I wanted to make something with a variety of damage to give fairly consistent dps against all mobs, rather than doing boatloads against one sort of mob and next to nothing against others. I also wanted to address mobility and control issues whilst sticking with the "no hatred generators" philosophy. It partially relies on having a Templar follower for the Inspire bonus (as well as Heal/Loyalty/Charge). My choices and brief reasoning are below:
Prep and Vengeance - obvious.
Elemental Arrow as the main hate spender /w Crimson rune for the frost damage and slow.
Multishot for AoE and runed for discipline generation,
Cluster Arrow for the fire damage in "nuke" situations.
Caltrops with Obsidian seemed to be the best choice, as the other runes seem a bit lacklustre... Carved Stakes could be useful if the build proved a bit too discipline hungry...
Vault or Smoke Screen for Utility, I went with Vault because of the lower Discipline cost; though I would question its usefulness in more confined areas...
Cull the Weak fits in well with Elem Arrow and Caltrops, I'm thinking most enemies should be slowed most of the time.
I went with Perfectionist to reduce Discipline nomming, though Night Stalker could be a better choice, depending on numerous factors.
Just added to the front post as well. It was something I came up with after taking a look at someone with the same concept. His had generators though. I really like this option of using Breathe Deep instead of Preparation. There are some interesting things you can change with it. For example the companion is only there for an extra little bit of damage and nothing more. It can be switched for Rapid Fire because with Preparation Rapid Fire may be viable enough to work over a longer period of time than the other build I posted (change the rune on the companion and you are talking about some serious hatred gen over that time).
The rune on Prep is debatable. The point of Prep was to allow Smoke Screen to be used in a bind and if you are in a bind you might be needing the health as well. Other than that Prep can be used with other runes like onyx since onyx will provide probably the best total bonus for what this build needs.
Fan of Knives is an okay option as well instead of the Companion, but with Elemental Arrow having a reliable slow that option is really personal preference. Personally I will most likely stick with either the Companion or Explosive Shot (with the healing yellow? rune).
21 Discipline for 175 hatred seems a lot better than 15 Discipline for 60 hatred.
Also, why not go with more passive hatred regen and lower cost spells.
The point was that you can get 240 hatred when using Prep in conjunction with Smoke Screen (you can cast 4 not including the probability that you will have + discipline weapons). Adding in the Companion's hatred regen that is more than enough to use Rapid Fire much longer than you could sustain it with a Prep + Vengeance + Companion build. Still I stress that Rapid Fire should not be used unless you are in this exact situation and in all other cases should not be used with these builds.
If you did not notice I did take "lower cost spells" actually the build only uses the lowest hatred spender in the kit, Elemental Arrow. Multi Shot is there because it returns discipline. This can allow better regen AND a quick escape with Smoke Screen. Because Multi Shot works so well with this build in the first place you can use some higher cost AOE's for sticky situations like FoK or Rain of Vengeance. I don't see why I should try to make it 'more efficient' when I have already done so.
On the note of passive regen. I did the math for it in the first post. I try to keep it updated so people can see the exact numbers. When doing for the math for just the Companion the build I purposed will not work. It seems by the way these mechanics were designed you need to have at least 2 forms of hatred returns going at once in order to sustain it and one of them HAS to be preperation.
Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Looking at the numbers at a glance Preparation by itself is not enough. From the math it is nearly impossible to achieve a build that will sustain itself. This is not even considering weapon speed. The Companion and Vengeance builds are nice because they are both passive means of regen. The only difference in the two is what do you want to sacrifice a passive or a skill slot. Smoke Screen is the most efficient of the group but it is also paired with interesting options ie you can use Prep with a different rune or use the Companion and not have Prep be so important.
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I wanted to make something with a variety of damage to give fairly consistent dps against all mobs, rather than doing boatloads against one sort of mob and next to nothing against others. I also wanted to address mobility and control issues whilst sticking with the "no hatred generators" philosophy. It partially relies on having a Templar follower for the Inspire bonus (as well as Heal/Loyalty/Charge). My choices and brief reasoning are below:
Prep and Vengeance - obvious.
Elemental Arrow as the main hate spender /w Crimson rune for the frost damage and slow.
Multishot for AoE and runed for discipline generation,
Cluster Arrow for the fire damage in "nuke" situations.
Caltrops with Obsidian seemed to be the best choice, as the other runes seem a bit lacklustre... Carved Stakes could be useful if the build proved a bit too discipline hungry...
Vault or Smoke Screen for Utility, I went with Vault because of the lower Discipline cost; though I would question its usefulness in more confined areas...
Cull the Weak fits in well with Elem Arrow and Caltrops, I'm thinking most enemies should be slowed most of the time.
I went with Perfectionist to reduce Discipline nomming, though Night Stalker could be a better choice, depending on numerous factors.
Thoughts?
Sorry for not getting yo this post sooner. Did not see it when I was reading over. I would say you should caution using things like Vault and Caltrops. Only because you are dedicating most of your discipline into hatred generation already. I would say you only really need one of those to get by. Personally you probably don't need the Caltrops if you are already slowing using Elemental Arrow. In all honesty if you had something else to generate hatred passively, like the Companion, I would say go ahead and use both but sadly that limits your offence to only 2 spells.
The idea of using Perfectionist never really occurred to me. 20% does not seem like much (1-4 discipline in most cases). Night Stalker might be better but it does say 'chance to restore 1 discipline' If you wanted to go that route, and I feel it is probably better regen anyway, change Cull the Weak to Sharpshooter. You will get much more synergy from these two passives than what you have now.
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Hah, it only took you 9 minutes to reply! I'm the slow one
I do see your points, certainly my build is quite Discipline intensive. It's difficult to weigh things up because I've not been in the beta or spent a lot of time looking for information on things like how effective frost arrow is or the exact working of Night Stalker. My reasoning for going ahead with both Caltrops and Vault was that in later difficulties you're probably going to have to make choices between dps and survival, I really doubt you can just out dps everything in Inferno and rely on limited escape/control... Of course that's just speculation.
With regards to Perfectionist/Cull the Weak vs Night Stalker/Sharpshooter, I think this really depends on exact numbers, Perfectionist/CtW probably provides slightly less Discipline but more damage, whereas NS/S is probably the opposite - more discipline, less damage. Factoring Multishot in, the crit bonus is probably never going to go above 3% if you're hitting a reasonable number of mobs; which reduces the value of the synergy between NS and Sharpshooter. Personally I think I'll stick with my inital choice or change to CtW/NS unless more evidence comes to light - that being said I could end up eating my words
P.S. I hadn't realised you were taking Companion for the extra hatred regen - I'll re-read the thread since it was a few days ago that I first did.
P.P.S. I just thought also, that Sharpshooter is probably great in the opening few seconds of a "pull", lets say Sharpshooter has been ticking over for 5 seconds or so (15% crit bonus), pop Prep, throw down Caltrops, then unleash a crit boosted Multishot - since the crit bonus last a second after a crit then all mobs should take a critical from Multishot... That could be a lot of Discipline from NS...
