Build Guide
Reaper of Souls, Patch 2.1, September 19th, 2014.The following is intended for new and casual players, who have just recently made it to level 70 on their Demon Hunter and are equipped with low-end gear; but are looking for a setup that will help them stay alive and play more efficiently, so that they can begin to acquire better items.
This build and guide attempts to address the major issues that new and casual players face in a game like this. The player base is very large and consists of a wide variety of ages, skill levels, and player time-constraints. Many players simply cannot try the vast majority of the builds that are presented on DiabloFans and YouTube because they just don't have the gear, or the time to invest in acquiring it. However, they keep hearing about how great certain builds are, so they attempt it anyway, usually resulting in failure and frustration. Those builds are very specific to certain pieces of gear or set items, and if you don't have everything necessary, than those awesome end-game builds can actually be really bad when used with low-end gear. This build attempts to resolve that issue, giving you an efficient and effective skill setup to start your journey with.
There are absolutely no gear requirements. The build was designed for poorly optimized gear:
1) Hungering Arrow with Devouring Arrow rune for taking out solo targets.
2) Elemental Arrow with Frost Arrow rune for taking out large groups.
3) Shadow Power with Gloom rune for healing and reducing damage taken during intense fights.
4) Sentry with Spitfire rune for dishing out extra damage in every battle.
5) Chakram with Shuriken Cloud for dishing out extra damage when monsters are in close proximity.
6) Companion with Boar Companion rune for increased resistances and healing.
7) Brooding passive provides a free and very powerful source of healing.
8) Archery passive is effective regardless of what weapon you find and equip.
9) Custom Engineering passive improves the use of Sentries.
10) Ballistics passive improves the damage done by Sentries and gives the player a chance at a free rocket attack.
The play-style is very easy. Just keep Shuriken Cloud up at all times. Throw Sentries out at will. Use Frost Arrow repeatedly to destroy large groups, then switch over to Devouring Arrow on tougher solo enemies or when out of Hatred. When injured use Gloom and stand still to allow the Brooding passive to take effect and continue to attack your target to gain the additional life on hit that Shadow Power provides. When surrounded you can use the active ability on Boar Companion to taunt creatures away from you. As you find better gear and some legendary items with special abilities, you can begin to replace skills as necessary to take advantage of those properties.
This build is fairly robust. It's more of a "tanky" setup, which is realistic of actual gameplay. In theory we could vault around all day and try to act like this awesome ninja that dodges everything. But in reality that's not how things go down, especially while playing solo and in low-end gear. Instead, you'll often end up surrounded or dying frequently with that play-style, since you won't have any of the legendaries or high-end gear to help keep you alive. We want to spend our time killing monsters and getting more loot, not running around in circles. A dead Demon Hunter is inefficient, and annoying; especially when they're one of your party members in group play.
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Posted Jan 23, 2015-
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Posted May 7, 2016This is working great for my ungeared DH. Thank you.