@Exitium You know Vault has a rune that removes the cost now! Also the changes to SP really make it powerful for these builds. Kinda sucks that it was 'nerfed' but honestly now it works really nicely in these builds. When factoring in the affixes from weapons at level 60 the hatred returns are very solid. It looks like we need to use even less discipline than before. Possibly making something like Prep + Vengeance overkill. On that note I would have to add that Prep + any discipline regen/reduction passive is just plain overkill when using a 1h xbow. I have yet to finish the math for all of the outcomes but it will be posted shortly!
Yeah I saw that, but it adds a cooldown which could be dangerous in some situations - it's give and take really.
Thanks for those links Chippy, I'll take a look at them. Hopefully all it means is that we'll need to do some rearranging of talents to factor in those updated mods, at worst we may have to stick to a build like azure had originally posted - which isn't bad at all. I'll update my post when I've finished looking over stuff.
No need to rearrange really. The high amount of hatred regen from gear pretty much means that we only really need 1 generator as a safety net to get by. Even something like the Companion can be a nice way to never have to worry about hatred ever again. Still most of this information is subjective to the gear anyway. Getting +Hatred regen affix on two weapons is enough to make these builds really shine at level 60.
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In my favourite build the Hatred and Discipline requirements are both low:
Base Hatred /w Vengeance = 150. Base Restoration = 4H/s. Templar bonus = +1H/s.
Just quickly looking at ability costs tells us with the max hatred generation of +10/s from gear, we see that Elemental Arrow and the channeled part of Rapid Fire are sustainable. Factor in Base regen and we're onto a winner with both of those. Adding gear regen to base regen gives us a passive 15H/s, which is also enough to sustain Multishot spam. Of course getting perfect modifiers on each gear piece is an unreasonable expectation, but the lowest it can be with the rank 10 modifier is like 2.7, hence a low end regeneration of 8.1H/s with bad gear. Of course, I haven't included any of our regeneration abilities in this, so it's perfectly reasonable to say this build of this style could sustain itself in terms of Hatred, especially should Bat companion be used (+3H/s). It shouldn't have a problem with Discipline either, given that Multishot is the generator.
Looking at Discipline:
Base Discipline = 30. Base Regen = 1D/s. Templar Bonus = 1D/s. Total Passive of 2D/s.
With Perfectionist, Prep costs 16D, with our passive regen, that means we can Prep once every 8 seconds, providing we spend no D on anything else. Looking at the above projections of Hatred it becomes obvious that we won't be needing to Prep nearly that often. Using the same logic we can Vault every 4 secs or Caltrops every 3.2 secs. You shouldn't need to Vault very often unless you're doing D3 wrong and Caltrops lasts 6 seconds so you can technically afford 2 Caltrops before you >should< need to lay another. It would be questionable and situational if the build could sustain itself following this, but thankfully we gain Discipline from Multishot - lets assume 5 mobs per pack - and we know Multishot is prettymuch infinitely sustainable in terms of Hatred - so we could generate theoretically 5D/s from Multishot alone. Adding that to our base we get 7D/s when, and only when, we are spamming Multishot. At that rate of recovery it takes just over two seconds to generate enough Discipline to use prep.
Now this is most definitely sustainable - essentially the build can sustain itself in Hatred without actually using Prep and in Discipline even if we were using a lot of Discipline abilities. In this we haven't even considered what we could do with Max Discipline bonuses and unruned Prep - we could essentially generate 60 to 75 Discipline every 45 seconds. That's 1.3 - 1.6 D/s. We have also omitted Health Globes, which with Vengeance are actually pretty sweet.
Next post I'm going to look at one of the more intensive builds I posted and see how they fair...
In my favourite build the Hatred and Discipline requirements are both low:
Base Hatred /w Vengeance = 150. Base Restoration = 4H/s. Templar bonus = +1H/s.
Just quickly looking at ability costs tells us with the max hatred generation of +10/s from gear, we see that Elemental Arrow and the channeled part of Rapid Fire are sustainable. Factor in Base regen and we're onto a winner with both of those. Adding gear regen to base regen gives us a passive 15H/s, which is also enough to sustain Multishot spam. Of course getting perfect modifiers on each gear piece is an unreasonable expectation, but the lowest it can be with the rank 10 modifier is like 2.7, hence a low end regeneration of 8.1H/s with bad gear. Of course, I haven't included any of our regeneration abilities in this, so it's perfectly reasonable to say this build of this style could sustain itself in terms of Hatred, especially should Bat companion be used (+3H/s). It shouldn't have a problem with Discipline either, given that Multishot is the generator.
Remember the numbers I was using consisted of 3hatred per sec on 2 pieces of gear. Assuming you have the hunter cloak you can add in another 3 on top of that number. I was writing conservatively only because I do not like to do min/max games. They are nice on paper and are good for showing the limits for classes but in reality only a select few will get lucky enough to get something like 3.33 on 3 pieces of gear + everything else.
Base Discipline = 30. Base Regen = 1D/s. Templar Bonus = 1D/s. Total Passive of 2D/s.
With Perfectionist, Prep costs 16D, with our passive regen, that means we can Prep once every 8 seconds, providing we spend no D on anything else. Looking at the above projections of Hatred it becomes obvious that we won't be needing to Prep nearly that often. Using the same logic we can Vault every 4 secs or Caltrops every 3.2 secs. You shouldn't need to Vault very often unless you're doing D3 wrong and Caltrops lasts 6 seconds so you can technically afford 2 Caltrops before you >should< need to lay another. It would be questionable and situational if the build could sustain itself following this, but thankfully we gain Discipline from Multishot - lets assume 5 mobs per pack - and we know Multishot is prettymuch infinitely sustainable in terms of Hatred - so we could generate theoretically 5D/s from Multishot alone. Adding that to our base we get 7D/s when, and only when, we are spamming Multishot. At that rate of recovery it takes just over two seconds to generate enough Discipline to use prep.
Now this is most definitely sustainable - essentially the build can sustain itself in Hatred without actually using Prep and in Discipline even if we were using a lot of Discipline abilities. In this we haven't even considered what we could do with Max Discipline bonuses and unruned Prep - we could essentially generate 60 to 75 Discipline every 45 seconds. That's 1.3 - 1.6 D/s. We have also omitted Health Globes, which with Vengeance are actually pretty sweet.