Hah, it only took you 9 minutes to reply! I'm the slow one
I do see your points, certainly my build is quite Discipline intensive. It's difficult to weigh things up because I've not been in the beta or spent a lot of time looking for information on things like how effective frost arrow is or the exact working of Night Stalker. My reasoning for going ahead with both Caltrops and Vault was that in later difficulties you're probably going to have to make choices between dps and survival, I really doubt you can just out dps everything in Inferno and rely on limited escape/control... Of course that's just speculation.
With regards to Perfectionist/Cull the Weak vs Night Stalker/Sharpshooter, I think this really depends on exact numbers, Perfectionist/CtW probably provides slightly less Discipline but more damage, whereas NS/S is probably the opposite - more discipline, less damage. Factoring Multishot in, the crit bonus is probably never going to go above 3% if you're hitting a reasonable number of mobs; which reduces the value of the synergy between NS and Sharpshooter. Personally I think I'll stick with my inital choice or change to CtW/NS unless more evidence comes to light - that being said I could end up eating my words
P.S. I hadn't realised you were taking Companion for the extra hatred regen - I'll re-read the thread since it was a few days ago that I first did.
P.P.S. I just thought also, that Sharpshooter is probably great in the opening few seconds of a "pull", lets say Sharpshooter has been ticking over for 5 seconds or so (15% crit bonus), pop Prep, throw down Caltrops, then unleash a crit boosted Multishot - since the crit bonus last a second after a crit then all mobs should take a critical from Multishot... That could be a lot of Discipline from NS...
Well on the note of sharpshooter. You get one stack per second until you crit. Remember though you keep the buff for that one second meaning even after you crit you still hold the bonus for at least one more strike. With a build like this with a slow attack speed and lack of things like Rapid Fire I can see this buff scaling quite nicely over time. Still it is kinda up in the air though since we really don't know any of the numbers for any of these higher end strategics.
Also in the vein of the Caltrops/Vault. I feel many of the spells like this that use discipline will boil down to two things. Attack speed and personal preference. Faster attack speeds will use more hatred and in essence will use more discipline in order to generate the hatred necessarily. Thus you have less discipline to use on attacks. Also it is up to personal preference. If you think slows are enough maybe Vault is not necessary to make the build work. Some of the choices on these builds are personal preference honestly. The main parts that are key though are Prep and Elemental arrow. Without them the build does not sustain properly.
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Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Shadow power is also an ability that can increase hatred gen.
Also, I cannot see trying to do a build w/o hatred generators and not taking vengeance. Its just way too good.
Shadow Power + Bat + Natural Regen could potentially fun Rapid fire near indefinetely. Especially with a slower wpn.
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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!
Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Shadow power is also an ability that can increase hatred gen.
Also, I cannot see trying to do a build w/o hatred generators and not taking vengeance. Its just way too good.
Shadow Power + Bat + Natural Regen could potentially fun Rapid fire near indefinetely. Especially with a slower wpn.
Shadow Power is a double edged sword. It also increases the rate at which you use hatred. The amount you gain does not out weigh the higher spending during the time it is active. Shadow Power is the least efficient option.
Also the Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen is in no way able to fund Rapid Fire. It can not even sustain firing the most efficient spell Elemental Arrow. Remember Rapid Fire has an extremely fast attack speed modifier. Even if it only spends 10 per shot you fire almost 2.3+ times a second if not more. Compared to Elemental Arrow going 1.4 a sec using a bow and you get the picture. Rapid Fire is the last spell you ever want to use.
On top of that Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen generates less hatred than a vengeance/prep + anything else build + natural regen. You mention needing vengeance because it is 'too good' this is only because you NEED to spend your discipline on Prep and it generates an extra 50 hatred per pop.
Bottom line if you want to go generator less you CAN NOT use Shadow Power OR Rapid FIre. You dedicate too much discipline into Shadow Power to justify the damage (especially when you run out of hatred) and than you have none left for Preparation. Rapid Fire's modifier is just too high and it costs too much.
You did state that Vengeance is too good and this is also not true. With a combination of Breathe Deep and the Companion and Preparation (with a rune other than the one to regen hatred) you will have way more than enough discipline to fuel the hatred costs of everything without having to rely on Vengeance. Remember the only reason why it is good in the first place was because Preparation is made much better by it.
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Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Shadow power is also an ability that can increase hatred gen.
Also, I cannot see trying to do a build w/o hatred generators and not taking vengeance. Its just way too good.
Shadow Power + Bat + Natural Regen could potentially fun Rapid fire near indefinetely. Especially with a slower wpn.
Shadow Power is a double edged sword. It also increases the rate at which you use hatred. The amount you gain does not out weigh the higher spending during the time it is active. Shadow Power is the least efficient option.
Also the Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen is in no way able to fund Rapid Fire. It can not even sustain firing the most efficient spell Elemental Arrow. Remember Rapid Fire has an extremely fast attack speed modifier. Even if it only spends 10 per shot you fire almost 2.3+ times a second if not more. Compared to Elemental Arrow going 1.4 a sec using a bow and you get the picture. Rapid Fire is the last spell you ever want to use.
On top of that Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen generates less hatred than a vengeance/prep + anything else build + natural regen. You mention needing vengeance because it is 'too good' this is only because you NEED to spend your discipline on Prep and it generates an extra 50 hatred per pop.
Bottom line if you want to go generator less you CAN NOT use Shadow Power OR Rapid FIre. You dedicate too much discipline into Shadow Power to justify the damage (especially when you run out of hatred) and than you have none left for Preparation. Rapid Fire's modifier is just too high and it costs too much.
You did state that Vengeance is too good and this is also not true. With a combination of Breathe Deep and the Companion and Preparation (with a rune other than the one to regen hatred) you will have way more than enough discipline to fuel the hatred costs of everything without having to rely on Vengeance. Remember the only reason why it is good in the first place was because Preparation is made much better by it.
On the beta with 2 fast xbows I could sustain Rapid fire for a considerable amount of time(The full duration of shadow power) and thats w/o the other 2 sources of hatred regen. This was when Rapid fire said it increased your attack speed 6x and I was under the effect of shadow power as well.
This isn't WoW, its not about sustained dps over a 5 minute fight. There are also other sources of discipline you are neglecting. The starting amount of resources you have is not irrelevant, not even close.... In fact, I would wager its the largerst portion of your dmg.
Vengeance is quite good especially if you go crimson Prep...
+50 Hatred at start of every fight.
+50 Hatred every time you use prep
+10 Hatred & +1 Disc when you run across health globes.
You would be a fool to use it w/o imo.
PS: I dont particularly see the point in generatorless builds myself... Seems like you go through a lot of trouble picking up a bunch of medicore disc skills just to stop from picking up one generator. But some people like to be special snowflakes I guess.
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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!
Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Shadow power is also an ability that can increase hatred gen.
Also, I cannot see trying to do a build w/o hatred generators and not taking vengeance. Its just way too good.
Shadow Power + Bat + Natural Regen could potentially fun Rapid fire near indefinetely. Especially with a slower wpn.
Shadow Power is a double edged sword. It also increases the rate at which you use hatred. The amount you gain does not out weigh the higher spending during the time it is active. Shadow Power is the least efficient option.
