It's a good thing that Blizzard has updated the Skill Calculator...
now I'm able to get on with my Rocket Master Demon Hunter build. My rocket to winning a Diablo III Beta key.
First of, my primary Hatred regenerating skill:
1. Hungering Arrow: Shatter Shot
--> as a Hatred generator, each shot generates 3 Hatred.
--> runed as Shatter Shot, every successful target pierced splits the arrow into 3, which by doing the math means that that particular shot could actually generate a total of 12 Hatred. But what if the arrow from the first split, splits again... and again... would that simply mean that there is a possibility of generating around 24... 36... or even up to 48 Hatred or more in just one shot? Then by all means, fire away to your heart's content and generate as much Hatred as you would need. (I do wish this could be the case for this skill would be so useful in Hell and Inferno).
--> in my opinion, this is the best source of Hatred generator.
Armed with Hungering Arrow, for the assured additional damage best to partner it with:
2. Marked for Death: Contagion
--> marked enemies takes additional 15% Dmg. for the next 30 seconds.
--> runed as Contagion, the ability spreads to 2 other nearby targets... plus the effect can chain repeatedly. So with Multishot included in my build, being able to kill a lot of enemies in a wide radius means that this ability would be so contagious.
--> in my opinion, the add'l. damage paired w/ a weapon that has a very high DPS, and the ability spreading among close knit groups, only means faster kills from the add'l. Dmg.
With enemies marked, time to use my primary AoE skill:
3. Multishot: Arsenal ~ Click here to watch the Multishot video. --> costs only 15 Hatred per shot, you can fire a massive volley of arrows in a certain arc that spreads out, creating a wider area of effectiveness.
--> runed as Arsenal, every shot releases 3 Homing Rockets that deals 40% weapon Dmg. at nearby enemies (15 Hatred is cheaper compared to the Cluster Arrow: Shooting Stars skill that uses 50 Hatred and has a 200% weapon Dmg. w/ 3 rockets per shot doing an add'l. 175% weapon Dmg. each). Another alternative skill is Rapid Fire: Fire Support skill that uses 20 Hatred initially and an additional 10 Hatred while channeling, but only launches the 3 Homing Rockets that deals 40% weapon Dmg. every second.
--> both Multishot and Cluster Arrow releases 3 rockets per shot, while Rapid Fire releases 3 rockets per second. There is great possibility that you may be able to fire 2 shots in a second, which means that Multishot might get an add'l. 80% weapon Dmg. per rocket per second for the cost of 30 Hatred, while the Cluster Arrow might get an add'l. 350% weapon Dmg. per rocket per second for the cost of 100 Hatred.
--> there is no doubt that Cluster Arrow and Rapid Fire causes more damage but in consideration of the amount of Hatred being used up per shot per second, in my opinion, Multishot would be the most effective choice to use with a widening area of damage and be able to spam repeatedly.
To make these skills more cost effective, I need a by using:
4. Caltrops: Torturous Ground
--> costs 8 Discipline, using this trap slows the movement of the enemies by 60% for 6 seconds.
--> runed as Torturous Ground, all enemies in the area when the trap is sprung would be immobilized for 2 seconds. A skill that can immobilize the enemies for the first 2 seconds will give me plenty of time to do maximum damage before slowing what's left of them still standing.
--> in my opinion, getting enemies immobilized for 2 seconds would be enough time to fire off a MfD Contagion followed by multiple Multishot Arsenals.
I thought Wizards used to be OP when they use Hydra, which makes this next skill a very plausible choice for additional AoE damage:
5. Sentry: Spitfire Turret
--> costs 10 Discipline to drop a turret on the ground that fires at nearby enemies which lasts for 20 seconds.
--> runed as Spitfire Turret, homing rockets that fire of every 1.5 seconds that deals 40% weapon Dmg. at nearby targets, which means that the turret will have fired 13 rockets within that 20 seconds duration.
--> in my opinion, just like Hydra, the Sentry would provide the additional damage and also serve as a diversion.
Finally, a skill for getting out of tight situations:
6. Smoke Screen: Lingering Fog
--> costs 15 Discipline to vanish behind a wall of smoke and become momentarily invisible for 2 seconds.
--> runed as Lingering Fog, makes you invisible for 3 seconds. An alternative skill to use for this slot would be Preparation Obsidian runed as Backup Plan for that 30% chance that the cooldown will not be triggered after restoring all Discipline. Backup Plan gives you the opportunity to continuously use the Spitfire Turret, Marked for Death and Torturous Ground repeatedly as long as your Discipline keeps on refilling and the cooldown is not triggered.