Next post I'm going to look at one of the more intensive builds I posted and see how they fair...
It looks great. The only thing I really still have trouble getting to talk about is the followers. Templar giving 1disc and 1hatred is quite powerful. Scoundral with the DH passives also looks to be good for a high power build ie: his crit bonus and your passives that rely on crit. Did you take into account that you will loose this bonus when in multiplayer? Just out of curiosity I am guessing this build can only be sustained with the Templar or am I wrong?
Also the last thing you said is very much true. It seems that with max +hatred regen gear a DH can sustain forever using a 2h xbow! The big question comes into play how often does this happen? You only have a tiny window of attack speed and this is with the most perfect gear you can come by. Simply put it works on paper even without Templar or any other bonus but in practice I think we will want some type of generation even if it is overkill. Without the generation I suspect we will run into problems rather fast when talking about attack speed and wanting to use a more diverse array of weapons.
I'm getting really tired and I can't really focus any more :/ I will try to have the rest of the front page updated tonight! All I really need is to put up some more builds and get the numbers up there in a way that looks nice. Also like that build I posted? It should be able to support 1h xbow + quiver with the amount of generation. I am playing around with trying to get 2 1h xbow support as well. It should be up sometime tonight
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Here is the problem. These 3rd party sites conflict each other as well as we have yet to see most of these affixes in game. Although I do encourage numbers to be thrown around and used to try and benefit builds I highly stress to not use data about things we have yet to see from Blizz. They keep most of this information under wraps because it is highly subject to change. This is the way they always have been and I have a feeling this is how it will remain.
It may be in the patch data but the only ones available to the players are +hatred per sec and max hatred/disc. Also even if it is in the patch data you have to remember that it may just not be turned on! The data could just be there because someone was too lazy to remove it if it is turned off. Programmers, and I am one, have a tendency to be lazy and instead of delete information they just disable it.
Well, I did say "According to the latest patch data". Its certainly possible things may change or that not all of these mods are actually enabled (I'm not sure if anyone has figure out how affixes are marked as enabled or not in the data files). As for conflicting data, I'd actually be interested if you could point me to any conflicting sources. I worked with the guy who runs d3inferno while we were initially figuring out the formats for a lot of the data files and while I'm pretty sure he's parsing them correctly, seeing conflicting data would help me to improve my own understanding of how the data files work.
In any case, there's definitely no discipline regen or max hatred affixes in the game right now and only a few skills even have the possibility of having their costs reduced, which was the main point I was trying to make.
Base Hatred /w Vengeance = 150. Base Restoration = 4H/s. Templar bonus = +1H/s.
Just quickly looking at ability costs tells us with the max hatred generation of +10/s from gear, we see that Elemental Arrow and the channeled part of Rapid Fire are sustainable. Factor in Base regen and we're onto a winner with both of those. Adding gear regen to base regen gives us a passive 15H/s, which is also enough to sustain Multishot spam. Of course getting perfect modifiers on each gear piece is an unreasonable expectation, but the lowest it can be with the rank 10 modifier is like 2.7, hence a low end regeneration of 8.1H/s with bad gear. Of course, I haven't included any of our regeneration abilities in this, so it's perfectly reasonable to say this build of this style could sustain itself in terms of Hatred, especially should Bat companion be used (+3H/s). It shouldn't have a problem with Discipline either, given that Multishot is the generator.
This assumes you are only attacking once per second. With a 2.0 attack speed, Multishot cost would increase to 30H/s for example.
so we could generate theoretically 5D/s from Multishot alone.
Again, you are discounting attack speed, but in this case faster attacks will work in your favor. A 2.0 Multishot will be generating 10D/s for you if its hitting 5 targets each.
With Multishot+Suppression Fire, Preparation+Punishment, and Perfectionist or Vengeance, you are resource positive while hitting 2 targets per shot at any attack speed. Once you include base hatred regen, a 2.0 speed Multishot could sustain itself at 2 targets without either passive and with a little regen on gear and/or not spamming 100% of the time you could support an even higher attack speed.
Another interesting note: I was testing some other stuff earlier today and noticed that it took around 26-27 second to fully recharge my hatred. This means that the base regen rate is more like 4.75H/s now. (Discipline looks like 1/s still).
Looking at the high crit build; I'm going to assume that we're using dual Hand Crossbows, since they are the best for a build like this (Archery). That means that we have 13.3 + 5 = 18H/s regeneration passively. In this build we also have Companion (Bat) for an additional 3H/s, giving a total of 21H/s.
Obviously, Elemental Arrow and Rapid Fire aren't using up Hatred fast enough! Cluster Arrow however, does, costing 50 Hatred per usage, this means to recover from a single Cluster Arrow it would take just under 2.4 secs. If we were to drop in a Cluster Arrow every now and then and then continue to spam one of our other abilities, we would still regen 11H/s if it were Elemental Arrow or Rapid Fire (the extra initial cost is covered in about a second). This means it would take under 5 seconds to make up for Cluster Shot spamming Elemental Arrow (6 if Rapid Fire). So, to passively sustain whilst spamming any ability, we could only use Cluster Arrow once every 6 seconds - roughly. Again, this is without any hatred regen ability or factoring in Health Globes or the initial Hatred Pool. I'd estimate that over a regular fight you could get away with casting Cluster every 2 or 3 seconds and still recover before the next pack. It would take only 6 seconds to regenerate your Hatred fully assuming you weren't spending any. This means we can consider Discipline as seperately sustainable.
Discipline - 30 max, 2D/s passive /w Templar.
We can ignore Companion's cost because you only pay for it once and I *believe* they can't/don't die/expire. Looking at the premise of the build, you need to cast two Caltrops every pull - one to stand on and the other to slow mobs, using the math I mentioned in an earlier post, this is just about sustainable through base regeneration - this means that Nightstalker needs to generate a small amount of D to compensate for Caltrops since we haven't taken Perfectionist in this build and then a little extra for Marked for Death. Marked for Death lasts 15 seconds and costs 6 Discipline. To cover Marked for Death end-to-end (no overlap) Nightstalker must generate 0.4D/s on average. The amount required for Caltrops I estimate to be about 1D/s. Hence Nightstalker must, on average, generate 1.4D/s.
