Just fired up my DH for a break from the monotony of Monk Tempest Rush. My DH has okay gear (some of it I took from my monk, some of it I had lying around, some of it I bought for cheap) and I certainly feel like it's adequate for MP0, but it's been pretty slow-going. Are there any good strategies for improving the speed of farming? 24% MS certainly feels like slow motion compared to the near permanent 59% MS of tempest rushing, but I'm sure there are ways to improve my speed. I'm pretty much a noob with the DH and I haven't touched my DH since like, pre-1.03, so any advice is welcome.

Here is my character profile: demon hunter

Thanks!

Hey Metta,

I have been thinking of reviving my DH!

Since you have already started firing your DH, I sure hope to learn strategies/ BiS (particularly gears transferrable from Monk to DH) / Build for you on DH soon, just as like I have learned from you on Monk!

You *should* feel like you're zipping around with vault + tactical advantage.. but an option for going even faster would be lacuni prowlers, ones with CC are really pricey though but the IAS + movement speed is nice. More IAS the better on a DH.

I guess coming from tempest rush monk anything will feel slow!

Try adding the passive Hot Pursuit: "Whenever you are at full Hatred, movement speed is increased by 15%"...

Also, when I used to do Act III gold farming runs on Nightmare, I made ample use of Smoke Screen & the passive Tactical Advantage for very quick sprinting, followed by Preparation to refill my Discipline. Worked out fairly well. (Then again, I've never played a Tempest Rush Monk, so no idea what the speed comparison is actually like...)

@eastdragon42

The last time I heard is that Hot Pursuit skill is capped by the 25% gear speed. It also shows the cap on the paper doll, although I did not try to verify if that was the case in actual gameplay.

Posted by douvinsky at 12/17/2012 04:28 AM

@eastdragon42
The last time I heard is that Hot Pursuit skill is capped by the 25% gear speed. It also shows the cap on the paper doll, although I did not try to verify if that was the case in actual gameplay.

Ooh... I did not know that... :-0 Apologies for the misinformation then...!

That kind of sucks though. So if your gear is good, then that passive is just basically useless?? :-(

I think I've reached "Obsessive" now with my knowledge and experience with the DH class. I've identified or discovered 4 subclasses for Inferno and 1 for low-level farming and I'm positive there are more out there. FYI, @Metta you have laughably fantastic gear and can destroy pretty much everything no matter which build you use so feel free to pick from whichever one sounds the most fun. I'll go into much more detail upon request.

In general, you'll find that most DH have gravitated towards 1H crossbow builds after overwhelmingly starting out favoring dual socket Manticores evidenced by prices coming way down on Manitcores and steadily increasing on Calamities. The names are placeholders until I come up with something flashier

Nester
Classic trapper action-rpg build. This focuses on damage with Sentry, slowing with Caltrops and Damage Reduction with passives and gear. This build involves little kiting and almost exclusively damage over time. If you enjoyed poison in D2, this is your class. It's almost exclusively a solo build, because it kills relatively slowly, but it's sadistically satisfying.

Stunner
The poor man's CM Wizard, this one focuses entirely on Bola Shot Thunderball with its 35% chance to stun primary target. There is some kiting, but it's fantastic at killing individual creatures and small mobs. Attack Speed is king to keep monsters under near-stunlock. This is probably the best build for Ubers as you can nearly stunlock monsters, deal some damage and provide your party 32% damage reduction.

Nuker
This build focuses on big booms with Spike Traps and Hungering Arrows for very big yellow numbers. You'll be kiting almost constantly and it's easily the most exciting DH build. You'll be running with dual 1H XBows and at least 450% Crit Damage and 40% Crit chance for some very big yellow numbers. Probably the best for multiplayer when you're running with meat shields.

Grenadier Tank (though comically doesn't use the passive of the same name)
This is the melee DH build. Nerfed in 1.04, the defensive changes revived it for 1.05. This low DPS/high Life build uses a massive frequency of crits on Cluster Grades to trigger LoH and Night Stalker which refills Discipline which keeps up Shadow Power indefinitely. You can stand in a Desecrator Pool on MP7 with this build. Exclusively a solo build, slow as molasses, but you'll never play anything else like it in D3.