Also the Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen is in no way able to fund Rapid Fire. It can not even sustain firing the most efficient spell Elemental Arrow. Remember Rapid Fire has an extremely fast attack speed modifier. Even if it only spends 10 per shot you fire almost 2.3+ times a second if not more. Compared to Elemental Arrow going 1.4 a sec using a bow and you get the picture. Rapid Fire is the last spell you ever want to use.
On top of that Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen generates less hatred than a vengeance/prep + anything else build + natural regen. You mention needing vengeance because it is 'too good' this is only because you NEED to spend your discipline on Prep and it generates an extra 50 hatred per pop.
Bottom line if you want to go generator less you CAN NOT use Shadow Power OR Rapid FIre. You dedicate too much discipline into Shadow Power to justify the damage (especially when you run out of hatred) and than you have none left for Preparation. Rapid Fire's modifier is just too high and it costs too much.
You did state that Vengeance is too good and this is also not true. With a combination of Breathe Deep and the Companion and Preparation (with a rune other than the one to regen hatred) you will have way more than enough discipline to fuel the hatred costs of everything without having to rely on Vengeance. Remember the only reason why it is good in the first place was because Preparation is made much better by it.
On the beta with 2 fast xbows I could sustain Rapid fire for a considerable amount of time(The full duration of shadow power) and thats w/o the other 2 sources of hatred regen. This was when Rapid fire said it increased your attack speed 6x and I was under the effect of shadow power as well.
This isn't WoW, its not about sustained dps over a 5 minute fight. There are also other sources of discipline you are neglecting. The starting amount of resources you have is not irrelevant, not even close.... In fact, I would wager its the largerst portion of your dmg.
Vengeance is quite good especially if you go crimson Prep...
+50 Hatred at start of every fight.
+50 Hatred every time you use prep
+10 Hatred & +1 Disc when you run across health globes.
You would be a fool to use it w/o imo.
PS: I dont particularly see the point in generatorless builds myself... Seems like you go through a lot of trouble picking up a bunch of medicore disc skills just to stop from picking up one generator. But some people like to be special snowflakes I guess.
Game would be too easy if everyone took the easy way out. I also never even said Vengeance was bad in any way. I was just saying there were other options. If you actually took the time to read the first post you would have noticed that I said that the most powerful option right now is to get Vengeance and Prep together. You have the highest return in Hatred you can get out of any of the combos. Also if you noticed everyone seems to take 2 Hatred generators. To make a sustainable build all you have to do is put on a passive and Prep. That leaves an extra skill slot at the sake of sacrificing a passive. All in all it really does not seem to be that much of a 'special snowflake' since it is only a small change in how you play to get almost the same results.
Also I think you are forgetting that Shadow Power is not as powerful when combined with Rapid Fire as when it is done with Impale. This is only because of the multiplicative nature of attack speed. In all honesty I was not intending to max dps because at the start I knew that attacks like Impale and Rapid Fire will not work with the build past the first 40~ sec of a fight. It seems that on the beta right now fights are very trivial but the game gets harder, fights will get tougher and longer. I understand this is not WoW but this is a Blizzard title. You can not go into a boss and expect a fight to go fast unless you have l337 gear and I feel we will be in for some long fights as time goes on.
Remember the DPS is not as stellar up front but when the other DH have to switch to low damage hatred generators you can keep firing away with high damage spenders. At the end of the day they do almost the same damage.
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I will give you an example of what I am talking about.
You don't want to use Hatred Generators, so what do you do?
Well you get Breath Deep of course to give you the 60 Hatred. Well then you need some way to keep disc up to spam that, so what now? Well you pickup multi-shot of course. You then spend the hatred you gained on multi-shot in hopes to restore your discipline in order to do smoke screen again. And its just one big circle jerk.
So in the end you are going to be spending a good portion of your time spamming multi-shot, which really doesnt even hit for much more than a hatred generator anyways, and wasting globals on a bunch of disc spells that don't even do dmg. Thats my problem with the idea anyways.
Ohh yah,
You need to check out the Templars lvl 20 abilities. Inspire yields 1 hatred per second and 1 discipline per second.
A passive called Night Stalker (Fast atks = lots of crits), though it doesnt say the chance yet.
And a passive called perfectionist.
2h xbows are only 1.1 attacks per second.
Natural Regen + Companion + Shadow Power + Inspire(Templar) = 11.5 Hatred per second, and Rapid fire only costs 10 per cast. Rapid Fire used to say it shoots 6x faster for like 38% wpn dmg if I recall. Now the tooltip has just been simplified. It doesnt actually consume Hatred 6x faster, thats mainly just graphics.
Inspire brings our passive discipine regen to 2 discipline per second. With Perfectionist, our passive regen completely pays for shadow power, which in turn leaves our entire discipline bubble for Hatred gen abilities.
Lets say with a big 2h Xbow I shoot 1.5x per second, thats 15 Hatred per second.
15 Hps - 11.5 Hps = 3.5 Hps
You could fire RF for 44 seconds before finally running out. And if you threw in some smoke screens or Preps from time to time you would never run out.
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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!
I will give you an example of what I am talking about.
You don't want to use Hatred Generators, so what do you do?
Well you get Breath Deep of course to give you the 60 Hatred. Well then you need some way to keep disc up to spam that, so what now? Well you pickup multi-shot of course. You then spend the hatred you gained on multi-shot in hopes to restore your discipline in order to do smoke screen again. And its just one big circle jerk.
Never picked up Multi Shot in order to get discipline back. You don't even need it back as fast as Multi can generate. If you remember what I said before you can be on the attack at the cost of 1 smokescreen every 15 sec an ANY case with the build not a Multi Shot spam. In essence you are spending less time circle jerking than you would by using a generator build.
So in the end you are going to be spending a good portion of your time spamming multi-shot, which really doesnt even hit for much more than a hatred generator anyways, and wasting globals on a bunch of disc spells that don't even do dmg. Thats my problem with the idea anyways.
Like I said Multi was for AOE, if you bothered to read the posts I have made before just jumping to conclusions about how it was built you would have known that I was not trying to sit around and spam that to get discipline.
Ohh yah,
You need to check out the Templars lvl 20 abilities. Inspire yields 1 hatred per second and 1 discipline per second.
Once again if you read my previous post I said the numbers were made to be either in multiplayer or self sustained. The point is that you do not have to change anything in order to go solo or with a friend.
Natural Regen + Companion + Shadow Power + Inspire(Templar) = 11.5 Hatred per second, and Rapid fire only costs 10 per cast. Rapid Fire used to say it shoots 6x faster for like 38% wpn dmg if I recall. Now the tooltip has just been simplified. It doesnt actually consume Hatred 6x faster, thats mainly just graphics.
Good point I had to check for myself by logging into the beta but it does use hatred just as fast as Elemental Arrow. The part that is the most interesting it that it use about 5 hatred per shot because it scales the hatred usage against your attack speed to make it as if you were firing at 10 hatred per attack speed. Between the tool tip and the way it was implemented I thought it used hatred much faster. Thanks for the catch.
