Alteena thanks for much for writing back, your input has proven invaluable. I am learning so much, evolving my build every day and feel really good about where things stand now. I just tried out my latest build and was able to clear A2/Inferno to the point of killing Zultan Kulle.
Excellent, I'm always glad to hear people succeeding and having fun. Regarding Hungering, I'd say if you're using Sharpshooter it's going to be enough, but that's likely something you'll have to feel out. Typically, on stuff that matters (read: elite packs), I'm firing off 2x Clusters back to back, and by the time my Hungering Arrow would reach them, that SS crit bonus has reset to 0 and hasn't started stacking yet. What is your non-shooter crit chance at the moment? If it's 15%+ I'd wager you likely have enough if you keep SS up. You figure if you're stutter-stepping and firing Hungering, SS would add 9-12% before one crits and resets again. I didn't switch this rune out until I had enough crit that I dropped SS altogether and I'm just guessing based from experience, so I'd play with it on easier content and see which rune feels stronger.
I agree with what you say about Cluster + LFB and that's why I use it as well. Not sure if you played WoW, but with the cheaper Elemental Arrow as a Hatred spender, I constantly felt like a Rogue that was Energy capped, wasting damage potential.
I have been using the same rune with Smokescreen for the same reasons, I occasionally take the +movement rune on it, because I never take Tactical Advantage.
As mentioned above, unlike a Barb, none of our generators require a target to work. Simply firing the arrow, or tossing the grenade generates the Hatred.
I'm going to give Prep + Focused Mind a try right after I write this. I've been using Backup Plan, as on the harder affixes, an entire extra globe of Discipline is irreplaceable. I've heard a lot of talk about Focused Mind though, and I have no doubt that used preemptively and getting every point of Discipline for it, would make it a solid contender with Backup Plan. There's some relatively simple napkin math that would give you the potential Discipline earned with each, over say 100 uses, but it's hard to account for the wasted Disc of hitting Prep with 10 Disc still in the tank. I'll let you know how it feels for me then.
Like I said before, I haven't used RoV in a very long time as I just don't really feel like I have the room for it in most of my builds. I'll make a point to play around with it again this evening though. The biggest problem I have with it are mobs with the Fast affix, mobs in wide open spaces, or fast mobs in wide open spaces, haha. I just find that I only get a knockback, maybe 2 off, before I've kited ouside of the area of effect. It also seems to cause mobs that burrow / leap / teleport to simply do so, and have my cooldown wasted.
Now to bring up a few newer things I've been playing around with.
Fan of Knives + Hail of Knives. Shortly after the IAS nerf, I saw a DH streaming, where he was using Cluster + LFB and FoK. He was built completely for burst DPS. The entire point, or "rotation" of his build revolved around these 2 skills, and having an innately high crit chance (he was at 41% or something). With a 125 Hatred pool, and no passives to reduce the resource cost of Cluster, 2x shots leave you with 25 Hatred + a few from the 2 secs of regen. He would find a group, fire both of his Cluster Arrows while running toward the group, hit Smokescreen and then FoK when he got close, and moved out. This led to an insane amount of burst (FoK hits a little harder than the initial Cluster blast), and provided a slow to get him away safely. Since I picked up some higher crit chance, I've been playing around with FoK in this fashion lately and have been getting great results from it. The Hail of Knives rune allow me to get an entire pack without actually getting into melee range. Do note however, that you will generally lose the "Steady Aim" passive bonus in order to get close enough to hit FoK, so the damage ends up being about on par with the 290% from Cluster. Since mobs are often moving out of the secondary grenades from Cluster, this skill often functions as a Cluster Arrow for half of the cost. It's relatively short cooldown means that, for me, I generally fit it in every other "rotation." When I say rotation, I mean every other time I have 100+ Hatred. I generally open with Cluster x 2, FoK, then kite while stutter-stepping Hungering 'til I have 100 Hatred. Fire off Cluster x 2 again, and resume kiting. The next time I have 100-125 Hatred, I can put FoK at the end again. I've also found it great when little things, like burrowing leapers, or lacuni warriors leap behind me, to hit as I'm running away. Oftentimes it kills the stuff outright, and I didn't need to run at all. With a low crit chance/damage, it's probably not as viable, But right now, having something that often crits for 220k every 10 seconds to an entire elite pack has proven a powerful tool.
As I mentioned in a previous post I've also been playing with a lot of different passives as Sharpshooter alternatives.
Tactical Advantage, while nice, is very defensive. I generally play very offensive, and try to kill things as quick as possible, before my Discipline has dried out. TA simply doesn't play in that style. It's alright with the FoK build I'm using, as it helps a little in getting away after I've used it, but generally, there's nothing left alive to run from.
Night Stalker seemed too good to be true when I saw it. My Crit chance is currently 35.5 if I recall correctly, and I've tried it for probably 4-6 hours of playtime. I crit a lot, but I just never seem to see the benefit from this passive. Perhaps coupled with the Focused Mind preparation rune, it would be a bit more noticeable, but when I really need the Discipline, I can't recall a time where I was able to fit in an entire other Smokescreen before Prepping, because of this passive. Since my current Prep rune wastes any excess Discipline under 14, I felt like I was wasting most of this passive. I'll try it again coupled with the new Prep rune and let you know how it feels.
Grenadier was a passive that I liked for quite a while, allowing me to unload 3x Cluster Arrows at the start of a fight, and a let me fire a Cluster instead of a Hungering a lot more often while kiting. For elites with lower health, but a high degree of threat (like invulnerable minions) this really shines as it allows for way more initial burst and slightly higher sustained damage over a short time. Against your more usual elite packs though, I didn't find that the little bit of initial burst was really doing much for me in the long run. I think it's a very strong rune if you're taking Cluster, it just didn't feel exceptionally strong.
