I just beat him last night and here are a couple tips.
I didn't use vault, but other than that my build was fairly similar to yours. I used Nether Tent. on Ele Arrow. I used turret with homing arrows, which will help kill adds. Also, I spend about 60k gold upgrading templar. Had him at about 55k health. If you position right on ph2 he will soak the green fireballs and you can stand and free dps to get through that phase faster. At 55k health he would soak 3 which allowed me to move to ph3 a bit faster and avoid overwhelming amounts of adds. Also Backup Plan on prep was a must. Using prep and having it not use the CD pretty much makes this fight exponentialy easier.
I had similar dps as you, but I had more crit damage modifier. My dps with SS stacked is about 85k. This helps get some inital burst on adds to get them down faster.
Basically my strategy was this.
RIght off the bat, SS lay down turret and trap in mid and burn first set of adds. Then stay in upper right corner and deal with adds laying 2 trap in that area and smoke screen when necessary.
Ph2, avoid the first wave of charges, smoke screen if necessary. then place myself with templar between me and belial and burn as much as possible. I found if i got to second span of adds, most of the time I was toast.
Ph3 self explanitory, avoid everything dps. Oh and using Nether Tenticles in this phase netted me 3 hits per ele arrow on the boss so i could burn through him fairly fast.
Just keep at this fight. It took me a lot of attempts. It really is an RNG fight. If the adds spawn on top of you in a bad situation your pretty much dead. I did the fight with 30k hp, and was still most of the time getting one shotted. You really just have to avoid getting hit and win the RNG slot machine. Stay at it you will get it with some persistence.
The videos I have watched where it was soloed all had the DPS to burn him down either right before, or shortly after the adds spawn during phase 2. It is like a weird kind of soft enrage, especially for solo attempts. And then like you said you can basically get hit by nothing.
Do you still need help with this boss? If so, here's a strat a friend of mine gave me for solo'ing inferno Belial on her DH...
Got any increased attack speed rings and amulets you're not using currently for your max DPS set? Give them to your Scoundrel.
Give your Scoundrel any old ranged weapon with increased cold damage on it (very important). Favour hand crossbows or bows for faster attack speed.
Spec your scoundrel for increased damage on crits, triple shot, blind, and slow.
Your listed DPS stats are good so far. Here's what you do to improve them for this fight and for may other solo fights with monsters that can 1-shot you from now on...
Get a decent increased cold damage ranged weapon (700 listed DPS or higher) for yourself, unless you have a very high damage non-cold weapon. A socketed or in-house increase critical damage stat on your weapon helps a lot here.
Use the standard DPS spec:
Nether Tentacles
Puncturing Arrow
Prep (Focused Mind)
Lingering Fog
MFD (Mortal Enemy)
Bat
Sharpshooter
Archery
Steady Aim -OR- Cull the Weak if you're using a cold damage weapon and your attack rate is faster than 1.5
Stand in the corner. Nuke.
Hungering arrow single mobs, Nether Tentacle groups.
Leave the last serpent guard alive. Let you Scoundrel and Bat kill it while you run around avoiding it to build your Sharpshooter to 100%.
Get in position so that when Belial comes down, you can just barely see him on the left side of your screen.
Mark him. Hit him with a good number of Nether Tentacles. Smoke Screen to avoid getting hit.
After his third attempt to melee you, he'll switch to ranged shots. Make sure you have a full tank of hatred and nuke him. Keep your discipline recharging using an early Prep and time your Smoke Screens to avoid getting hit by his ranged attacks.
If guards begin spawning, use your Smoke Screen to get them to line up either around, in front, or behind Belial such that your Tentacles take care of them while continue to also pumpel him.
Lastly, win. And let me know how it goes. I like feedback.
Edit: FYI, I've completed Inferno and killed almost every champion/elite monster I've come across using a 890 DPS cold damage bow with +70% crit damage jewel with the exact same spec I linked above. Just in case there are any objections to using a cold damage weapon
Do you still need help with this boss? If so, here's a strat a friend of mine gave me for solo'ing inferno Belial on her DH...
Got any increased attack speed rings and amulets you're not using currently for your max DPS set? Give them to your Scoundrel.
Give your Scoundrel any old ranged weapon with increased cold damage on it (very important). Favour hand crossbows or bows for faster attack speed.
