Hungering Arrow in Patch 2.3. (Full guide and set preview)
As many of you know, I’ve been pushing Hungering Arrow as a skill for the past few patches. With this guide I hope to fully bring up to speed anyone who is unfamiliar, and go into extensive detail with the build and the possibly variations in patch 2.3
This builds history trails back to the first announcement of the Unhallowed Essence set. Allowing our hatred generators to be buffed by such a huge percent made me curious. Is there a primary skill we can use to deal out some significant damage with this new set? After some basic research, I discovered Hungering Arrow, Devouring Arrow. What this states is that after each consecutive pierce, the damage is increased by 70%. With that, the build was born.
In patch 2.3, we are given the option to select legendary passives without them being assigned to the build. A significant flaw to the build in patch 2.2 is that our Buriza Do-Kyanon, an essential weapon for the build, could not roll discipline as a secondary affix. With the implementation of the Kanai’s Cube we no longer have to utilize the Buriza as our primary weapon, allowing a lot more build potential and versatility.
Lets talk about Hungering Arrow for a second. As it is a primary skill, there are certain gearings that can be focused on it to buff our damage. Depth Diggers, Simplicity's Strength and Hunters Wrath are the three we capitalize on with this build to increase our damage output. Between Depth Diggers and Simplicity’s Strength, we can get 150% Hungering Arrow damage with a level 50 gem. Hunters Wrath simply increases the damage we deal and the speed we shoot, an auto include for the legendary passive alone.
Lets break down the gear slots and options.
Rings: Unfortunately, we only have one option. Focus and Restraint are simply much too strong to be contested by any other build options.
Weapon and Quiver slots: For our weapon, I would recommend an ancient 2 handed crossbow. Any crossbow with discipline, a socket and high base damage will do. Ideally, we want 10% damage, high base damage, a socket, and area damage, but more on that later. For our quiver, the only option we have is the Ninth Cirri Satchel. It can upgrade our chance to pierce from 35% to 60%, which is crucial. I did experimentation with an ancient Etrayu, and to my disappointment, it both underperformed a crossbow and removed the secondary primary slot for our crossbow, which is much better put to use in some other slot.
Boots: Hell Walkers are the only viable boots for this build.
Legs: My version of this build uses Depth Diggers, however there is another version of the build. It is summarized below.
Belt: The best slot for this build is Witching Hour.
Gloves: Fiendish Grips are the only viable gloves for this build.
Chest: Cage of the Hellborn is the only viable chestpiece for this build.
Bracers: Wraps of Clarity is the only viable bracers for this build.
Helm: Accursed Visage is the only viable helm for this build.
Amulet: This slot is the most versatile. Most amulets, as long as they have crit chance and crit damage will be viable. Specific notes for amulets would be the Mara’s Kaleidoscope, Hellfire Amulet and Talisman of Aranoch. Mara’s provides poison resist, one of the strongest immunity amulets in the game. Hellfire Amulet provides an additional passive, which is an incredibly powerful damage upgrade for the Demon Hunter. The Talisman provides cold resistance, which allows us to relax around reflect damage packs, a significant issue for this build. Reflect damage can 1-shot us with a singular arrow, due to the high amount of damage reflected from Hunger Arrow. In essence however, find the amulet that best suits your playstyle and addresses your personal frustrations or weaknesses.
Cube slots: For our weapon passive, the Buriza Do-Kyanon is our only option. For armor, I use Hunters Wrath, and for ring I use the RoRG. With the RoRG it allows us to equip the Depth Diggers.
Stat focus for our gear pieces.
Wherever we can get it, crit chance, crit damage and dexterity are important. We can get Hungering Arrow damage on our pants, belt and quiver, see that we maximize that. Discipline can be found on our chest, quiver and crossbow. I would prioritize this above all else.
