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
History
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
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.
Thanks for the shoutout! I intend to try both styles of builds when 2.3 hits
I like your focus on Area damage, and with the math included for the numbers. I never thought of running Area damage on Rings, so I'll definitely check it out.
Hmm, I never thought of using % Area Damage before. How much of a radius does area damage have? Also, if you're finding that the Cirri Satchel doesn't often proc a fourth hit, maybe it's best to switch it out for something else (maybe Dead Man's Legacy?). Another thing that was suggested to me on my build (mostly just for when you're running with a group) is to use MfD Valley of Death instead for the extra damage since mobs will often be grouped for you.
Another alternative is to use double generators with Bolas - Imminent Doom and Emimei's Duffle and Leonine Bow of Hashir. That way you can group the enemies up nice and tight and do lots of AOE damage with the Bolas and switch to Hungering Arrow for the bigger mobs. Or if you just want to group them, the cold bolas skill has the same proc coefficient for leonine but splits into three projectiles making grouping much more likely. The only issue with this is you need to drop a skill. MfD would be my suggestion if you have another DH in your party.
I love the idea. I have a few questions and comments about the build.
1) Why Frostburn?
2) What happened to Awareness?
3) 2-handed Xbows are strictly better. The loss might be made up by Marked for Death. However, why are you both using Calamity and then equipping Marked for Death as a skill on the bar? Grim Reaper isn't as strong as you would think. (Also see question 6) It would be stronger to use Companion on the bar instead.
4) 37% crit chance and no Iceblink? That's a bit low...
5) Attack speed is not particularly strong for the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but even with an Etrayu with the same damage output as my 2-handed Xbow, the attack speed and 20% cold couldn't make up the difference. The reason this build is crazy is because the 70% extra piercing damage takes already large hits and makes them obscene. You can't get anywhere close with a lower damage weapon.
6) You're forsaking Area Damage entirely in favor of Grim Reaper. Why?
CptGixer:
I'm hopeful I might be able to dig something up. I'm out of town right now, but when I get home to my desktop I'll dig through my files, maybe I can find some
footage of the build in a regular rift or something. Just so you can see.
I love the idea. I have a few questions and comments about the build.
1) Why Frostburn?
2) What happened to Awareness?
3) 2-handed Xbows are strictly better. The loss might be made up by Marked for Death. However, why are you both using Calamity and then equipping Marked for Death as a skill on the bar? Grim Reaper isn't as strong as you would think. (Also see question 6) It would be stronger to use Companion on the bar instead.
4) 37% crit chance and no Iceblink? That's a bit low...
5) Attack speed is not particularly strong for the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but even with an Etrayu with the same damage output as my 2-handed Xbow, the attack speed and 20% cold couldn't make up the difference. The reason this build is crazy is because the 70% extra piercing damage takes already large hits and makes them obscene. You can't get anywhere close with a lower damage weapon.
6) You're forsaking Area Damage entirely in favor of Grim Reaper. Why?
First off, thanks for the feedback!
I dont have a level 70 DH yet, so that might clear up some akward choices I made.
I used to play only WD and Wizzard but I wanna start playing DH next season so I tried to make a build.
I didnt know Calamity did not use the rune equipped, that was the only reason I had MfD on the bar.
I also added some extra Area Damage to make up for that.
I wanted to make a build that uses Bane of the Stricken, thats why I put everything on attackspeed, dont know if it is any good but it seems cool.
I tweaked the crit chance abit so its higher now.
The reason for the frostburn is that I had a slot left thanks to RoRG and I thought Frostburn would be a nice piece to add for some extra crowd control, is it really that much worse then the wichting hour?
The 1Handed X-Bow/Quiver was chosen because of the nice legendary affixes and they added more attackspeed to boost that bane of the stricken.
Calamity does in fact use the rune equipped on the hotbar, I believe. I'd have to test it.
Frostburn offers 15% cold, but loses ~50% attack speed and ~7% attack speed along with another slot on gloves. It's a trade off, but without a way to take advantage of the frozen from Frostburn, it seems like a wasted affix. In an ideal world, we'll already have about 40% cold from bracers and amulet. In addition, it's competing with the Convention of the Elements for legendary affixes, so it just seems subpar IMO.