Spec your scoundrel for increased damage on crits, triple shot, blind, and slow.
Your listed DPS stats are good so far. Here's what you do to improve them for this fight and for may other solo fights with monsters that can 1-shot you from now on...
Get a decent increased cold damage ranged weapon (700 listed DPS or higher) for yourself, unless you have a very high damage non-cold weapon. A socketed or in-house increase critical damage stat on your weapon helps a lot here.
Use the standard DPS spec:
Nether Tentacles
Puncturing Arrow
Prep (Focused Mind)
Lingering Fog
MFD (Mortal Enemy)
Bat
Sharpshooter
Archery
Steady Aim -OR- Cull the Weak if you're using a cold damage weapon and your attack rate is faster than 1.5
Stand in the corner. Nuke.
Hungering arrow single mobs, Nether Tentacle groups.
Leave the last serpent guard alive. Let you Scoundrel and Bat kill it while you run around avoiding it to build your Sharpshooter to 100%.
Get in position so that when Belial comes down, you can just barely see him on the left side of your screen.
Mark him. Hit him with a good number of Nether Tentacles. Smoke Screen to avoid getting hit.
After his third attempt to melee you, he'll switch to ranged shots. Make sure you have a full tank of hatred and nuke him. Keep your discipline recharging using an early Prep and time your Smoke Screens to avoid getting hit by his ranged attacks.
If guards begin spawning, use your Smoke Screen to get them to line up either around, in front, or behind Belial such that your Tentacles take care of them while continue to also pumpel him.
Lastly, win. And let me know how it goes. I like feedback.
Edit: FYI, I've completed Inferno and killed almost every champion/elite monster I've come across using a 890 DPS cold damage bow with +70% crit damage jewel with the exact same spec I linked above. Just in case there are any objections to using a cold damage weapon
Offtopic, how did you manage to get over ACT III elite packs called Soul rippers I think, the one that hit you with their tongue?
drop caltrops and pick up either bat companion, mortal enemy marked for death, or final rune spike trap (and sit in lower right corner standing on traps). I don't use vault either.
It gets easier the more damage you have. At first I needed spike traps, and then as my damage increased nether tentacles and hungering could kill all the adds before they got close and almost lock them into hit recovery, using smoke screen sparingly down in the corner. Seriously try standing in the lower right corner (smoke screen there) and spam nether tentacles towards the center of the platform where most of the snakes path (somewhat close to belial, not the outer part), and charge up your hatred with hungering when you're not in immediate danger, using smoke screen for when they spawn near you. If you dont have the damage yet, use spike traps under your feet and they'll protect you.
Then you just have to damage him down fast in phase 2. Again this gets easier the more gear you have because you phase him more quickly meaning fewer possible mistakes, fewer smokescreens required. Nether tentacle is your best friend, I often find it killing him and an add together after he's about half health in that stage.
Then in phase 3 he's ridiculously easy. Just recognize which attack is his tri-attack, which is the single attack, and when he breathes.
Offtopic, how did you manage to get over ACT III elite packs called Soul rippers I think, the one that hit you with their tongue?
As I said I was able to kill almost every champion pack I came across.
For Soul Rippers, I did my best to side step or line of sight their tongue lash ability using the homing properties of Hungering Arrow.
You can also equip your highest movement speed and damage resist gear...
1. Kite them to the entrance of a dungeon (make sure theiry piled up nice and snug against that entrance
2. Exit using that entrance
3. Grab the Enchantress, spec her for that AoE chicken CC ability as well as Charm (she should have gear packed with int, vitality, and resist, ideally)
4. Equip your highest DPS gear
5. Go back through the entrance with Smoke Screen popped, and run to gain some distance from them. Meanwhile, she'll instantly chicken all of them the moment you enter.
6. Nuke a chicken down, and instantly Smoke Screen when it breaks so as not to get hit or interupt your nuke
7. Get out of there, side step attacks, (lucky dodge?), Smoke Screen again, or die when the first SS breaks
8. Ressurect (they'll be put into combat by your follower and won't have their health reset)
9. Exit immedately before she's killed
10. Enter and exit using Smoke Screen to keep them in combat until her ability is ready again
11. Repeat from Step 5
Unfortunately, this works on only the most easiest of champion/elite affixed Soul Rippers. Plagued, molten, waller, fire chain, invulnerable minions can kill this strat easily if your SS wears off too fast or the enchantress get instagibed by one of those spells when you re-enter the dungeon. I tended to avoid them mostly by kiting them to a far away place.
