistic with the Templar; damage-oriented ones like the elemental boosting Lidless Wall or the proc-based Defender of Westmarch are viable, but Freeze of Deflection has stun utility that far outweighs the other two. Pairing that shield with a Justice Lantern and some additional block % (on the relic, for example) will offer a lot of additional stuns.

It is worth noting that some of the above recommendations ( Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker and Freeze of Deflection) benefit from specific rings — Wyrdward and Justice Lantern respectively — that differentiate from the general recommendations. These rings will add to your crowd control at the expense of the Unity toughness combo and the damage boosting Oculus Ring, so use them at your discretion.

4.2. Scoundrel

The Scoundrel is best equipped with weapons that facilitate kiting. In order of priority, take the freezing, piercing Buriza-Do Kyanon, the knockback machine Windforce, or the rooting Hellrack. While an argument can be made that the knockback property of Windforce helps fragile characters maintain a healthy distance, its single target nature is incomparable to the AoE utility of a Buriza-Do Kyanon, making this crossbow the favored Scoundrel weapon.

4.3. Enchantress

Crowd-control weapons suit the Enchantress the most, emphasizing her role as the strongest CC follower. The Sultan of Blinding Sand comes with a highest recommendation, as its high Blind chance is capable of incapacitating elites and Rift Guardians for extended periods of time. Should you opt to maximize her damage instead, you can go for powerful two-handed choices like Maximus and The Furnace.