The issue with the second build you linked is that the Buriza Do-Kyanon cannot re-roll the "chance to freeze" on hit secondary affix. Without the ability to remove that, we can never get +12 Discipline on our mainland. This was a severe limitation in pre-2.3 versions of the build because that's an additive 180% damage bonus.
With all this in mind, I can imagine a build with the emphasis on attack speed to capitalize on Bane of the Stricken. I will absolutely test a version of the build involving this, in addition to testing Calamity as a mainland, and to see if it works with Grim Reaper. If we can assign Grim Reaper to every mob, I can imagine that's extraordinarily powerful with this build, and could allow us to ignore Area Damage entirely.
If you wouldn't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and add a summary of this build in my original post once I test Grim Reaper and Calamity. As it is right now, I'm hour 2 out of 6 left to get home, and once home, I can check for some footage and run those tests as needed.
Edit: friendly reminder that sheet DPS means absolutely NOTHING in this game, and even less with this build.
Broken Promises could be viable I guess if we stacked attack speed like you mentioned, but I'd think we'd get more value out of cubing the Talisman of Aranoch and running a Hellfire Amulet. We could choose Archery, and get crit chance there, Single Out, and get more crit chance, Ambush is another option for an added passive.
Here is the footage of the build as requested. The only full rift I could find is a group game I did a while back. Here is that footage of the build in action.
This is it guys. Blizzard buffed it a bit more. I don't know if there is a god, but if so, he works for blizzard and he buffed the Hunters Wrath for me.
Demon Hunter
Hunter's Wrath
New Legendary Belt
Your Hatred generators attack 30% faster and deal 45-60% increased damage
Yes that is real. We only needed a touch more damage, and now we have it. 40% to 60% should be enough to push this build into the "viable" category.
Blizzard employee, if you are out there, and you buffed this with full knowledge of my build, I personally thank you.
I noticed there were some bug fixes to area damage. Has anyone noticed if this is a worthwhile stat for this build now? I've been hoping for a build like this for quite some time since I love the piercing arrow.
VMT8, I have a feeling that your version of the build, with the extra emphasis on Multishot, is going to reign supreme for this build. Yang's Recurve. Ninth Cirri Satchel, a lot of Hungering Arrow and Multishot damage, and Convention of the Elements. That version will probably be able to output the highest overall damage. Seeing as the primary difference between this build and the regular Multishot build is that we lose the Dead Mans Legacy, I think we make up for that damage loss with our Hungering Arrow.
Svengali, you can see in my original post that Area Damage plays a crucial role in this build and Area of Effect damage. Our single target DPS is extraordinary, however against multiple mobs we begin to lack in damage. Area Damage is the solution to that idea.
Gielo, that was one of my primary concerns as well. I don't think we can drop any of our three gems in this build. They are all incredibly powerful.
Svengali, you can see in my original post that Area Damage plays a crucial role in this build and Area of Effect damage. Our single target DPS is extraordinary, however against multiple mobs we begin to lack in damage. Area Damage is the solution to that idea.
Yes, I did see that but I've been under the impression that area damage wasn't implemented very well in 2.2 and previous builds. I saw someplace that the developers were looking to improve the stat. I was basically asking if the stat has been drastically improved since I saw in the 2.3 ptr patch 2 notes that there were some bug fixes regarding it.
As far as I am aware, Area Damage has not been changed significantly in the past few patches. It could absolutely be improved, however. In its current state it offers very little and I'd like to see it optimized further to become a viable affix for more than one or two random builds. I'll probably actually develop some theories on how to improve Area Damage.
VMT8, I have a feeling that your version of the build, with the extra emphasis on Multishot, is going to reign supreme for this build. Yang's Recurve. Ninth Cirri Satchel, a lot of Hungering Arrow and Multishot damage, and Convention of the Elements. That version will probably be able to output the highest overall damage. Seeing as the primary difference between this build and the regular Multishot build is that we lose the Dead Mans Legacy, I think we make up for that damage loss with our Hungering Arrow.