The Ultimate Signet Hunter (USH)
I've been tuning this one over the past few days and I've pretty much honed it to perfection. This is a very low dps Strafer build will practically never goes below 84% MS and can get up to an exhilatring 110% MS for brief 1 second periods. I think it may be the best Signet Hunter / Gold Farmer in the entire game. It's 100% gear dependent, but it should cost under 3 million (possibly 2 million) for the entire set.

In theory, with proper gear, one can hybridize the Trapper and Nuker for crazy dps. Again with proper gear, The Ultimate Signet Hunter could probably buff all the way up to MP0 Inferno Act 3. I'm a few hundred million gold short of that gear as there's only one ideal Natalya's chest in the entire AH for the USH and it runs 50 million on its own (+7% Crit Chance on Strafe, +8 Max Discipline).

As a DH, you'll never farm as quickly as a Monk or Barb, and you'll never be as important to Uber parties, but the sheer versatility of the class means you're going to have more fun than any of them.

Edit: changed name

@ecocd

Thanks for the builds. Is there any reason why most DH are using Calamity instead of Manticore? I suppose the 10% CC bonus for 1H from Archery beats the 50% CD for crossbows, but the Manticore also has 2 sockets. Damage-wise, it seems close... would there be any other reason?

I'm kind of interested in that last build. How do you maintain 84% MS the entire run? The only ability I've found that can boost my MS beyond 24% is Vault, which is impossible to maintain the entire way and it's also kind of clunky. Is there another way to gain added MS?

I wanted to get your opinion on my current build (might be slightly different from profile):

Hungering Arrow: Spray of Teeth - using this one mainly for the damage against elites, but I don't feel too strongly about it
Multishot: Fire at Will - pretty much my bread and butter. I have good hatred regen and I can wipe out an entire screen of mobs in 1-2 of these, so I feel like it's essential.
Shadow Power: Gloom - essential against reflect damage and also really good for just going Rambo on a screen full of shit
Vault: Trail of Cinders - seems okay, good for cleaning up mobs behind me as well as spamming it for added MS. Could also use Tumble.
Companion: Bat Companion - hatred regen
Preparation: Backup Plan - to restore discipline for vault spamming

Steady Aim - damage boost
Tactical Advantage - added MS from vault
Vengeance - love this ability. In addition to the bonus hatred, health globes restoring discipline is amazing. With 11 yard pickup radius, I can spend everything on a big pack and quickly collect the globes to restore everything.

I timed myself on a run and it took 22 minutes (all of Keep Depths, Bridge, Arreat Crater 1/2, and Tower of the Damned). So not exactly super fast, but surprisingly decent considering the slow MS.

Posted by Metta at 12/17/2012 12:37 PM

Thanks for the builds. Is there any reason why most DH are using Calamity instead of Manticore? I suppose the 10% CC bonus for 1H from Archery beats the 50% CD for crossbows, but the Manticore also has 2 sockets. Damage-wise, it seems close... would there be any other reason?

Sentry is a big part of it since it adds 175% weapon damage to any fight, but can't crit. It's an enormous boost in damage in any extended fight and you get a bonus effect of your choice, to boot. Attack speed has become more important, overall, because you're gaining a few frames between run-fire-run. When you're kiting, that's really important, but it also means you're off to the next mob a little sooner. The Marked for Death proc is adding 8% damage on any lengthy fight, as well. The ability to stack 400% CD on dual 1H XBow dovetails nicely with the 10% CC bonus from Archery if that's your fancy. Finally, you proc LoH more often with a faster weapon.

Just pick up a brimstone Calamity with a high Marked for Death proc to get a feel for the difference in attack speed. If you like it, go shopping for a better one. If not, stick with your Manticore. I guess if you're killing everything in one hit anyway, then it doesn't matter which bow you use.