But TBH, there isn't much anyone can do against them, really... and effort isn't worth the payoff. Blizzard didn't properly consider a lot of the possible affixes variations and monster mechanics thoroughly :\ This game has a very hapazard/hands-off take on difficulty and balancing.
Funny enough though, I was able to kill the hardest Soul Ripper champion pack I've ever seen (Fast, Extra Health, Mortar, Reflects Damage) using an exploit...
Basically, I stood at one elevation in the Tower of the Damned (or whatever that place is called) and shot Hungering Arrows down to the lower elevation where they were. Despite having their attention, they couldn't find a path to me so they just piled up on their platform nearest to me. Their mortar attacks would hit the side of the platform I was on and if I stood back just slightly, I wouldn't get hit by the blasts depsite standing in the blast raidus graphic. I had to wear resist gear with the templar standing by for heals just in case a stray mortar got through. Took an extremely long time even with me just standing still and DPSIng them like that. The last one eventually enraged and it came down to a race against who could whittle the other's health down fast enough. Keep in mind the damage reflect was also in effect. Swapped to even more resist gear with +life on hit and managed to out heal his enrage's damage over time aura
Anyway, Soul rippers are probably the hardest mobs in the game (apart from the ones that charging in Act IV (fallen angels, large winged demons)). If anyone has any advice on dealing with those, I'd greatly appreaciate it. I'm still trying to work out a strategy for consistently farming 5 stacks of NV for farming Diablo. As of now, it takes too long to be worth the investment.
Well since he figured it out, maybe this would be an ok time to ask if there is a difference in loot between act 3 and act 4. I have heard there isn't, which is why I'm asking, though I am doubtful. I have done maybe 20 Sbreaker runs and seen very few good items, whereas I found a 1300 dmg 1her in act 4 randomly off an elite pack.
Well since he figured it out, maybe this would be an ok time to ask if there is a difference in loot between act 3 and act 4. I have heard there isn't, which is why I'm asking, though I am doubtful. I have done maybe 20 Sbreaker runs and seen very few good items, whereas I found a 1300 dmg 1her in act 4 randomly off an elite pack.
I believe there should be a difference in iLvl between Act 3 and 4.
Well since he figured it out, maybe this would be an ok time to ask if there is a difference in loot between act 3 and act 4. I have heard there isn't, which is why I'm asking, though I am doubtful. I have done maybe 20 Sbreaker runs and seen very few good items, whereas I found a 1300 dmg 1her in act 4 randomly off an elite pack.
Couldn't tell you, got my shit pushed in on act 3. Going back to farm my goblin at the ancient path for another week.
Im farming for a socketed 1200+ bow do I can gem crit dmg. That will most likely put me over the top for act 3/4. Currently my bow is 1086 with 170 vit.
But for average gamers like me who think act 3 gets easier. You guessed wrong.
Sitting at 76k Dps atm and I feel like I need more.
Officially, they've said there isn't a monster level difference between Act 3 and 4.
Act 1: 61
Act 2: 62
Act 3: 63
Act 4: 63
So unofficially, anything that can drop off Act 4 should also drop in 3... based on Diablo 2 mlvl-ilvl logic. I found a rare 1200 DPS 2h-xbow in Act 3. Theoretically, you could find the highest ilvl items off Act 2 inferno monsters.
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My spec is as follows.
Hungering Arrow (dev rune)
Elemental Arrow (frost rune)
Caltrops (immobilize rune)
SS (lingering fog)
Vault (50% displine cost)
Prep (war scars)
Using archery,sharpshooter, and 20% ranged dmg.
DPS is at 58k with SS, 30k without. 33k HP, which does no good because nothing can hit you.
I start phase one in the corner laying traps to slow, frost arrow them down. No problem.
Second phase, this is my problem. I can get him to half, but the biggest problem I have is the snakes when they spawn. They one shot me.
What builds do you guys use? I know nether tentacles is good as far as I see in the forums.
