Also, willing to say that Act 4 Hell is actually more difficult than Act 1 Inferno. Lmao, true story.
I disagree, just because inferno even in act 1 has some rough champion packs if you get unlucky with the affixes, but it's definitely fair to see it's not where Inferno truly begins; it's more like Act 5 Hell.
"Each consecutive pierce increases dmg by 70%."
You have each each consecutive pierce spawns another arrow that hits for 70% dmg.
The question is whether devouring arrow increases every subsequent pierces damage by 70%, or whether it simply adds 70% of the initial 115% for each additional pierce. I'm not a mathematician or even a math major, but by my calculations that either equals ~284% or ~244%, not the 215% listed in the OP.
Xeley, you can test this on any number of mobs in the game; there is absolutely no question that Ball Lightning does significantly (in the vicinity of half, which leads me to believe that it is 1/2) damage. It compensates by generally hitting mobs twice and having a very potent AoE.
I'm amazed I didn't notice this immediately, but I fell too much in love with the skill to think about it, I think. I'm still using it until I get Nether Tentacles, actually...it's still a great AoE ability.
Pure speculation but I imagine the ~244% is closer to reality. This makes it slightly better than Puncturing for bosses, but due to some of the aforementioned drawbacks less and less good the weaker and weaker your enemies are. I think I personally still prefer Puncturing, and assuming the ~244% is correct, it seems there wont really be a right or wrong choice, just preference.
So just to clarify, you found Devouring to actually raise each subsequent hit by a factor of 1.7, as opposed to it simply adding 70%*115% weapon damage each pierce (the former gives us that ~284% figure, the latter would give us ~244%)? You aren't just assuming this, but actually tested it, correct?
Well, You could try skip all the bosses in normal, and just jump straight to act 4.
Farm the levels, without killing act bosses, and then try kill them in nightmare and have a look.
I havn't tested it myself but would be funny to know if its doable
You can't progress past an act without first killing the act boss.
I believe my crits more than makes up for the 20% damage bonus on 10 yards.
The chakrams are not used for elite/rare mobs. They are only used for gangs of normal white mobs. For elites I cluster arrow and then smoke screen + entangling shot to reload my Hatred and then fire more cluster arrows. With crits above 125.000 it doesn't take long nuking a pack of elites on Inferno mode with this strategy and build.
I find that hard to believe, really. Given the wonky distances in Diablo 3 (vaulting supposedly sends you 35 yards, but it looks to be no more than 3-4 character lengths...so we're all about 25-35 feet tall? k!) 10 yards requires the mob to be basically right on top of you. I think I'd rather have an almost permanent 20% damage bonus than a couple auto crits to start off a fight, but I could be totally off on that.
I believe that it is:
Dual-Wielding xbow > One-Hand xbow + Quiver > 2-Handed + Quiver.
I would...disagree with that. A lot. My opinion, and I think the general consensus, is that Dual Wielding Xbows is actually generally the worst option, although please correct me if I'm mistaken here.
I can confirm a suspicious low damage of the ball lightning rune.
I think the frost damage rune is the real winner. The 60% slow is so potent, that you can even kite elite packs without much effort. It's nearly impossible to touch you, if you use Smoke Screen, too...
And 170% weapon damage per target is nuts. The initial projectile is very fast, so it's easy to hit the front target so that the fan of frost arrows behind the first target becomes very effective. Because of the long range of the first projectile, it's possible to hit groups of monster even from a much longer distance compared with multishot! And for just 1/4 hatred...
btw... Elemental Arrow has the same advantage as Chakram: You don't need discipline to fuel your need of hatred (via preparation), because of a very low cost of 10 hatred per shot. Smoke Screen spam, here we go!
I tried using the frost damage rune, and for whatever reason I'm just not liking it that much, at least for generalized play. It's great against elite packs, I agree, but for general AoE situations against non-elites, I just don't find the AoE potential is that fantastic. But I can totally see the use of it.
I also can't stress enough how much I agree with you about the hatred cost: I tried going back to Multishot for a bit, and even runed for a 20 hatred cost, it just seems to eat up so much hatred...it's hard to go back from Elemental Arrow once you start using it a lot.
Hello, what would you guys say be the required abilities (highest damage, survival, etc.) going into hell as a Demon Hunter? Thanks.
Going into hell the only ability I would really push on you to use is Smokescreen, as others have said. You could probably make it through hell without it, but you're going to need it for Inferno, and you're gimping yourself in hell without it...so you might as well learn to use it well right away.
Apart from that, there's a TON of viable options. I've seen people successfully use just about any generator, although my preference would be Hungering Arrow (I find Entangling Shot, once you get to hell, simply doesn't provide enough of a slow to be worth it, but that's just my preference, your results may vary). There's many different spenders you can successfully use, both single target and AoE: Impale, Multishot, Elemental Arrow, Cluster Arrow...all very effective when used correctly.
I would actually also recommend using Preparation as well; it's not necessary, but I think it's important to learn how to use it well, because you're probably going to be making use of it in Inferno.
should note that I'm an idiot and most everything I said before is wrong: somehow I never noticed that Ball Lightning only does half of the 155% each hit, IE requiring two hits to get to the full 155%. This is "duh" worthy, but it's worth noting since it appears I'm not the only dumb fella out there to be fooled.
how did u test that?
If you simply pay attention, you'll notice it immediately: hungering arrow at 115% does more damage a hit than one shot of ball lightning. Case closed that it's not 155%. You can simply do some math after that to figure out the exact percentages, and while I'll admit I haven't totally done that, it seems very close to 1/2 of what an un-runed Elemental Arrow does.
So now with some good arguments, why would i take smoke screen over vault? vault+caltreps is working fine?