Inspire brings our passive discipine regen to 2 discipline per second. With Perfectionist, our passive regen completely pays for shadow power, which in turn leaves our entire discipline bubble for Hatred gen abilities.
Good point however I think it will be changed because that is a quite over powered passive for DH in particular at the moment. We should find out soon whether the next patch changes anything or not.
You could fire RF for 44 seconds before finally running out. And if you threw in some smoke screens or Preps from time to time you would never run out.
Edit2: Your very last line. Why would you Prep? If you want to use Shadow Power you might want to have hatred first. If you are talking about Prep to get back hatred that is all nice and good but that clashes against Shadow Power. They seem to be mutually exclusive because of the cost and the situation that you would use them. Same can be said for Smoke Screen and Shadow Power unless the Screen was put up right before Power was used, which would probably be the only time where this really works well.
I don't like the running out part. Although I have to thank you for making me take a second look on Rapid Fire and how it can work with this build, seriously thanks, I still feel Shadow Power, for all that it is good for, is bad for this type of build. By its nature you will spend more to do more damage but than you run dry and do no damage. The point of the build was to not run out after 44 sec and than go faff about while your team is fighting. I do like Shadow Power as a CD but in a build that already is using its discipline to fuel its hatred you will run into too many situations where you are missing that vital "oh shit" button. That is what skills like Smoke Screen/Vault/Caltrops/etc are for. That is also why I feel that something like Smoke Screen should be taken over the Companion. It will give you a more well rounded build.
You say before that "this is not like WoW" and yet here you treat it as a "lets be cool guyz and max my dps like those guys at Elitest Jerks". Surviving is what will win the day in this game at higher levels. Putting out more dps with Shadow Power is nice but when you die because you didn't have Smoke Screen or some slow or Vault don't come crying to me. The very reason why I decided to put the Smoke Screen build on in the first place was to give people a much more survivable option than the first. It was in no way to say I am doing the best dps ever and you will love me for it. No amount of min-maxing will show you how powerful surviving those extra few seconds could potentially be.
Edit: and in the morning I will most likely change the builds on the front page to implement Rapid Fire because I like it over Elemental Arrow in some cases. Also I was planning on adding parts of some of these post to the front post as well to clear up confusions and clearify things that have already been stated and overlooked about each build.
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Just wondering what the big deal is with not using the Templar, can you not use it if you're partied with 3 friends or something? Or in a solo situation does Templar convert the game to 2-player difficulty? Even if either of these is true I think this is very much a solo-ish build, for a group situation I think it's reasonable to assume that you'd be looking into stuff that supports your group more... I quickly threw this together as a high-damage support build...
I don't think there's too much point in getting too math-y at this point given that a skill/runes update is right around the corner. The fact that we're having this discussion makes me feel that Blizzard have done a good job with balancing abilities and runes to make choices interesting! Hopefully the "polishing" will pretty much remove any standard cookie-cutters (though there will ALWAYS be a cookie-cutter build, if all builds were equal damage/surv then it would come down to what was easiest/most fun to play).
I think the cases where you choose Rapid Fire over Elemental in this sort of build will be limited, you'll be sacrificing the control (as well as the frost damage) of Elem Arrow, which would need to be covered by something like caltrops.
Going back to my build I'm going to loosely look at Discipline usage...
With Perfectionist, Vault will cost 8D, Caltrops will cost 6.4D and Prep will cost 16.8D. With base D regen + Templar regen then you can vault every 4 secs OR Caltrops every 3.2 secs OR Prep every 8.5 secs. Factoring in Multishot regen, I think it's reasonable to assume that you will use it at least 3 times per Prep (that's 45H) which would provide the D for Prep, leaving passive regen for Vault/Caltrops. Given that Caltrops should be being used most out of those two and that it lasts 6 seconds, every time you use it, you will generate a "spare" ~6D (towards Vault or other emergencies)... I don't think this is too bad at all really.
Just wondering what the big deal is with not using the Templar, can you not use it if you're partied with 3 friends or something? Or in a solo situation does Templar convert the game to 2-player difficulty? Even if either of these is true I think this is very much a solo-ish build, for a group situation I think it's reasonable to assume that you'd be looking into stuff that supports your group more... I quickly threw this together as a high-damage support build...
As I said before it was not a big deal to not use the Templar. The main focus was to allow the player to have the option of not using a yellow generator skill regardless of who they were with. Also why not make a solo-ish build? I have found myself many times alone in a dungeon because someone went the wrong way or left before everything was killed. That is the main focus of being able to survive. If you have played the beta you would know that Elemental Arrow is currently the best dps option aside from the hatred eating Impale for any situation that involves 2 or more targets that are close. This build can put out much more damage than you give it credit for.
I hate grenades as they are right now, and they are most likely going to get nerfed seeing as they generate an absurd amount of hatred given the passive and rune combo. I already build a build close to that one than scraped it after using grenades in game.
I don't think there's too much point in getting too math-y at this point given that a skill/runes update is right around the corner. The fact that we're having this discussion makes me feel that Blizzard have done a good job with balancing abilities and runes to make choices interesting! Hopefully the "polishing" will pretty much remove any standard cookie-cutters (though there will ALWAYS be a cookie-cutter build, if all builds were equal damage/surv then it would come down to what was easiest/most fun to play).
That is the main reason why I typically don't respond to posters using math. The game is still changing so it is very hard to get a grapple on exactly what will happen with some abilities that right now seem over powered. The reason I did the math in the first place was to prove initially that you can do a build like this and still have a working DH. In no way was my intent to create a cookiecutter build. I even stated a few times that you have choices with the build and there are a number of ways to make it work and a number of abilities that synergise very nicely with it.
I think the cases where you choose Rapid Fire over Elemental in this sort of build will be limited, you'll be sacrificing the control (as well as the frost damage) of Elem Arrow, which would need to be covered by something like caltrops.
Rapid Fire was proven in another topic to be worse than Impale unless it is channeled for a decent amount of time, 5sec if I remember correctly. Regardless they are both single target focused attacks and are both very powerful for what they do. I stated in my last post that I was sorry for not realized the numbers for Rapid Fire do allow it to be used on the builds I had purposed. This being said some changes can be made to allow for a more single target oriented build.
However Elemental Arrow is currently the top damage spell because of its ability to pierce targets. Any DH trying to focus at keeping a long range on a target should keep Elemental Arrow as their mainstay AOE only because Multi Shot only really works well when you are in close quarters. FoK is a good option but it is much more range limited than Multi and has a CD so it is not spamable.
You really should not compare a single target spell to an AOE only because a good build should have both. Like I said before I am sorry for not realizing that Rapid Fire can be sustained on these builds but it should be used in conjunction with an AOE like Elemental Arrow/FoK/Multi.
Going back to my build I'm going to loosely look at Discipline usage...