Should I get rid of vault? I depend on this a lot for phase 2 when I get cornered by adds and boss.
What can I do?
I didn't use vault, but other than that my build was fairly similar to yours. I used Nether Tent. on Ele Arrow. I used turret with homing arrows, which will help kill adds. Also, I spend about 60k gold upgrading templar. Had him at about 55k health. If you position right on ph2 he will soak the green fireballs and you can stand and free dps to get through that phase faster. At 55k health he would soak 3 which allowed me to move to ph3 a bit faster and avoid overwhelming amounts of adds. Also Backup Plan on prep was a must. Using prep and having it not use the CD pretty much makes this fight exponentialy easier.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aRXVYk!TeY!bcZcaa
I had similar dps as you, but I had more crit damage modifier. My dps with SS stacked is about 85k. This helps get some inital burst on adds to get them down faster.
Basically my strategy was this.
RIght off the bat, SS lay down turret and trap in mid and burn first set of adds. Then stay in upper right corner and deal with adds laying 2 trap in that area and smoke screen when necessary.
Ph2, avoid the first wave of charges, smoke screen if necessary. then place myself with templar between me and belial and burn as much as possible. I found if i got to second span of adds, most of the time I was toast.
Ph3 self explanitory, avoid everything dps. Oh and using Nether Tenticles in this phase netted me 3 hits per ele arrow on the boss so i could burn through him fairly fast.
Just keep at this fight. It took me a lot of attempts. It really is an RNG fight. If the adds spawn on top of you in a bad situation your pretty much dead. I did the fight with 30k hp, and was still most of the time getting one shotted. You really just have to avoid getting hit and win the RNG slot machine. Stay at it you will get it with some persistence.
Got any increased attack speed rings and amulets you're not using currently for your max DPS set? Give them to your Scoundrel.
Give your Scoundrel any old ranged weapon with increased cold damage on it (very important). Favour hand crossbows or bows for faster attack speed.
Spec your scoundrel for increased damage on crits, triple shot, blind, and slow.
Your listed DPS stats are good so far. Here's what you do to improve them for this fight and for may other solo fights with monsters that can 1-shot you from now on...
Get a decent increased cold damage ranged weapon (700 listed DPS or higher) for yourself, unless you have a very high damage non-cold weapon. A socketed or in-house increase critical damage stat on your weapon helps a lot here.
Use the standard DPS spec:
Nether Tentacles
Puncturing Arrow
Prep (Focused Mind)
Lingering Fog
MFD (Mortal Enemy)
Bat
Sharpshooter
Archery
Steady Aim -OR- Cull the Weak if you're using a cold damage weapon and your attack rate is faster than 1.5
Stand in the corner. Nuke.
Hungering arrow single mobs, Nether Tentacle groups.
Leave the last serpent guard alive. Let you Scoundrel and Bat kill it while you run around avoiding it to build your Sharpshooter to 100%.
Get in position so that when Belial comes down, you can just barely see him on the left side of your screen.
Mark him. Hit him with a good number of Nether Tentacles. Smoke Screen to avoid getting hit.
After his third attempt to melee you, he'll switch to ranged shots. Make sure you have a full tank of hatred and nuke him. Keep your discipline recharging using an early Prep and time your Smoke Screens to avoid getting hit by his ranged attacks.
If guards begin spawning, use your Smoke Screen to get them to line up either around, in front, or behind Belial such that your Tentacles take care of them while continue to also pumpel him.
Lastly, win. And let me know how it goes. I like feedback.
Edit: FYI, I've completed Inferno and killed almost every champion/elite monster I've come across using a 890 DPS cold damage bow with +70% crit damage jewel with the exact same spec I linked above. Just in case there are any objections to using a cold damage weapon
Offtopic, how did you manage to get over ACT III elite packs called Soul rippers I think, the one that hit you with their tongue?
Thanks for the help!
It gets easier the more damage you have. At first I needed spike traps, and then as my damage increased nether tentacles and hungering could kill all the adds before they got close and almost lock them into hit recovery, using smoke screen sparingly down in the corner. Seriously try standing in the lower right corner (smoke screen there) and spam nether tentacles towards the center of the platform where most of the snakes path (somewhat close to belial, not the outer part), and charge up your hatred with hungering when you're not in immediate danger, using smoke screen for when they spawn near you. If you dont have the damage yet, use spike traps under your feet and they'll protect you.
