Which follower do you use?

On an earlier post I wrote about my build as I was nearing level 30 and Nightmare. 12 Hours Played Build and Progress. I updated my Build in Hell and this has been holding steady through Act 1 and I'm now at Act 2 Chapter 6 Inferno. I also posted A Barbarian Build that works!

Solo Inferno Butcher is on farm in my main build with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor. Act 2 has been rushed to Chapter 6 sipping everything possible as looking at the sun in that desert will kill you without resistances! I'm looking forward to going back with more gear to kill Magdha again, ideally with 5 stacks and some friends to help on the control side of mob killing and kiting which is becoming more necessary in Inferno.

To that end I want to answer a question I had from Pitlord "Which Follower do you Use?"

In Solo play followers can be both a major asset and a total liability. I am currently using the Enchantress in Inferno butcher farming runs. Templar for Magic/Gold Find to keep down time to a minimum and GF/MF maxed out. The Scoundrel comes out for boss fights where I'm likely pushing the enrage due to build

Here are the builds I use for each and my reasoning behind each, and when I choose to use each.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/follower#0100!1000!0000

The Enchantress is who I'm using right now, whinny voice, kinda annoying ditsy blond chick. But she has some nice utility:

Charm. The charmed enemy is attack able by both you and it's buddies, and attacks it's buddies. It's not doing any damage to me and it's keeping it's buddies from wailing on me. It can equate to 100% damage reduction for 4 seconds which is an eternity in this game. The alternative knock back from Forceful Push messes with my Barb that needs to be in melee range to do damage and self heal. It is too unpredictable when she will use it to help with kiting.

Powered Armor, as with all armor in this game beats the Reflect Missiles due simply to Armor in Diablo 3 reduces ALL types of damage.

Disorientate is 2 secs for an entire group that are now not wailing on me. While I'd like the 15% damage taken pool of Erosion Diablo 3 require intensive movement to avoid hits and damage from the environment so keeping champions and rares that would really benefit from being nuked with an extra 15% DPS in the pool becomes a dangerous proposition.

Focused Mind seemingly goes against my previous choices of control, but the 60sec Cd on Mass Control, and the ditsy blond way she will use all controls on Cd, can't be controlled by the player, and we have no tracking of her internal Cool downs short of a stopwatch makes it unreliable at best. While Focused Mind with my Smite runed Frenzy benefits more from 3% attack speed.

The Templar is my first choice for any farmable content below Inferno. The reason being his shields gives me an extra magic/gold find slot over the other 2 followers:

 Heal vs Taunt. I'm the tank. If you taunt and die who is going to heal me. If I get below 50% you can bet I have a revenge ready, I don't need you taunting mobs away so they are out of range. I need more revenge procs to farm this content faster!

Intimidate relies on enemies hitting the Templar, so fail for me. Life Regen is always nice. I have pitifully low values of Life per sec on gear so it takes forever to heal out of combat, so Loyalty is the only choice here.

Charge and Onslaught. Don't get any ideas about your follower doing a ton of DPS and finishing off that rare pack while you go for a coffee. 200% of naff all is still naff all! I'll take the stun. If I'm in trouble I can open some distance, pot, wait on Cd's before jumping back in.

Guardian vs Inspire. The saddest thing for me in the Barbarian gameplay is the lack of fury spending we are seeing due to the fury generators simply being better than the spenders. I'm not going to rant about class design, but Inspire..lol. Guardian saved my life a few times in Hell, but I also found that a healing build Templar can be a liability against Vampiric + pool of bad stuff mobs. He will stand in the pool healing himself, which translates to healing the mob that dropped it!

The scoundrel is one I'm yet to find any real use for on my Barbarian other than damage dealing, but hres my take on him:

I could see myself bringing him along to a boss fight like the Butcher were I'm pushing the enrage timer if he hides in a fire area and I can't get decent uptime on him. However Follower DPS is lack lustre at best, so not used this guy much.

Crippling Shot vs. Poision Bolts is simply slows vs DPS. I don't rate slows as highly as I maybe would as something other than a Barbarian, but I'm not a kiter. Stuns do helpout, but unless someone is going to inform me that it also slows mob attack speed I'll take the DPS and just burn the bad guys down.

Dirty Fighting is the clear winner for me here. If my follower needs to Vanish to self heal it's becuase the AI fails and he stood in bad stuff. Either way he will self resurect in a matter of seconds so I'm not going to go to any lenghts to keep him alive, including talenting. Dirty Fighting however has potential to keep me alive, and that much more important!

Multishot vs Powered Snot, yes I called it powered snot due to the whopping 25% weapon damage it does. Most boss fights do have some adds making Multishot work for me, and although I'm a lover of stuns against Rare/Champions were mechanics just don't exist if you are relying on stun locks to kill bosses you are failing at mechanics becuase nearly everything is avoidable to the extent that they have "check me out I did it naked achievements".

Anatomy and Hysteria are simply a question of how much crit do you already have. I have next to zero so 3% extra is going to be more benefit than a proc that relies on something that has next to zero chance of happening. Can I rely on a crit every 6seconds to keep the Hysteria buff up at it's max uptime of 50% for 10% increased damage, or is 3% crit with 100% the better choice.

Hope my explaination of what I use and why helps you make your own descisions about your followers. See you in game and Good Luck!