If we assume the chance on Nightstalker to be 20% (a low estimate IMO) and we have something like 30% crit (we should have more tbh), that means 6% of our attacks will generate 2 Discipline (converting to 12% for 1D to simplify). Then, if we assume we're, on average, hitting 5 or 6 time per second, then every two seconds we would generate 1D (i.e. 0.5D/s). Obviously this falls short of our needs.
If NS was 20% and we had 50% crit then we would have approximately 1D/s regen. This is approaching what we need. I'm hoping that in fact, NS a proc chance of over 50% plus we can obtain 40% crit, then we should generate 2D/s on average.
Just seen the replies (I had tha post open for ages - went to watch TV)!
The idea was that these posts were quick estimates to see how much the affixes help us out, given that there are only a few certain ones available. Hence the math is a bit ropey and I did just assume a 1s attack speed to keep thing simple for now. The Templar skill "Inspire" is mostly a benefit to Discipline, it shouldn't affect Hatred calculations that much, but it will affect Discipline quite substantially, in fact you can use only half as many Discipline abilities if you discount multishot. That being said, I think builds with nightstalker should be able to overcome it and other builds could incorporate unruned Prep and possibly another form of hatred generation to make them viable. I've done enough theorycraft for today though
I screwed up my math when calculating hatred regen from items (post is fixed now). Max is 10H/s with dual wield hand crossbows and 6.66 with other ranged weapons.
The core of the build is obviously:
* Multishot w/ Supression Fire
* Preparation w/ Punishment
Even without anything else, this pretty much lets you constantly spam MS as long as you hit 2+ enemies each time. Beyond this, everything else is really optional, but here's why I chose what I did:
Perfectionist - Multishot has the potential to generate a lot more Discipline than we need, so we're going to focus on ways to take advantage of that Discipline. Think of Perfectionist as +25% Discipline generation and it fits right in with this theme.
Vault w/ Tumble - Great for general movement between fights, repositioning during combat, and running away if things go badly. Tumble plus Perfectionist lets us Vault for only 4D. With base regen that's a Vault every 4 seconds and with a Templar while solo it's every 2 seconds. This is well within the 6 second window of Tumble and gives us great mobility. This mobility should make it reasonable to forgo slows/snares without too much difficulty.
Tactical Advantage - If we're going to be vaulting a lot it only makes sense to take this passive. While solo Vault can be used every time the debuff runs out allowing great distances to be traversed in a short time. This should help to track down those champion/rare packs that drop that loot we really want without wasting too much time in between.
Shadow Power w/ Gloom - This is where we take advantage of all the Discipline that we can generate with MS. With a 1.5 attack speed and hitting 5 targets per shot that's 7.5D/s. Including base regen, that's enough to keep Shadow Power up constantly while still using Prep as needed. This gives us the option to stand and fight with 20% leech and 65% damage reduction or Vault to safety.
Hungering Arrow w/ Scatter Shot - MS's main weakness is its relatively low single-target damage. Hungering Arrow averages ~177% damage per cast and Scatter Shot should increase that to ~300% damage per cast (assuming after the first split each arrow becomes a normal Hungering Arrow that can't split again, but still has a 35% chance to pierce). MS is sustainable on as few as 2 targets, and there are other single-target Hatred Spenders we could have picked, but Hungering Arrow does at least as much dps and has the extra utility of being able to shoot around corners and easily hit things that are off screen. Even if it cost hatred instead of generating it, it would still be a good pick here (the generated hatred will likely just be wasted). It also opens up more options for single-target fights.
Companion w/ Ferret Companion - The last spot could be just about anything. If CC is needed, swapping Caltrops in here would be a good idea, but if you can manage without, then the Ferret should make it so you don't have to run over to every pack of mobs that you just mowed down at range with MS. Companion scrolls are gone for everyone but the DH, so we're going to take advantage of that.
Steady Aim - Really anything could be plugged in here, but this seems like the best dps increase starting out. Once I scraped together some crit on gear I'd probably switch this one out for Archery with a 2h crossbow (with 50% crit chance that's about a 25% damage increase that doesn't go away if enemies are nearby). If Perfectionist ends up being overkill then we can grab both.
Skill Swaps
Marked for Death w/ anything - For boss fights this will replace Companion. There are several good runes to choose from and specific boss mechanics will probably determine which to use in each situation.
Impale w/ Impact - For any bosses that are stunnable (I think this was working on the Skeleton King) this will be a great way to lock them down. If its truly a single-target fight, then this can replace MS. If there are some adds with the boss that MS would be helpful in clearing then this can replace Preparation. We'll be using Hungering Arrow between Impales and minion waves anyway, so hatred shouldn't be an issue in these cases. If we keep Prep in the build we can swap the rune to keep the Discipline flowing for Shadow Power without our MS spam.
Sentry w/ Guardian Turret - For those really tough situations this provides a little bit more damage reduction. It applies to all party members, so great for groups in particular. If you have people to tank a boss for you this could be a good replacement for Vault.
I screwed up my math when calculating hatred regen from items (post is fixed now). Max is 10H/s with dual wield hand crossbows and 6.66 with other ranged weapons.
Is this because Quivers are an off-hand item? I thought they just sat in the inventory, chillin'.
I screwed up my math when calculating hatred regen from items (post is fixed now). Max is 10H/s with dual wield hand crossbows and 6.66 with other ranged weapons.
Is this because Quivers are an off-hand item? I thought they just sat in the inventory, chillin'.
Yup. They are a bit strange though, since you can equip them with a 2h crossbow or 2h bow as well as with a single 1h hand crossbow. Neither of the 2h options can have hatred regen or max discipline, so you need either 1h xbow + quiver + cloak or 1h xbow + 1h xbow + cloak to get the maximum regen.
I screwed up my math when calculating hatred regen from items (post is fixed now). Max is 10H/s with dual wield hand crossbows and 6.66 with other ranged weapons.
Is this because Quivers are an off-hand item? I thought they just sat in the inventory, chillin'.
