Now that every has had a week to play around with GoD, and bang our heads against the wall trying to decide the best weapon(s) to use, I wanted to toss out a few less intense questions.
Which pylon is best / worse for the build?
I find Conduit to the best overall. Power and Shield are really nice if there are elites around. Channeling seems mostly useless, but I’m sure some builds like it.
I am really torn on Speed. I tend to avoid it because it makes my Hatred drain no matter what I do. When I do take it, I feel like I need to Strafe less and HA more, similar to the Echoing Fury build.
What’s the optimal distance from mobs for HA?
This one, I have no idea. I’ve tried everything from off screen to right on top and it seems to be dependent on the mob type or rift terrain. But it’s just as likely there is a good answer and I haven’t picked up on it.
Is Thrill of the Hunt bad or good? If bad, best way to slow monsters?
I find Thrill of the Hunt the simplest way to get consistent Cull the Weak and Numbing Traps. But no one else seems to use it.
I’ve seen a lot of builds that use those passives with no obvious way to proc them. What are folks finding to be the best way to do that?
Which follower is best?
I’ve seen a lot of folks using Enchantress. Wondering if there’s a consensus about the benefits of using her over Templar.
Best amulet?
My preference is Flavor of Time. I’ve seen Squirt’s being used a lot, but as has been noted several times, it’s very hard to keep it up and it makes you more squishy, even with Fortress Ballista. I’ve also seen Ess of Johan.
Any others that might provide value?
Would a well rolled random amulet be better than a weaker one of those listed?
1/ speed pylon is fine. If you have 26% rcr and pick hatred regen >7hatred/s (chest, templar, weapon, quiver)
Speed pylon give vallas at 2.15 peak up to 2.5 worth ~20% damage increase.
2 + 3/ The play style of solo exp farm (gr 100s—110s) is slow monster from 30-50 yards away, then you run up and pick up stuffs. That mean strafe proc thrill the hunt, and thrill the hunt give benefit to Bane of the Trap and cull the weak, Then HA will do the killing job for you with 20% + ~70% damage increase from slow monsters. (this build/playstyle really strong with vallas and buriza)
In my opinion, the best distance is 20yards.
Top DH player doesn’t use thrill the hunt in sole GR push because its hard to pull. They use CC weapon on follower (thunderfurry) or templar slow skill.
4/ Templar. Enchantress only use if you need attspeed to reach break point.
5/ Squirt necklace. Exp farming in group or soloing need Squirt because of the playstyle (3) the up time of squirt kinda high even I don’t have any shield (Molten gem, ballista). Flavor of Time only use for GR push. Also, Squirt is easier to get a good one then flavor of time.
Related note. I see a lot of people using the cold rune for the 70% increased damage per pierce, but I really like the lightning rune for the 3 additional arrows it shoots when it forks off the first pierce for clearing speed.
Recently learned that Speed pylon allows you to smash walls. Considering every other elite seems to have Waller affix and how bad walls are for HA, I don’t skip Speed any more.
If you use 1h crossbows, you shouldn’t skip speed pylons because it allows you to reach 2.5001 APS 5FPA Strafe breakpoint assuming you’re already at 2.1429 APS 6FPA breakpoint.
If you use 2h crossbows or bows, I still recommend skipping speed pylons.
conduit is pretty good for any build, esp at pushes. will save you 4-5+ minutes at times.
you dont want to be too far if ha only travels x distance. i stay close to help keep the mobs packed.
ive tried toth several times off and on and i dont find that it procs as much as it should/you’d expect. strafe doesnt seem to really hit much, and the slow on top of normal seems negligible (imo)
i tried switching back to templar and he seems much worse to me. using the same gear, his pulls seemed less frequent and less helpful. enchantress seems pretty consistent and the debuffs are nice too.
i used squirts until recently (finally got a usable FoT) and it seemed really hard to keep up, even with fortress. any little bit was taking it down and by the time i dont take damage, theres nothing left in that pack.
i could see hellfire being useful if you want to run toth/leech/steady/etc but most others’ powers arent great. maybe an immunity if you have one specific you struggle with but i dont see it as a problem much.
