Entangling shot:
Since the Demon Hunter is ranged, I found that in Diablo 2 as a bowazon, sometimes monsters would cluster **** me and pin me to the ground. I specialized in Hardcore play so this was basically suicide. Keeping your range and attacking from a distance is a key for any range class, and this skill would easily allow you to root any enemies in close proximity.
Runestone: Indigo runestone; pretty self explanatory. You need range, you can't let monsters get up, more targets, less shots you have to fire. Also 2x targets hit for 100% weapon damage, vs an average 4 targes hit for 100% weapon damage, 400% damage output from one spell.Decent aoe damage spell.
Impale:275% single target damage, will be staple for boss fights. Clear the room with entangling shots and multishot, then load your hatred into Impales.
Runestone: Alabaster Runestone: 75% more damage on Crit hits. Nuff said.
Multishot: Bread and butter of a Bowazon in Diablo 2. Personal favorite spell. Entangling shot, multishot, dead demons.
Runestone: This was a toughie. For normal mode i pick Crimson Runestone. More damage, faster deaths, faster leveling.
NOTE: As difficulties grow harder, physical immune monsters willl become a problem and you will need some arcane, fire, or lightning damage Runes. Depending on how hard or how fast they get hard, will affect the Runestone choice.
Vault: Mobility Mobility Mobility. Even if it's running around town, or running back to the group. Boss fights that you need to dodge fire. Really can't see how any Demon Hunter will survive any later difficulties without this spell.
Runestone: Golden Runestone; I chose this Runestone for the simple fact that the Indigo Runestone, which increased the range to 55 yards from 35 yards, didn't seem to pay off as much as a 65% reduced cost. With a spell that only costs 10 Discipline, your second or corresponding vaults will only cost 4-5 Discipline, making moving across one side of the dungeon to the other super easy.
Strafe: Again, another spell I picked mainly for single target (boss) fights. A good relation between AoE and single target is key in any fights.
Runestone: Indigo Runestone; Faster attack speed, more damage output, seemed the most logical for any single target fight. Close second would be the homing rockets, (+1 for cool factor)
Marked For Death: Any group will love you for this skill. It brings utility, and dps to your group as well as a low discipline cost so tossing it out won't be a sink.
Runestone: Alabaster Runestone; Again this was a tough decision. I chose this mainly because I will be playing the game in a group setting. Extra life leech will allow our meatshields, companions, and myself to live longer. Grim Reaper (30% AoE damage to 20 yards) was a close second.
Passive Skills:
Sharpshooter: With the Impale Runestone, as well as your other skills, Crit's help immensly when dealing damage. 3% every second, with a 30% crit basically with a 1.6 attack speed basically means you'll be critting at least once every 3rd or 4th shot. Coupled with Shadow power and Impale? Win Win situation.
Archery: No matter what you will be using, this skill is a huge increase in buffs. 5% Crit, 10% damage, or 100% crit hit damage. Good passive to couple with Sharpshooter.
Vengeance: Basically this allows me to move faster through the dungeons, without worrying about feeling starved for resources. Especially since I won't be using two hatred generators.
Comments?
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Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed
So bola deals quite a low damage, why would you use it for boss fights? Impale would deal much more damage. If you use bola as a spirit generator then ok, but you have 2 of them and I feel 2 generators are bad..
I only picked it because I believe 2 / 2 / 2 would be needed to generate hatred / discipline. If you only need one you can easily swap out for Impale.
Then you have multishot and strafe - two AoE skills, I wouldn't select 2 skills which are very similar.
Strafe is 520% your attack speed with runestone. It means it can attack one target very fast. Other targets if they are around but think of Baal fight, Diablo, Andariel. Almost always you had fights with spawnings around you that needed to die. Single target specifically wouldn't need.
And brooding passive does not seem to worth it. It's not going to heal you in combat, because you need to not be attacked for 5 seconds, and if you are out of combat just run and take heath globes. There are much better pasives imo.
Depends on how hard it is to avoid damage. I only played Hardcore in Diablo 2. It wasn't necessarily hard to avoid damage. When you got hit, you got hit hard. This would quicken it, although you are right and you could swap it out for something else.