--> in my opinion, Lingering Fog would be useful when facing bosses and Preparation when facing Diablo's minions.
For Passives:
1. Cull the Weak
--> with Caltrops in place, all damage against slowed enemies increases by 15%.
--> combined with the Marked for Death ability, all damages are increased by 30% already.
--> in my opinion, this is the best passive to make Caltrops very effective in causing damage, not to mention taking advantage of killing immobilized enemies fast.
2. Custom Engineering
--> increases the duration of Caltrops, Marked for Death and Sentry by 100%.
--> this means that Torturous Ground will now lasts for 12 seconds and maybe the enemies will be immobilized for 4 seconds now instead of just 2, when the trap is sprung. The mark for the Marked for Death skill will now linger above the marked enemies head for 1 full minute for that 15% add'l. Dmg., thus increasing the chances of the mark spreading to more enemies after every kill, making it more contagious than before. Lastly, Sentry, Demon Hunter's own version of a Wizard's Hydra, will now cause distraction for 40 seconds wherein the Spitfire Turret would be releasing 26-27 homing rockets for that additional 40% weapon Dmg. plus the original Sentry's 20% weapon Dmg. it will cause to enemies that comes near it.
--> in my opinion, this passive would bring out the best in my traps and defensive skills.
3. Ballistics
--> damage from rockets are increase by 100%.
--> the additional damage from the 3 rockets for every Arsenal shot is now 80% weapon Dmg., same with the rocket from the Spitfire Turret, so if the homing rockets from both the Arsenal fire and Spitfire Turret, homes in on one particular enemy, you get an additional 160% weapon Dmg.
--> in my opinion, 160% weapon Dmg. in addition to the 115% weapon Dmg. of the Multishot plus the 20% weapon Dmg. from the Sentry and the additional 30% damage from Caltrops and Marked for Death, for a whopping total of 325% weapon Dmg. would be ballistic and really blow the competition away.
This summarizes my Rocket Master Demon Hunter build. Click here to see the build.
Any additional damage from your weapons, accessories and gear, simply means that this is one bad ass build to be reckoned with. lol!
Very nice build. I like that you have a reason behind every choice of skill you have there. Makes me think I need to put more thought into my own build. I usually start to put ideas like these together while playing, but i'll just have to wait for that.
Is that true that Hungering Arrow w/ Shatter Shot has the potential to split and split and split like that? Like, no limit or cd to the split effect? (Reminds me of old Sword Spec for Warriors in WoW, where the proc could proc off itself multiple times if you were lucky) If so, I just may have to use that!
I've given it some thought to have come up with the best way of making use of the special rocket abilities of the Demon Hunter, and the option to use the Rapid Fire: Fire Support or the Cluster Arrow: Shooting Stars are also great, but for me the choice was to pick the skill with the least Hatred requirement for it to be more dependable than the others.
For the Hungering Arrow: Shatter Shot, I just surmised the idea from the Devouring Arrow runed: each consecutive pierce increases the damage of the arrow by 70%... which if you think about it, the idea might be applicable to the Shatter Shot wherein all three arrows from the split has the potential to become like a consecutive pierce when it splits again (if not all three, then maybe just the original arrow where the additional 2 arrows split from, has the property to split again after successfully piercing a target).
Although these are all just my opinions and theories, thus comes the part where I would like to play the game and test my theory.
Are you sure you receive hatred for every succesful hit with arrow on an enemy? When i read it I thought it said you only recieve hatred per arrow fired, wasn't aware you could generate so much hatred. I like the skill before, but if that is true i would probably replace entangling shot and find my slow else where.
1) Hungering Arrow (and all hatred generators) give you hatred when you fire the skill, not when it hits a target, so you get 3 hatred no matter how many times it hits. Also, the Shatter Shot description specifically mentions splitting if the first pierce happens which sounds like it will only split once. I'm assuming after the split the arrows become "normal" Hungering Arrows which can pierce additional times, but will not split again. (By my calculations, this is still the rune with the highest DPS for the skill, though, even with this limitation). If the skill did split each time it pierced then its average damage would actually be infinite.
2) I'm not super sold on Contagion. You actually have to kill the target you cast it on for it to spread. If you're using Hungering Arrow you may not have a lot of control over which mob dies first to spread it, and if you're spamming Multishot it seems like most things would die around the same time anyway. I would personally use a different rune and save it for champions and uniques and stuff like that.