With Perfectionist, Vault will cost 8D, Caltrops will cost 6.4D and Prep will cost 16.8D. With base D regen + Templar regen then you can vault every 4 secs OR Caltrops every 3.2 secs OR Prep every 8.5 secs. Factoring in Multishot regen, I think it's reasonable to assume that you will use it at least 3 times per Prep (that's 45H) which would provide the D for Prep, leaving passive regen for Vault/Caltrops. Given that Caltrops should be being used most out of those two and that it lasts 6 seconds, every time you use it, you will generate a "spare" ~6D (towards Vault or other emergencies)... I don't think this is too bad at all really.
Thoughts?
Personally I don't like Gernades as I said before. They don't seem to be all too accurate and almost buggy at times. Where is your Prep? Caltrops? Perfectionist? The build you linked is not matching your math at all. Unless I am seeing things can you clarify what build you are talking about?
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I said earlier that I don't have access to the beta; I wish I did! Hence why I'm not being overly specific with things, I'm just throwing stuff out and letting people who have the beta (like you) pick it apart, likewise I'm doing my best to find flaws in stuff you posted - as is the basis of a reasonable argument (note I'm not being argumentative for the sake of arguing )
The point of the build I posted last (with grenades etc) was just to demonstrate how a build can be much more supportive of your group - I wasn't saying the style of build we were discussing lacks dps, I just feel it's important to assess weaknesses. The reason I made the build like that was indeed OP hatred gen, splash damage and support - it's not particularly important though.
It seems we agree wholeheartedly on the math/incoming changes issue.
With regard to Rapid Fire, I was just pointing out that you were losing the slow effect of Elemental Arrow - I refered to the frost damage because it diversifies the damage output better which I *think* will be important when mobs start to get higher % resistances, typically DH seems to have a lot of physical or fire damage.
I see exactly what you mean now with the build. Personally I like this one. Cluster arrow does have a substantial cost though. I greatly suggest switching to Rapid Fire only because if you accidently double tap Cluster you will run out of hatred way to fast. Than again that is just a personal Preference of mine. Cluster is a very good attack looking at the numbers So I can see where spending it all at the start than popping Prep can be very powerful.
I said earlier that I don't have access to the beta; I wish I did! Hence why I'm not being overly specific with things, I'm just throwing stuff out and letting people who have the beta (like you) pick it apart, likewise I'm doing my best to find flaws in stuff you posted - as is the basis of a reasonable argument (note I'm not being argumentative for the sake of arguing )
It's okay. It just seems some people in here are trying to do just that and justify their builds even if they really do not work. I will gladly give feedback on builds and attacks. That's why I made the post in the first place. If I was lucky to get into the beta I want to share my knowledge with the rest of the community.
The point of the build I posted last (with grenades etc) was just to demonstrate how a build can be much more supportive of your group - I wasn't saying the style of build we were discussing lacks dps, I just feel it's important to assess weaknesses. The reason I made the build like that was indeed OP hatred gen, splash damage and support - it's not particularly important though.
Well it was not that it was a bad build or anything but it was rather confusing the way it was thrown in. I was also not really expecting a more 'standard' build to be posted into a topic about yellowless builds. Even so you have a good point that I greatly stress from time to time in the forums. Building around what your team's weakness is a huge part of the game. This is also why I have quite a few options and builds. I was not saying you needed to play exactly like what I posted. they were suggestions and ways to go about getting the intended results.
It seems we agree wholeheartedly on the math/incoming changes issue.
With regard to Rapid Fire, I was just pointing out that you were losing the slow effect of Elemental Arrow - I refered to the frost damage because it diversifies the damage output better which I *think* will be important when mobs start to get higher % resistances, typically DH seems to have a lot of physical or fire damage.
Well yes I see what you mean but I can also see the opposite. If something is weak to frost Ele arrow is much better. The damage itself for most attacks seems to be split among different resistances and physical/non. I was just saying in a more general case one is single target oriented and the other AOE thus they should be used in conjunction on a build.
And yes the math will change sometime before the weekend. :x
Question can I put your Caltrop build up? The one you linked earlier. Even if it has Cluster Arrow it is a good example of a build using Caltrops and I feel that it would be nice to have it on the front page for people to take a look at.
@Everyone, I changed the first post. It is updated with information that we have talked about in the thread along with some other personal things I have been testing in the beta to see how well it would work. There are many more build options. Skill descriptions and advice on runes for them.
@jaclashflash, I tried my best to get Shadow Power to work. Your math is a little flawed but you make some good points. The main problem with a build using Shadow Power is having to worry much more heavily about attack speeds and your current hatred level than with any other build. I strongly suggest to not use this build because of this but the numbers point to it working as long as you weave Prep and SP back and forth. The main issue here is that you than lose all your passives to hatred regen instead of damage. This loss may not outweigh the damage buff you get when under the effects of SP. For these two reasons I stress this move is probably the hardest one to use correctly and it may not even work at all since its damage output may be very substandard.
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Yeah of course you can post it, feel free to suggest alternate choices too
Thanks. If you were to chose something else for Cluster Arrow what would it be. I only ask this because if I post it I would like to suggest to change that move and I would like to hear your input before I post since I do not like to put words in peoples mouths. Especially when I give them credit for something.
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Hm, I'd probably have to go with Rapid Fire with Blue (Poison + Pierce) or Yellow (Reduced Initial H cost/Fire damage). Maybe mention that Night Stalker instead of Perfectionist might be better? Feel free to add your own comments/opinion to it!
Okay cool. I will post the build up in a few minutes. On the notion of Night Stalker vs Perfectionist. This really comes down to how often you crit. I have a feeling on a build that uses a combination of Sharpshooter and Rapid Fire together you might be able to get a high enough crit chance to really see a powerful synergy. The problem is the proc rate. Because there is no way of telling the exact amount I would err with Perfectionist only because a base 20% is easier to do the math with. I have a feeling it will boil down to crit chance on your gear. Getting x amount of crit would make Night Stalker better but anything less than that makes Perfectionist better. For now I would say stick with Perfectionist just because we know the numbers for sure.
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Howdy Ive been following both your DH and Monk threads for awhile now. Just wanted to say how intriguing a no hatred gen build seems to me.
I wanted to know why the change from RoV to FoK? I know that FoK gives you another option to apply slows (prep veng build), but i dont intend on letting mobs get that close to me, 18 yards seems kind of close dont you think especially if you use the Prep + Vengeance build in Inferno? Would RoV with Golden rune be a better option to keep mobs away or is the high hatred cost just not reliable as an oh shit kind of ability?
At least with your smokescreen build, loving this build, you have 2 slows to keep mobs away plus smokescreen as a panic button.
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http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#kPVSbd!bcU!ZZZacY
I wanted to make something with a variety of damage to give fairly consistent dps against all mobs, rather than doing boatloads against one sort of mob and next to nothing against others. I also wanted to address mobility and control issues whilst sticking with the "no hatred generators" philosophy. It partially relies on having a Templar follower for the Inspire bonus (as well as Heal/Loyalty/Charge). My choices and brief reasoning are below:
Prep and Vengeance - obvious.
Elemental Arrow as the main hate spender /w Crimson rune for the frost damage and slow.
Multishot for AoE and runed for discipline generation,
Cluster Arrow for the fire damage in "nuke" situations.
