Posted by eastdragon42 at 08/18/2013 09:59 AM

@rschuyl2: So how'd it go? Any better the second time around? :-)

@Bort: When your original thread came out, I don't think I'd even faced Ubers yet... ;-)

Finally had time to run MP9 Ubers solo. Used same gear as in MP8. Cleared all three pairs with no deaths and no close calls.

I also ran MP10. Seige/Kule came up first. Died a few times fairly early in the battle, so switched to 3 LS items. It reduced my unbuffed DPS from 181K to 163K. Easily killed Siege/Kule on the first try. Skel King/Magda was the hardest battle and I died once due to a mistake. The easiest was Rak/Gohm as usual.

Did again with my Monk, this time on MP8.

Pretty much exactly the same results as last time.
Magda + SkelKing killed me once.
Rakanos + Ghom killed me once.
Kulle + Breaker almost broke my mouse and keyboard.... if you know what I mean.

Died at least 14 times, and had to go kill a 6th elite to reset my NV count-down.

Oh... I got all 3 pieces, but it crafted into probably the worst int ring I have made yet. :)
38 Dex, 54 Str, < 200 int, GF, life on kill.

Hmm.. looking at your respective profiles, I can see why @rschuyl2 is having zero problems with doing Ubers solo: 279k damage, 47k life, 5.7% life steal, 6395 armor, & 513 resist all.

Whereas @Bort has 210k damage, 39.2k life, 5.6% life steal, 6436 armor, and fairly high resist all (unsure the exact amount, but I can see One with Everything as a passive, so I'm assuming it's pretty darn decent...)

As for myself, I've only got 176k damage, 38.9k life, no life steal, 4874 armor, & 556 resist all. Only 222 LoH as well. Can boost my damage & life up a fair amount if I switch out my Natalya's Sight for my Mempo, but then I lose out on the +20 discipline from the Natalya's set bonus. Also can gain a small boost to damage, life, & resist all if I change my Hellfire for my Litany, but that's minor. Still couldn't beat Siege/Kule on MP8 after some 40-50 attempts... :-0

Guess I just need better gear before attempting again. Better weapon perhaps? I wonder if I got a dual-socketed manticore with LoH &/or LS, if that would make all the difference...

EDIT: Oops, minor correction--forgot I was borrowing my friend's Calamity. My actual specs w/ my regular manticore are 182.7k damage, 42k life, still no life steal, 5003 armor, same resist all, same 222 LoH... Slightly better, but not by much.

My OWE actually not that great. Think total resist all is 420 or 480. I actually don't normally use OWE anymore, so none of my gear is optimized for it.

@eastdragon42 nice comparison there between our chars. If I could make a guess why @rschuyl2 finds it easier than me is the mechanics of the kulle fight combined with the mechanics of the barb.
I spend about 80% of the fight just trying to get to Kulle, because Seige keeps getting between is.

With my current selected skills I have to pretty much work my way far around Seige (while avoiding falling roofs and slow bubbles), while the barb can WW just strait through Seige to get to Kulle.

Obviously he also have better stats makes it easier, but I'm thinking mechanics has more to do with it than stats. I have Thunderclap, which helps, but I'm certain I can do better changing one of my skills to something that helps me get there quicker.

Posted by Bort at 08/28/2013 02:54 AM

@eastdragon42 nice comparison there between our chars. If I could make a guess why @rschuyl2 finds it easier than me is the mechanics of the kulle fight combined with the mechanics of the barb.
I spend about 80% of the fight just trying to get to Kulle, because Seige keeps getting between is.

With my current selected skills I have to pretty much work my way far around Seige (while avoiding falling roofs and slow bubbles), while the barb can WW just strait through Seige to get to Kulle.

Obviously he also have better stats makes it easier, but I'm thinking mechanics has more to do with it than stats. I have Thunderclap, which helps, but I'm certain I can do better changing one of my skills to something that helps me get there quicker.

Sorry for the confusion on my DPS. I usually quote the unbuffed DPS shown on DiabloProgress. Also, what you see on my Profile does not show the gear I used when doing the Uber runs. I had on an IK belt and a Sunkeeper with LS. The offhand that's on my profile now I just picked up last night after making a couple good sales.