Quite a reasonable argument... which may be correct on one point, but can't be proven until we can actually test the theory.
The arrow has a 35% chance to pierce through targets, which means that every time it hits an enemy, it would pierce each one every time it comes within the 35% mark. I've seen videos wherein an arrow successfully pierced through up to 3 targets.
Although it really would be awesome, if say, the arrow can continually keep on splitting if it successfully pierces up to 4 consecutive targets, generating somewhere from 48 up to 75 Hatred. That ability would really be useful on the later stages of the game, say in Nightmare, Hell and of course, Inferno.
As for the firing off the skill against the hitting the target... my theory is if you use the skill and fire off an arrow to a wall or a column or an empty space, I don't think you'll gain any Hatred as long as you did not hit any enemy or an urn, those vases or any breakable stuff for that matter.
Really, to put it simply, I think it's quite similar to a Barbarian swinging his weapon through the air hitting nothing at all. That action doesn't generate any Fury... NOPE, it doesn't.
So, my theory on this is that when a Barbarian swings his weapon and breaks something, he generates Fury, which would point out to the fact that any arrow fired by the Demon Hunter that actually connects, should likewise generate Hatred.
The arrow has a 35% chance to pierce through targets, which means that every time it hits an enemy, it would pierce each one every time it comes within the 35% mark. I've seen videos wherein an arrow successfully pierced through up to 3 targets.
Although it really would be awesome, if say, the arrow can continually keep on splitting if it successfully pierces up to 4 consecutive targets, generating somewhere from 48 up to 75 Hatred. That ability would really be useful on the later stages of the game, say in Nightmare, Hell and of course, Inferno.
For a normal Hungering Arrow, it definitely can pierce multiple times if you get lucky with that 35%. The Shattering Shot rune effect, however, reads: "If the arrow successfully pierces the first target, the arrow splits into 3 arrows." If the intent was to split every time it pierced, it would most likely just say: "If the arrow successfully pierces the first target, the arrow splits into 3 arrows." Furthermore, if the arrow really did split every time it pierced, it would do an infinite amount of damage:
hits = 1 + 3*0.35 + 3^2*0.35^2 + ... = 1 / (1 - 3*0.35) => infinite hits per cast (on average) => infinite damage per cast (on average)
If it can only split on the first pierce then damage is as follows:
hits = 1 + 3*0.35 + 3*0.35^2 + ... = (1 + 2*0.35) / (1 - 0.35) = 2.6 hits per cast (on average) => 300% weapon damage per cast (on average)
As for the firing off the skill against the hitting the target... my theory is if you use the skill and fire off an arrow to a wall or a column or an empty space, I don't think you'll gain any Hatred as long as you did not hit any enemy or an urn, those vases or any breakable stuff for that matter.
Really, to put it simply, I think it's quite similar to a Barbarian swinging his weapon through the air hitting nothing at all. That action doesn't generate any Fury... NOPE, it doesn't.
So, my theory on this is that when a Barbarian swings his weapon and breaks something, he generates Fury, which would point out to the fact that any arrow fired by the Demon Hunter that actually connects, should likewise generate Hatred.
Your theory would be wrong in this case. Testing in the beta confirms that hatred generators give you hatred whether you hit something with them or not. I can recharge my hatred in town about twice as fast if I spam Hungering Arrow at nothing compared to just letting my passive regen refill my hatred.
Your theory would be wrong in this case. Testing in the beta confirms that hatred generators give you hatred whether you hit something with them or not. I can recharge my hatred in town about twice as fast if I spam Hungering Arrow at nothing compared to just letting my passive regen refill my hatred.
I can confirm this as well, it only gives hatred on use, not on each (or any) hit. The same seems to be true of almost all generators from what I can tell, actually. Fury and spirit are given on hit, but hitting multiple targets does not provide multiple increases in the resource, for instance. In other words, they always give the same amount of their resource unless they specifically state that they give the resource every hit or every second, or whatever else.
My guess for the slight difference between resource generation mechanics is that the game is coded to give the resources on cast for all classes. DH generators have a travel time and can be dodged, though, so there's no way to know for sure at the time of casting if they will hit or not (in general) so they just always provide resources. Barb and Monk generators are melee range and instant so they either hit or they don't right when used. If they hit you get resources, if they don't you don't.
