since the initial season rush is over and I've had some time to do more relaxing things lately, I decided to look a little bit more at the details of the lightning RoV DH. There's been a lot of discussion about which stat rolls you want to have, which passives and even gems to use, and especially which offhand weapon to use. I hope this stuff helps a little in case you decide to push the DH leaderboards this season. I've done a lot of testing with interesting results and created an excel sheet to crunch the numbers for the different options. After polishing the tables a little I decided to share them here. Keep in mind that many of these numbers are rough approximations and educated guesses based on my experience with the build, and most of them can not be applied the same way in every rift because of different layouts and hit box sizes (especially Area Damage / Fulminator). Also, prepare for a lot of numbers.
These stats are the same I have in my solo setup, minus a lot of dexterity, crit chance and critical hit damage (I made sure to not kill my testing dummies but kept relative values the same). 39% lightning damage, 53% RoV bonus, rank 80 Taeguk (I have 76 currently but I expect it to be 80 soon). The sheet itself is a little bit more complicated because I kept adding things here and there without tidying it up all the time, hence I have these multipliers etc (e.g. I wasn't stacking Taeguk for my tests but just calculated the difference).
First I did some tests on Fulminator proc rates. I knew it has a 100% proc chance already (tested it with lightning Chakram, which has a 0.5 proc coefficient and I got a proc on every other attack). RoV - Shade has a proc coefficient of 4% and ticks 20 times in 5 seconds. I wanted to see how often it would proc and stay on the target after a single cast. Since RoV lasts 5 and Fulminator 6 seconds, I always just cast RoV and waited until it was gone, then checked if the buff was active (obviously it can be overwritten by multiple RoV ticks). First I tested 200 casts with only one RoV, then 100 casts with 2 RoVs (3:1 cycle time is approximately 2.2 seconds, so I lost 1.2 seconds from the first casts that are invisible in the results). The proc rates were much better already, and this is considering that I weren't casting any more RoVs in a full 5 seconds after the second one. Like this, I conservatively estimated Fulminator uptime to be around 90% from RoV casts alone when you keep fighting constantly. Most likely it's slightly more in real scenarios.
I then proceeded to collect some data on damage numbers with my setup (300 CHD). I was especially interested in some of the cubable melee weapons and the gems, however - as expected - they all turned out pretty horrible. (Fun Fact: It took me 10 minutes to notice the first Rimeheart proc). Nevertheless, I found out some interesting things: Most procs will always deal damage accord to the active weapon when procced, even if the initial attack used the other one. For those that follow the DH leaderboards a little, you might have noticed that I used a statstick Helltrapper (http://puu.sh/kHVcn/fc21611df3.jpg) for my Tier 70 run, which for some reason currently is a very rare thing to do. The concept of statsticks was way more common last season in the Stampede meta, since RoV and CR scale only off your mainhand damage and your generator + Strafe generally contribute very little to your overall dps. This hasn't really changed, and the only entirely new thing that entered the arena was the Fulminator in the cube (which would get procced by your mainhand anyway), so it seems weird that people do that. However, due to the testing I did it's quite obvious that opposed to my tier 70 run, using a statstick offhand is not really an option for DHs currently. RoV scales only off your mainhand and as such you would expect that Fulminator also always uses your mainhand (unless you're attacking with lightning Bola / Strafe), however it you keep attacking while the RoV is still ticking, and happen to proc Fulminator exactly when your offhand is active, it will only deal ~1/5 of the damage until procced again when your mainhand is active (which averages out to ~3/5 of the damage you'd have if you had a damage roll on your offhand). It's also worth noting that some of these effects snapshot your Damage Increased By Skills buffs, e.g. Wolf companion (not debuffs like MfD however). With 46% CDR, your Wolf will have a cooldown of 16.2 seconds, averaging out to a 18.52% additive damage boost. Due to the snapshotting mechanic, it will be 26.79% for RoV if cast without delay. Snapshotting doesn't work for Fulminator though.