Caltrops with Obsidian seemed to be the best choice, as the other runes seem a bit lacklustre... Carved Stakes could be useful if the build proved a bit too discipline hungry...
Vault or Smoke Screen for Utility, I went with Vault because of the lower Discipline cost; though I would question its usefulness in more confined areas...
Cull the Weak fits in well with Elem Arrow and Caltrops, I'm thinking most enemies should be slowed most of the time.
I went with Perfectionist to reduce Discipline nomming, though Night Stalker could be a better choice, depending on numerous factors.
Thoughts?
The point was that you can get 240 hatred when using Prep in conjunction with Smoke Screen (you can cast 4 not including the probability that you will have + discipline weapons). Adding in the Companion's hatred regen that is more than enough to use Rapid Fire much longer than you could sustain it with a Prep + Vengeance + Companion build. Still I stress that Rapid Fire should not be used unless you are in this exact situation and in all other cases should not be used with these builds.
If you did not notice I did take "lower cost spells" actually the build only uses the lowest hatred spender in the kit, Elemental Arrow. Multi Shot is there because it returns discipline. This can allow better regen AND a quick escape with Smoke Screen. Because Multi Shot works so well with this build in the first place you can use some higher cost AOE's for sticky situations like FoK or Rain of Vengeance. I don't see why I should try to make it 'more efficient' when I have already done so.
On the note of passive regen. I did the math for it in the first post. I try to keep it updated so people can see the exact numbers. When doing for the math for just the Companion the build I purposed will not work. It seems by the way these mechanics were designed you need to have at least 2 forms of hatred returns going at once in order to sustain it and one of them HAS to be preperation.
Smoke Screen 80 over 20 sec (but has added bonus of stealth)
Companion 50 over 20 sec (but it is passive)
Preparation 125 over 20 sec (necessary for build)
Preparation + Vengeance 175 over 20 sec (Another passive option, note it is almost the same regen as the companion)
Looking at the numbers at a glance Preparation by itself is not enough. From the math it is nearly impossible to achieve a build that will sustain itself. This is not even considering weapon speed. The Companion and Vengeance builds are nice because they are both passive means of regen. The only difference in the two is what do you want to sacrifice a passive or a skill slot. Smoke Screen is the most efficient of the group but it is also paired with interesting options ie you can use Prep with a different rune or use the Companion and not have Prep be so important.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
The idea of using Perfectionist never really occurred to me. 20% does not seem like much (1-4 discipline in most cases). Night Stalker might be better but it does say 'chance to restore 1 discipline' If you wanted to go that route, and I feel it is probably better regen anyway, change Cull the Weak to Sharpshooter. You will get much more synergy from these two passives than what you have now.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
I do see your points, certainly my build is quite Discipline intensive. It's difficult to weigh things up because I've not been in the beta or spent a lot of time looking for information on things like how effective frost arrow is or the exact working of Night Stalker. My reasoning for going ahead with both Caltrops and Vault was that in later difficulties you're probably going to have to make choices between dps and survival, I really doubt you can just out dps everything in Inferno and rely on limited escape/control... Of course that's just speculation.
With regards to Perfectionist/Cull the Weak vs Night Stalker/Sharpshooter, I think this really depends on exact numbers, Perfectionist/CtW probably provides slightly less Discipline but more damage, whereas NS/S is probably the opposite - more discipline, less damage. Factoring Multishot in, the crit bonus is probably never going to go above 3% if you're hitting a reasonable number of mobs; which reduces the value of the synergy between NS and Sharpshooter. Personally I think I'll stick with my inital choice or change to CtW/NS unless more evidence comes to light - that being said I could end up eating my words
P.S. I hadn't realised you were taking Companion for the extra hatred regen - I'll re-read the thread since it was a few days ago that I first did.
P.P.S. I just thought also, that Sharpshooter is probably great in the opening few seconds of a "pull", lets say Sharpshooter has been ticking over for 5 seconds or so (15% crit bonus), pop Prep, throw down Caltrops, then unleash a crit boosted Multishot - since the crit bonus last a second after a crit then all mobs should take a critical from Multishot... That could be a lot of Discipline from NS...
Well on the note of sharpshooter. You get one stack per second until you crit. Remember though you keep the buff for that one second meaning even after you crit you still hold the bonus for at least one more strike. With a build like this with a slow attack speed and lack of things like Rapid Fire I can see this buff scaling quite nicely over time. Still it is kinda up in the air though since we really don't know any of the numbers for any of these higher end strategics.
Also in the vein of the Caltrops/Vault. I feel many of the spells like this that use discipline will boil down to two things. Attack speed and personal preference. Faster attack speeds will use more hatred and in essence will use more discipline in order to generate the hatred necessarily. Thus you have less discipline to use on attacks. Also it is up to personal preference. If you think slows are enough maybe Vault is not necessary to make the build work. Some of the choices on these builds are personal preference honestly. The main parts that are key though are Prep and Elemental arrow. Without them the build does not sustain properly.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Shadow power is also an ability that can increase hatred gen.
Also, I cannot see trying to do a build w/o hatred generators and not taking vengeance. Its just way too good.
Shadow Power + Bat + Natural Regen could potentially fun Rapid fire near indefinetely. Especially with a slower wpn.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Shadow Power is a double edged sword. It also increases the rate at which you use hatred. The amount you gain does not out weigh the higher spending during the time it is active. Shadow Power is the least efficient option.
Also the Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen is in no way able to fund Rapid Fire. It can not even sustain firing the most efficient spell Elemental Arrow. Remember Rapid Fire has an extremely fast attack speed modifier. Even if it only spends 10 per shot you fire almost 2.3+ times a second if not more. Compared to Elemental Arrow going 1.4 a sec using a bow and you get the picture. Rapid Fire is the last spell you ever want to use.
On top of that Shadow Power + Companion + natural regen generates less hatred than a vengeance/prep + anything else build + natural regen. You mention needing vengeance because it is 'too good' this is only because you NEED to spend your discipline on Prep and it generates an extra 50 hatred per pop.
Bottom line if you want to go generator less you CAN NOT use Shadow Power OR Rapid FIre. You dedicate too much discipline into Shadow Power to justify the damage (especially when you run out of hatred) and than you have none left for Preparation. Rapid Fire's modifier is just too high and it costs too much.
You did state that Vengeance is too good and this is also not true. With a combination of Breathe Deep and the Companion and Preparation (with a rune other than the one to regen hatred) you will have way more than enough discipline to fuel the hatred costs of everything without having to rely on Vengeance. Remember the only reason why it is good in the first place was because Preparation is made much better by it.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
On the beta with 2 fast xbows I could sustain Rapid fire for a considerable amount of time(The full duration of shadow power) and thats w/o the other 2 sources of hatred regen. This was when Rapid fire said it increased your attack speed 6x and I was under the effect of shadow power as well.
This isn't WoW, its not about sustained dps over a 5 minute fight. There are also other sources of discipline you are neglecting. The starting amount of resources you have is not irrelevant, not even close.... In fact, I would wager its the largerst portion of your dmg.
Vengeance is quite good especially if you go crimson Prep...
+50 Hatred at start of every fight.