Anyway, I always kill Siege first. Kulle has not been an issue for me while working on Siege probably due to my higher AR and more so by having WotB up. For the last two runs (MP9 and MP10) I didn't use WW at all due to the rubberbanding issues I am having. I used HotA/Smash. For Siege, I mostly just stood still and hit him. I would move behind him when I thought he may try to pick me up. It sometimes worked, but I still got picked up a few times. When he slammed me down, I would regain full life after hitting him just a couple times due to the high LS. Kulle was easy other than having to chase him around.

@eastdragon42 Your question on either LoH &/or LS on the Manticore, I would go with LS if you can do a lot of damage since it gives a percentage of the damage you do rather than a fixed amount like LoH gives you.

Oh well... then maybe I just suck. Hehe

Posted by Bort at 08/28/2013 12:37 PM

Oh well... then maybe I just suck. Hehe

I wonder if switching to dual wield with faster weapons (Echoing Fury and a sword) would help. Your attacks per second is only 1.45 where as mine is 2.4. I tried a Scorn a while back and had a much harder time surviving even though my DPS was over 30K higher.

With life steal, the more times you hit, the more times you recover life. The Skorn gives you more life per hit, but not as often. If you are getting damaged quickly, the Skorn may not hit fast enough to keep up and keep you alive.

Posted by rschuyl2 at 08/28/2013 01:09 PM

Posted by Bort at 08/28/2013 12:37 PM

Oh well... then maybe I just suck. Hehe

I wonder if switching to dual wield with faster weapons (Echoing Fury and a sword) would help. Your attacks per second is only 1.45 where as mine is 2.4. I tried a Scorn a while back and had a much harder time surviving even though my DPS was over 30K higher.

With life steal, the more times you hit, the more times you recover life. The Skorn gives you more life per hit, but not as often. If you are getting damaged quickly, the Skorn may not hit fast enough to keep up and keep you alive.

If you want to try this, I'll let you borrow the weapons currently on my monk. Since your a regular on here, I think I can trust you to give them back.

@rschuyl2 thanks for the offer, but I'm on EU server. ;)

I will try a weapon swap and see how it goes. I used to run dual-wield, but switched to Skorn when I started using Wave of Light. But I can maybe switch back to my old build using blinding flash again.

I have a 800 LOH Echoing fury (I know, not nearly as good as lifesteal) and lifesteal spear currently equipped on my Wizard that I can use.

Posted by rschuyl2 at 08/28/2013 11:04 AM

@eastdragon42 Your question on either LoH &/or LS on the Manticore, I would go with LS if you can do a lot of damage since it gives a percentage of the damage you do rather than a fixed amount like LoH gives you.

Thanks for the advice....but will it really help that much? I mean, you had two items to get to 5.7% LS, & Bort had 5.6% LS...Manticore's top LS as far as I can tell on the AH is only 3%, and Dead Man's Quiver can't roll w/ LS. Also, a manticore's slow firing rate of 1.22 APS (w/ maxed 11% attack speed increase) is even slower than Bort's 1.45, which you guessed might be why he was having so much difficulty surviving w/ his Monk on high MP levels...

Not that it really matters too much at the moment, seeing as how most of the good manticore's with LS on the AH are out of my budget... :-0

Or do you recommend switching to dual 1-handed crossbows with LS &/or LoH on both? Or perhaps go back to grenade build & use a regular weapon that can roll higher LS?

Your APS is actually higher than the 1.22 of your weapon. Any IAS you have will increase your total APS. Looking at your DH on DiabloProgress shows you have an APS of 1.77. You can also see it on the character's details page when in game.

Sorry, my thinking is more in the barb world right now. Since your playing a Demon Hunter, you're right. LoH can be better than LS, at least until your DPS gets really high. A barb has a big advantage using LS since they can have up to 12% (2 weapons, belt, and Bloodthirst).

To figure what is best, healing from LS is calculated DPS * LS * .20 (for inferno nerf). So if you had 3.0LS, DPS of 182K, and APS of 1.77, you would be healed by 1092 each second. To match this using LoH, you will need 617 LoH. Of course, this doesn't include any bonus you may get from skills. I would use this to figure out what to do.