The last piece was calculating the damage I deal in real scenarios. I've tried to imitate my spreadsheet from the Physical Cluster days, but I made the calculations a little bit more sophisticated this time. I scaled the numbers up to a time frame of 2.2 seconds (approximately one RoV cycle), weighed them with different hit chances and included Area Damage + Fulminator procs, adjusted for different amounts of targets. Here's what this looks like:
In the end I summed it up, added the Wolf multipler (flat 9% bonus), and approximated the uptime of slow effects to multiply the damage dealt a final time. I decided to add Wolf and Slow at the very last stages because both Calamity and Helltrapper would influence these numbers, and it is exactly at this point that they do so. Again, keep in mind that these are not perfectly accurate numbers, I also didn't 100% optimize very minor things (e.g. Evasive Fire numbers are slightly off for less than 3 targets).
The last steps were to multiply this table and add in the different special effects of Calamity, Valla's Bequest, Helltrapper and Demon's Demise. I also added an overview of the damage share of the individual attacks, depending on the amount of targets. I decided not to try to average out my total dps in real scenarios, however that is quite easily done by weighing time spent fighting X numbers of targets. Here are the tables:
All of these numbers seem to match my personal experiences quite nicely. The 'Fulm Loss' table is the expected damage loss from using a statstick offhand versus a damage offhand (which ranges around 8-13%).
I've also made a quick overview of the totaling numbers of each weapon to quickly compare them. You can see that numerically, Calamity and Helltrapper are quite close, and the other options are dragging behind. I have a feeling that I underrated the Helltrapper though, and especially in big density you will benefit much more from it (with better slow uptime and Spike Trap procs reducing your RoV CD, which the numbers don't reflect at all).
In any case, I found these results to be sufficient to make all the relevant decisions when approaching my next pushes, and especially end-of-season pushes.
Here's what I learned from this:
Helltrapper is the best choice. You will have the most single target damage (around 8-12% more than Calamity due to sentries, important for ns), and you will have the highest slow uptime (due to Caltrops). It also lets you use Numbing Traps, which is probably one of the strongest passives to use. I strongly recommend to use one with 9 or 10% proc chance.
Calamity is pretty nice and a close second behind Helltrapper. Especially good if you're not running Cull the Weak and Bane of the Trapped (the world first tier 70 clear was done like that, not recommended in my opinion as you will lack damage on 70+).
Valla's Bequest is total garbage and I absolutely do not understand why the Chinese keep using it. Strafe will deal around 4-6% of your total damage with it, as opposed to 0.5-1.5% (up to 9% on single target, but Valla doesn't matter there). It will help you keep monsters engaged in the fight but RoV should do a good enough job at that already.
K'mar Tenclip is not really worth looking into, all you get is Icy Trails which I found to be really underwhelming. Caltrops from Helltrapper will do a much better job here.
Additional findings:
Ancient offhand is a must.
All the weapon choices are pretty close to one another, they differ by maybe 5% (not considering perks like Numbing Traps), which is also the reason why seemingly all options are viable.
Damage range + Life on Hit + CDR + Dex on the offhand is the way to go. You can drop the Leech passive and take another one instead, giving you Numbing Traps or 8-10% more damage from Ambush / Steady Aim for a mere 9-13% toughness loss.
Fulminator will deal around 10-15% of your damage on 5 targets, 17-22% on 10 targets, 25-35% on 30 targets. There's no other viable option for the cube.
Dropping CDR on gloves in favor of ancient Vitality is an option, only recommend if you have a CC / CHD / CDR ring though. Dropping ancient Dexterity from the ring should be a 5-7% damage loss for a 10-17% toughness boost.
With enough targets around, the Spike Trap procs on Helltrapper will let you run a "2.5:1 cycle" (going for 1-2 double ticks on Strafe, or alternating 3:1 and 2:1). Works especially well with Bolas - Thunderball.
Some more info unrelated to these tests:
I'm strongly convinced that Smoke Screen - Special Recipe in combination with Perfectionist is going to be the strongest setup, defensively. The uptime of Smoke Screen with the Displacement rune is just too low, especially on large pulls you will not survive well enough. Like that, you don't need a lot of downtime on the SS until you can activate Focused Mind again, you just need to squeeze out a couple of seconds here and there. Adding Tactical Advantage will severely boost your survivability, as you can keep dodging things quite easily for a full 2-3 seconds before using SS again. Playstyle-wise, you should never waste your time on single or few monsters, but rather keep pulling more. If you can't survive, stack more toughness or lower tiers until you get better. Surviving is the biggest issue but making huge pulls is very rewarding and the only way to beat higher tiers. I also recommend to only play at night time - it's incredibly frustrating finally getting this gg Cathedral / Silver Spire / Arreat / Halls of Agony map and then lagging out and ending up leaving the rift. You won't lag very often, but with the density required for very high tiers you will, and doing so will result in instant death (just like messing up any of your Smoke Screen casts will).
