Hey everyone!

So I've been farming Act 2 lately because Act 3 just completely destroys my DH. I focus more on damage than survivability, so my resistances and LoH are non-existent. I have not found any "godly" items yet in Act 2 and I am pretty low on cash (budget hovering around 1-3 mil). I wanted to know if a tank DH build is a possible solution to my problem. I've seen a lot of videos of people having fun with it and never dying, but at the expense of their DPS. Please consider my budget before you recommend that I take this route. Thanks!

Actually, there's reason to believe it is possible. DH's absolutely own Ghom in a tank build because of the massive amount of LOH DH can generate. Pre-patch 1.04, all hits, including Sentries, all 3 Grenades, Rockets fired, Chakra Shuriken Cloud and any Trap skills (Caltrops - Jagged Spikes) trigger LOH. LOH might even trigger on the Poison cloud created from the Gas Grenades, but I'm not sure. I believe that will be nerfed substantially. You might be surprised to realize how many skills are useful for melee combat, like Cull the Weak, Archery and Numbing Traps on the Passive side, while Marked For Death and Shadow Power - Gloom work well on the active side.

With 1100 LOH (pretty cheap on AH) and all of those skills running simultaneously, you can easily restore 7000 HP / second. With Shadow Power active it shoots up even further. DH tanks also have the advantage that Dex improves both damage and Dodge chance. Mobs can cause trouble since they can easily deal over 7000 HP / second and Shadow Power lasts only so long, but a DH Tank can stand toe-to-toe with practically any individual monster in the game (don't stand in a Desecration pool, ofc).

I would say try it out on Hell, first. The most critical part of the build is LOH - pick up a moderate dps 1H xbow (600 dps should be adequate for Hell) with the highest LOH you can reasonably afford. Since that's a peculiar combination you should be able to get a good deal, especially if you bid rather than Buyout. The best budget Amulet, in my opinion, is high LOH and as much Resist All as you can afford. Any cheapo Shield with high Armor, high Block rate and whatever Res All you feel like buying. You shouldn't need to change any other gear you have at all to give it a whirl (repair costs notwithstanding). You should be able do it for well under 500k. Just keep in mind, you won't be able to resell any of that equipment, because absolutely no one else will want it. Don't spend 100k more for 50 more dps or 20 more Res All, because you're flushing it down the toilet!

Give it a try! It's a blast after spending 100 hours running away from everything.

Thanks for the in depth response. Your high recommendation of the build may very well cause me to try it out. I'm not sure whether I should invest in it now or wait for the 1.0.4 blog for DH to come out. In any case I'll see what I can do with anything I find on the AH and will report back my results.

The new Gloom nerf to reduced damage % will be the final nail in the coffin of the tank DH.

I'm bringing back this topic, because it turns out the DH tank is viable under Patch 1.05. CuckooGaming has a YouTube Guide up for a budget build. I tried it with a distinctly non-budget build and it's completely viable. It took a good 30 minutes to get the hang of the timing and I quickly figured out the playstyle changes pretty dramatically between MP1, MP4, MP7 and MP10.

It took about a dozen deaths, but I was able to take out the Act 1 Keywarden on MP10. I've never even gotten close to that in the past. It took a loooong time, but it was satisfying knowing I would get a key at the end. I was able to switch out some of the skills, because my attack speed was higher than in the video and my Enchantress has a Maximus for a second meat puppet including my Companion Boar. Smokescreen subbed in for Vault, because 1.5 seconds of invincibility with Shadow Power-Blood Moon up was easily enough to restore my 49k life bulb. I was using Rain of Vengeance, but Guardian Sentry to reduce damage might be better on the high MP's. If I were more selective about the elites I took on, I probably could've cut it to 8 deaths.

I think Blizzard is going to futher nerf the proc coefficient on the Cluster Grenades skill in the next patch so if you want to give it a try (a) do it soon and (b) don't spend a ton of gold on it. If I ever get that Witching Hour belt I've been looking for, I think I'll spend the money to upgrade to a Grenade's/CD Mara's Kaleidoscope. That could reasonably add up to +45% weapon damage build and then the attack speed bonus on top of that. The Witch Hour was practically designed with this build in mind.

On a side note, I generally dislike the budget build guides, because they always seem to somehow find fantastic deals on a few pieces of gear to really power up their characters. These guys have quite a few videos up so they're probably legit, but I swear some of those budget builds must be phony. It wouldn't be difficult to have a second account put up items at 80% discounts and the guy in the video buys it the second it comes up so it's in his auction list.

why would they do that? they have high end gear and lot of gold.
no point in going through all the trouble to sell 10Mio worth of gold.

I followed a guide for a 10Mio WW Barb after being fed up of my DH not being able to solo anything above MP5.
Ended up gearing my Barb for less than 10Mio.
I used a non WW build and managed to do MP7 with very few deaths.

Newsflash, Barbs are OP. 3 years ago if you said Barbs would be OP everyone would just say, "yeah, and?" The game was never going to be balanced, but they have at least made it viable for DH's to run MP4 and niche DH's to survive MP7. I have fun with my DH so I stick with him. Thanks for your valuable input.

I'm playing my DH less and less and moving to my barb.

I used tank build for a while but it didn't feel right.. i like to kite around, be sneaky and do with with high DPS but on higher MP's its not possible without insane gear.

Maybe I'll try tanking again with bola shot now I've found a decent dead mans