Nether tentacles are strong. Theyare the highest single target and aoe target damage. People use hungering arrow with nether tentacles thinking "kill them before they kill you", using hungering because it is the highest damage (spam) hatred generator.
Nether tentacles hits slow targets more times, potentially. If you don't believe me, try using NT on shire flowers, and then use NT on shire flowers under a 80% caltrops snare.
Cull of the weak is amazing paired with entangling shot. Given the two points above, these skills have amazing synergy with Nether Tentacles. If you have high attack speed, high crit, or both, you've realized how little sharpshooter does for you. You're geared now, sharpshooter was great when you had 5% crit chance using a slow 2h crossbow, but those days, thankfully, are over. So gain 15% static damage with COTW, or gain an extra smokescreen with night stalker (if you have 38 max disc). If there are two targets, entangling hits for double normal damage anyways, *always* guaranteed, also out damaging hungering, especially since it buffs it's own damage (second shot+ beyond) by 15% damage.
Gain damage, gain a snare, why aren't we doing this? No further explanation needed.
"Nearly" every rune for entangling is viable:
Chain Gang: aoe intense areas (less viable)
Shock Collar: Recently buffed (stealth buff? pretty sure) to 58% weapon damage per second, for two seconds. If you pop one every two seconds it does optimal damage and keeps COTW buffed for NT. It's not really for spamming, but still great damage.
Heavy Burden: Once you have huge damage, this is potentially the best option because you can kill things before running out of hatred is an issue, meaning more time spamming nether tentacle and fewer applications of entangling shot.
Justice is Served: Benefits you more the faster you attack. It's very viable for me, since I use a bow and have a ton of attack speed.
Bounty hunter: Not yet viable. Would need more gear, but I don't think it's even close to worth it vs the other options right now.
Anyone else noticed this? Any problems with what I'm saying? Let me know whatcha think.
This is more geared towards geared demon hunters, who like myself have enough crit/attack speed that sharpshooter is pretty much irrelevent, and those who not only have high damage, but are building a survivability set and don't like dying in one hit from random spears etc.
I am currently rolling with listed stats:
92k dps
23.5% crit
96% crit damage
45k hp
400-600 resist all
2500 armor
I am still sporting a beckon sail and boj anglers, and have far from perfect gear in other slots, though most of my gear is still pretty sick, to be honest. Ultimately I plan to replace my dinky, full out attack speed+dex items with high armor, high resist all, high dex, etc, and obviously everything can still improve beyond that.
Ill only touch the sharpshooter part of the post. Sharpshooter is greatly overrated and it devaluate stats because i seealot of DH only look at their upgrades with ss on. This is a very bad way to go about upgrades as this is not your real damage. Im currently sitting at 98k dps without sharpshooter, i cannot see a difference with it on or off, when i kill an elite pack or a boss. I simply took perfectonism instead. I have 49% crit chance sitting on my trap. I kill non extra health pack (even the one with reflect damage) In the duration of 2 smokes screen, unless they are shielded or invul minions. People gearing only for SS in mind are not doing it correctly, any fight that is longer then 1 second, makes sharpshooter a wasted point unless you can crit for over a 500k damage( so the elites die in that one sec). Fact is with 98k dps and 49% crit i crit more then a guy with 200k dps with sharpshooter and i produce more dps on things that matters.
Short: SS is a wasted slot in good gear, i crit so many times per second(hell more then that in aoe or huge bosses hit box) that theres no way it stacks to anything meaningful ever. It just stays at 0 permanently. Except at the very start of a fight if i stopped to kill.
I'll try to adress the 2 main points of this post.
1) SS. I take it. Then again, I am far from the OP's stats. I have 46k dps w/o SS, 114 with. In my case it makes perfect sense to roll with it.
2) Entangling is GREAT. I used to run with caltrops because I found the use of a snare invaluable in certain situations. Instead, I replaced caltrops with the bat companion effectively making ele arrow the attack I go to 90% of the time. Entangling now serves as my snare for those tight situations with fast mobs or when I allow a mob to get too close. Sure, it's damage is pretty low but the projectile speed is still faster than ele arrow so it can be nice to finish off a target. I run with the 4s snare rune.