Now for my favorite replacement, Cull of the Weak. Given that things are almost permanently slowed when my Scoundrel is out, I get the 15% bonus from this passive nearly all the time, making it very strong. The more damage you have, the stronger this becomes. The only downside of this passive is that it relies entirely on you having a follower (that's alive nonetheless), having a slow of your own that's up relatively often, or being in multiplay where another perpetual slow is present. This means that on bosses where my poor Scoundrel usually gets eaten alive, I don't see much uptime on this passive. For farming easier content though, I haven't found a better replacement.
Bows are alright at that DPS level, and if you don't have super-massive Crit, probably work out about as well. The higher your damage and crit chance, the more DPS you'll get from using a Crossbow instead. Additionally, you want to keep in mind that since Bows have a faster attack speed, they also do less damage per shot. This doesn't matter so much for Hungering where you're shooting off lots of shots, and the DPS will average out eventually, but you'll notice a huge difference in Cluster Arrow. For example, let's say you have a 1000 DPS bow, at the standard 1.4 attacks per second, your average shot will be around 715 per shot (715 x 1.4 = 1001). A 1000 DPS crossbow, at the standard 1.1 attacks per second, averages 910 damage per shot (910 x 1.1 = 1001). Since your Cluster Arrow is based off of weapon damage, your slower weapons will always provide higher numbers from your harder-hitting abilities. Since you can only fit 2x Cluster Arrows before you have to start generating Hatred again, Cluster doesn't see a benefit from attack speed. Crit and Crit damage, however, see insane returns. You're fine for now, but considering the current state of DHs, I'd shoot for your next purchase to be a crossbow. Also, don't underestimate the value of a socket at your DPS level either. 45-70% Crit damage, depending on available cash, is no small thing.
Happy slaying, I'm looking forward to hearing more from you.
Edit: Regarding Damage Reflect packs, I know that with NV the way it is, switching skills isn't always viable for everyone, and it's certainly not viable if you're farming, but for progression, try switching RoV: Stampede, with Shadow Power : Gloom. Start with a Cluster, which will take your health down considerably, and fire a couple of Hungering Arrows to bring your health to "low." Then hit Shadow Power: Gloom, and unload 2x Clusters. This will fill your health entirely. The 20% Life leech, coupled with 65% damage reduction far out-paces damage reflect. Then you can kite away with Hungering, chipping away at your health, hitting Shadow Power: Gloom and clusters as needed to keep your health up. Again, not a great solution when farming, but if you don't want to try to pick up a lot of LoH and don't mind losing stacks, this is the iWin button for reflect damage.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my article. You make some very good suggestions and I'd like to expand on each of them with my own thoughts and further questions that I hope you might answer.
Been away from the thread for a while, it's good to see the discussion churned around a bit.
As for alternatives to Caltrops, I like Marked for Death + Mortal Enemy for bosses, or in Multiplay where things have a lot of hitpoints, but i don't find things living long enough to really benefit too much from it while farming, or just in general play. That's the rune I use when I take the skill.
Like you, I used RoV: Stampede for quite some time, and didn't drop it until 60. The knockback on it is great, especially if you manage to fight in a tight hallway. The 30 second cooldown nearly guarantees that it's up for every elite pack, and it can be used to give yourself from room while you retreat from a larger-than-perceived horde of something, or a nasty surprise when you open a door. Again, we'd use the same rune with this skill.
As for a Hatred generator, I've used Hungering Arrow almost extensively for all the reasons you mentioned, and have tested it with several different runes. Devouring (whichever the +70% on pierce) seems to be better over a longer duration, like bosses and elite packs, but I found that the extra piercing rune provided more up front burst, and allowed quicker killing of the weaker non-elite trash. With a low crit rate, these would likely be your best bet. Once I crossed past the 30% Crit Chance threshold, I moved to the Spray of Teeth rune. The effect is guaranteed on Crit (which is often, esp. with sharpshooter), the area of effect is rather large, and the initial target takes damage from it as well. This make this rune ridiculously strong as you pick up more Crit. I have no math, just a guesstimate, but I'd say around 22-25% Crit, this rune wins out, even single-target. The seeking ability of Hungering Arrow can't be devalued either, you can often kill things from around a corner with a well-aimed Hungering shot.
In addition to Hungering, I used Evasive + Covering Fire for quite some time too. It requires a lot more situational awareness, as you don't want to bleed out your Discipline by constantly backflipping, but it hits satisfyingly hard, hits multiple targets, and generates a respectable amount of Hatred. It's been "nerfed" recently, in that it no longer fires through things like the Waller Affix, which made it great, and the animation just felt slower than Hungering for me, so I dropped it and haven't really looked back.
Regarding the Scoundrel, I happened to have some Dex + Attack speed rings left over from before the IAS nerf, so while I had a Xbow on my Scoundrel, I had IAS rings on him. Once I found a suitable Frost Damage bow (something like 190 vit that I randomly found), I swapped those rings out for dex / vit / AR rings. Simple, cheap blues will suffice though, Dex / Vit, Dex / Resist, etc. I wouldn't spend any serious coin in this department. Watch for a cheap Frost damage bow with a lot of Vit on it, and then you can get blue jewelry without Vit. Save some gold. We use the same build for the Scoundrel too, and range on his blind is absurd. He's also got a lovely habit of using blind as soon as I blast a door open, which is fantastic.