Related to that, I'm convinced that Strafe - Drifting Shadows is the best rune to use. Not only will you get slightly more Fulminator procs, but also will it make you survive much better with the added 25% movement speed. Using a Helltrapper, you will proc the Caltrops as you move anyway, and it lets you move around big packs and pull more much more easily.
On nonseason, Single Out is a must to kill the RG in less than 5-6 minutes. Since you're running way lower tiers than season you shouldn't have the same toughness issues anyway. You want to use Trapped, Taeguk and Zei's (instead of Stricken) there.
For those asking, I expect DH to end up at around 75-77 solo. What it will look like exactly will depend on who is going to push it mostly. My bets are on the Chinese as most skilled EU / NA DH players currently seem extremely unlikely to end up at high enough paragon for rank 1 pushes, and offclass players seem unlikely to go for DH rankings at the end of the season (due to heavy gear requirements and lack of practice). To give you a perspective, I'm currently at P1250 and expect to clear 72 with around 100-250 keys. I expect top players to use around 1000-3000 keys (depending on whether it's a botter or not) for their end of season push. Judging from my paragon right now, my maximum in a gg rift with a gg conduit with that amount of keys would be around 74, assuming I never fail a rift because of my own mistake. You can add one tier for every 250-300 paragon and maybe another tier for all the gem levels I'm missing (83 / 81 / 76 vs 92+ / 92+ / 92+).
Great job wudi. Too bad almost no one will care because except for us "maniacs" no one plays DH
I guess, I will have to check the helltrapper for my runs
I guess there are quite a lot who also just enjoy reading this stuff out of curiosity, and also some who play other classes but usually main DH and will push with it.
Special from players like me (Hardcore players ). Anyway nice to read something like that.
You think this setup with some modifications can be viable on HC mode?
Some assumption how this build can look for HC...? I know for sure we should change a bit our gear like on Gloves we should search for Vita instead of CDR etc.
Also can You upload that speadsheet?
Yes, this setup is very viable in hc mode. The thing is that seemingley EVERYONE is playing UE for some reason, which is definitely not the way to go. Currently R1 HC DH on EU is Tier 63, which is an absolute joke, I would have expected to see at least 67-68 by now. You can easily remove CtW + Trapped and go with another defensive passive + Esoteric, and add some vitality on your gloves. You could potentially also use Diamonds but that would be over the top. Paired with Numbing Traps + Perfectionist chances to die a very slim, even with suboptimal gameplay. The damage requirements are not very heavy below 70 but people are just not pushing it, sadly.
Amazing read as always, just got a few brief questions that could personally help me a little bit (im not a top player but I like to keep pushing myself into higher tiers on my DH):
Non seasonal player here:
1- With how "tanky" the fulminator build is, do you really consider Zei's to be an ideal choice on for DH, since most of the time we are kind of "up the mobs face" while we are strafing and therefore not at optimal Max distance for dmg? What is your opinion on Bane of the Powerful (that is what I am using currently)?
2- In your opinion, what is a target "herding amount" that you think is sufficient to allow stable progress? ( I know this question may be situational but a good reference could probably help me a little since i seem to have difficulties with the new mode of big pulls in 2.3) Just how much is considered maybe "too much"?
3- What target health pool do you think is advisable for survival on GR 61 (my current GR that's giving me issues - I currently run unity in the cube)
And lastly
4- Any advise to a middle of the pack DH'er who is trying to push as far as he can? Are there any shareable techniques that during your constant progress and improvement as a DH player have helped you become a better player?
(I try my best as to what i see in videos and read in guides and all, but I still have a very difficult time making good progress on rift)
Thank you for taking the time to answer to this post Wudi and good luck on your next GRIFT!!!
As a DH from day one and playing monk this season because of very limited time (and i don't want to miss the season journey) i find this post really interesting. Dh class seems to most prone to heavy theorycrafting because of a combination of factors being the lack of definite BiS weapons, survivability isssues and so on, that leaves us open to test different setups to just squeeze that 1% more out of our toon.
