Demon hunter needs Strafe set

General Discussion
1

I have always used Strafe & refuse to use anything else. Its a main skill that needs its own set, it needs bonus damage and bonus active perks.
I can dedicate ancients and LON - just to have the 750% and run extra damage from the amulet, guaranteed crit from the ring in my Kanai’s and tons of Reduction. and Crit Percentage – lon lets you have 3 gems so stacking (trapped, taeguk, and zei’s) ontop of your Full 750% is as good as its going to get, there are no real perks that help strafe builds directly you don’t get anywhere without cubing Dawn as your weapon even though you could benefit with other choices, you can get High damage stats and swap your tough and recovery out for more or for cost and skill reduction. Augments and Paragon you can run with Ancient or primal (Vallas and K-mar) maxed bonus you can roll all your skill % to strafe and with Fire% on the same items. you still don’t get anywhere you struggle to play anything with 75+ if there are other players.
you can barely manage a 75
even if you get your inventory damage to stack up to 7-8 million on your base stat and 100% crit – your damage is only 4 - 11 billion and rear Flame crits up to 22billion

it doesn’t matter if damage dealt is multiplied by lon or lod its not skill damage – the set needs to be exclusive to strafe so as not to cross over to any other builds. im talking about a dev tested and authorized over haul, even up the projectiles with no cost make the core skill function stronger, make a set for the skill.

both rockets and grenades free rune
+15% movement
+7.5% cost reduction all
+30% strafe cost reduction
+6 resource recovery per second ( hatred and discipline )
all cost skills cost 5% less
all strafe runes count as all elements
permanent active Shadow for all runes
smoke screen gains (displacement) and lasts for 10 seconds however cooldown cannot be reduced below 5 seconds
Vengeance has 12.5% reduced cooldown time
12.5% less damage
12.5% damage reduction
_________ more fire damage%
_________ strafe damage%
_________ Damage multiplied (inventory)
add two more pairs of Ferrets – all picks up Gold, stashable materials, globes/orbs up to 60yards
(two pair can stack with the original)
set requirement of 5 but possible items of 8 then the cap for perks if needing Garwolf
all weapons equipped gain 100% strafe damage and doesn’t stack with pre existing % gain on weapon if all items counting are Ancient or higher the effects of this set is doubled
(allowing player choice)

the Damage _________ would be coordinated by the development teams for balance with other leader boards and sub par builds

2

Isint the Natalya set the strafe build for DH? It’s just one of the weakest build right now so its not that popular. Hopefully they plan on buffing that set in toughness and damage so players such as yourself can enjoy and compete with others with Strafe. There’s already been tons of post about how some sets/builds just sucks while others easily can do high GRs. There was a blue post about looking into every set to balance them out so I think we might see something good in S20 idk.

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3

Yeah, the Nats set is the strafe set. We just need a few things to occur…

  1. Massive +Strafe Damage buffs on the two Strafe 1H weapons… big enough to make using FnR obsolete with Strafe so that Nat’s Slayer isn’t used and the Nats Ring is used instead to reach 6pc. Ideally, put the strafe damage buff on the leg affix
  2. I’d personally like Calamity to be updated so that it applies MFD like it use to and that enemies with MFD applied to it takes X00% more damage from Strafe, Primary Skills and Secondary Skills. We need an alternative to Dawn… make Calamity the alternative for those who want to go glass cannon.
  3. Crashing Rain belt needs a damage buff.
4

I play the Demon Hunter almost exclusively. The best all purpose “Strafe set” at this time is Unhallowed Essence.

With Vengeance, and the Unhallowed Essence Discipline point damage bonus Vengeance gets from it, Strafe becomes the vehicle that delivers the Vengeance damage (using Yang’s Recurve and any high-damage quiver), but these days it’s only good to about GR60. But that’s fine for me, I use the build for quickly leveling up Legendary gems.

The Nat’s “Strafe” build is finicky in its timing, and is an exhausting chore to play. It’s best if you are using it specifically for a push goal, its just not the build that you want to play whenever you log on.

Having said all this, I absolutely agree that the Demon Hunter needs a set that specifically deals with Strafe. But the tweaks to Strafe buffs need to start with the weapons that give a damage bonus directly to Strafe, namely, K’mar Tenclip (Increases Strafe Damage by [75 - 100]% and Strafe gains the effect of the Drifting Shadow rune), and Valla’s Bequest (Increases Strafe Damage by [75 - 100]% and Strafe projectiles pierce).

