Build Guide
[Introduction]
You might remember a video I made about a T6 rift clear in 44 seconds, which hyped many to play the "WW DH" in patch 2.2. Now, here is the guide to the build I used.
The general idea is to use Strafe to reset your cooldown of Rain of Vengeance, thus buffing your dps like crazy, and moving at insane speeds at the same time. With Smoke Screen - Displacement, Tactical Advantage, Boon of the Hoarder, Warzechian Armguards, etc. you can easily assume a permanent 150-250% movement speed bonus. The good thing about the Natalya set is that it increases all of your dps, including all of your skills, gems and conduit. It does not have a totally fixed item or skill setup, so you can experiment a lot with it to see what fits you best.
This build's purpose is only to farm T6 or low GRs effficiently, and not to push the rankings. In order to make Natalya's work for the latter, you have to come up with other builds. However, with some adjustments a Strafe Natalya build should be able to push into the 50s.
For some gameplay footage, consider watching the video. I've included a timeline in the description to let you jump to different parts quickly.
[Gearing]
Generally, you will want to use Natalya's Slayer and Calamity. The weapon with the highest damage per attack should be in your mainhand (left slot), as the Rain of Vengeance damage only takes this one into account. The other weapon should preferably have RCR and CDR (or maybe Bonus to Elites). You should also stack a little bit of toughness, the best spot is vitality on the helm, as Strafe bonus is not doing that much anyway. If you feel like you are dying to quickly, consider to also get vitality on your chest and possibly gloves or weapons.
For the different options to consider, see the item section above. Since there are not enough choices to add, I will also throw these items in: Profane Pauldrons, Sash of Knives, Convention of Elements, any immunity amulet. The general gearing strategy is to get enough RCR and CDR to get perma Strafe + perma RoV to work. With low paragon this might be a little bit difficult, but the build is really strong in T6, so with some less damage you should still be able to farm the lower torments very efficiently until you have good rolls on most of your items. Your gearing choices also depend a lot on your strategy, e.g. if you want to trade a few seconds here and there to pick up globes, you can also drop Avarice Band + Boon of the Hoarder and use other options, or if you really can't get any RCR items, you could go RoRG and add both Pride's Fall and Hexing Pants for lots of resources.
As for the amulets, I recommend using a Hellfire once you feel comfortable without an immunity amulet. Good choices for a 5th passive are: Hot Pursuit, Awareness, Sharpshooter or Single Out (for GRs).
[Skill Choices]
The skill setup above requires you to use either Rain of Vengeance or Strafe on your left mouse button, so you will have to use force attack to activate them. If you don't want to do this, you could consider swapping Vengeance with Shuriken Cloud to passively boost your dps a little. Shuriken Cloud can be used on left moust button as well and this lets you put both Rain of Vengeance on other (and more convenient) slots. In general, Dark Cloud is the preferred rune to use for Rain of Vengeance because it follows you around as you move, however you could also consider Shade with it's huge AoE. The rune choice in Strafe is not really relevant because most of your damage will come from RoV, so I suggest to just use Drifting Shadow if you are not using a K'mar Tenclip. In case you do, Icy Trail or Demolition are good options.
[Speed GRs]
For speed GRs, you should change a couple of items (see above). In general, you have to adapt to your party composition and clear speed, you can trade RCR for CDR or more damage if you feel like you're getting enough health globes, and also stack some more toughness because you might be a little squishy in tier 35-40. You should also try to let others soak the damage and not run in first, so keep an eye out for your supporters.
[Update 25 April 2015]
With some more experimentation going into this build recently, a few things have changed. If you are getting close to the high-end, it seems even better to use Focus and Restraint and drop any resource items altogether. Drop Vengeance / Chakram and use Evasive Fire - Focus. I recently shared my contribution to the T6 Rift Clearing Competition and managed to complete 10 runs in 21min and 17sec. I also used Wreath of Lightning instead of another dps gem, the damage boost from the rings is more than enough, I wasn't even using a Hellfire amulet and only had one ancient weapon. This build is strong enough to solo farm rifts in 4-player parties at almost the same speed (maybe +10 seconds per run), e.g.while the other party members are clearing bounties and just leech the RG in your rift. The same applies to speedfarming GRs, where you would still want to use Crashing Rain and some more toughness, but if you get your timing on Smoke Screen right, you should be able to survive up until tier 45 pretty well, at least a lot better than with the Unhallowed Essence builds.
Does offhand dps matter or can i reroll this into something else useful? Fun build, loving it!
Hi
Very cool guide!. Kadala recently give me an ancient Natalya Slayer with 3,423 damage, 6% damage, 25% dmg RoV, 842 dex and 5% atack speed. The question is about what to reroll. What do you think is better to reroll? 6% damage to get 10% damage or change 5% atack speed to 10% CDR?
I suppose you can wait for the OP to answer that but IMO 10 CDR is >>> 6 attack speed. but there are other considerations.
Like:
are you planning to use NATs for progression solo? if so, then CDR is vital.
are you planning to just use NATs for T6 farming, then dmg is more important.