I am planning to play DH again once season ends with a "made for fun" DA build, and going for the new melee DH next season. I expect another post of this quality for the new shadow set.
Damage Range on Helltrapper. Does this mean that you'd rather skip the vitality and have damage on yours?
Edit: Also, do you know why some of the top dh's in china are still using the fire version of the build? The 72 run is even using sentry - polar station. I wonder if this could be good.
Edit: Also, do you know why some of the top dh's in china are still using the fire version of the build? The 72 run is even using sentry - polar station. I wonder if this could be good.
The chinese 72 DH actually used Impaling bolt, he did change the rune recently to Polar Station (testing maybe?)
Now that's what you call an in-depth guide, thanks for the good read Wudijo! I know that monk is this patch's flavor, but every now and then i try to push my old N6, is the hell trapper really a game changing off hand? because sadly, i salvaged two ancient hell trappers. haha!
Edit: And also, is Pauldrons of the Skeleton King better? Because i'm currently using an ancient profane pauldrons and i have a non-ancient Pauldrons of Skeleton King, does the affix of PSK proc a lot?
I was thinking since the ele% is additive, it would be worse than multiplicative damage provided by hexing pants (ele% and rov% stack additively and are at a base amount higher than hexing pants and taeguk, but idk if there is a rank # where taeguk is so high that this scenario would be worse after reaching full active taeguk stacks).
Personally, I had major issues with hatred in this build until I got hexing pants. so far hexing seems to put me at ~1 more hatred gained than spent on strafe. Still gearing my seasonal toon atm (my main is not nats build, yet at least)
I was thinking since the ele% is additive, it would be worse than multiplicative damage provided by hexing pants (ele% and rov% stack additively and are at a base amount higher than hexing pants and taeguk, but idk if there is a rank # where taeguk is so high that this scenario would be worse after reaching full active taeguk stacks).
Personally, I had major issues with hatred in this build until I got hexing pants. so far hexing seems to put me at ~1 more hatred gained than spent on strafe. Still gearing my seasonal toon atm (my main is not nats build, yet at least)
Element% is indeed additive with itself, but Hexing pants buff is additive with skill% and less impactful than ele%, we pick hex pants because we don't have many good options and as you mentioned, hatred regeneration
Damage Range on Helltrapper. Does this mean that you'd rather skip the vitality and have damage on yours?
Edit: Also, do you know why some of the top dh's in china are still using the fire version of the build? The 72 run is even using sentry - polar station. I wonder if this could be good.
Yes, I skip vitality. If you need more defense, you should get it somewhere else.
I can't say much about what the Chinese are doing because I have absolutely no connections there, I cannot check their leaderboards or read Mandarin well enough to have reasonable insights into their discussions. Polar Station is an option but I wouldn't choose it over Wolf, especially with a Helltrapper. Also I haven't seen any other DH other than myself use the fire build, but I'm happy to hear that they apparently have some success with it there.
Great job as always Wudijo. Very much appreciated.
Sadly though the lightning version of this build including Fulminator in the cube wont really work for us console players. You simply cannot use the sword in the cube. For whatever reason. I hope that gets fixed rather sooner than later.
The cube should be fixed next patch I guess. It doesn't change the playstyle much anyway, actually reacting to the fact that you cube Fulminator is only relevant at the highest level of optimization. Just go with Calamity + Helltrapper.
Now that's what you call an in-depth guide, thanks for the good read Wudijo! I know that monk is this patch's flavor, but every now and then i try to push my old N6, is the hell trapper really a game changing off hand? because sadly, i salvaged two ancient hell trappers. haha!
Edit: And also, is Pauldrons of the Skeleton King better? Because i'm currently using an ancient profane pauldrons and i have a non-ancient Pauldrons of Skeleton King, does the affix of PSK proc a lot?
Pauldrons are clearly superior to any other shoulders because they actually do something. Proc chance is 25%, and it procs both when you would proc Awareness or when you would die.
Is there any chance cubing crashing rain and wearing thundergods would ever outscale hexing pants in the cube? I feel like the 15% lightning could potentially be stronger because of the massive amount of additive damage from taeguk and % rov damage, then again you'd lose hatred/disc regen.