The other problem with caltrops is that it depletes our all important discipline, which is almost always better spent on smoke screen, and the way demon hunters work, even if you have decent tank gear for now (I should know), is that you still kill them before they kill you, but it doesn't hurt to gain *free* damage, *free* snares, and *free* stuns, basically. Bats have a cooldown, but they cost nothing and buy time inbetween disc regen, prep cooldown etc, making them *an* ideal skill for a smoke screen build.
I mean you can drop it before a fight like redhood once you have that high damage, and turret and not die often, but it's not the road I'm walking right now. Maybe once I can actually tank everything, I'll trade bats for 10% crit chance caltrops or mortal enemy mark.
Prep and smokescreen seem too good to get rid of, even post-nerf to this day, though ultimately I bet anything people will be running bat companion, bait the trap caltrops, mortal enemy mark, with gloom shadow power to farm as quickly and efficiently as possible, but I don't think that day is here just yet, we'll have to see post 1.03.
Though once you have enough damage you can just time some NT's within your smokescreens and kill reflect damage without dying anyways, so long as you're in a solo game and they don't have ridiculous amounts of HP.
Still good point. Life on hit also useful affix to have more and more these days, as well as life steal, though lifesteal benefits even more from aoe attacks such as NT in most case scenarios.
When you do, run with stun. It lasts a lot longer than the tooltip would have people think, as you probably already know. It launches 8 bats, about one per second, and ends up stunning an area for about 8-10 seconds, and works on bosses unlike stampede (IIRC?, I used to use it at first but don't remember it having any effect on bosses) and nearly all, if not all, elites. It is VERY strong.
When you do, run with stun. It lasts a lot longer than the tooltip would have people think, as you probably already know. It launches 8 bats, about one per second, and ends up stunning an area for about 8-10 seconds, and works on bosses unlike stampede (IIRC?, I used to use it at first but don't remember it having any effect on bosses) and nearly all, if not all, elites. It is VERY strong.
I used to be require to have it for diablo inferno fight in order to kill my clone. It stopped being a problem eventually Because i kill my clone during smoke screen. Its a very good ability to have in group since theres many clones though. Solo nowdays i farm using claptrop bait the trap, marked for death mortal enemy, prep and smoke screen. I do most of my second heart to azmodan run in 15-20 minutes without a death (can happen still, phasebeast/ invul/ minion fast/reflect damage lol.)
Diablo runs are simply not useful, as he is a much longer boss and getting 5 stacks is much longer in act 4 as elites are so spread out. Lootmodan and cyaeda or what ever her name is. They are perfect boss for DH farm, mark for death, sit on your claptrop and see them vanish in 15 seconds, ok was more like 30-40 seconds before i got really geared.
I still dont feel safe enough without smoke screen and prep just yet. But i think it will come soon enough and i might drop prep for bat and ss for shadow power gloom. Hell it might be more efficient as soon as next patch depending on how big the damage nerf really is. If i still get 80% of my hp taken away by a simple blood clan spearman, smoke screen still gona be mendatory.
Nether tentacles are strong. Theyare the highest single target and aoe target damage. People use hungering arrow with nether tentacles thinking "kill them before they kill you", using hungering because it is the highest damage (spam) hatred generator.
Nether tentacles hits slow targets more times, potentially. If you don't believe me, try using NT on shire flowers, and then use NT on shire flowers under a 80% caltrops snare.
Cull of the weak is amazing paired with entangling shot. Given the two points above, these skills have amazing synergy with Nether Tentacles. If you have high attack speed, high crit, or both, you've realized how little sharpshooter does for you. You're geared now, sharpshooter was great when you had 5% crit chance using a slow 2h crossbow, but those days, thankfully, are over. So gain 15% static damage with COTW, or gain an extra smokescreen with night stalker (if you have 38 max disc). If there are two targets, entangling hits for double normal damage anyways, *always* guaranteed, also out damaging hungering, especially since it buffs it's own damage (second shot+ beyond) by 15% damage.
Gain damage, gain a snare, why aren't we doing this? No further explanation needed.
"Nearly" every rune for entangling is viable:
Chain Gang: aoe intense areas (less viable)
Shock Collar: Recently buffed (stealth buff? pretty sure) to 58% weapon damage per second, for two seconds. If you pop one every two seconds it does optimal damage and keeps COTW buffed for NT. It's not really for spamming, but still great damage.
Heavy Burden: Once you have huge damage, this is potentially the best option because you can kill things before running out of hatred is an issue, meaning more time spamming nether tentacle and fewer applications of entangling shot.