Cluster/Strafe spam. Notice how Prep combos with Vengeance and how it is the only thing that requires discipline mid combat.
nice idea except all of your dmg skills only hit 3-4 targets. no AOE. and multiple targets hit by strafe is really really weak after testing it in the beta. so your going to have a BIG problem with groups, after seeing a video of cluster arrow the initial AOE is very small and then the bombs come out or in your build 3 rockets. so id grab an AOE and your build is solid
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
1) Hungering Arrow (and all hatred generators) give you hatred when you fire the skill, not when it hits a target, so you get 3 hatred no matter how many times it hits. Also, the Shatter Shot description specifically mentions splitting if the first pierce happens which sounds like it will only split once. I'm assuming after the split the arrows become "normal" Hungering Arrows which can pierce additional times, but will not split again. (By my calculations, this is still the rune with the highest DPS for the skill, though, even with this limitation). If the skill did split each time it pierced then its average damage would actually be infinite.
2) I'm not super sold on Contagion. You actually have to kill the target you cast it on for it to spread. If you're using Hungering Arrow you may not have a lot of control over which mob dies first to spread it, and if you're spamming Multishot it seems like most things would die around the same time anyway. I would personally use a different rune and save it for champions and uniques and stuff like that.
Everything else looks pretty reasonable.
It would not do an infinite amount of dmg because the mobs don't have that much health. It also would not have the potential to do an infinite amount of dmg, as there is a good probability that all 3 arrows would fail to pierce.
Though you are likely right, its only going to split once.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
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now I'm able to get on with my Rocket Master Demon Hunter build.
My rocket to winning a Diablo III Beta key.
First of, my primary Hatred regenerating skill:
1. Hungering Arrow: Shatter Shot
--> as a Hatred generator, each shot generates 3 Hatred.
--> runed as Shatter Shot, every successful target pierced splits the arrow into 3, which by doing the math means that that particular shot could actually generate a total of 12 Hatred. But what if the arrow from the first split, splits again... and again... would that simply mean that there is a possibility of generating around 24... 36... or even up to 48 Hatred or more in just one shot? Then by all means, fire away to your heart's content and generate as much Hatred as you would need. (I do wish this could be the case for this skill would be so useful in Hell and Inferno).
--> in my opinion, this is the best source of Hatred generator.
Armed with Hungering Arrow, for the assured additional damage best to partner it with:
2. Marked for Death: Contagion
--> marked enemies takes additional 15% Dmg. for the next 30 seconds.
--> runed as Contagion, the ability spreads to 2 other nearby targets... plus the effect can chain repeatedly. So with Multishot included in my build, being able to kill a lot of enemies in a wide radius means that this ability would be so contagious.
--> in my opinion, the add'l. damage paired w/ a weapon that has a very high DPS, and the ability spreading among close knit groups, only means faster kills from the add'l. Dmg.
With enemies marked, time to use my primary AoE skill:
3. Multishot: Arsenal ~ Click here to watch the Multishot video.
--> costs only 15 Hatred per shot, you can fire a massive volley of arrows in a certain arc that spreads out, creating a wider area of effectiveness.
--> runed as Arsenal, every shot releases 3 Homing Rockets that deals 40% weapon Dmg. at nearby enemies (15 Hatred is cheaper compared to the Cluster Arrow: Shooting Stars skill that uses 50 Hatred and has a 200% weapon Dmg. w/ 3 rockets per shot doing an add'l. 175% weapon Dmg. each). Another alternative skill is Rapid Fire: Fire Support skill that uses 20 Hatred initially and an additional 10 Hatred while channeling, but only launches the 3 Homing Rockets that deals 40% weapon Dmg. every second.
--> both Multishot and Cluster Arrow releases 3 rockets per shot, while Rapid Fire releases 3 rockets per second. There is great possibility that you may be able to fire 2 shots in a second, which means that Multishot might get an add'l. 80% weapon Dmg. per rocket per second for the cost of 30 Hatred, while the Cluster Arrow might get an add'l. 350% weapon Dmg. per rocket per second for the cost of 100 Hatred.
--> there is no doubt that Cluster Arrow and Rapid Fire causes more damage but in consideration of the amount of Hatred being used up per shot per second, in my opinion, Multishot would be the most effective choice to use with a widening area of damage and be able to spam repeatedly.
To make these skills more cost effective, I need a by using:
4. Caltrops: Torturous Ground
--> costs 8 Discipline, using this trap slows the movement of the enemies by 60% for 6 seconds.