I'm kind of interested in that last build. How do you maintain 84% MS the entire run? The only ability I've found that can boost my MS beyond 24% is Vault, which is impossible to maintain the entire way and it's also kind of clunky. Is there another way to gain added MS?

The Tactical Advantage passive triggers off Vault, Smokescreen and Evasive Fire. The 60% MS for 2 seconds is uncapped so it takes you up to 84% MS assuming two 12% MS equipment (Hot pursuit, as stated above counts toward the 25% MS cap so it's no good). Smokescreen - Displacement adds 35% MS to the 84% MS and they all stack above the cap.

Maybe I'll put together a more extensive guide sometime, but here are the basics. You keep up your movement speed by starting with an ENORMOUS pool of Discipline from Natalya's Set (+20 Discipline), Chest (+10 Discipline), 1H Crossbow (+10 Discipline - high dps Natalya's Slayer), OffHand/1H Crossbow (+10 Discipline), Xephirian Amulet (+10 Discipline), Stone Jordan (+10 Discipline). The SoJ isn't really necessary since 85-90 Discipline has proven sufficient and a MF/Crit ring is more useful, anyway. You want as much Critical Hit Chance as you reasonably can afford (pay special attention to Xephirian Amulet). Natalya's Chest offers +2-7% of Strafe Crit and SoJ, if you spend a zillion Gold, could technically bump you up 7% Strafe Crit - higher than the normal 6% Crit Chance cap.

The Nightstalker Passive gives you 1 Discipline on Crit (50% proc coeff on Strafe) and Vengeance is +2 Discipline per Health Globe. Preparation - Backup Plan refills your entire pool of 90 Discipline with a 45 second cooldown. Vengeance, Bat Companion, Hatred Regen on equipment and Templar Follower all help keep your Hatred up which keeps Strafe - Drifting Shadow running when cutting through mobs.

Strafe doesn't require aiming which means you're killing mobs as you run past them. Very wide Pickup Radius helps here so you can pick up Health Globes to recharge your Hatred without deviating from your path. Since it's all ranged attacks, you're literally just tracing a path around the map Vaulting every 2 seconds. If your Preparation skill isn't on cooldown, you can pop your Smokescreen and get a burst up to 109% MS for 1 second which is insanely fun.

If you want to buff it to higher levels of difficulty, be prepared to pay through the nose for it, because good Natalya's gear (particularly Natalya's Reflection) costs a fortune. With my full dps gear on I can just barely Strafe through MP0 Act 3 with 48 Discipline and no MS bonus, which is why I think someone could pull off The Ultimate Signet Hunter in Inferno with fabulous gear.

I've never played the Multishot subclass, because I've never had the equipment to make it work. It requires high Dex/CC/CD to be effective and that equipment isn't in my price range. I'll not do you the disservice of blindly critiquing it and I'll just encourage you to keep swapping skills that look interesting. Even strange ones like Fan of Knives have their uses (barely...) and you might find an odd one that you really enjoy using.

One fun fact is that the Full Broadside Rune on Multishot is black damage so if you have a black weapon (e.g., Calamity) and cold damage SoJ, you retain the 30% chill bonus on each Multishot. It's not really useful, but it's a novel trick.

I timed myself on a run and it took 22 minutes (all of Keep Depths, Bridge, Arreat Crater 1/2, and Tower of the Damned). So not exactly super fast, but surprisingly decent considering the slow MS.

Part of that is because you're now using ranged damage which means your pathfinding is much straighter than melee. You don't have to sprint into each corner of the Depths.

@ecocd Would you mind listing the skills & passive you use for each? I enjoy trying other peoples builds =)

I just copied a mates trapper build as I found pretty decent Bola Shot deadman's, and a nats chest armor with nice spike trap damage

bola -> volatile explosives
elemental -> ball of lightening

spike trap -> scatter
shadow power -> gloom
rain of vengeance -> flying strike
companion -> boar

Found it OK but lacked being able to slow down packs at all, and overall damage to be too low. I'm used to playing hungering arrow / multishot + vaulting and 1 or 2 shotting most things.