Justice is Served: Benefits you more the faster you attack. It's very viable for me, since I use a bow and have a ton of attack speed.
Bounty hunter: Not yet viable. Would need more gear, but I don't think it's even close to worth it vs the other options right now.
Anyone else noticed this? Any problems with what I'm saying? Let me know whatcha think.
This is more geared towards geared demon hunters, who like myself have enough crit/attack speed that sharpshooter is pretty much irrelevent, and those who not only have high damage, but are building a survivability set and don't like dying in one hit from random spears etc.
I am currently rolling with listed stats:
92k dps
23.5% crit
96% crit damage
45k hp
400-600 resist all
2500 armor
I am still sporting a beckon sail and boj anglers, and have far from perfect gear in other slots, though most of my gear is still pretty sick, to be honest. Ultimately I plan to replace my dinky, full out attack speed+dex items with high armor, high resist all, high dex, etc, and obviously everything can still improve beyond that.
I had liked evasive fire while leveling to 60, but the damage kind of fell off in the early day of inferno compared to devouring and it's seeking ability But now that I am geared, evasive fire makes clearing waves trivial. It is like a mini multi-shot, on top of that, it will shoot through wall, even the elite affixes. Which is nice because you can just spam evasive fire and hit them while they have themselves blocked off.
With elite pathing as well, you could stun them all with raining vengeance, get in a spot between the staircase and "terrain"/wall and they will stay there as they want to take a direct path to you. Not sure if exploit, but I found it handy in Act4 when kiting elites up a staircase. I just spam the heck out of them with evasive fire and pop smoke screen if they are mortaring. My only issue with evasive fire it make some boss fight suck a lot more due to them being range and draining your discipline, but its nothing you can't overcome.
Nether tentacle will always be in my toolkit except for fights like Diablo (I find impale's damage and speed great for bursting down my shadow clones). .
I've enjoyed jagged spikes for the most part in Act4, but I am really liking the baited rune. I am just doing so much more burst critting like a boss standing in the caltrope.
well bounty hunter is basically the most faceroll counter to reflect dmg elites, so it has its uses
So I won't kill myself as much if I use bounty hunter??? Anyone use this regularly for reflect dmg pacts? I may drop caltrope in favor of this. Going to miss my 10% crit chance tho.
Love the idea of getting away from Hungering and trying out different specs, however I can't justify giving up shooting offscreen to "preclear" spearmen/casters/inferno diablo shadowclones/etc... because Hungering more or less homes in on anything nearby.
That said, I'll be giving this a shot tonight in a quick Cydaea/Azmodan clear.
Shock Collar didn't get buffed, it's just a matter of your attack speed. I don't know the exact math behind it, but I believe it works like this:
Effectively, the % damage increases from a baseline depending on how fast your attack speed is. By default, it's 18% damage at 1.00 speed. With my setup at 1.68 speed, it's 29% damage. There's some oddities in the rounding, but since it's using your attack speed to calculate the damage ticks, you're actually getting in 1.68 DoT ticks per second. 18x1.68 comes out to 30.24, but like I said, there's some odd rounding going on behind the scenes here.
There's actually a fair number of abilities that work this way, with increased damage via attack speed because it causes them to tick faster than once per second.
Of course the downside here is that, to my knowledge, DoTs don't stack with each other, so if you're shooting the same target in succession you're not getting any additional damage, but you're not losing any either.
EDIT: Also if you're going to use Cull The Weak, I would highly recommend still using Caltrops, but with Jagged Spikes.
i'm a massive fan of the idea of this build. since i'm not 60 and don't have all the skills mentioned, i use..... http://us.battle.net...TdYQ!Yce!ababba
entangling shot to slow things down and impale to melt bad guys. since they're already slowed by the time impale hits em, it does the 250% dmg + 15% for slow effect to everything in a line. one or two impales will hit everything, since they're usually grouped up nicely. spider companion and caltrops make sure everything is slowed so essentially all my dmg is buffed a bit. works well for me in NM (only in my 30's obviously). but then again....i'm a noob that just likes to shoot stuff.
and the cheaper multi-shot is great for when i wanna toss arrows into the faces of a group of slowed mobs.