Finally, regarding the Hatred Spenders, I've currently been getting a lot of use out of Cluster Arrow + Loaded for Bear. Coupled with an innnately high Crit chance/damage, that 290% weapon damage puts out some ridiculous numbers, not to mention the grenades that are left behind. Additionally, I can often completely level lower-health Elites, or a significant portion of HP from high-health Elites with Sharpshooter + 2-3 Cluster Arrows. Fired back-to-back, both initial explosions are guaranteed to crit, and the 4 grenades from the 1st shot are guaranteed to crit. This amounts to an obscene amount of damage in a short window, and for example Shielding packs will eat all of that damage before they put their shields up. The downside, of course, is the exorbitant Hatred cost. For me, since I'm often just kiting, that's alright. I'm good with stutter-stepping with Hungering, and you can quickly fire off a Cluster at your target when Hatred allows. This lets me hit the Champion in Invuln packs with no issues (though ball lightning does this well also). My crit is at the point where I don't take sharpshooter anymore, but the on-demand, on-cursor burst I've found irreplaceable.
Ball Lightning is fine, but it doesn't feel that it has the punch I'm looking for. I haven't used it in a long time, and my gear has since improved, I'll play with it again and let you know how it feels for me.
The Hatred dump defines your build. With Bat Pet, you can almost stutter-step and fire Ball Lightning without ever having the need to start firing Hungering. With Cluster Arrow, you're spending more time on Hungering, and less time dumping that Hatred. The upside, is I don't often feel like I'm "wasting" Hatred by being capped because it's a fast minion or something, and Ball Lightning is less DPS than Hungering.
At any rate, sorry that turned into a book, that it's probably not laid out as well as it should be, and for any typos. I work overnight, and I'm pretty sleep-deprived at the moment, lol. Happy Hunting to you, I'll report back here in a couple of days as I finish experimenting with some passives. I've been playing with several replacements for Sharpshooter this past week and a half.
Yes, I made it all the way to the end, it was a well-written post.
I can see where you're coming from with almost everything, but figured I'd chime in with a couple of things.
Regarding Caltrops + Hooked Spines, it's nice in Act 1 but starting in Act 2 Inferno, you come across a much larger concentration of ranged mobs, leaping mobs, burrowing mobs, and innately fast mobs and the slow on Caltrops, in my opinion, becomes a lot less useful. Especially anything with fast affixes, I find Caltrops to be a waste of Discipline, I'd rather SS and get a screen worth of distance.
That's one of the reasons that I tend to go with Caltrops + Jagged Spikes if I'm taking Caltrops in the later acts of Inferno. That, compounded with the fact that Hooked Spines doesn't scale with your gear at all, where Jagged does. The more damage you're doing, the more damage Caltrops is doing. In addition to that, the more damage you're doing, the less time you need / benefit from something being slowed.
Additionally, there's a lot of "junk" mobs to deal with too. Tiny Spiderlings, a horde of little fallen, the tiny shadow things in Act 3 and 4, that die immediately to Caltrops + Jagged. Instead of spending 100 Hatred on Impale to hit them all, you can kill 20-30 junk mobs with 1, cheap, caltrops.
Finally, I use the Scoundrel for 2 reasons. The obvious one is 3% Crit (which persists even if he dies, I'm not sure if the 1 Hatred / sec persists through Templar death or not). The 2nd, and arguably more important reason, is for a Frost Damage Bow + his Triple Shot skill. Even without any IAS from rings / amulets, he perma-slows entire waves of trash mobs, or entire elite packs for me. Granted, the slow isn't as good as Caltrops, but it's way, way more constant. My Scoundrel has 48k HP, 160 Resist All, and not a lot of damage - BUT, he hardly ever dies, and is always keeping my kill target slowed.
Just a few thoughts for you, best of luck to you as you progress farther into Inferno.
EDIT: I don't always even take it. The slot for Caltrops is the slot that I change skills out depending on the situation. If I'm simply farming, I'll take Caltrops, but it's replaced by Marked for Death, Shadow Power: Gloom, etc based on the situation I'm in.
I've been playing around recently with a very similar wizard tank build on my budget wiz. Very very few differences, and this is a relatively solid guide. To be honest, I found that I had some survival issues until 28-30% Crit, just a little higher than what you recommend, though now I'm a lot higher than that.
The only thing I felt that I could add to all of this, is Physical Resistance. The build is such that there's a lot of choices in gear diversity (i.e. You have a 225 Vit neck, you can skip Vit on a couple of other pieces, etc). But generally, I search for Int / Res. All / Phys. Resist, and then sort by Armor. Most of my pieces have +Armor, All Resist, Phys. Resist, and Int / Vit or both. Obviously, prioritizing Crit in those slots that it's available.
I've just hit the point that I can do 99% of Act 3 with relative facerolling ease, but I say Phys. Resist is underrated, and has been working exceedingly well for me so far, and it comes relatively cheap. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
Wow must be nice. I get about 4-5 rares from that exact same run in the same amount time. Haven't seen a single elite pack drop a rare since Thursday. Only rares I get are from Warden and Butcher.
99% of the time, the only way you don't get a rare from an elite pack is if you don't have 5 stacks of NV. I often have 5 stacks before I finish the first zone. By the time I make it to Warden, there's 10+ Elite packs behind me. Bosses will drop 1 guaranteed rare @ 4 stacks now, and 2 rares @ 5 stacks.
So yeah, it's all about getting the most elite packs per hour. Bosses are secondary. I was experimenting with skipping bosses altogether, but the latest patch added guaranteeds to bosses, and it doesn't take very long so I've just been finishing the runs out.
There are some tips and tricks though. The Crypts near Cemetary, if you find an elite pack within the first half of the crypt or so (have to estimate), then immediately Town Portal, re-waypoint, and move to the next one. This is way, way quicker than running back the way you came and back outside. If you don't find an elite pack 'til near the end of the crypt, explore the rest of it - you've got an alright chance of finding a 2nd elite pack, or an event. (2 of the 3 possible crypt events drop lots of loot). Similarly, don't backtrack in the caves in Festering Woods, TP and re-waypoint. Know which caves you don't want to go into. Khazra Den, Crypts Lv 2, etc. They're just quest zones, and will be completely empty. Knowing each of these things might only save you 15-20 seconds at a time. But if you save 2 minutes per run, it adds up pretty quickly over a week into another entire bag full of rares.