If you know these weapons, you immediately know the problem with them. They are one-hand crossbows with 1.6 APS. That’s a very fast attack speed, and since Strafe uses a lot of Hatred, with an attack speed that fast, you’ll run out of Hatred quickly. Ideally you want a two-handed crossbow with 1.1 APS, and your sheet wants to show a very high CHC and CHD. This way, you use the least Hatred per point of damage dealt, and you deal maximum damage for each point of Hatred spent. For some reason, the developers just did not get this when they designed those two weapons.

So the first thing that needs to happen is that the K’mar Tenclip, and Valla’s Bequest need to be converted to 1.1 APS two-handed crossbows, their now nearly deprecated damage bonus needs to be increased to [750-1500]%, and following the lead of Manticore and Yang’s Recurve, provide [35-50%] RCR. Whether the resource cost reduction is all resource spenders, a select set of underused skills, or just Strafe would of course be up to the developers, but all resource spenders might be too much.

Now that we have the weapons, we need a couple of special quivers that support Strafe. I have no suggestion as to the Legendary power of these quivers, but again, following the lead of the DML, one could simply continue to boost the damage of Strafe, where another might focus on Resource Cost Reduction and Toughness. I haven’t got any good ideas.

Nor do I have any specific ideas in mind for the two, four, and six-piece bonuses for a set, except that one of them could perhaps include something like the Shuriken Cloud rune effect of Chakram, except one that actually does some damage, and a lot of it, to enemies that manage to get within melee distance of the character. Also, this particular bonus could prove to be a boon to characters that have plenty of Toughness, where the player decides to simply mow through the middle of a crowd of enemies. Another bonus could be to increase the regeneration of Discipline, perhaps linking it to some other performance of the character, similar to the way Night Stalker used to work.

A lot can be done with Strafe to make it a viable high GR skill that is still fun to play. Hopefully, one of the developers is thinking about it, and this is something that might come in a future patch.

Blizzard is going to have to continue to work on this game in order to hook future Blizzard product buyers, and to continue to maintain buyer confidence in Blizzard’s willingness to support its properties long after sale. So there is at least some basis for hope in this matter.

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5

No, it needs a trap set more.

3 Likes
6

Why not combine a new set with strafe + traps… :thinking:

7

Natalya can combine Strafe and Spike Traps I think. Wear entire Nat set with Cindercoat; cube Dawn, ShiMizu and dual wield Fortress Ballista with Helltrapper. Instead of Fortress and ShiMizu combination, you can try wielding Dawn and cubing Chanon or replace Ballista with Demon’s Demise.

Strafe has very low tick damage and long windups don’t benefit it fully, so Hellcat Waist don’t really help Demolition skillrune unless it’s a 3-4 bounce type. Alternative to that is simply switching to Stinging Steel and using Sash of Knives while removing Cindercoat for something better.

I don’t think we need a specific Strafe set, just sub specs that is viable by emphasizing different traits. The build I scribbled uses absorb, but definitely lacks burst damage hence I suggest a damage and skill proc item.
I also wanna know what’s the potential of exploiting the mass thorns, block or dodge on different classes for their sub-specs real. This should’ve been done long time ago.

8

Too many conflicting Leg items then…

  • a pure traps set would focus on sentries that autofire spenders such as CA , EA and MS and would try to mix in Spiked Traps and Caltrops… there’s already a belt, bracer, quiver and 2x 1H xbow that players would love to see used here.
  • you could mix spiked traps with strafe… maybe a belt that drops spiked traps every 0.5 seconds when you Strafe. With this, one could choose either Crashing Rain as a nuke attack or Spiked Traps as a more consistent form of damage
  • many players also want to see Strafe as the main damage dealer.

Agree that the optimal form of Nats Strafe is gumby to play. If you’re talking about the version with FnR in it, having to tap a spender every few seconds when strafing is terrible gameplay. It’s like having to hit a primary attack every 2 seconds when playing WW… players just want to Strafe continuously like WW Barbs.

I use to run such a Nats build in early-ish RoS when T6 was the highest torment. Was great for speed clearing rifts.