Anyway, since your playing a DH, focusing on LoH and LS may not really be a priority being a ranged character. You may be better off spending your gold on increasing your attack speed and DPS.

Edit: Fixed calculation.

Posted by rschuyl2 at 08/29/2013 02:02 PM

Your APS is actually higher than the 1.22 of your weapon. Any IAS you have will increase your total APS. Looking at your DH on DiabloProgress shows you have an APS of 1.77. You can also see it on the character's details page when in game.

Sorry, my thinking is more in the barb world right now. Since your playing a Demon Hunter, you're right. LoH can be better than LS, at least until your DPS gets really high. A barb has a big advantage using LS since they can have up to 12% (2 weapons, belt, and Bloodthirst).

To figure what is best, healing from LS is calculated DPS * LS * .20 (for inferno nerf). So if you had 3.0LS, DPS of 182K, and APS of 1.77, you would be healed by 1092 each second. To match this using LoH, you will need 617 LoH. Of course, this doesn't include any bonus you may get from skills. I would use this to figure out what to do.

Anyway, since your playing a DH, focusing on LoH and LS may not really be a priority being a ranged character. You may be better off spending your gold on increasing your attack speed and DPS.

Edit: Fixed calculation.

Thank you again for the reply.

Yeah, I know my APS is higher than the actual 1.22 of the weapon. I was under the mistaken impression that 1.45 was the attack speed of Bort's weapon (as opposed to the final, overall attack speed when taking into account other gear IAS bonuses). My bad.

You're right that as a DH I wouldn't want to focus too much on LoH or LS. However, I think trying to fight Ubers solo on MP8~10 sort of requires it, doesn't it? It's all about a balance of EHP (armor, all resist), DPS, & LoH/LS to survive. Cause I think at the moment, with my current gear, my EHP & DPS aren't enough to cut it at that MP level no matter how much discipline I have for Shadow Power/Smoke Screen/Vault, even with Preparation...

"may be better off spending your gold on increasing your attack speed and DPS"
As I'm currently using a Rapid Fire build that does not have a hatred generator, increased Attack Speed is actually not a desirable trait at the moment cause otherwise I'd probably run out of Hatred. As for increasing DPS, that's definitely always good, but I've tried my best to avoid going the glass cannon route (most of my gear has max All Resist for this very reason) and am wondering just how much DPS increase I can gain w/o sacrificing too much EHP. Just out of curiosity, looking at my profile here (or my stats on DiabloProgress), what would your recommendation be on gear changes? (I'm guessing it's still just a matter of saving enough gold to buy a better Manticore with 1100 or 1200 base DPS...)

Thanks again!

I don't have much experience playing the Demon Hunter. I only played mine until I completed Inferno. So my advice is mostly from what I have read or seen other players do. DiabloProgress is a good resource.

Yeah, LS/LoH really is needed for high MP Ubers. Unfortunately, not being a barb, it will be expensive to get without sacrificing something else.

EHP - Right now, your Life is pretty low. Shooting for a high Vitality/Life is more important than AR for the Demon Hunter. But, a high AR does help with the Ubers. How much depends on how good you are at avoiding attacks that need AR.

DPS - It looks like your pretty good with CHC and CHD, but you can always add more. Unfortunately you may have to change your build so that an increased attack speed does not hurt you. Attack speed is important for both DPS and LoH/LS.

You also may need to split up your 4 piece Nat's set to make upgrades cheaper.

Helm - get an Andariels Visage with low fire damage (they are cheap) or Crit Mempo if you can afford it.
Torso - increase your vitality. Maybe look into an Inna's Vast Expanse. Since you have Inna's Temperance, you will maintain the 130 Dex bonus and it might be easier/cheaper to get higher vitality.
Weapon - Did you check your DPS with two Emeralds instead of the Ruby. For Gems, it's usually best to go with whatever gives you the highest paper DPS. If getting a new weapon, replace the vitality with LS.
Everything Else - Try to increase your vitality.