Act 1 Inferno:
Start on Imprisoned Angel quest at The Cursed Hold part.
Go through Cemetery of the Fallen, Fields of Misery, Festering Woods, Southern Highlands, Northern Highlands, Halls of Agony Level 2 through to the Butcher.
Easily 15+ elite/champion packs, 2 bosses, upwards of 7-8 Resplendent Chests, usually well over 250,000 gold, done just over 90 minutes.
Essentially what I do, but it can be modified to be a lot more lucrative.
Fields of Misery - 2 Elite packs, 1-2 caves. 3-5 Elite packs and a Resplendent
Festering Woods - 2 Open Elite packs, 2 Caves. 4-5 Elite packs.
Cemetary of the Forsaken - 3 Crypts. 3-6 Elite Packs, up to 2 events / resplendents.
Leoric's Manor - 1-2 Elite packs.
Halls Lv. 2 through Butcher - 2-4 Elite Packs, and 2 bosses.
Full run through nets me a guaranteed 12 Elite packs and 2 bosses, usually 15-16 packs, and 2 resplendents. Takes 30-40 minutes depending on luck.
I skip the other zones though, they don't have much in the form of guaranteed packs. So while it *may* be lucrative to hit them up sometimes, over the course of weeks and months of farming, you come out way ahead by just hitting the 4 areas where you can pretty much grab an elite pack every 1-2 minutes.
Nets me 30-40 rares, and innumerable blues in roughly half an hour. In 3-4 hours of farming, that's hundreds of rares, and I make 2-3M easy, guaranteed. Obviously much more if I catch a high-dollar item in the mix somewhere.
Until the game is considered "stable" by Blizzard, I just assume that if's a Tuesday morning / afternoon, Diablo will be down. Downtime will be a lot less once things have settled a bit. Here's hoping, anyway.
I don't see too much Max Disc on your gear (it's just the chest, right?), so I wouldn't worry too much about dropping it. I agree with everything else the guy above you posted though, for the most part. The only exception is I value Cr Damage over IAS, I do so much kiting in Act 3+ that I hardly have time to stand still and really get the full value from the extra speed.
As far as upgrades that stick out to me, I would look for gloves that carry both Crit Chance and Crit Damage. Also, your quiver looks weak, and while the Dex is alright on it, there are Quivers with Crit Chance on them, and a lot of it, for a reasonable price. Between gloves and quiver, you can pick up another 10-12% crit chance without spending too much. Same with your Bracers, they're one of the standard slots for Crit Chance, so even if you give up some Dex, I'd find some Crit Bracers.
The only way I've managed to kill Fast + Invuln packs after patch is with Cluster Shot + Loaded for Bear, coupled with Sharpshooter. On the pull, I can land 2x Clusters, the initial blast will crit both times, and the first set of grenades from the cluster will crit as well. Unless they're a mob with an obscene amount of health, this usually puts the mob between 1/3 and 2/3 health. From there, it's kiting until I have 50+ Hatred, then stop, SS, Cluster, and keep moving. The idea is to let your high burst DPS and Crit damage kill them before you run out of SS / Prep. As mentioned before, Elemental Arrow will pass through the minions and hit the boss, and likewise with Cluster. The only downside is with Cluster you have to aim your point of impact, instead of just direction. Still easy enough for me. Late Act 3 Inf here and still going relatively strong.
But yes, as previously mentioned, Caltrops does (almost) nothing to Fast mobs, and Invuln minions will almost always trigger traps instead of the yellow guy, so I'd stick with Cluster or Elemental. For me, Elemental requires more time shooting and less time kiting, where Cluster means dumping 100 Hatred in less than 2 secs, and then moving again.
You could get more than that. 25%'s go for 5-6 on the AH without any of the great stats, Phys resist, Vit, Socket, Life %, etc. 29% with GF should net you closer to 7-8.
Well, I only read the first 2 pages of complaining, and I skipped the rest of it.
Before I begin, I'd like to state that I play both a Barb and a DH, both progressing through Act 3 Inferno at the moment. I haven't taken a Hardcore toon to Inferno yet, though I played a lot of HC back in D2, and all of this is merely my opinions and conjecture. TLDR is at the bottom.
Firstly, not all of the gold farming spots were broken, seems to me the only real hotfixed nerf were the pots, which while lucrative, were probably the most mind-numbing method to farming gold in the game. I personally feel this was simply a method that they used to curb the massive influx of bots that were running Royal Crypts thousands of times a day across hundreds of accounts - they had to do something. While I agree it wasn't the best course of action, it was probably the fastest. If they don't do something to stem the ENORMOUS influx of gold being pumped into the economy, those 10 Mil upgrades become 100 Mil upgrades in short order.
Regarding the Multiplayer mob nerf, I have to say I'm somewhat indifferent to it all, but if I had to lean, I'd lean towards being in favor of them. What many solo, or "two-man" players are failing to understand, is the scaling of Mob HP and damage with 3 and 4 people in the game. Given that you need to put a little more than 4x the damage into something to kill it, AND your melee are often not doing nearly the DPS (Less time on target, survivability stats taking up space for damage stats, etc) that your ranged are doing, this can be a little problematic. Add in the fact that even in outstanding gear, melee can be gibbed nearly instantly in the later Acts of Inferno, and I'm sure you can see the issue. With all that being said, I'm not terribly opposed to the idea of lowering damage output of the mobs in Inferno multiplayer.