--> runed as Torturous Ground, all enemies in the area when the trap is sprung would be immobilized for 2 seconds. A skill that can immobilize the enemies for the first 2 seconds will give me plenty of time to do maximum damage before slowing what's left of them still standing.
--> in my opinion, getting enemies immobilized for 2 seconds would be enough time to fire off a MfD Contagion followed by multiple Multishot Arsenals.
I thought Wizards used to be OP when they use Hydra, which makes this next skill a very plausible choice for additional AoE damage:
5. Sentry: Spitfire Turret
--> costs 10 Discipline to drop a turret on the ground that fires at nearby enemies which lasts for 20 seconds.
--> runed as Spitfire Turret, homing rockets that fire of every 1.5 seconds that deals 40% weapon Dmg. at nearby targets, which means that the turret will have fired 13 rockets within that 20 seconds duration.
--> in my opinion, just like Hydra, the Sentry would provide the additional damage and also serve as a diversion.
Finally, a skill for getting out of tight situations:
6. Smoke Screen: Lingering Fog
--> costs 15 Discipline to vanish behind a wall of smoke and become momentarily invisible for 2 seconds.
--> runed as Lingering Fog, makes you invisible for 3 seconds. An alternative skill to use for this slot would be Preparation Obsidian runed as Backup Plan for that 30% chance that the cooldown will not be triggered after restoring all Discipline. Backup Plan gives you the opportunity to continuously use the Spitfire Turret, Marked for Death and Torturous Ground repeatedly as long as your Discipline keeps on refilling and the cooldown is not triggered.
--> in my opinion, Lingering Fog would be useful when facing bosses and Preparation when facing Diablo's minions.
For Passives:
1. Cull the Weak
--> with Caltrops in place, all damage against slowed enemies increases by 15%.
--> combined with the Marked for Death ability, all damages are increased by 30% already.
--> in my opinion, this is the best passive to make Caltrops very effective in causing damage, not to mention taking advantage of killing immobilized enemies fast.
2. Custom Engineering
--> increases the duration of Caltrops, Marked for Death and Sentry by 100%.
--> this means that Torturous Ground will now lasts for 12 seconds and maybe the enemies will be immobilized for 4 seconds now instead of just 2, when the trap is sprung. The mark for the Marked for Death skill will now linger above the marked enemies head for 1 full minute for that 15% add'l. Dmg., thus increasing the chances of the mark spreading to more enemies after every kill, making it more contagious than before. Lastly, Sentry, Demon Hunter's own version of a Wizard's Hydra, will now cause distraction for 40 seconds wherein the Spitfire Turret would be releasing 26-27 homing rockets for that additional 40% weapon Dmg. plus the original Sentry's 20% weapon Dmg. it will cause to enemies that comes near it.
--> in my opinion, this passive would bring out the best in my traps and defensive skills.
3. Ballistics
--> damage from rockets are increase by 100%.
--> the additional damage from the 3 rockets for every Arsenal shot is now 80% weapon Dmg., same with the rocket from the Spitfire Turret, so if the homing rockets from both the Arsenal fire and Spitfire Turret, homes in on one particular enemy, you get an additional 160% weapon Dmg.
--> in my opinion, 160% weapon Dmg. in addition to the 115% weapon Dmg. of the Multishot plus the 20% weapon Dmg. from the Sentry and the additional 30% damage from Caltrops and Marked for Death, for a whopping total of 325% weapon Dmg. would be ballistic and really blow the competition away.
This summarizes my Rocket Master Demon Hunter build. Click here to see the build.
Any additional damage from your weapons, accessories and gear, simply means that this is one bad ass build to be reckoned with. lol!
.
My PvP build would be different from these 13.
Check out the leaked Demon Hunter skill list here from Blizzard China: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://tiny.cc/10p16
Diablo III is $50; MSI GT683DXR-423US Gaming Laptop is $1,599; Playing Diablo III w/ my wife & 2 brothers is PRICELESS
Is that true that Hungering Arrow w/ Shatter Shot has the potential to split and split and split like that? Like, no limit or cd to the split effect? (Reminds me of old Sword Spec for Warriors in WoW, where the proc could proc off itself multiple times if you were lucky) If so, I just may have to use that!
I've given it some thought to have come up with the best way of making use of the special rocket abilities of the Demon Hunter, and the option to use the Rapid Fire: Fire Support or the Cluster Arrow: Shooting Stars are also great, but for me the choice was to pick the skill with the least Hatred requirement for it to be more dependable than the others.