@ninjax Really brief observation, try Rain of Vengeance - Beastly Bombs. I love it to pieces.

I'm not sure what you're doing that Spike Trap isn't 1 shotting things whereas your Multishot is since it does nearly twice as much damage as a Multishot.

By my definition you're a Nuker rather than a Trapper. My "trapper" above would probably be better named, "nester" as in machine gun nest.

What MP level are you and @Metta playing that Multishot is 1-shotting mobs on its own? My equipment isn't fantastic, but I don't think it's bad.

@ecocd

I'm playing on MP0. Even at 170k DPS, there are mobs that can survive more than 1 or 2 multishots. I was thinking of some sort of AOE attack that I could use to clean up survivors or stragglers after I throw out a few multishots. I tried Bola Shot but I found the explosion to take too long to activate. Something passive (like a monk's Sweeping Wind) would be perfect so I could multishot and then just keep moving forward while doing damage.

@Metta In that case, try Strafe. It's sounds exactly like what you're looking for if you can find a skill slot for it. Maybe try dropping Gloom and either take your lumps on Reflect Damage Mobs or swap in a LoH Amulet. It would be tough to drop Vault since it's your only way to break Jailer.

As per @ninjax 's request:
Nester
Active skills:
Spike Trap - Echoing Blast
Caltrops - Hooked Spines (could be any other Rune)
Smoke Screen - Lingering Fog (most people like Gloom here, but I'll always prefer the complete invulnerability of SS)
Preparation - Battle Scars
Hungering Arrow - Puncturing Arrow/Devouring Arrow depending upon how often you need LoH procs
Sentry - Guardian Turret (Aid Station also acceptable)
Passive skills:
Custom Engineering
Cull the Weak, Numbing Traps, Perfectionist (2 of 3 depending upon whether you need offense or defense)
Stats (order of importance): Attack Speed, Dex, Max Discipline
Sentries can't crit so Crit Chance and Crit Damage are entirely pointless. You'll be dropping Caltrops like sunflower seed shells and popping Smoke Screen like Tic Tacs
Strengths: Sadistic Glee, Single enemies, moving/fleeing enemies
Weaknesses: Reflect Damage, Horde, Reflect Damage, Reflect Damage (note, they're fixing this in Patch 1.07)
I'm going to try a Windforce soon to see if the Knockback effect is worth the substantial dip in attack speed.

Stunner
Active skills:
Spike Trap - Echoing Blast
Companion - Boar (need a meat shield)
Smoke Screen - Lingering Fog (better than Gloom to avoid Frozen)
Preperation - Battle Scars
Bola Shot - Thunderball
Sentry - Guardian Turret (Aid Station also acceptable)
Passive skills:
Archery
Pretty much anything else, but I prefer Steady Aim and Perfectionist
Stats (order of importance): Attack Speed, Dex, Crit Chance, Crit Damage
This is all about getting single enemies into a near-stunlock so aim for at least 3.0 aps, but try for 3.2 aps - only 1H XBow/Dead Man's Legacy need apply
Strengths: Single enemies, multiplayer support, white mobs
Weaknesses: Champion packs, Desecrator (forces you to move breaking stunlock)

Nuker
Active skills:
Spike Trap - Scatter (Echoing Blast is a little too slow)
Caltrops - Hooked Spines
Smoke Screen - Lingering Fog (need to be able to break Jailer & Frozen)
Preparation - Battle Scars
Evasive Fire - Covering Fire
Impale - Overpenetration (Rain of Vengeance, Beastly Bombs is okay)
Passive skills:
Archery
Perfectionist or Tactical Advantage
custom Engineering
Stats (order of importance): Crit Chance, Crit Damage, LoH/Life Steal, MS, Dex, Max Discipline
Strengths: Mobs, Big Booms
Weaknesses: Single Enemies, Reflect Damage without sufficient Life Steal/LoH
Evasive Fire requires a substantial amount of training to use correctly to limit the number of times you evade yourself into a corner and burn through all your Discipline, but once you're good at it, you'll be able to use it as a kite enemies endlessly in relative safety. The subclass more than any other will make you wish you had 4 more skill slots.