+50 Hatred every time you use prep
+10 Hatred & +1 Disc when you run across health globes.
You would be a fool to use it w/o imo.
PS: I dont particularly see the point in generatorless builds myself... Seems like you go through a lot of trouble picking up a bunch of medicore disc skills just to stop from picking up one generator. But some people like to be special snowflakes I guess.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Game would be too easy if everyone took the easy way out. I also never even said Vengeance was bad in any way. I was just saying there were other options. If you actually took the time to read the first post you would have noticed that I said that the most powerful option right now is to get Vengeance and Prep together. You have the highest return in Hatred you can get out of any of the combos. Also if you noticed everyone seems to take 2 Hatred generators. To make a sustainable build all you have to do is put on a passive and Prep. That leaves an extra skill slot at the sake of sacrificing a passive. All in all it really does not seem to be that much of a 'special snowflake' since it is only a small change in how you play to get almost the same results.
Also I think you are forgetting that Shadow Power is not as powerful when combined with Rapid Fire as when it is done with Impale. This is only because of the multiplicative nature of attack speed. In all honesty I was not intending to max dps because at the start I knew that attacks like Impale and Rapid Fire will not work with the build past the first 40~ sec of a fight. It seems that on the beta right now fights are very trivial but the game gets harder, fights will get tougher and longer. I understand this is not WoW but this is a Blizzard title. You can not go into a boss and expect a fight to go fast unless you have l337 gear and I feel we will be in for some long fights as time goes on.
Remember the DPS is not as stellar up front but when the other DH have to switch to low damage hatred generators you can keep firing away with high damage spenders. At the end of the day they do almost the same damage.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
You don't want to use Hatred Generators, so what do you do?
Well you get Breath Deep of course to give you the 60 Hatred. Well then you need some way to keep disc up to spam that, so what now? Well you pickup multi-shot of course. You then spend the hatred you gained on multi-shot in hopes to restore your discipline in order to do smoke screen again. And its just one big circle jerk.
So in the end you are going to be spending a good portion of your time spamming multi-shot, which really doesnt even hit for much more than a hatred generator anyways, and wasting globals on a bunch of disc spells that don't even do dmg. Thats my problem with the idea anyways.
Ohh yah,
You need to check out the Templars lvl 20 abilities. Inspire yields 1 hatred per second and 1 discipline per second.
A passive called Night Stalker (Fast atks = lots of crits), though it doesnt say the chance yet.
And a passive called perfectionist.
2h xbows are only 1.1 attacks per second.
Natural Regen + Companion + Shadow Power + Inspire(Templar) = 11.5 Hatred per second, and Rapid fire only costs 10 per cast. Rapid Fire used to say it shoots 6x faster for like 38% wpn dmg if I recall. Now the tooltip has just been simplified. It doesnt actually consume Hatred 6x faster, thats mainly just graphics.
Inspire brings our passive discipine regen to 2 discipline per second. With Perfectionist, our passive regen completely pays for shadow power, which in turn leaves our entire discipline bubble for Hatred gen abilities.
Lets say with a big 2h Xbow I shoot 1.5x per second, thats 15 Hatred per second.
15 Hps - 11.5 Hps = 3.5 Hps
Starting Hatred = 175-20 = 155
155 Hatred / 3.5 Hps = 44 seconds
You could fire RF for 44 seconds before finally running out. And if you threw in some smoke screens or Preps from time to time you would never run out.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Never picked up Multi Shot in order to get discipline back. You don't even need it back as fast as Multi can generate. If you remember what I said before you can be on the attack at the cost of 1 smokescreen every 15 sec an ANY case with the build not a Multi Shot spam. In essence you are spending less time circle jerking than you would by using a generator build.
Like I said Multi was for AOE, if you bothered to read the posts I have made before just jumping to conclusions about how it was built you would have known that I was not trying to sit around and spam that to get discipline.
Once again if you read my previous post I said the numbers were made to be either in multiplayer or self sustained. The point is that you do not have to change anything in order to go solo or with a friend.
I spoke of these already and how one could implement them into a build what is the point of stating them again.
Good point I had to check for myself by logging into the beta but it does use hatred just as fast as Elemental Arrow. The part that is the most interesting it that it use about 5 hatred per shot because it scales the hatred usage against your attack speed to make it as if you were firing at 10 hatred per attack speed. Between the tool tip and the way it was implemented I thought it used hatred much faster. Thanks for the catch.
Good point however I think it will be changed because that is a quite over powered passive for DH in particular at the moment. We should find out soon whether the next patch changes anything or not.
Edit2: Your very last line. Why would you Prep? If you want to use Shadow Power you might want to have hatred first. If you are talking about Prep to get back hatred that is all nice and good but that clashes against Shadow Power. They seem to be mutually exclusive because of the cost and the situation that you would use them. Same can be said for Smoke Screen and Shadow Power unless the Screen was put up right before Power was used, which would probably be the only time where this really works well.
I don't like the running out part. Although I have to thank you for making me take a second look on Rapid Fire and how it can work with this build, seriously thanks, I still feel Shadow Power, for all that it is good for, is bad for this type of build. By its nature you will spend more to do more damage but than you run dry and do no damage. The point of the build was to not run out after 44 sec and than go faff about while your team is fighting. I do like Shadow Power as a CD but in a build that already is using its discipline to fuel its hatred you will run into too many situations where you are missing that vital "oh shit" button. That is what skills like Smoke Screen/Vault/Caltrops/etc are for. That is also why I feel that something like Smoke Screen should be taken over the Companion. It will give you a more well rounded build.
You say before that "this is not like WoW" and yet here you treat it as a "lets be cool guyz and max my dps like those guys at Elitest Jerks". Surviving is what will win the day in this game at higher levels. Putting out more dps with Shadow Power is nice but when you die because you didn't have Smoke Screen or some slow or Vault don't come crying to me. The very reason why I decided to put the Smoke Screen build on in the first place was to give people a much more survivable option than the first. It was in no way to say I am doing the best dps ever and you will love me for it. No amount of min-maxing will show you how powerful surviving those extra few seconds could potentially be.
Edit: and in the morning I will most likely change the builds on the front page to implement Rapid Fire because I like it over Elemental Arrow in some cases. Also I was planning on adding parts of some of these post to the front post as well to clear up confusions and clearify things that have already been stated and overlooked about each build.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Just wondering what the big deal is with not using the Templar, can you not use it if you're partied with 3 friends or something? Or in a solo situation does Templar convert the game to 2-player difficulty? Even if either of these is true I think this is very much a solo-ish build, for a group situation I think it's reasonable to assume that you'd be looking into stuff that supports your group more... I quickly threw this together as a high-damage support build...
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#SfPXQj!gTc!ZbZZaa
I don't think there's too much point in getting too math-y at this point given that a skill/runes update is right around the corner. The fact that we're having this discussion makes me feel that Blizzard have done a good job with balancing abilities and runes to make choices interesting! Hopefully the "polishing" will pretty much remove any standard cookie-cutters (though there will ALWAYS be a cookie-cutter build, if all builds were equal damage/surv then it would come down to what was easiest/most fun to play).
