Paragon 500 Need help with survivability

So as the title says, I’m at Paragon 500+. I just picked the game up a couple weeks ago. My first toon was a Necromancer, and I’ve just finished leveling my Demon Hunter and have her in the GoD set running Hungering Arrows build. The problem I am running into, really with both of my toons, is survivability. My Necromancer has cleared GR Level 65 (Torment 14), and my Demon Hunter is getting close to that. The issue is I just can’t take a hit at all. Like anyone touches me and I get one-shot. Should I just be dumping Paragon points I to Vitality, or is there some other thing I am probably doing wrong? I do use defensives, but I always feel like I am walking right on the edge because of I get hit at all it takes all my life away. I’m using the recommended setup from Icy Veins for the build with a couple of changes. I’m not using Squirt’s Necklace because it will only make my survivability worse and damage is not an issue for me at all. Still trying to farm the recommended belt and bracers (Hunter’s Wrath and Wraps of Clarity). I’ve also swapped out Cull the Weak and Archery for Perfectionist and Awareness for added defensive help. Just not sure if there is something else I should be doing.

Wraps of Clarity are an absolute must.

If you cannot get it, you might need to use Elusive Ring to get some defense.

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I’m on my phone so I’ll just point out some easy changes and look at stat rolls later.

Yes, Wraps of Clarity are important.

Instead of B of Stricken, try Bane of Powerful for the defense buff.

Fortress Ballista in place of Valla’s will give you a shield.

Replace some/all emeralds in you chest and pants with diamonds.

As mentioned above, elusive ring in the cube instead of CoE will also help.

You are missing depth diggers in the cube, if you do not yet have them, go with Aquila’s for the damage reduction.

It is also important to have at least enough Cool Down Reduction to keep vengeance up 100% of the time.

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The reason I am leaving Leoric’s Crown in the cube instead of Depth Diggers is for uptime on Vengeance. Doubling the effect of the diamond in my helm is letting me use Vengeance off cool down. I have cool down reduction on all the gear slots I can get it, but I can improve some of them by a few percentage points. I did just finish off the build with Wraps of Clarity and Hunter’s Wrath. Ran a T12 GR with no issues. Honestly, once I get going it isn’t an issue as much. It’s if I stop to pick something up or when I first enter a Rift and there are immediately enemies that hit before I can get going or in the split second when I am trying to reapply Vengeance that I feel most vulnerable. Just seems like I shouldn’t have to worry about being one-shot. Is Paragon Vitality the long term answer? Or is this something you just always have to deal with running upper tier GRs? I have the same issue on my Necromancer (Running Rathma Army of the Dead), and it is only a real problem right when I first enter a rift, before I have had the chance to Revive anything. Once I have 10 Revive minions and 7 skeletons to tank damage and build up damage resistance stacks, I don’t have the problem. I stopped running the LoD Corpse Explosion build because I am just too squishy even with Unity and all the other defensive stuff loaded up.

As an addition to what Varadia said: You should change your weapon setup for now. Your Dawn rolled with 55%, which is way to low. Cube it, and wear a quiver. If it doesn’t come with a high HA value, or not ancient, or otherwise poorly rolled, it doesn’t matter. You need more toughness for now, not perfect damage rolls.
You can also use literally any kind of weapon (Bow, Crossbow, 1H-Crossbow) with Dawn cubed and Cirri.

I would like to second the advice with Diamonds instead of Emeralds. I even can’t remember when I used Emeralds in my armor the last time. Maybe at the very end of the season, when I tried to reach another GR-level, but in general - only diamonds. The toughness is way more importants than a little bit more damage.

Another option for more toughness could be Companion-Boar (instead of preparation). You may not be able to always have Gloom up, but it should be still enough for critical situations. Boar gives you more resistances, and it works quite well as a “meat shield”, as it blocks some ranged attacks and tanks some monsters.

Also you can use the second life skill from your follower. Make sure that he/she is wearing the “cannot die” token. If the follower is dead, it wont proc, and you die as well.

One of the nice things being a DH is that you don’t need such tricks. You can activate all your toughness (well, except Clarity) just on entering the rift. You don’t need to get close to a group of monsters first.

It is a good idea to spend some points in Vitality, but most points go into Dex later.