Yup. They are a bit strange though, since you can equip them with a 2h crossbow or 2h bow as well as with a single 1h hand crossbow. Neither of the 2h options can have hatred regen or max discipline, so you need either 1h xbow + quiver + cloak or 1h xbow + 1h xbow + cloak to get the maximum regen.
Well that's retarded, I can see why you would have a quiver with a 2h Bow/XBow, but why would you choose a 1h Bow and then not use an OH bow as well? Seem really pointless.
Well that's retarded, I can see why you would have a quiver with a 2h Bow/XBow, but why would you choose a 1h Bow and then not use an OH bow as well? Seem really pointless.
Yeah, I would prefer either a shield or a second 1h xbow over a quiver, but you can do it if you want.
You CAN use a Quiver with a 2h bow or crossbow. If you want I can go in the beta and take some screens to prove it, or u can just take my word for it. Also I get more DPS with a quiver + 1h xbow than any other combo so there is good reason for wanting it. Remember your off hand weapon damage does not mean much in this game so having two one handers opposed to something else in the off hand is not that bad especially if the off hand gives large bonuses to damage or attack speed.
Edit: Surprisingly I have the level 12 quiver with +dex and +dmg affixes on top of hatred regen. The level 13 RARE 1h xbow drops my dps by around 10 points even with +dmg +speed +regen on it. My dps is nearing 80 right now so 10 is still quite a hefty amount. So I personally see the logic in a 1h xbow + quiver combo. (I have made about 10 of those xbows trying to get one to replace it with no luck)
Also sorry for not showing up all day. Got real busy with work. Hopefully I can get in some work on the post before turning in for the night.
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But that's just because you can craft level 13 rare 1h xbows in the beta. In the full game if you're using a quiver then you'd do more dps with a 2h bow/xbow + quiver (you're basically getting the best of both a 2h and dual wielding with this setup).
If you really want to use a 1h xbow and are shooting for max dps with the setup you can either get a 15% attack speed bonus from a 2nd equal hand xbow or the +damage automod from a quiver. A level 60 quiver can get up to +90 damage (average), which isn't quite enough to equal dual wielding with perfect +damage in all your other slots, but it should be fairly competitive.
Obviously you could get lucky with 1h xbow drops, but with equally good items a 2h + quiver is always going to be the highest dps setup end-game. If you want to use a shield or really want an extra slot worth of resource affixes, then you have to give up some dps when dropping down to a 1h xbow.
But that's just because you can craft level 13 rare 1h xbows in the beta. In the full game if you're using a quiver then you'd do more dps with a 2h bow/xbow + quiver (you're basically getting the best of both a 2h and dual wielding with this setup).
Not really. The 2h and 1h weapon's mod is the same for bows/xbows. The idea is that no matter what combo you are technically duel wielding even if one of the two is a quiver. The potential mod bonus with any combination of weapons for the DH is the same regardless of what is chosen. The only exception is the duel wield +15% and still then that is balanced by internal game mechanics because 2h do more DPS than 1h, this was intentional and they are making sure it is balanced.
The only real gimpy build you can make with this set up is to NOT get that 15% bonus if and only if you are using the 1h.
If you really want to use a 1h xbow and are shooting for max dps with the setup you can either get a 15% attack speed bonus from a 2nd equal hand xbow or the +damage automod from a quiver. A level 60 quiver can get up to +90 damage (average), which isn't quite enough to equal dual wielding with perfect +damage in all your other slots, but it should be fairly competitive.
Obviously you could get lucky with 1h xbow drops, but with equally good items a 2h + quiver is always going to be the highest dps setup end-game. If you want to use a shield or really want an extra slot worth of resource affixes, then you have to give up some dps when dropping down to a 1h xbow.
Yes in a perfect situation having either 2h+quiver or 2 1h is the best dps option. They both boast the same potential, based on gear alone, dps. While you do mention that in some cases getting something other than an xbow in the offhand may be necessary you neglect to mention that +attack speed is not additive. The problem here is as gear gets better and attack speed goes up the bonus from duel wielding goes down in strength. At level 60 it may be so unnoticeable that getting a good enough quiver will give you the same if not better dps.
I also don't see why you say that 2h+quiver will always beat 2 1h. The speed bonus is supposed to balance out that gap that 2h weapons have in terms of pure dps values they carry, it is the same way with other duel wield classes why not the DH?
I'll say this right now. It is really unwise to try and min/max gear in a game that has this much randomness to the loot. Since there is no set values for anything it is hard to judge how powerful any combo of gear and weapons is the best. Most of this will happen in game when you pick it up and be completely subjective to the situation at hand.
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Am I misunderstanding something here? Preperation[Punishment] gives you all the hatred you could ever use. It seems like these builds should focus on Discipline replenishment, so that you can pop Preperation whenever you want to. Multishot seems to be the winner here.
The 2h and 1h weapon's mod is the same for bows/xbows. The idea is that no matter what combo you are technically duel wielding even if one of the two is a quiver. The potential mod bonus with any combination of weapons for the DH is the same regardless of what is chosen. The only exception is the duel wield +15% and still then that is balanced by internal game mechanics because 2h do more DPS than 1h, this was intentional and they are making sure it is balanced.
All other classes have to choose between the higher base DPS of a 2h weapon or the extra stats of dual wielding (or 1h + offhand). The DH gets the best of both worlds with a 2h weapon + quiver (higher 2h base dps plus double stats). If you had a 1h xbow + quiver and could magically convert that 1h into a 2h bow/xbow while keeping its same stats, then you would almost certainly see a dps increase. And since my napkin math puts dual wield and 1h + quiver at roughly the same dps, I expect 2h + quiver to be the top dps setup for most Demon Hunters.
Yes in a perfect situation having either 2h+quiver or 2 1h is the best dps option. They both boast the same potential, based on gear alone, dps. While you do mention that in some cases getting something other than an xbow in the offhand may be necessary you neglect to mention that +attack speed is not additive. The problem here is as gear gets better and attack speed goes up the bonus from duel wielding goes down in strength. At level 60 it may be so unnoticeable that getting a good enough quiver will give you the same if not better dps.