Finally, in response to all the melee vs ranged debate, play both of them. I'm sure there's folks on BOTH sides, that only play 1 side, melee or ranged. If you only play a Ranged, it's hard to see where Melee is coming from, and vice-versa. Personally, I will admit that my DH is much easier to play. At the same time, I'm not enjoying playing him as much as my Barb, simply because he doesn't have any survivability. My Barb is often met with "f u" affixes on elite packs more often than my DH, but at least on the Barb nothing can 1 shot me. I accept the difference in the two playstyles at the moment. In general, I farm on my DH when I'm solo, or I play with a coordinated group of friends that I've been playing video games with since D2 and Halo 1 in the college days. My Barb at the moment only plays Duo with my roommate's Mage until his gear improves some more. I accept the fact that even though my toons are equally geared (pretty much), my Barb is going to take more time to make viable. I'll simply continue doing what it is I'm doing, and investing the time to progress.
And yes, I realize that I've got 2x 60s already, but I also have a full-time job, a live-in SO, and a side business that keeps me pretty busy. So no, I'm not playing 8,10,12 hours a day. Most days, it's 2-3 hours tops. Granted, I've been playing Diablo games for more than a decade, but success really is obtainable whether you're casual, or hardcore. I simply refuse to be miffed that I haven't completely beaten Inferno a month after release. I'd likely get bored if that were the case anyway =P
TL:DR - Farming nerfs were pretty localized, multiplayer will still be challenging, roll both a melee and ranged class to Inferno before yelling at the other side, take a deep breath, and realize the game will still be around a day, week, or month from now in case you aren't able to beat EVERYTHING today.
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Excellent, I'm always glad to hear people succeeding and having fun. Regarding Hungering, I'd say if you're using Sharpshooter it's going to be enough, but that's likely something you'll have to feel out. Typically, on stuff that matters (read: elite packs), I'm firing off 2x Clusters back to back, and by the time my Hungering Arrow would reach them, that SS crit bonus has reset to 0 and hasn't started stacking yet. What is your non-shooter crit chance at the moment? If it's 15%+ I'd wager you likely have enough if you keep SS up. You figure if you're stutter-stepping and firing Hungering, SS would add 9-12% before one crits and resets again. I didn't switch this rune out until I had enough crit that I dropped SS altogether and I'm just guessing based from experience, so I'd play with it on easier content and see which rune feels stronger.
I agree with what you say about Cluster + LFB and that's why I use it as well. Not sure if you played WoW, but with the cheaper Elemental Arrow as a Hatred spender, I constantly felt like a Rogue that was Energy capped, wasting damage potential.
I have been using the same rune with Smokescreen for the same reasons, I occasionally take the +movement rune on it, because I never take Tactical Advantage.
As mentioned above, unlike a Barb, none of our generators require a target to work. Simply firing the arrow, or tossing the grenade generates the Hatred.
I'm going to give Prep + Focused Mind a try right after I write this. I've been using Backup Plan, as on the harder affixes, an entire extra globe of Discipline is irreplaceable. I've heard a lot of talk about Focused Mind though, and I have no doubt that used preemptively and getting every point of Discipline for it, would make it a solid contender with Backup Plan. There's some relatively simple napkin math that would give you the potential Discipline earned with each, over say 100 uses, but it's hard to account for the wasted Disc of hitting Prep with 10 Disc still in the tank. I'll let you know how it feels for me then.
Like I said before, I haven't used RoV in a very long time as I just don't really feel like I have the room for it in most of my builds. I'll make a point to play around with it again this evening though. The biggest problem I have with it are mobs with the Fast affix, mobs in wide open spaces, or fast mobs in wide open spaces, haha. I just find that I only get a knockback, maybe 2 off, before I've kited ouside of the area of effect. It also seems to cause mobs that burrow / leap / teleport to simply do so, and have my cooldown wasted.
Now to bring up a few newer things I've been playing around with.
Fan of Knives + Hail of Knives. Shortly after the IAS nerf, I saw a DH streaming, where he was using Cluster + LFB and FoK. He was built completely for burst DPS. The entire point, or "rotation" of his build revolved around these 2 skills, and having an innately high crit chance (he was at 41% or something). With a 125 Hatred pool, and no passives to reduce the resource cost of Cluster, 2x shots leave you with 25 Hatred + a few from the 2 secs of regen. He would find a group, fire both of his Cluster Arrows while running toward the group, hit Smokescreen and then FoK when he got close, and moved out. This led to an insane amount of burst (FoK hits a little harder than the initial Cluster blast), and provided a slow to get him away safely. Since I picked up some higher crit chance, I've been playing around with FoK in this fashion lately and have been getting great results from it. The Hail of Knives rune allow me to get an entire pack without actually getting into melee range. Do note however, that you will generally lose the "Steady Aim" passive bonus in order to get close enough to hit FoK, so the damage ends up being about on par with the 290% from Cluster. Since mobs are often moving out of the secondary grenades from Cluster, this skill often functions as a Cluster Arrow for half of the cost. It's relatively short cooldown means that, for me, I generally fit it in every other "rotation." When I say rotation, I mean every other time I have 100+ Hatred. I generally open with Cluster x 2, FoK, then kite while stutter-stepping Hungering 'til I have 100 Hatred. Fire off Cluster x 2 again, and resume kiting. The next time I have 100-125 Hatred, I can put FoK at the end again. I've also found it great when little things, like burrowing leapers, or lacuni warriors leap behind me, to hit as I'm running away. Oftentimes it kills the stuff outright, and I didn't need to run at all. With a low crit chance/damage, it's probably not as viable, But right now, having something that often crits for 220k every 10 seconds to an entire elite pack has proven a powerful tool.
As I mentioned in a previous post I've also been playing with a lot of different passives as Sharpshooter alternatives.
Tactical Advantage, while nice, is very defensive. I generally play very offensive, and try to kill things as quick as possible, before my Discipline has dried out. TA simply doesn't play in that style. It's alright with the FoK build I'm using, as it helps a little in getting away after I've used it, but generally, there's nothing left alive to run from.