Gold/Money - I hit a wall with my barb with Ubers at MP6 and farming at MP8. Upgrades were too expensive. I finally decided I enjoyed the game enough to sink a little more money into it. I put $120 on the RMAH and was able to buy a crit Mempo and a couple other upgrades that gave me enough to be able to do everything at the higher MP's.

Posted by rschuyl2 at 08/30/2013 09:01 AM

I don't have much experience playing the Demon Hunter. I only played mine until I completed Inferno. So my advice is mostly from what I have read or seen other players do. DiabloProgress is a good resource.

Yeah, LS/LoH really is needed for high MP Ubers. Unfortunately, not being a barb, it will be expensive to get without sacrificing something else.

EHP - Right now, your Life is pretty low. Shooting for a high Vitality/Life is more important than AR for the Demon Hunter. But, a high AR does help with the Ubers. How much depends on how good you are at avoiding attacks that need AR.

DPS - It looks like your pretty good with CHC and CHD, but you can always add more. Unfortunately you may have to change your build so that an increased attack speed does not hurt you. Attack speed is important for both DPS and LoH/LS.

You also may need to split up your 4 piece Nat's set to make upgrades cheaper.

Helm - get an Andariels Visage with low fire damage (they are cheap) or Crit Mempo if you can afford it.
Torso - increase your vitality. Maybe look into an Inna's Vast Expanse. Since you have Inna's Temperance, you will maintain the 130 Dex bonus and it might be easier/cheaper to get higher vitality.
Weapon - Did you check your DPS with two Emeralds instead of the Ruby. For Gems, it's usually best to go with whatever gives you the highest paper DPS. If getting a new weapon, replace the vitality with LS.
Everything Else - Try to increase your vitality.

Gold/Money - I hit a wall with my barb with Ubers at MP6 and farming at MP8. Upgrades were too expensive. I finally decided I enjoyed the game enough to sink a little more money into it. I put $120 on the RMAH and was able to buy a crit Mempo and a couple other upgrades that gave me enough to be able to do everything at the higher MP's.

Thank you again; it's always good to get another player's perspective.

For the helm, I have a Mempo in my stash w/ 175 dex, 76 vit and maxed out AR (80), life (12%), & IAS (9%), with an 18% life gem. So even w/o the CC, it boosts my Life 13,967 and my DPS by 3,869.8. Cheapest Mempo w/ crit & dex is 320 million gold, and I lose the Vit... :-( Haven't considered Andariel's for awhile...something about the extra fire damage taken and lack of All Resist on the helm always turned me off about it...

Torso: Been shopping around for an Inna's Vast Expanse w/ max AR & max life for awhile, in the event that I do end up breaking up my 4-pc Natalya's set cause of the Mempo anyway (also, if I'm using the Rapid Fire build, the bonus to DH skills found on a Natalya's cloak ends up being a wasted slot). Only one on the AH right now is 836.78 million gold... :-0

Weapon: Yes, I do slightly more damage having one of each type of gem socketed, as opposed to two emeralds. Whenever I search for a new manticore, I always put in the same criteria as what I've currently got for four items (2 sockets, max 11% IAS, minimum of 95% CD, minimum of 195 dex); occasionally I would add LS, LoH, or Vit as well, just to narrow the range down even further. Rarely would a manticore show up that would have a higher base DPS then what I currently have (1,070 DPS). Just did a search now w/ the above criteria & LS, only two weapons show up, & their DPS is 945.7 & 1,033.0. Changing LS to LoH produces only one crossbow w/ DPS of 931.6. If I kill the min dex requirement, more choices show up for both LS & LoH crossbows, but the Dex ones are in the billion gold range (way out of my budget) or they're all high Int rolls as opposed to Dex ones...

Everything else: Hmm.. any recommendations on a minimum amount of life I should have? I've actually been going the opposite route & getting rid of Vit for more AR--for instance, when I was still using Inna's Belt for the two-piece bonus, I had a +140 dex / +32 vit belt that I switched out for a +96 dex / 80 AR one. I am wearing an Inna's Temperance with +130 dex / +31 vit that I'm considering switching out w/ a lower dex but 79 AR one (haven't done so yet cause I want a pants w/ 9% IAS as opposed to 8%...). Just wondering what minimum life I should be shooting for. (Cause just switching out my Natalya's helm w/ my Mempo already throws me up to 55k life...which still isn't enough for solo MP8 ubers)

RMAH: I'm locked out of that, unfortunately. Can't buy or sell stuff on there, can't even access it. Apparently since I am currently living in Taiwan, I am not allowed to access the RMAH on the North American servers at all... :-(

Thanks again for the advice...