I also don't see why you say that 2h+quiver will always beat 2 1h. The speed bonus is supposed to balance out that gap that 2h weapons have in terms of pure dps values they carry, it is the same way with other duel wield classes why not the DH?
I'll say this right now. It is really unwise to try and min/max gear in a game that has this much randomness to the loot. Since there is no set values for anything it is hard to judge how powerful any combo of gear and weapons is the best. Most of this will happen in game when you pick it up and be completely subjective to the situation at hand.
2h xbow, 2h bow, and 1h xbow do scale differently with different stats. +damage is more beneficial for faster attacking weapons but on the other hand, straight +attacks per second is more beneficial to the slower weapons. If you stack straight up damage, then a 1h xbow will be your best weapon, but if you have an even mix or stack +attacks per second then the 2h xbow will come out on top. (+% attack speed and damage effect both equally, so they don't impact this comparison).
Understanding these sorts of trade-offs is important if you want to pick the right gear, no matter what stats happen to spawn. If you find a great 1h xbow and/or you want to use a shield for better defenses, then you should try and focus the rest of your gear on +damage and don't worry too much about +attacks per second. If you have lots of +damage and not much +attacks per second, then you probably want to pickup a good 1h xbow. If you have a good 2h xbow, then you want to focus on +attacks per second and worry less about +damage, if you have a good 2h bow you probably want to focus on a good balance of the two stats, etc.
Am I misunderstanding something here? Preperation[Punishment] gives you all the hatred you could ever use. It seems like these builds should focus on Discipline replenishment, so that you can pop Preperation whenever you want to. Multishot seems to be the winner here.
That's my thinking, hence the MS build I posted above. MS does less damage per target than Elemental Arrow, but it should hit more targets due to its cone AoE instead of line AoE and/or its easier to line up your shots with. The real kicker, though, is it should give you pretty much unlimited Discipline to play with if you're shooting big packs with a decent attack speed. And Diablo is all about mowing down hoards of demons, so this is definitely my top build right now.
Am I misunderstanding something here? Preperation[Punishment] gives you all the hatred you could ever use. It seems like these builds should focus on Discipline replenishment, so that you can pop Preperation whenever you want to. Multishot seems to be the winner here.
You did miss something. It gives you too much hatred! Unless you have some crazy attack speed you can not use all the hatred you get with Prep. This assumes you have +hatred regen affix on weapons of course. If you look at the math in the post you can generate almost 10-13 hatred per second at level 60 (assuming 2 of the 3 affix are present) while using only 11-16 per second (assuming something around 1.1-1.6). Getting an extra 125 hatred every 20 sec is way more than enough to sustain the difference in hatred generation and spending.
Discipline replenishment is not as important as you might think and in all honesty it will become quite overkill quite fast. This is also why most of my builds do not rely heavily on passives to get discipline. Generating too much hatred from discipline pretty much means you put too many skills/passives toward hatred regen because now you have wasted potential. (I also did the math for trying to get Cluster Arrow to be spammable... It is not possible without other means of generation like Gernades).
Edit: The old builds I had up used multi to fuel disc regens only because I did not factor in the affix from weapons. The affix is so powerful for these builds that the focus now should be on what attack speeds can be supported by the different means of getting hatred back. I will go so far as to say that from the looks of the math one could feasibly generate a little over 22 hatred per second. This is absurd! Assuming one were to put all their eggs into one basket and do this they could easily use these builds with 2 1h xbow and not just the suggested 2h builds that I posted. I have yet to do all the math out and post this build, something I plan to get done after I put up the charts on attack speed.
@Chippydip: I get that having different modifiers at different speeds will change dps. Making an already fast weapon faster does not do much, especially after the fact that APS is not liner, and the opposite is true for 2h. I was just trying to point out that 1h xbow and a quiver may not be a bad choice depending on your current stats. If you are very unlucky and are all decked out for APS and have the choice between 1h+quiver or 2 1h you may see better results with a quiver depending on what you have available. I understand the math I was just playing the Devils advocate and showing an in game example that proved a reason to use a 1h bow and quiver even though you stated that nobody should want to use one since the math points to 2 1h being better.
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Your attack moves use hated.
Your defense moves use discipline.
Focus on discipline replenishment, so you can pop Preperation whenever you need to. Now you can spam offensive and defensive skills all you like, while not requiring any "Hate Generators".
I believe that was the original intention of this post.
Yes improving discipline returns can help, but you can only use hatred so fast. If we assume you have an attack speed of 1.3 you will end up using 260 hatred every 20 sec. I only use 20 sec because that is the length of time to get the discipline to use Prep. Over this 20 sec we can assume that you have a natural regen of about 10 based on gear. Prep generates 125 hatred. Overall you generate 325 hatred and only spend 260 of it. This is why I say Prep is over kill. Trying to get even more regen for either resource at this point is pointless. You have no way to burn off the extra hatred unless you are in a special case where spamming something like Strafe or Cluster Arrow is a good idea.
If for example you want to get more damage out you can switch out Prep for the Companion(Bat) you will generate less hatred but also have more damage output on top of freeing up discipline to use on other things like Vault of Sentry.
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No need to rearrange really. The high amount of hatred regen from gear pretty much means that we only really need 1 generator as a safety net to get by. Even something like the Companion can be a nice way to never have to worry about hatred ever again. Still most of this information is subjective to the gear anyway. Getting +Hatred regen affix on two weapons is enough to make these builds really shine at level 60.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Base Hatred /w Vengeance = 150. Base Restoration = 4H/s. Templar bonus = +1H/s.
Just quickly looking at ability costs tells us with the max hatred generation of +10/s from gear, we see that Elemental Arrow and the channeled part of Rapid Fire are sustainable. Factor in Base regen and we're onto a winner with both of those. Adding gear regen to base regen gives us a passive 15H/s, which is also enough to sustain Multishot spam. Of course getting perfect modifiers on each gear piece is an unreasonable expectation, but the lowest it can be with the rank 10 modifier is like 2.7, hence a low end regeneration of 8.1H/s with bad gear. Of course, I haven't included any of our regeneration abilities in this, so it's perfectly reasonable to say this build of this style could sustain itself in terms of Hatred, especially should Bat companion be used (+3H/s). It shouldn't have a problem with Discipline either, given that Multishot is the generator.