Night Stalker seemed too good to be true when I saw it. My Crit chance is currently 35.5 if I recall correctly, and I've tried it for probably 4-6 hours of playtime. I crit a lot, but I just never seem to see the benefit from this passive. Perhaps coupled with the Focused Mind preparation rune, it would be a bit more noticeable, but when I really need the Discipline, I can't recall a time where I was able to fit in an entire other Smokescreen before Prepping, because of this passive. Since my current Prep rune wastes any excess Discipline under 14, I felt like I was wasting most of this passive. I'll try it again coupled with the new Prep rune and let you know how it feels.
Grenadier was a passive that I liked for quite a while, allowing me to unload 3x Cluster Arrows at the start of a fight, and a let me fire a Cluster instead of a Hungering a lot more often while kiting. For elites with lower health, but a high degree of threat (like invulnerable minions) this really shines as it allows for way more initial burst and slightly higher sustained damage over a short time. Against your more usual elite packs though, I didn't find that the little bit of initial burst was really doing much for me in the long run. I think it's a very strong rune if you're taking Cluster, it just didn't feel exceptionally strong.
Now for my favorite replacement, Cull of the Weak. Given that things are almost permanently slowed when my Scoundrel is out, I get the 15% bonus from this passive nearly all the time, making it very strong. The more damage you have, the stronger this becomes. The only downside of this passive is that it relies entirely on you having a follower (that's alive nonetheless), having a slow of your own that's up relatively often, or being in multiplay where another perpetual slow is present. This means that on bosses where my poor Scoundrel usually gets eaten alive, I don't see much uptime on this passive. For farming easier content though, I haven't found a better replacement.
Bows are alright at that DPS level, and if you don't have super-massive Crit, probably work out about as well. The higher your damage and crit chance, the more DPS you'll get from using a Crossbow instead. Additionally, you want to keep in mind that since Bows have a faster attack speed, they also do less damage per shot. This doesn't matter so much for Hungering where you're shooting off lots of shots, and the DPS will average out eventually, but you'll notice a huge difference in Cluster Arrow. For example, let's say you have a 1000 DPS bow, at the standard 1.4 attacks per second, your average shot will be around 715 per shot (715 x 1.4 = 1001). A 1000 DPS crossbow, at the standard 1.1 attacks per second, averages 910 damage per shot (910 x 1.1 = 1001). Since your Cluster Arrow is based off of weapon damage, your slower weapons will always provide higher numbers from your harder-hitting abilities. Since you can only fit 2x Cluster Arrows before you have to start generating Hatred again, Cluster doesn't see a benefit from attack speed. Crit and Crit damage, however, see insane returns. You're fine for now, but considering the current state of DHs, I'd shoot for your next purchase to be a crossbow. Also, don't underestimate the value of a socket at your DPS level either. 45-70% Crit damage, depending on available cash, is no small thing.
Happy slaying, I'm looking forward to hearing more from you.
Edit: Regarding Damage Reflect packs, I know that with NV the way it is, switching skills isn't always viable for everyone, and it's certainly not viable if you're farming, but for progression, try switching RoV: Stampede, with Shadow Power : Gloom. Start with a Cluster, which will take your health down considerably, and fire a couple of Hungering Arrows to bring your health to "low." Then hit Shadow Power: Gloom, and unload 2x Clusters. This will fill your health entirely. The 20% Life leech, coupled with 65% damage reduction far out-paces damage reflect. Then you can kite away with Hungering, chipping away at your health, hitting Shadow Power: Gloom and clusters as needed to keep your health up. Again, not a great solution when farming, but if you don't want to try to pick up a lot of LoH and don't mind losing stacks, this is the iWin button for reflect damage.
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Been away from the thread for a while, it's good to see the discussion churned around a bit.
As for alternatives to Caltrops, I like Marked for Death + Mortal Enemy for bosses, or in Multiplay where things have a lot of hitpoints, but i don't find things living long enough to really benefit too much from it while farming, or just in general play. That's the rune I use when I take the skill.
Like you, I used RoV: Stampede for quite some time, and didn't drop it until 60. The knockback on it is great, especially if you manage to fight in a tight hallway. The 30 second cooldown nearly guarantees that it's up for every elite pack, and it can be used to give yourself from room while you retreat from a larger-than-perceived horde of something, or a nasty surprise when you open a door. Again, we'd use the same rune with this skill.
As for a Hatred generator, I've used Hungering Arrow almost extensively for all the reasons you mentioned, and have tested it with several different runes. Devouring (whichever the +70% on pierce) seems to be better over a longer duration, like bosses and elite packs, but I found that the extra piercing rune provided more up front burst, and allowed quicker killing of the weaker non-elite trash. With a low crit rate, these would likely be your best bet. Once I crossed past the 30% Crit Chance threshold, I moved to the Spray of Teeth rune. The effect is guaranteed on Crit (which is often, esp. with sharpshooter), the area of effect is rather large, and the initial target takes damage from it as well. This make this rune ridiculously strong as you pick up more Crit. I have no math, just a guesstimate, but I'd say around 22-25% Crit, this rune wins out, even single-target. The seeking ability of Hungering Arrow can't be devalued either, you can often kill things from around a corner with a well-aimed Hungering shot.
In addition to Hungering, I used Evasive + Covering Fire for quite some time too. It requires a lot more situational awareness, as you don't want to bleed out your Discipline by constantly backflipping, but it hits satisfyingly hard, hits multiple targets, and generates a respectable amount of Hatred. It's been "nerfed" recently, in that it no longer fires through things like the Waller Affix, which made it great, and the animation just felt slower than Hungering for me, so I dropped it and haven't really looked back.