Indeed the numbers are close just dps wise, but you'd lose the hatred and one defensive primary. Definitely not going to happen
Is there any chance cubing crashing rain and wearing thundergods would ever outscale hexing pants in the cube? I feel like the 15% lightning could potentially be stronger because of the massive amount of additive damage from taeguk and % rov damage, then again you'd lose hatred/disc regen.
Indeed the numbers are close just dps wise, but you'd lose the hatred and one defensive primary. Definitely not going to happen
Just wanted to remind that TGV can roll double resist, as a side note; it has lightning resist as a native secondary affix, which will not get in the way to be able to roll also AR as a primary which makes it quite exceptional, and might be viable for speed GR at least, if not for highest end..
Hey everyone,
since the initial season rush is over and I've had some time to do more relaxing things lately, I decided to look a little bit more at the details of the lightning RoV DH. There's been a lot of discussion about which stat rolls you want to have, which passives and even gems to use, and especially which offhand weapon to use. I hope this stuff helps a little in case you decide to push the DH leaderboards this season. I've done a lot of testing with interesting results and created an excel sheet to crunch the numbers for the different options. After polishing the tables a little I decided to share them here. Keep in mind that many of these numbers are rough approximations and educated guesses based on my experience with the build, and most of them can not be applied the same way in every rift because of different layouts and hit box sizes (especially Area Damage / Fulminator). Also, prepare for a lot of numbers.
[Picture 1 - Stats] (http://puu.sh/kHWc9/b26e7858c2.png)
These stats are the same I have in my solo setup, minus a lot of dexterity, crit chance and critical hit damage (I made sure to not kill my testing dummies but kept relative values the same). 39% lightning damage, 53% RoV bonus, rank 80 Taeguk (I have 76 currently but I expect it to be 80 soon). The sheet itself is a little bit more complicated because I kept adding things here and there without tidying it up all the time, hence I have these multipliers etc (e.g. I wasn't stacking Taeguk for my tests but just calculated the difference).
[Picture 2 - Fulminator Tests] (http://puu.sh/kHWf5/a66fba2822.png)
First I did some tests on Fulminator proc rates. I knew it has a 100% proc chance already (tested it with lightning Chakram, which has a 0.5 proc coefficient and I got a proc on every other attack). RoV - Shade has a proc coefficient of 4% and ticks 20 times in 5 seconds. I wanted to see how often it would proc and stay on the target after a single cast. Since RoV lasts 5 and Fulminator 6 seconds, I always just cast RoV and waited until it was gone, then checked if the buff was active (obviously it can be overwritten by multiple RoV ticks). First I tested 200 casts with only one RoV, then 100 casts with 2 RoVs (3:1 cycle time is approximately 2.2 seconds, so I lost 1.2 seconds from the first casts that are invisible in the results). The proc rates were much better already, and this is considering that I weren't casting any more RoVs in a full 5 seconds after the second one. Like this, I conservatively estimated Fulminator uptime to be around 90% from RoV casts alone when you keep fighting constantly. Most likely it's slightly more in real scenarios.
[Picture 3 - Damage Tests] (http://puu.sh/kHWmw/7236e29890.png)
I then proceeded to collect some data on damage numbers with my setup (300 CHD). I was especially interested in some of the cubable melee weapons and the gems, however - as expected - they all turned out pretty horrible. (Fun Fact: It took me 10 minutes to notice the first Rimeheart proc). Nevertheless, I found out some interesting things: Most procs will always deal damage accord to the active weapon when procced, even if the initial attack used the other one. For those that follow the DH leaderboards a little, you might have noticed that I used a statstick Helltrapper (http://puu.sh/kHVcn/fc21611df3.jpg) for my Tier 70 run, which for some reason currently is a very rare thing to do. The concept of statsticks was way more common last season in the Stampede meta, since RoV and CR scale only off your mainhand damage and your generator + Strafe generally contribute very little to your overall dps. This hasn't really changed, and the only entirely new thing that entered the arena was the Fulminator in the cube (which would get procced by your mainhand anyway), so it seems weird that people do that. However, due to the testing I did it's quite obvious that opposed to my tier 70 run, using a statstick offhand is not really an option for DHs currently. RoV scales only off your mainhand and as such you would expect that Fulminator also always uses your mainhand (unless you're attacking with lightning Bola / Strafe), however it you keep attacking while the RoV is still ticking, and happen to proc Fulminator exactly when your offhand is active, it will only deal ~1/5 of the damage until procced again when your mainhand is active (which averages out to ~3/5 of the damage you'd have if you had a damage roll on your offhand). It's also worth noting that some of these effects snapshot your Damage Increased By Skills buffs, e.g. Wolf companion (not debuffs like MfD however). With 46% CDR, your Wolf will have a cooldown of 16.2 seconds, averaging out to a 18.52% additive damage boost. Due to the snapshotting mechanic, it will be 26.79% for RoV if cast without delay. Snapshotting doesn't work for Fulminator though.