Odd I was considering getting rid of caltrops.
The slow seems to do nothing, and the bind of torturous ground works ok on weak mobs, but barely seems to do anything at all to champions. And I mow down regular mobs like its nothing most of the time.
This a thousand times over. I got rid of Caltrops once I hit Hell, grabbed Smoke Screen (yes, I was an idiot who didn't realize the power of it), and will never look back. I simply got to the point where the packs that gave me trouble were slowed so little/for so little time by Caltrops that it became rather pointless.
Funny how it works with different people; I've actually switched AWAY from Entangling Shot/Chain Gang after reaching Hell, now using Hungering Arrow. I've just found that the slow, while nice, doesn't last long enough on the champion packs I run into. Any pack that's going to give me a serious run for my money tends to STILL give me a serious run for my money even with Entangling Shot. I would rather simply rely on Smoke Screens to give myself enough safety to take out mobs, and I'm actually doing quite well now with absolutely zero slows.
I should note that I'm an idiot and most everything I said before is wrong: somehow I never noticed that Ball Lightning only does half of the 155% each hit, IE requiring two hits to get to the full 155%. This is "duh" worthy, but it's worth noting since it appears I'm not the only dumb fella out there to be fooled.
That said, I still prefer it to Multishot for general AoE, simply due to the lower hatred cost...although I don't see how I'll be using it once I get Nether Tentacles, which do the full 155% and have a (slight) chance to hit twice, dealing an actual 310%. The minor heal is just gravy on top of that. Impale with Overpenetration is absolutely deadly to elite packs, though.
I am pretty sure that Kripp's party got world first Belial kill, they are currently at ACT 3 in Inferno(farming champs packs for gear required for futher progression)!!! Check out his stream(http://www.twitch.tv/nl_kripp) and/or his youtube channel(http://www.youtube.c...ser/Kripparrian)...
I just want to quote this, due to the fact that Method has now gotten two mentions on the front page here while Kripp's group has zero. I find that a little odd; even if Kripp's group isn't posting YouTube videos, their progression is still legitimate and deserves mention.
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I disagree, just because inferno even in act 1 has some rough champion packs if you get unlucky with the affixes, but it's definitely fair to see it's not where Inferno truly begins; it's more like Act 5 Hell.
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The question is whether devouring arrow increases every subsequent pierces damage by 70%, or whether it simply adds 70% of the initial 115% for each additional pierce. I'm not a mathematician or even a math major, but by my calculations that either equals ~284% or ~244%, not the 215% listed in the OP.
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I'm amazed I didn't notice this immediately, but I fell too much in love with the skill to think about it, I think. I'm still using it until I get Nether Tentacles, actually...it's still a great AoE ability.
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You can't progress past an act without first killing the act boss.
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I find that hard to believe, really. Given the wonky distances in Diablo 3 (vaulting supposedly sends you 35 yards, but it looks to be no more than 3-4 character lengths...so we're all about 25-35 feet tall? k!) 10 yards requires the mob to be basically right on top of you. I think I'd rather have an almost permanent 20% damage bonus than a couple auto crits to start off a fight, but I could be totally off on that.
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I would...disagree with that. A lot. My opinion, and I think the general consensus, is that Dual Wielding Xbows is actually generally the worst option, although please correct me if I'm mistaken here.
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I tried using the frost damage rune, and for whatever reason I'm just not liking it that much, at least for generalized play. It's great against elite packs, I agree, but for general AoE situations against non-elites, I just don't find the AoE potential is that fantastic. But I can totally see the use of it.
I also can't stress enough how much I agree with you about the hatred cost: I tried going back to Multishot for a bit, and even runed for a 20 hatred cost, it just seems to eat up so much hatred...it's hard to go back from Elemental Arrow once you start using it a lot.
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Going into hell the only ability I would really push on you to use is Smokescreen, as others have said. You could probably make it through hell without it, but you're going to need it for Inferno, and you're gimping yourself in hell without it...so you might as well learn to use it well right away.
Apart from that, there's a TON of viable options. I've seen people successfully use just about any generator, although my preference would be Hungering Arrow (I find Entangling Shot, once you get to hell, simply doesn't provide enough of a slow to be worth it, but that's just my preference, your results may vary). There's many different spenders you can successfully use, both single target and AoE: Impale, Multishot, Elemental Arrow, Cluster Arrow...all very effective when used correctly.
I would actually also recommend using Preparation as well; it's not necessary, but I think it's important to learn how to use it well, because you're probably going to be making use of it in Inferno.
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If you simply pay attention, you'll notice it immediately: hungering arrow at 115% does more damage a hit than one shot of ball lightning. Case closed that it's not 155%. You can simply do some math after that to figure out the exact percentages, and while I'll admit I haven't totally done that, it seems very close to 1/2 of what an un-runed Elemental Arrow does.
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This a thousand times over. I got rid of Caltrops once I hit Hell, grabbed Smoke Screen (yes, I was an idiot who didn't realize the power of it), and will never look back. I simply got to the point where the packs that gave me trouble were slowed so little/for so little time by Caltrops that it became rather pointless.
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That said, I still prefer it to Multishot for general AoE, simply due to the lower hatred cost...although I don't see how I'll be using it once I get Nether Tentacles, which do the full 155% and have a (slight) chance to hit twice, dealing an actual 310%. The minor heal is just gravy on top of that. Impale with Overpenetration is absolutely deadly to elite packs, though.
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I just want to quote this, due to the fact that Method has now gotten two mentions on the front page here while Kripp's group has zero. I find that a little odd; even if Kripp's group isn't posting YouTube videos, their progression is still legitimate and deserves mention.