Demon Hunter stuff

[Yurtles]

Gotten to 60, playing through inferno and I've given up somewhat. I've stacked damage (up to 42k dps atm) at the expense of vitality (27k) and I've chosen grenadier as one of my passive skills. I heartily spam high damage skills (on that front spike trap with the scatter skill is a ripper for some quick burst) until I'm near death and then I do my best to die next to what I'm trying to kill. Corpse run and do it over again. Couple deaths kills damn near anything.

I've also noticed it's had the added benefit that when you don't really care if you're going to die I seem to get some serious damage in before I go down - none of that time wasted running around trying to outsurvive them, you're just trying stay up as long as you can to do as much hurt as you possibly can, death is inevitable and also beneficial.

Edit, current build is this. Still searching for the perfect primary attack but Marius's suggestion isn't half bad atm. Seriously considering swapping it to some form of entangling shot and relying more heavily on spike traps for damage, they're so much fun to use I sometimes forget I have elemental arrows.

[Marius]

There are ways to survive as a demon hunter. I've a friend who tanks Act 2 Inferno on his demon hunter. You can build a demon hunter to survive inferno hits, regardless of what the battlenet forums say. It just takes time to find the right gear and the right playstyle.

I've watched a few inferno streams, and honestly... the kind of glass cannon playstyle most use (and advocated in the demon hunter community) would never fly in hardcore. People complain about being one shotted but there are soooo many avoidable deaths of people running headlong into stupid situations or not healing up between fights.

Great example I see time and time again is people not checking for whether something has reflect damage, spamming nether tentacles, then one-shot killing themselves. Inferno streaming seems to be a giant noobfest tbh.

I've settled on what looks to be the perfect build, for me.

For basic play:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/d ... abY!bbbZbb

For bosses:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/d ... abY!YYaZbb


Basic strategy is shoot and scoot. Can unload three maelstroms in a few seconds for 1000% weapon damage in a large AoE, then smoke screen displace out of there. That usually gives me enough time to regroup or get to an exit if I'm really out of my depth. If I come across a fast enemy, screaming skull keeps them locked in a fear offscreen. So far I've not had any troubles with champions, and have routinely taken down double packs of elite + champions in Act 4 nightmare hardcore.

I'll see how it goes in Hell hardcore of course, but so far it's boding well. Can't really think of anything else I want or need in the build. Everything else is down to gear.

[revengous]

I just realised a mark for death rune (mortal enemy) gives hatred per hit, and rapid fire shoots more than enough shots per 'cast' for an even easier way to get infinite rapid fire!

[Marius]

Yeah.

That's what my boss build is based on - combining spitfire turret with mortal enemy. It's lolinsane levels of hatred regeneration, which is enough to power cluster arrow/impale spamming. And cluster arrow/impale spamming kills anything fast.

The problem with that in normal play though is that mortal enemy can only be cast on one opponent, which makes it difficult to use. I don't know if it can be used during the rapid fire channel, though.

[Bronze_D]

cluster arrow spamming?

i didn't realize anyone used cluster arrow much less spamming them, even with grenadier.

btw, ur not exactly going to be using 2 builds in inferno...

at least not until you switch act

[RaTTuS007]

options which depending on the circumstances may or may not actually be a good expenditure, which is the main point.

since discipline is incredibly precious to survival, every single flip have to justify it's cost in discipline, even as short as 2 discipline.

and the problem with 30 yards flip is that you do not exactly have full control of where you flip towards...

sure you flip away from the enemy always (well as long as you didn't get hit by bad latency anyway) but where exactly the enemy will be especially when against teleporting and double fast enemy (natural fast + fast trait) will make you think twice from doing that in inferno when death is in every corner.

and incidentally since the flip triggers as well when an enemy is nearby you and in direct path of your shot (even if you were not actually aiming at it), using it against extra fast minions and horde mobs means you will probably flip without realizing it.

You vault wherever your mouse is pointing. That said I used to use vault but with our latency its too risky to use, atm i use shadow power with gloom, smoke screen with lingering fog and caltrops with the 2 sec stun.

Not vault, flip (backward flip to be precise)... it's the secondary automatic movement that evasive fire triggers when a foe is within certain range of you at the moment you fired if they are within the arc of firing.

The flip generally always flip away from the foe that are within the threshold distance in the direction of your shot, however when facing teleporting or ultra fast mob and especially if you held your fire against it you tend to lose control the direction of the flip since the mob can reappear quickly behind or besides you.

Ah yes righto, I got you now.

[Marius]

cluster arrow spamming?

i didn't realize anyone used cluster arrow much less spamming them, even with grenadier.

btw, ur not exactly going to be using 2 builds in inferno...

at least not until you switch act

It's not well used because many people don't understand how the mechanics of cluster arrow work because they just haven't tried them.

For example, cluster arrow cluster grenades hits bosses for about 1200% weapon damage per hit. The grenade hits for 5 times in a small area at 240% each time. So on a boss with a large hitbox (all of them) that's 5 x 240. It's slow and short ranged, but that's not an issue against a stationary target like Belial.

The reason to use maelstrom is that it hits all targets instantly (moves about 20 times faster than elemental arrow, and even faster than hungering arrow) in about a 15 foot radius. And when it does hit, it hits twice - first the base hit for 200%, and then the maelstrom for 145%.

I really like maelstrom as 3 launched instantly assassinates anything. Whereas if I use something like ball lightning or nether tentacles I have to waaaaaaaiit.... for the impacts to hit. This means time when a leaper or fast enemy can get a hit in.

