Build Guide
#Skills - activeAs you will be playing without M6 (and most likely without m4 as well) you will have to cast all your spenders yourself. This is why you have to rely on a generator to refill between your "better shots" and choose your spenders more carefull. I tried to get a nice mix of good skills and damage boost abilities and so far I feel comfortable with my choice.
Your primary is Evasive Fire - Focus to "get rid" of the backflip and generate more hatred. As a bonus, you will hti 3 targets, the damage is average and the damage/skill type is cold. As you can easily get a nice 15 - 20% cold damage on your bracers (worth enchanting) this really helps. I used to play with Hungering Arrow - Shatter Shot for a while because it looked and felt nice but with more cold dmg bonus this is my new choice.
My right mouse button is always Sentry - Spitfire Turret. I prefer to place my sentries with RMB, as it's easier for me to place them exactly where I want them but thats a personel preference. I chose Spitfire because I have other skills with rockets and the Ballistics passive (more later) so this is an easy choice even though the damage type is fire. The only cold sentry is polar station and that's not gonna cut it without M6.
As Spenders I am using Elemental Arrow - Frost Arrow and Cluster Arrow - Maelstrom (more rockets, yay!). I recently switched from Elemental Arrow - Ball Lightning which is a fun skill (that excells with projectile dampening bosses) when I started using legendary gems (more later). Let's just say that Frost Arrow has a nice (max 10 target) Area Effect and slows your enemies (which Maelstrom doesn't, despite being a cold skill). Shoot a few Frost Arrows into the herd and follow up with one or two CA-Maelstrom and you'll see nice results for most white mobs. Cycle this with hungering arrows to retrieve hatred and then rinse&repeat.
Marked for Death - Contagion is a nobrainer for me. It adds 20% damage and spreads like a whildfire. I usually pick the weakest mob around for MdF and proceed to kill the poor b****rd first. Then I mark the bigges guy that didn't get a contagion and proceed with the killing spree. For Event Fights and most bigger groups thats all you have to do. On some Bounty runs I only cast MfD every 5 Minutes because of density, in rifts... well, let's say good luck with mob density or recast on every encounter.
The final skill is Smoke Screen - Healing Vapors. I used to rely on Vault - Tumble and still really love that skill for those "Oh Shit, back agains the wall" moments, but I'm experimenting with SS - Healing Vapors and if offers a different solution that requires a different play style. I'll see what I'll use in the long run.
#Skills - passive
1) Cull of the weak - 20% agains chilled or slowed enemies (frost arrow, only 1sec but it helps)
2) Steady Aim - 20% if there are no enemies in 19yards. As I often play in a party, this is active most of the time and as it works with sentries close to the mobs while I am in a save distance, I prefer this to say archery.
3) Ballistics - 100% more Rocket Damage ROCKETMAN.wav ... and bonus rockets while shooting other stuff... with Spitfire and Maelstrom, this is a nice passive even without M6 and as most fights are over way to fast to place all 3 sentries and make full use of the doubled uptime, I prefer Ballistics to Custom Engineering
4) Awareness... if you die, all sentries are gone. In a greater Rift you lose to much time running around that should be spent shooting rockets out of your armpits so this is another nobrainer for me (coupled with my chest live saver) even in softcore. Demon Hunters tend to die fast on less experienced players and until you get a full grip on placement, ground effects, elite affixes and how to avoid them, you will love this passive. If you wanna go more glass canon, you can trade this for archery.
For the selection of gems I'd like to say a few words to.
1) Bane of the Trapped - bonus damage agains control impaired enemies (chilled, slowed, stunned, frozen) nuff said?
2) Zei's Stone of Vengeange - bonus damage against enemies farther away (you want to be far away anyway because of Steady aim). For sentries, the distance from the sentry to the target is important (and they don#t stun with the rank 25 ability) but with spitfire turrets, this shouldn't be a problem. Just choose well where to place them.
3) Enforcer - this might not be such a clear choice now as enhanced pet damage is only a portion of your overall damage but this gem will shine when you finally get to your m6 dream goal and it does help while you try to get there. If you prefer, you might take another one like Pain Enhancer, Gogok, Toxin or Bane of the powerfull, all viable choices, especially BotP. Your choice!
Comments