The last piece was calculating the damage I deal in real scenarios. I've tried to imitate my spreadsheet from the Physical Cluster days, but I made the calculations a little bit more sophisticated this time. I scaled the numbers up to a time frame of 2.2 seconds (approximately one RoV cycle), weighed them with different hit chances and included Area Damage + Fulminator procs, adjusted for different amounts of targets. Here's what this looks like:
[Picture 4 - Damage Table] (http://puu.sh/kHWyE/eb140dec3c.png)
In the end I summed it up, added the Wolf multipler (flat 9% bonus), and approximated the uptime of slow effects to multiply the damage dealt a final time. I decided to add Wolf and Slow at the very last stages because both Calamity and Helltrapper would influence these numbers, and it is exactly at this point that they do so. Again, keep in mind that these are not perfectly accurate numbers, I also didn't 100% optimize very minor things (e.g. Evasive Fire numbers are slightly off for less than 3 targets).
The last steps were to multiply this table and add in the different special effects of Calamity, Valla's Bequest, Helltrapper and Demon's Demise. I also added an overview of the damage share of the individual attacks, depending on the amount of targets. I decided not to try to average out my total dps in real scenarios, however that is quite easily done by weighing time spent fighting X numbers of targets. Here are the tables:
[Picture 5 - Calamity Table] (http://puu.sh/kHWJF/a49964840e.png)
[Picture 6 - Valla Table] (http://puu.sh/kHWMo/9cc8d61ecf.png)
[Picture 7 - Helltrapper Table] (http://puu.sh/kHWQc/3619b94fb9.png)
[Picture 8 - Demon's Demise Table] (http://puu.sh/kHWSZ/2c8bc21c2f.png)
All of these numbers seem to match my personal experiences quite nicely. The 'Fulm Loss' table is the expected damage loss from using a statstick offhand versus a damage offhand (which ranges around 8-13%).
[Picture 9 - Damage Overview] (http://puu.sh/kHXuG/1ba48b5889.png)
I've also made a quick overview of the totaling numbers of each weapon to quickly compare them. You can see that numerically, Calamity and Helltrapper are quite close, and the other options are dragging behind. I have a feeling that I underrated the Helltrapper though, and especially in big density you will benefit much more from it (with better slow uptime and Spike Trap procs reducing your RoV CD, which the numbers don't reflect at all).
In any case, I found these results to be sufficient to make all the relevant decisions when approaching my next pushes, and especially end-of-season pushes.
Here's what I learned from this:
Additional findings:
Some more info unrelated to these tests:
Cheers
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Yes, this setup is very viable in hc mode. The thing is that seemingley EVERYONE is playing UE for some reason, which is definitely not the way to go. Currently R1 HC DH on EU is Tier 63, which is an absolute joke, I would have expected to see at least 67-68 by now. You can easily remove CtW + Trapped and go with another defensive passive + Esoteric, and add some vitality on your gloves. You could potentially also use Diamonds but that would be over the top. Paired with Numbing Traps + Perfectionist chances to die a very slim, even with suboptimal gameplay. The damage requirements are not very heavy below 70 but people are just not pushing it, sadly.
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Amazing read as always, just got a few brief questions that could personally help me a little bit (im not a top player but I like to keep pushing myself into higher tiers on my DH):
Non seasonal player here:
1- With how "tanky" the fulminator build is, do you really consider Zei's to be an ideal choice on for DH, since most of the time we are kind of "up the mobs face" while we are strafing and therefore not at optimal Max distance for dmg? What is your opinion on Bane of the Powerful (that is what I am using currently)?