Looking at Discipline:
Base Discipline = 30. Base Regen = 1D/s. Templar Bonus = 1D/s. Total Passive of 2D/s.
With Perfectionist, Prep costs 16D, with our passive regen, that means we can Prep once every 8 seconds, providing we spend no D on anything else. Looking at the above projections of Hatred it becomes obvious that we won't be needing to Prep nearly that often. Using the same logic we can Vault every 4 secs or Caltrops every 3.2 secs. You shouldn't need to Vault very often unless you're doing D3 wrong and Caltrops lasts 6 seconds so you can technically afford 2 Caltrops before you >should< need to lay another. It would be questionable and situational if the build could sustain itself following this, but thankfully we gain Discipline from Multishot - lets assume 5 mobs per pack - and we know Multishot is prettymuch infinitely sustainable in terms of Hatred - so we could generate theoretically 5D/s from Multishot alone. Adding that to our base we get 7D/s when, and only when, we are spamming Multishot. At that rate of recovery it takes just over two seconds to generate enough Discipline to use prep.
Now this is most definitely sustainable - essentially the build can sustain itself in Hatred without actually using Prep and in Discipline even if we were using a lot of Discipline abilities. In this we haven't even considered what we could do with Max Discipline bonuses and unruned Prep - we could essentially generate 60 to 75 Discipline every 45 seconds. That's 1.3 - 1.6 D/s. We have also omitted Health Globes, which with Vengeance are actually pretty sweet.
Next post I'm going to look at one of the more intensive builds I posted and see how they fair...
Remember the numbers I was using consisted of 3hatred per sec on 2 pieces of gear. Assuming you have the hunter cloak you can add in another 3 on top of that number. I was writing conservatively only because I do not like to do min/max games. They are nice on paper and are good for showing the limits for classes but in reality only a select few will get lucky enough to get something like 3.33 on 3 pieces of gear + everything else.
It looks great. The only thing I really still have trouble getting to talk about is the followers. Templar giving 1disc and 1hatred is quite powerful. Scoundral with the DH passives also looks to be good for a high power build ie: his crit bonus and your passives that rely on crit. Did you take into account that you will loose this bonus when in multiplayer? Just out of curiosity I am guessing this build can only be sustained with the Templar or am I wrong?
Also the last thing you said is very much true. It seems that with max +hatred regen gear a DH can sustain forever using a 2h xbow! The big question comes into play how often does this happen? You only have a tiny window of attack speed and this is with the most perfect gear you can come by. Simply put it works on paper even without Templar or any other bonus but in practice I think we will want some type of generation even if it is overkill. Without the generation I suspect we will run into problems rather fast when talking about attack speed and wanting to use a more diverse array of weapons.
I'm getting really tired and I can't really focus any more :/ I will try to have the rest of the front page updated tonight! All I really need is to put up some more builds and get the numbers up there in a way that looks nice. Also like that build I posted? It should be able to support 1h xbow + quiver with the amount of generation. I am playing around with trying to get 2 1h xbow support as well. It should be up sometime tonight
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Well, I did say "According to the latest patch data". Its certainly possible things may change or that not all of these mods are actually enabled (I'm not sure if anyone has figure out how affixes are marked as enabled or not in the data files). As for conflicting data, I'd actually be interested if you could point me to any conflicting sources. I worked with the guy who runs d3inferno while we were initially figuring out the formats for a lot of the data files and while I'm pretty sure he's parsing them correctly, seeing conflicting data would help me to improve my own understanding of how the data files work.
In any case, there's definitely no discipline regen or max hatred affixes in the game right now and only a few skills even have the possibility of having their costs reduced, which was the main point I was trying to make.
This assumes you are only attacking once per second. With a 2.0 attack speed, Multishot cost would increase to 30H/s for example.
Again, you are discounting attack speed, but in this case faster attacks will work in your favor. A 2.0 Multishot will be generating 10D/s for you if its hitting 5 targets each.
With Multishot+Suppression Fire, Preparation+Punishment, and Perfectionist or Vengeance, you are resource positive while hitting 2 targets per shot at any attack speed. Once you include base hatred regen, a 2.0 speed Multishot could sustain itself at 2 targets without either passive and with a little regen on gear and/or not spamming 100% of the time you could support an even higher attack speed.
Another interesting note: I was testing some other stuff earlier today and noticed that it took around 26-27 second to fully recharge my hatred. This means that the base regen rate is more like 4.75H/s now. (Discipline looks like 1/s still).
Obviously, Elemental Arrow and Rapid Fire aren't using up Hatred fast enough! Cluster Arrow however, does, costing 50 Hatred per usage, this means to recover from a single Cluster Arrow it would take just under 2.4 secs. If we were to drop in a Cluster Arrow every now and then and then continue to spam one of our other abilities, we would still regen 11H/s if it were Elemental Arrow or Rapid Fire (the extra initial cost is covered in about a second). This means it would take under 5 seconds to make up for Cluster Shot spamming Elemental Arrow (6 if Rapid Fire). So, to passively sustain whilst spamming any ability, we could only use Cluster Arrow once every 6 seconds - roughly. Again, this is without any hatred regen ability or factoring in Health Globes or the initial Hatred Pool. I'd estimate that over a regular fight you could get away with casting Cluster every 2 or 3 seconds and still recover before the next pack. It would take only 6 seconds to regenerate your Hatred fully assuming you weren't spending any. This means we can consider Discipline as seperately sustainable.
Discipline - 30 max, 2D/s passive /w Templar.
We can ignore Companion's cost because you only pay for it once and I *believe* they can't/don't die/expire. Looking at the premise of the build, you need to cast two Caltrops every pull - one to stand on and the other to slow mobs, using the math I mentioned in an earlier post, this is just about sustainable through base regeneration - this means that Nightstalker needs to generate a small amount of D to compensate for Caltrops since we haven't taken Perfectionist in this build and then a little extra for Marked for Death. Marked for Death lasts 15 seconds and costs 6 Discipline. To cover Marked for Death end-to-end (no overlap) Nightstalker must generate 0.4D/s on average. The amount required for Caltrops I estimate to be about 1D/s. Hence Nightstalker must, on average, generate 1.4D/s.