Then you just have to damage him down fast in phase 2. Again this gets easier the more gear you have because you phase him more quickly meaning fewer possible mistakes, fewer smokescreens required. Nether tentacle is your best friend, I often find it killing him and an add together after he's about half health in that stage.
Then in phase 3 he's ridiculously easy. Just recognize which attack is his tri-attack, which is the single attack, and when he breathes.
As I said I was able to kill almost every champion pack I came across.
For Soul Rippers, I did my best to side step or line of sight their tongue lash ability using the homing properties of Hungering Arrow.
You can also equip your highest movement speed and damage resist gear...
1. Kite them to the entrance of a dungeon (make sure theiry piled up nice and snug against that entrance
2. Exit using that entrance
3. Grab the Enchantress, spec her for that AoE chicken CC ability as well as Charm (she should have gear packed with int, vitality, and resist, ideally)
4. Equip your highest DPS gear
5. Go back through the entrance with Smoke Screen popped, and run to gain some distance from them. Meanwhile, she'll instantly chicken all of them the moment you enter.
6. Nuke a chicken down, and instantly Smoke Screen when it breaks so as not to get hit or interupt your nuke
7. Get out of there, side step attacks, (lucky dodge?), Smoke Screen again, or die when the first SS breaks
8. Ressurect (they'll be put into combat by your follower and won't have their health reset)
9. Exit immedately before she's killed
10. Enter and exit using Smoke Screen to keep them in combat until her ability is ready again
11. Repeat from Step 5
Unfortunately, this works on only the most easiest of champion/elite affixed Soul Rippers. Plagued, molten, waller, fire chain, invulnerable minions can kill this strat easily if your SS wears off too fast or the enchantress get instagibed by one of those spells when you re-enter the dungeon. I tended to avoid them mostly by kiting them to a far away place.
But TBH, there isn't much anyone can do against them, really... and effort isn't worth the payoff. Blizzard didn't properly consider a lot of the possible affixes variations and monster mechanics thoroughly :\ This game has a very hapazard/hands-off take on difficulty and balancing.
Funny enough though, I was able to kill the hardest Soul Ripper champion pack I've ever seen (Fast, Extra Health, Mortar, Reflects Damage) using an exploit...
Basically, I stood at one elevation in the Tower of the Damned (or whatever that place is called) and shot Hungering Arrows down to the lower elevation where they were. Despite having their attention, they couldn't find a path to me so they just piled up on their platform nearest to me. Their mortar attacks would hit the side of the platform I was on and if I stood back just slightly, I wouldn't get hit by the blasts depsite standing in the blast raidus graphic. I had to wear resist gear with the templar standing by for heals just in case a stray mortar got through. Took an extremely long time even with me just standing still and DPSIng them like that. The last one eventually enraged and it came down to a race against who could whittle the other's health down fast enough. Keep in mind the damage reflect was also in effect. Swapped to even more resist gear with +life on hit and managed to out heal his enrage's damage over time aura
Anyway, Soul rippers are probably the hardest mobs in the game (apart from the ones that charging in Act IV (fallen angels, large winged demons)). If anyone has any advice on dealing with those, I'd greatly appreaciate it. I'm still trying to work out a strategy for consistently farming 5 stacks of NV for farming Diablo. As of now, it takes too long to be worth the investment.
I believe there should be a difference in iLvl between Act 3 and 4.
Couldn't tell you, got my shit pushed in on act 3. Going back to farm my goblin at the ancient path for another week.
Im farming for a socketed 1200+ bow do I can gem crit dmg. That will most likely put me over the top for act 3/4. Currently my bow is 1086 with 170 vit.
But for average gamers like me who think act 3 gets easier. You guessed wrong.
Sitting at 76k Dps atm and I feel like I need more.
Act 1: 61
Act 2: 62
Act 3: 63
Act 4: 63
So unofficially, anything that can drop off Act 4 should also drop in 3... based on Diablo 2 mlvl-ilvl logic. I found a rare 1200 DPS 2h-xbow in Act 3. Theoretically, you could find the highest ilvl items off Act 2 inferno monsters.