A core issue with this build is multi-target damage. We cover one end of that with our Buriza, allowing our arrows to pierce twice more into additional targets, maintaining our crazy damage bonus, but that isn’t enough. In order to solve this problem, I highly recommend putting an emphasis on area damage. It is easy to acquire on our gloves and shoulders, putting us to 90% with paragon. If possible, I recommend getting 24% on our crossbow, 20% on each ring, and 20% on our quiver. If you somehow manage to get perfect rolls on each slot, that puts our area damage to 174%. What that means is that if you shoot one arrow at an elite pack, imagine a blue pack, and they are all clustered together (quite common with blue elites). The first hit does ~500m, the second ~1.6b, the third 2.4~ and the fourth 3.1~ (fourth is statistically unlikely, and I rarely see in game). If we get an area damage proc on the second and fourth hit, one mob takes ~4.7 billion, and the other two each take ~8 billion each. This is absolutely destructive for one singular shot. Imagine firing this kind of damage output at two shots per second. Obviously this is in an ideal scenario, but it gives you a general example of the damage output this build is capable of. With someone clumping mobs, like the new monks, it is not difficult to abuse area damage to its fullest extent.
Legendary Gems: I personally use Bane of the Trapped, Iceblink, and the aforementioned Simplicity’s Strength. I have not tested other gems, as these appear on the surface to be the strongest gems. I highly recommend testing further options, specifically the new seasonal only gem Bane of the Stricken.
Skills for this build:
Hungering Arrow: Devouring Arrow.
This a pretty logical conclusion.
Multishot: Burst Fire.
We need a spender, and I like using a cold skill that slows an entire group of mobs for crowd control purposes. This slot can be used on ANY spender that will proc our Focus/Restraint buff. Cluster Arrow: Dazzling Arrow is an alternative, which allows for some interesting timings to prevent rift boss triggers. I’ve used this skill to stunlock the Crusader King before he can summon skeletons. For the most part, this is a versatile skill, as long as it spends hatred, we want it.
Preparation: Invigoration.
This gives us 15 additional discipline, or a 225% damage bonus at all times. Essential.
These three skills are the most optional. Personally, I like using:
Vault: Tumble.
Companion: Wolf Companion.
Marked for Death: Contagion.
However feel free to modify or adjust to properly suit your own playstyle.
Passive Skills:
I would highly recommend Awareness, Cull the Weak and Steady Aim. Personally, I like Single Out as my final passive, but Archery and Ambush are also options. Another option to suit your playstyle.
Alternate version of this build.
What I outlined above is my personal version of the build. However after a fantastic conversation with user VMT8, they offered an alternative to my version.
By changing the Depth Diggers to the cube, equipping a Hunters Wrath, and running base UH6, we can equip a Convention of the Elements in our cube. Taking this idea, we can imagine a version of the build taking advantage of Multishot to a greater level.
Giving up slots on our Boots and Helm to equip multishot damage, converting area damage to reduced resource cost, switching our crossbow to a Yang’s Recurve, and switching Multishot to the Arsenal rune, we can essentially spend our hatred on our fire cycle of convention, dealing solid group damage, and still utilize the cold section with our Hungering Arrow.
Unfortunately, by the time I became aware of this version of the build, the PTR had been taking down to wipe and patch, and with it, all my spare copies of the pieces I need for this build. Due a lack of motivation to get back on and re-acquire the gear pieces, this version remains untested. However it does seem very viable as a solution to the group damage issues that Hungering Arrow is faced with. Once again, this idea was brought to my mind by someone named VMT8, and without them, this section or idea wouldn’t exist.
Final summary:
Using my version of the build, with only 100% area damage, I was capable to soloing a 55 grift on the PTR. Unfortunately, when I pressed record, I actually stopped a previous recording, and as such, didn’t record any of the footage. I realized this when I finally got around to writing this post, so unfortunately I have no proof of this build and success. It may not be able to push to the highest of grifts, or compete with Nats, but I love playing the build, and its good to see that with enough perseverance, we can find fun builds that are a bit less “conventional” that what would normally be expected.
Link to a “perfect” version of the build in my version of it
http://ptr.d3planner.com/327603246
Please leave all questions and comments below. I check this site often and will be replying to every comment who wants a reply. Ask away about any questions you might have, I will be happy to elaborate upon gearing requirements, viability in grifts, damage numbers, and so on and so forth.
Note to blizzard:
Please give me an item that enables me to use more than one rune of Hungering Arrow. I want to use the splitting rune (THREE ARROWS INSTEAD OF ONE OH MY GOD) and the one that increases pierce chance to 50% (OH MY GOD 75% CHANCE TO PIERCE THATS CRAZY). That would be crazy fun to have arrows splitting and piercing and going all over the place. Really just make it a gear piece for all classes to allow a second or even third rune to skills. That’d be so much fun.
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