Grenadier Tank
I started mine from the guys at Cuckoo Gaming on Youtube.
Active skills:
Spike Trap - Echoing Blast
Companion - Boar
Smoke Screen - Lingering Fog
Sentry - Guardian Turret
Grenades - Cluster Bombs
Shadow Power - Gloom (Blood Moon may work better for you)
Passive skills:
Night Stalker
Numbing Traps
Perfectionist
Stats (order of importance):Crit Chance, Attack Speed, Vit, AR, Armor, Dex, Max Discipline, LoH
Strengths: Extremely hardy, unique playstyle
Weaknesses: Moving/Fleeing Enemies, Single enemies (tough to proc enough crits), slower than molasses
I have found a Crit Chance Shield to actually be a better option than a Quiver. High Dex shields are cheap. You can even use a 1H melee weapon with this build since neither Spike Trap or Grenades requires a bow, but I haven't found a 1 handed weapon as good as Calamity. Be on the lookout for a +Grenades damage Natalya's Chest, because the 7% Set bonus including a Natalya's Reflection is ideal for this build. I still haven't worked out the perfect build so feel free to share equipment tips if there's one I should try!

continued...

Ultimate Signet Hunter (USH)
Active skills:
Smoke Screen - Displacement
Vault - Tumble
Preparation - Backup Plans
Entangling Shot - Justice is Served (build up Hatred for Strafe)
Strafe - Drifting Shadow
no 6th skill I've found useful maybe Companion Ferrets?
Passive skills:
Tactical Advantage
Night Stalker
Vengeance
Stats (order of importance):Max Discipline, Crit Chance, MS, MF/GF
Strengths: Fast. Really Fast. I mean, really really fast.
Weaknesses: Jailer (stops Strafe), Very Gear-Restrictive, Very weak
Equipment:
Pick-up radius everywhere you can get it
Natalya's Chest - Critical Hit on Strafe, Max Discipline
Natalya's Reflection - whatever you can afford
Natalya's Sight - Socket & MF
Natalya's Slayer / Bloddy Footprints - The Slayer is much cheaper, but make sure it comes with Max Discipline
Xepherian Amulet - Crit Chance, Max Discipline
Quiver - Max Discipline, MF
Boots - MS, MF
Lacuni Prowlers - any stats (crit chance would be ideal, but crazy expensive)
Ring - Crit Chance, MF (a 7% Strafe Crit, +10 Max Discipline Stone of Jordan would be best, but again crazy expensive)
Gloves - Crit Chance, Pick-up Radius, MF

@ecocd

Up to this stage I have no doubt at your obsession for DH!
And you guys are really pulling me towards playing DH! I will join you soon, hunters.

I can do MP7 OK with my grenadier build...albeit slowly (build is not current as I was playing around). I wonder if we can get 4 DH's to do MP10 ubers successfully..

2 grenadiers and 2 stunners maybe?

@ecocd: Wow, love your write up & the immense amount of detail you've put into your DH. You should consider writing a guide for the class! :)

I think I've played practically every variation that you've listed (with some minor changes) except for the last one, the Ultimate Signet Hunter (USH). Currently doing the Grenadier one again (which is something I've always wanted to do with the Legacy Natalya's set, though alas, I still haven't gotten that Natalya's Mark yet...).

One thing I found that worked fairly well (since I've always emphasized Critical Hit chance & damage as opposed to Attack Speed) when doing the Stunner version is to have Bola Shot w/ Thunderball on primary attack and Elemental Arrow w/ Lightning Bolts on secondary attack. Since the electrified bolts automatically stun enemies for 1.5 seconds on a Critical Hit, the fact that my attack speed is only around 2 per sec as opposed to 3+ per second meant that I could still keep bosses stun locked since my CC% was just above 50%. (There was a funny instance fighting Ubers where the monk who was tanking for our group had been picked up by the Siegebreaker before I began stun locking him, & for the longest time he spent the battle suspended in mid-air cause I didn't notice...!)

Q: I think I love my pair of Danetta's too much to switch out at this stage, though I still have a pair of nice Calamity's in my Stash (though unfortunately neither of them have sockets). Since you recommend Calamities, just out of curiosity, what do you usually recommend for the offhand? A deadman's quiver or shield; a Natlaya's; a really high DPS Dawn or Hallowed Defender; or just a good rare 1h x-bow?

Posted by Khan at 12/17/2012 10:15 PM

I can do MP7 OK with my grenadier build...albeit slowly (build is not current as I was playing around). I wonder if we can get 4 DH's to do MP10 ubers successfully..

I can do MP7 OK with a Grenadier build as well. If you ever want to try to get 4 DHs together for an MP10 uber run, I'd be up for the challenge...! :-)

How many of you roll a female DH?
I love the high heels.

OK....... I have shown my determination in playing my DH.
Bought a few gears for under 6 millions (I bought only those 1D11hr or 1D12hr items), viz Nat Boot, Chest, Helm + a Dead Man's Legacy. They have +spike dmg and +bola shot dmg, so I am going to explore the possibility of having those 2 skills together.

I thought I might throw my build in here. It's working pretty well so far and I've managed to cut my Act 3 run down to under 20 minutes. Credit to @ecocd for the tips!

I call this the "Rambo" build because you don't kite, you don't dodge, you don't back off. You just blast the shit out of everything as quickly as possible.

Strafe - Stinging Steel
Multishot - Fire At Will
Shadow Power - Gloom
Vault - Tumble
Companion - Bat Companion
Preparation - Focused Mind

Archery
Tactical Advantage
Vengeance

The first thing you might be thinking: wtf, no hatred generator?? I kinda realized that the hatred regeneration from Hungering Arrow is actually not very much (3 per shot) and my hatred regeneration is already like, 9 per second (with Bat). So as long as I don't spam Strafe or Multishot carelessly, I'm actually perfectly fine on hatred. Plus, I get tons from Vengeance from globes, so it's not really an issue.

The strategy is simple: Multishot everything in front of you, Strafe everything around you. On MP0, at 170k DPS, things die almost instantly and most of your time is just spent vaulting from place to place. Tumble gives me cheaper vaults and Focused Mind gives me more discipline.

I never move backwards. Often, I throw 2-3 multishots and strafe everything else still alive. For elites, I kinda circle them like a WW barb with strafe to maximize damage.

I use archery instead of steady aim since I'm actually in close combat with strafe most of the time.

Pickup radius is actually pretty important here so you can constantly grab globes quickly to replenish your hatred/discipline.

This is a DPS build, so I think its success is based upon its ability to disintegrate things as quickly as possible. I'd say 150k would be fine, 120k might be a stretch, and less than 100k would be a bit annoying.

My survivability isn't that great (37k HP, 315 AR, 4k armor, no LOH or LS), but I almost never die. Maybe 1-2 deaths because I forget to turn on shadow power before a RD mob.

Anyway, this build won't win any style points, but it's pretty efficient and a nice break from 400 hours of MONK. There's also something to be said of just instantly disintegrating guys that's pretty fun...

I laughed at your "okay gear" :D
Metta DH

my DH has less DPS but better survivability:
Enios DH

I can farm MP2 efficiently with minimal deaths, and Ubers MP5-6 in a party, or even with just a Barb to help/tank.
I even did Act 1 MP10 with a Barb and it went well.


for the movement speed issue, if you had Legacy Nat, you could combine Tactical Advantage, Shadow Power, Smoke Screen, Vault for some CRAZY movement speed, but you'd probably quickly run out of discipline without it (I never tried)

don't forget to take the annoying templar for the additional hatred generation.