Diablo Follower System Revamp: Emanations

Follower System Revamp: The Follower system for Diablo III has been revamped and will be made permanently available for Seasonal and Non-Seasonal play!

Players can now equip Followers with a total of 14 different item slots…

…Emanate allows the player to gain the intended effect of certain Legendary Powers and Set Bonuses when equipped on the hired Follower.

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Maximising follower attributes and gear

Ideally, have the right stats, but given the available mats, it can be good to reroll a legendary to an ancient (or even primal). You also wants sockets for gems.

Legs, chest, rings and amulet can all be filled with flawless gems, as appropriate (e.g. strength for templar) – up to 25,000 cap*.

*(This is for follower skills, not damage. Going over 25,000 main stat will increase their DPS, but it’s negligible).

Then, if possible, reroll according to your relic.

Note that, according to Maxroll, Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill (except the Templar’s Heal).

Also, for the most part, Followers never deal significant damage.

I try to max it anyway, as every little bit helps. I look at it like this, when your character is newly levelling and gear gathering, jumping from 800k damage to 1.2m damage makes a difference. So, I’d rather have my follower at 1.2m than 800k, even if I’m at 6m or even 12m.

Interestingly, which I hadn’t thought about before, pet buffing gear on the player is also applied to the follower:

 

FOLLOWER RELICS

Immortal relic: Your follower cannot die.
My favourite, as losing your follower when you are pushing generally means waiting for them to respawn, or dying yourself.

Here most stats are actually useless as they can’t die (e.g. vitality, life per second, cool down, resistance), so focus on damage.

 

Savant relic: Gain access to all skills.
This is obviously highly desirable, but the offset is you have to build survivability into their gear.

Again giving a nod to maxroll.gg (and others), Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration (non-Physical damage reduction) and Mutilation Guard (melee damage reduction).
Maxing these two gems (to 100) and putting them on the followers’ rings is a wise move, especially for pet-focused players.

I played with a wizard with these on the Templar, and at GR 140+, he died a lot, so it does really need builds using the Enforcer gem as well. This, of course, will vary with your class and playing style, so the Sorceress and Scoundrel would fare better, being ranged themselves.

 

Efficient worker relic: Reduces the cooldown of all Follower skills by 50%
Again, you must build survivability into their gear, but it means their most important procs (like keeping you alive) happen more often.
It makes a difference if you are pushing or in hardcore.

Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard are again recommended for your follower with this relic equipped.

 

Perfect follower gear set for solo farming

This list focuses on general farming and lower-level greater rifts.

 

 

Head: Cain’s Insight (crafted) if farming keys, else Broken crown

Shoulders: Homing pads shared fast teleport

Chest: Goldskin (with 3 sockets gems) (Emanates gold drops)

Hands: Gloves of Worship for shrine buff (world, not rifts)

Wrist: Nemesis Bracers. Shrines AND pylons spawn champions.

Waist: Sages Ribbon (crafted) for farming Death’s Breath

Legs: Cain’s Habit (crafted, needs 2 sockets) for farming keys

Feet: Sages Passage (crafted) for farming Death’s Breath

Amulet: The Flavor of Time for pylon buff (rifts, not world)

Ring 1: Krede’s Flame (fire restores energy) (or else Avarice band)

Ring 2: Ring of Royal Grandeur for set bonuses

Relic: ‘follower cannot die’ is recommended, but any legendary is great at levels you can manage (but see Relics above).

Weapon: Use the best you have available. Emanate specifics aside, followers do not benefit from set bonuses. However, they do benefit from legendary bonuses and procs. Plus, for some – eg XP for mobs they kill – you get 20% of it.

Note: Use the red Flawless Royal Ruby in your followers weapon socket as this applies a flat +270 damage bonus. Other gems are ineffective on followers!
e.g. On my current Templar, the damage is 1.179m with the other gems but 1.362m with the ruby. The follower’s Toughness is unaffected by these gems.

Suggested weapon choices are:

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Perfect follower gear set for Greater Rifts

Notes as above, but the gear changes to reflect the greater need for damage.

Again, reroll for main stat or else damage (crit, AOE, attack speed), as life, armour, etc don’t matter. The exception to this is the Heart Of Iron chest, where, if nothing else is better, Vitality should be chosen as it adds to the thorns damage.

Similarly so for the *Death’s Bargain pants, but that requires having the right prime stats and sockets and then rerolling something into life per second, and probably the ‘follower doesn’t die’ relic
*(Gain an aura of death that deals 750% – 1000% of your Life per Second as Physical damage to enemies within 16 yards. You no longer regenerate Life).

This list focuses on higher-level greater rifts.

 

 

Head: Anariel’s Visage, Poison Nova for AoE poison damage, or Blind Faith, which has a 20-40% chance to blind on hit. (If they can’t see you, they can’t hit you, so compliments the Cord of Sherma belt).
(The Broken Crown is an option for extra gem drops)

Shoulders: Death Watch Mantle, AoE physical damage from blades

Chest: Goldskin (with 3 gem sockets), (gold emanates)
(Heart of Iron is an alternative. It might help, especially if the follower’s gear has a lot of vitality)

*Hands: Gloves of Worship for shrine buff
(St. Archew’s Gage is a consideration if you are GR pushing and don’t have the ‘immortal’ relic equipped on the follower.
(Gives life shield the first time an elite pack damages you/them)).

*Wrist: Nemesis Bracers. Shrines AND pylons spawn champions.

*Waist: Cord of Sherma, for area of blind and slow

Legs: Pox Faulds (with 2 gem sockets) for AoE poison damage

Feet: Fire Walker’s, for AoE fire damage (Ice climber as alternative)

*Amulet: The Flavor of Time (for pylon buff)

*Ring 1: Krede’s Flame (fire damage restores energy)
(Avarice band as alternative)

*Ring 2: Oculus Ring (circle of damage bonus, makes a BIG difference)

Focus: ‘Follower cannot die’ is recommended, but the other legendary relics are great at levels you can manage.

Weapon: Best available.

*(Consider these as essential for Greater Rift pushing!)

As a final reminder Shrines only appear in the open world and dungeons, and pylons only appear in rifts and greater rifts.

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The current list of items with Emanate capabilities are the following:

The last sentence is interesting, as it implies ‘more to follow’. In my opinion, one would hope the first of any extra would be the Ring of Grandeur*, which should have been included at the start. (*Two years on, still waiting and have given up hope of seeing it!)

Anyway, these are the options:

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Follower armour sets

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More missed chances

Or perhaps things to come. I left Blizzard feedback anyway.

From patch notes:

HOWEVER:
You can’t reroll that stat unless you are of a similar class (or make another hero for just that purpose), and you are less than likely to want a follower of the same class as yourself.

I suggested to Blizz that they change Myriam’s enchant tables so one enchants for the player, the other enchants for their follower. It shouldn’t be hard as they have two duplicate tables in place already.

AS AN EXTENSION OF THIS:
I also suggested they extend (or add) to Kanai’s Cube so that you can apply Emanates to the follower /follower slots. A bit harder to do, but there are ways, especially for a multi-billion dollar developer.