Regarding the Scoundrel, I happened to have some Dex + Attack speed rings left over from before the IAS nerf, so while I had a Xbow on my Scoundrel, I had IAS rings on him. Once I found a suitable Frost Damage bow (something like 190 vit that I randomly found), I swapped those rings out for dex / vit / AR rings. Simple, cheap blues will suffice though, Dex / Vit, Dex / Resist, etc. I wouldn't spend any serious coin in this department. Watch for a cheap Frost damage bow with a lot of Vit on it, and then you can get blue jewelry without Vit. Save some gold. We use the same build for the Scoundrel too, and range on his blind is absurd. He's also got a lovely habit of using blind as soon as I blast a door open, which is fantastic.
Finally, regarding the Hatred Spenders, I've currently been getting a lot of use out of Cluster Arrow + Loaded for Bear. Coupled with an innnately high Crit chance/damage, that 290% weapon damage puts out some ridiculous numbers, not to mention the grenades that are left behind. Additionally, I can often completely level lower-health Elites, or a significant portion of HP from high-health Elites with Sharpshooter + 2-3 Cluster Arrows. Fired back-to-back, both initial explosions are guaranteed to crit, and the 4 grenades from the 1st shot are guaranteed to crit. This amounts to an obscene amount of damage in a short window, and for example Shielding packs will eat all of that damage before they put their shields up. The downside, of course, is the exorbitant Hatred cost. For me, since I'm often just kiting, that's alright. I'm good with stutter-stepping with Hungering, and you can quickly fire off a Cluster at your target when Hatred allows. This lets me hit the Champion in Invuln packs with no issues (though ball lightning does this well also). My crit is at the point where I don't take sharpshooter anymore, but the on-demand, on-cursor burst I've found irreplaceable.
Ball Lightning is fine, but it doesn't feel that it has the punch I'm looking for. I haven't used it in a long time, and my gear has since improved, I'll play with it again and let you know how it feels for me.
The Hatred dump defines your build. With Bat Pet, you can almost stutter-step and fire Ball Lightning without ever having the need to start firing Hungering. With Cluster Arrow, you're spending more time on Hungering, and less time dumping that Hatred. The upside, is I don't often feel like I'm "wasting" Hatred by being capped because it's a fast minion or something, and Ball Lightning is less DPS than Hungering.
At any rate, sorry that turned into a book, that it's probably not laid out as well as it should be, and for any typos. I work overnight, and I'm pretty sleep-deprived at the moment, lol. Happy Hunting to you, I'll report back here in a couple of days as I finish experimenting with some passives. I've been playing with several replacements for Sharpshooter this past week and a half.
Cheers.
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I can see where you're coming from with almost everything, but figured I'd chime in with a couple of things.
Regarding Caltrops + Hooked Spines, it's nice in Act 1 but starting in Act 2 Inferno, you come across a much larger concentration of ranged mobs, leaping mobs, burrowing mobs, and innately fast mobs and the slow on Caltrops, in my opinion, becomes a lot less useful. Especially anything with fast affixes, I find Caltrops to be a waste of Discipline, I'd rather SS and get a screen worth of distance.
That's one of the reasons that I tend to go with Caltrops + Jagged Spikes if I'm taking Caltrops in the later acts of Inferno. That, compounded with the fact that Hooked Spines doesn't scale with your gear at all, where Jagged does. The more damage you're doing, the more damage Caltrops is doing. In addition to that, the more damage you're doing, the less time you need / benefit from something being slowed.
Additionally, there's a lot of "junk" mobs to deal with too. Tiny Spiderlings, a horde of little fallen, the tiny shadow things in Act 3 and 4, that die immediately to Caltrops + Jagged. Instead of spending 100 Hatred on Impale to hit them all, you can kill 20-30 junk mobs with 1, cheap, caltrops.
Finally, I use the Scoundrel for 2 reasons. The obvious one is 3% Crit (which persists even if he dies, I'm not sure if the 1 Hatred / sec persists through Templar death or not). The 2nd, and arguably more important reason, is for a Frost Damage Bow + his Triple Shot skill. Even without any IAS from rings / amulets, he perma-slows entire waves of trash mobs, or entire elite packs for me. Granted, the slow isn't as good as Caltrops, but it's way, way more constant. My Scoundrel has 48k HP, 160 Resist All, and not a lot of damage - BUT, he hardly ever dies, and is always keeping my kill target slowed.
Just a few thoughts for you, best of luck to you as you progress farther into Inferno.
EDIT: I don't always even take it. The slot for Caltrops is the slot that I change skills out depending on the situation. If I'm simply farming, I'll take Caltrops, but it's replaced by Marked for Death, Shadow Power: Gloom, etc based on the situation I'm in.
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The only thing I felt that I could add to all of this, is Physical Resistance. The build is such that there's a lot of choices in gear diversity (i.e. You have a 225 Vit neck, you can skip Vit on a couple of other pieces, etc). But generally, I search for Int / Res. All / Phys. Resist, and then sort by Armor. Most of my pieces have +Armor, All Resist, Phys. Resist, and Int / Vit or both. Obviously, prioritizing Crit in those slots that it's available.
I've just hit the point that I can do 99% of Act 3 with relative facerolling ease, but I say Phys. Resist is underrated, and has been working exceedingly well for me so far, and it comes relatively cheap. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
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99% of the time, the only way you don't get a rare from an elite pack is if you don't have 5 stacks of NV. I often have 5 stacks before I finish the first zone. By the time I make it to Warden, there's 10+ Elite packs behind me. Bosses will drop 1 guaranteed rare @ 4 stacks now, and 2 rares @ 5 stacks.
So yeah, it's all about getting the most elite packs per hour. Bosses are secondary. I was experimenting with skipping bosses altogether, but the latest patch added guaranteeds to bosses, and it doesn't take very long so I've just been finishing the runs out.