I take your point RE the 1H xbow’s high aps… I’m thinking it’ll be easier to add in a high hatred regen affix (say 7-10 hps) that always rolls on each 1h xbow and be done with it.

9

I think we are late with suggestions for next patch. Maybe if they already made something similar, in that case they can take into account some of this.

10

I like the refrence on the 750%+ for strafe skill damage, but they would also need to add a perk that has the skill cost reduction + all perk and the other adds x/time more projectiles and while channeling x% atk speed channel stacks to ___ stacks limit increases to x while not using ____ skills on your hotbar. if you are not using _____ sets gain double results per stack. while resource consumption for strafe does not increase due to attack speed and consumption stays at 1.1

the only actual set that should be worn is LON, or you can ring and gem LOD while using your other sets like shadow, nat or whatever.
make a non set legendary pants for DH that actuall has %fire damage and minimum crit results are raised by “x” and while channeling strafe your minimum crit results are raised to “x”

each as a acutal legendary and not a set at all.

11

Maybe they should just add support to CA, Chakram, EA, and Strafe on UE. It would make rolling discipline on all DH weapons mandatory but at least those skills would be viable damage wise.

12

Pretty much have no clue what you just said.

Except the reference to attack speed. Attack speed is the enemy of Strafe, and if you don’t know that, maybe you should stick to Barb.

13

Calamity marks enemy’s hit for mark of death

Slot mark with mortal enemy gains 4 hatred per hit when attacking marked enemy

When using strafe you see the marks rapidly popping on and off while you get no gains
Problem is as a bow calamity shouldn’t be restricted to one mark infliction it shouldn’t have a cap period

The skill itself starts with one enemy but can expand via contagion

Another option is to use the contagion rune I’ll test later it won’t recover hatred but maybe a kill shot would spread marks that stick

Mark I death is best slotted on left click so as being able to use all press keys at will

14

I’d really want more STRAFE items to be added to the game as well as the set I guess. Tried STRAFE this season, meh, went multishot. This skill is very fun and nice to play but balance is lackluster as is item variety.

It’s very weak then compared to other sets. It’s almost like this set/skill is forgotten and doesn’t have any proper support items to go along with it…

So yeah.

15

Not sure about more but it could be both…

16

I dont understand what you mean.
A Set gives you the core line to get a buff for 1/2/3… skills. What skill you play is your choise…or do you play the marauder set in endgame with Impale, Chakram, Elemental Arrow Multishot and Cluster Arrow? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
No, you use one of them and then you take the legendary items around for this one skill to play the set. What is the problem :man_shrugging:

So I give an example like I would like to play a set about Strafe and Spike Traps…

Fire of the Demon Catcher
2 set:
Increases the maximum number of your Spike Traps by 1. Spike trap now generates 6 hatred but the traps only stay active for 6 seconds.
4 set:
While channeling Strafe and Rapid Fire, critical hits activate Spike Trap ability every second in the form of an adhesive Trap that sticks to the last enemy hit.
6 set:
Each Spike Trap explosion increases Strafe, Rapid Fire and Spike Trap damage by 3.000 % for 6 seconds to a maximum of 18.000 %.

Trag’oul Wrap (bracer):
Using Strafe or Rapid Fire reduce your damage taken by 50-60 % for 3 seconds.

The Demons Demise (hand crossbow):
Spike Trap deals 300 % more damage and now deals 375-500 % weapon damage per second to affected enemies until detonated.
(DoT count as Spike Trap damage)

K’mar Repeating Crossbow ( hand crossbow):
Strafe gains the effect of the “Drifting Shadow” rune and deals 375-425 % more damage.

Vallas Legacy (hand crossbow):
Strafe deals 375-425 % more damage and the projectiles now pierce throw enemies.

Chanon Ballaster (2 handed crossbow:
Double the maximum number of Spike Traps for 500-600 % increased damage. Spike Trap is now only triggered by the consumption of discipline.

Now the core line of the set gives you 3 skills to play and you can focus on one skill you like…Strafe, Rapid Fire or Spike Traps…what you want!

Good loot!

17

I see the problem right away.

18

have never enjoyed a nat build. The set needs a rework. Rain of vengeance is strictly used to proc the 6 pc and nothing else from it matters at all. It feels forced and pointless. Not fun gameplay.

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