Another combination I like to use is three cluster arrows + fan of knives at close range. As long as there's a health globe around for the extra hatred, can do that as fast as can shoot, and that's a dump of about 1400% area damage in a few seconds. This really helps when getting mobbed. It's quite viable vs champion packs because you kill them fast enough to get globes, and can spam smoke screen and cluster arrows until everything is dead, while not taking damage because you're under smoke screen or gloom for 10 seconds.

[Syncourt]

I found an evasive fire exploit that I plan to abuse the **** out of to keep my hardcore demon hunter alive in Hell.

Decided to edit it out though, because it's not been posted anywhere else and I don't want it 'fixed'.

Hmmm, you don't mean how you put your back to a wall for an increase in attack speed?

[Marius]

No...

Evasive fire has about three different exploits. That's one of them.

The one I'm thinking of relies on a passive, but I've since stopped using that passive. I really just need my bread and butter passives rather than cute tricks at this stage.

[Bronze_D]

It's not well used because many people don't understand how the mechanics of cluster arrow work because they just haven't tried them.

For example, cluster arrow cluster grenades hits bosses for about 1200% weapon damage per hit. The grenade hits for 5 times in a small area at 240% each time. So on a boss with a large hitbox (all of them) that's 5 x 240. It's slow and short ranged, but that's not an issue against a stationary target like Belial.

The reason to use maelstrom is that it hits all targets instantly (moves about 20 times faster than elemental arrow, and even faster than hungering arrow) in about a 15 foot radius. And when it does hit, it hits twice - first the base hit for 200%, and then the maelstrom for 145%.

I really like maelstrom as 3 launched instantly assassinates anything. Whereas if I use something like ball lightning or nether tentacles I have to waaaaaaaiit.... for the impacts to hit. This means time when a leaper or fast enemy can get a hit in.

Another combination I like to use is three cluster arrows + fan of knives at close range. As long as there's a health globe around for the extra hatred, can do that as fast as can shoot, and that's a dump of about 1400% area damage in a few seconds. This really helps when getting mobbed. It's quite viable vs champion packs because you kill them fast enough to get globes, and can spam smoke screen and cluster arrows until everything is dead, while not taking damage because you're under smoke screen or gloom for 10 seconds.

You'll have to forgive me if i am highly skeptical of course especially with our 1.5 sec SS post nerf though you are right indeed that in close quarter the combination dumps very high conversion of resource to damage in wide area within a short time, i mean yeah i know the hit pattern for cluster grenades mortar arc, nice against specific bosses, but lethal to the DH against the rest especially ones with short ranged shotguns.

But the reason i am highly skeptical is mainly that the build has to work against both the mobs and elites and the bosses as well, and while some of them works wonderful against specific individual enemies, i seriously doubt the viability when it has to work against standard enemies, elites, and bosses at once in inferno.

[Marius]

I personally believe that burst damage is better than anything. So far, the demon hunter inferno builds are damage over time builds mostly, due to the slow damage output they rely on.

This causes a lot of problems.

Against reflect mobs, for instance, Nether Tentacles will kill a demon hunter because the damage is so spread out. however with cluster arrow you're dumping all your damage in 3 seconds, so can activate smoke screen and gloom and tank it all.

It's precisely because our defensive moves last so little time that burst damage is better than slower abilities.

[Bronze_D]

Hmm true, i can see the logic there...

it's just that i have difficulty seeing how it works as a general purpose build in inferno...

that's the problem i see, the build and selection has to work against most things within an act you pick at least or at least a good stretch of that act without swap or change of skill/passive within the stretch during the inferno run.

[Marius]

Well this discussion has been good, thanks. Have thought about it and simplified my build and it's now more effective.

Replaced fan of knives with gloom, smoke screen is now displace, and switched tac advantage for grenadier.

Now I can go tanky under shadow power and fire off 4 cluster arrows in a row during that duration.

Proved its worth when came across a group of illusionist waller oppressors. Could have been annihlated by the mass charging, but gloom and multiple clusters at point blank ranged killed the entire group in about 2 seconds. 4 cluster arrows with a good 2hand xbow seems a little OP for all the burst damage it has.

Plus in the duration I get 24% life steal constantly. I know life steal gets nerfed in inferno, but still better than nothing, especially for reflects.

Still keep screaming skull for CC.

[revengous]

the poison rune for the bola shot is awesome, fires 3 shots instead of 1, each doing 130% weapon damage

im just under 3 shots per sec, so its around 9 poison bolas fired a second, thats 1170%dmg a second. pretty good aye.

[Bronze_D]

the downside to that is that you lose your AoE and on top of the delay on bola shot this makes it particularly annoying when you have a choke point and spamming the shot spread into the channel.

what happens next is that the living target (or undead, or whatever demonic thing ur shooting at) in front row absorbs overkill amount of shots thanks to bola shot delay instead of the bola shot hitting the back rows even if the front row enemies were about to die anyway from the detonation.

you will notice it particularly when against dense clusters of mob generators where you are trying to hit the ones actually creating the mobs or the mob you really want to kill, while a whole pack of weaker ones are streaming in front effectively creating a barrier absorbing your bola shots. (illusionist mob are going to annoy the hell out of you)

when you have a really fast attack speed, essentially you are guaranteed that a portion of bola shots are going to be overkill when against the weaker foes. And if you are against singular strong targets then your damage potential drops rapidly unless all 3 can hit on the same target (similar issue with covering fire rune for evasive fire)