No problem. Yeah, unfortunately upgrades are going to be expensive.

For life, I'm thinking you should shoot for 60-65K but you will have to test it. It will depend on how fast you heal from LoH/LS. Your amulet looks like a good place to start. I would try crafting them. Your boots are also lacking. Ice Climbers could help you there if your willing to break up the Nats set. Also, a lot of people have gone to crafted shoulders instead of the Vile Wards. I have had no luck crafting shoulders.

You may already be doing this, but if not, when doing Ubers, swap out your helm gem for a life gem and the Hellfire for anything that gives you better life/AR/DPS. Have you tried a high +elite SOJ? Cold SOJ's are best and also having one on your follower could help.

Yeah, I am in the 60-65k life range w/ my Mempo + Amethyst, but it didn't seem to be enough for MP8 ubers. I also switched out my Hellfire for a Littany (better life, dps, & protection, just no exp bonus), again, no difference. Which was why I was thinking I need more LoH or LS somewhere (though the question is where).

Ice Climbers is an interesting recommendation, never considered that before as most sites seem to say Natalay's boots are BiS.

I've had zero luck with forging amulets, bracers, & gloves, and have not yet gotten the plans for forging my own shoulders yet. (Considering how unlucky I've been forging the former three, I'm loathe to actually spend money for the plans on the AH to try crafting shoulders & will wait til I actually get the plans for it from a drop before trying to craft a few...)

My current amulet is all about DPS; my previous one was all about life (it had something like 247 vit and +9% life). Switching the amulet to my current one gave me a DPS boost of almost 20k, though my life dropped 14k as well (don't remember the exact amount, & can't log in to BattleNet to check at the moment due to maintenance).

I have several SoJs in my stash & tried switching my Hellfire out for that as well, but didn't seem to make much difference.

Definitely have some stuff to shop for (which is good that I just won another "I Love Mondays" contest!). I think an Inna's Chest (& perhaps Ice Climbers?) would help a good bit, plus maybe a weapon w/ LS or LoH. Thanks for the advice! :-D

@eastdragon42 I think you might just be out of luck. DHs just aren't robust and certainly not as robust as Barbs.

As an aside, the concept of dropping IAS for Rapid Fire is up for debate and it depends upon how you play the character. From a pure DPS perspective, there's no reason to avoid IAS when using RF. The damage itself scales exactly. A player that shows a display of 100k dps and 3 aps will deal the same damage as someone that shows a displayed 100k dps and 1.5 aps.

This misconception comes from the Monk's Tempest Rush. Unlike RF which hits with every single bolt fired, Tempest Rush is constantly swinging and missing. I don't have the exact numbers, but consider a TR monk with 2.0 aps. Let's say TR attacks at 3x your aps. That means the monk is swinging and expending spirit 6 times per second. The thing is, you're actively running around an enemy to hit them. So you're actually only hitting on 4 of those 6 swings, but you're paying for all 6 and only doing damage on 4. And every swing depletes your Spirit, but doesn't scale up the increase of your Run speed, so your downtime between mobs is costlier.

The concerns for a RF DH are different. The more IAS you have, the faster your Hatred is depleted, but unlike the Monk, you're doing damage on every single bolt no matter how fast or slow you fire them. There's no IAS/dps trade off with RF. The two differences with RF are the startup Hatred cost and the LOH/LS. When you're not hitting something with RF, you're not actively triggering any of your effects like LoH or Night Stalker.

If you have the choice between low aps and high aps, you end up with a different style of run-and-gun playstyle. With a high aps RF DH, you're going to be triggering your LoH/LS and Night Stalker very rapidly while you're firing, so your Discipline and Life bulbs will fill noticably faster, but your Hatred bulb will drain faster as well. Then you're left completely dry of Discipline and Life Regen while you run away and wait for your Hatred to refill. this changes your gear selection. For instance, a high max Discipline would complement that kind of build.