I have never had a companion die on any toon. I am guessing that is an issue a rifts slightly higher than what I am running now. At Torrent 13 and below… I’m the only one at risk. I am not really dying that much because I use both my passive cheat death skill and my companion’s. They just pop more than it seems like they should, which means I don’t feel comfortable hitting the T16 rifts yet. I noticed the issue with Dawn. I will look at cubing it, but I cubed the only Cirri Satchel I had, so it likely isn’t an option until then.

I re-rolled some gear. Dawn rolled Ancient but never got better than a 54 percent roll on the cooldown. :man_shrugging: It is my only real option at the moment because I don’t have another copy of the quiver. I forgot that I swapped a couple of pieces out with new ones that didn’t have cooldown reduction and also somehow just realized that my Focus and Restraint had Intelligence on them because I picked them up on my Necromancer. Got all that fixed and swapped Diamonds in for Emeralds. Felt better in a T13 GR. I think the build is already more reliable and quicker than my Necromancer. I will keep noodling around with it and see if I can optimize a little more tomorrow.

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Cast Vengeance and Fan of Knives as soon as you this the floor in a GR. Cast Shadow Power when thing start to get busy.

Manually cast Hungering Arrow every half second to second to get the stacks up. High stacks kill faster, and help avoid damage. You do not have to stop strafing to cast HA. See DieOxide’s videos on the subject. I’ll link if you can’t find them.

Work around the edges of mobs, circling them and avoiding ground effect damage when you can.

A couple quick rolls that will help with the kill them before they have a chance to kill you theory.

  • Roll Crit Hit Chance on helm.

  • Roll LpS to Hungering Arrow on belt.

  • Roll MS to armor or life % on boots.

  • Roll Lightening to Cold on Wraps.

For future reference, never leave a native socket, or roll a socket, on a weapon that you plan on using. Use a Ramaladni’s Gift to socket a weapon. You really need that extra stat.

Right now your primary objective should be to find a really good Dawn and a Fortress Ballista. Once you’ve built up paragon and skill, give a good Valla’s a shot.

Once you get more comfortable with the build, then you can start optimizing gear. If you have something drop that looks really good, but you have a question about what to roll, hop on and ask. You can look me up in game and ask there also.

In my experience GoD is a very tanky build. Maybe look at a youtube video (search; diablo 3 god build… or something) to see if you’re doing anything wrong.
Another thing: use Bane of the Trapped instead of Stricken. Stricken only stacks on one single monster at the time no matter how many monsters you’re fighting, and you don’t need the extra damage on the rift guardian.

Currently leveling another Bane of the Trapped, as I use my other one on my Necromancer.

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Shoulder should have all resist,all resist on boots,at least balance secondary resist on other pieces,use boar to give you more resistance,every single piece should at least have secondary resist,use paragons to get more health at least 620k for t16

Don’t think he’s working on his DH anymore. Seems he doesn’t know that Covetous can swap legendary gems so you don’t need to level the same gems up for multiple characters.

I know you can swap out gems, and you can speed that process up by creating builds in the armory, but right now I am playing many different toons and trying out lots of different builds to see what I like best. I am not pushing ever higher rifts and trying to fully maximize one specific toon. So it is more convenient for me to leave default gems on a toon do I don’t have to constantly swap them out. I also don’t have the ability yet to re-roll gear endlessly to maximize every single stat because I simply don’t have the resources. I will say, I think the Hungering Arrows GoD build is maybe my favorite I have tried for any class, and the survivability jumped tremendously for me once I learned it a bit better. It is a very fun play style.

FusRoDah’s advice is also on the extreme side for casual players. I can’t see the middle slot in your cube. Usually Depth Diggers is mandatory (some use Frostburn of course).

Not sure why it isn’t showing up. I think I still have Leoric’s Crown there for the extra cooldown reduction to help with 100 percent uptime on Vengeance.

Leoric’s Crown and Ring of Royal Grandeur are bugged in the website armory. If you have those items selected in the cube, they don’t show up on the website armory for some reason.

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Didn’t know that Leoric’s was bugged the way RoRG is on the website.
In that case I’d go with the Enchantress follower because she can give you cooldown. Depth Diggers is a huge buff.