I think with Squirt’s you really need to boost VIT with paragon points to bolster the Ballista shield and running without Ballista I just can’t comprehend how to keep the Squirt bonus up.
i had 300 pts in vit, was still under 6k total, ~700k hp. im not even p2300 so dont have a ton of points to spare. i bumped it up a bit (340 lol) for recent set of solo pushing, but with vallas. not sure if it was necessary but still wasnt getting random 1 shot too often up to 132.
random thought, does the shield gain all of your toughness buffs too? dmg reductions and whatnot, or is it a straight 30% of life?
Afair nobody tested if all DR factors apply (there might be some crude exceptions) - but it can’t be just straight life.
Even with allRes and armor there is already 90+ damage reduction. Let’s say you have 600k life - your toughness in town is in the millions even without buffs.
Without any DR factors - it would be just life - so 600k (or like 0,6 mio in profile). Shield wouldn’t work at all. I’d assume that all DR factors matter here - should be also way easier to handle/calculate it for the engine than coming up with exeptions. But it is D3 …
Conduit is the best. Power pylon is kinda the same. I really like shield pylon because i can gather 4-5 bosses and stay inside them so Fan of Knifes can slow them and proc the other passives. Speed pylon it does seems that it kills the bosses faster but i don’t understand those breakpoints.
What’s the optimal distance from mobs for HA?
I think the best distance is between 11-20 yards. 20 Yards to proc Fan of Knifes on the bots. And more then 10 yards because i use Steady Aim passive for 20% increase damage if no bots within 10 yards of you. And 10 yards is pretty small area so it should proc oftenly, but when i take shield i am inside bosses
Is Thrill of the Hunt bad or good? If bad, best way to slow monsters?
I am trying different things and testing that now. In group play the support can slow the mobs, but solo I started using it now but still not sure.
Which follower is best?
Since i dont need attack speed, Enhantress is out of the question. I was running Templar but i find it a burden. When i try pulling bosses to move down the map, that guy just stays and the boss doesnt move. Lately i started using Scoundrel.
Crippling Shot – Ranged attack that slows the target by 60% for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 6 seconds.
Dirty Fighting – Blinds enemies in front of the Scoundrel for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Powered Shot – Powerful ranged attack that explodes on inpact, dealing 25% weapon damage as arcane to targets within 6 yards and has a 50% chance to stun targets for 2 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Hysteria – Whenever you or the Scoundrel land a Critical Hit, you both go into hysterics, increasing all damage done by 10% for 3 seconds. This effect cannot occur more tha once every 5 seconds.
I think this guy is meant for GoD DH. I put Buriza on him with the chance that his arrows will pierce and have more chances to proc Ess of Johan. What do you think?
Best amulet?
Flavor of Time but for solo push i tried Ess of Johan. Still doubtful if the proc is enough.
Give me your ideas for Scoundrel. What do you think? If i put bane of the trapped on Scoundrel. Will it work to slow enemies too? and maybe toxic gem for more damage?
pretty sure leg gems dont work on followers at all
actually never tried scoundrel, but enchantress shoots so fast, im pretty sure EoJ pulls are limited by itself and not the number of hits that are dealt. i’d imagine scoundrel is similar.
I like squirts for speed runs where the monsters die before they can hit you, especially when running multiplayer where the zDH makes it so that almost nothing attacks you. I usually see the squirts damage bonus up 90-100% of the runs.
I would normally transition to FoT for pushes and for levelling gems the last few levels, but I have not had any luck with them this season (20K Forgotten Souls spent on rerolls and not a single triple [cold%,crit, crit] one yet! ) so I have been pushing with the Squirts as well. I do not die a lot with the FB shield and the high recovery of the build but the Squirts bonus is not up as much at the higher levels.
DH cold skills don’t apply a chill/slow unless they specifically say so (e.g. Wind Chill, Frost Arrow). This is pretty easy to confirm, take off all other sources of slows and you’ll see Devouring Arrow alone doesn’t apply a chill/slow.
For some strange reason it does trigger Numbing Traps though. I tested a couple other non-chilling cold DH skills and they seem to as well.
It seems like all cold DH skills trigger Numbing Traps, but cold DH skills only apply a chill/slow if they specifically say so. Weird behavior.
) so I have been pushing with the Squirts as well. I do not die a lot with the FB shield and the high recovery of the build but the Squirts bonus is not up as much at the higher levels.