For the Hungering Arrow: Shatter Shot, I just surmised the idea from the Devouring Arrow runed: each consecutive pierce increases the damage of the arrow by 70%... which if you think about it, the idea might be applicable to the Shatter Shot wherein all three arrows from the split has the potential to become like a consecutive pierce when it splits again (if not all three, then maybe just the original arrow where the additional 2 arrows split from, has the property to split again after successfully piercing a target).
Although these are all just my opinions and theories, thus comes the part where I would like to play the game and test my theory.
.
My PvP build would be different from these 13.
Check out the leaked Demon Hunter skill list here from Blizzard China: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://tiny.cc/10p16
Diablo III is $50; MSI GT683DXR-423US Gaming Laptop is $1,599; Playing Diablo III w/ my wife & 2 brothers is PRICELESS
2) I'm not super sold on Contagion. You actually have to kill the target you cast it on for it to spread. If you're using Hungering Arrow you may not have a lot of control over which mob dies first to spread it, and if you're spamming Multishot it seems like most things would die around the same time anyway. I would personally use a different rune and save it for champions and uniques and stuff like that.
Everything else looks pretty reasonable.
The arrow has a 35% chance to pierce through targets, which means that every time it hits an enemy, it would pierce each one every time it comes within the 35% mark. I've seen videos wherein an arrow successfully pierced through up to 3 targets.
Although it really would be awesome, if say, the arrow can continually keep on splitting if it successfully pierces up to 4 consecutive targets, generating somewhere from 48 up to 75 Hatred. That ability would really be useful on the later stages of the game, say in Nightmare, Hell and of course, Inferno.
As for the firing off the skill against the hitting the target... my theory is if you use the skill and fire off an arrow to a wall or a column or an empty space, I don't think you'll gain any Hatred as long as you did not hit any enemy or an urn, those vases or any breakable stuff for that matter.
Really, to put it simply, I think it's quite similar to a Barbarian swinging his weapon through the air hitting nothing at all. That action doesn't generate any Fury... NOPE, it doesn't.
So, my theory on this is that when a Barbarian swings his weapon and breaks something, he generates Fury, which would point out to the fact that any arrow fired by the Demon Hunter that actually connects, should likewise generate Hatred.
.
My PvP build would be different from these 13.
Check out the leaked Demon Hunter skill list here from Blizzard China: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://tiny.cc/10p16
Diablo III is $50; MSI GT683DXR-423US Gaming Laptop is $1,599; Playing Diablo III w/ my wife & 2 brothers is PRICELESS
For a normal Hungering Arrow, it definitely can pierce multiple times if you get lucky with that 35%. The Shattering Shot rune effect, however, reads: "If the arrow successfully pierces the first target, the arrow splits into 3 arrows." If the intent was to split every time it pierced, it would most likely just say: "If the arrow successfully pierces
the first target, the arrow splits into 3 arrows." Furthermore, if the arrow really did split every time it pierced, it would do an infinite amount of damage:hits = 1 + 3*0.35 + 3^2*0.35^2 + ... = 1 / (1 - 3*0.35) => infinite hits per cast (on average) => infinite damage per cast (on average)
If it can only split on the first pierce then damage is as follows:
hits = 1 + 3*0.35 + 3*0.35^2 + ... = (1 + 2*0.35) / (1 - 0.35) = 2.6 hits per cast (on average) => 300% weapon damage per cast (on average)
Your theory would be wrong in this case. Testing in the beta confirms that hatred generators give you hatred whether you hit something with them or not. I can recharge my hatred in town about twice as fast if I spam Hungering Arrow at nothing compared to just letting my passive regen refill my hatred.
I can confirm this as well, it only gives hatred on use, not on each (or any) hit. The same seems to be true of almost all generators from what I can tell, actually. Fury and spirit are given on hit, but hitting multiple targets does not provide multiple increases in the resource, for instance. In other words, they always give the same amount of their resource unless they specifically state that they give the resource every hit or every second, or whatever else.
Cluster/Strafe spam. Notice how Prep combos with Vengeance and how it is the only thing that requires discipline mid combat.
nice idea except all of your dmg skills only hit 3-4 targets. no AOE. and multiple targets hit by strafe is really really weak after testing it in the beta. so your going to have a BIG problem with groups, after seeing a video of cluster arrow the initial AOE is very small and then the bombs come out or in your build 3 rockets. so id grab an AOE and your build is solid
Though you are likely right, its only going to split once.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!