With the (IMO unnecessary) buffs to Yang's Recurve, DH will have enough RCR to not run a generator for MS. The only reason to run would be for activating F/R. I unfortunately don't have time to wait queues for PTR, but your overall Hungering Arrow build is going to be VERY interesting for 2.3
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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.
Thanks for the shoutout! I intend to try both styles of builds when 2.3 hits
I like your focus on Area damage, and with the math included for the numbers. I never thought of running Area damage on Rings, so I'll definitely check it out.
Cheers
Hmm, I never thought of using % Area Damage before. How much of a radius does area damage have? Also, if you're finding that the Cirri Satchel doesn't often proc a fourth hit, maybe it's best to switch it out for something else (maybe Dead Man's Legacy?). Another thing that was suggested to me on my build (mostly just for when you're running with a group) is to use MfD Valley of Death instead for the extra damage since mobs will often be grouped for you.
Another alternative is to use double generators with Bolas - Imminent Doom and Emimei's Duffle and Leonine Bow of Hashir. That way you can group the enemies up nice and tight and do lots of AOE damage with the Bolas and switch to Hungering Arrow for the bigger mobs. Or if you just want to group them, the cold bolas skill has the same proc coefficient for leonine but splits into three projectiles making grouping much more likely. The only issue with this is you need to drop a skill. MfD would be my suggestion if you have another DH in your party.
What do you think about this variation?
http://ptr.d3planner.com/413849096
Would love to see some gameplay of this if possible?
Gielo:
I love the idea. I have a few questions and comments about the build.
1) Why Frostburn?
2) What happened to Awareness?
3) 2-handed Xbows are strictly better. The loss might be made up by Marked for Death. However, why are you both using Calamity and then equipping Marked for Death as a skill on the bar? Grim Reaper isn't as strong as you would think. (Also see question 6) It would be stronger to use Companion on the bar instead.
4) 37% crit chance and no Iceblink? That's a bit low...
5) Attack speed is not particularly strong for the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but even with an Etrayu with the same damage output as my 2-handed Xbow, the attack speed and 20% cold couldn't make up the difference. The reason this build is crazy is because the 70% extra piercing damage takes already large hits and makes them obscene. You can't get anywhere close with a lower damage weapon.
6) You're forsaking Area Damage entirely in favor of Grim Reaper. Why?
CptGixer:
I'm hopeful I might be able to dig something up. I'm out of town right now, but when I get home to my desktop I'll dig through my files, maybe I can find some
footage of the build in a regular rift or something. Just so you can see.
First off, thanks for the feedback!
I dont have a level 70 DH yet, so that might clear up some akward choices I made.
I used to play only WD and Wizzard but I wanna start playing DH next season so I tried to make a build.
I didnt know Calamity did not use the rune equipped, that was the only reason I had MfD on the bar.
I also added some extra Area Damage to make up for that.
I wanted to make a build that uses Bane of the Stricken, thats why I put everything on attackspeed, dont know if it is any good but it seems cool.
I tweaked the crit chance abit so its higher now.
The reason for the frostburn is that I had a slot left thanks to RoRG and I thought Frostburn would be a nice piece to add for some extra crowd control, is it really that much worse then the wichting hour?
The 1Handed X-Bow/Quiver was chosen because of the nice legendary affixes and they added more attackspeed to boost that bane of the stricken.
Tweaked build would look something like this:
http://ptr.d3planner.com/683069096
Edit: just now realised you can equip a 2-hander and a Quiver
If I swap the 1h for the 2hander I get this:
http://ptr.d3planner.com/716077807
It seems Im actually loosing dps that way?
Calamity does in fact use the rune equipped on the hotbar, I believe. I'd have to test it.
Frostburn offers 15% cold, but loses ~50% attack speed and ~7% attack speed along with another slot on gloves. It's a trade off, but without a way to take advantage of the frozen from Frostburn, it seems like a wasted affix. In an ideal world, we'll already have about 40% cold from bracers and amulet. In addition, it's competing with the Convention of the Elements for legendary affixes, so it just seems subpar IMO.