If we assume the chance on Nightstalker to be 20% (a low estimate IMO) and we have something like 30% crit (we should have more tbh), that means 6% of our attacks will generate 2 Discipline (converting to 12% for 1D to simplify). Then, if we assume we're, on average, hitting 5 or 6 time per second, then every two seconds we would generate 1D (i.e. 0.5D/s). Obviously this falls short of our needs.
If NS was 20% and we had 50% crit then we would have approximately 1D/s regen. This is approaching what we need. I'm hoping that in fact, NS a proc chance of over 50% plus we can obtain 40% crit, then we should generate 2D/s on average.
The idea was that these posts were quick estimates to see how much the affixes help us out, given that there are only a few certain ones available. Hence the math is a bit ropey and I did just assume a 1s attack speed to keep thing simple for now. The Templar skill "Inspire" is mostly a benefit to Discipline, it shouldn't affect Hatred calculations that much, but it will affect Discipline quite substantially, in fact you can use only half as many Discipline abilities if you discount multishot. That being said, I think builds with nightstalker should be able to overcome it and other builds could incorporate unruned Prep and possibly another form of hatred generation to make them viable. I've done enough theorycraft for today though
Anyway, this is the build that I'm thinking about using: http://us.battle.net...halQ!aYf!bYZbYY
The core of the build is obviously:
* Multishot w/ Supression Fire
* Preparation w/ Punishment
Even without anything else, this pretty much lets you constantly spam MS as long as you hit 2+ enemies each time. Beyond this, everything else is really optional, but here's why I chose what I did:
Perfectionist - Multishot has the potential to generate a lot more Discipline than we need, so we're going to focus on ways to take advantage of that Discipline. Think of Perfectionist as +25% Discipline generation and it fits right in with this theme.
Vault w/ Tumble - Great for general movement between fights, repositioning during combat, and running away if things go badly. Tumble plus Perfectionist lets us Vault for only 4D. With base regen that's a Vault every 4 seconds and with a Templar while solo it's every 2 seconds. This is well within the 6 second window of Tumble and gives us great mobility. This mobility should make it reasonable to forgo slows/snares without too much difficulty.
Tactical Advantage - If we're going to be vaulting a lot it only makes sense to take this passive. While solo Vault can be used every time the debuff runs out allowing great distances to be traversed in a short time. This should help to track down those champion/rare packs that drop that loot we really want without wasting too much time in between.
Shadow Power w/ Gloom - This is where we take advantage of all the Discipline that we can generate with MS. With a 1.5 attack speed and hitting 5 targets per shot that's 7.5D/s. Including base regen, that's enough to keep Shadow Power up constantly while still using Prep as needed. This gives us the option to stand and fight with 20% leech and 65% damage reduction or Vault to safety.
Hungering Arrow w/ Scatter Shot - MS's main weakness is its relatively low single-target damage. Hungering Arrow averages ~177% damage per cast and Scatter Shot should increase that to ~300% damage per cast (assuming after the first split each arrow becomes a normal Hungering Arrow that can't split again, but still has a 35% chance to pierce). MS is sustainable on as few as 2 targets, and there are other single-target Hatred Spenders we could have picked, but Hungering Arrow does at least as much dps and has the extra utility of being able to shoot around corners and easily hit things that are off screen. Even if it cost hatred instead of generating it, it would still be a good pick here (the generated hatred will likely just be wasted). It also opens up more options for single-target fights.
Companion w/ Ferret Companion - The last spot could be just about anything. If CC is needed, swapping Caltrops in here would be a good idea, but if you can manage without, then the Ferret should make it so you don't have to run over to every pack of mobs that you just mowed down at range with MS. Companion scrolls are gone for everyone but the DH, so we're going to take advantage of that.
Steady Aim - Really anything could be plugged in here, but this seems like the best dps increase starting out. Once I scraped together some crit on gear I'd probably switch this one out for Archery with a 2h crossbow (with 50% crit chance that's about a 25% damage increase that doesn't go away if enemies are nearby). If Perfectionist ends up being overkill then we can grab both.
Skill Swaps
Marked for Death w/ anything - For boss fights this will replace Companion. There are several good runes to choose from and specific boss mechanics will probably determine which to use in each situation.
Impale w/ Impact - For any bosses that are stunnable (I think this was working on the Skeleton King) this will be a great way to lock them down. If its truly a single-target fight, then this can replace MS. If there are some adds with the boss that MS would be helpful in clearing then this can replace Preparation. We'll be using Hungering Arrow between Impales and minion waves anyway, so hatred shouldn't be an issue in these cases. If we keep Prep in the build we can swap the rune to keep the Discipline flowing for Shadow Power without our MS spam.
Sentry w/ Guardian Turret - For those really tough situations this provides a little bit more damage reduction. It applies to all party members, so great for groups in particular. If you have people to tank a boss for you this could be a good replacement for Vault.
Is this because Quivers are an off-hand item? I thought they just sat in the inventory, chillin'.
Yup. They are a bit strange though, since you can equip them with a 2h crossbow or 2h bow as well as with a single 1h hand crossbow. Neither of the 2h options can have hatred regen or max discipline, so you need either 1h xbow + quiver + cloak or 1h xbow + 1h xbow + cloak to get the maximum regen.
Well that's retarded, I can see why you would have a quiver with a 2h Bow/XBow, but why would you choose a 1h Bow and then not use an OH bow as well? Seem really pointless.
Yeah, I would prefer either a shield or a second 1h xbow over a quiver, but you can do it if you want.
Edit: Surprisingly I have the level 12 quiver with +dex and +dmg affixes on top of hatred regen. The level 13 RARE 1h xbow drops my dps by around 10 points even with +dmg +speed +regen on it. My dps is nearing 80 right now so 10 is still quite a hefty amount. So I personally see the logic in a 1h xbow + quiver combo. (I have made about 10 of those xbows trying to get one to replace it with no luck)
Also sorry for not showing up all day. Got real busy with work. Hopefully I can get in some work on the post before turning in for the night.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
If you really want to use a 1h xbow and are shooting for max dps with the setup you can either get a 15% attack speed bonus from a 2nd equal hand xbow or the +damage automod from a quiver. A level 60 quiver can get up to +90 damage (average), which isn't quite enough to equal dual wielding with perfect +damage in all your other slots, but it should be fairly competitive.