A low aps RF DH will be able to keep RF up longer, proc LoH and Shadow Power more slowly, but have much less downtime when you're not regenerating life/Discipline. A low max Discipline will function well.

You might be able to switch up your gear to see if a high aps RF build works better for Ubers.

@ecocd: Thank you for the reply. Actually, I wasn't thinking about IAS being bad from a DPS perspective so much as a hatred depletion issue. Indeed, I believe I was keeping my attack speed down based on your thread here. :-D At the moment I can keep up Rapid Fire pretty much indefinitely in solo as long as I'm using Shadow Power w/ the Nightbane rune. That being said, I never really focused on attack speed so much ever since it was nerfed numerous patches ago. The Law of Diminishing returns on increased attack speed combined w/ the exponential increase in price for such gear on the AH just made it more worthwhile/logical to focus on CC & CD instead...

@eastdragon42: The problem with Ice Climbers would be the added cost of getting them with Movement speed if you don't want to switch out your bracers to crit Lacuni's. But with the Lacuni's, you would also get the +8-9 IAS. It would be worth a look if you have the gold.

I ended up with a decent amulet on around the 60th craft. It's a good mix between DPS and Life. I have probably crafted around 150 shoulders with nothing even coming close to my Vile Wards.

This is an interesting experiment going on here. Comparing the relative classes and their capabilities on Ubers.
I especially find the stuff @eastdragon42 is doing interesting, because my very first class was the DH, but I struggle to solo any high level MP with her. (normal play, not even attempted ubers).

I recently looted some very nice pants for my barb, and actually tried MP10 and found it playable, even though my Barb stats are similar to my DH stats.

As far as ubers go it seems:
(based on @rschuyl2 's posts) with barb seems quite possible even on MP10.
I have managed MP8 with similar stats on my monk.
I have recently got hold of a LS Echoing Fury (reduced my DPS to under 200k though). Attempted MP10 ubers, but failed miserably. Only tried Magda+King, but didn't get very far.

I have have a feeling that any of the 3 ranged classes will have a harder time doing it.
Don't know about the CM wizards though, have very little experience playing that.

But it would be interesting to see (once we have done it with all 5) what the required stats were.
I have a feeling the DH for example will need quite a lot of survival stats (HP and AR), while the monk and barb can just lifesteal their way through the fight.

Posted by rschuyl2 at 09/03/2013 09:02 AM

eastdragon42: The problem with Ice Climbers would be the added cost of getting them with Movement speed if you don't want to switch out your bracers to crit Lacuni's. But with the Lacuni's, you would also get the +8-9 IAS. It would be worth a look if you have the gold.

I ended up with a decent amulet on around the 60th craft. It's a good mix between DPS and Life. I have probably crafted around 150 shoulders with nothing even coming close to my Vile Wards.

Actually, to me the bigger problem than movement speed is the Natalya's set bonus. I don't want to break the 4-pc set to the point where I only have one piece and no +7% CC. Ring aside, if I replace helm w/ Mempo, then it's a toss between the Natalya's cloak for Inna's chest or the Natalya's boots for Ice Climbers... gotta see which one makes the most sense...

Posted by Bort at 09/03/2013 09:38 AM

This is an interesting experiment going on here. Comparing the relative classes and their capabilities on Ubers.
I especially find the stuff eastdragon42 is doing interesting, because my very first class was the DH, but I struggle to solo any high level MP with her. (normal play, not even attempted ubers).

I recently looted some very nice pants for my barb, and actually tried MP10 and found it playable, even though my Barb stats are similar to my DH stats.

As far as ubers go it seems:
(based on @rschuyl2 's posts) with barb seems quite possible even on MP10.
I have managed MP8 with similar stats on my monk.
I have recently got hold of a LS Echoing Fury (reduced my DPS to under 200k though). Attempted MP10 ubers, but failed miserably. Only tried Magda+King, but didn't get very far.