The issue with the second build you linked is that the Buriza Do-Kyanon cannot re-roll the "chance to freeze" on hit secondary affix. Without the ability to remove that, we can never get +12 Discipline on our mainland. This was a severe limitation in pre-2.3 versions of the build because that's an additive 180% damage bonus.
With all this in mind, I can imagine a build with the emphasis on attack speed to capitalize on Bane of the Stricken. I will absolutely test a version of the build involving this, in addition to testing Calamity as a mainland, and to see if it works with Grim Reaper. If we can assign Grim Reaper to every mob, I can imagine that's extraordinarily powerful with this build, and could allow us to ignore Area Damage entirely.
If you wouldn't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and add a summary of this build in my original post once I test Grim Reaper and Calamity. As it is right now, I'm hour 2 out of 6 left to get home, and once home, I can check for some footage and run those tests as needed.
Edit: friendly reminder that sheet DPS means absolutely NOTHING in this game, and even less with this build.
Once again thanks for showing me the ways of the demon hunter, I truly appreciate it!
Ofcourse I dont mind if you would ad the build to the summary, I'd be honered
Would you happen to know if the secondary (pierced) hits from hungering arrow count as a hit for broken promises?
If so you could just drop the RoRG and use broken promises.
Last and final build I'm going to post, I swear it
http://ptr.d3planner.com/787770649
Broken Promises could be viable I guess if we stacked attack speed like you mentioned, but I'd think we'd get more value out of cubing the Talisman of Aranoch and running a Hellfire Amulet. We could choose Archery, and get crit chance there, Single Out, and get more crit chance, Ambush is another option for an added passive.
Did you have a chance to test somethings already?
Im now farming gear on the ptr, hoping to do some testing myself aswell
Here is the footage of the build as requested. The only full rift I could find is a group game I did a while back. Here is that footage of the build in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGTV8Ao0lkk
This is it guys. Blizzard buffed it a bit more. I don't know if there is a god, but if so, he works for blizzard and he buffed the Hunters Wrath for me.
Demon Hunter
Yes that is real. We only needed a touch more damage, and now we have it. 40% to 60% should be enough to push this build into the "viable" category.
Blizzard employee, if you are out there, and you buffed this with full knowledge of my build, I personally thank you.
I saw that, this should make this build interesting and solid, and Yang's Recurve got buffed as well, so there is a viable spender with MS now
I noticed there were some bug fixes to area damage. Has anyone noticed if this is a worthwhile stat for this build now? I've been hoping for a build like this for quite some time since I love the piercing arrow.
Just realized the bane of the stricken variant is off the table.
You need the Iceblink gem in order to proc bane of the trapped and cull the weak.
You could drop bane of the trapped but it would require alot of bane of the stricken stacks in order to make up that lost damage.
So it just aint worth it.
VMT8, I have a feeling that your version of the build, with the extra emphasis on Multishot, is going to reign supreme for this build. Yang's Recurve. Ninth Cirri Satchel, a lot of Hungering Arrow and Multishot damage, and Convention of the Elements. That version will probably be able to output the highest overall damage. Seeing as the primary difference between this build and the regular Multishot build is that we lose the Dead Mans Legacy, I think we make up for that damage loss with our Hungering Arrow.
Svengali, you can see in my original post that Area Damage plays a crucial role in this build and Area of Effect damage. Our single target DPS is extraordinary, however against multiple mobs we begin to lack in damage. Area Damage is the solution to that idea.
Gielo, that was one of my primary concerns as well. I don't think we can drop any of our three gems in this build. They are all incredibly powerful.
As far as I am aware, Area Damage has not been changed significantly in the past few patches. It could absolutely be improved, however. In its current state it offers very little and I'd like to see it optimized further to become a viable affix for more than one or two random builds. I'll probably actually develop some theories on how to improve Area Damage.
With the (IMO unnecessary) buffs to Yang's Recurve, DH will have enough RCR to not run a generator for MS. The only reason to run would be for activating F/R. I unfortunately don't have time to wait queues for PTR, but your overall Hungering Arrow build is going to be VERY interesting for 2.3