I think the cases where you choose Rapid Fire over Elemental in this sort of build will be limited, you'll be sacrificing the control (as well as the frost damage) of Elem Arrow, which would need to be covered by something like caltrops.
Going back to my build I'm going to loosely look at Discipline usage...
With Perfectionist, Vault will cost 8D, Caltrops will cost 6.4D and Prep will cost 16.8D. With base D regen + Templar regen then you can vault every 4 secs OR Caltrops every 3.2 secs OR Prep every 8.5 secs. Factoring in Multishot regen, I think it's reasonable to assume that you will use it at least 3 times per Prep (that's 45H) which would provide the D for Prep, leaving passive regen for Vault/Caltrops. Given that Caltrops should be being used most out of those two and that it lasts 6 seconds, every time you use it, you will generate a "spare" ~6D (towards Vault or other emergencies)... I don't think this is too bad at all really.
Thoughts?
As I said before it was not a big deal to not use the Templar. The main focus was to allow the player to have the option of not using a yellow generator skill regardless of who they were with. Also why not make a solo-ish build? I have found myself many times alone in a dungeon because someone went the wrong way or left before everything was killed. That is the main focus of being able to survive. If you have played the beta you would know that Elemental Arrow is currently the best dps option aside from the hatred eating Impale for any situation that involves 2 or more targets that are close. This build can put out much more damage than you give it credit for.
I hate grenades as they are right now, and they are most likely going to get nerfed seeing as they generate an absurd amount of hatred given the passive and rune combo. I already build a build close to that one than scraped it after using grenades in game.
That is the main reason why I typically don't respond to posters using math. The game is still changing so it is very hard to get a grapple on exactly what will happen with some abilities that right now seem over powered. The reason I did the math in the first place was to prove initially that you can do a build like this and still have a working DH. In no way was my intent to create a cookiecutter build. I even stated a few times that you have choices with the build and there are a number of ways to make it work and a number of abilities that synergise very nicely with it.
Rapid Fire was proven in another topic to be worse than Impale unless it is channeled for a decent amount of time, 5sec if I remember correctly. Regardless they are both single target focused attacks and are both very powerful for what they do. I stated in my last post that I was sorry for not realized the numbers for Rapid Fire do allow it to be used on the builds I had purposed. This being said some changes can be made to allow for a more single target oriented build.
However Elemental Arrow is currently the top damage spell because of its ability to pierce targets. Any DH trying to focus at keeping a long range on a target should keep Elemental Arrow as their mainstay AOE only because Multi Shot only really works well when you are in close quarters. FoK is a good option but it is much more range limited than Multi and has a CD so it is not spamable.
You really should not compare a single target spell to an AOE only because a good build should have both. Like I said before I am sorry for not realizing that Rapid Fire can be sustained on these builds but it should be used in conjunction with an AOE like Elemental Arrow/FoK/Multi.
Personally I don't like Gernades as I said before. They don't seem to be all too accurate and almost buggy at times. Where is your Prep? Caltrops? Perfectionist? The build you linked is not matching your math at all. Unless I am seeing things can you clarify what build you are talking about?
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Sorry had to fix that table.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#kPVSbd!bcU!ZZZacY
Sorry for not making it clear
I said earlier that I don't have access to the beta; I wish I did! Hence why I'm not being overly specific with things, I'm just throwing stuff out and letting people who have the beta (like you) pick it apart, likewise I'm doing my best to find flaws in stuff you posted - as is the basis of a reasonable argument (note I'm not being argumentative for the sake of arguing )
The point of the build I posted last (with grenades etc) was just to demonstrate how a build can be much more supportive of your group - I wasn't saying the style of build we were discussing lacks dps, I just feel it's important to assess weaknesses. The reason I made the build like that was indeed OP hatred gen, splash damage and support - it's not particularly important though.
It seems we agree wholeheartedly on the math/incoming changes issue.
With regard to Rapid Fire, I was just pointing out that you were losing the slow effect of Elemental Arrow - I refered to the frost damage because it diversifies the damage output better which I *think* will be important when mobs start to get higher % resistances, typically DH seems to have a lot of physical or fire damage.
I see exactly what you mean now with the build. Personally I like this one. Cluster arrow does have a substantial cost though. I greatly suggest switching to Rapid Fire only because if you accidently double tap Cluster you will run out of hatred way to fast. Than again that is just a personal Preference of mine. Cluster is a very good attack looking at the numbers So I can see where spending it all at the start than popping Prep can be very powerful.
It's okay. It just seems some people in here are trying to do just that and justify their builds even if they really do not work. I will gladly give feedback on builds and attacks. That's why I made the post in the first place. If I was lucky to get into the beta I want to share my knowledge with the rest of the community.
Well it was not that it was a bad build or anything but it was rather confusing the way it was thrown in. I was also not really expecting a more 'standard' build to be posted into a topic about yellowless builds. Even so you have a good point that I greatly stress from time to time in the forums. Building around what your team's weakness is a huge part of the game. This is also why I have quite a few options and builds. I was not saying you needed to play exactly like what I posted. they were suggestions and ways to go about getting the intended results.
Well yes I see what you mean but I can also see the opposite. If something is weak to frost Ele arrow is much better. The damage itself for most attacks seems to be split among different resistances and physical/non. I was just saying in a more general case one is single target oriented and the other AOE thus they should be used in conjunction on a build.
And yes the math will change sometime before the weekend. :x
Question can I put your Caltrop build up? The one you linked earlier. Even if it has Cluster Arrow it is a good example of a build using Caltrops and I feel that it would be nice to have it on the front page for people to take a look at.
@Everyone, I changed the first post. It is updated with information that we have talked about in the thread along with some other personal things I have been testing in the beta to see how well it would work. There are many more build options. Skill descriptions and advice on runes for them.
@jaclashflash, I tried my best to get Shadow Power to work. Your math is a little flawed but you make some good points. The main problem with a build using Shadow Power is having to worry much more heavily about attack speeds and your current hatred level than with any other build. I strongly suggest to not use this build because of this but the numbers point to it working as long as you weave Prep and SP back and forth. The main issue here is that you than lose all your passives to hatred regen instead of damage. This loss may not outweigh the damage buff you get when under the effects of SP. For these two reasons I stress this move is probably the hardest one to use correctly and it may not even work at all since its damage output may be very substandard.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Thanks. If you were to chose something else for Cluster Arrow what would it be. I only ask this because if I post it I would like to suggest to change that move and I would like to hear your input before I post since I do not like to put words in peoples mouths. Especially when I give them credit for something.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
h-o-p-e-s.net
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Sorry had to fix that table.
I wanted to know why the change from RoV to FoK? I know that FoK gives you another option to apply slows (prep veng build), but i dont intend on letting mobs get that close to me, 18 yards seems kind of close dont you think especially if you use the Prep + Vengeance build in Inferno? Would RoV with Golden rune be a better option to keep mobs away or is the high hatred cost just not reliable as an oh shit kind of ability?
At least with your smokescreen build, loving this build, you have 2 slows to keep mobs away plus smokescreen as a panic button.