My gear isnt amazing since I'm only progressed about mid way through Act 2 inferno, but I can still pump out 35k dps without SS. Personally, If my math is right, once you get up around ~25-30% crit, SS' benefit diminishes DRASTICALLY. At that point, Shock Collar's damage becomes a pretty substantial portion of your dps. Also, the healing from NT and Shadow Power is just absurd. I can go from 1% back to full in a matter of seconds, I used to run Caltrops / HA, but after getting used to this build, I probably wont go back.
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Nether tentacles are strong. Theyare the highest single target and aoe target damage. People use hungering arrow with nether tentacles thinking "kill them before they kill you", using hungering because it is the highest damage (spam) hatred generator.
Nether tentacles hits slow targets more times, potentially. If you don't believe me, try using NT on shire flowers, and then use NT on shire flowers under a 80% caltrops snare.
Cull of the weak is amazing paired with entangling shot. Given the two points above, these skills have amazing synergy with Nether Tentacles. If you have high attack speed, high crit, or both, you've realized how little sharpshooter does for you. You're geared now, sharpshooter was great when you had 5% crit chance using a slow 2h crossbow, but those days, thankfully, are over. So gain 15% static damage with COTW, or gain an extra smokescreen with night stalker (if you have 38 max disc). If there are two targets, entangling hits for double normal damage anyways, *always* guaranteed, also out damaging hungering, especially since it buffs it's own damage (second shot+ beyond) by 15% damage.
Gain damage, gain a snare, why aren't we doing this? No further explanation needed.
"Nearly" every rune for entangling is viable:
Chain Gang: aoe intense areas (less viable)
Shock Collar: Recently buffed (stealth buff? pretty sure) to 58% weapon damage per second, for two seconds. If you pop one every two seconds it does optimal damage and keeps COTW buffed for NT. It's not really for spamming, but still great damage.
Heavy Burden: Once you have huge damage, this is potentially the best option because you can kill things before running out of hatred is an issue, meaning more time spamming nether tentacle and fewer applications of entangling shot.
Justice is Served: Benefits you more the faster you attack. It's very viable for me, since I use a bow and have a ton of attack speed.
Bounty hunter: Not yet viable. Would need more gear, but I don't think it's even close to worth it vs the other options right now.
Anyone else noticed this? Any problems with what I'm saying? Let me know whatcha think.
I am currently rolling with listed stats:
92k dps
23.5% crit
96% crit damage
45k hp
400-600 resist all
2500 armor
I am still sporting a beckon sail and boj anglers, and have far from perfect gear in other slots, though most of my gear is still pretty sick, to be honest. Ultimately I plan to replace my dinky, full out attack speed+dex items with high armor, high resist all, high dex, etc, and obviously everything can still improve beyond that.
Short: SS is a wasted slot in good gear, i crit so many times per second(hell more then that in aoe or huge bosses hit box) that theres no way it stacks to anything meaningful ever. It just stays at 0 permanently. Except at the very start of a fight if i stopped to kill.
The other problem with caltrops is that it depletes our all important discipline, which is almost always better spent on smoke screen, and the way demon hunters work, even if you have decent tank gear for now (I should know), is that you still kill them before they kill you, but it doesn't hurt to gain *free* damage, *free* snares, and *free* stuns, basically. Bats have a cooldown, but they cost nothing and buy time inbetween disc regen, prep cooldown etc, making them *an* ideal skill for a smoke screen build.
I mean you can drop it before a fight like redhood once you have that high damage, and turret and not die often, but it's not the road I'm walking right now. Maybe once I can actually tank everything, I'll trade bats for 10% crit chance caltrops or mortal enemy mark.
Prep and smokescreen seem too good to get rid of, even post-nerf to this day, though ultimately I bet anything people will be running bat companion, bait the trap caltrops, mortal enemy mark, with gloom shadow power to farm as quickly and efficiently as possible, but I don't think that day is here just yet, we'll have to see post 1.03.
Still good point. Life on hit also useful affix to have more and more these days, as well as life steal, though lifesteal benefits even more from aoe attacks such as NT in most case scenarios.
I used to be require to have it for diablo inferno fight in order to kill my clone. It stopped being a problem eventually Because i kill my clone during smoke screen. Its a very good ability to have in group since theres many clones though. Solo nowdays i farm using claptrop bait the trap, marked for death mortal enemy, prep and smoke screen. I do most of my second heart to azmodan run in 15-20 minutes without a death (can happen still, phasebeast/ invul/ minion fast/reflect damage lol.)