2- In your opinion, what is a target "herding amount" that you think is sufficient to allow stable progress? ( I know this question may be situational but a good reference could probably help me a little since i seem to have difficulties with the new mode of big pulls in 2.3) Just how much is considered maybe "too much"?
3- What target health pool do you think is advisable for survival on GR 61 (my current GR that's giving me issues
- I currently run unity in the cube)
And lastly
4- Any advise to a middle of the pack DH'er who is trying to push as far as he can? Are there any shareable techniques that during your constant progress and improvement as a DH player have helped you become a better player?
(I try my best as to what i see in videos and read in guides and all, but I still have a very difficult time making good progress on rift)
Thank you for taking the time to answer to this post Wudi and good luck on your next GRIFT!!!
Hey Wudijo, great post and thank you for sharing
What are your thoughts about Anathema? Given you cleared a 66 with it
And I guess by your testings, will Hellfire always beat eye of elitch or immunity ammy?
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ModeratorGreat content quality as alwways Wudjo.
As a DH from day one and playing monk this season because of very limited time (and i don't want to miss the season journey) i find this post really interesting. Dh class seems to most prone to heavy theorycrafting because of a combination of factors being the lack of definite BiS weapons, survivability isssues and so on, that leaves us open to test different setups to just squeeze that 1% more out of our toon.
I am planning to play DH again once season ends with a "made for fun" DA build, and going for the new melee DH next season. I expect another post of this quality for the new shadow set.
/kudos
Only thing that doesn't jive with what I expect is usage of CC, CHD, CDR on rings. I fully expect AvgD to surpass CHD.
How do you spot a diablo 3 hardcore player in a crowd?
You don't have to, they'll make sure you know it.
I don't even play DH, but whenever see one of your guides, I immediately take a peek. You've done so much for the DH community. Keep it up!
Damage Range on Helltrapper. Does this mean that you'd rather skip the vitality and have damage on yours?
Edit: Also, do you know why some of the top dh's in china are still using the fire version of the build? The 72 run is even using sentry - polar station. I wonder if this could be good.
Now that's what you call an in-depth guide, thanks for the good read Wudijo! I know that monk is this patch's flavor, but every now and then i try to push my old N6, is the hell trapper really a game changing off hand? because sadly, i salvaged two ancient hell trappers. haha!
Edit: And also, is Pauldrons of the Skeleton King better? Because i'm currently using an ancient profane pauldrons and i have a non-ancient Pauldrons of Skeleton King, does the affix of PSK proc a lot?
I was thinking since the ele% is additive, it would be worse than multiplicative damage provided by hexing pants (ele% and rov% stack additively and are at a base amount higher than hexing pants and taeguk, but idk if there is a rank # where taeguk is so high that this scenario would be worse after reaching full active taeguk stacks).
Personally, I had major issues with hatred in this build until I got hexing pants. so far hexing seems to put me at ~1 more hatred gained than spent on strafe. Still gearing my seasonal toon atm (my main is not nats build, yet at least)
Season 7 Hardcore Demon Huntard #14 @ GR78
Unhallowed Essence Multishot Guide
I was busy the last couple of days, so the replies had to wait a little.
Yes, I skip vitality. If you need more defense, you should get it somewhere else.I can't say much about what the Chinese are doing because I have absolutely no connections there, I cannot check their leaderboards or read Mandarin well enough to have reasonable insights into their discussions. Polar Station is an option but I wouldn't choose it over Wolf, especially with a Helltrapper. Also I haven't seen any other DH other than myself use the fire build, but I'm happy to hear that they apparently have some success with it there.
The cube should be fixed next patch I guess. It doesn't change the playstyle much anyway, actually reacting to the fact that you cube Fulminator is only relevant at the highest level of optimization. Just go with Calamity + Helltrapper.
Pauldrons are clearly superior to any other shoulders because they actually do something. Proc chance is 25%, and it procs both when you would proc Awareness or when you would die.
Indeed the numbers are close just dps wise, but you'd lose the hatred and one defensive primary. Definitely not going to happen
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Wudi what if you make a Carnevil doc and just transmog everything to Natalya, is that the highest DPS dh?
Just wanted to remind that TGV can roll double resist, as a side note; it has lightning resist as a native secondary affix, which will not get in the way to be able to roll also AR as a primary which makes it quite exceptional, and might be viable for speed GR at least, if not for highest end..
nice post. looking forward to more DH posts.