As for shadow power? Strafe does the exact same basically.
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Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed
Bola Shot is actually for AoE, not single target. only does 100% weapon damage to primary target, and 75% damage to any surronding enemies. Personally, I prefer Hungering arrow (85% weapon damage) w/ golden runestone (allowing 46% chance to pierce). thats almost half of your shots doing (at least, not sure if can pierce more than once) 170% weapon damage, all while generating 3 hatred per shot.
If your looking for single target on Strafe, replace it with Rapid fire, 6x attack speed vs. 4x attack speed, while also doing 38% weapon damage per shot vs. 35% weapon damage. Strafe does have the advantage of movement, as opposed to standing still on Rapid Fire so this can be situational depending on the fight.
I think Shadow Power is a really good ability for any demon hunter to pick up, granting 30% attack speed, with no cooldown (as long as you have the discipline). It allows you to pump out more damage, works great with Rapid Fire/Strafe, and can help build your hatred quickly by spamming your hatred generating skills.
As, for passives, I think there are better choices than brooding because its really an out-of-combat ability. not getting hit for 5 seconds doesnt happen much in a lot of fights. Cull of the Weak (20% damage to slowed enemies) might appeal to you while using Entangling Shot. Sharpshooter is another passive that I personally really like, 3% crit every second is a pretty nice perk.
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(this build was before D3 launched... looking back on it now - i had no idea what i was doing)
Updated info a bit. Changed out Bola Shot, Strafe, and Brooding.
A) I'm still in the mindset of Hardcore play, so survivability was #1.
B ) I feel that with a build something like this, you'll feel starved. May consider Night Stalker for the Crit hits have a chance to restore discipline. Gotta know the proc rate on that though to determine it's worthness.
You won me over on shadow power. With the 40% move speed buff run doesn't really compare when thinking of generating hatred (Especially if I go for Night Stalker)
Swapped out Strafe for Impale. with crit damage increases by 75% rune. Again Bola was meant to be a single target. Impale will just do it better. Not sure how starved I will be for hatred though.
Brooding was swapped out for Sharpshooter. 3% crit every second basically guarentees a crit every 3-4 seconds. Depending on your attack speed. Means that I probably wont be rocking the dual crossbow action and going with a high damage 2 hander.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed
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I have not yet played the Beta, so this is based on video's and read ups:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#eZSdUQ!hVb!YaZbYa
Now each skill and why I chose it.
Entangling shot:
Since the Demon Hunter is ranged, I found that in Diablo 2 as a bowazon, sometimes monsters would cluster **** me and pin me to the ground. I specialized in Hardcore play so this was basically suicide. Keeping your range and attacking from a distance is a key for any range class, and this skill would easily allow you to root any enemies in close proximity.
Runestone: Indigo runestone; pretty self explanatory. You need range, you can't let monsters get up, more targets, less shots you have to fire. Also 2x targets hit for 100% weapon damage, vs an average 4 targes hit for 100% weapon damage, 400% damage output from one spell.Decent aoe damage spell.
Impale: 275% single target damage, will be staple for boss fights. Clear the room with entangling shots and multishot, then load your hatred into Impales.
Runestone: Alabaster Runestone: 75% more damage on Crit hits. Nuff said.
Multishot: Bread and butter of a Bowazon in Diablo 2. Personal favorite spell. Entangling shot, multishot, dead demons.
Runestone: This was a toughie. For normal mode i pick Crimson Runestone. More damage, faster deaths, faster leveling.
NOTE: As difficulties grow harder, physical immune monsters willl become a problem and you will need some arcane, fire, or lightning damage Runes. Depending on how hard or how fast they get hard, will affect the Runestone choice.
Vault: Mobility Mobility Mobility. Even if it's running around town, or running back to the group. Boss fights that you need to dodge fire. Really can't see how any Demon Hunter will survive any later difficulties without this spell.
