Gearing a ZDH for General 4P Groups

I’ve worked on several concepts for ZDH, often prompted by drops.

This Season I worked on a purpose built ZDH to run with non-DH groups.

The base of the build is M2/UE2. M2 for all pets, and UE2 for resource management. The set gear goes on shoulders/gloves/pants/boots. I had previously used Illusory Boots on my Z’s, but switched to Leoric’s Crown for CDR.

My non-set gear is Leoric’s for CDR, Garwolf for toughness, and and Strongarms for group damage. I also use Zoey’s Secret for toughness.

I use a Yangs for RCR and MS attack speed, and Bombardier’s Rucksack for the additional Guardian Sentries.

The #1 primary stat to shoot for with this build is CDR, the goal is to keep pets up as close to 100% as you can. The main stat to avoid is Area Damage, you should even zero out your para AD. This helps the game run much smoother for your group.

Other important primary stats are Vitality, RCR and Attack Speed. Damage multipliers, Elemental Damage, CHC, CHD are not needed.

On this build I use Ess of Johan, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, and Oculus Ring in my jewelry slots. My gems are Iceblink and Gem of Efficacious Toxin leveled up to 25, and Esoteric Alteration rolled up to 100.

Skills:

The generator I use is Entangling Shot - Chain Gang. Using Chain Gang, you have to fire your generator at least once every 2 seconds to provide constant slows for your group.

My spender is Multishot - Wind Chill. Spam MS for the +8% CHC for the group.

My other skills are Companion, Vault - Rattling Roll, Sentry - Guardian Turret, and Marked for Death - Valley of Death

My passives are Numbing Traps, Hot Pursuit, Tactical Advantage and Thrill of the Hunt. Thrill is kinda redundant on this build, but I haven’t tested a different passive to take this slot.

In the Cube I have Odyssey’s End, Aquila’s, and Elusive Ring.

Gems in Helm and gear are Diamonds for CDR and toughness. Bow can be either Amethyst or Gem of Ease, depending on your toughness.

I zero out my Dex para and put it all in Vit.

Your most important job in game is to keep pets up. After that keep Entangling Shot and Multishot buffs going. Place Guardian Turrets on Oculus circles, on and around Elites, and try to keep them on your DPS. If you keep safe zones on our Oculus Circles, your DPS will know where a safe zone is. With all the CDR, you shouldn’t have any problem placing sentries when needed. You also shouldn’t have any problem keeping Aquila’s up.

Ran this build in an 11 minute 125 without any problems. The Yangs I’m using is also used for my UE or I would have rolled off that 10% Damage, other than that it’s close to perfect for a Z.

Hope this gives folks some ideas for running a ZDH

Edit to add: The primary secondary is Physical Damage Resistance

4 Likes

will be trying to see what gear i have for this NS.

I’d love to be able to run in some higher groups that I’m not able to DPS.

1 Like

Hello Var,

It’s good to get the discussion going on the underrated zDH.

I use the following for my zDH. My zDH doesn’t pull, instead she just sits with the dps and increases defense and offense. The goal is to get Entangling Shot & Iceblink debuffs on as much trash as possible. There is a lot of DPS loss if she strays to pull, plus her slows signficantly delay the arrival of trash, so I sacrifice Vault and the other mobility passives in exchange for Illusory Boots.

I went with M4 because spenders only need to be used 15-25% of the time, every 2-3 seconds I pulse multishot once, which offers great coverage on Winchill/Numbing traps debuffs without lagging out the entire party. (do not spray it constantly with M4).

By doing it this way, Wolf Companion can still be maintained with 100% uptime AND Aquilas never drops. (must have max CDR and decent RCR)

Legendary Gems

  • Iceblink
  • Toxin
  • Gogok

Gear

  • Marauders: Gloves, Shoulders, Legs
  • Illusory Boots
  • Leorics Crown
  • Cloak of the Garwulf
  • Zoey’s Secret
  • Strongarms
  • Odyssey End
  • Bombardier’s Rucksack
  • Mandatory Rings: Oculus Ring, RoRG
  • Optional Rings: ORotZ, Wyrdward (w/ Vengeance Dark Heart)
  • Optional Amulet: Ess of Johan, Halcyon Ascent, Dovu Energy Trap, Overwhelming Desire

Cube

  • Buriza
  • Aquilas Cuirass
  • See Optional Rings + Amulet

Skills

  • Entangling Shot
  • Multishot
  • Sentry
  • Vengeance
  • Companion
  • MfD

Passives

  • Numbing Traps
  • Nightstalker
  • Awareness
  • Leech / Perfectionist

This build works well for my needs. She seldom dies in GR125-127 when paired with a zBarb. (no zMonk). The lazier version of this build swaps out cubed Buriza for Dawn/Calamity and cubed Odyssey End, you will lose entangling shot pierces and DPS this way.

3 Likes

M4 for a wider Windchill area is a good idea, how do you make up the lost RCR from Yangs and UE2?

Rings, Shoulders, Gloves, Quiver should have RCR, i even use Nightstalker passive. ATM i’m sitting at 36% RCR it’s enough.

Played with M4 a bit this AM. Used the full 4pc 'cause I like having Elusive in the cube. I think I’ll keep the Yangs for awhile, if I mess up timing on MS, I still lose Aquila’s even with 61% RCR.

How much CDR do you have? With 62.6% I still drop pets for about half a second.

Skills

  • Entangling Shot
  • Multishot
  • Sentry
  • Vengeance
  • Companion
  • MfD

Passives

  • Numbing Traps
  • Nightstalker
  • Awareness
  • Leech / Perfectionist

Regarding Aquilas dropping. Make sure you spend paragon to increase the hatred cap. Use OrotZ instead of Elusive, there should be no way to trigger Elusive using the above skills. Pulse Multishot every 2-3 seconds, recast sentry every 20-30 seconds, after you’ve secured the area with your turrets.

I’m at about 62.6% CDR myself without Gogok. Downtime should be 1.3 seconds without Gogok. With 15 Gogok stacks you should be at 68% CDR, which would be 0 downtime (key press and latency dependent). Add in 2 OrotZ reductions and the icon should always be visible with a little room for error.

I wouldn’t do this, but if you’re trying to avoid Wolf Companion icon flashing off when no enemies are around – incorporate Vigilante Belt and swap Aquilas for Zoey’s in cube. You could always equip Elusive, but you’d be trading out the Vengeance skill to activate it – kind of inferior IMHO.

2 Likes

Used my M4 ZDH to help clear a GR 131 this afternoon.

https://www.d3planner.com/492245779

Dropped Aquila’s for Strongarms and Nems. Did not have any problem with toughness except for once. Still not sure what happened, just ended up back at the entry to the floor.

A plus for using M4 is the full screen chills from Wind Chill. You don’t have to spam Multishot to get a solid area of chilled monsters. Firing WC once every couple of seconds is enough, and it won’t freeze the game like spamming MS can at these levels.

2 Likes

@Varadia:
Thanks again for suggesting zDH. I ended up making a zdps Bubble Wiz just because I had extra items on-hand. While I only did a GR101 as a test, with 3 DH’s, it was a cake walk… a super fun cake walk.

I experimented with the following:
~https://www.d3planner.com/319297146~

1 Like

Some good ideas here, bumping for visibility :+1: