@Metta Ahhh, that makes sense. I actually have a decent Nat's set, but I've tried playing it as a Strafe build with my normal 48 disc and Vengeance and have found that to give me enough Hatred/Disc overall. I had to drop Tactical Advantage in the interest of conserving Disc, but it's not a big compromise for me.

I found a dandy 197 Dex, 9% AS, 809 LoH, 503 Life Regen amulet a little while ago that drops my dps about 10%, but has solved the Reflect Damage problem when combined with your suggestion of Shadow Power Night Bane. I was running out of Hatred against them, but needed Life Steal of some form. I would've never thought to try it on my own and it's made all the difference.

The other huge notable advantage of using Strafe over Multishot is that now I don't keep firing off my Multishot when I just want to run somewhere. I know there's a dedicated movement key function, but it's just clunky for me to try to use it in combination with my right-click Strafe. Now that every enemy is dead from Strafe before I move on, I can left-click to move without firing off the skill when the cursor accidentally falls on an enemy instead of bare ground.

I'm going to try to find an affordable Crit Strike on Strafe SoJ now which should help my dps and also move Chakram Shuriken Cloud in where Hungering Arrow used to be. Night Bane has allayed most/all of my Hatred worries.

Many thanks all around!

Posted by ninjax at 12/17/2012 02:33 PM

@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.

I've revisted this build and It's now my fav build after gearing up a little, it's almost impossible to die when spamming elemental arrow with balls of lightening with Gloom on, these's crit's going off like crazy your health is just topped up all the time. I just alternate a bit with bola shot for the odd stun, and drop a few traps under elites it's very tanky.

Did MP10 ubers with some friends and didn't die apart from while we were getting Nv stacks lol.

@ninjax Do you run it on higher MP levels solo? How do you keep from running out of Hatred on high MP levels? It seems like you wouldn't kill enough monsters fast enough to get the Health Globes you would need for Vengeance. Elite Packs also seem like they would present a big challenge on that front. Is Gloom on its own really enough to take care of the Reflect Damage elites? When you're against Uniques are you scoring enough crits to keep Gloom up?

@ecocd No farming high MP still isn't worthwhile, max I do is MP4 for keys or 5+ with friends. Farming is still MP3 and sometimes just 2 if I want to thrash through a quick run.

If I had inna's set peices and/or more of nat's set I'm sure I could do 5+ but I'm not willing to drop the cash on my DH at the mo.

The Strafe build is definitely faster with my equipment than the Multishot build so thanks once again to @Metta. I've acquired a dandy +7% CC Strafe 26% Elite Damage SoJ (5% Fire damage) at a good price. Combined with my +CC Strafe cloak, I think I'm close to 54% CC with my Manitcore. I might go back to my Calamity for 63% CC with Archery for giggles if my Hatred can handle it. I'm never going to be able to run this build with Cain's Set, but I can live without that boost.

There's a serious market imbalance on the crappy SoJ market - 20-21% Elite damage Rings can be had for 50k on Bid in many cases and sell within minutes when set with a Buyout of 100-200k. People will pick up on this soon if they haven't already. Very easy money, albeit in very small quantities.

remove charkram and skill fan of knife ...... you doing great there lol ....

@MrFox I'm having some Hatred issues with using Fan of Knives, but it sure does feel like a "Kill Everything" button when I do have the opportunity to use it on MP0. I added Preparation - Punishment to help with it and it works pretty well so I'll probably stick with it until I get frustrated with needing Hatred. Thanks for the suggestion!

@ecocd

To solve hatred problem :

1) buy a Inquisitor with AR, hatred regen and strafe % ..... there is no need for socket for this as you will be just be using this to farm low mp in strafe build ...get 1 cheap at ard 500k .....

2) take out steady aim and replace it with tactical advantage

3)=\ why you so many ias gear lol .... that is bad for strafe build ..... changing this is gonna cost so leave it at that .....

4) get templar to follow you ... you need to get orbs fast with your set up ......

I do not know if it is just me ......I have differents sets of armor and stuff for different scenario for my dh ....~_~ it is hard to build a cookie cutter set that can run in all builds .....my cookie cutter set cant be use for strafe build .... i do deplete the hatred in like 3 sec .....

@MrFox I'll check out the auction house for the equipment. The rest of my gear isn't great so I might need the extra Dex from my armor, but I'll give it a try.

I forgot I even had Steady Aim on. Duh. I haven't been able to play much lately and my equipment and passives were set for my Multishot build.

I play with a Sentry build where IAS and Dex are the only things that matter so a lot of my best gear is IAS gear. It's not bad with Strafe, you just have to use Strafe in bursts. Strafe still basically only costs Hatred based on the number of attacks you fire. If you hold Strafe down, then you burn through a lot of Hatred, but you do dps equivalent to it. Just have to learn to play with the equipment I have.

I'm still using the same build, but I replaced Fan of Knives with Grenades - Cluster Grenades. I've found that even on MP0, I still have some issues with hatred. Cluster Grenades gives me that panic button for when I have no hatred and it actually does MASSIVE damage. If you have Gloom on, you can spam Cluster Grenades and you're virtually invincible. It's really the best spirit generator for farming IMO. The other ones either don't have AOE or come out too slowly. It's really effective for clumps of mobs; everything else you can take out with Strafe.

Posted by Metta at 01/10/2013 07:32 PM

I'm still using the same build, but I replaced Fan of Knives with Grenades - Cluster Grenades. I've found that even on MP0, I still have some issues with hatred. Cluster Grenades gives me that panic button for when I have no hatred and it actually does MASSIVE damage. If you have Gloom on, you can spam Cluster Grenades and you're virtually invincible. It's really the best spirit generator for farming IMO. The other ones either don't have AOE or come out too slowly. It's really effective for clumps of mobs; everything else you can take out with Strafe.

Yup. This is my freeze go to. Cluster grenades with the right gear is a mini CM wizard.

I wouldn't get too attached to the freezing cluster grenades, @Khan. I doubt Blizz will keep their 0.50 proc coefficient through the next patch. They don't want DH's to resemble tanks in any fashion. They nerfed it once and I imagine they'll nerf it again.

Are you using a Azurewrath for freeze?

Why get an Inquisitor when you can just get a Natalya's cloak...

Inqusitors always come with all resist, which is nice, but a Demon Hunter doesn't even really need that many resists to survive, or do just fine (I know survive is a pretty subjective term). Also you didn't even need hatred regen that much on a cloak. Once you get around 10 hatred per second you'll do just fine. You should be getting discipline on a cloak instead because that's one of the only places you can get it.

Also when running a strafe build, if you're running our of hatred because of Strafe, you're doing something wrong. Strafe I think should only be used in bursts since it literally slows you down. The way I play with a Strafe build is with Bola Shot and Spike Trap. As I'm running along and I see a mob of enemies I'll lay down a spike trap, shoot a couple Bola's (with increased radius rune) and the strafe through for a second or two to take care of the stragglers that survived the blasts.

@@ecocd Yup. Same build as this thread. Azurewrath at 11% and Stormshield at 2%.

@NightCrawler9 I think it has a lot to do with dps. Mine is paltry compared to most plvl'ers because I both kind of suck at the game and haven't invested enough time in the AH to get the Gold I need for better loot. I should be focused on the best hybrid build as you suggest. With high enough dps, a pure Strafe build is probably still faster. I'll be trying your build this weekend since it sounds better than the Multishot hybrid I've been trying. That's why I ask the questions!

Inquistors come with 12% movement speed. The common perception is that too much attack speed is a detriment to a pure Strafe build (and cost-ineffective). Since Inna Pants and Lacuni Prowlers are no longer ideal options to increase movement speed (+attack speed on each), you need that movement speed to come from somewhere and an Inquisitor becomes the best option.

In terms of effective kill rate rather than dps (still a concept that only exists in my head and my hard drive), I actually have come to believe there might be some truth to the idea that +attack speed isn't nearly as important as Dex/CC/CD for Strafe builds (contrary to Sentry builds, for instance, where only attack speed and Dex count).

I don't think a pure Strafe build is going to be that great, or at least better than the usual Ball Lightning farming build that most DH's use. As you probably know and everybody should know, farming is about going as fast as you possibly can, and Strafe as I said before, literally slow you down by 75% You can sort of counter than by Vault and Tactical Advantage, but you're still going 25% slower when you Vault and then Strafe then if you were to just Vault. And yeah, you're right, I forgot about the movement speed on an Inquisitor.

I don't think attack speed is that bad of a thing for Strafing as people make it seem, at least for the build that I use. If you don't stack any attack speed and run a Manticore, the time between shots from the Manticore and the Bola exploding gets to be a hindrance. And like I said, when I do Strafe it's only for a second or two it doesn't drain hatred all that bad.

But as a stat alone, I've done some testing and yeah, attack speed isn't that great for just Strafe. What'll end up happening is your hatred will drain faster for pretty much the same amount of damage and it's not like you'll throw out more grenades at two APS versus one. It's the same problem most witch doctors have with Bears.

Also I know a lot of people like using the grenades passive, but I like the homing missile one a lot more because then you don't have to worry about the grenades or whatever you throw out missing. Everything you shoot out will hit something. If only the homing missiles had the explosive radius of grenades...

@NightCrawler9

I haven't tried Ball Lightning, but you would be surprised how efficient Strafe is. The thing is, I don't have to stop, change directions, or move backwards at all. Yeah, my MS is only 18% when I'm not vaulting, but it actually works out better that way. Why? Because if I moved too fast, I'd be actually NOT killing stuff and just bypassing them. The MS isn't really an issue anyway because I'm only strafing into large packs, not the entire run.

I'm using grenades to kill elites though. Strafe is actually not very good with elites. I think I do about 6M in 6-7 minute runs, so not too bad.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I mean. With how I play with Strafe and I think the best way to utilize it is in short bursts. I don't think it's best to be like a whirlwind barb and whirlwind around the majority of the time haha.

Elites are actually another reason I run Spike Trap because they usually blow them up in a few seconds. If they don't my bola's will.

Hmmm, so it sounds like magic might lie in Ball Lightning, Spike Trap and Strafe...

Not-so-fun fact, the daisy creatures (and maybe the teddy bears?) in Whimsyshire cannot be hit with Strafe. Weirdest thing. Go try it. Only the grenades hit them.

I've been using @NightCrawler9's build and it definitely seems to be the fastest for me. One thing he didn't mention is that any enemy with a Bola around it that dies causes the Bola to explode immediately. When going into a mob, you fire off a Bola at preferably a little dork and Strafe immediately at said dork. This causes the Bola to explose well inside the normal fuse and causes much death and destruction.

Strafe Rockets are so much faster than Destruction and I wouldn't have thought to try it. Overall, my Hatred problems have abated so much, I'm going to try switching to Gloom or Smoke Screen from Nightbane.

I've found that Spike Trap seems a little slow on Elites and doesn't appear to be providing much speed. Then again, maybe it is. I'm going to play around with the skill slot with Rain of Vengeance, Sentry or even Rapid Fire to see how much they help. I think I'm zeroing in on an ideal build for my equipment and it's in no small part to everyone's help here.

quick tips , use chakram -shurken cloud , It is a awesome with gloom, even on high mp ....= )

Posted by douvinsky at 12/23/2012 08:08 AM

Got my DH to P-level 4 (yay!). Lesser and lesser deaths (zero for the last P level I think).

I am currently settled for the strafe-demolition + Fan of Knives build for MP0, as in another thread MP0 Strafe Build

I also bought a Legacy Nat set for the seemingly endless discipline regen. Anyone care to lend me a Legacy Nat Helm with open socket?

Now looking back, what a great investment into the Legacy Nat set!! The upcoming PvP has driven up the prices of the Legacy Nat pieces. A disciplined-based DH with fast discipline regen using smokescreen, vault with stun, caltrops, shadow power, preparation........be very fearful.

Posted by douvinsky at 01/15/2013 11:01 PM

Posted by douvinsky at 12/23/2012 08:08 AM

Got my DH to P-level 4 (yay!). Lesser and lesser deaths (zero for the last P level I think).

I am currently settled for the strafe-demolition + Fan of Knives build for MP0, as in another thread MP0 Strafe Build

I also bought a Legacy Nat set for the seemingly endless discipline regen. Anyone care to lend me a Legacy Nat Helm with open socket?

Now looking back, what a great investment into the Legacy Nat set!! The upcoming PvP has driven up the prices of the Legacy Nat pieces. A disciplined-based DH with fast discipline regen using smokescreen, vault with stun, caltrops, shadow power, preparation........be very fearful.

Haha, you prolly will kick my arse, perma invul ~_~ .

Posted by douvinsky at 01/15/2013 11:01 PM

Now looking back, what a great investment into the Legacy Nat set!! The upcoming PvP has driven up the prices of the Legacy Nat pieces. A disciplined-based DH with fast discipline regen using smokescreen, vault with stun, caltrops, shadow power, preparation........be very fearful.

Wouldn't having 70 Discipline have pretty much the same impact? That's 2 pieces of gear with Max Discipline and a modern Nat's Set. If you need more than 140 Discipline in duel, you're probably not winning it anyway.

You're closing up your boots, chest, ring and helm slots with a full Nat's set. You can probably find nearly BiS Nat's Boots and Cloak to earn the 7% CC bonus. Preventing the use of Mempo or Andariel's Visage and a Trifecta or Dex/Vit/AR ring? That's a huge disadvantage from a stat perspective just for some Discipline.