Diablo runs are simply not useful, as he is a much longer boss and getting 5 stacks is much longer in act 4 as elites are so spread out. Lootmodan and cyaeda or what ever her name is. They are perfect boss for DH farm, mark for death, sit on your claptrop and see them vanish in 15 seconds, ok was more like 30-40 seconds before i got really geared.
I still dont feel safe enough without smoke screen and prep just yet. But i think it will come soon enough and i might drop prep for bat and ss for shadow power gloom. Hell it might be more efficient as soon as next patch depending on how big the damage nerf really is. If i still get 80% of my hp taken away by a simple blood clan spearman, smoke screen still gona be mendatory.
I had liked evasive fire while leveling to 60, but the damage kind of fell off in the early day of inferno compared to devouring and it's seeking ability But now that I am geared, evasive fire makes clearing waves trivial. It is like a mini multi-shot, on top of that, it will shoot through wall, even the elite affixes. Which is nice because you can just spam evasive fire and hit them while they have themselves blocked off.
With elite pathing as well, you could stun them all with raining vengeance, get in a spot between the staircase and "terrain"/wall and they will stay there as they want to take a direct path to you. Not sure if exploit, but I found it handy in Act4 when kiting elites up a staircase. I just spam the heck out of them with evasive fire and pop smoke screen if they are mortaring. My only issue with evasive fire it make some boss fight suck a lot more due to them being range and draining your discipline, but its nothing you can't overcome.
Nether tentacle will always be in my toolkit except for fights like Diablo (I find impale's damage and speed great for bursting down my shadow clones). .
I've enjoyed jagged spikes for the most part in Act4, but I am really liking the baited rune. I am just doing so much more burst critting like a boss standing in the caltrope.
profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/vanboon-1499/hero/3962228
http://i.imgur.com/8AfIp.jpg 4/4pc natalyza dps: 73k (w/o ss), dex: 1967, health: 22k, resist: ~150, mf: 90%/261%
So I won't kill myself as much if I use bounty hunter??? Anyone use this regularly for reflect dmg pacts? I may drop caltrope in favor of this. Going to miss my 10% crit chance tho.
profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/vanboon-1499/hero/3962228
http://i.imgur.com/8AfIp.jpg 4/4pc natalyza dps: 73k (w/o ss), dex: 1967, health: 22k, resist: ~150, mf: 90%/261%
That said, I'll be giving this a shot tonight in a quick Cydaea/Azmodan clear.
Effectively, the % damage increases from a baseline depending on how fast your attack speed is. By default, it's 18% damage at 1.00 speed. With my setup at 1.68 speed, it's 29% damage. There's some oddities in the rounding, but since it's using your attack speed to calculate the damage ticks, you're actually getting in 1.68 DoT ticks per second. 18x1.68 comes out to 30.24, but like I said, there's some odd rounding going on behind the scenes here.
There's actually a fair number of abilities that work this way, with increased damage via attack speed because it causes them to tick faster than once per second.
Of course the downside here is that, to my knowledge, DoTs don't stack with each other, so if you're shooting the same target in succession you're not getting any additional damage, but you're not losing any either.
EDIT: Also if you're going to use Cull The Weak, I would highly recommend still using Caltrops, but with Jagged Spikes.
http://us.battle.net...TdYQ!Yce!ababba
entangling shot to slow things down and impale to melt bad guys. since they're already slowed by the time impale hits em, it does the 250% dmg + 15% for slow effect to everything in a line. one or two impales will hit everything, since they're usually grouped up nicely. spider companion and caltrops make sure everything is slowed so essentially all my dmg is buffed a bit. works well for me in NM (only in my 30's obviously). but then again....i'm a noob that just likes to shoot stuff.
and the cheaper multi-shot is great for when i wanna toss arrows into the faces of a group of slowed mobs.
Definitely trying tonight and going to play around with entangling.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#bRXgVj!Yec!ZcZYcY
My gear isnt amazing since I'm only progressed about mid way through Act 2 inferno, but I can still pump out 35k dps without SS. Personally, If my math is right, once you get up around ~25-30% crit, SS' benefit diminishes DRASTICALLY. At that point, Shock Collar's damage becomes a pretty substantial portion of your dps. Also, the healing from NT and Shadow Power is just absurd. I can go from 1% back to full in a matter of seconds, I used to run Caltrops / HA, but after getting used to this build, I probably wont go back.