Runestone: Golden Runestone; I chose this Runestone for the simple fact that the Indigo Runestone, which increased the range to 55 yards from 35 yards, didn't seem to pay off as much as a 65% reduced cost. With a spell that only costs 10 Discipline, your second or corresponding vaults will only cost 4-5 Discipline, making moving across one side of the dungeon to the other super easy.
Strafe: Again, another spell I picked mainly for single target (boss) fights. A good relation between AoE and single target is key in any fights.
Runestone: Indigo Runestone; Faster attack speed, more damage output, seemed the most logical for any single target fight. Close second would be the homing rockets, (+1 for cool factor)
Marked For Death: Any group will love you for this skill. It brings utility, and dps to your group as well as a low discipline cost so tossing it out won't be a sink.
Runestone: Alabaster Runestone; Again this was a tough decision. I chose this mainly because I will be playing the game in a group setting. Extra life leech will allow our meatshields, companions, and myself to live longer. Grim Reaper (30% AoE damage to 20 yards) was a close second.
Passive Skills:
Sharpshooter: With the Impale Runestone, as well as your other skills, Crit's help immensly when dealing damage. 3% every second, with a 30% crit basically with a 1.6 attack speed basically means you'll be critting at least once every 3rd or 4th shot. Coupled with Shadow power and Impale? Win Win situation.
Archery: No matter what you will be using, this skill is a huge increase in buffs. 5% Crit, 10% damage, or 100% crit hit damage. Good passive to couple with Sharpshooter.
Vengeance: Basically this allows me to move faster through the dungeons, without worrying about feeling starved for resources. Especially since I won't be using two hatred generators.
Comments?
Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed
I only picked it because I believe 2 / 2 / 2 would be needed to generate hatred / discipline. If you only need one you can easily swap out for Impale.
Strafe is 520% your attack speed with runestone. It means it can attack one target very fast. Other targets if they are around but think of Baal fight, Diablo, Andariel. Almost always you had fights with spawnings around you that needed to die. Single target specifically wouldn't need.
Depends on how hard it is to avoid damage. I only played Hardcore in Diablo 2. It wasn't necessarily hard to avoid damage. When you got hit, you got hit hard. This would quicken it, although you are right and you could swap it out for something else.
As for shadow power? Strafe does the exact same basically.
Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed
If your looking for single target on Strafe, replace it with Rapid fire, 6x attack speed vs. 4x attack speed, while also doing 38% weapon damage per shot vs. 35% weapon damage. Strafe does have the advantage of movement, as opposed to standing still on Rapid Fire so this can be situational depending on the fight.
I think Shadow Power is a really good ability for any demon hunter to pick up, granting 30% attack speed, with no cooldown (as long as you have the discipline). It allows you to pump out more damage, works great with Rapid Fire/Strafe, and can help build your hatred quickly by spamming your hatred generating skills.
As, for passives, I think there are better choices than brooding because its really an out-of-combat ability. not getting hit for 5 seconds doesnt happen much in a lot of fights. Cull of the Weak (20% damage to slowed enemies) might appeal to you while using Entangling Shot. Sharpshooter is another passive that I personally really like, 3% crit every second is a pretty nice perk.
A) I'm still in the mindset of Hardcore play, so survivability was #1.
B ) I feel that with a build something like this, you'll feel starved. May consider Night Stalker for the Crit hits have a chance to restore discipline. Gotta know the proc rate on that though to determine it's worthness.
You won me over on shadow power. With the 40% move speed buff run doesn't really compare when thinking of generating hatred (Especially if I go for Night Stalker)
Swapped out Strafe for Impale. with crit damage increases by 75% rune. Again Bola was meant to be a single target. Impale will just do it better. Not sure how starved I will be for hatred though.
Brooding was swapped out for Sharpshooter. 3% crit every second basically guarentees a crit every 3-4 seconds. Depending on your attack speed. Means that I probably wont be rocking the dual crossbow action and going with a high damage 2 hander.
Necro:97 US West Hardcore || Amazon 96 US West Hardcore || Paladin 93 US West Hardcore
Necro 96 US West Hardcore : Killed || Amazon 98 US West Hardcore : Killed