I have have a feeling that any of the 3 ranged classes will have a harder time doing it.
Don't know about the CM wizards though, have very little experience playing that.

But it would be interesting to see (once we have done it with all 5) what the required stats were.
I have a feeling the DH for example will need quite a lot of survival stats (HP and AR), while the monk and barb can just lifesteal their way through the fight.

Yeah, as ecocd said, "DHs just aren't robust and certainly not as robust as Barbs."

I think the melee classes' inherent 30% damage reduction simply makes soloing Ubers at high MP levels easier for them; DHs have to rely on Shadow Power just to get something equivalent, & that costs Discipline & only lasts for 5 seconds. I think Barbs have the easiest time overall cause their primary stat also boosts armor (unlike DH's primary stat, which only increases dodge...which itself is capped at a certain point, unlike armor).

I know very little about the other two ranged classes. However, I imagine CM wizards that can perma-freeze Ubers would make them the most viable of the three ranged heroes. As for WD--all I know is that their "pets" allow this hero type the highest survival rate on HC, so I imagine they would do a decent job against Ubers as well. Moreso then DHs I imagine....

As far as IAS goes for the DH, for my build (Calamity) I have found that more IAS works better. Nightstalker is proc'ing fast enough so that I can use Preparation - Punishment whenever my hatred gets low. Meaning I can almost perma channel Rapid Fire w/ gloom on. If I get into a Discipline pinch, I can spam cluster grenades and perma spam Gloom to go into a super tank mode and insta fill my Disc. if needed.

Edit: As far as tanky-ness, With Gloom I believe that DH's are just as tanky as other classes. The problem is there is very little room for error. If you fat finger your skills at the wrong time, you are dead. Other classes are much more forgiving in this regard.

Just came across this site which has the most commonly used items (BiS) statistically for DH's. Looks like Natalya's Boots are BiS across the board for SC & HC at all levels. A good 25% of DHs between Paragon 50~100 use Inna's Vast Expanse though, which is starting to look nicer than my current cloak--especially since I hate wasting an item "stat" (which, for a Natalya's cloak, would be the damage bonus for a DH skill. It's a shame there's no Rapid Fire crit chance bonus on a Natalya's cloak the way there is on the DML...but I digress...). Plus Inna's Vast Expanse's guaranteed Dex is higher than a Natalya's cloak, & it has guaranteed Vit & Melee damage reduction too. Unity ring is something I was already looking at due to its guaranteed LoH...maybe a good one of these rings to switch out with the Hellfire, as opposed to a Littany. & of course, Lacuni Prowlers seem to be more popular then Strong Arm bracers--though I would then have a wasted "movement speed" stat on my bracers...

Ho hum, decisions decisions. Can't wait for the game to come back online so can do a little bit of price checking... :)

Posted by moloch154 at 09/03/2013 10:10 AM

As far as IAS goes for the DH, for my build (Calamity) I have found that more IAS works better. Nightstalker is proc'ing fast enough so that I can use Preparation - Punishment whenever my hatred gets low. Meaning I can almost perma channel Rapid Fire w/ gloom on. If I get into a Discipline pinch, I can spam cluster grenades and perma spam Gloom to go into a super tank mode and insta fill my Disc. if needed.

Edit: As far as tanky-ness, With Gloom I believe that DH's are just as tanky as other classes. The problem is there is very little room for error. If you fat finger your skills at the wrong time, you are dead. Other classes are much more forgiving in this regard.

Wow, your DPS is more than double mine, and your Life is a lot higher too... That could be why you're not having as many issues as I am. Have you tried doing solo Ubers on high MP levels...? :-)

@moloch154 And that's been the thing with DHs since they got their patch. A DH can play in half a dozen ways, but they're all not quite as good or live on a knife's edge. There's no area where DHs have a distinct advantage over any other class, but if we ignore the stupidly OP Barbs, there really aren't any classes that are clearly better than a properly geared DH in any given situation.

I'm hoping against hope that with a new dev team on the game for the expansion, Barbs are going to be getting practically no buffs over clvl 60 while every class will be buffed substantially. Screw you Barbs.

Also, 386k damage on a DH with a Calamity? Insane.