What is the damage range roll on that slayer?1365-1700 is the max range i believe for any of the damage rolls. there might be a bit of a better improvement there. but it depends on your rolls.
my roll was 1357-1648. This is my first DH, actually i'm new on the game (paragon 429). My question is about what to reroll. 6% Dmg to get 10% or reroll AS to get CDR. 4% more DMG+5% Atack Speed is more than 10% CDR on this build?
did it come with a socket? if so roll that to CDR otherwise, I'd wait and try the build and see.
I rolled my ancient slayer to max dmg because it had 6% cdr already on it, but to be honest for higher grifts I wish I had the 10% cdr. and I'm not hoping to find a second ancient slayer. but for t6 and 1-40 speed farming I like the extra dmg and the cdr isnt as important.
That's my experience
It does't come with a socket. http://us.battle.net/d3/es/profile/Nickter-1799/hero/60383202
Reroll IAS to CDR. IAS is not needed on any weapon or item unless under very specific circumstances. Offhand weapon damage does not matter at all other than for Strafe, which is contributing very little to your overall dps.
Thx for your reply. Nowadays my Natalya's Slayer is my main Xbow. No luck getting calamity. Maybe wait to get an ancient calamity then reroll on Natalya
What secondary stats am i looking at for my gear?
I made the build and was doing well but I started moving towards pickup range as a secondary when i found an upgrade to gear, but now I think my res are too low and I die to the slightest hit. lol
Should Single rez be a consideration or just forget it and gl glass cannon?
This is just for T6 farming, Key Wardens and low level grifts. thanks
I was under the impression that Wreath of Lightning's damage came from the weapon that activated it, which in Strafe's case alternates between the two. If this is true, wouldn't you lose also some dps from Wreath of Lightning if you take your damage off Calamity?
I really hope I'm wrong and it procs only off the main hand tho...
Is natalya's weapon ultra important for this?
Thanks for the guide! It's a great build, truly.
Just got all the gear for it and it is fun and clears well, helped me to get some of my unhallowed pieces quicker.
Personally I find myself on my WW speed barb more. The speed for me just feels more consistent on speed clearing especially on horrible density. This is mostly attributed to the barb having better resource recovery and consistent up time on movement speed with no effort, especially in those long stretches where there isn't crap for mobs T_T, and I can say through the gearing process that the WW waste speed barb was a nicer experience to gear since its almost entirely all set based (minus the bracers and ammy and belt).. I didn't have to worry about pickup radius, supplementing speed with legendary gems (only the belt and that's optional). Going on the criteria of the "T6 Rift Clearing Competition" I did 10 runs in 26min and 35seconds. Obviously that's a solid three - four runs behind wudijo's =P, but when using the DH versus Barb speed build I just felt personally like the barb build was much more lax in skill usage and overall simplicity in killing things. Here's my barb profile if anyone's interested :http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/imsurgical-1956/hero/60947460 . It's true im using an Unforgiving HF ammy but it's pure overkill when it comes to resource with BK swords and Wind Shear, I just leave it on because I use it for my GR' gear and am too lazy to remove it, also I didn't remove my GR35 speed clear diamonds / amyth's for rubies when testing, to use to doing speed gr clears lol..
BUT, I digress! Again, amazing build and look forward to more of your builds =)
@ Rayaleith
It's pretty important in the end-scheme of things for one because it let's you play around with various pieces of gear in other slots for the build. I'd gamble for it all day if you aren't getting it on a drop, its really not too hard to get, but I do understand some peoples circumstances are all different so yep. Keep at it if you don't have it I'd say.
Wow, literally your whole comment was "Hurr I play a Barb look at my profile"
If people wanted to play Barb they would look at Barb builds, no one cares about your mediocre Barb bro.
Wow, literally your whole comment was "Hurr I play a Barb look at my profile"
If people wanted to play Barb they would look at Barb builds, no one cares about your mediocre Barb bro.
@Xyrm
If you used a Calamity you wouldn't use Marked for Death at all. For higher Grifts all you would need to do is use Evasive Fire Focus with the IceBlink gem to proc Cull of the Weak. Change both the RoV and Strafe to fire dmg and use Crashing Rain for your belt( I have poorly rolled gear and im critting around 2.5 bil with this build). Also using Wolf Companion over the Bat since the hatred regen from the Bat isn't as useful as the 30% dmg buff. I use Death Watch Mantle as well so the Fan of Knives wouldn't be needed since these shoulders do that, but not all the time. Gearing your follower if you are solo also helps. Ess of Johan and Bul-Kathos Wedding band help a whole lot for CC. Zei's, BotT, and Iceblink are the gems im using at this time and also Strong Arm bracers for the extra dmg on knockbacks. All in all with the mid level gear I have I am having no trouble speeding through 30-38's and I can clear up to 42 G rift. With better gear later on there is no reason why the build I am using couldn't clear 50+.
I would like to try out that build. Any advice on what I could modify in order to be successful? My profile http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/salmon88-1470/BlowUup/64328072
How about replacing bat companion with Marked for death: Mortal Enemy if we have calamity equipped?