There are some tips and tricks though. The Crypts near Cemetary, if you find an elite pack within the first half of the crypt or so (have to estimate), then immediately Town Portal, re-waypoint, and move to the next one. This is way, way quicker than running back the way you came and back outside. If you don't find an elite pack 'til near the end of the crypt, explore the rest of it - you've got an alright chance of finding a 2nd elite pack, or an event. (2 of the 3 possible crypt events drop lots of loot). Similarly, don't backtrack in the caves in Festering Woods, TP and re-waypoint. Know which caves you don't want to go into. Khazra Den, Crypts Lv 2, etc. They're just quest zones, and will be completely empty. Knowing each of these things might only save you 15-20 seconds at a time. But if you save 2 minutes per run, it adds up pretty quickly over a week into another entire bag full of rares.
Cheers, and happy hunting.
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Essentially what I do, but it can be modified to be a lot more lucrative.
Fields of Misery - 2 Elite packs, 1-2 caves. 3-5 Elite packs and a Resplendent
Festering Woods - 2 Open Elite packs, 2 Caves. 4-5 Elite packs.
Cemetary of the Forsaken - 3 Crypts. 3-6 Elite Packs, up to 2 events / resplendents.
Leoric's Manor - 1-2 Elite packs.
Halls Lv. 2 through Butcher - 2-4 Elite Packs, and 2 bosses.
Full run through nets me a guaranteed 12 Elite packs and 2 bosses, usually 15-16 packs, and 2 resplendents. Takes 30-40 minutes depending on luck.
I skip the other zones though, they don't have much in the form of guaranteed packs. So while it *may* be lucrative to hit them up sometimes, over the course of weeks and months of farming, you come out way ahead by just hitting the 4 areas where you can pretty much grab an elite pack every 1-2 minutes.
Nets me 30-40 rares, and innumerable blues in roughly half an hour. In 3-4 hours of farming, that's hundreds of rares, and I make 2-3M easy, guaranteed. Obviously much more if I catch a high-dollar item in the mix somewhere.
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As far as upgrades that stick out to me, I would look for gloves that carry both Crit Chance and Crit Damage. Also, your quiver looks weak, and while the Dex is alright on it, there are Quivers with Crit Chance on them, and a lot of it, for a reasonable price. Between gloves and quiver, you can pick up another 10-12% crit chance without spending too much. Same with your Bracers, they're one of the standard slots for Crit Chance, so even if you give up some Dex, I'd find some Crit Bracers.
Anyway, happy slaying.
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But yes, as previously mentioned, Caltrops does (almost) nothing to Fast mobs, and Invuln minions will almost always trigger traps instead of the yellow guy, so I'd stick with Cluster or Elemental. For me, Elemental requires more time shooting and less time kiting, where Cluster means dumping 100 Hatred in less than 2 secs, and then moving again.
Hope it helps, cheers mate happy hunting.
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Before I begin, I'd like to state that I play both a Barb and a DH, both progressing through Act 3 Inferno at the moment. I haven't taken a Hardcore toon to Inferno yet, though I played a lot of HC back in D2, and all of this is merely my opinions and conjecture. TLDR is at the bottom.
Firstly, not all of the gold farming spots were broken, seems to me the only real hotfixed nerf were the pots, which while lucrative, were probably the most mind-numbing method to farming gold in the game. I personally feel this was simply a method that they used to curb the massive influx of bots that were running Royal Crypts thousands of times a day across hundreds of accounts - they had to do something. While I agree it wasn't the best course of action, it was probably the fastest. If they don't do something to stem the ENORMOUS influx of gold being pumped into the economy, those 10 Mil upgrades become 100 Mil upgrades in short order.
Regarding the Multiplayer mob nerf, I have to say I'm somewhat indifferent to it all, but if I had to lean, I'd lean towards being in favor of them. What many solo, or "two-man" players are failing to understand, is the scaling of Mob HP and damage with 3 and 4 people in the game. Given that you need to put a little more than 4x the damage into something to kill it, AND your melee are often not doing nearly the DPS (Less time on target, survivability stats taking up space for damage stats, etc) that your ranged are doing, this can be a little problematic. Add in the fact that even in outstanding gear, melee can be gibbed nearly instantly in the later Acts of Inferno, and I'm sure you can see the issue. With all that being said, I'm not terribly opposed to the idea of lowering damage output of the mobs in Inferno multiplayer.
Finally, in response to all the melee vs ranged debate, play both of them. I'm sure there's folks on BOTH sides, that only play 1 side, melee or ranged. If you only play a Ranged, it's hard to see where Melee is coming from, and vice-versa. Personally, I will admit that my DH is much easier to play. At the same time, I'm not enjoying playing him as much as my Barb, simply because he doesn't have any survivability. My Barb is often met with "f u" affixes on elite packs more often than my DH, but at least on the Barb nothing can 1 shot me. I accept the difference in the two playstyles at the moment. In general, I farm on my DH when I'm solo, or I play with a coordinated group of friends that I've been playing video games with since D2 and Halo 1 in the college days. My Barb at the moment only plays Duo with my roommate's Mage until his gear improves some more. I accept the fact that even though my toons are equally geared (pretty much), my Barb is going to take more time to make viable. I'll simply continue doing what it is I'm doing, and investing the time to progress.
And yes, I realize that I've got 2x 60s already, but I also have a full-time job, a live-in SO, and a side business that keeps me pretty busy. So no, I'm not playing 8,10,12 hours a day. Most days, it's 2-3 hours tops. Granted, I've been playing Diablo games for more than a decade, but success really is obtainable whether you're casual, or hardcore. I simply refuse to be miffed that I haven't completely beaten Inferno a month after release. I'd likely get bored if that were the case anyway =P
TL:DR - Farming nerfs were pretty localized, multiplayer will still be challenging, roll both a melee and ranged class to Inferno before yelling at the other side, take a deep breath, and realize the game will still be around a day, week, or month from now in case you aren't able to beat EVERYTHING today.
Warm Regards,
Alteena