Obviously you could get lucky with 1h xbow drops, but with equally good items a 2h + quiver is always going to be the highest dps setup end-game. If you want to use a shield or really want an extra slot worth of resource affixes, then you have to give up some dps when dropping down to a 1h xbow.
Not really. The 2h and 1h weapon's mod is the same for bows/xbows. The idea is that no matter what combo you are technically duel wielding even if one of the two is a quiver. The potential mod bonus with any combination of weapons for the DH is the same regardless of what is chosen. The only exception is the duel wield +15% and still then that is balanced by internal game mechanics because 2h do more DPS than 1h, this was intentional and they are making sure it is balanced.
The only real gimpy build you can make with this set up is to NOT get that 15% bonus if and only if you are using the 1h.
Yes in a perfect situation having either 2h+quiver or 2 1h is the best dps option. They both boast the same potential, based on gear alone, dps. While you do mention that in some cases getting something other than an xbow in the offhand may be necessary you neglect to mention that +attack speed is not additive. The problem here is as gear gets better and attack speed goes up the bonus from duel wielding goes down in strength. At level 60 it may be so unnoticeable that getting a good enough quiver will give you the same if not better dps.
I also don't see why you say that 2h+quiver will always beat 2 1h. The speed bonus is supposed to balance out that gap that 2h weapons have in terms of pure dps values they carry, it is the same way with other duel wield classes why not the DH?
I'll say this right now. It is really unwise to try and min/max gear in a game that has this much randomness to the loot. Since there is no set values for anything it is hard to judge how powerful any combo of gear and weapons is the best. Most of this will happen in game when you pick it up and be completely subjective to the situation at hand.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
All other classes have to choose between the higher base DPS of a 2h weapon or the extra stats of dual wielding (or 1h + offhand). The DH gets the best of both worlds with a 2h weapon + quiver (higher 2h base dps plus double stats). If you had a 1h xbow + quiver and could magically convert that 1h into a 2h bow/xbow while keeping its same stats, then you would almost certainly see a dps increase. And since my napkin math puts dual wield and 1h + quiver at roughly the same dps, I expect 2h + quiver to be the top dps setup for most Demon Hunters.
2h xbow, 2h bow, and 1h xbow do scale differently with different stats. +damage is more beneficial for faster attacking weapons but on the other hand, straight +attacks per second is more beneficial to the slower weapons. If you stack straight up damage, then a 1h xbow will be your best weapon, but if you have an even mix or stack +attacks per second then the 2h xbow will come out on top. (+% attack speed and damage effect both equally, so they don't impact this comparison).
Understanding these sorts of trade-offs is important if you want to pick the right gear, no matter what stats happen to spawn. If you find a great 1h xbow and/or you want to use a shield for better defenses, then you should try and focus the rest of your gear on +damage and don't worry too much about +attacks per second. If you have lots of +damage and not much +attacks per second, then you probably want to pickup a good 1h xbow. If you have a good 2h xbow, then you want to focus on +attacks per second and worry less about +damage, if you have a good 2h bow you probably want to focus on a good balance of the two stats, etc.
That's my thinking, hence the MS build I posted above. MS does less damage per target than Elemental Arrow, but it should hit more targets due to its cone AoE instead of line AoE and/or its easier to line up your shots with. The real kicker, though, is it should give you pretty much unlimited Discipline to play with if you're shooting big packs with a decent attack speed. And Diablo is all about mowing down hoards of demons, so this is definitely my top build right now.
You did miss something. It gives you too much hatred! Unless you have some crazy attack speed you can not use all the hatred you get with Prep. This assumes you have +hatred regen affix on weapons of course. If you look at the math in the post you can generate almost 10-13 hatred per second at level 60 (assuming 2 of the 3 affix are present) while using only 11-16 per second (assuming something around 1.1-1.6). Getting an extra 125 hatred every 20 sec is way more than enough to sustain the difference in hatred generation and spending.
Discipline replenishment is not as important as you might think and in all honesty it will become quite overkill quite fast. This is also why most of my builds do not rely heavily on passives to get discipline. Generating too much hatred from discipline pretty much means you put too many skills/passives toward hatred regen because now you have wasted potential. (I also did the math for trying to get Cluster Arrow to be spammable... It is not possible without other means of generation like Gernades).
Edit: The old builds I had up used multi to fuel disc regens only because I did not factor in the affix from weapons. The affix is so powerful for these builds that the focus now should be on what attack speeds can be supported by the different means of getting hatred back. I will go so far as to say that from the looks of the math one could feasibly generate a little over 22 hatred per second. This is absurd! Assuming one were to put all their eggs into one basket and do this they could easily use these builds with 2 1h xbow and not just the suggested 2h builds that I posted. I have yet to do all the math out and post this build, something I plan to get done after I put up the charts on attack speed.
@Chippydip: I get that having different modifiers at different speeds will change dps. Making an already fast weapon faster does not do much, especially after the fact that APS is not liner, and the opposite is true for 2h. I was just trying to point out that 1h xbow and a quiver may not be a bad choice depending on your current stats. If you are very unlucky and are all decked out for APS and have the choice between 1h+quiver or 2 1h you may see better results with a quiver depending on what you have available. I understand the math I was just playing the Devils advocate and showing an in game example that proved a reason to use a 1h bow and quiver even though you stated that nobody should want to use one since the math points to 2 1h being better.
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Sorry had to fix that table.
Your attack moves use hated.
Your defense moves use discipline.
Focus on discipline replenishment, so you can pop Preperation whenever you need to. Now you can spam offensive and defensive skills all you like, while not requiring any "Hate Generators".
I believe that was the original intention of this post.
If for example you want to get more damage out you can switch out Prep for the Companion(Bat) you will generate less hatred but also have more damage output on top of freeing up discipline to use on other things like Vault of Sentry.
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Sorry had to fix that table.